“Fuyuan?”
She called out, but still received no response.
Only the wrist terminal on her arm gave a soft buzz.
It was a message from Fuyuan: 【Mistress, I’m just feeling a little unwell. I’ll be fine after resting in the water for a while.】
Yunyang had never guarded herself against her beast husbands, so Qin Mo and the other three saw the message as well.
They all felt that something was off.
Shouldn’t Fuyuan have taken advantage of the opportunity to make their mistress worry about him?
Yunyang thought so too. Usually, her beast husbands would seize on any excuse to compete for her attention, and she was happy to indulge their little games of jealousy.
But Fuyuan was acting strangely today.
Still, he must have had a reason for refusing to come out.
After thinking it over, Yunyang replied with a single “Okay,” then went downstairs with the other four beast husbands.
She returned to the kitchen and crooked a finger at Fu Shiyi, who was still cooking.
Fu Shiyi bent down toward her.
Yunyang rose slightly onto her toes and whispered a few words into his ear.
Fu Shiyi understood at once and readily agreed. “All right. I’ll go in a moment.”
“There’s still one dish left. Mistress, go sit in the dining room first.”
Yunyang trusted Fu Shiyi to handle things, so she washed her hands and sat down at the dining table with the other beast husbands.
When the final dish was served, Fu Shiyi did not sit down with the others. Instead, he turned and walked outside the villa.
The six beast husbands looked at Yunyang. “Mistress, why did Fu Shiyi go outside?”
“He has something to take care of. Don’t wait for him.”
Yunyang was hungry. After saying that, she picked up her chopsticks and began to eat.
Outside the villa, Fu Shiyi immediately transformed into his beast form after stepping out, then began shrinking himself smaller and smaller.
Yunyang opened the bathroom window in Fuyuan’s room through her wrist terminal. In his reduced form, Fu Shiyi silently alighted on the windowsill.
The golden-winged roc’s crimson-gold eyes turned toward the bathroom.
His gaze fell on the merfolk in the bathtub.
As an SS-rank ability user himself, Fuyuan had discovered Fu Shiyi’s presence long ago.
He slowly raised his head, his deep-blue eyes locking onto the golden-winged roc by the window.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Fu Shiyi examined the changes in Fuyuan’s body and said only, “As long as you don’t hurt our mistress, I can help you keep this secret.”
Fuyuan tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I will never hurt our mistress.”
Whether those words were true or not, Fu Shiyi did not stay any longer.
He turned and left Fuyuan’s bathroom, then quickly landed outside and returned to human form.
By then, there was no longer any room for him beside Yunyang in the villa.
Fu Shiyi calmly reached out, picked Yunyang up, and carried her back to her seat before sitting down with her in his arms.
The six rivals: “…”
Yunyang adjusted her position before asking, “How is Fuyuan?”
“He’s only in his rut. It’s nothing serious.” Fu Shiyi’s tone was exactly as usual, making it impossible to tell whether he was telling the truth.
He did not continue the subject. Instead, he picked up Yunyang’s chopsticks, placed a piece of meat between them, and fed it to her.
All males went through a rut. Yunyang was fair enough that she would at least spend one night resting with each of her beast husbands during their ruts, so none of them had ever allowed it to interfere with anything else.
Even Qin Mo had only lost control once, at the very beginning.
Yunyang had almost forgotten that male beastmen had such a special period.
Fortunately, Fuyuan was only in his rut, not sick.
Yunyang did not dwell on it. She opened her mouth, accepted the meat Fu Shiyi fed her, and continued eating.
Seeing that he had successfully diverted her attention, Fu Shiyi’s eyes shifted slightly.
He had not lied. Fuyuan was indeed in his rut.
But Fuyuan had once been captured and subjected to human experimentation, so his rut was somewhat unusual. In addition to having a stronger desire for intimacy, his body would also undergo some unpleasant changes.
Still, as long as Fuyuan could control himself and refrain from doing anything that might harm their mistress, Fu Shiyi did not mind helping him keep it hidden.
Served by her seven beast husbands, Yunyang ate and drank her fill. She then went out with them for a stroll before settling back at home to browse the Stellar Network and absorb insect cores.
She could now absorb fourth-level insect cores. However, compared with purifying the contamination in male beastmen, absorbing insect cores improved her abilities much more slowly.
Fortunately, her abilities had already increased significantly before this. She was only one final step away from advancing to the next rank.
Yunyang was full of energy, while her seven beast husbands stayed by her side.
Fu Shiyi was responsible for handing her the insect cores, while Qin Mo tossed the emptied husks to the robotic butler for disposal.
The other beast husbands attended to her in their own various ways.
Time always seemed to pass quickly whenever Yunyang browsed the Stellar Network, especially now that all her attention was focused on those trending videos.
Before she knew it, the entire afternoon had passed.
When it was nearly time, three of her beast husbands rose together and headed toward the kitchen.
Their movement caught Yunyang’s attention. She glanced at the time and realized that it was already past five.
She handed the insect core in her hand to Qin Mo, stood up, and stretched her stiff limbs. Then she took out the military-grade ability detector.
Chen Yueli watched her curiously. “Mistress, are you going to check your ability rank?”
“Mm.”
Yunyang nodded. She had worked hard all afternoon and felt that she should have advanced to a C-rank ability user, but she was not completely certain.
Since they had a detector at home, she might as well check.
She started it with practiced ease. A few minutes later, the result appeared on the detector’s screen.
—C-rank, unknown ability.
Yunyang had never visited an ability testing center, so the Federation still had no records of her blessing ability. The detector could only determine her ability rank.
Of course, that was already enough for Yunyang.
She glanced at the four beast husbands beside her and used her blessing on Leonardo and Chen Yueli at the same time.
Leonardo was an S-rank ability user, while Chen Yueli was SS-rank, making them ideal subjects for comparison.
After using her ability, Yunyang looked at the two beast husbands expectantly.
“How do you feel?”
Leonardo and Chen Yueli had already known what her ability was, but this was their first time experiencing it firsthand.
They sensed the changes in themselves and honestly reported them to Yunyang.
Yunyang timed the effect with her wrist terminal and quickly reached a conclusion.
When used on an S-rank ability user, the blessing could last for half an hour, and the increase had risen to between twenty and twenty-five percent.
For an SS-rank ability user, the enhancement was reduced to fifteen percent, and the duration was cut in half.
Even so, the current blessing still lasted fifteen minutes after being halved—more than enough time to accomplish plenty.
Yunyang looked forward even more to advancing her ability to S-rank or higher. She wondered whether her blessing would undergo some fundamental change by then.
Of course, it was still too early to think about that.
After sharing the good news with all her beast husbands, Yunyang sat back down on the sofa and waited for dinner.
After dinner came the traditional event: choosing her companion for the night.
Fuyuan had not shown himself at all that day. After asking in the group chat and confirming that he would not be participating, Yunyang reached toward the seven tokens on the table.
She silently counted off the choices and finally turned over the third jade token from the left.
It was Pei Wenye’s snake jade token.
Yesterday, the Beast God had not favored Pei Wenye. It seemed that the Beast God had favored him once again today.
The moment he saw the result, Pei Wenye immediately moved closer.
“Mistress, shall I carry you back to the bedroom?”
