Chapter 11: Cake, Stop Being Such a Simp
Xue Yu couldn’t separate the arctic fox and the seahorse. She had to settle for pulling the baby seahorse out first, to keep it from being crushed by the fox.
Zhou Siyan stood outside the car, the collar of his trench coat pulled up high, hiding half his face. Dressed in the knee-length black coat, he cut a solitary figure in the desert, like a lone ranger.
Feng Qizhou’s manual dexterity was top-tier in the White Tower, making him perfectly suited for surgery. Three minutes later, he had stitched up the black panther’s wound and applied a special medicine for treating spirit bodies.
Blackbrow’s condition improved significantly. Its ragged breathing became calm and even, and its previously dilated pupils gradually refocused.
Feng Qizhou got out of the car, peeling off the bloody rubber medical gloves. He addressed Zhou Siyan. “Alright, it should be about seventy or eighty percent recovered by nightfall. Keep an eye on the wound tomorrow. If it hasn’t healed, contact me.”
Zhou Siyan nodded. “Thank you. I’ll transfer the fee to your account later.”
The corners of Feng Qizhou’s lips curled up. He glanced at Xue Yu first, then his gaze shifted back to Zhou Siyan’s face. He lifted his chin arrogantly. “Dressed like that? Aren’t you hot?”
They were in a remote desert wasteland where the temperature was sweltering. Zhou Siyan’s tightly bundled attire was truly out of place.
Xue Yu quickly came to his defense, stepping in front of Zhou Siyan to shield him. “He’s sick,” she said. “He can’t be exposed to the wind.”
Feng Qizhou’s smile was laced with amusement. “What kind of sickness? Maybe I can treat it for him.”
“It’s a small issue, nothing serious,” Xue Yu said. “I’ll take care of him.”
Feng Qizhou’s charming, almond-shaped eyes, which held a hint of hidden turbulence, narrowed slightly. They darted between the two of them, and an enigmatic smile touched his lips again. “Have you two rekindled an old flame?”
Xue Yu hastily defended Zhou Siyan’s honor. “How could that be possible? He’s a conservative. Don’t spread rumors and ruin his reputation.”
Feng Qizhou took the violet insignia from his lab coat and toyed with it between his fingers, as if deliberately reminding them of something. “The internal regulations for us extreme sexual conservatives are quite… extreme. If a member is found to have violated the rules and secretly had relations with someone, the consequences would be dire.”
Xue Yu swallowed nervously. “What would happen?”
Feng Qizhou feigned mystery. “Let’s just say it would be very bad.”
Xue Yu looked at Zhou Siyan with a resentful gaze. Look at you, she thought, joining the conservatives just because of a breakup. So dramatic. Young people are so impulsive.
Feng Qizhou dusted off his sleeves and turned to walk back toward the helicopter. “I just gave Blackbrow a shot of neuron repair agent. I’ll come back in five minutes to check its blood velocity. If that’s normal, it’ll be fine.”
He pulled open the helicopter’s cabin door, got in, and slammed it shut with a cold, metallic clang.
In the helicopter’s co-pilot seat, a temperature-controlled, soundproof case was secured with a seatbelt. The case was a piece of medical equipment, cold and silver-white. However, several pink and blue cartoon stickers were plastered on its inner wall, giving it an absurdly childish feel.
Inside the case lay an infant wrapped in medical-grade cotton cloth. Its little face was pink and tender, its bright eyes filled with tears as it cried, waving its tiny fists.
Feng Qizhou leaned over and lifted the baby out of the incubator, rocking it gently to soothe it. He lowered his head and nuzzled the baby’s soft cheek.
“There, there, don’t cry. You missed Daddy, didn’t you? Daddy had to go perform surgery on that stupid panther.”
The baby was still crying hard, clutching Feng Qizhou’s collar, its face flushed red. Feng Qizhou held the baby with both hands and turned sideways, pressing himself and the child against the cabin window.
He tapped a finger on the glass. “Baby, look at Mama. Mama is very cute, isn’t she? Just like you.”
Outside the window, Xue Yu was bustling about, wringing out a towel. One moment she was wiping the SUV’s windshield, the next she was cleaning the rearview mirrors and headlights. The air here was thick with sand, and a gust of wind would cover the vehicle in a layer of yellow dust.
