Chapter 113: A Special Time

“A Xi, if you’re sick, you need to get treated properly. You can’t act like a little kid. I promise it won’t hurt—just close your eyes, open them again, and it’ll all be over!” Nian Zhi’an’s fluffy head was stuck between the bars of the cage. At that moment, she was inside the cage while Zuo Yuanxi sat outside, sipping tea.

It was precisely because she did not want treatment that her wife had tricked her into the cage. Although they still slept in the same room, with the cage between them—one inside and one outside—in Nian Zhi’an’s heart, it was no different from living apart! Her wife was right there in front of her, yet she could not even touch her. How utterly miserable she was, this poor little Pallas’s cat!

The Pallas’s cat clutched the cage bars with both paws and said in a pitiful tone, “A Xi, avoiding treatment is no good. Only active treatment will lead to recovery.”

Zuo Yuanxi took a bite of a tea snack while playing on her phone. After listening to Nian Zhi’an ramble on for so long, she finally looked up. Then she poured a cup of tea and placed it inside the cage. “Thirsty? Have some.”

Nian Zhi’an glanced at the teacup, then at Zuo Yuanxi. She sighed and shifted back to her human form. She picked up the teacup and took a sip. After advising her for so long, she really was a bit thirsty. After moistening her throat, she prepared to press on, but Zuo Yuanxi had already anticipated her next move. She directly stuffed a small piece of cake into her mouth, cutting off her endless chatter.

It was strawberry-flavored and tasted quite nice.

Nian Zhi’an instinctively stuck out her tongue and licked the cream off Zuo Yuanxi’s finger. Probably because she had gotten used to being a Pallas’s cat, she did not think there was anything wrong with it.

Zuo Yuanxi’s hand trembled slightly, and she quickly pulled it back.

She let out a subtle breath, but this silly little Pallas’s cat still had no self-awareness at all. She even looked at her with those clear, foolish eyes—not only unashamed, but even trying to get her to feed another piece.

Sigh…

The merperson sighed silently in her heart.

What could she do? It was the Pallas’s cat she had raised herself—she would just have to indulge her.

Zuo Yuanxi helplessly fed Nian Zhi’an another piece of cake.

Nian Zhi’an also noticed that her wife’s gaze was a bit strange, different from usual. There was a gentleness mixed with an indescribable feeling. These days, Zuo Yuanxi had been listless overall, her speech carrying the laziness of someone who had just woken up, with an added touch of allure. It had left Nian Zhi’an secretly cursing herself as a beast for having impure thoughts about her wife, who was still recovering from her injuries. However, she had always attributed Zuo Yuanxi’s poor spirits during this time to the recurring damage to her soul, so she had not thought otherwise.

After eating and drinking her fill, Nian Zhi’an remembered the main issue again. She continued to persuade Zuo Yuanxi to accept treatment proactively. She had already used the system’s simulator to run through the treatment method countless times—it was absolutely safe and reliable. Otherwise, with that ticking time bomb inside her wife unremoved, she would never sleep soundly.

“Not during this time. We’ll talk about it later,” Zuo Yuanxi said, trotting out her usual excuse to brush off Nian Zhi’an.

But when Nian Zhi’an pressed for the reason, Zuo Yuanxi refused to say.

“As long as you use spiritual power or divine sense, the injury will act up. Wait a while longer, and your condition might worsen, making the current treatment ineffective.” Nian Zhi’an advised her earnestly, but her wife was like a rebellious teenager who simply refused.

Could it be because she might see her past memories during the treatment, and she was unwilling?

At that moment, the system chimed in with another notification.

【Host, I’ve detected some instability in Zuo Yuanxi’s recent emotions. I’m worried it’s due to the backlash’s influence. I suggest proceeding with treatment as soon as possible.】

Nian Zhi’an gritted her teeth and stomped her foot, deciding to use all her acting skills to trick her wife into her golden cage. Once she got her inside, everything else would be under her control.

After stewing for two more days and praying eighty-one times that she would not get beaten to death, Nian Zhi’an finally began her performance.

Truth be told, she had never been an actor and had no idea if she could fool Zuo Yuanxi—who was, after all, the real expert at mind games.

But there was a saying: when you care, you get flustered. Even though Zuo Yuanxi had sensed something off the moment she picked up Nian Zhi’an, it was already too late by then.

Before losing consciousness, Zuo Yuanxi let out a faint sigh—not for herself, but for this certain Pallas’s cat that insisted on stepping into danger and even raising the difficulty for her.

A Fu had also sensed something. She hoped she would prepare early.

With their souls connected, Nian Zhi’an began removing the pathological lesions from Zuo Yuanxi.

Worried that her wife did not want her to see her past memories, she had even specifically asked the system to block them. Hey, how thoughtful of her!

Even in her comatose state, Zuo Yuanxi could feel a very warm soul mass leaning against her. Then, fragments of her past experiences began flashing uncontrollably before her eyes.

Zuo Yuanxi had already been warned about what might happen during treatment. But amid these swirling memories, she suddenly noticed a segment of unfamiliar memory—one that should not belong to her—mixed in, and it was growing more numerous.

She reached out and extracted all of them. Then those memories coalesced into a human form. She wore a blood-red dress and had a face identical to Zuo Yuanxi’s, but with an added ferocity and madness she lacked, along with an extreme grief buried even deeper.

Once, she had thought this was one of the illusions created by the secret technique’s backlash. It was not until a few months ago that she realized it was no illusion, but… her past self.

