"Can you really sew?"
Zhong Xuezhi could hardly be blamed for doubting him. Nothing about Mu Yi, from head to toe, looked remotely compatible with a needle and thread.
"Tch." Mu Yi urged him impatiently, "Do you have a needle and thread or not? Bring them here."
Zhong Xuezhi could handle himself in polite company and in the kitchen, but he had absolutely no talent for needlework.
Naturally, he carried no sewing supplies.
But after thinking about it, he remembered that his bag seemed to contain some silk he had obtained from a Giant-Bellied Colorful Spider.
"Hold on..."
Still skeptical, he rummaged out the spider silk, then condensed ice crystals into a fine needle that would not melt easily, cobbling together a sewing kit.
Holding the spider silk and ice needle, Mu Yi could not resist a word of praise. "Pretty stylish."
As its name suggested, the Giant-Bellied Colorful Spider's silk came in all sorts of colors. Zhong Xuezhi had sorted it into several separate spools.
Mu Yi picked out a white spool and a gray one.
Unwinding them, he discovered that the silk was about as thick as sewing thread, exceptionally tough, and lustrous. It was clearly an excellent material for weaving satin.
Mu Yi nodded in satisfaction, swiftly threaded the needle, and began stitching deftly through the torn cuff.
His movements were so fluid and his stitching so fast that the grown men gathered around him watched in stunned amazement, failing even to notice the glaring problem of white thread on black clothing.
"How did you get so good at this?" Zhong Xuezhi was genuinely curious.
Without looking up, Mu Yi answered casually, "Spend enough time behind bars, and you naturally get the practice."
Qiu Cai immediately piped up, "You've been to prison?!"
"Get lost!" Zhong Xuezhi kicked Qiu Cai aside. "Don't make such a fuss."
But then he turned back and asked, "You learned in prison?"
"Yep." Mu Yi saw nothing shameful about having done time. He even curled his lips into a smile, as though recalling something amusing.
"Whenever I had nothing to do back then, I liked to pop in."
"They taught all sorts of things in there. Making clothes, sewing, weaving baskets, embroidery, even music, strategy games, calligraphy, painting-you name it. I learned them all."
For a moment, Zhong Xuezhi had no idea how to respond. All he could offer was, "Impressive."
The burned hole in the clothing was not large. At Mu Yi's speed, he finished mending it in no time.
He handed the garment back to Zhong Xuezhi opposite him. "Here."
Zhong Xuezhi accepted it with both hands and glanced down at the cuff, then instantly looked up again, staring at Mu Yi. "What did you sew onto this?!"
Mischief gleamed in Mu Yi's eyes as he smiled. "A snow leopard's head. Doesn't it look nice?"
Using the gray and white spider silk and its natural sheen, he had perfectly recreated Zhong Xuezhi's fur color and markings. He, for one, was very pleased.
Zhong Xuezhi, however, had plenty of objections. Pointing at the chibi snow leopard head on the cuff, he demanded, "You call this a snow leopard? It looks like a cat!"
A tiny kitten, at that!
Mu Yi's smile widened. He reached up and tugged at the large bow on his right arm. "Just returning the favor."
Zhong Xuezhi had nothing to say. "..." Damn, he really holds a grudge.
He folded the garment in frustration, then kicked each of the men beside him who were desperately holding back their laughter, shooing them away irritably. "Go on, get lost!"
His teammates each picked up a roasted bamboo shoot and retreated, laughing.
Having enjoyed his little revenge, Mu Yi was in a fairly good mood. He picked up a roasted bamboo shoot too and began peeling it leisurely.
As he stripped away the outer layers, a delicate bamboo fragrance drifted out.
Mu Yi lowered his head and took a bite. The flesh was wonderfully crisp, tender, and sweet, with a fresh, delicate flavor. Like the roasted larvae, it tasted far better than he had expected.
He ate three in a row, then let out a belch of fullness he had not experienced in ages.
"Hm?" Only then did Mu Yi feel his stomach, discovering that it had actually grown slightly taut.
He was puzzled. He burned a lot of energy and had an appetite to match. Under normal circumstances, three mere palm-length bamboo shoots would only leave him half full. They could not possibly stuff him like this.
Just then, Zhong Xuezhi spoke up, conveniently clearing up his confusion. "Fatty Bamboo Shoots contain thirteen times as much energy as rice, and they gradually expand when they encounter stomach acid."
