Oh No, I've Done Something Shameful

Xin Lan glanced at him in surprise, only to find that the Azure Dragon had not gained human consciousness. He simply carried himself like a divine dragon looking down on the world. His blue-green vertical pupils were not even directed at her; they were full of contempt and disdain for the stupid fox.

Xin Lan: ...

All right, she had overthought it.

As it turned out, the mutants had only lost the consciousness they had possessed as humans. They were not monsters incapable of thought.

In that case, did they even need to regain their human consciousness?

Perhaps being a mutant like this was not so bad?

At least they no longer had to suffer the torment of psychic power rampages every day like humans did.

The moment the thought crossed her mind, the nine-tailed fox beneath her, which had been consciously trying to curry favor with her, suddenly shuddered violently, as if something had severely jolted it.

Its orange-red fox eyes instantly turned red, all trace of obsequiousness vanished from its face, and its aura abruptly grew several times stronger.

Red light blazed in its eyes, its face twisted, and its smooth, soft white fur instantly bristled. It began struggling desperately like a mad thing, its nine tails lashing the furnishings in the room to pieces like iron whips.

Xin Lan frowned and had the vines tighten around it.

But even when the vines cut into its flesh, covering it in bleeding wounds deep enough to expose bone, it continued roaring and struggling like a mindless beast, its claws gouging terrifying furrows in the floor.

The Azure Dragon, who had been thoroughly disgusted with the fox, now seemed to be affected as well. His blue-green vertical pupils flickered constantly between blue-green and red, and a few seconds later, he too became a mindless beast.

Xin Lan immediately had a vine branch off and bind him up like a zongzi as well.

But his dragon scales were exceptionally hard. The vines could not cause him any substantial harm; at most, they could restrain his movements.

Watching the two mutants, who had both been capable of communication, suddenly turn out like this, Xin Lan clicked her tongue impatiently.

The vines immediately climbed to the Azure Dragon's neck, abruptly growing thicker and larger as they tightened their grip.

"Roar-"

Before long, the Azure Dragon let out a high-pitched, distorted dragon cry. He collapsed to the floor, his eyes rolling back as the vines strangled him.

The nine-tailed fox, too, could no longer endure the bone-deep wounds it had inflicted on itself by struggling. At last, it let out a pained cry and crashed heavily to the floor, its white fur completely soaked in bright red blood.

In just a few minutes, she had nearly strangled both mutants to death.

What a waste.

Xin Lan thought it over, then moved farther away and loosened the vines' grip.

But the Azure Dragon, who was on the verge of dying, drew a heavy breath, and when he opened his eyes again, they were still entirely red.

The same was true of the nine-tailed fox.

With no other choice, Xin Lan kept the nine-tailed fox bound for the time being, then released her psychic power to cautiously probe inside the Azure Dragon's head.

As expected, the mutant had no mental landscape. There was nowhere for her to purify.

Was she supposed to give up just like that?

Xin Lan was a little annoyed.

This was the first time in all these years that she had encountered a problem she could not solve with psychic power.

She sat down on the less-than-clean sofa and thought for a moment, then decided to make one last attempt with her spirit body.

In theory, a connection between spirit bodies also counted as a deep connection, with much the same effect as a deep mental connection.

She just did not know whether a fully mutated mutant still counted as a spirit body...

With their consciousnesses linked, the dark blue vines that had been strangling him went slack in an instant.

They began to glide over the Azure Dragon's body like spirit snakes, their protruding soft leaves slowly brushing across his hard dragon scales one by one, without the slightest hint of aggression.

Red light still shone in the Azure Dragon's eyes, but his body stopped struggling.

He stared blankly down and tugged at the vines sliding all over him. The red light in his eyes remained, but it was no longer as bewitching as before.

The vines continued to coil around his neck and head, sometimes lightly, sometimes tightly. Even his long, slender dragon whiskers were slowly wrapped in thin vines, which swayed constantly in the air...

