Ye Yang’s thoughts raced. Recalling the moments before he lost consciousness, he immediately understood—Shen Ming must have saved him.
His mind was still groggy, but his mouth moved first: “It was my own carelessness. It’s not Professor Shen’s fault.”
Shen Ming looked over at once, but then quickly looked away.
Tu Manli turned and hurried over, her face full of concern. She pressed down on Ye Yang, who was trying to sit up. “You’re awake. Do you still feel unwell anywhere?”
Ye Yang grabbed Tu Manli’s hand. “Director Tu, Professor Shen saved me.”
Yu Bei looked utterly frustrated. “You’re in this state yourself, and you’re still worried about others. If it weren’t for Shen Ming’s negligence, how could you have been this seriously injured?”
“But Professor Shen still came in time to save me.”
Tu Manli almost laughed in exasperation. Her chest heaved sharply a few times, and her voice rose several pitches. “As your supervisor, he didn’t even pay the most basic attention to you. Do you know you were missing for two days and one night before anyone found out?”
Yu Bei chimed in as well. “And here I thought certain geniuses were so reliable. If I’d known, I really wouldn’t have let you come to this university.”
Ye Yang had left on Saturday. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon, near dusk, that he still hadn’t returned to his dorm. His roommates sensed something was wrong and contacted Tu Manli.
Tu Manli immediately tried to reach Shen Ming but couldn’t. Finally, she stormed straight to Shen Ming’s house. Only then did Shen Ming learn that Ye Yang had gone off on a mission alone.
He didn’t even have time to use the YCG teleportation array. He flew there directly, killed the spirit creature, and saved Ye Yang in less than ten minutes.
Because he was in such a hurry, he even forgot to conceal his tracks. Many people noticed the strange streamers of light in the sky, and the Crisis Management Department spent the better part of the day cleaning up after Shen Ming.
But even so, Ye Yang had been gravely injured. If it weren’t for his unique innate ability, any other yaoguai would have been dead for sure.
The two of them went on criticizing Shen Ming for quite a while. Ye Yang tried several times to defend Shen Ming but couldn’t get a word in.
Suddenly, Yu Bei shifted his target and pointed at Director Tu. “And I haven’t even talked about you yet. What’s wrong with you? Giving my kid such a difficult mission? How was he supposed to beat something that’s thousands of years old??”
Tu Manli was speechless for a moment. She stammered for a while before finally saying, “Well… I never expected the mission info to be wrong.” Guilty, her voice dropped considerably.
Yu Bei let out a frustrated sigh and didn’t say anything more. It was true that they couldn’t blame Tu Manli entirely. YCG’s intelligence was usually accurate. A mistake like this hadn’t happened in decades. No one could have predicted it.
Ye Yang was just unlucky.
Finally able to interject, Ye Yang noticed that Professor Yu and Director Tu had stopped grumbling about Shen Ming. Tactfully, he skipped that topic and asked about something else. “Um, what exactly happened with my mission?”
Tu Manli’s face was full of guilt. She turned away, unable to look Ye Yang in the eye. “Well… how should I put this? It was an internal work error, so it won’t count as a mission failure.”
Ye Yang’s eyes widened. “So it counts as a success? I can still get the mission reward?”
Yu Bei stared at Tu Manli and said in a dark tone, “Not just the mission reward, but also compensation for emotional distress. Right, Director Tu?”
Tu Manli gritted her teeth. “Of course.”
Ye Yang was happy for a moment, then suddenly shook his dizzy head hard. “No, no, that’s not what I meant.”
“What I want to know is, what was that spirit creature? And then that other spirit that appeared later—it seemed to be the spirit of a human deceased. She looked like she had some connection to the out-of-control spirit creature. Also, there was a family with the surname Teng in the village. They might be connected too.”
Shen Ming finally spoke. “The out-of-control spirit creature was likely a local mountain deity that degenerated into a spirit creature and lost its sanity due to centuries of losing offerings and faith. The reason it had never been discovered before, I suspect, is that someone had been worshipping it privately for a period of time.”
He paused for a moment, then added, “These are just my guesses.” At the time, he was focused on saving Ye Yang and only glanced briefly at the scene. But even a single glance from Xuanwu could see through many things.
Ye Yang looked remorseful. “So that’s how it was. I made a mistake. I knew that household might have been problematic, but instead of investigating, I went straight to the incident site. I ended up trapped there and got no useful information at all.”
Yu Bei wanted to pat Ye Yang on the forehead but stopped mid-motion and instead gently tapped his temple. “What are you thinking? It was your first mission. It shouldn’t have been this hard in the first place, and you should have had guidance and protection from someone else. You were all alone, facing such a powerful enemy on your very first mission. The fact that you did as well as you did is already excellent.”
Shen Ming lowered his head even further, staring at his hands, lost in thought.
Tu Manli straightened her expression and nodded. “We’re very concerned about these matters as well. We’ve already sent people to investigate. There should be results in the next few days. Don’t worry—we won’t let wrongdoers go free, nor will we wrongly accuse any innocent person.”
The hospital room door suddenly opened, and a small voice rang out. “Alright, stop delaying the patient’s rest. Everyone out.”
