Chapter 30
Watching the gazes of those two near-lifelike 3D naked men turn toward him, Yan He, even knowing they were fake figures generated by high-tech light and shadow, was filled with horror. He couldn’t help but shout in despair, “Group sports are not allowed! I wasn’t invited!”
“Wait, no, I wouldn’t join even if I was invited! Don’t come over! Scram!”
Perhaps the visual shock was too great, because Yan He didn’t even register the scent of blood in the exam room growing heavier and heavier.
He could only silently close his eyes, forcing images of eating hotpot into his mind. Duck blood in hotpot tastes delicious…
He didn’t know how much time had passed before a mechanical notification sounded in his ear: “Your exam has ended. Please proceed to the Exam Center to print your transcript.”
Yan He immediately grabbed his ID and scrambled out of there, not wanting to stay a second longer.
There were quite a few students in the Exam Center, all lining up to print their results.
Some wore bitter expressions, looking dejected, while others looked indifferent. Regardless, no one looked happy.
“If you didn’t pass, you didn’t pass. You’ll get used to it,” Pan Ze popped out from somewhere, staring at Yan He’s dazed face and offering comfort. “Even He Shao didn’t pass.”
Seeing Yan He looking like he was mourning his own death, Pan Ze assumed he had failed. As expected of a pure-hearted freshman, taking these beastization tests way too seriously.
“I’ll get your transcript for you.” Pan Ze fulfilled his duty as a lackey/errand boy, taking Yan He’s ID card to retrieve the report.
Pan Ze glanced subconsciously at the paper and froze instantly. “???”
“First place in the entire academy… Predicted beast transformation probability is only… 5%???”
Pan Ze’s voice, raised in shock, immediately attracted the attention of the other students in the Exam Center. Gaze after gaze of disbelief and scrutiny landed on Yan He.
“For real? Academy first place? 5%? Holy crap, what kind of genius is this? A genius among the specially-enrolled students?”
“This… isn’t this the guy named Yan He who took first place in the Colosseum at the welcome party? Terrifying!”
“How did he manage 5%? Even the record held by F4’s He Shao is around 10.1%, right? Why can’t I do that?”
“…”
Admiration, speculation, envy—various emotionally charged gazes wove together.
Yan He didn’t dare tell them that he didn’t even need that 5%. He was 100% absolutely unable to transform!
Pan Ze held the transcript as if he shared in the glory, grinning from ear to ear. His eye for choosing a boss was truly sharp! Haha!
“Boss, you got first place in the whole academy, so why the long face?” Pan Ze took the transcript and whispered to Yan He, “Are you pulling a ‘dragon pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger’? Just acting cool?”
It had to be! Seeing the shocked looks of the surrounding students made Pan Ze’s blood boil with excitement.
As Yan He’s paid lackey, Pan Ze was fully immersed in the role.
Yan He took the transcript and muttered painfully, “It was too explicit. My eyes need bleaching.”
The thought that there would be this kind of “pornographic appraisal” exam for mid-terms and finals made Yan He despair.
“Yan He, how did you do?” Yun Xiao’s excited voice cut through the crowd. He Ting and Yun Xiao walked in, and the students instinctively cleared a path.
Yun Xiao snatched the transcript. Admiration immediately flooded his eyes. “Incredible. My lackey is actually an honor student!”
The more Yun Xiao thought about it, the more excited he got. “Yan He, how many more surprises do you have that I don’t know about?”
Yan He fell silent. Neither in his past life nor his next did he expect to be associated with the term “honor student.”
They took the transcript and left the Exam Center.
“How did Yun Shao do?”
Hearing this, Yun Xiao got even more excited. “I did super well! My predicted beast transformation probability is only 70%!! It’s unbelievable, I’ve improved!”
Although this trashy score still meant he didn’t pass the exam, it was progress.
Considering he had fully transformed just a few days ago and couldn’t revert to human form, he had expected a prediction of over 85%. But it was only 70!
Recently, only Yan He had been grooming him and engaging in friendly interactions. As expected, his ‘little human kitty’ played a crucial role in his emotional stability.