Though she was only watching from the side, a strange feeling faintly arose in Xin Lan's heart as the vines moved.

It felt a little secretly comfortable, and a little thrilling.

As if she were doing something shameful.

It was very strange, but the Azure Dragon had changed a great deal.

He had stopped tearing at the vines wrapped around him. Instead, he sat on the floor looking silly, clumsily lifting the vines with his dragon claws and playing with them.

As he played, the scales on his belly quietly opened.

The vines immediately spread over them and wrapped tightly around him.

Startled by the vines' bold behavior, Xin Lan shot to her feet.

But before she could retract them, the Azure Dragon suddenly opened his eyes, which had at some point been tightly shut.

This time, blue-green and red flickered constantly in his eyes, but in the end, the red vanished completely, giving way to a sacred blue-green.

Huh! He really can regain consciousness?

Xin Lan blinked, finding it a little miraculous.

So mutants actually count as a kind of spirit body too?

Then mutants can be changed back after all?

Although she had not completely succeeded, she had regained her confidence.

She had planned to continue experimenting, but her wristband suddenly chimed with a notification.

It was a message from Mo Xiao.

"Guide Xin Lan, it's getting late. You should come back and rest. We're very worried about your safety."

Seeing that it was indeed getting late, Xin Lan decisively retracted the vines. Without caring whether the fox lived or died, she went straight out and drove away in her hovercar, looking just like a scumbag woman who pulled up her pants and left immediately after being intimate.

The Azure Dragon sat on the floor, staring dazedly at the tightly shut door. Then he lowered his head and used a claw to touch the dragon whiskers the vines had just wrapped around. A struggling human consciousness flickered through his blue-green eyes.

He glanced at the fox lying in a pool of blood, its fate unknown, but paid it no attention. Instead, he lay on the floor like a dog, gazing at the door and inwardly hoping it would open again soon.

As long as the door opened, that human would come back. Once the human returned, his body would feel very comfortable...

The Sanctuary was in the central area of K9 District, an hour's drive away by hovercar.

Bored during the ride, Xin Lan looked through the guide work regulations Mo Xiao had sent her earlier, along with a separate list of precautions he had written himself.

The cover of the work regulations looked perfectly respectable, but the contents were a little perverse. They were entirely devoted to teaching guides how to prevent sentinels from accidentally injuring them during soothing.

They included, but were not limited to, using all sorts of adult tools to tie up or restrain sentinels. Even beating a sentinel was not illegal.

To put it bluntly, as long as a guide could soothe a sentinel and lower their rampage level without killing them, the guide could do whatever they wanted to the sentinel.

Xin Lan: ...

She considered herself free of such perverse interests and had no need for those tools, so she opened the list of precautions Mo Xiao had written especially for her.

The contents here were much more normal.

They ranged from advising her on how many percentage points to keep a sentinel's rampage level fluctuating within during each soothing session, down to how to use some of the equipment in the soothing room.

No detail was overlooked; everything was covered.

But for some reason, every few standard entries, there was one hinting that a deep connection would cause a sentinel to become excessively clingy.

He had not said it outright, but his meaning was unmistakable.

He did not want her getting involved with too many sentinels.

Hilarious. Does he think I want to?

Speechless, Xin Lan turned off her wristband and closed her eyes for a while. After finally returning to the Sanctuary, she intended to go back and sleep, only to find that the number of people waiting for her outside had doubled since daytime.

Besides Mo Xiao and her other four sentinel guards, there were several unfamiliar sentinels in white-and-gold uniforms.

Xin Lan raised her hand to check her wristband. Once she confirmed that it was already half past eleven at night, her brows immediately knitted, and she muttered a curse under her breath.

"Damn, why haven't they left yet?"

What are they doing here so late at night?

You might not sleep, but I damn well need to! It's this late and you're still fucking competing?

The District K1 sentinels, smiling and looking certain of victory: ?