Zuo Yuanxi reached out to her. The other’s blood-red eyes, as if dripping blood, stared fixedly at one spot. After a long while, she withdrew her gaze and placed her hand in Zuo Yuanxi’s palm.

“Protect her well.” Her final words echoed in Zuo Yuanxi’s mind. The woman in the red dress vanished, dissolving into countless strands of cold mist that merged into Zuo Yuanxi’s body.

“Mm…”

She endured the intense pain to stabilize her soul, lest she burden Nian Zhi’an.

Nian Zhi’an had located the lesion and was dismantling the true phantom into pieces. The phantom’s screams seemed capable of piercing eardrums, transmitted directly through their consciousness, impossible to avoid.

Nian Zhi’an did not waste words with it. She simply smashed it with a few punches, forcing it to shut up.

“A Xi, I’m done on my end. Do exactly as I told you, and we can definitely eliminate it.” After beating the phantom until it could not move, Nian Zhi’an wiped the nonexistent sweat from her forehead and breathed a sigh of relief.

“You want to eliminate me? Naive…” The phantom mocked her, but before it could finish, its voice cut off as if strangled. Panic flickered inexplicably in its eyes, and its corporeal form vanished in an instant, as if deleted with one click.

Her wife was truly amazing!

Afterward, Nian Zhi’an buried a spirit pellet—one she had painstakingly refined after many failures—in the damaged area of Zuo Yuanxi’s soul. Then she returned to her own body.

“A Xi, wake up.” Nian Zhi’an shook Zuo Yuanxi. The treatment had gone smoothly so far, but the next step required her wife to wake up and handle it herself.

But just then, something unexpected happened. No matter how Nian Zhi’an called to her, Zuo Yuanxi kept her eyes tightly shut. Even in her coma, her brows remained furrowed with a hint of pain.

Nian Zhi’an’s expression tightened. She immediately sent her soul back into Zuo Yuanxi’s body, sensed her soul, and guided her wife in refining the spirit pellet buried deep within her soul.

Perhaps because that spirit pellet—which had cost Nian Zhi’an so much effort—finally took effect, the pained look on Zuo Yuanxi’s face gradually faded. In Nian Zhi’an’s arms, she looked just like she was peacefully asleep.

Nian Zhi’an had expended a great deal of power. At that moment, as she held her wife while sitting on the ground, she did not even have the strength to carry her to the bed.

“Wife, when you wake up, go easy on me when you hit me, okay?” Nian Zhi’an muttered self-aware babble into Zuo Yuanxi’s ear, as if it could soften her heart upon waking.

“Hit you?”

Nian Zhi’an heard the voice and instinctively looked down, only to meet a pair of blood-red eyes.

The emotions in those eyes were crystal clear: Hit you? No—I want to eat you even more.

Alarms blared in Nian Zhi’an’s mind. Her wife in this red-eyed state was even more terrifying. Before, she had not only beaten her but nearly given her a heart-piercing treatment.

“A Xi, I drew out the power that was backlashing you. You’ll be a bit affected over the next few days—no problem. As long as you hold fast to your true heart, the influence will pass quickly… Ah!” Nian Zhi’an suddenly felt the world spin. She had been pinned beneath her red-eyed wife.

Her wife’s silvery earfins had emerged, incredibly beautiful, just like her tail—radiant as moonlight.

“An’an, I told you not to treat me for now. Why won’t you listen?” Zuo Yuanxi’s voice was softer than ever, her eyes brimming with seductive charm like rippling water. As she spoke, she even nibbled on her earlobe.

“Mm… A Xi, w-what’s wrong with you?” Her wife’s usually cool body was now exceptionally hot. Before Nian Zhi’an could react, she suddenly heard the system’s startled exclamation.

【This can’t be—no, it can’t be the Merman Clan’s mating period, right?!】 The Little System had carefully read through this world’s settings, so it reacted the fastest.

Nian Zhi’an was stunned for a moment. Then she immediately shut the system into the Little Black Room.

The last time she had come to this world, she had been afraid it would affect her mission, so she had simply ordered the system disposed of. As a result, she had almost forgotten this world even had such a setting.

“A Xi…” Nian Zhi’an reached out and wrapped her arms around Zuo Yuanxi’s neck. “Has… that special time arrived?”

Zuo Yuanxi said nothing, tacitly agreeing.

Nian Zhi’an let out a sigh of relief. So her wife’s odd behavior was because of this. Good, that was a relief—as long as it wasn’t a problem with the treatment.

“You… if you still can’t accept it, I can wait.” Zuo Yuanxi pinned her prey beneath her body. She was already on the verge of losing the last shred of reason that would let her pull away, but she still gave Nian Zhi’an one final chance to back out.

But Nian Zhi’an had been holding back for far too long. As if she could say she didn’t want her wife! She grabbed Zuo Yuanxi and kissed her fiercely.

“It’s my fault. I was right there beside you, yet I let my wife endure it all alone for so long. Don’t worry—leave it to me. I’ll take care of you.” Nian Zhi’an sounded just like a shameless rogue flirting with her own wife. She figured that with the experience of two lifetimes, she had to be better in bed than this world’s version of her wife.

But she overlooked the merfolk’s eyes, which had shifted into vertical pupils. When members of the Demon Clan entered this period, they all carried some measure of beastly instinct to varying degrees—and it usually lasted more than just a day.