Chapter 128

Chapter 128

The moment Qin Ying saw Han Lie’s clothes collapse in on themselves and shrink, she knew the day he would return to the World in the Box was drawing closer.

Wangcai, pinned in Qin Ying’s arms, had its eyes light up. It was about to pounce over and snatch up the tiny Han Lie in its mouth.

But Qin Ying held it down with one hand. “Bad dog!”

Before Wangcai could get there, she picked Han Lie up from the pile of clothes and set him in her palm.

Covered in scales and crowned with horns, Han Lie seemed not to have recovered from the shock of suddenly shrinking.

Or perhaps it was the discomfort after transforming. He sat in Qin Ying’s palm in a daze for a while.

“Are you all right?”

Now it was Qin Ying’s turn to look after him. She reached out a finger and gently rubbed the short, silvery-blue fuzz on the top of his head.

After beastification, Han Lie was much larger than when he was in human form-about the height of her index finger.

When Qin Ying leaned closer, she could even see his dazed, teardrop-shaped gray eyes.

As if frightened by Qin Ying’s face coming so close, the fur on Han Lie’s tail puffed out for an instant.

“S-Supreme Deity, I… this lowly one has been discourteous.”

The moment he spoke, Qin Ying knew his intelligence had fully returned.

Along with it, his restrained, proper facade had come back too.

Qin Ying felt a little regretful, and then said it out loud. “I liked you better the way you were before.”

Frank and sincere. A little foolish, yes, but so adorable.

Much better than this overly formal version in front of her.

She said, “Recover a bit.”

Han Lie sat stiffly, looking up at her.

Then he remembered his own shamelessly candid, foolish behavior, and also…

Qin Ying dressing him, prying open his mouth, and brushing his teeth for him.

Han Lie fought down the urge to raise his hands and cover his face. He switched to an obedient kneeling posture, and like a small hand warmer, he rapidly heated up in Qin Ying’s palm.

Even the black scales on his body faintly glowed red.

“Stop. You’re about to cook yourself.”

Feeling him growing a little too hot to hold, Qin Ying hurriedly stopped his temperature-rising behavior.

After quite a while, Han Lie stole a glance at her expression before finally saying in a low voice, “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized hesitantly.

“Stop.” Qin Ying called for a halt again, familiarly rubbing a finger against his forehead.

Her fingertip happened to pass between Han Lie’s two horns and pushed him until he tilted backward slightly.

“Don’t be so polite.”

If she were facing the adult-sized Han Lie, Qin Ying would never have done something like this.

But with him as this little figurine right now, it was honestly… impossible to see him as a man.

After beastification, Han Lie’s body temperature was always on the high side, making him a warm little bundle.

The newly grown short fuzz on his head was rubbed into a mess, and the tail behind him puffed up into a ball of fur again.

Qin Ying carried him to the window and drew back the curtains, revealing the bare front yard outside.

“You should know that this place isn’t actually some Divine Realm.”

“And I’m not some god either.”

Before she had even finished speaking, Han Lie, seated in her palm, anxiously refuted her. “You are.”

A god’s loyal sacrifice. That was Han Lie’s understanding of his own identity. It had never changed or wavered.

As Han Lie spoke, a red mark lit up on his chest like a totem.

He subconsciously touched his neck, but he didn’t feel the Wooden Bead he had worn there since childhood.

Qin Ying smiled and shook her head, no longer arguing with him over such a minor detail.

Then her expression suddenly turned serious. “I need your help.”

This was the first time they had spoken face-to-face like this, and Qin Ying felt it would be better to make some things clear.

She raised Han Lie to eye level. “You help me, and I’ll help you.”

As for what had happened to her when she was little…

Qin Ying didn’t know how she had left that white house, nor did she know what role her biological parents had played.

In her memories, after that couple divorced, they each took the arm of a new partner-one heading east, the other west. From then on, all contact had been cut off, and they had never appeared again.

The only thing Qin Ying could be sure of was that the organization that had done such things to her was definitely nothing good.
Human experimentation, using the deaths of young children as a stimulus.

Every part of it proved how vicious and unscrupulous this organization was.

