Chapter 10: Blackbrow Gave Birth
Xue Yu was so close that she was about to touch his lips, but then she laughed and rolled to the side. She folded her hands behind her head, propped up her legs, and swung her calves back and forth.
“Zhou Siyan, you actually kind of hate me, don’t you?”
A smile still played on her lips and in her eyes. She said it lightly, as if she were used to being disliked.
Zhou Siyan turned to look at her. “Why would you say that?”
Xue Yu was still smiling. “Those last few days before we broke up, after we slept together, you’d secretly go to the bathroom to throw up. I heard you back then, I was just pretending to be asleep.”
“I could feel it, the disgust and hatred you had for me then.”
Zhou Siyan froze, listening to her words. He had thought he’d hidden it well. It was true that he had been inexplicably repulsed by intimacy with her, even gagging when they kissed. But it was absolutely not because he hated her or disliked her; it was just that his body and senses had suddenly become unable to accept any form of intimacy.
Xue Yu’s legs were still swinging nonchalantly. “It’s okay,” she continued, her tone casual. “I get it. I’m a good-for-nothing, always dragging the class down. It’s normal that none of you like me. The White Tower is a dog-eat-dog world. It’s only natural for the weak to be disliked.”
Zhou Siyan turned over, his eyes filled with a complex emotion. “Xue Yu, I have never hated you, nor have I ever looked down on you.”
“You don’t have to comfort me. I’m used to it. I was terrible in class, a hopeless case.”
Zhou Siyan reached out and touched her face. “Xue Yu, I’m sorry…”
Xue Yu suddenly grabbed his wrist, pushed herself up, and pinned him down, grinning like a rogue. “Director Zhou, you wouldn’t want anyone to find out about your pregnancy, would you? Give me five million, or I’ll expose this whole mess.”
Zhou Siyan smiled and played along. “Please, I’m begging you, don’t.”
He was still naked, and Xue Yu felt like she and this bastard were acting in some kind of trashy adult film. She let go of him and lay beside him, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
When they were bored in the past, they had actually role-played like this. Zhou Siyan had played two parts: the incompetent husband and the handsome military officer next door, while Xue Yu had played the mischievous but clumsy wife. The memory was so embarrassing that whenever it popped into her head in the middle of the night, she wanted to slap herself, and then slap Zhou Siyan twice.
After she had laughed her fill, Xue Yu closed her eyes. “Alright, time to sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to deal with the baby?”
Xue Yu’s smile was hazy, her hands still casually resting behind her head. “I may be useless, but I’m not an idiot. The baby can already talk. How could it be that easy to get rid of?”
Zhou Siyan didn’t reply. Of course, he knew the fetus couldn’t be harmed so easily. He was just testing her attitude.
Xue Yu’s eyes were firmly shut. “My offspring isn’t that fragile. Let’s sleep.”
Zhou Siyan pulled the thin quilt over her, took her hand, and tucked it under his shirt against his abdomen. He then closed his eyes.
…
The next day, when Xue Yu woke up, she found her seahorse and Zhou Siyan’s black panther still huddled together on the roof of the car, watching the sunrise.
After breakfast, Xue Yu shooed them back into the car. The two of them immediately started licking each other again, filling the car with an awkward atmosphere.
As she drove, Xue Yu cleared her throat. “Listen up, you two. Don’t be like this all the time. It’s indecent, you know? I hate couples the most. If you keep this up, I’ll throw one of you to the North Pole and the other to the South Pole!”
At noon, Zhou Siyan quietly moved to the back seat, took out the medical kit, and gave Blackbrow a shot of libido suppressant. The seahorse was quite protective, baring its teeth at Zhou Siyan the whole time.
Lunch was more compressed biscuits. They stood in front of the car, leaning against the hood, as the sandy wind blew in their faces. They ate their biscuits with a mouthful of wind, their eyes watering from the sand.