"So, tasty as they are, a little taste is enough. You can't be greedy. Why else would we call them 'little snacks'?"
Mu Yi glared at him. "Then why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Zhong Xuezhi smiled back. "You were enjoying them so much, I couldn't bear to interrupt."
With that, he tore off a small, thin slice of bamboo shoot with unusual refinement, carefully put it into his mouth, and chewed slowly.
Mu Yi rolled his eyes at the sight. "Oh, give it a rest. You kept quiet on purpose because you wanted to laugh at me, didn't you?"
Damn curly-head. He's got more nasty tricks than hairs on his head!
Zhong Xuezhi refused to admit it. "What are you talking about? I simply don't talk while eating or sleeping."
"Besides, I haven't even blamed you for polishing off our dinner ahead of time."
Mu Yi said, "Then why are you yapping while you eat now? Shut up!"
"All right, all right, I'll shut up." Having evened the score, Captain Zhong was especially agreeable.
Meanwhile, the three men sitting side by side munching Fatty Bamboo Shoots had watched the whole exchange and could not help murmuring among themselves.
Qiu Cai said, "Weird. Every time our captain's mutation level went abnormal before, he'd either look irritated or completely expressionless. Why does he seem so relaxed now?"
An Beize rubbed his clever head and replied, "It's just the positive effect you get when two people on the same wavelength come together."
Du Jing also rubbed his "clever" head. He had not quite understood, but he felt, "This is pretty nice."
Under their furtive scrutiny, their captain twitched the large ears on either side of his head, then called out to them, "You three, stop whispering about me!"
"..." Fine, then.
Mu Yi twitched his ears too, then asked Zhong Xuezhi, "Your hearing seems pretty sharp."
Zhong Xuezhi swallowed his last slice of Fatty Bamboo Shoot and replied, "Animal-type Mutants generally have keener senses."
"Animal-type..." Mu Yi suddenly caught on. "So you have two talents."
"Right. One animal-type, one nature-type."
As Zhong Xuezhi answered, he took a small metal box out of his backpack. It was square and somewhat flat.
He slid open the lid, tipped a few pills into his mouth, and crunched away.
They probably did not taste very good, because his brow remained furrowed as he chewed.
Mu Yi watched him for a few seconds before asking, "Is that the Suppressant you mentioned?"
"That's right," Zhong Xuezhi answered indistinctly. "You take it when your mutation level is abnormal."
After a while, he laboriously swallowed the crushed pills and looked up at Mu Yi. "You really don't know anything."
It was a statement.
Mu Yi answered honestly, "Because I've never seen any of it before."
"Never seen it... But you're so practiced at fighting. You must have recharged your energy before, right? You seem unfamiliar with shard crystals too. How did you recharge before?"
Mu Yi thought he asked too many questions, but he had plenty of his own.
So he kept his patience and made up an excuse at random. "Back in our city, recharging works like a gas station. You just hold a machine against you, and it charges you up."
"Oh, I see." Zhong Xuezhi did not believe a single word, but he showed no sign of it.
He was not trying to pry into every one of Mu Yi's secrets. He only wanted to confirm that Mu Yi really was not a Variant and posed no danger to them. That was all.
So far, the man seemed quite safe. He just felt rather out of place.
After a brief silence, Zhong Xuezhi reminded him, "You'd better get used to recharging with shard crystals now. We'll be traveling soon, and running low on energy won't help if something unexpected happens."
Mu Yi patted his belly. "No rush. I'm stuffed right now. Let me digest a little before I recharge."
Mu Yi completely abandoned any intention of explaining pheromones, because one suspicion was growing stronger and stronger.
These Betas did not see him as an Alpha at all.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
[Yun: I've seen quite a few of you lovelies asking about this, so here's a little clarification~]
[As for Mu Yi not immediately realizing that this world has no ABO, please try putting yourselves in his shoes, lovelies. First, he doesn't have an omniscient perspective. He has no concept of "the world I originally lived in was ABO, and the ABO setting is unusual."]
[To him, the entire world and the entire universe should be ABO. Even after transmigrating, the new world should still have the same gender categories.]
[For example: say you suddenly transmigrated into a world that didn't distinguish between men and women, but everyone still looked physically male or female to you. It would be hard to imagine that the girl standing in front of you wasn't actually a girl.]
[Because we take it for granted that the entire world and the entire universe should distinguish between men and women.]
Before you continue