Jiang Mian went to the storage room and saw the young man still leaning in the corner.
His hand had been bandaged.
The long, slender hand was wrapped in white gauze, revealing only the pale, uninjured pads of his fingers.
A white bottle had fallen on the floor nearby, with pills scattered all around it.
Jiang Mian recognized them as pills for treating manic episodes.
So Lin Yu must have gotten through his manic episode last night by taking the medicine and relying on his own willpower.
“Still here?
Why didn’t you go back to your room?” Jiang Mian asked softly.
After she spoke, the storage room remained utterly silent.
Though there were two people present, it felt as if she were the only one there.
Lin Yu didn’t answer her.
Jiang Mian just continued speaking to herself, “You only have a room and a bed to sleep in now on the Starship.
Once we get to the Pollution Star, the conditions won’t be nearly this good.”
She walked over, picked up the pills, put them back in the bottle, and set it on the floor.
Then, she quickly grabbed the first-aid kit and, without waiting to see if Lin Yu would reply, turned and briskly left.
‘This isn’t the future Beast Master,’ Jiang Mian had figured it out.
‘Right now, he doesn’t know me at all.
My mission is to make them not want to kill me before I can break my bond with them.’
‘It’s a long and arduous road.’
After Jiang Mian left, the young man leaning against the wall transformed his snake tail back into a pair of legs.
He picked up the bottle of pills she had left on the floor and slowly departed.
“Rong Fei, what are you doing?” Passing through the main hall, Jiang Mian saw Rong Fei throwing untouched buns and other food into the trash.
She walked over, frowning, and questioned him.
Hearing Jiang Mian’s question, Rong Fei’s wrist, so pale the blue veins were visible, paused for a moment.
He then continued to dump a plate of untouched fried dough sticks into the trash can.
He lifted his thin eyelids to look at Jiang Mian.
“Didn’t you say to throw out all the leftovers, Master?”
“No one even touched those dough sticks, right?
Has everyone else eaten?” Jiang Mian’s lips twitched slightly.
“Have you forgotten, Master?” Rong Fei placed the empty plate on the table, his palm pressing lightly on the tablecloth.
He was extremely tall, with immaculate silver hair, and his silver eyes fell upon Jiang Mian.
“The other Beast Slaves are to fend for themselves.”
In a flash, the original owner’s memories came back to Jiang Mian.
It was true.
The other Beast Slaves couldn’t stand the original owner, so she had cut off their food, trying to force them to curry favor with her.
And Rong Fei, because he cooked for the original owner, was allowed to eat the leftovers.
Jiang Mian was speechless.
“Call them over to eat,” Jiang Mian said slowly, then added after a pause, “From now on, we all eat together.”
“It’s already all thrown away.” Rong Fei tapped the pads of his fingers on the tablecloth, his gaze, seemingly gentle and helpless, landing on Jiang Mian.
“If you had said so earlier, Master, I wouldn’t have thrown it away so quickly.”
Jiang Mian was speechless.
‘Saying that now is completely useless.’
Jiang Mian thought about their exile to the Pollution Star.
The Federation prison had only given them one month’s worth of rations.
In the current interstellar era, all food had to be purified before it could be eaten, making it incredibly precious.
She recalled the original owner’s memories from the journey into exile: feasting on extravagant meals every day, with many untouched or unfinished dishes being thrown in the trash.
‘Don’t tell me it’s all been wasted.
But we still have half a month before we reach the Exile Star!’
Jiang Mian felt a sudden unease, her throat growing dry.
She asked, “How much food do we have left?”
“This morning was the last meal,” Rong Fei said in a gentle, lazy tone, as if he were stating something perfectly ordinary.
The corner of Jiang Mian’s mouth twitched.
She reminded him, “We still have half a month until we reach the Exile Star.”
Not only would she have nothing to eat, but they wouldn’t either.
“Mm, I know.” Rong Fei slightly raised an eyebrow, glanced at Jiang Mian, and responded casually and flatly.
‘He knew, yet he deliberately enabled the original owner’s wastefulness?
I’m afraid Rong Fei wasted it on purpose, just to use up a month’s worth of rations ahead of schedule.’
It was a reasonable suspicion, but Jiang Mian had no proof.
And Rong Fei had indeed done it on purpose.
However, it had taken a bit longer to run out of food than he’d planned.
Logically, he could have overtly thrown it all away sooner, but he had been lazy for a few days and couldn’t be bothered to cook as much, which had slowed things down.
“If there’s nothing else, Master, I’ll continue cleaning up.” Rong Fei’s gaze shifted away from Jiang Mian as he began to quietly clear the plates.
Dressed in a simple, solid white shirt and loose white pants, combined with his silver hair, he looked so clean he seemed to glow.
He cleared the plates at a leisurely pace, as if crafting a piece of art—unhurried, elegant, and poised.
He didn’t look like a Beast Slave at all, but rather the master of the house.
Jiang Mian actually didn’t know much about Rong Fei, this Lizard Beast Master.
In fact, aside from what she knew about Lin Yu, the Snake Beast Master, she knew next to nothing about the other Beast Masters.
‘Right, I only know his name is Rong Fei, and that he’s the Beast Master of Extreme Domain City.’
“Call everyone else over,” Jiang Mian said.
‘We still have half a month to go, and this auto-piloted Starship can’t just stop.
We can’t all starve to death.’
‘I have to come up with a solution.’
Hearing this, Rong Fei guessed what Jiang Mian was planning.
‘The rations are gone, so naturally, she’ll want to take the nutrient solution from the Beast Slaves.’
‘But the other Beastmen don’t have much nutrient solution left, if any at all.
After all, a Beastman can go ten days to half a month without food and not die.’
Jiang Mian wouldn’t be able to get much nutrient solution.
Even though Rong Fei knew this, he had no intention of reminding her.
“I’ll go now.” Rong Fei took a napkin and slowly wiped a grease stain from his hand.
It was a tiny stain and already clean, but he kept wiping until his fingers turned red before tossing the napkin away.
Jiang Mian saw it, but when he looked over, she quickly averted her gaze.
Rong Fei merely glanced at Jiang Mian before turning and walking away slowly.
Jiang Mian glanced at the napkin thrown in the trash.
‘This Rong Fei…
he seems to hate cooking, clearing the table, and especially washing dishes.’
‘He hates it, yet he doesn’t refuse.
He’s just torturing himself.’
‘Even though he hates cooking, his food is exceptionally delicious.’
Jiang Mian was speechless.
‘The five Beast Masters’ childhoods all seemed to have been quite terrible.
They were raised in captivity by humans from a young age, beaten at will.’
‘Should I be grateful that when I was kept by the Snake Beast Master, he didn’t enjoy whipping people like other Beastmen did?’
‘Sigh.
All this keeping and being kept…
can’t everyone just coexist peacefully?’
‘I’ve met four of the five Beast Masters now.
There’s still one I don’t think I’ve seen yet.’
Jiang Mian’s brow tightened.
She thought for a moment, dredging up the original owner’s memories of her interactions with that last one.
The memories made her want to faint, but she couldn’t.
In just half a month, the original owner had tortured every single Beast Slave.
The snake scales?
She’d pulled them out.
The whip marks on the Wolf Beastman?
She’d inflicted them.
The Butterfly Beastman’s wings?
She’d broken them.
The Lizard Beastman?
Beaten.
The Scorpion Beastman?
Beaten as well.