Baby, Who's He?

After his beating, Zhong Xuezhi held his smoking head with one hand and obediently scanned Mu Yi all over with his Identity Bracelet.

"All done."

Mu Yi snorted coldly and stepped into the Mirage Wall first.

His vision abruptly went black as he entered the wall, then flashed white as he emerged. Once his eyes refocused, the clamor of voices gradually reached his ears.

The first thing he saw was the towering city ahead, blending modern and fantastical elements, and the enormous multicolored crystal tower floating above it.

It certainly lived up to the name Crystal City.

Looking down, he saw Crystal City's gates, whose grandeur rivaled that of the Ruined City in its heyday.

Quite a few people were lined up outside the gates. As if going through a security check, they stepped forward one by one to be scanned from head to toe by some sort of device before being allowed through.

They were probably screening out humans infected by Variants.

Mu Yi quickly surveyed everything ahead, then suddenly frowned.

Wait, why were they all Betas?

The words Something's wrong kept flashing through Mu Yi's mind, leaving him standing motionless for a long while.

Zhong Xuezhi emerged from the Mirage Wall a few steps behind him. Seeing this, he approached and asked, "What's wrong?"

Mu Yi glanced back at him, only to notice that there was nothing behind them. The four of them seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

So the Mirage Wall's illusion only existed on one side.

Captain Zhong had already forgotten the pain of his beating. He leaned toward Mu Yi's ear and asked with a grin, "Pretty amazing, huh?"

Mu Yi's brows shot up, and the pheromones inside him stirred again. Before they could fully surge out, however, a gentle male voice reached them.

"Little Xue!"

Mu Yi blinked. Little Xue? Who?

Little Xue himself ground his teeth and looked at the newcomer. "Feng Puppy, I fucking told you to stop calling me that!"

The newcomer wore a conspicuous white lab coat. He was tall and long-legged, though his frame beneath the coat was rather thin, and his face had the look of an overworked office drone who had stayed up far too many nights.

Only his eyes were remarkably lively.

Hearing Zhong Xuezhi's reply, he sucked in a breath and said irritably, "Quit calling me 'Feng Puppy' first, then we'll talk!"

Then his gaze abruptly shifted to Mu Yi.

The longer he looked, the more he stretched his neck forward, his nostrils flaring rapidly.

Mu Yi made a tactical lean backward. "What are you doing?"

The man in the lab coat sniffed Mu Yi several times, then raised his head in surprise. "Why do you smell like Little Xue?"

"Whoa... and it's so strong..."

Zhong Xuezhi reached out and pushed his head away. "What are you sniffing around with that dog nose for? Ever heard of manners?"

The man in the lab coat drew his neck back, a peculiar gleam shifting through his eyes.

He took in the snow leopard head on Zhong Xuezhi's cuff and the matching cord bracelet on Mu Yi's wrist, then looked over the combat uniform Mu Yi wore, which belonged to Zhong Xuezhi.

Then he narrowed his shining eyes and let out a meaningful, "Ohhh~"

Zhong Xuezhi hated that sly look of his more than anything. "What, the research institute isn't busy anymore? You've actually got time to wander around?"

At the mention of the research institute, the other man's expression grew a little more serious. "It's because you lot were taking too long."

"I heard ages ago that you'd returned to the plaza outside the city, but you still hadn't shown up."

"Ahem..." Zhong Xuezhi rubbed his nose and said vaguely, "Something minor held us up."

Something minor?

Mu Yi couldn't help rolling his eyes. Did he mean the minor matter of screwing me over?

Mu Yi ground his teeth as he silently cursed him.

Anyone who screwed me over could forget about getting away with it.

Once he finished grinding his teeth, Mu Yi abruptly stretched out an arm, slipped it around Zhong Xuezhi's waist, and asked, "Baby, who's he?"

Zhong Xuezhi jolted violently and stared down at the arm around his waist. "?!"

Mu Yi moved his fingers and pinched his side, his tone positively intimate. "Someone you're close enough with to call each other pet names-aren't you going to introduce him to me?"

Zhong Xuezhi: Holy shit...

Half a second later, Zhong Xuezhi snapped back to his senses and hurriedly pried Mu Yi's arm off. "Quit messing around."

