When Ruan Tao slowly opened her eyes, everything within her field of vision was blurry.
It felt like a person with eight-hundred-degree myopia had taken off their glasses—although she had never been nearsighted before.
It seemed she hadn’t died.
She had only lost her good eyesight.
Ruan Tao looked around.
She smelled many fresh scents, like standing in a great forest. It was completely different from the disinfectant smell she had imagined would fill a hospital.
Suddenly, she heard someone talking in the distance. It sounded like a man with a loud voice, approaching from far away.
Ruan Tao abruptly woke up with a start and flipped over!
…But she failed to sit up.
She even rolled on the ground instead.
Back when she had fought her dear big brother fiercely in front of the male-god senior, she had probably looked just as miserable as she did now.
Ruan Tao closed her eyes.
She finally felt the presence of her body.
Her limbs were short, her body was fat and round, and she could no longer feel her slender girlish waist or her pert little butt.
Ruan Tao was a little confused.
Then she heard that loud male voice say, “Young Master Bo, look.”
A door creaked open.
Ruan Tao squinted toward the front.
She saw a huge dark shadow—extremely big and extremely terrifying.
From within that terrifying shadow, a pale, cold-white object slowly stretched out toward her. It was thick and long, quite massive, almost as if the shadow had shoved the Leaning Tower of Pisa right in front of her eyes.
Ruan Tao had never had such a sensitive nose before.
From that “Leaning Tower of Pisa,” she smelled an extremely, extremely pleasant scent.
It was fresh, somewhat like fir trees, and also somewhat like a faint minty masculine scent that was hard to describe.
Although she had never smelled anything like it before, those descriptive words somehow popped directly into her mind.
It was very attractive. Extremely addictive. Just one sniff made her feel like she was floating.
Ruan Tao subconsciously hugged the pointed tip of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and leaned in to take a deep sniff.
The “Leaning Tower of Pisa” trembled slightly.
Ruan Tao felt a little panicked, but the loud-voiced man seemed even more panicked. He said nervously, “Young Master Bo, this little fellow is extremely delicate. Let alone you—anyone who touches it might scare it to death. If it bites you, it’s only because it’s afraid. Please don’t hold it against it…”
The Leaning Tower of Pisa withdrew.
Ruan Tao was still immersed in the pleasant smell, her entire “person” feeling a little dizzy.
“How much?”
She heard a calm and pleasant voice say.
Ruan Tao: !!!
Ruan Tao: That voice! I’m totally okay with this!!!
Who didn’t like a cold and abstinent handsome man?
Ruan Tao had liked them since she was young.
When she was in the first year of middle school, her older brother Ruan Zhu had just entered the second year of high school. He had good grades and a handsome face. He possessed every quality that the male protagonist of a campus romance novel should have.
Unfortunately, his personality wasn’t great.
As the exemplary “child of other people’s families,” Ruan Zhu had been sweet-talking relatives and elders since he was young, making them all beam with joy.
After he grew older, he applied this skill perfectly to charming girls.
He alone had practically captured the hearts of all the girls in their entire school, yet the girls still threw themselves at him like moths to a flame, deeply devoted.
At that time, romance novels were full of female protagonists who were innocent, cute, kind, naive, and ordinary.
Everyone loved dreaming. Girls’ romantic fantasies were flying everywhere.
Only Ruan Tao knew what her brother was really like.
He was indeed gentle and good with words, but his gentleness was so excessive that it could have turned into the flood from Genesis and drowned the entire world.
Ruan Tao really wanted to build a Noah’s Ark to rescue those poor girls.
Not to mention that was only the image he presented in public. In private, he was just an ordinary teenage boy—staying up all night playing games, throwing his socks everywhere, farting shamelessly, doing all sorts of ridiculous things. He was nothing like those immortal male protagonists in novels who never even needed to use the bathroom.
Because of this influence, Ruan Tao absolutely adored the complete opposite type of man from her brother.
The colder the better. The more ruthless the better.
She only had one heart full of girlish fantasies, and she didn’t want to give it to a flood monster like her brother who harvested hearts everywhere.
That voice just now was perfect.
Just by hearing it, she could tell it belonged to a ruthless character—cold, merciless, not gentle at all, the kind of person the whole world feared.
The surroundings quieted down. Ruan Tao was just about to carefully think about philosophical questions like “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing now?”—
when she heard the loud voice hesitate and then lower his tone as he said, “Two orange crystals.”
The pleasant voice didn’t respond.
The loud voice continued, “You know we never quote random prices to you here. These days magical beasts are actually cheap, but fragile little creatures like this are rare. It’s already lucky to find even one…”
“Mm.” The pleasant voice spoke a second sentence. “How do you raise it?”
The loud voice immediately brightened and began rambling, “According to the records, this one should be a silver fox hamster. To be honest, we don’t have experience raising hamsters either, but we’ve observed this one for several days and it shows no signs of mutation. Later we’ll send you the old hamster care instructions. If you search the old data network, you should be able to find more information…”
He kept talking endlessly, his loud voice giving Ruan Tao a slight headache.
This feeling finally pulled her out of the pleasant smell and the pleasant voice, making her a little more clear-headed.
She looked around, then stretched out her hand and waved it…
Holy crap.
The hamster they were talking about… was her??
Ruan Tao instantly fell into panic.
At that strange moment, some mysterious force pulled at her, making her involuntarily stand up and then crouch down. Looking at the blurry outlines around her, she quickly and accurately found a running wheel.
