Chapter 1089: Want to Gouge Out My Big Son?
Zhong Yingxue smiled sweetly: (∗❛ั◡❛ั) "Sweet date filling, it's delicious!"
Upon hearing it was tasty, Fatty Orange's ears perked right up. It charged forward in a flash, stuck its head into the pot, grabbed a zongzi, and ran off!
Then it opened its mouth and bit down!
Making a face of disgust: "Mm~ Ptooey, ptooey! What's so good about this? It's prickly!"
Everyone in the command room burst out laughing at Fatty Orange.
It hadn't even peeled off the reed leaves, just took a bite right through, eating both leaves and sticky rice together!
Jiangnan barely held back his laughter.
(⑉ԾжԾ) "You have to peel it first. The outer layer isn't edible."
With that, he picked up a zongzi, peeled off the leaves, revealing the white, plump sticky rice ball.
Fatty Orange's expression stiffened, its face reddened a bit as it pouted.
(乛ε乛٥) "Hmph! I... I'm a Dao Heaven Beast. How could I not know something so simple?"
"I just wanted to taste what the leaves were like!"
Jiangnan grinned mischievously.
(๑¯ิ▿¯ิ) "You sure aren't picky about food. No wonder you're so fat!"
[Fatty Orange's resentment +1000!]
"Say that again? Believe I'll scratch you clean?"
With that, it rushed over, trying to grab the peeled zongzi from Jiangnan's hand.
How could Jiangnan let that happen? He was about to stuff the zongzi into his mouth.
But just then, Zhong Yingxue dashed over and snatched the zongzi from Jiangnan's hand!
"You don't get to eat this one! I'll eat it! Here, you take this one!"
She pulled a zongzi tied with a bow from under the basin and shoved it into Jiangnan's hand—a special mark. All the others were tied with simple slipknots.
Jiangnan was puzzled. Weren't all the zongzi the same?
Seeing his confusion, Zhong Yingxue said nothing, just sat to the side eating her zongzi with evasive eyes, her earlobes red.
(๑ŏ﹏ŏ)
Xia Yao looked at Zhong Yingxue, her big eyes curving into crescent moons, and gave a little sniff.
(˵ಡ•.̮•ಡ) "Sniff sniff~ Oh ho ho? Smells like dog food!"
As Jiangnan peeled his zongzi, he gave Xia Yao a thumbs up.
"Got to hand it to you—you can tell your own rice just by the smell!"
Xia Yao ground her teeth: (๑•̀皿•́)و "Pfft! I'm a wolf! A wolf!"
[Xia Yao's resentment +666!]
Jiangnan took a big bite of the zongzi and froze.
The sweet date filling inside was actually shaped like a heart!
(๑•︠ﾛ•︡)つ₍♡)
Seeing Jiangnan's stunned expression, Zhong Yingxue fidgeted with her fingers, her face even redder.
(⑉Ծ﹏Ծ)
Xia Yao leaned in curiously: "Wow~ There's a little heart in the zongzi. Must be super sweet, right? Xuexue's heart-shaped zongzi? Hehehe~"
Zhong Yingxue's face flushed crimson. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she avoided eye contact.
˚‧º·(๑◔﹏◔ิ๑)‧º·˚ "Eh? What... what a coincidence? I just put the filling in, and somehow it turned into a heart shape. So... so strange!"
"Ah ha~ Ah haha~"
Xiong Er widened his eyes: (˵☉㉨☉) "Sigh! No wonder my Nan Ge's luck is amazing! Eating a zongzi and getting a heart-shaped filling!"
"Ours are all round!"
Wu Liang slapped Xiong Er on the head.
(ꐦಠ(エ)ಠ) "What do you know? That's Xue Jie's embarrassed excuse! Obviously she specially made it for Nan Ge!"
"Didn't you see she marked it? Now that you said it, you're just making Xue Jie more awkward!"
Zhong Yingxue: !!!
Only you get it! If you know, keep it to yourself! Don't say it out loud!
That makes me even more embarrassed, okay?
Everyone present looked at Zhong Yingxue and Jiangnan with knowing grins.
Jiangnan ate the heart-shaped zongzi in one big bite, his face beaming with a bright smile.
No wonder Xuexue was so eager to make zongzi—she was preparing a little surprise for him!
This was too sweet! Jiangnan's little heart was melting.
(ૢ⁼̴ꇴ⁼̴)ㅅ "Ah~ I'm dying of sweetness! It's sweet all the way to my heart. Xuexue is so good! Da Lang Mie, you should learn from her?"
Zhong Yingxue blushed and fidgeted with her fingers, smiling beautifully.
Xia Yao ground her teeth. She took the zongzi she had bitten into and squeezed it into a heart-shaped rice ball.
Then she shoved it straight into Jiangnan's mouth!
(*ᵒ̌◠ᵒ̌)つෆ(꒪ͦ口꒪ͦ‖)
"Bullying me because I can't cook, huh? Choke to death! Eat it!"
Jiangnan was so stuffed he could only roll his eyes, struggling wildly. Everyone couldn't help laughing.
Even though they were celebrating the festival at the main base, the atmosphere was warm.
But suddenly, Zi Yuan jolted awake from the table, raising her head so forcefully that her chair tipped backward, sending her sprawling on the floor on her back.
Everyone was startled. What happened?
Did Zi Yuan Jie have another nightmare?
Zi Yuan scrambled up from the floor, looking frantic.
"Tomorrow night at eight thirty! 066 will be attacked. Qingteng dies, its spirit pearl gouged out!"
"This... this is too bizarre!"
