Bai Chunian inherited part of Lan Bo’s purification ability within his body, but it could only keep the infection agent inside the bullet from spreading.
Lan Bo held his tongue between two fingers, keeping his mouth slightly open so his sharp teeth bit into his own knuckles, preventing him from injuring himself due to pain. With his other hand, he inserted two fingers into the bleeding bullet wound and extracted the bullet.
Bai Chunian stiffened in pain, his body locked tight as he involuntarily bit down harder on Lan Bo’s knuckle.
“It’s out. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Lan Bo’s fingers had been pierced by his canines, thin strands of blood seeping out and dripping onto the tip of Bai Chunian’s tongue, mixing with transparent saliva as it slid down the corner of his mouth that couldn’t fully close.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s fine now.” Lan Bo kept soothing him softly, but his fingertips once again slipped into the still-bleeding bullet wound, curling slightly to scrape out the remaining traces of infectious toxin embedded in the flesh.
The unbearable pain made Bai Chunian tremble uncontrollably. His bloodshot eyes were filled with dense red veins, tears involuntarily seeping from his tear ducts and blurring his vision.
“It’s done. Cleaned out.” Lan Bo finally withdrew his fingers and took out medical bandages from his gear bag, wrapping them around Bai Chunian several times to support the wound as it began to heal.
“Damn… that really did it. Hurts like hell.” Bai Chunian was completely exhausted. He buried his face in Lan Bo’s shoulder, his full body weight slumping onto him as he panted weakly and slowly recovered his strength.
Lan Bo wrapped an arm around him to keep him from falling off the beam, gently patting his back while releasing calming pheromones. Only then did he notice Bai Chunian’s blood still clinging to his right hand.
He lifted his hand and studied it. Bright red blood flowed along his fingertips into his palm, spreading through the fine lines of his snow-white skin.
The blood pooled in his palm’s creases like an abstract painting. Lan Bo stared at it, almost entranced, then lowered his head and licked his fingertip.
A faint mix of brandy-like pheromones and blood scent spread in his mouth as Lan Bo indulged in it.
Bai Chunian had dozed off briefly with his chin resting on Lan Bo’s shoulder. When he woke groggily and saw Lan Bo still unmoving, he rasped, “What are you doing?”
Lan Bo licked the last trace of blood from his fingertip and answered honestly, “I’m making love with your soul.” His tone still carried a lingering excitement.
“…Huh?” Bai Chunian sat up sluggishly, yawning lazily. His sharp canine fangs peeked out briefly before being covered again by his lips. He glanced sideways at the bullet in Lan Bo’s hand. The special bullet bore engraved grooves where concentrated infectious agent had been compressed.
“Why are you still holding onto that broken bullet? Just throw it away.”
“I won’t throw it away. I’ll return it to her in the same condition. If she plays dirty, I’ll just shoot back. No point playing fair.” Lan Bo stuffed the bullet into his navel, where it looked like a shining silver piercing.
Bai Chunian knew Lan Bo’s vengeful personality well. In the past, he would take revenge immediately; now he appeared calm on the surface, but his eyes always held a sharp, dangerous edge.
“Alright, wife, stop being angry. Your brows are all twisted up.” Bai Chunian reached up, hooked his arm around Lan Bo’s neck, pulled him over, and kissed him at the ear. Lan Bo clearly enjoyed it—his ears transformed into elongated translucent blue fin-like shapes, slowly flushed red, curled slightly, and even the tip of his fish tail curled into a heart shape in comfort.
“Let’s go. We’ll go down and take a look first,” Bai Chunian said, shifting his body. His gunshot wound had mostly healed; standing and moving was no longer an issue.
Lan Bo climbed down along the elevator cables, while Bai Chunian leapt between beams, using them as footholds to descend with agility.
The elevator shaft was extremely deep. They descended at least one to two hundred meters before reaching the bottom. The elevator car had crashed there, but nothing else was visible.