She didn’t know why she was so skilled at it. She flipped over and climbed onto the wheel.
Then she began running in place with carefree enthusiasm.
Her round body moved with surprising agility. Although to outsiders it might look like a small dumpling desperately stretching its limbs, in Ruan Tao’s own perception, she felt as if she had turned into a cheetah, her limbs full of strength as she ran across the boundless African savanna.
Outside that imaginary grassland, two shadows—enormous in Ruan Tao’s eyes, bigger than cosmic black holes—silently watched her.
“Kind of dumb,” the loud voice said with amusement. “People in the past really liked these little animals.”
Bo Yutong: “……”
How could such a cute little thing be dumb?
Did that exotic beast trader even know how to speak?
He said nothing more and simply carried the cage home.
The information the exotic beast trader sent him was extremely complete, but he still didn’t feel reassured. He simply carried the cage into his study.
He pressed a palm-sized, oval blue-and-white device and lightly slid his thumb along the side.
It connected to the website from “before.”
According to legend, when the apocalypse arrived, the world had once fallen into complete darkness for an entire month. When the first ray of light returned, the first group of awakened people used their newly obtained powers to preserve the enormous amount of internet data that existed at the time.
The people of “before” had possessed a very advanced internet system. Almost every ordinary citizen could have their own online space where they could upload and store data at any time.
From today’s perspective, that was something almost unimaginable.
Now, accessing internet data required supernatural powers, or machines created and sold by people with powers.
The internet was also completely divided into two sections: the preserved data from “before,” and the new online world built by today’s ability users.
The data from “before” had been perfectly preserved and would never change. People could only browse it—they could not edit or modify anything.
Bo Yutong found the search engine Baidu that people from “before” often used and searched for “hamster.”
This little creature looked like just a tiny ball. In reality, it was just as fragile as it appeared. Just reading the online information made it seem like it could die at any moment. It was extremely delicate.
This couldn’t be eaten, that had to be eaten less. Its living environment had to be maintained, and its exercise had to be guaranteed.
In this apocalyptic world, resources were scarce. Many ability users could barely survive themselves, yet this tiny creature was so picky about everything. How had it managed to survive until now?
Ruan Tao didn’t understand what Bo Yutong was doing. Up to this point, she had only figured out one thing—
She had turned into a hamster.
She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she felt that after running on the wheel, her eyesight had improved a little.
At the very least, when that “Leaning Tower of Pisa” came toward her again, she could vaguely see that it was a person’s finger.
The finger slowly moved to the side of Ruan Tao’s face and gently touched her cheek.
Ruan Tao grabbed the finger and took another deep sniff.
After sniffing, she even shuddered all over, her addicted expression completely obvious.
The man in front of her let out a pleasant laugh. Then Ruan Tao heard him ask softly, “Not afraid?”
How could she be afraid when she liked it so much?
Ruan Tao rested her fluffy, chubby face against his finger.
Bo Yutong opened his palm.
Ruan Tao immediately climbed onto it with surprising awareness. Her entire little body lay in his palm as he gently lifted her out.
Bo Yutong’s thumb rubbed her back as he said softly, “Don’t move. I’ll change your house.”
The feeling of having her back rubbed was so comfortable that Ruan Tao almost ascended to heaven on the spot. She let out a satisfied sigh and went limp in the man’s palm, quickly falling asleep.
Bo Yutong supported her with one hand while dismantling and assembling things with the other.
By the time Ruan Tao woke up, she had already been placed inside a luxurious three-story mansion personally built by Bo Yutong.
Ruan Tao felt that her eyesight had recovered a tiny bit more.
But at this moment, she almost wished she were still as blind as when she had first opened her eyes.
Because she saw two familiar pale fingers holding a plump little worm that was wriggling desperately—
—and placing it right in front of her.
Ruan Tao nearly launched into the air on the spot.
Her entire hamster body leaped up and turned to run. She moved so fast that even she couldn’t believe it.
The luxurious mansion Bo Yutong built for her wasn’t just one building—it was two entire “villas” connected together.
Between the two villas were translucent plastic tubes connecting them. The tubes weren’t straight but twisted and spiraled, giving Ruan Tao plenty of space to move.
Ruan Tao sprinted through the tube at lightning speed.
Even someone as lacking in empathy as Bo Yutong could sense how frightened she was.
With a light pinch of his fingers, the worm died instantly—vanishing completely without leaving even a trace.
“Don’t be afraid,” Ruan Tao heard Bo Yutong say. His tone wasn’t much different from before, but it was clearly very patient. “I’m here. Nothing will happen.”
Ruan Tao had already escaped into the other building.
Bo Yutong stared at the trembling little ball of mouse. If he said he felt no frustration at all, that would be impossible.
That worm had also taken him considerable effort to obtain. He had heard that hamsters liked mealworms, so he had dug through several worm nests before finally finding this one newly born worm.
In this era, only worms in the baby stage were this tiny.
Even kindergarten-aged worms were the size of a finger. Forget feeding them to that little creature—they could bite the little thing to death.
…Thinking about it that way, it was understandable that the little creature was afraid of worms.
Bo Yutong lowered his head to look at Ruan Tao.
Ruan Tao had been so frightened by the worm that was as big as her face that her soul had nearly left her body. After stopping, she felt her heart racing, her head spinning, and she almost fainted.
May heaven have no worms.
Sob.