"Hahaha...!" Across from them, the man in the lab coat suddenly covered his mouth and burst out laughing.

Once he had laughed enough, he gave Mu Yi a simple introduction. "Hello, I'm Zhong Xuezhi's childhood friend, Feng Zhengqing."

Then he asked nosily, "And you? What exactly is your relationship with Zhong Xuezhi...?"

Mu Yi parted his lips and satisfied his appetite for gossip. "We're close enough to share underwear."

"Wow-" Feng Zhengqing immediately looked as though his suspicions had been confirmed.

The two exchanged a smile, each with a more mischievous gleam in his eyes than the other.

Zhong Xuezhi immediately raised a hand to block their exchange of looks. "Hey, hey, hey! Spreading rumors right in front of me? That's going too far."

Mu Yi turned his head and continued dropping bombshells. "How is it a rumor? Aren't I wearing your underwear right now?"

"And what's with that attitude, baby? We were sharing a blanket last night, and now you suddenly want to distance yourself from me?"

"Fuck..." Zhong Xuezhi wiped his face numbly, unable to refute a word.

In the end, all he could say was, "Let's head into the city first. Stop standing around here."

"Right, right." Feng Zhengqing finally remembered why he had rushed out of the city to meet them. "Let's get the 669 Experimental Sample back to the research institute first."

And so, five minutes later, the group followed Feng Zhengqing through an express lane and quickly entered the city.

Along the way, Zhong Xuezhi gave Feng Zhengqing a rough account of Mu Yi's situation-only the part involving the Hallucinogenic Mushroom, of course.

After hearing it, Feng Zhengqing's eyes gleamed even brighter. His inquisitive gaze stayed fixed on Mu Yi, looking him over repeatedly as they walked.

Normally, Mu Yi would certainly have been annoyed, but now the sights inside the city held his full attention.

After entering the city, they first stepped onto Front Gate Plaza. Its facilities were much like those in the plaza where they had arrived via the Teleportation Array, except it was three to five times larger and no longer deserted.

It was only just approaching evening, but the city's standing lights were already on, and all sorts of people came and went beneath their dim blue glow.

What caught Mu Yi's attention, however, were the people level with the lights.

They all wore dark blue military uniforms and carried half-meter-long rifles in front of them, their feet planted on hemispherical flying devices as they patrolled back and forth above the plaza.

"They're the City Defense Force," Zhong Xuezhi explained, leaning toward his ear at just the right moment. "They're responsible for maintaining order inside the city."

Mu Yi sensed them for a couple of seconds, then asked suspiciously, "They're all ordinary people?"

"Right." Zhong Xuezhi lowered his voice and continued, "Mutants make up the Mutant Alliance, and ordinary people make up the City Defense Force. That keeps the balance of power even and puts the city's residents at ease."

After a moment's thought, he quickly added, "The City Defense Team doesn't get along too well with our Hunting Team."

He had barely finished speaking when a member of the City Defense Force steered his flying device over and slowly stopped in front of them.

Zhong Xuezhi immediately stopped muttering and put on a textbook fake smile. "Major Li, what can we do for you?"

Li Zhou didn't answer, nor did he so much as glance at Zhong Xuezhi. He simply looked Mu Yi over again and again.

After studying him for a while, he took a special device from his waist and scanned Mu Yi with a series of beeps.

Once the scan was finished, he put the device away and spoke with a hint of contempt. "Even someone like this can get into Crystal City?"

Li Zhou was burly, with regular features. When he kept his mouth shut, he looked somewhat upright. Once he opened it... everything about him begged for a beating.

Having received that appraisal, Mu Yi naturally had to return the courtesy. He looked Li Zhou up and down, then said, "Even someone like this can make major?"

Li Zhou's eyes widened in fury. "You dare openly insult an officer? I think you're asking to go to prison!"

"Ohhh~" Mu Yi propped one hand on his waist, utterly unruffled. "So you can dish it out, but nobody's allowed to give it back."

Then he turned to Zhong Xuezhi, who was trying hard not to laugh, and asked, "What's your prison like?"

Zhong Xuezhi couldn't laugh anymore. The little lunatic wanted to get himself into prison.

[Mu Yi: Hehe! Just playing around~]