Teasing the Little Madman to Lift His Spirits

Professor Yin's situation left Mu Yi pondering with his head lowered for quite a while, until a shout came from the distance: "Hey! What are you doing over there? Get home already!"

He turned his head and saw a City Defense Force patrol. Having promised Zhong Xuezhi he would keep a low profile, he quickly operated the small Teleportation Array.

Before the patrol could approach him, he teleported back to the residential district.

Then he crossed the small courtyard fragrant with flowers and unlocked the door using the fingerprints Zhong Xuezhi had newly registered for him before leaving that morning.

Back inside the concrete box, Mu Yi immediately felt bored. He lay back on the living room sofa, took out the Grade A shard crystal, and began experimenting.

First, he replicated a current with the same frequency as the one inside the crystal stone, then made his pheromone current circle around it.

But after all that, he received no response from the current inside the crystal stone.

Mu Yi considered it briefly and decided to try the opposite approach.

He carefully adjusted the movement of charges within his current, completely reversing its positive and negative poles to produce a current with properties entirely opposite to the previous one.

The moment this current formed, Mu Yi felt the crystal stone in his other hand seemingly react to it.

He slowly brought the two together. Once they were close enough, the Grade A shard crystal suddenly trembled a few times, then dissolved into light.

Mu Yi froze briefly, only for the crackling in his palm to pull him back to his senses.

His pheromone current had miraculously merged with the current inside the crystal stone, releasing a considerable amount of electricity.

Mu Yi studied the newly merged current with interest, then wound it around his five sharply defined fingers, playing with it back and forth.

After a dozen or so rounds, he suddenly closed his fingers and drew the new current into his body.

Mu Yi lay still and waited a few seconds. Feeling no discomfort, he sat up on the sofa and reached out to open the bundle of clothes on the low table.

With a clear goal in mind, he took one shard crystal of each grade directly from the Storage Bag, intending to try absorbing them too.

This time, rather than releasing a current, he adjusted his own body into a large electric field. Once he was done, he cupped all the crystal stones in his hands.

Within seconds, the multicolored shard crystals in his palms all dissolved into light.

"Interesting." Mu Yi smiled with narrowed eyes, swaying from side to side on the sofa in a good mood.

He wondered what absorbing energy would do for someone from another world like him.

A moment later, he reached back to touch his nape, which was growing slightly warm and throbbing.

It probably had something to do with the energy he had absorbed from the shard crystals.

Since he felt no discomfort, Mu Yi paid it little mind and pushed himself up from the sofa with his hands on his knees.

It was nearly one in the afternoon, and he was hungry.

Mu Yi wandered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out the last two eggs inside.

He didn't dare boil them in a pot. He had only tried boiling eggs once, and he hadn't even gotten to eat them.

They had all cracked, exploding into a potful of white goo and shit-yellow sludge.

Instead, he held one egg in each hand. After a brief sizzle, two perfectly electro-roasted eggs were ready.

But immediately afterward, Mu Yi felt puzzled. The current he had just released was level two, yet its strength had felt like level five.

He couldn't help releasing another current to test it, confirming that the strength of the electricity converted from his pheromones had indeed increased.

A strange light flickered in Mu Yi's eyes. So this was what absorbing energy did.

Everyone sought power, and improving his own strength was the foundation he needed to have his fill of fun in this new world.

After all... this world was like an enormous energy field. Almost everything depended on the flow and conversion of energy to function.

He had to adapt to the local ways too.

Mu Yi repeatedly released and withdrew his pheromones, carefully savoring the changes the energy had brought him.

Once he had explored enough, he withdrew his pheromones and got ready to dig in.

Holding the two eggs, he moved to the tall table beside the cupboard, where a tin of powdered milk sat.

Too lazy to boil water, he mixed it with cold water, then heated it on the spot with his pheromones.

Then he carried the steaming milk to the small table where he had eaten breakfast and sat down to tackle his simple lunch.

Just as he settled into his seat, the Identity Bracelet on his wrist chimed several times.

