Chapter 226
Chu Feng was lounging in his office when a knock came at the door.
“Come in.”
Hang Ming pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Hang Ming? What brings you here? Something the matter?” Chu Feng studied him, noticing a trace of grim determination on his face—almost like he was heading to an execution.
“I heard… the second boss can tell when someone is lying?” Hang Ming asked after some hesitation.
Chu Feng nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then the boss must have already noticed something unusual about me, right?”
Rocking leisurely in his chair, Chu Feng replied, “More or less. You’re not a traditional ability-user—your awakening is rather unusual.”
“Then… why did the boss still hire me?”
“It’s just a little secret, nothing much. Outstanding ability-users—how many of them don’t have secrets?” Chu Feng shrugged. “As long as you have no ill intent, it’s fine. Illya judged that you didn’t.”
Hang Ming was silent for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind. “Does the boss know exactly what I am?”
Chu Feng shook his head. “Not really. When I took you in, I just wanted to observe you up close.”
“And… what did you find?”
“Well, later on I got busy and kind of forgot about it,” Chu Feng admitted sheepishly.
“…” Hang Ming was speechless. So the boss just… forgot? Well, it made sense—his little secret probably wasn’t worth much of Chu Feng’s time.
“I… was eaten by a tiger.”
Chu Feng blinked. He’d considered the possibility that Hang Ming had some beast bloodline, but hadn’t expected this.
“You were eaten by a tiger?”
Hang Ming nodded. “Yes. The tiger that ate me then transformed into my appearance. My consciousness didn’t disappear, and I fought it for control of the body.”
After that, he could shift between human and tiger form. Realizing he’d become something different terrified him. He’d searched online—though ability-users were common now, he hadn’t found anyone like him. Perhaps others with the same condition were simply in hiding.
“I see,” Chu Feng said calmly after hearing the full story.
“You… don’t seem surprised, boss.”
“I’ve heard of similar cases before—just didn’t expect yours to be like this. The world’s changed; anything can happen. Compared to me being able to travel the world, being eaten by a tiger and gaining shapeshifting powers isn’t all that strange.”
He’d seen beastfolk, sand people, elves, dwarves—Hang Ming’s case hardly shocked him.
“Boss is well-traveled. I guess I was overreacting. Sterling under you—is he the same as me?”
Chu Feng shook his head. “No, but somewhat similar.”
“He can turn into a tiger?”
“Yep.”
“Did he have any trouble during the transformation process?”
“No. Why—did you?”
Hang Ming hesitated. “…It’s painful.”
At that moment, Illya walked in. “What are you talking about?”
Chu Feng gestured toward Hang Ming. “He’s having trouble transforming into beast form.”
“Transformation trouble?” Illya asked.
“You could say that,” Hang Ming admitted awkwardly, noting how unfazed Illya looked.
“That’s nothing. Just take a Shape-Shifting Pill,” Illya said.
“A Shape-Shifting Pill?” Chu Feng raised a brow. “That exists?”
“Yes.”
“How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“You never asked. You’re neither beastfolk nor half-beast, so you wouldn’t need it,” Illya replied.
“…Fair enough. What’s it for?”
“It helps with transformation. Pure-blood beastfolk rarely struggle, but half-beasts often get stuck halfway—turning into half-human, half-beast monstrosities. The pill solves that. Without it, many half-beasts have died mid-transformation. It’s a congenital flaw of theirs, which is why they used to be seen as monsters. The Shape-Shifting Pill is a lifesaver for them.”
“I see…”
Illya glanced at Hang Ming. “Your case is a bit different. I’m not sure if it will work for you.”
“It’ll work—it has to!” Hang Ming said urgently. Every fifteen days, he was forced to transform, and the process felt like his entire skeleton was being shattered and rebuilt. It was agony—so much so that he’d sometimes wanted to kill himself to end it. The chance of relief was like grasping at a lifeline.
Illya, seeing his desperation, nodded. “I’ll bring you some next time. We’ll see how it goes.”
The Shape-Shifting Pill wasn’t particularly rare, so he didn’t think much of it.
“Thank you, thank you!” Hang Ming said hurriedly.
