Chapter 85 – WuYi hides in his little storage

Editor: meowmiao

For the very first time, Nie Xiao discovered how his mouth opening and bringing light with it felt; speak of the devil and the devil arrives. They were just rejoicing that Xiao WuYi was not here and in return, the other party smeared their faces with hamster cake in person.

What was the need for such a coincidence!!!

However, a certain plush little hamster who wasn’t aware of the situation simply held Nie Xiao’s high nose bridge while calling ‘chichi’. Happily rubbing and rolling around his daddy’s face and spreading his fluffy fur so much that Nie Xiao couldn’t even open his eyes.

“Chi!” Daddy, did you miss me ya!

Miss, I naturally missed you, but…

Nie Xiao sat up from the bed, picked up the little hamster’s nape to tear it off his face, and gently shook it in the air. His eyes were full of distress and weariness as he said, “My cub, how come you’re back so coincidentally?!”

The innocent little hamster was confused: “Chi?”

What’s wrong la ya?

The little hamster, who was restrained by the nape, didn’t understand what was going on. He curiously lowered his head, only to see Nie Xiao’s phone, which was hit moments ago and now lay on the quilt, displaying endless messages.

The garbled characters that abruptly came out made Bai Mei and company somewhat curious and worried. If not for hearing no big movements, Duan Wenyu and Ning Feng in the next room would’ve straightforwardly run over and knocked on the door.

Nie Xiao didn’t care about the phone first. He stared at the little hamster, a.k.a. “the devil”, in the palm of his hand, and sighed in resignation. He’d returned and was here already, what else could he do?

Several vigorous pets and a few fierce sniffs later¹There’s two keywords here, rua and 吸(xi). These have been mentioned in the first few chapters. Rua means petting the pet, and xi (lit. sniffing, sucking as in smoking) means fangirling or being ‘addicted’ to the pet., Nie Xiao’s feelings of longing were finally alleviated. He laid down again and brought the little dumpling to his forehead where it sat down. “I’ll tell you the specifics later, you little villain!”

“Chi!” Baby is not a villain!

The little hamster lay on Nie Xiao’s forehead and grumbled ‘chichi’ in a whisper while his little paws angrily pulled at the eyebrows. Soon after, he saw Nie Xiao grab the phone on the quilt before his fingers rapidly sent a message in the chatbox.

Nie Xiao: In short, this “surprise” cannot be borne by me alone.

—Nie Xiao: I’m fine. My cub is back.

—Ning Feng and others: Nani!!!!

As soon as this message was released, everyone’s eyes uncontrollably widened. Ning Feng in the neighboring room was directly hit on the face by his phone, almost causing tears of pain to burst out.

Everyone was disheveled in the wind with a WTF.²

The little hamster watched the conversation on the screen, then turned to look at Nie Xiao’s blinking eyelashes. He was very dissatisfied with his Daddy and everyone’s response to welcoming him.

He lay on Nie Xiao’s forehead, sad and aggrieved.

“Wuchi!” All of you don’t love me anymore QAQ.

***

At this very moment, outside the base.

Saath was leisurely strolling on the borders of the city walls of the base. The zombies in the periphery were driven out by his power of coercion, and the streets were silent.

For many years, he had always been occupied with all kinds of things and had been busy coming up with schemes. This was a rare quiet and idle night on the eve before his success, and Saath was enjoying this long-lost relaxation with all his heart.

It was like a blessing on the eve before his ascension to the throne.

Welcoming the cool night breeze, Saath took out his quantum brain to scan the news in the Alliance. The screens’ network signal restrictions in the protected area were not a problem for him.

Saath browsed for a while and as expected, he saw news about the Alliance sending a fleet to the reserve, and various planets’ populace were discussing spiritedly underneath it.

The Alliance meeting was originally held in secret. They initially wanted to block news regarding the virus incident in the protected area to facilitate subsequent covert operations and investigations, so as to not inadvertently alert the enemy. However, after AnYi’s group and Saath fought, there was no need to conceal all of this. Both sides’ identities have been exposed and have aroused the awareness and vigilance of each other. It was better to declare war openly and frankly.

Except for the news of MoYan and Xiao WuYi’s return from the reserve, which couldn’t be released for the time being, everything else allowed the masses to participate in its discussion. They could at least discomfort the Qitu race who was behind this.

And apparently, this discomfort plan was successful.

