Translator: Mukyuu
Editor: Mokyuu
QC: Mukyuu
“How is it going, brother? Still no results?” Lei Jue watched as Xiao Lingqi’s expression remained unhappy, and his heart lurched involuntarily into his throat. Since they had sent the dagger Zuo Feng used for testing, they only found out that there was the blood of a Golden Fruit Tree clan member on it. There was another kind of substance on it, but one they couldn’t figure out for the life of them. But it was precisely that thing that prevented the wound from healing and negated his healing powers.
They had tried, out of desperation, to try and sew the wound shut. But though the blood had stopped flowing, the injury had turned into a large-scale infection, and Di Lin just about died from the pain. In the end, they had to surgically remove the infected tissue and then repair it.
Annoyingly, the speed of repair was very slow, achingly slow.
Right now, Di Lin could only turn himself into a tree person and then shrink smaller and smaller. He told himself, ‘Hey look, it’s just a tiny wound; it doesn’t hurt that much.’
But it was obvious from his reaction how much it really hurt.
“Preliminary results confirm that it’s a toxin specifically targeted against plants. Though I can’t prove for certain how this thing was manufactured, I know for sure that it’s maximally effective against any type of plant. The fact that Uncle is alive right now has to do with his healing abilities. This would have killed even the roots of any other plant. A tiny bit is practically deadly.” Xiao Lingqi hadn’t slept at all these past days and was so tired he had to find Lei Jue for some healing. He sat on the sofa and accepted the healing energy that Lei Jue emitted. Then he continued, “How’s Uncle today?”
“Same old, same old. Pipi can heal him some, but it doesn’t last very long.” Lei Jue pointed Di Lin, sleeping next to Pipi, out to Xiao Lingqi.
Di Lin still looked wilted. None of his branches or leaves showed any signs of life, as if he was severely dehydrated. There was a wound on his trunk from where tree sap kept leaking out. More worryingly, he couldn’t root himself into the ground, which meant that he couldn’t absorb the nutrients he needed, and that meant he was getting weaker day by day.
“When Uncle wakes up, have him shift into a human and give him an injection of nutrients,” Xiao Lingqi sighed, also looking worried. Lei Jue only had this one uncle left, and he had gotten injured because of Lei Jue. If Uncle really passed away, then Lei Jue would absolutely feel terrible.
“But he needs to expand a bit of energy when he shifts between human and plant form. It would usually be fine, but under these circumstances, a single shift is too costly. When Lingyu comes back, I’ll have him talk to Pipi and get Pipi to heal Uncle before Uncle shifts.” Lei Jue stroked his oldest’s hair and said, “The brat doesn’t listen to me.”
“How come? He’s pretty good with you too, isn’t he?”
“Most of the time, but he’s upset with me today.” Lei Jue said helplessly. Xiao Lingyu had gone to Haweila Palace in order to investigate some of Emperor Suron and the monarchy’s secrets to try and find anything useful that could be of use to Uncle. Since it wasn’t convenient to bring a child along, he didn’t take Pipi with him. But Pipi had insisted on coming, so Lei Jue had no other option except to pick Pipi up and only let go once Xiao Lingyu got onto the flightcraft. That caused Pipi to become upset and insist on ignoring him for the rest of the morning.
“The little one has a big temper.” Xiao Lingqi commented and then looked at Di Lin again. “Then let me know when Lingyu comes back.”
“Sure, thank you, Lingqi.”
“We’re family. Don’t be so formal.” Lingqi said as he turned to go to his own bedroom.
Lei Jue looked at his oldest son putting a net of healing over Di Lin once in a while and then put the two Gold Fruit Trees in a row. One of the trees was his mother’s reborn origin wood, and the other was his Uncle’s Offspring Tree.
Both trees were growing ever so slowly, and he had no way of knowing when they’d develop their primary fruits. Actually, he didn’t even know if they’d be able to form a primary fruit. But right now, the only hope they had was for the primary fruit to grow and then use it to heal Uncle’s body.