The baby looked through the glass and suddenly smiled, wiggling its body and gurgling happily.
Feng Qizhou smiled along with the baby. “Mama is like a busy little bee, isn’t she?”
The baby continued to smile.
Feng Qizhou lowered his head and kissed the baby’s forehead. “Mama is still a child herself. We’ll give her some time to grow up. When she’s a little more mature, we’ll let her know you exist. Be good. Daddy will take care of you.”
Feng Qizhou wasn’t sure if Xue Yu liked children. He suspected she probably didn’t. Under the White Tower’s education system, pregnancy was considered an extremely selfish act, and newborns were a burden. The population pressure in the White Tower was getting worse by the day, and the base’s operational system was like a crumbling wall on the verge of collapse. Here, newborns were utterly despised.
Death, on the other hand, was something to be celebrated. Funerals were carnivals. When one person died, the burden on the White Tower was lightened by one, making it a joyous occasion.
Furthermore, he considered Xue Yu’s personality too childish and immature. He was the same age as her, but during the time they were together, he had always found her immature. She would skip when she walked, and the question she asked most often every day was, “Where should we go to eat?”
What’s for breakfast?
What’s for lunch?
What’s for dinner?
What good food could there possibly be at the military academy? It was just old canned goods and compressed biscuits.
Her grades were terrible. She couldn’t grasp anything she studied, and she couldn’t keep up physically. Her training was sloppy. When others were practicing shooting with live ammunition, the instructor felt that giving her a gun was a waste of bullets, so he had her pick up the empty shell casings instead.
After Feng Qizhou finished his own training exercises, he would go find her, originally intending to give her some pointers on shooting techniques. Instead, he would find Xue Yu with a blackened mouth and hands, pulling a roasted cicada from her pocket and asking him if it smelled good.
She said she had caught them while picking up shell casings. She’d caught four in total and had secretly started a fire to roast them. She was too hungry, so she ate three and saved one for him.
At that moment, he had patted Xue Yu’s head and just thought, sigh, this person is so childish, like a little kid.
Feng Qizhou held the baby, pressing it against the glass window as he watched Xue Yu outside. The feeling was still the same: childish. She was just wiping the car window, but she was balancing the rag on her fingertip and spinning it like a handkerchief, looking like a total goofball.
He couldn’t imagine what kind of earth-shattering reaction Xue Yu would have if he told her he had secretly given birth to her child.
“You want Mama, don’t you?” Feng Qizhou kissed the baby’s cheek again. The baby giggled, drool trickling down its chin, and lifted its tiny hand as if mimicking Xue Yu spinning the handkerchief.
Feng Qizhou grabbed a tissue to wipe the baby’s drool, deliberately trying to scare her. “Hmm? So much drool, you little slob. You’re so messy. What if Mama doesn’t like you? No more drooling, okay?”
The baby didn’t understand what he was saying and just laughed even more happily.
A few minutes later, Xue Yu came over and pressed herself against the helicopter’s cabin window. The glass was one-way, so she couldn’t see inside. Her face was almost touching the glass as she knocked with a bent finger. “Feng Qizhou, Blackbrow is trembling. Come out and take a look.”
Feng Qizhou could hear her but was in no hurry. He held the baby with one arm and, with the other, found a sanitizing wipe and cleaned the spot on the glass directly in front of Xue Yu’s face. He then lifted the baby so that its face was pressed against Xue Yu’s, separated only by the pane of glass.
“Come on, baby, give Mama a kiss.”
He didn’t need to say it; the baby had already pressed its lips to the glass, its small hands scratching at the surface, trying to touch Xue Yu’s face.
“Alright, let Daddy kiss Mama too.” Feng Qizhou moved the baby aside and quickly gave Xue Yu’s cheek a peck through the glass.
Then, he placed the baby back in the incubator in the co-pilot’s seat. He straightened his collar, which the baby had tugged askew, before pulling the cabin door open a crack. He squeezed out and quickly shut it again.
Seeing him, Xue Yu quickly jumped down from the helicopter’s ladder. She glanced at the tightly shut door and muttered, “What’s with all the secrecy…”
Feng Qizhou walked down with a smile. “There’s something inside that can’t be seen by others.”
