Cocoon

"A cocoon?"

Jiang Qian's gaze sharpened.

At the same time, images of spiders laying eggs and spinning cocoons immediately surfaced in his mind:

A spider hung upside down beneath its web, its silk glands secreting fluid that hardened into thread in the air. Its eight long, nimble legs busily wove an egg sac.

Then, it laid a high-density, crystal-clear mass of eggs from its abdomen. Like slipping a pillow into a pillowcase, the mother spider tucked it into the egg sac, then repeatedly spun silk around the outside until it formed a smooth, seamless cocoon.

At last, after incubation, the baby spiders would break out of the cocoon.

Breaking out of a "cocoon"...

Jiang Qian could hardly imagine how thrilling it would be if this biological behavior—the very thing that had once made all the girls in his class lose their appetites—played out on his own body.

"Hey, Jiang Qian?"

Lan Junxian rapped his knuckles on the table.

"Sorry, please go on." Jiang Qian pulled his thoughts back and looked at Lan Junxian.

Lan Junxian furrowed his brow slightly. This wasn't the reaction he'd expected.

From his perspective, Jiang Qian showed none of the panic of someone on the brink of death. If anything, he seemed calmer than Lan Junxian himself, though he was only an observer.

Was his mental fortitude really that strong? No wonder I picked him... Lan Junxian's lips slowly curled upward. Rarely, he asked out of curiosity, "Aren't you worried?"

There was no notable change in Jiang Qian's expression. "Not really. I've already found the organization, and I'm sure the authorities have ways to get me out of danger. Right?"

That sounded almost like he was setting the authorities a test, leaving Lan Junxian at a loss for how to respond.

He'd intended to use this to intimidate the newcomer a little, to make him understand just how brutal and ruthless the Super-Species World could be. Instead, the newcomer had turned the tables on him.

Meanwhile, Jiang Qian was already considering countermeasures. "For example, deal with the source of the problem. Get rid of her."

If we could catch her, we'd have done it already... Lan Junxian cleared his throat. "Even if we can't catch her within seven days, there are still other options. But they carry considerable risks. I'll have to report this and get approval before I can determine whether we can try them."

"From what you've said, I could be possessed at any moment, right?" Jiang Qian glanced around, then asked calmly, "If I turn into a puppet here, what happens to me? Am I imprisoned, or dealt with immediately?"

"Uh..."

"It's fine. I don't mind discussing what happens to me afterward. You can be frank."

"I told you, we have to follow procedure..." Lan Junxian rubbed his forehead, finally understanding what Team Bear meant by 'hard to handle.'

The young man in front of him was almost too clever.

Of course, Lan Junxian could have taken charge of the conversation and ignored Jiang Qian's concerns. That would have been easy, but it would have destroyed any bond between him and this promising talent.

His goal wasn't just to handle things by the book. He also wanted to win Jiang Qian over, ideally bringing him back to the East Sea to train.

Lan Junxian looked at the bandages on Jiang Qian's wrist, deciding to give the promising talent a hint. "Your Identity Card belongs to a venomous creature, right? You fought the Peacock Spider, but the medic found no traces of poison in your wound."

"—You have the ability to counteract toxins."

Jiang Qian nodded without hesitation.

With his life on the line, there was no point hiding it.

"Good. That's the key to keeping you alive," Lan Junxian continued. "If your sense for toxins is sharp enough, you might even be able to check for poisonous foreign substances in your body yourself."

"Just as you said, you entered the Super-Species World for the first time after receiving an invitation from the Peacock Spider. So, in theory, an egg sac should form naturally inside your body. This method is related to the Peacock Spider's 'authority.' It connects to your vital organs and nervous tissue, making it difficult to remove from a living body."

"My solution is to use your own resistance to poison, fighting poison with poison to control or slow the growth of the egg sac."

Jiang Qian studied the refined, middle-aged man before him.

There was no sign in the man's expression, demeanor, or body language that he was joking.

Lan Junxian also saw what he was worried about. "Don't ask how I know. I've seen too many corpses after the cocoons broke open."

"Of course, suppressing the egg sac with toxins will also require help from specialists in human biology and toxin science, as well as a sufficient supply of powerful toxins. You've only just become a License Holder, so I doubt you've accumulated enough toxins, either in quantity or potency. That's why I need to apply to use these resources to assist with your surgery."

"In short, I'll try to get approval from my superiors as soon as possible. In the meantime, you need to do everything you can to help me bring the culprit to justice. Do you agree?"

A brief silence followed.

"How do you need me to help you bring the Peacock Spider to justice?" Jiang Qian asked.

Lan Junxian had never expected Jiang Qian to focus not on his own surgery, but on this matter.

But he quickly understood. The young man was trying to assess his own "value." That he habitually thought this way showed he was a tough-minded person who didn't trust promises easily and knew how to think for himself.

Lan Junxian stopped holding back.

"The breakthrough lies in the cocoon inside you. As I said, it connects to your vital organs and nervous system, but it's also affected by the Peacock Spider's consciousness. In theory, if there were a way to control that cocoon, you might be able to establish a brief connection with the Peacock Spider. Then we could use your perspective to locate her and hunt her down."

"Of course, I'm talking about the best-case scenario. It's extremely dangerous, and the chance of success is 'almost zero.' So our top priority is still keeping you alive."

Jiang Qian nodded slowly. "I understand. Thank you."

"No need to thank me."

Just as Lan Junxian was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Jiang Qian asked another question. "May I ask which of the seven levels the Peacock Spider is at?"

"Fourth State: Perfect Form," Lan Junxian replied after a moment's thought.

"And I'm only at First State: Cognitive Form."

Just as I thought. There are two levels of power between me and the girl. She could easily kill me whenever she felt like it... Jiang Qian considered this, then said, "I think I understand what you meant by the chances being 'almost zero.'"

Lan Junxian noticed that even after learning about the gap in strength between himself and the Peacock Spider, Jiang Qian remained relatively calm.

He showed neither timidity nor discouragement, and he wasn't agitated. He was still objectively considering the chances of the plan working.

It was an almost inhuman state of mind, but Lan Junxian admired it immensely.

So when he explained what came next, he discussed it with Jiang Qian enthusiastically.

"No, you still don't fully understand. It's precisely because you're at First State: Cognitive Form that you have that tiny sliver of a chance—and that makes it worth risking everything!"

His words were powerfully persuasive.

Jiang Qian looked at Lan Junxian, waiting for him to continue.

The latter rose with effortless grace and reached into the air, snapping his fingers as if it were nothing.

At that moment, a "three-dimensional structure" rapidly took shape in the air from condensed transparent liquid: a cylinder divided into seven sections by six cross-sections.

"What I'm about to tell you is worth more than a hundred million."