Yan He looked at the unusually quiet He Ting and asked tactfully, “Did He Shao not pass the exam? Then… who will go pick up Shen Shao?”
He Ting lowered his eyes to stare at Yan He, complex emotions swirling in his golden pupils.
He had thought it was a sure thing, but now, even reviewing the failure felt like blasphemy.
Survival was still easy for him, but bestial desire was constantly battering against its cage. And the master of that desire now had a distinct form.
He Ting: “You go.”
Yan He was dumbfounded. “Huh? Me?”
Yan He frowned. “I’m just a specially-enrolled student. Will the zoo authorities even give me the time of day?”
“It’s okay, Little Sprout He. I’ll go with you.” A warm, soft, low voice came from behind. Xu Xingchuan had arrived.
Seeing the smile in Xu Xingchuan’s eyes, Yun Xiao shouted in shock, “Old Xu, you passed?”
The tables had truly turned. Old He failed, but Old Xu passed?
Xu Xingchuan made a gesture in the air that looked suspiciously religious and said piously, “It is the protection of Lord Beast God.”
Yun Xiao twitched his mouth. Old Xu believed in the Beast God every day, but he hadn’t tested this well before. Now it’s suddenly ‘Lord Beast God’s protection’? It’s not like the Beast God suddenly descended upon the academy.
However, good breeding didn’t allow Yun Xiao to question his friend’s faith, so he remained silent.
Yan He hadn’t worn his casual clothes in a long time. Since autumn had arrived in the mountains and it had rained recently, Yan He wore a knitted vest and trousers, and prepared a large backpack according to He Shao’s instructions.
Yan He wasn’t close with Xu Xingchuan, so the conversation was awkward.
Yan He couldn’t help but ask, “Does everyone in Xu Shao’s family believe in the religion?”
Xu Xingchuan smiled gently and shook his head slightly. “No, only me. My family are all normal people; they cannot transform.”
Yan He said, “Being able to transform doesn’t mean you aren’t normal people.”
That was just a setting issue by the original author.
A strange glint flashed in Xu Xingchuan’s eyes before he quickly returned to his usual gentleness. “I transformed on my seventh birthday.”
He was the earliest to transform among the F4; even He Ting was later than him.
On his seventh birthday, wearing a birthday hat, he watched with his own eyes as his father grabbed his mother’s gentle hair and slammed her frantically against the floorboards. Screams of agony hovered over the birthday cake.
He was terrified and panicked, crying as he crawled over to beg his father to spare his mother, but it was useless.
Blood stimulated his nerves, constantly eroding his consciousness. He didn’t know what he had turned into, only that he rampaged through the living room until he saw his father retreating in terror.
Xu Xingchuan smiled as he said, “My father wanted to send me to the Giant Panda Breeding Center. My mother tried to stop him, kneeling on the ground and kowtowing to him, but it didn’t work. That night, the Beast God graced me.”
Yan He listened to Xu Xingchuan’s story, surprised that Xu Shao would share his tragic childhood with him. Their relationship didn’t seem close enough for this, did it?
He was a very skilled storyteller. Yan He felt a sense of melancholy listening to it. He seemed to suddenly understand why Xu Xingchuan believed in the Beast God so much, willing to give everything for that ethereal faith.
The next moment, Xu Xingchuan’s tone shifted. He stared at Yan He with a smile and said, “So, does Little Sprout He want to join our Beast God Cult?”
Yan He: “…”
Damn it. All that setup, all that talking, just to preach!
Truly a diehard Beast God fan.
Over an hour later, Yan He and Xu Xingchuan finally arrived at the Thirteen Peaks Wildlife Park.
As a top-tier location among the Empire’s 5A scenic areas, the visitor traffic was huge even at this time. There were independent travelers and tour groups, full of vitality.
Yan He and Xu Xingchuan felt like they were in another world. They had truly been locked up too long; prison life had made them mentally dazed.
