“Beyond human control?”
Zhang Yang didn’t understand.
“Didn’t you say humans don’t have a fixed estrus cycle?”
The observation sample said that humans could go into heat at any time.
How was that beyond human control?
Could it be that because Fan You was a Game NPC, his so-called “desire” was only an outward manifestation of the game’s settings, and he was actually different from real humans inside?
The more Zhang Yang thought about it, the more she felt her guess made sense.
She looked at Fan You with deep disappointment.
She was very disappointed by his inability to feel desire.
A flush suddenly spread across Fan You’s pale face.
He was so mortified he could have died.
He held it in and held it in before finally suppressing the urge to spit blood.
“Though I, Fan You, am no sage, neither am I some shameless wretch who thinks only of carnal pleasures. If one casts shame aside completely, what’s the difference between us and beasts?”
At this moment, he could hardly bring himself to say that word.
“How does going into heat make you no different from a beast?” The more Zhang Yang listened, the more confused she became.
She couldn’t understand why Fan You was so worked up.
Fan You: “…”
He choked himself into unconsciousness.
Zhang Yang lowered her eyes to look at him and lightly tapped his thigh with the tip of her foot.
He still didn’t wake, and his breathing remained weak.
She was sure Fan You really was unconscious.
She sighed.
“I was actually looking forward to it. What a letdown.”
He wasn’t the least bit worried anymore that Fan You’s “Starfall Curse” would affect Zhang Yang.
The latter not only had a head of solid wood, but a heart of stone as well.
He gave Fan You a pitying look.
“I’ll go fetch a physician to examine him, in case he really dies of whatever’s wrong with him.”
Zhang Yang waved him off.
“Go on, go on.”
In fact, with Zhang Yang helping him bear the burden of the “Starfall Curse,” Fan You’s injuries were basically stable.
His unconsciousness was merely his body’s self-protection mechanism kicking in; sleep would help him recover faster.
Shen Zhi said, “That’s good.”
The moon sank and the stars faded; dawn was breaking in the east.
In the latter half of the night, Fan You suddenly developed a high fever.
He slept very restlessly that night.
All kinds of terrifying, disjointed nightmares came one after another, one nightmare layered on top of another.
Only when the morning light outside the window slipped through the cracks and fell on his eyelids did he finally open his eyes, utterly exhausted.
His body was weak and limp, and the hunger in his belly was especially fierce, as if someone had poured hundreds upon thousands of venomous snakes into it, each one gnawing at his stomach walls. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
The pain made him instinctively think the Starfall Curse was acting up.
His extensive experience dealing with it had conditioned him to react at once, binding himself to restrict his movements.
Only when the motion tugged at his wounds, and pain like torn flesh brought his reason back, did yesterday’s events flash through his mind like scenes from a play.
When he realized his current state was caused by hunger, not a flare-up of the Starfall Curse, he first relaxed his brow and let out a soft breath, then, without warning, gave a mocking laugh.
“…That’s it?”
With a creak, someone pushed open the door.
A flood of sunlight poured in, so dazzling he could barely open his eyes.
He instinctively raised a hand to shield them, lowering it only once he had adjusted.
At last, he could make out the visitor.
It was the lord he had pledged himself to just yesterday.
Fan You pressed his pale, chapped lips together, his heart a tangle of conflicting feelings.
He had no loyalty whatsoever to Zhang Yang, yet his guilt was all too real.
As someone who had experienced it firsthand, he knew better than anyone how terrifying the Starfall Curse was when compounded twice over.
Even thinking of it now made him shudder, and yet he had let an innocent person share its burden.
Zhang Yang had come to ask for it of her own accord, but that didn’t mean he could drag someone else into this with impunity.
If he were still in his right mind, he would never have done it.
Thinking back on his behavior last night, Fan You despised himself.
“You’re awake?”
“Greetings, My… my lord. Forgive me, I’m unable to get up and welcome you.” Fan You wasn’t used to calling Zhang Yang his lord, but he knew this was already an established fact, and he couldn’t burn the bridge after crossing it.
