Chapter 25: The Royal Beastman (Part 1)
Jin Chi’an tugged at the hand covering his lips and immediately unfolded his mental net in a defensive attack.
Just as his mental tendrils touched the other person’s consciousness cloud, the hand restraining him instantly lost its strength.
The other person nimbly dodged several meters away, avoiding the attack from his mental tendrils.
“Little Maine Coon, don’t be so rough.”
A head of silver-white hair was gradually lifted by the wind coming in from outside the window. Beneath those smooth silver strands, a secretary bird mental body slowly appeared.
Bai Ye brushed the hair blocking his vision behind his ear and approached Jin Chi’an, who was about to attack him, completely unguarded.
He leaned toward the ear where Jin Chi’an wore the communicator and said, “Felix, I’ve helped you keep an eye on your person. Don’t worry. I won’t let him act recklessly.”
“Sorry to trouble you.”
Felix’s voice came through the communicator. Jin Chi’an had no idea when the line had connected.
Only now did he understand why he had felt like someone had been watching him all day.
From the looks of it, Felix had most likely arranged it in advance and sent this white-haired man to keep watch over him.
“What does this mean? Monitoring me?”
Jin Chi’an laughed coldly and asked into the miniature communicator, “Felix, care to explain?”
“I’ll explain when you come back.”
After saying this, Felix hung up the communication, leaving only the two people in the room staring at each other.
After a long while, the secretary bird beside Bai Ye slowly approached Puff, who had been released. The moment it lowered its head, Puff slapped it with one paw.
“Agh!”
Bai Ye, who shared senses with it, immediately covered the left side of his face. On that handsome face, bloody scratches from cat claws gradually appeared.
“Why do all you felines hit people at the slightest disagreement? Snakes are much gentler.”
Jin Chi’an looked at the secretary bird before him and made no comment on his words.
“I thought royal family members who didn’t inherit elephant-type mental bodies would be more normal. But now it seems the completeness of mental illness inheritance is quite high.”
After Jin Chi’an finished speaking, he turned and walked toward the door.
He had barely taken one step forward when a hand and a bird’s beak grabbed the hem of his clothes.
“Where are you going?”
“To take back what belongs to me.”
“That won’t do. I promised Felix I’d guarantee your safety.”
“Do you think a sentinel like you can stop me?”
A ruthless glint flashed through Jin Chi’an’s eyes. The offensive tendrils he extended were ready to strike, aimed at Bai Ye’s consciousness cloud.
Puff, beside him, also made a standard feline attack posture, staring closely at that silly-looking secretary bird.
“No, no, no. You can’t launch a mental attack on me. It’ll worsen my mental illness. I still haven’t officially taken office as Felix’s second dad. I don’t want to die so early.”
Bai Ye grabbed the secretary bird beside him and pulled it out of Puff’s attack range.
“Don’t waste mental power on me. It’s not like I really won’t let you go.”
Bai Ye’s voice carried a bit of grievance.
“Although I can’t let you go directly to those Kashemir guys, I know a place in the palace.”
Seeing Jin Chi’an’s half-believing, half-doubting expression, Bai Ye walked straight toward the balcony of the room.
His mental body, the secretary bird, stood up immediately and flapped its wings by the railing.
“Get on.”
“Get on where—”
Before Jin Chi’an could finish speaking, he saw Bai Ye jump onto the secretary bird’s back. The secretary bird, which had originally looked proud, instantly deflated. Its wilted face made it obvious how strained it was.
Looking at the back that was about to carry two people, Jin Chi’an felt a little reluctant.
“Are you sure you want me to get on?”
“Don’t worry. It can fly.”
Bai Ye supported Jin Chi’an’s hand, helping him land safely on the secretary bird’s back.
In an instant, the secretary bird, which had still been able to bear one person’s weight, suddenly dropped a short distance downward. Jin Chi’an was so startled that he yanked out several feathers from its body.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay.”
Bai Ye, sharing senses with it, was also sweating all over, feeling as if some part of his body was faintly aching.
When he looked back, he discovered that Jin Chi’an’s mental body, the Maine Coon, was biting the secretary bird’s tail feathers, its four legs dangling in midair.
“Puff.”
Jin Chi’an distressedly pulled Puff into his arms and indulgently rubbed its head. Then he carefully pried its mouth open and sniffed.
“Good. There’s no smell.”
“How could there be a smell!”
…
Inside the vast palace, the flying figure of the secretary bird vanished completely into the night. Even the royal guards patrolling below did not notice any trace of them.
Jin Chi’an looked curiously at the device in Bai Ye’s hand.
“What is this?”
“An invisibility barrier. A new product developed by Iskan’s research base based on chameleons and other shapeshifting creatures.”
“If it’s only invisibility, those guides down below should still be able to find us.”
Jin Chi’an looked with some difficulty toward the guide unit outside the palace, dressed in the uniforms of central palace soldiers.
“Don’t worry. This technology incorporates Hundred Birds City’s sacred tree. It has the function of shielding against mental searches.”
“The sacred tree Quetzal?”
“Oh, so you know about it.”
