“Remember who you are—you’re its mom!” Li Zirong gently stroked the ball with practiced ease. Fang Chang watched for a long moment before finally realizing what was going on.
“That’s my child! Are you petting a cat?”
Li Zirong reined in her excitement and said softly, “But it really likes this. It’s enjoying itself.”
The ball made a cheerful, burbling sound.
Fang Chang watched enviously. “Quick! Let me out! I want to see my child!”
Li Zirong released the restraints around Fang Chang. Fang Chang immediately scrambled to her feet, but the moment she stood on the iron bed, she realized something was wrong!
Why was the height of this bird’s-eye view so strange?!
And if she was standing on the bed, why was she at eye level with Li Zirong?
When she jumped off the iron bed, that feeling reached its peak.
She used to have to look up at Li Zirong. Now, all she could see was her chin.
And when she looked down, why was the floor so close? Why had her feet gotten smaller, too?
Wait!
She could actually see her feet!
She slowly lifted her head and saw Li Zirong blissfully stroking the soft, round Qiu’er in her arms. Then, word by word, she asked, “What happened to me?!”
“It devoured you and turned you into a little girl,” Li Zirong said, bouncing Qiu’er gently. Her smile was tender, but Fang Chang could read the long-awaited payback in it. “You’re 147 centimeters tall. Heh-heh-heh. Three centimeters shorter than me.”
Fang Chang fell silent.
Was being three centimeters taller than me really something to be so happy about?
So you really are only 1.5 meters tall!
Fang Chang said earnestly, “I used to be taller.”
Li Zirong didn’t care. “I can be taller sometimes, too!”
Fang Chang decided not to keep arguing with Li Zirong about it. She clearly had a deep-seated grudge over this, and now that she finally had someone she could look down on, there was no way she’d back down.
“Forget it. Come here, let me hold the ball… I mean, my child.”
Though Fang Chang felt an inexplicable connection to it, she still found it hard to think of it as her own child.
It didn’t even have a nose or eyes. How could she tell whether it looked like her?
It felt like Lu Nongxi’s breasts to the touch—exceptionally soft. And with their skin pressed together, that feeling grew even stronger. Qiu’er was very attached to Fang Chang, and Fang Chang felt a powerful bond with it, too.
Was this what maternal instinct felt like?
When Li Zirong saw that Qiu’er didn’t need Fang Chang to coax it at all and was already rubbing against her, she couldn’t help feeling a little put out. “You’re so busy looking at the baby—aren’t you going to look at your wife?”
Fang Chang turned around. Lu Nongxi was still asleep, curled into a soft, pale little bundle. She looked inexplicably adorable.
But the moment Fang Chang looked at her, something stirred inside. It seemed that she and Lu Nongxi had formed some kind of connection, just like Qiu’er.
Looking at Lu Nongxi, Fang Chang couldn’t bear to leave her there. She walked over, holding Qiu’er in one arm and wrapping the other around Lu Nongxi. Then she asked, “What happened to her?”
Li Zirong answered casually, “You drained her dry, of course! Oh, right. Want me to help you get her onto the bed? You can’t manage with one hand. Hand me the perfect… I mean, the baby?”
Fang Chang shook her head. “I keep feeling like you’re hiding something. Come to think of it, ever since I met you, one thing after another has caught me by surprise. Whatever. As long as I can get stronger, that’s what matters. And it’s not like there’s no way for me to get my male body back, so I’ll forgive you.”
Li Zirong hadn’t expected that at all, and looked a little awkward.
But Fang Chang paid her no further attention. She gathered Qiu’er and Lu Nongxi into her arms at once, feeling their closeness and a sadness at having to part welling in her heart.
Her time for the mission was almost up.
[Countdown: 00:00:03:59]
Less than five minutes.
“You’d better remember this: I’m your dad, and she’s your mom!” Fang Chang patted Qiu’er and spoke in the same scolding tone her own dad used with her. “Your dad’s going somewhere far away now. I have no choice—it’s not that I’m abandoning you. Daddy loves you!”
She gave each of them a little kiss.
Li Zirong realized why Fang Chang’s tone had changed so suddenly. “You’re leaving?”
“I checked just now. My time’s almost up.”
Li Zirong couldn’t bear to see her go. Her conscience and her obsession were at war, and she hesitated. “Actually…”
Fang Chang cut her off. “Oh, right. I’m leaving the child in your care. You’re its godmother! I can tell you really like it, so you won’t say no, right?”
In the end, her obsession won out. She changed tack and replied, “I really do like it.”
“Oh, right. What were you going to say just now?”
Li Zirong paused for the briefest moment, then smiled. “I was going to ask you to leave behind the zombie Mother Nest’s body. It needs a huge amount of food to grow, and the zombie Mother Nest would be perfect.”
Fang Chang glanced at the time remaining on the mission panel, her voice turning urgent. “Do you have anything to store it in? I’ve only got one minute left!”
Li Zirong waved her hand, and the room around them was swiftly replaced by a dark space. Fang Chang was startled by her spatial powers, but she moved even faster, opening her inventory and taking out half of the zombie Mother Nest’s body.
“Senior, please take good care of them!”
Li Zirong’s heart stirred. At last, her conscience got the better of her. “Actually, earlier, I…”
She still didn’t finish.
The moment she began to speak, Fang Chang’s body started to fade. After a few more words, Fang Chang had vanished.
In the end, the words her conscience had prompted her to say were spoken to empty air: “…I lied to you…”
The three words echoed through the hollow darkness and drifted into the distance. But the person who should have heard them was already gone.
The darkness receded, and in the blink of an eye, the world changed around them. They were back in the lab—but from now on, there would always be one person missing.
Li Zirong picked up Qiu’er, but it missed Lu Nongxi’s scent and kept wobbling, making displeased splashing sounds.
With no other choice, Li Zirong set Qiu’er down on Lu Nongxi, then picked Lu Nongxi up.
She left the room and gently laid Lu Nongxi on the soft bed she’d prepared. Then she picked up Qiu’er. “Your mom’s going to rest here. Don’t disturb her, and remember your mission.”
“Glug-glug…”
A burbling sound answered from inside Qiu’er. It rolled reluctantly beside Lu Nongxi, then settled into Li Zirong’s arms of its own accord.
“You’re the perfect virus, the savior of this world. Everything I’ve done has been to save it. Fang Chang’s feelings are just one more sacrifice for the sake of the world. I’m sure she’ll understand, too!”
She put Qiu’er into the cultivation pod and, as promised, taught it all kinds of things.
As she watched Qiu’er’s body flash with light again and again inside the pod, she couldn’t help thinking of Fang Chang, whom she’d subjected to all kinds of crazy experiments without ever getting an extreme reaction.
“…I’m sorry.”