Ye Yang craned his neck, looking left and right. Finally, he spotted a petite girl standing in the doorway. She looked about 1.4 meters tall, with a small face and extremely large eyes. Her hair was simply tied in a taiji bun, and the lower half of her face was buried in the thick collar of her clothes.
It wasn’t even October yet. Dressed so warmly?
Yu Bei stepped aside. “We’re going now.”
She turned back to look at the bewildered Ye Yang. “This is Wu Rong, a descendant of Wu Peng. You know who Wu Peng is, don’t you? She’s been taking care of you the past few days while you were unconscious.”
Ye Yang nodded. Wu Peng was a divine physician from ancient times. As Wu Peng’s descendant, Wu Rong’s medical skills were surely exceptional.
Watching Wu Rong squeeze past the others to the hospital bed, Ye Yang whispered, “Thank you.”
Wu Rong gave a nearly imperceptible nod and began to take his pulse, but the half of her ear visible above her collar had turned bright red.
Ye Yang’s antennae twitched. He found it curious—this doctor was really shy.
Although Wu Rong was small, spoke little, and was easy to overlook, her medical skills were undeniable. Despite Ye Yang’s severe injuries, in just three days, they had already mostly healed.
Her witchcraft, combined with spiritual medicines, had reduced the pain of his comminuted leg fracture to a dull ache. Both his arms were now fully mobile. Only the internal injuries from excessive mana consumption and life-force depletion remained, requiring further rest.
After taking his pulse, Wu Rong instructed, “You’re recovering very well. But if you don’t want chronic headaches, you must not sustain any further injuries this month.”
After Wu Rong left, Ye Yang was alone in the hospital room.
Yu Bei and Tu Manli had left long ago. Shen Ming had also slipped away silently after Wu Rong confirmed Ye Yang was out of danger.
The room was quiet. Ye Yang moved his fully healed arms a couple of times, still amazed. “Only three days? Her medical skills are incredible—practically supernatural.”
·
Professor Shen really is angry, isn’t he?
Ye Yang pursed his lips and silently followed Shen Ming home.
He had stayed another day after waking up at the YCG hospital. Today, he was finally being discharged.
Shen Ming had come to pick him up.
This injury had finally made Ye Yang understand that, even if they weren’t in the same household registry, Shen Ming was effectively his guardian.
Along the way, anyone with eyes could see that Professor Shen was in a very low mood, emanating coldness.
He hardly spoke. Ye Yang tried several times to start a conversation, but without Spirit Snake around, he didn’t know what to talk to Shen Ming about.
Finally, when they reached a deserted spot, Ye Yang took a deep breath, gave up on awkward small talk, and began to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Professor Shen. I’m not strong enough. I’ll work harder in the future. I won’t hold you back or waste your time—”
Shen Ming had been silent the whole way, but at this, he couldn’t help interrupting. “Why did you go off to do a mission by yourself?” He had been blaming himself and worrying for so long, and this kid thought he was angry about wasting his time?
“I sent you enough money for both our plane tickets, along with our ID information. And you went alone?”
“What ID information—” Ye Yang started to ask in confusion, but before he finished, he suddenly remembered something. He pulled out his phone and opened Alipay.
Tapping on the red notification dot for 99+ unread messages, he found Shen Ming’s chat. Sure enough, shortly after the transfer notification, Shen Ming had sent another message containing his ID number and other information.
He rarely checked Alipay messages anyway, and at the time, he had just received a call from Director Tu. It was just his bad luck that he missed it.
Shen Ming caught a glimpse of that 99+ red dot and closed his eyes, reluctantly accepting the explanation. But then: “That spirit creature was extremely powerful. Why didn’t you run? Why did you keep the barrier up to trap it?”
Ye Yang answered without thinking: “She was so strong. What if I ran and she went after other humans instead?”
Shen Ming was even more frustrated. “Then why didn’t you think to contact me?” He suspected that Ye Yang either didn’t truly see him as his supervisor, or didn’t understand what a supervisor was for.
They were supposed to share everything, to be close comrades-in-arms.
Shen Ming had thought he would be the one to struggle adjusting to this new relationship. But in reality, Ye Yang—who got along with everyone, who was easygoing and easily fooled—turned out to be the more independent one. Who was the socially anxious recluse here, really?!
Ye Yang was stunned. “I… I don’t know.”
Neither of them spoke another word until they returned to the apartment.
Late at night, Ye Yang lay in bed, unable to fall asleep.
He kept thinking about what Shen Ming had said.
He had always thought Shen Ming disliked trouble and didn’t want too much interaction with others. He also thought there was nothing wrong with trying not to disturb Shen Ming.
But Shen Ming’s sudden anger proved he had been wrong all along.
Suddenly, he felt very sad. He had wanted to build a good relationship with Professor Shen, but now it seemed he had completely messed up.
If Professor Shen no longer wanted to be his supervisor, would he have to drop out?
As Ye Yang tossed and turned, Shen Ming was also locked in a battle with himself.
Spirit Snake tried to sneak across while Shen Ming slept, to go comfort the little bunny. But Shen Ming couldn’t sleep at all. He noticed Spirit Snake’s sneaky movements immediately and grabbed it.
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