Xue Yu was anxious for him to check on Blackbrow and didn’t press the issue. “Blackbrow suddenly started trembling. You should go take a look.”
Feng Qizhou went to the SUV and examined the black panther again. “It’s nothing serious. The trembling is normal.” He had two more surgeries that night and needed to get back to the White Tower soon. He took a bottle of medicine from his kit and tossed it to Zhou Siyan. “This is an energy recovery agent specifically for spirit bodies. Give it a dose tonight, and another one tomorrow night.”
Zhou Siyan caught the bottle.
Feng Qizhou continued, “The medicine is eight thousand two hundred. The surgery fee was sixty-eight thousand. That’s a total of seventy-six thousand two hundred. Remember to transfer it to me.”
Xue Yu was shocked. That was incredibly expensive. She was completely broke right now, a penniless pauper. She didn’t even know how much this trip to the South Continent was going to cost.
She put on a cheeky grin and tried to bargain with him. “That’s so expensive. Can’t you give us a discount? We’re all friends here.”
Feng Qizhou always thought that when Xue Yu smiled, she looked like a silly, tail-wagging dog. It wasn’t meant as an insult; she really did look like a simple-minded, slightly clueless little mutt. His dark pupils reflected her goofy appearance. He tilted his head. “No discounts. Besides, in my book, an ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend doesn’t count as a friend.”
On a normal day, he wouldn’t have cared about the money. He and Zhou Siyan were acquaintances; they had worked together and had met before at extreme conservative gatherings. But now, he wasn’t about to act generous and give a discount. After having a baby, he finally understood how expensive it was to raise a child. There were no baby supplies in the White Tower, so he had to resort to clandestine channels, secretly buying from black market dealers in other safe zones. After several middlemen took their cut, a small can of formula that originally cost six hundred had its price jacked up to six thousand by the time it reached him. Besides formula, there were diapers, pacifiers, and baby powder—all of which cost a fortune.
Zhou Siyan took out his Cloudsound Box, tapped on the screen, and transferred the money to Feng Qizhou.
Feng Qizhou checked the transfer notification and nodded. “Received.”
He walked toward the helicopter with a leisurely stride. Just as he was about to open the cabin door, Zhou Siyan followed him, looking slightly unnatural. He lowered his voice, clearly trying to avoid being overheard by Xue Yu. “Do you have any more suppressants?” he asked quietly.
Feng Qizhou: “What kind of suppressant?”
Zhou Siyan’s face was calm. “Libido suppressant.”
Feng Qizhou smiled, opened the surgical kit he was carrying, and took out an unopened box of suppressants. “Eight thousand two hundred. Want it?”
“Mm. I’ll transfer it to you in a bit.”
Zhou Siyan took the medicine. This guy was really obsessed with money. This type of suppressant was distributed for free to members within the extreme conservative faction; you could get as much as you wanted. Yet here he was, selling it.
Feng Qizhou noticed his arctic fox hadn’t followed him. He squinted and saw that it was still in the SUV, stuck to the seahorse like glue, their lips inseparable.
He clicked his tongue and called out, “Cake, get out here! Stop being such a simp.”
Hearing its master’s call, the arctic fox reluctantly jumped out of the car, looking back every three steps as it made its way to the helicopter. The seahorse floated over to follow, and the two of them said a sorrowful goodbye.
Xue Yu ran over and caught her seahorse in mid-air.
“Is this your spirit body?” Feng Qizhou asked.
Even if the seahorse’s specialty was reproduction, Xue Yu was still proud. “Yep! I awakened my spirit body. Its name is Blueberry. Impressive, right?”
Feng Qizhou put on an exaggerated expression. “Impressive, very impressive. I’ve never seen such an impressive spirit body. By the way, what’s its power source? What special skills did it awaken for you?”
Xue Yu blushed. The skill to knock up men, is that what you want to hear? “No special skills. It’s just ordinary. Not as impressive as your arctic fox.”
“Much more impressive than my Cake,” Feng Qizhou said. “The moment Cake saw it, it turned into an automatic simp.” He was in a hurry to get back to the helicopter to check on the baby, so he didn’t banter with her any longer. He waved. “Xue Yu, you should grow up a little faster. I’m leaving. Goodbye.”