“If we go to the zoo at this time, can we see Little Qingqing? It’s really so spiritual! I can’t believe it’s a cold-blooded animal,” Yan He heard two girls discussing excitedly not far away.
Yan He looked at Xu Xingchuan. The ‘Little Qingqing’ they were discussing couldn’t be… Shen Shao, could it?
He really got a government job at the zoo?
Xu Xingchuan suppressed the corners of his mouth that kept trying to rise. “Let’s buy tickets and go in to take a look.”
Ordinary tourists would never know that many of the “smart” animals here were once free people just like them, now stripped of thought and reduced to wild beasts pursuing only survival and reproduction.
Yan He and Xu followed the zoo’s signs toward the snake zone, noticing that quite a few tourists were heading the same way.
Because there was a new internet celebrity—a spiritual snake, a National First-Class Protected Animal. Netizens jokingly called it ‘Little Green’ (Xiao Qing).
Xu Xingchuan thought for a moment and said gently, “Yan He, you go ahead. I’ll go find the director.”
Yan He nodded and immediately followed the crowd toward the snake zone.
Shen Xianqing was numb. Completely numb.
Why did he have to meet an enthusiastic villager? The villager had gone up the mountain to pick mushrooms, heard the whimpering of a small wild boar in a pit, and came to check, discovering him.
Originally, the villager was terrified upon seeing the big snake in the trap, thinking he had encountered a python, and turned to run.
But AI image recognition is truly powerful these days. One scan and they knew what he was. This was a National First-Class Protected Wild Animal. Although highly venomous, this kind of snake started at five million in the black market!
Seeing the snake in the pit, the kind villager was afraid Shen Xianqing would encounter poachers. Noticing his sparse scales, the villager decisively called the rescue hotline for the Thirteen Peaks Wildlife Park.
He had been here for several days without a single word of news.
Although the secret of Bestia Academy was public, the outside world didn’t know. Even in the Thirteen Peaks Zoo, no one but the director knew. But it had been so long, and he hadn’t seen the director alone once!
He couldn’t even tell the director that he could still turn into a human.
To become the next Newton—no, Qing-ton—he had experimented by self-harming and pulling out his scales. The enthusiastic conservation staff had treated him, but…
Shen Xianqing really couldn’t eat the live chicks thrown in. He even felt they were dirty and was incredibly annoyed.
He refused to eat the raw chicken meat delivered to him, either. After all, he still had human thoughts and couldn’t stomach raw meat.
In the past, Shen Xianqing always felt that Bestia was a giant cage. But now, curled up in a small cage of less than ten square meters, he could barely breathe.
Freedom seemed to be drifting further and further away from him.
Shen Xianqing was annoyed, especially by the crying of the little kids outside the glass. He didn’t ask these kids to come see him! If they thought he looked scary, they’d cry, yet they insisted on looking!
He suddenly understood Pan Ze a little. Was it his fault he was born ugly—no, born looking fierce?
Snake life was truly dark.
Dong, dong, dong—
The glass window was tapped. Shen Xianqing was extremely irritated. Didn’t they know the zoo prohibited tapping on the glass?!
Blacklist them all!
Shen Xianqing suddenly snapped open his sharp, vertical pupils and stared toward the person making the noise.
The young man was wearing a dark brown knitted vest, standing in front of the glass window. His brows and eyes were handsome, and his hair, washed with who-knows-what shampoo, looked exceptionally smooth.
It was… Yan He.
Shen Xianqing propped up his snake body in disbelief, staring at the visitor through the glass in shock.
He had imagined many things. He thought the Academy officials might come angrily to arrest him. He thought He Ting might come quietly to pick him up. He even thought of his former lackey, Pan Ze. But he never thought of Yan He—that ordinary, weak husky specially-enrolled student.
And that person he had never thought of was now standing upright in front of the glass window, gazing at him. Various inexplicable emotions surged up violently, overturning oceans in an instant.
Coincidentally, the soft morning light of the mountains fell upon Yan He’s brow, and then landed, ever so gently, right on the tip of Shen Xianqing’s heart.
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