Chapter 21: The Cub’s Little Schemes~
“En-ying~”
The cub was caught off guard and frightened by the snake tail, his tiny milk voice trembling along with him.
“Bingbing?”
Shen Zexi suddenly opened her eyes and sat up. As soon as she sat up, she realized something was wrong. Looking down, the pair of human legs under her nightgown had been replaced by a snake tail that emitted a faint, cold glow. The snake tail almost occupied the cub’s entire nest.
The energy stones in the nest brightened by several degrees, enough for Shen Lin to see his second sister’s current appearance.
“Bingbing, go find A-Mei outside. I won’t be able to hold on for much longer. Go quickly!”
Shen Zexi shook her heavy head, her mind rapidly thinking about how she had been schemed against. Her bloodline power was within effective control; it would never manifest in a beastified form while she was rational. Someone must have done something!
Shen Lin tilted his head, seemingly thinking about what Shen Zexi had said. Seeing the cub’s ignorant and innocent appearance, Shen Zexi gritted her teeth. She flipped her hand, popped out sharp claws, and tore a large piece of flesh from the snake tail.
The intense pain pulled her reason back. The black snake scales brought out bright red blood, and the metallic scent spread in the air, triggering the memories buried deep in Shen Lin’s mind.
“Linlin baby~ wait for sister to finish off these bastards then I’ll come find you. Go quickly!”
The giant snake was covered in a thick scent of blood, its tail revealing ivory-white bones, with only one snake pupil reflecting the child’s silhouette.
The snake tail surged with waves of intense pain to suppress the irritability in Shen Zexi’s heart. Drip, drip. Blood seeped from the wound, and the trail dragged by the snake tail extended from the nest all the way to the door.
Shen Zexi’s cheeks were being covered by more and more scales. Her younger brother was a fragile cub with a bloodline value of 0; he couldn’t withstand even a trace of her bloodline power. Reason and madness pulled back and forth between her left and right brain. The backward surge of venom in her blood vessels made every step feel like walking on knives, and green veins throbbed at her temples due to the pain.
Her fingernails grew rapidly, and sharp claws popped out uncontrollably. Things were getting worse; she had to leave immediately!
“En-ying~”
A fluffy small paw poked the tip of the snake tail.
Shen Zexi’s pupils constricted. “No, stop!”
A beastman bloodline’s opening would cause them to indiscriminately attack anyone around them, and the force of Shen Zexi’s snake tail attack had already reached five tons. And that was only three-tenths of her attack power. The cub would undoubtedly die.
Shen Zexi closed her eyes in despair. But after a long time, she didn’t hear the cub’s scream.
It turned out that when the snake tail was about to launch an attack on the cub, it triggered the Ghost Vine’s protective behavior. Countless Ghost Vines, coiled on the ceiling like snakes, crazily wrapped around the snake tail.
The ton-heavy force crushed the vines, and dark green juice sprayed onto the smooth walls. The vines grew back madness-style, their branches sprouting sharp backward-pointing thorns. The thorns were seeped with green venom, piercing into the wound, and a wave of numbness flowed from the snake tail through her entire body.
Shen Zexi instinctively reached out to block, her movements half a beat slow. Even with the top-tier Black Mamba bloodline, where her own venom could consume external toxins, the Ghost Vine’s venom still had a slight effect on her.
A single seed could destroy a planet; what made the Ghost Vine terrifying was not only its extraordinary reproductive power but also its blood-sucking ability.
The ability of this Ghost Vine following the cub had been mutated; in addition to its blood-sucking ability, it had also developed a numbing function. If it were released, the loss caused to a planet would be unpredictable.
While being strangled and drained by the Ghost Vine, Shen Zexi’s brainwaves were very active. Shen Lin entered her mental sea and shared the other party’s thoughts for a few short seconds.
Should I say it? As expected of a politician, her heart’s thoughts were quite focused on the country and the people. The cub felt his second sister would be a good official in the future.
Drip!
A drop of cold water fell on her face, and Shen Zexi opened her eyes and sat up with a start.
Before her was no longer the cub’s residence. Beneath her was a space as pitch-black as a deep pool. She raised her hand, which was covered in a large amount of black, disgusting liquid. And these foul-smelling, thick liquids occupied almost the entire space.