As Saath read the various condemning news reports, his face sank involuntarily, his original pleased mood disappeared completely, and his heart surged with anger.

#The dregs of the Qitu race returns to the fray, a virus rampant in the protected area#, #The Qitu races’ heinous crimes in history, so many that the bamboo slats³Bamboo slats were used as books or for writing in ancient times before paper came about. have all been used up#, #The Qitu race’s hair-raising living body experiment #, #Alliance sends fleet headed for the reserve, crusade against the Qitu, Qitu must fall#……

Various headline gimmicks, exaggerated articles and news brutally scolded the Qitu race and Saath. The people from every planet were filled with indignation and it created a worked-up crowd.

In the face of such insults and criticisms, even if it was Saath, he was unable to maintain absolute peace, and his resentment for the various races of the Alliance seeped deeper and deeper into his bones.

Saath took a deep breath to suppress his anger. Treating these kinds of reports as attention-seeking behavior, he focused on the time each races’ fleet were dispatched. After careful calculations, he was sure that it would take two days for them to reach Earth at the earliest. Saath suddenly felt better again.

After two days, no one would be able to do anything to him.

Turning off the quantum brain, Saath stopped reading those messy reports and walked back towards the base. He was idle at the moment, after all, it would be better to visit his most excellent experimental farm. Maybe he could discover some new data and results.

Saath’s lips rose in glee, and his figure became akin to the wind.

***

From each room of the villa, Nie Xiao and the others were exchanging information about the “Qitu race” which the little hamster had brought back from the Alliance.

At this time, the little hamster had figured out the reason why everyone did not welcome him back. He was not as aggrieved and sad as he was at the beginning as he called out ‘chichi’ at Nie Xiao.

Nie Xiao couldn’t help but raise his hand and rub the small dumpling. At that moment, Bai Mei suddenly felt a pressure fiercely approaching. He was so frightened that he quickly sent a message to remind everyone who was looking at their phone.

“Go hide.” Nie Xiao promptly told the little hamster to hide in his little spatial storage, then hid the phone and closed his eyes to fake sleep.

In the next second, Saath stood hidden in Nie Xiao’s room.

The wind and thunder dual ability user Nie Xiao keenly felt a subtle flow of air in the room. Even if Saath was invisible, his existing body volume could still spur minute airflow around its periphery.

Nie Xiao was as if faced with a big enemy. All the hairs on his body stood up amid the dark nighttime environment. As long as anything abnormal happened, he could attack at any time.

Saath stood by the bed, examining the “sleeping” man in front of him, causing him to uncontrollably raise his eyebrows. This man was undoubtedly the strongest awakened ability user he had ever seen.

Not only was he a dual ability user, he was also the first fully evolved successful experiment he had ever seen that completely melted and integrated the ability core into an inseparable part of his body.

Sure enough, this place deserved to be the place where the little prince lived. The power of vitality made the ability users here stronger than people from other places.

Especially the rate at which the ability core melted, it was far beyond his imagination.

Seeing this thoroughly successfully evolved man in front of him, Saath’s heart couldn’t help birthing a bit of jealousy.

According to the initial experimental goal of their Qitu race, this was actually how the most successful and complete evolution of the “evolution ƴ  virus” mutagenesis would look like.

In fact, the “evolution ƴ  virus” was the only virus Saath had thrown on all planets in the reserve, and it was also the real reason why all the creatures on the Earth were in a coma for three days at the beginning of the apocalypse. The so-called zombie virus was simply a derivative virus that remained in the body of a failed product like a zombie after the “evolution ƴ  virus’” failed inducement.

Saath and they developed the “evolution ƴ  virus” with the wisdom of the entire race. It was a mutagenic virus cultivated from the ability element-containing blood and tissues of each race member of the Alliance. It could stimulate an organisms’ genetic potential and induce a mutagenic evolution, producing a variety of different abilities.

If the mutagenic evolution failed, what followed was changing into a zombie—an ignorant walking corpse. Simultaneously, the teeth and nails would carry the “zombie virus” derived from the failure. Once a healthy organism was caught and bitten, it would assimilate it and be infected with the virus. There was also a crystal nucleus inside the zombie. This crystal nucleus was the concentration of all the energy of the zombie and could help ability users evolve.

As for ordinary people and zombie kings, they were also products of the failed mutagenic evolution, only that they’re a bit fortunate compared to the common zombies’ level of failure.