Everyone's expression turned serious. Everyone knew the abilities of Tiancong Qingteng.
Who had the skill to dig out Qingteng's spirit pearl?
Zi Yuan's dreams had always been extremely accurate. If not for her, they wouldn't have been able to evacuate and prepare defenses in advance during this recent Lingxu outbreak.
Yang Jian's face grew grim: "Is there a way to prevent it? Qingteng is the key to suppressing the No Man's Land. If something happens..."
Jiangnan glared: "Who dares gouge out my big son's spirit pearl?"
Zi Yuan frowned deeply: "It's almost impossible to guard against. No one knows who did it. By the time they realized, Qingteng was already dead."
Nobody wasted time. They quickly called Liu Mang over to project the dream.
In the dream, all the Qingteng in the No Man's Land had withered. Li Bing anxiously peeled open the main vine and found the spirit pearl had vanished without a trace.
Her eyes filled with pain: "How could this happen!"
Without Qingteng's suppression, a massive number of spirit beasts would flood out, causing incalculable damage.
And on the horizon, a dazzling blue light burst forth. The dream ended there.
Jiangnan's heart clenched violently.
"Holy Star made a move!"
In the war command room, Jiang Ning's figure slowly materialized, her ice-blue long hair flowing.
She looked at Zi Yuan with surprise, as if unable to understand how Zi Yuan could even dream about a high-dimensional being like a Bose Body.
Jiang Ning grabbed a zongzi and chewed: "That blue light is Bose light. Being able to dig out Tiancong Qingteng's spirit pearl without anyone noticing—only a Bose Body could do that."
"It must be one of Holy Star's Bose Bodies. The Bose light was intense, so there must have been a fight."
"The only one in Hua Xia capable of blocking a Bose Body is Li Mingshan. Xiao Nan isn't enough yet."
"But Li Mingshan is in the Void Sea, so... probably a Holy Star Bose Body came to take the pearl, got discovered by me, and then we fought."
Yang Jian's face darkened: "Hua Xia was the first to suppress the spirit calamity, which makes it too conspicuous. As the saying goes, 'the tallest tree catches the wind.'"
"So Holy Star's Bose Body made its move?"
Li Mingshan had originally been part of Holy Star. Asking him to defend against a Bose Body was unrealistic.
Besides, he couldn't leave the Void Sea.
Bose Bodies were elusive, even more troublesome than Space System users. There was simply no way to defend against them.
"If it were Jiang Ning..."
Before he could finish, Jiang Ning interrupted.
"I'm very weak, just a lower clan. To be a Holy Envoy, an upper clan is the minimum. If Holy Star really wants to go after Qingteng, I can't stop them."
She touched her crystal horn, looking somewhat helpless.
Everyone shivered. Jiang Ning was equivalent to Dao Heaven level in strength!
And she was still weak?
Then was there anyone in this room who could actually fight?
Jiangnan grinned: "Don't go head-to-head with Holy Star. We're not qualified yet."
"Since we know in advance that Holy Star is going after Qingteng, it's easy. After all, Zi Yuan Jie holds the script."
Wang Dalei was stunned: "What do we do? We can't defend against a Bose Body."
Jiangnan snickered: "Defend? No need to defend. Let them come."
"Remember, act like you don't know anything. Tomorrow at eight thirty, just wait for it."
"As long as we survive this wave, then the Western Frontier will be stable."
Everyone listened with confused expressions. That confident?
This was a direct attack from Holy Star!
Even Jiang Ning looked puzzled, not knowing what trick Jiangnan was playing.
After finishing the zongzi, Jiangnan and the group quickly rode the giant rhino to 066.
At the edge of the outpost, the main plant of Qingteng, over a thousand meters tall, stood gracefully in the wind.
Every time they saw it, they were awestruck.
Sensing its godfather's arrival, Qingteng lowered a vine, rubbing affectionately against Jiangnan's cheek.
Jiangnan patted Qingteng, grinning broadly: "My good big son! Your godfather is here, you hear? I definitely won't let anyone gouge you."
Even though Jiangnan said he would handle it, Yang Jian still wasn't at ease.
He transferred Wang Dalei and Chen Daoyi here as a precaution.
...
Meanwhile, on the permafrost plains of E Guo.
The spirit beast chaos hadn't improved much since the initial outbreak.
E Guo's spirit martial forces were still locked in fierce battle with the spirit calamity.
Deep in the plains, huge craters dotted the landscape—clearly, even radiation-free hydrogen bombs had been used to fight the calamity.
And deep beneath the frozen soil, there was a Lingxu that had always been sealed.
No one knew another Lingxu existed here.
Inside the Lingxu, a world of ice and snow, ice mountains floated in the air.
Corpses of spirit beasts littered the ground. The body of a giant mammoth snow elephant was frozen stiff, still emitting faint spatial fluctuations.
At the deepest part of the frozen Lingxu was a star palace made entirely of blue ice.
At the end of the star palace was a blue ice wall, inlaid with an enormous star gate.
Made of crystal, engraved with extremely complex runes.
It was a full kilometer in diameter!
Compared to the one Jiangnan kept in his pocket, the difference was like a bracelet versus a hula hoop.
And it was a complete star gate.
Igor stood in his white robes in the blue ice star palace, gazing up at the star gate.
His aura fluctuated unevenly, exhaustion evident in his eyes.
At his feet lay a white bear over a hundred meters long, frozen into an ice sculpture, broken into several pieces.
Even in death, the spatial fluctuations around it remained strong.
Igor held a blood-stained spirit pearl in his hand...
—
Author's note: