Chapter 72: The Solution
Sen Ji’s body swayed. After his mind went blank for a moment, fragments of memories floated in his head, rearranging themselves into new ones.
Awakening, SSS-class Sentinel, Xie Qiang, engagement, exclusive Guide, temporary marking…
He had just awakened as an SSS-class Sentinel and was engaged to a Guide named Xie Qiang. But that woman had placed a temporary mark on another Sentinel’s face and even deliberately let that Sentinel hang around in front of him.
Heh. She was already his exclusive Guide, yet she was arrogant enough to expect him to tolerate another Sentinel.
Sen Ji picked up the little Ragdoll cat from his face and scrutinized it with a look of displeasure.
This cat… just like its owner, it was arrogant and… beautiful.
Cough, how annoying.
Sen Ji placed the kitten on top of his head, then looked toward the busy girl with an arrogant gaze.
Xie Qiang, who was focused on biting buttons, didn’t notice anything unusual. She spat out the button she had just bitten off, and as soon as she reached her hand into his shirt to deliver mental energy, she felt a large hand pinch her chin and tilt her face up.
“…Tsk.”
The man stared at her face and let out a sound of dissatisfaction.
Xie Qiang: ?
Is he crazy?
“Are you awake now?” Xie Qiang asked tentatively.
The bloodshot veins in the man’s eyes had faded significantly, and his gaze wasn’t as ferocious as before. His frenzy level should have dropped to a safe range.
But Xie Qiang felt something was off.
Just as she was about to ask more, the man’s eyes suddenly became dazed. Immediately after, a murderous glint began to flicker in his tiger eyes again, scaring Xie Qiang into releasing even more mental energy.
The massive purifying power made the man groan. A sense of emptiness and hunger washed over his heart like a tide. Like a predator seeking food, he lowered his head and bit into Xie Qiang’s neck.
“Ugh!” Xie Qiang’s eyes widened. Only when she didn’t feel the pain of a real bite did her tensed body relax slightly.
“Sen Ji?” she called softly, but the man didn’t respond. He simply licked the two bloody lines on her neck with force. The moist, warm, and slightly ticklish sensation made Xie Qiang’s heart tremble. She froze there, not daring to move.
“Guide Shu, why hasn’t he woken up yet? Normally, he should have regained consciousness by now!” Xie Qiang called out to Shu Fenghua for help.
Shu Fenghua ran over. Seeing Sen Ji’s condition, she paced back and forth anxiously for a while before finally remembering what was happening.
“There are records in the History of the Empire. A certain generation’s SSS Sentinel once fought the Zerg Queen head-on and was interfered with by the Queen’s Zerg pheromones, falling into a state of ‘pseudo-frenzy.’”
“Normal purification can only control the frenzied behavior, but it cannot remove the Zerg pheromone interference. Once the purification stops, he will still be affected by the Zerg pheromones and fall back into a state of frenzy!”
Xie Qiang was stunned. “You mean, once my mental power is exhausted, he’ll turn back into that frenzied monster?”
“Exactly!”
Xie Qiang sucked in a sharp breath. “Then what do we do?! Even if I purify him continuously, my mental power can only last for one night!”
One night might be enough for the other Sentinels and Guides to evacuate safely, but it wasn’t enough to save her life!
“I said normal purification can’t remove the Zerg pheromones, but there is an abnormal way…”
“What is it?” Xie Qiang asked urgently.
Shu Fenghua coughed and whispered something into Xie Qiang’s ear.
Xie Qiang’s face instantly turned bright red. “Is… is there no other way?!”
“The book only mentions this one.” Shu Fenghua looked helpless. “Your Highness, you’re fiances anyway. This kind of thing shouldn’t be too difficult, right?”
“…” It’s actually very difficult!
“Your Highness, good luck! Take Commander Sen Ji to a room. I’ll go check on the other two.”
With that, Shu Fenghua quickly scurried into the wall hole to check on Hong Que and Mo Yin.