Ordinary people have not been able to mutate and evolve into possessing abilities, but they have kept their original appearance, while zombies have truly lost everything as an intelligent life form.

Zombie kings were a little stronger than ordinary people but were also the product of a low-probability evolution failure.

Although this was the most successful mutagenic evolution result in Saath’s eyes, under regular circumstances, the zombie king might be the most unsuccessful and lamentable product of evolution.

Zombie kings possessed consciousness, but their essence was still that of a zombie. Not only do they have a totally unrecognizable appearance, but they also have the virus which could infect others, creating a huge unbridgeable gap between their original compatriots. If they want to become more powerful and gain stronger abilities, they have to rely on slaughtering ability users.

With these circumstances, their original⁴humans fellowmen wouldn’t accept them at all. Even if they did, they would be vigilant, wary, suspicious, and have difficulty in giving their trust.

On top of the others not trusting the zombie king, if the zombie king doesn’t steal other people’s ability cores and make himself stronger, he would also have the constant fear of his own compatriots robbing his crystal nucleus one day, for the cause of excluding dissidents⁵排除异己: to exclude or eliminate people who disagree with themselves or who do not belong to their own group. Under such a situation, the heart would be suffering from pain and torment at all times.

If the mind wasn’t resilient enough, it was very likely for them to be driven crazy soon. Sometimes, they would be better off becoming ignorant zombie monsters.

In the end, whether it was his fellow citizens’ side or the zombie side, the zombie king would never be able to fully blend in, and it would be loneliness that would always accompany him.

Even if the zombie king was the most perfect and successful evolutionary variant in Saath’s eyes, these defects were indisputable facts.

Those internal struggles had happened to Bai Mei. Had it not been for Saath’s restorative medicine which could temporarily restore Bai Mei’s original appearance, the opportunity to pretend so he could be integrated into his colony, the complexity of human nature, and his luck to meet people who gave him trust such as Xiao WuYi, Nie Xiao, and the rest, Bai Mei would probably be in a half-crazed state right now.

When all was said and done, only ability users were the most successful result of the “evolution ƴ  virus” mutagenic evolution in the truest sense of the word. Not only could they preserve everything that original humans had, but they could also form a powerful ability core, and ultimately, by means of absorbing crystal nucleus or other external cultivation methods, they could thoroughly melt their ability core into their body to promote to a higher rank and accomplish comprehensive evolution.

The ability core has three stages: solid state, semi-solid state, and melted. Those who have entered the stage of “semi-solid awakening”, even Saath could hardly dig out their ability cores fully intact.

For those genuinely fully evolved ability users, their ability core had completely fused together with their flesh, bones, and blood. Other people wouldn’t be able to steal their ability core even if they die.

Saath watched Nie Xiao lying still on the bed. Besides the slight jealousy in his heart, his desire for research had also been successfully aroused.

He wanted to know the difference between this completely evolved man in front of him and the hateful races from the Interstellar Alliance.

However, Saath still resisted his desire for exploring through research. The man in front of him, who could evolve so quickly, must have a close relationship with the little prince. It wasn’t wise to do it now.

Saath deeply stared at Nie Xiao, and finally flung his sleeves and left, continuing to wander around the base to observe. Passing by several other rooms in the villa, he saw Duan Wenyu, Wu Wenqi, and some other ability users who were also about to evolve completely. Saath couldn’t help but look forward to the vitality power of the little prince even more.

After he departed from the villa, Nie Xiao and the rest who were pretending to sleep opened their eyes again.

The little hamster got out of his own little storage, lay on Nie Xiao’s forehead, and uttered a very small, soft and cute sound.

“Chi!”

Scared Baby to death!!

Xena: Lol someone commented in the raws that they felt deja vu with the dorm teacher coming in to inspect the beds. Also chapter 86’s title is WuYi’s battle with Saath. Is the fight finally here QAQ, will I finally get to stop translating these scientific terms and flashbacks? Oh the relief!

• 1
  There’s two keywords here, rua and 吸(xi). These have been mentioned in the first few chapters. Rua means petting the pet, and xi (lit. sniffing, sucking as in smoking) means fangirling or being ‘addicted’ to the pet.
• 2
  
• 3
  Bamboo slats were used as books or for writing in ancient times before paper came about.
• 4
  humans
• 5
  排除异己: to exclude or eliminate people who disagree with themselves or who do not belong to their own group