Bai Ye turned curiously to look at Jin Chi’an. Seeing his solemn expression, he did not ask further and flew straight toward a tower at the edge of the palace.
Before long, they arrived at the roof of the tower.
The walls, covered in vines, made this place seem especially old and shabby. The clock at the top had also accumulated dust after years of neglect.
Bai Ye pushed open the door panel at the top floor. A spiral staircase entered their view.
From the tightly shut rooms on the levels below came strange hissing sounds.
Jin Chi’an asked with a slight tremor in his heart, “Where is this?”
“Just follow me.”
Bai Ye withdrew his mental body into his mental sea and walked down the stairs toward the lower level.
After passing through several flights of stairs on the upper floors, the two arrived in front of a locked room.
Bai Ye took a piece of wire from his pocket and fiddled with the lock.
“In this era, how are there still antique door locks from tens of thousands of years ago?”
“Right? All the palace junk is piled here.”
Bai Ye replied to Jin Chi’an. Suddenly, a click sounded beside his ear, and the lock was pried open by him.
Pushing open the creaking door, a room that could be seen through at a glance appeared before them. A full-length mirror with a snake eye on top faced the bed.
Bai Ye took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped away the dirt on the mirror.
“All right. Send what you’re looking for to it through mental power.”
“What is this now? A magic mirror from a fairy tale?”
Jin Chi’an hesitantly touched the snake eye at the top. The eye, which had originally been tightly closed, instantly blinked several times and threw him a flirtatious wink.
“This is a relic left by the first empress. Be careful. Don’t poke her blind.”
Bai Ye slapped away Jin Chi’an’s hand from the mirror and reminded him, “You only need to let her sense the information conveyed through your mental power. You guides all know how to do that, right?”
Following his words, Jin Chi’an half-believingly extended a mental tendril and placed all the mental-power information he had obtained at the front end of the tendril.
Just as he slowly approached the mirror, the gaze of the snake eye at the top instantly became sharp and sucked his mental tendril into its eye.
Immediately, the mirror surface that had originally reflected the two of them gradually blurred and changed into the appearance of the eastern garden.
Among the towering rose bushes, Oshta slowly removed the clothing from his upper body, revealing his back covered in mental brands.
Among them, a tiger-shaped totem glowed red especially clearly, as if it were about to break away outward.
Oshta’s face darkened, as though he was struggling to endure the pain brought by the brand.
“This body’s compatibility with the brand is too poor.”
“You were careless. You shouldn’t have forcibly controlled that white tiger’s consciousness.”
Brayden, hidden in the shadows, revealed his full appearance and complained to Oshta.
“Shut up, 002. You were the one who found this body.”
“You know this has nothing to do with the body. When you seized his mental brand, it was still in the trial phase.”
“Tsk.”
Oshta impatiently tore open his clothes and lay down on the blanket spread across the ground. Beside him, another person’s figure appeared.
Jin Chi’an was just thinking of asking the mirror to show a wider view when the snake eye seemed to hear his thoughts and revealed the other person’s entire figure.
Taking a closer look, the young girl dressed in the banquet gown was none other than Jin Mian, whom Qi Wan had said was missing today.
Jin Chi’an could not help clenching his palm.
In the mirror, Oshta gradually fell asleep. The mental brands all over his body began transferring toward Jin Mian’s body.
Before long, Jin Mian woke from her deep sleep.
The confusion in her eyes gradually cleared, and she revealed a satisfied smile.
“This body is fairly decent. As expected of a guide from the same family as him.”
Oshta sensed the changes in this body. During the body exchange, the transferred mental brands split off a strange strand of mental power.
As the mental power spilled out, Oshta also sensed something wrong within it and immediately cut off that separated mental tendril.
“The brand has loosened. Looks like he’s here.”
A meaningful smile appeared on Oshta’s face. In just an instant, the mirror that had been playing the scene returned to its original state.
“That’s it?” Jin Chi’an asked the snake eye at the top.
The snake eye blinked, expressing its helplessness.
Jin Chi’an could only sigh and began constructing the next step of the plan in his mind.
Just as he was deep in thought, pain came from his lowered arm. He turned to look and saw two snake-bite wounds on his arm.
And the culprit, a golden cobra, was raising its neck, staring fixedly at his every movement.
“A venomous snake…”
Jin Chi’an’s expression turned grim as he looked at the cobra in attack mode and the wound on his arm.
Unexpectedly, a secretary bird appeared out of thin air and pinned the golden cobra beneath its claws.
Bai Ye nervously held Jin Chi’an’s arm. From his pocket, he took out a dose of snake antivenom and injected it into Jin Chi’an’s vein.
“It’s all right, Chi’an. I brought antivenom. You won’t die. Don’t tell Felix, okay?”
Jin Chi’an looked speechlessly at the formalwear pocket that seemed like a treasure pouch.
“You even carry antivenom with you?”
“Aphrodite bites me often…”
Bai Ye awkwardly smoothed his hair, then turned his back to Jin Chi’an and spoke fiercely to the cobra.
“Change back into human form, or I’ll eat you.”