After finishing their meal and preparing to leave, they were shocked to find that the seahorse and the black panther were gone. They couldn’t even sense their presence in their spiritual landscapes!
Xue Yu shouted everywhere, “Blueberry! Blueberry, where did you go?”
She searched all around but couldn’t find them.
“A spirit body would never leave its master voluntarily,” Zhou Siyan said, “unless it encountered some uncontrollable situation.”
Xue Yu was worried sick. Her spirit body had only just awakened yesterday. Could it be gone already? “Do you think they got angry because you gave Blackbrow the suppressant? Maybe they thought we were trying to break them up, so they eloped?”
“…How could they elope?”
Zhou Siyan’s bond with Blackbrow was deep. He could still sense which direction the panther was in. He got into the driver’s seat, took the wheel himself, and drove with Xue Yu in pursuit, heading southeast.
They were both on edge and didn’t speak the entire way. A spirit body was a symbol of one’s status in the White Tower. Without his, Zhou Siyan would probably have to go dig in the mines with Xue Yu.
The desert was vast and desolate. They finally found the seahorse and the black panther in a watering hole behind a sand dune. The two of them were submerged in the water, which was completely stained red with blood.
Xue Yu felt lightheaded, stars dancing in her eyes. She thought both spirit bodies had died in the watering hole. She and Zhou Siyan both dove into the water, frantically pulling them out.
They discovered that the seahorse was unharmed, but the black panther had a ten-centimeter gash on the side of its abdomen. The wound looked as if it had been torn open by sharp teeth. The blood in the water was from the panther’s wound.
“Blackbrow, who did this to you!” Zhou Siyan’s body was trembling. Since awakening his spirit body, he had taken Blackbrow on countless missions and escaped death many times, but it had never been injured this badly.
Blackbrow struggled out of his arms and jumped back into the water. It soon emerged from the murky, bloody water with a small, light-blue seahorse in its mouth. It placed the tiny creature in front of Zhou Siyan and let out a few soft whines, telling him this was its child.
“Your child?” Zhou Siyan bent down with difficulty to look at the palm-sized seahorse.
Xue Yu ran over to see. The little seahorse was tiny, a mere baby compared to her own. Its form was also slightly different. Its eyes were golden, like the panther’s, and it had some blue-gray fur on its small ears. Its tail also resembled the panther’s.
Zhou Siyan carefully examined the wound on Blackbrow’s abdomen. From the looks of it, it seemed self-inflicted. “Did you do this yourself?” he asked.
The panther nodded, then licked the baby seahorse, indicating it had done it to let the baby out.
Xue Yu didn’t understand the communication between them. “What’s going on?” she asked anxiously.
“The little seahorse is their child,” Zhou Siyan explained. “It was a parasite in Blackbrow’s stomach. Just now, Blackbrow tore open its own belly to let the baby out.”
Xue Yu was stunned. “When did they even do it?”
“It must have been a spiritual union. When we were having sex in the past, our spirit bodies were probably doing the same.” Zhou Siyan picked up Blackbrow and walked toward the SUV.
Xue Yu was baffled by this strange new knowledge, but this wasn’t the time to get hung up on details. They had to treat Blackbrow’s wound immediately. She picked up her seahorse and the baby and followed him to the car.
Zhou Siyan found a tourniquet to treat the wound, his brow furrowed. “This won’t work. The wound is too deep for me to handle.”
“Should we go back to the White Tower?” Xue Yu knew there were doctors there who specialized in treating spirit bodies.
“Our car is too slow,” Zhou Siyan considered. “I’m afraid Blackbrow won’t make it.” He pressed one hand against the panther’s wound and said to Xue Yu, “Use my pager to contact Feng Qizhou. Send him our location and ask him to come save Blackbrow. He’s one of the few doctors in the White Tower who can treat spirit bodies.”
“Okay!”
Xue Yu let go of her seahorse, found the pager, located Feng Qizhou’s channel, and sent an emergency call. He answered almost immediately, his voice low and lazy. “Director Zhou, is something wrong?”