Xie Qiang massaged her forehead. Feeling the man still licking her blood, she pushed his head away with force and tapped his forehead. “Sen Ji, can you hear me?”
The man cast a sharp and dangerous gaze at her, seemingly displeased that she was treating his skull like a door knocker. But soon, his gaze dropped back to Xie Qiang’s neck.
Xie Qiang quickly covered her neck. “No!”
Sen Ji immediately let out a low, dissatisfied tiger growl and grabbed her arm, biting down on it.
Xie Qiang: ?
Has he been so affected by the Zerg pheromones that he’s developed a biting habit like a Zerg?
Fortunately, the man didn’t bite hard; he seemed to be deliberately controlling his strength. Xie Qiang looked at the shallow tooth marks on her arm, then at the staring Sen Ji, and said gently, “Let’s go bite somewhere else, okay?”
Sen Ji’s blood-red tiger eyes narrowed slightly. After a long silence, a golden tiger tail skillfully snaked into her white coat, parting the fabric to wrap around the girl’s delicate waist, pulling her tightly to his side.
Then, with his arms crossed, he began to walk toward the lounge area with a vigorous and arrogant stride.
When they passed the Guide Department’s lounge, Xie Qiang wanted to stop, but the domineering tiger tail pulled her away, not allowing her any freedom of movement.
“Sen Ji, we passed it.” Xie Qiang had no choice but to whisper a reminder.
Sen Ji glanced at her, then looked away with a straight face. He didn’t stop until they crossed another hallway and reached a different lounge area. He raised his combat boot and kicked open the door of the lounge in front of him.
Then, he scanned the room with a look of pure entitlement.
Xie Qiang: …
She had noticed it just now. Sen Ji, under the influence of the Zerg pheromones, seemed to have lost his usual steady and gentle personality, becoming exceptionally domineering and rowdy…
In the past, how could Sen Ji have ever kicked a door open?
That was something only Hong Que would do!
Sen Ji scanned the room casually and was satisfied with the layout. He reached down to grab Xie Qiang’s hand and shut the door with his tiger tail.
The moment the door closed, he buried his face in the girl’s neck, biting and rubbing against her. He pushed the girl’s shoulders and shoved her onto the bed. His tiger tail slid down her leg to the sole of her foot, kicking off her warm boots.
Xie Qiang pushed his head away with a complicated expression. “Can you gnaw somewhere else?”
The man looked up at her with dissatisfaction, but in the end, he listened and switched places, beginning to bite her shoulder.
Xie Qiang fished out a high-efficiency healing ointment from her white coat. While applying it to the wounds on her neck, she recalled Shu Fenghua’s words.
“The book said that back then, an S-class Guide permanently marked that Sentinel. After using Guide pheromones to trigger the other’s ‘Combined Heat,’ they successfully counter-interfered with the Zerg pheromones through a full injection of mental power, large-scale surface purification, and… intense activity, thus lifting the pseudo-frenzy.”
Xie Qiang couldn’t help but cover her face. “This is insane…”
She couldn’t even accept the gentle kind, let alone the “intense” kind!
And should such descriptive terms really appear in the serious History of the Empire?!
While she was agonizing over it, she suddenly felt her body being lifted. She let go of her face and saw Sen Ji lifting her up slightly, staring intently at her cheek.
Why did he stop biting?
Xie Qiang looked down in confusion, only to realize that while she was thinking about the solution, both of her shoulders had already been covered in dense tooth marks. There was simply no space left for another bite.
Xie Qiang: What kind of fetish is this…
She reached out to pull her white coat shut to hide the marks, only to see Sen Ji squinting at her cheek, his emerald tiger eyes growing deeper and deeper.
A sense of foreboding rose in her heart. “You—”
Before she could finish, the man suddenly leaned down and bit into her right cheek.
Translator’s Note: “Pseudo-frenzy” is such a classic trope! And poor Xie Qiang is now a chew toy. The solution Shu Fenghua suggested is definitely… “intense.” Let’s see if Xie Qiang actually goes through with it!
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