Where is this?
Before Shen Zexi could think, a super-sized pink shovel appeared in the distant sky. With one scoop, the sticky and disgusting black substance was easily shoveled away, revealing a flat and dry road beneath.
The giant shovel shoveled and shoveled, and Shen Zexi found the road in front of her grew wider and wider, and even the dim sky brightened considerably. For some reason, the irritability in her heart miraculously vanished along with the shoveling of the black substance.
Following the wide road forward, Shen Zexi saw a pair of giant vertical pupils open in the depths of the space.
“Huff, huff~”
Work finished! I’m exhausted~
The cub wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh of relief. After resting for a moment, he placed his small paw over the wound. A light-strand turned into fine threads, performing needleless suturing. The gruesome wound was stitched up bit by bit by the pink threads, tied into a beautiful butterfly knot.
The pink threads merged into the light-strand, ignoring physical matter to travel freely. The wound could be seen growing pink, tender flesh with the naked eye, and a layer of scales shallowly covered the wound.
Once finished, the Ghost Vine released its grip on the snake tail. The room was piled with countless vines broken by the snake tail; after the main Ghost Vine branch absorbed the nutrients, they turned into a pile of waste material.
The snake tail obediently coiled up, protecting Shen Zexi within.
Shen Lin let out a small yawn; after a night of tossing and turning, he was a bit sleepy. He grabbed a blanket to cover his second sister and went to sleep.
Shen Zexi woke up the next day to the sound of a servant knocking. Piercing sunlight shone into the room through the window. Shen Zexi reached out to block it.
Memories flooded back like a tide, and she finally remembered what happened last night. She sat up abruptly; the snake tail was gone, leaving only a pair of fair and smooth legs. Shen Zexi didn’t see a wound on her legs and quickly transformed into her beast form.
The wound on the snake tail was also gone.
No!
Shen Zexi felt around carefully and finally found a spot where the scales were a lighter color than the surroundings. Feeling it carefully, the venom flowing in her blood was eerily peaceful, and even repeated transformations didn’t cause any slight stings. In her beast form, her emotions wouldn’t become irrationally irritable; it seemed that only at this time did the Black Mamba bloodline in her body become a shared consciousness with herself.
Everything that happened last night was definitely not a dream!
The always calm and composed Councilor Shen rarely lost her facial expression control. Shock, surprise, confusion… The questions brought by the cub before her completely shattered her twenty-some years of outlook on life.
A bloodline riot was a program set for all beastmen in the Interstellar; now that a BUG had appeared in this program, was it good or bad?
She stood by the nest for a long time, until the servant outside knocked again. Eventually, she suppressed all her thoughts, leaned over to pick up the small blanket the cub had kicked away, covered him again, and left.
The room fell into silence again. The Ghost Vine coiled on the ceiling revealed itself, its branches moving through every corner like snakes.
Shen Lin opened his eyes, his clear pupils showing no sign of sleepiness. This exposure was a complete accident, perhaps because of seeing Shen Zexi’s snake tail. It reminded him of the monster in the apocalypse who was also called “Sister” by him, who had a snake tail of the same color.
Thinking of Sister “02,” Shen Lin felt a sudden pain in his heart. “02” was the code name given to her by the white coats in the research institute; monsters didn’t have names, only numbers.
In human eyes, she was the “Medusa” who triggered the dark side of people’s hearts and made them sink into a sea of desire. But in the cub’s heart, Sister “02” had taken meticulous care of him like a mother, filling all his fantasies about the role of a mother.
Sister “02” loved beauty, but when she died, her beautiful snake tail was left with bloody holes… Shen Lin hadn’t dreamed of Sister “02” in a long time. Shen Zexi’s beastified black-scaled snake tail triggered his memories.
Hearing words from her that were identical to Sister “02,” he instinctively wanted to do something. Even though he had determined not to easily expose his special ability, a voice deep in his heart kept saying: Save her!
Shen Lin still chose to use his healing ability. After waking up from a nap, Shen Lin’s first thought wasn’t a late-arriving regret, but rather a hidden thought flashing through his mind.
He wanted to see what choice this new family member would make after knowing his specialty.
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