Once he got the words out, the rest came much more easily.
“Mm. Eat up. We have something to do later.”
Zhang Yang had come to bring Fan You breakfast.
Even this meal had been bought by Shen Zhi from a stall near the houses.
It looked awful, tasted bland, and had a rough texture, the kind of food that made you never want a second bite.
Zhang Yang had wolfed down a couple of bites, cursing the game’s developers in her mind more times than she could count.
The game’s developers had to be messed up in the head.
On the one hand, they said the game was set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where the industrial chain had long since been destroyed, production had ground to a halt, and supplies were scarce, leaving dried earthworms as the staple food of the poor.
On the other, they had the scavenger granny’s thirty-million-strong adopted grandson handcraft all kinds of delicacies and medicines, each one making Zhang Yang want to swallow her saliva like crazy.
Even now, she still couldn’t understand how agate, jade, wild herbs, meat, and bones could be turned into Buddha Jumps Over the Wall [Note: a rich, slow-cooked stew/soup with premium ingredients like abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw, and ham].
At least she had secretly tried to imitate him on her own, ruining no fewer than a hundred pots.
Watching Fan You treat food with such solemn care, she sighed—
NPCs really do have it rough.
Since Zhang Yang had said she needed to discuss something, Fan You didn’t delay his meal.
He wolfed down just enough to reach half-full, easing the burning pain in his stomach.
“What does my lord require?”
Zhang Yang pulled a proposal out of her game inventory.
She and Shen Zhi had revised this proposal together.
He was just a little smarter than the two of them put together, so he should be able to offer practical, effective advice.
At a loss, Fan You opened it.
He gently ran his fingers over the smooth paper, his heart jolting as if struck by sudden thunder, yet he kept his composure and read it carefully.
Since ordinary people couldn’t read Zhang Yang’s handwriting, Shen Zhi had helped copy it out.
The title was simply “Unite the Three Enclosures, Four Symbols, and All the States.”
And below that?
Nothing else.
Fan You: “…”
He suspected he was still soaking in the prison’s water dungeon, and that the visions before his eyes were just from getting delirious: “What do you mean, my lord?”
“Is the title not obvious?”
Zhang Yang looked at the panel stats, then at Fan You.
With 93 Intellect, this was all the comprehension he had?
Could the panel stats be on a thousand-point scale instead of a hundred-point one?
The product doesn’t match the listing.
What a scammer!
Fan You: “…”
The title was very obvious.
So obvious that he’d thought this new lord, who had fallen from the heavens by a twist of fate, was teasing him for a laugh.
“Is this… your lifelong ambition, my lord?”
Fan You did his best to choose tactful wording.
Zhang Yang refuted him expressionlessly, her peach-blossom eyes seeming to accuse Fan You of insulting her: “How could this be my lifelong ambition? It’s just one Quest. Why would I waste the best years of my life on it? At most, it’ll take up a corner of my life. My future is far grander.”
Spend a lifetime completing the Quest that countless Homestead Players had already cleared?
Was she overestimating the game designers’ intelligence?
Or underestimating Zhang Yang’s own abilities?
Had she still underestimated Zhang Yang’s strength?
“A grander future?”
“To transform this world into the one I envision.” The Homestead Map was so vast she could spend her whole life playing it.
Once the game designers added other modes in future updates, she reckoned she could play for years without getting bored.
“The world you envision?”
“It’s a world that is—absolutely beautiful.”
Constantly imitating and observing the sample was tiring enough.
She also had to keep the iron laws etched into her soul firmly in mind, for fear the game’s developers would discover that she was a bug in the game.
The in-game Homestead was a relatively private, independent space, where she could finally catch her breath.
Fan You gradually let go of his condescension.
Unable to walk properly, he sat and looked up at the girl.
Zhang Yang was supporting him.
As her Star Lord, he could use their connection to faintly sense how she truly felt at that moment.
The girl’s ambition was as unyielding as rock, no joke.
Ever since disaster had struck, he had nearly forgotten what that felt like.