Because a primary fruit itself had healing abilities and was connected to the tree host, which meant that it could heal anything.
But they were growing too slowly. Back then he and Xiao Lingyu had used intimacy pheromones to induce Little Odd Flower to grow. He had given it life energy once in a while, so Little Odd Flower had grown super quickly and even bloomed super fast. But these two didn’t have their owners around to do so, which meant they were growing so…
Dammit! Intimacy pheromones!
How could he have forgotten about this!
Lei Jue stood up with an audible whoosh and then gently shook Di Lin awake. He knew that Uncle wasn’t feeling well, but he couldn’t think about that anymore. This might be their only hope!
Di Lin struggled to open his eyes, “Jue…?”
His voice was so quiet that it was practically inaudible unless Lei Jue listened very closely.
Lei Jue squatted by the bed and asked, “Uncle, if your Offspring Tree can grow a primary fruit in a short time, can you recover inside?”
Di Lin took a while to process and said after a long moment of silence, “Maybe. But it-it’s growing too slowly. I can’t hold on till then.”
He knew what was going on with himself. He might not even make it past ten days, much less a month or even a year.
Lei Jue continued, “Did you forget? You told me that Gold Fruit Trees take at least a year to bloom and form fruit, but my Offspring Tree finished the entire blooming and fruiting process within a year. So a primary fruit can grow pretty quickly. Didn’t you know that you could use intimacy pheromones as sustenance?”
“Intimacy pheromones?” Di Lin was quite confused. How come he didn’t know about this? Offspring Trees took about a year to grow in their homeland, right? He had thought that Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu were the exceptions because of Lei Jue’s own powers. After all, his sister had been the most powerful one with the strongest healing powers in their clan.
“No, it’s the intimacy pheromones between myself and Lingyu. Little Odd Flower grew insanely fast as soon as it gets exposed to that,” Lei Jue suddenly felt hopeful, “Can you and Zuo Feng give it a try? Maybe it’ll work?” Ever since Zuo Feng accidentally burned the little sapling, his Uncle had put the sapling here for safekeeping. Lei Jue hadn’t figured out why his Little Odd Flower had grown so fast while Uncle’s was growing so slowly. Now that he thought about it, aside from the fact that Uncle wasn’t providing it any life energy, the biggest reason might be the lack of intimacy pheromones as nutrients.
“Look at me now, do you think I can be intimate…” Di Lin didn’t even have the energy to laugh bitterly anymore. “But I really do miss him.”
They had never been apart for this long ever since he had insisted on staying with Zuo Feng.
Zuo Feng had personally paid the Holy Eagle Mecha Corp a visit after Lei Jue told him that Di Lin would recover in his primary fruit. He had also seen Little Odd Flower in the weapon depot and believed Lei Jue, so he assumed that Di Lin was inside that big golden fruit.
He didn’t doubt Lei Jue because the tree really did look magical. Besides, he had seen with his own eyes how the fruit had enveloped Di Lin.
He firmly believed that Di Lin would be okay.
But what he didn’t know was that Di Lin had been removed from the fruit as soon as he left. Since that wasn’t Di Lin’s Offspring Tree or his primary fruit, it had no obvious healing effects on him.
Lei Jue had thought that he’d tell Zuo Feng the truth once they figure out how to heal Uncle or if Uncle relents and lets him. But clearly, he had to tell Zuo Feng the truth now.
He wasn’t sure if Zuo Feng would get so angry as to burn him.
Lei Jue took out his communicator and tried to connect to Zuo Feng’s communicator number. He suddenly felt guilty. But after a long while, Zuo Feng still wasn’t responding.
Was he busy?
Lei Jue dialed again, with the same result. But as he was about to dial a third time, the door to his room was suddenly pushed open.
Zuo Feng walked in with a stormy expression, “Where’s Di Lin?”
Lei Jue looked into those bloodshot eyes and took a few steps to the side. “What are you doing here?”
