Xianyu put on leather gloves and clumsily dug through the soil for the hamster, while the Chief Strategist sent someone to light a fire and heat some water.
By the time they dug it out, the Chief Strategist had a brazier and hot-water bottle ready, and snatched the hamster from Xianyu's hands.
"Don't let your shaking hands drop it into the fire-"
"...What am I, some living devil?"
Xianyu's mouth twitched. Seeing that he had nothing left to do, he opened the system to check his status panel and discovered a new "Heliobus possession" debuff.
He said with great interest:
"Say, could you put a heliobus in a can? If you used it as an energy source, wouldn't you have an inexhaustible supply?"
The Chief Strategist's expression cursed him out. "And you still claim you're not a living devil?"
Before long, the heliobus possessing Xianyu emerged, cursing up a storm and dry-heaving nonstop.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh-ptooey, ptooey, ptooey! What rotten luck did I rack up over eight lifetimes to run into you!"
Xianyu silently picked up the wooden box that had held the hamster earlier, raised his hand, and shut the heliobus inside.
The heliobus didn't resist. It turned into a telegraph machine, rattling on without pause:
"I've had enough! It's disgusting! Even a dog wouldn't eat it! And I ended up eating it!"
Finding the heliobus too noisy, and worried it might go torment the Chief Strategist, Xianyu added another safeguard to the wooden box: an all-purpose Talisman Paper that combined muting, sealing, and other functions. Then he put it out of his mind and focused on watching his subordinate revive the hamster.
Before long, the hamster's whiskers twitched, and UR followed the heliobus's trail to the General's Residence.
With his slightly muddy gloves, Xianyu carefully cradled the hamster