Mu Yi tapped to answer, and Zhong Xuezhi's slightly low voice came through at once. "Had lunch yet?"

Holding an egg, Mu Yi drawled back, "Did you install surveillance cameras at home?"

His timing was absolutely spot-on.

Zhong Xuezhi paused briefly, then asked with a smile in his voice, "Just about to eat?"

Mu Yi answered with a "Mm," then tapped the eggs against the table twice and began peeling their shells with a series of crackles.

Throughout this, Zhong Xuezhi remained silent, as though quietly listening to the sounds on his end.

Somewhat baffled, Mu Yi asked bluntly, "What did you call me for?"

"Nothing," Zhong Xuezhi said.

Mu Yi was even more baffled. "Why call me if you don't need anything?"

On the other end, Zhong Xuezhi seemed to rub a hand over his face. His voice sounded a little muffled as he said, "Just eat. Don't mind me."

Amused by his nonsensical response, Mu Yi laughed. "Why don't I switch this to a video call? Just listening to an eating livestream can't be much fun."

It was only an offhand joke, but to his surprise, Zhong Xuezhi actually replied, "Sure."

Before Mu Yi could react, a request to switch the voice call to video popped up before his eyes.

"..."

He fell silent for a moment, then pursed his lips and tapped to accept.

Once he accepted, the projected interface before him flickered and switched to Zhong Xuezhi's face, handsome enough to look like a high-end character model.

That exquisitely modeled face shifted in front of the screen, then moved farther away, as though he had sat back.

Only after he sat down did Mu Yi see that he seemed to be hiding in some little corner.

Mu Yi raised an eyebrow. "What's this, Captain Zhong? Slacking off?"

Behind his transparent face shield, Zhong Xuezhi's gray-blue eyes curved as he replied, "Captain Zhong is on a short break right now."

His speech was somewhat indistinct, his cheeks moving now and then, with an occasional faint crunch.

Mu Yi immediately recognized the sound. Turning the peeled egg in his hand, he asked, "Are you chewing Suppressant?"

Zhong Xuezhi tossed the flat square box back and forth and nodded. "Yeah. These things are hard. I use them to give my teeth a workout sometimes."

Mu Yi could have figured out he was lying through his teeth with a single strand of hair. Who chewed pills to give their teeth a workout?

Still, he didn't expose that certain someone's clumsy lie, because he remembered what the two volunteer Mutants had discussed earlier.

Zhong Xuezhi had probably recalled those events from fourteen years ago too, causing his mutation value to fluctuate and forcing him to take Suppressant.

Mu Yi shrugged and said in his usual tone, "My fault. I didn't buy you any chew sticks. Once all this is over, I'll go pick out some good ones."

After he finished, he heard Zhong Xuezhi chuckling quietly on the other end for quite a while.

His own lips curved too, and he lowered his head to take a bite of the egg.

The electro-roasted egg was a little dry, so every couple of chews, he lifted the cup beside him and gulped down some milk.

Seeing this, Zhong Xuezhi couldn't resist reminding him, "Eating like that can dilute your stomach acid, leave your food incompletely digested, and make you bloated."

Mu Yi swallowed what was in his mouth and flicked a glance up at him. "Don't tell me how to eat."

Zhong Xuezhi stopped offering advice and asked instead, "Will two eggs fill you up?"

Mu Yi licked the milk from his lip and replied, "Even if they don't, there's nothing I can do. I can't exactly gnaw on your fridge."

There was nothing left inside but cold air.

Zhong Xuezhi burst out laughing, then said with a grin, "Sorry. I'll bring some instant food home tonight."

Mu Yi stuffed the last bite of egg into his mouth and made a muffled demand. "Don't bring anything that needs cooking in a pot. I won't get to eat it."

Hearing that, Zhong Xuezhi laughed again and nodded in agreement. "Okay."

[Mu Yi: Don't bring anything that needs cooking in a pot. I'll ruin it and won't get to eat it.]

[Zhong Xuezhi: When I'm unhappy, teasing the little madman cheers me right up.]