Chapter – 39
Speed That Doesn’t Go Through the Brain
Even though the female master had a pitch-black expression.
Mu Ling looked at those sharply contrasting black-and-white eyes and inexplicably felt that the female master was so cute!!
His fingers itched uncontrollably.
As a speed-type beastman, his hands often acted a step ahead of his brain.
The thought had just formed in his mind when his fingers reached out and touched the female master’s eyelashes.
The next second, the air in the fire room fell silent.
Everyone turned to look at Mu Ling in unison, and he froze in place.
What… what had he just done…?
Jiang Xi had already shrunk back, her dark eyes full of disbelief as well.
“You… what are you doing?”
Mu Ling quickly withdrew his hand, using his speed ability so fast that only an afterimage remained.
He clenched his fists and coughed.
“Your eyes… had something on them.”
Yi Yue Xi looked at him, squinting slightly at his obvious attempt to cover up.
“Something?”
Mu Ling’s gray-blue wolf eyes shifted, and he said with certainty, “Mud!”
Yi Yue Xi’s fox-like eyes lifted. “Oh? Really?”
Jiang Xi lifted a finger to her eye, feeling around, but didn’t find any mud.
Lu Liufeng pursed his lips, breaking the awkward atmosphere in the fire room.
“The female master is hungry. Let’s eat.”
After speaking, he turned to Mu Ling.
“Make the tables and chairs shorter.”
Hearing this, Mu Ling hurriedly moved the furniture outside to chop it down.
Jiang Xi jumped down from the chair.
She was about to ask why he needed to chop them outside in the cold when a blur shot in and then out again.
Jiang Xi froze for a moment. She turned to speak, only to find the chair behind her had disappeared.
She looked toward the yard outside in confusion.
So this is speed ability??
Lu Liufeng: “…”
Yi Yue Xi: “…”
Yi Yue Xi glanced at Lu Liufeng, clearly enjoying the spectacle.
Anyone could see that Mu Ling’s heart was in chaos.
Lu Liufeng ignored him and went to separate the potato starch that had settled overnight.
“Female master, the potato starch has settled. What shall we do next?”
Jiang Xi’s mind returned to the task at hand.
The potato starch still needed a coagulant, usually alum.
Yesterday she had been so busy she forgot—there was no alum here.
Then her gaze fell on the corn.
“Tonight, we’ll make some corn starch just like we did with the potato starch.”
Even without alum, corn starch could improve the stickiness of the potato starch and also make it more translucent!
This corn was a huge lifesaver!!
Lu Liufeng smiled in agreement and went over the rest of what they had made yesterday to see what else needed to be prepared tonight.
After checking, Mu Ling had also finished chopping the tables and chairs.
Snow clung to his sleek gray hair, and his wheat-colored skin was tinged with a bit of red, giving his cold, stern face a slightly frostbitten look.
Jiang Xi paused. Had it snowed again?
She looked outside and saw the snow falling in thick flakes, adding a layer of white haze under the blood-red moon.
Seeing Mu Ling’s seemingly “frostbitten” face, she couldn’t help but say:
“Your face… looks a bit frostbitten.”
“Before bed, apply some mutton tallow. It might smell a bit, but if you don’t protect it, frostbite will make it worse.”
“I’ll try to see if there’s a plant-based way to neutralize the smell in the next couple of days.”
She added, unable to help herself:
“If only we had snake oil—it prevents cracking.”
Mu Ling’s cheeks flushed repeatedly at her words.
But he didn’t refute her, only muttered a hesitant reply.
Yi Yue Xi, however, stroked his chin, looking at the female master.
“Snake oil?”
Jiang Xi, hearing him, knew he had connections.
She quickly looked at him. “You know where to get it?”
Yi Yue Xi lowered his gaze, seeing the female master’s big black eyes staring at him expectantly.
His heart stirred, as if he understood why Mu Ling’s hands itched.
He too felt a bit of an urge.
But unlike Mu Ling, he wasn’t the type to act purely on speed.
He cleared his throat and lifted his chin with a hint of pride.
“Of course I know. I’ll bring a whole batch back for you tomorrow.”
“A whole batch?”
Jiang Xi was stunned for two seconds, then goosebumps rose all over her body.
She hurriedly said, “We don’t need that many.”
She was afraid that if he really brought back a batch, snakes big and small would crawl all over the house.
Yi Yue Xi ‘reluctantly’ nodded.
“Fine.”
After shortening a table and chair leg, Jiang Xi could finally sit with her feet touching the ground.
But when she looked at the three beastmen, she fell silent.
The chairs that were just right for her were too low for them.
They had to splay their long legs to the sides, looking… somewhat comical.
Jiang Xi suggested, “Actually, you can sit on the taller chairs; just make the shorter ones for me.”
Lu Liufeng shook his head while serving the dishes.
“No need to make things complicated. It’s just for when we eat.”
Mu Ling nodded quickly.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. The female master just needs to be comfortable.”
Yi Yue Xi didn’t care; for him, a chair was just a chair.
Seeing that no one minded, Jiang Xi gave up.
With a new recipe added to the home menu, everyone was happy.
The corn was too big for Jiang Xi to finish alone.
She handed it to Lu Liufeng, asking him to help cut it in half.
“Lu Liufeng, I can’t finish this. Can you eat half for me?”
Lu Liufeng gently agreed; he liked how the female master always thought of him.
But just as he reached for it, a blur flashed through the air.
The next second, the corn was in Mu Ling’s hands.
He deftly split it in two.
The other three at the table all looked at him.
Mu Ling remained silent for a moment, then acted as if nothing had happened and placed one half into the female master’s bamboo bowl.
“Female master, eat.”
The other half naturally went into his stomach.
Now even Jiang Xi noticed that something was off with him tonight.
He was so attentive—it didn’t suit him at all.
Could it be that he wanted something from her?
Jiang Xi ate the meal suspiciously, but by the time they settled the corn starch, Mu Ling still hadn’t spoken.
Because she had been paying attention to Mu Ling, she hadn’t noticed that Lu Liufeng had been unusually quiet tonight.
Only Yi Yue Xi kept smiling, enjoying the show.
Night.
Mu Ling tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
His memories drifted—sometimes back to the Holy City, sometimes to the fire room.
He had been a wandering beastman.
From the moment he had memory, he lived in the Misty Forest.
Later, he encountered a pack of forest wolves.
He killed the wolf king and became the new wolf king, leading hundreds of forest wolves.
In the Misty Forest, there were no beastmen, so he had always thought he was just a wolf.
Until one day, uninvited guests appeared in the Misty Forest.
They were wolves, and also humans.
They surrounded a beautiful female and a child.
That female was the Holy Female.
That child was Jiang Xi.
At that time, Jiang Xi’s face and body weren’t yet covered in so many poisons. Half of her body was black, and she lay in the Holy Female’s arms, barely alive.