“Feng Qizhou, it’s me, Xue Yu. Zhou Siyan’s spirit body is injured. There’s a huge gash on its stomach. Can you come help him?”
“I’m at the hospital. Tell him to bring it up himself.”
“We’re not in the White Tower. We’re in the contaminated zone outside. It’s an emergency, can you come quickly? I’ll pay you whatever it costs.”
“How much money could a good-for-nothing like you possibly have?” Feng Qizhou chuckled. “Send me the location.”
“Okay.”
After contacting Feng Qizhou, Xue Yu returned to the back seat. Her seahorse and the baby were snuggled up against the weakened black panther, a pitiful-looking family of three. The bleeding had stopped for now, but Blackbrow was still in bad shape.
Xue Yu felt a pang of guilt. She touched Zhou Siyan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I promise, while Blackbrow is recovering, I will protect both of you. I’ll be responsible for you.”
“Mm,” was all he said.
Three hours later, Feng Qizhou arrived in a medical helicopter. As a doctor, he had the authority to use a helicopter for emergency missions outside the White Tower. To prevent Feng Qizhou from discovering anything unusual, Zhou Siyan had put his trench coat back on to hide his stomach.
Feng Qizhou landed the helicopter in the sand. He was still wearing his white lab coat as he approached with a surgical kit.
Xue Yu ran to meet him. “Hurry, hurry! Blackbrow is not going to make it.”
Feng Qizhou climbed into the SUV and quickly examined the panther’s wound. “How did this happen?” he asked.
Zhou Siyan stood by the car door, his large trench coat concealing his front. “There was something parasitic inside it. It tore open its own stomach just now to get it out.”
“A parasite? A contaminant?”
“It’s not a contaminant, just an external wound. Please, just stitch it up for now.”
Feng Qizhou put on a pair of medical gloves and snapped his fingers. His spirit body appeared out of thin air—a giant, red-eyed arctic fox, its white fur thick and fluffy, its gaze sharp. It was about the same size as Zhou Siyan’s black panther.
“Cake, hypnotize it. I need to stitch up the wound,” Feng Qizhou said to the fox.
The arctic fox squeezed into the car, let out a sharp cry, and pressed its paw on the panther’s head. Its red eyes looked as if they were about to drip blood as it stared down the panther with overwhelming pressure. After less than five seconds, the panther’s pupils dilated, and it closed its eyes.
Looking at the arctic fox, Xue Yu felt a chill run down her spine. It was too fierce. Although it was a fluffy fox, it exuded a savage and ruthless aura. Its sharp white teeth looked like a chainsaw, and its crimson eyes were incredibly fierce, making it seem more violent than any beast of prey.
The arctic fox seemed to sense something. It first approached Xue Yu and sniffed her. Its ferocious gaze made her freeze.
As he operated on the panther, Feng Qizhou said with a smile, “Ex-girlfriend, be careful. Cake eats people.”
That made Xue Yu even more afraid to move.
Suddenly, the arctic fox tilted its head and leaped into the front of the car. Xue Yu’s seahorse and the baby seahorse were lying in the passenger seat. The fox lunged, let out a loud roar, and pounced on the mother and child.
The arctic fox was massive, its fur thick and fluffy. When it pounced, it was like covering the two seahorses with a blanket of snow.
“Don’t hurt them!” Xue Yu opened the passenger side door, trying to pull the mother and child out.
But then she realized the arctic fox wasn’t attacking them. It was licking them, mouth to mouth, and its violent red eyes had suddenly turned gentle.
“Uh… stop that! Blueberry, what are you doing all day!” Xue Yu reached in to separate them.
Feng Qizhou turned his head to look. “Cake, what are you doing?”
The arctic fox was completely deaf to its master’s call, wholly absorbed in nuzzling the seahorse, its eyes squinted in happiness.