Illya looked at Hang Ming and asked, “When you seized control of the tiger’s body, did you gain its memories?”
Hang Ming nodded. “Yes.”
Illya frowned. “So, if you had failed to take over the body, that tiger might have gained your memories?”
Hang Ming thought for a moment. “It’s possible.”
Chu Feng tilted his head. “Alright, you can go now. Just focus on your original job.”
Hang Ming said gratefully, “Thank you, boss.”
Watching Hang Ming walk out, Chu Feng shook his head. “Looks like things might have gotten serious.”
Illya asked, “Really?”
Chu Feng gritted his teeth. “What do you think a beast would do after turning into a human and entering human society?”
“Eat, shop, play games,” Illya replied.
Chu Feng: “Why would you think that…?”
Illya tilted his head. “Isn’t that right? Last time Sterling came here, that’s all he did.”
Chu Feng: “…”
If it were just eating, shopping, and playing games, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The real worry was if these guys decided to kill or burn things down.
Rubbing his forehead, Chu Feng thought back to Crescent Village. When he saw so many species there, he’d felt the human world was a bit monotonous. But now, it seemed their own world was about to get a lot more diverse.
Jin Jie saw Hang Ming walking out of the office. “All done talking?”
Hang Ming nodded, looking in good spirits. “Yeah.”
“What did you talk about with the boss? Are you quitting?” Jin Jie asked.
Hang Ming glanced at her. “Why would you think that?”
Jin Jie thought for a moment. “Because you look like you’re about to resign out of guilt.”
Hang Ming gave an awkward smile. “No such thing.”
Before confessing, he had worried that the boss might hold a grudge, and if things went badly, he might even be sent to a lab. But things turned out completely different from what he expected.
The secret of being eaten by a tiger had weighed heavily on him, leaving him feeling depressed. After revealing it, he felt much lighter.
Hang Ming thought to himself: As expected of the boss. What I thought was a huge secret didn’t seem like a big deal at all to Chu Feng and Illya. Maybe I was overthinking it. If I’d known, I would have confessed sooner…
Crescent Group
Zhuang Cheng looked at Zhuang Feixue. “Sis, are we adding a new batch of Crescent No. 1 Liquor tomorrow?”
Zhuang Feixue nodded. “Yes.”
“And everyone’s limited to buying two bottles?”
She nodded again. “Right.”
“What if we can’t sell them all?” Zhuang Cheng said worriedly.
Chu Feng pushed the door open and came in. “What are you talking about? How could it not sell out?”
Zhuang Cheng glanced at him. “This time we’re putting up 200,000 bottles. That’s quite a lot.”
Chu Feng shot him a look. “200,000 bottles is nothing—barely enough to fill the gaps in our fans’ teeth. Crescent Group has tons of fans.
Not to mention others—just Delice alone has a huge fanbase.
Remember last time she asked for adult novels? So many people rushed to support it.”
Zhuang Cheng chuckled. “You’re right, second brother.”
Zhuang Feixue exhaled. “Let’s ramp up promotion. Right now, when people think of Crescent Group, the first thing they associate us with is those adult novels. We need something to overshadow that.
Launching snake wine now might be able to dilute that association.”
*
National Bureau of Paranormal Abilities
“The second batch of Crescent No. 1 Liquor is almost out, right?”
“Yes, this time it’s being sold online. A total of 200,000 bottles, two per ID.”
Shen Yuxing frowned. “Two per ID? Isn’t that too little?”
“I heard it was Zhuang Feixue and Lin Zhihao’s joint decision—they wanted to give ordinary people more chances to buy.”
Shen Yuxing sighed. “Alright, then when the time comes, we’ll just grab as much as we can. It’ll depend on our speed.”
“Miss Shen, should we contact Chu Feng directly and order a batch?”
Shen Yutong hesitated. “I’ll think about it.”
She thought to herself: Crescent’s wine doesn’t seem to have much effect on ability-users, but from what she knows, the wine on sale is diluted several times. If it were the original brew, it might work on ability-users too. Maybe she could trade with Chu Feng for a batch of the raw snake wine.