Bai Chunian landed with a flashlight clenched in his teeth, sweeping the area. Between the beams he found traces of combat scratches—shaped like those left by the silver scissors form of the Divine Clockwork.
As he examined carefully, he noticed a small pool of liquid on one beam.
He carefully tore off a strip of medical bandage and placed it into the liquid.
The bandage corroded instantly, turning black from carbonization and burning a hole through it.
It was concentrated sulfuric acid.
“Ah.” Bai Chunian struck the beam hard in frustration. “Earlier Eris had stuffed a barrel of sulfuric acid into the Puppet Master’s apron pocket. They’re lucky they didn’t die here. They should’ve taken them down with them.”
“I saw you inject that broken doll with prosthetic union factor.”
“I did, but he jumped away too fast—I couldn’t see the effect yet.” Bai Chunian examined the syringe that was now down to two-thirds. “Do you think it was real or fake?”
“Give it to me.” Lan Bo took the syringe and injected half of the red liquid directly into his own neck. His purification ability far exceeded human-made drugs; even if it were a potent toxin, it would not harm him.
After a moment, Lan Bo looked at him and confirmed, “It’s not poison.”
“Not poison…” Bai Chunian thought for a moment. If Ailian had left it behind, she had no reason to provide real prosthetic union factor, and especially not six vials. He sniffed the syringe carefully and caught a faint scent of pheromones—familiar, but too faint to identify.
“If I were Ailian and wanted to watch a show, why wouldn’t I just leave one vial? Let people fight over it. Better yet, make it poison—whoever wins injects it and dies. That would be more dramatic. Leaving six… does that mean we were supposed to split it three and three?” Bai Chunian frowned.
Suddenly he straightened. “Was what was shown on the computer a recording? Pre-recorded by Ailian and triggered when we arrived? Right… we never actually spoke to her.”
“She said the demon envoy didn’t come with us… she must have seen Black Panther beforehand.” Bai Chunian sniffed the syringe again. The faint silver-lotus pheromone scent triggered a memory comparison with Black Panther.
The closest encounter he had with Black Panther was near the Red Cat City cultivation base, during the storm. Black Panther had arrived to mediate between him and Eris, using the A3 ability Demon Possession Whisper to stop him from killing Eris.
At that time, they were all in heavy rain. The scent of stirred dust masked Black Panther’s pheromones, but now, in hindsight, it matched the scent on the syringe closely.
Silver lotus pheromones.
Bai Chunian weighed the syringe in his hand. “Did Black Panther leave this for us? He’s been here.”
Lan Bo leaned in and sniffed as well, reaching the conclusion after a moment of thought: “As expected, cat heads are really likable.”
“If what’s playing on the computer is a recording, then Ailian definitely isn’t still here. She’s misleading us into going deeper—there’s probably a trap waiting.” Bai Chunian put away the prosthetic union factor and tilted his head up. The exit above was guarded by heavy machine guns, and the path they came from was blocked by flames. He didn’t know if the fire had died down, but the temperature must be extreme. Lan Bo couldn’t endure it at all, so going back was impossible.
“Let’s just push forward. We’ll adapt as we go. If it really comes to it, wife, just flood this damn research institute. Who’s afraid of who.” Bai Chunian walked ahead with a flashlight, reaching a hand behind him and opening his palm.
Lan Bo placed his hand into it immediately, and Bai Chunian caught it at once, as if holding a warm sea anemone.
No matter how many times they held hands, each time he was firmly grasped, waves still surged in his heart. The heart of the ocean’s living being was connected to Lan Bo’s chest—so every hurricane and tsunami rising across the world’s seas was a god’s heartbeat.
“Xiao Bai, I…”
Bai Chunian turned back. “Mm?”
Lan Bo was momentarily stunned by his patient, gentle eyes. After thinking for a long time, he said seriously, “I want to take you to inspect my territory. On a global scale.”
Bai Chunian laughed. “That’s called traveling the world, silly wife.”
Lan Bo shook his head, unconvinced that it was accurate.
“I want to introduce you to my ancient friends… and to every sea slug.”