Zuo Feng didn’t see Di Lin because Di Lin was too small and blocked by the bed at the moment. So he asked again, “I’m asking you where Di Lin is.”
He still didn’t raise his voice, but Lei Jue could hear the suppressed anger in his tone.
Lei Jue pointed at the bed. At that instant, Di Lin had struggled with all his might to sit up as he heard Zuo Feng’s voice. But he couldn’t last more than three seconds before weakly falling back.
Zuo Feng took a couple of huge steps forward. He finally saw Di Lin. At the moment, Di Lin was barely bigger than half his palm, and he looked absolutely listless. He carefully cradled Di Lin in his palms and felt his heart ache.
Zuo Feng knew he didn’t have a right to blame Lei Jue; even if this wasn’t Emperor Suron’s fault, it was his own fault. Lei Jue couldn’t be blamed at all. But he was still vexed at Lei Jue lying to him.
When he found out from Emperor Suron that the dagger that hurt Di Lin had a toxin specially formulated against the Gold Fruit Tree clan, only the heavens knew how much he…
Zuo Feng took a deep breath and said hoarsely, “I want to take him away. Can I?”
Lei Jue glanced at Uncle and saw him gently rub his head against Zuo Feng’s palm, “Where?”
“My home,” Zuo Feng answered, “Since it’s all the same to him, I want to take him back to my place. My parents haven’t seen him yet. I want to take him home. I bought a new pot for him that he hasn’t used yet. And his favorite nutrients…”
“Pipi’s healing is not entirely useless against Uncle’s wounds. But this should help with the healing,” Lei Jue brought over the tiny Offspring Tree that belonged to Uncle, “This. If you can make it grow faster, it might help Uncle.”
“Are you gonna tell me again that the primary fruit can heal Di Lin?” Zuo Feng had been lied to once and was not so easily tricked now.
“Yes, I lied to you before. But this is Uncle’s Offspring Tree, which is practically the same as his own form. It’s different. The primary fruit that grows on this tree has strong healing powers on him. That’s different from mine,” Lei Jue gave the sapling along with the pot over to Zuo Feng, “Find a safe place and plant it. I’ll give it life energy and what you need to do is… do your best to flirt with my uncle!”
“Why be so direct about it…” Di Lin lay on Zuo Feng’s hand and was slightly embarrassed. He used his tiny tree claw to scratch at the center of Zuo Feng’s palm. “Just call it dating.”
“Okay, fine. Dating.” Lei Jue put Qiuqiu on his back and had Kangkang turn back into a tree person and climb on him. Then he went over to pick Pipi up, but Pipi was still upset. As soon as Lei Jue reached out a hand, Pipi turned his face away.
“Pipi, we’re going to go find daddy.” Lei Jue had no qualms about lying to his son. “You want to go? If not, we’re leaving.”
Pipi seemed to be debating with himself. In the end, his desire for daddy won over his pride. He reached out his arms and allowed Lei Jue to hold him. Lei Jue picked up his oldest and then commanded Zuo Feng, “You help me bring that big bag.”
Zuo Feng thought about it and then decided to trust Lei Jue again. He slung the bag over his shoulders and brought the entire crew, adults, and children, onto his flightcraft and flew towards Huainan.
Ding Yuwen got the news ahead of time that Lei Jue and the children were coming to stay with them for a few days. While she did think it was slightly odd, she welcomed them because of the friendship between the two families. But when Zuo Feng’s flightcraft landed, she realized that in addition to Lei Jue and the children, there was also someone else?!
Di Lin had already turned back into human form. Though he was pale and looked a bit sickly, he was still a beautiful man.
Ding Yuwen froze in shock because the youth who looked unwell was indeed handsome but also why did he look so like Lei Jue?!
“Feng, who is this?” Ding Yuwen looked at Di Lin. “Is this Lei Jue’s brother?”
“No, Mom.” Zuo Feng supported Di Lin. “He’s my boyfriend.”