Qin Ying had to protect herself. She had to obtain power from the Box, or rather, from the door she had temporarily gotten hold of.

She had to find a way to grasp the doorknob and open and close the door at will.

Han Lie raised his head to look at Qin Ying, his right hand pressed to his chest. “Of course. As long as it is your command.”

As their eyes met, something pawed at Qin Ying’s ankle.

She was wearing a summer tank top and shorts. When she looked down, she saw the Huodou Wangcai holding a dog plushie in its mouth, its expression awkward as it let out two low whimpers.

Smiling, Han Lie translated on its behalf. “Wangcai says it can reluctantly help too.”

The moment he finished speaking, the sofa cushions filled with the bleating of deer and the barking of dogs.

Han Lie stood up with the help of Qin Ying’s finger, his tail hanging naturally behind him. “Fuzhu and the Hou as well.”

A smile warmed Qin Ying’s eyes. She bent down and picked Wangcai up into the crook of her arm.

Then she lifted her hand, naturally letting Han Lie climb onto her shoulder. “Thank you, everyone.”

Like a brooch, Han Lie clung to the strap of her tank top on her left shoulder.

Wangcai barked at Qin Ying, begging for food.

Since it had behaved well, Qin Ying gave it an egg yolk wrapped in duck breast.

Wangcai crunched it up in two bites and swallowed it down in a rush.

Only then did Qin Ying remember something. “How’s that little blue bird?”

The Thunderbird that Qin Ying had once swatted away with a Fly Swatter had seen the Divine Shrine it guarded collapse and, furious, had come after Wangcai for revenge.

But in its Huodou form, Wangcai’s internal organs were all furnaces. It wasn’t afraid of electricity at all.

It had bitten the Thunderbird in return.

By the time they brought it out of the Box, the Thunderbird had nearly drowned in drool.

Qin Ying had asked Han Lie to put it inside the glass Fish Tank, turn it upside down on a non-conductive heat-insulating mat, and wait to decide what to do with it.

The little bird was troublesome and held grudges. It had nearly tormented the Sand People tribe into extinction.

It was not like Fuzhu. The electricity on its body could directly threaten Qin Ying’s safety.

Qin Ying thought that if it was too dangerous and could not be tamed, then it would be better to put it down humanely.

Hanging from her tank top, Han Lie replied, “It’s awake, but strangely enough, it hasn’t made any fuss at all.”

Han Lie was the kind of person who saw what needed to be done. Yesterday, he had sat cross-legged in front of Qin Ying’s door and kept watch all night.

Early that morning, he had fed every member of the household and cooked porridge for Qin Ying, who wasn’t feeling well.

Naturally, he had also checked on the little bird’s condition.

Qin Ying thought for a moment, then held a frying pan in her left hand and pinched off a small piece of Ham Sausage with her right before walking over to the Fish Tank where the Thunderbird was being kept.

If the Thunderbird chose the Ham Sausage, there was still room to talk. If it showed hostility, she didn’t mind ruthlessly killing a bird.

With this test in mind, Qin Ying carefully approached the Fish Tank.

Before she could take a closer look, purple-blue electric light crackled and exploded inside the Fish Tank.

Han Lie instantly perked up, alert, and Qin Ying tightened her grip on the frying pan.

Unexpectedly, in the next instant, she heard a few chirps.

A purple-blue mark in the shape of a bird’s wing passed through the Fish Tank.

Like a joyful little bird, it danced in front of Qin Ying.

“It just… submitted?”

Qin Ying hesitantly raised her hand, and the mark impatiently burrowed into her palm.

Along with a tingling numbness, several lines of ancient text appeared in her mind.

When she looked more closely inside the Fish Tank, the blue bird, reeking all over of puppy drool, was pressing its face against the glass and looking at Qin Ying.

When it saw the red mole at the corner of her eye, tears started falling pitifully.

Then it looked at… the half piece of Ham Sausage in her hand, and drool began dripping from its beak.

Qin Ying’s tense nerves relaxed, followed by a wave of speechlessness. “Why are all of you this greedy?”

Selling itself for a thumb-sized piece of Ham Sausage. It was no better than the Huodou.