CH 138

Shu Shuishui, far from his usual playful demeanor, continued to exert pressure on Shi An’an. The others present noticed that when Shu Shuishui’s bright eyes stopped smiling, they concealed a sharp and icy demeanor.

Shi An’an’s mind was thrown into turmoil by Shu Shuishui’s words, sinking into deep doubt. The successive failures in the conquest missions had indeed raised suspicions in Shi An’an’s mind. Now that Shu Shuishui had pointed it out, those doubts could no longer be dispelled. It was evident that with Shi An’an’s personality, even if he didn’t terminate the contract today, he would never trust the system again without being extremely cautious from this point onward.

Feeling his thoughts plunge into severe confusion, Shi An’an frantically searched for something to help him regain composure in his state of turmoil. However, his efforts were in vain. The system was his trump card, and Shi An’an had no idea how Shu Shuishui had learned about it. This profound sense of threat hadn’t appeared for a very long time.

“Mr. Shu, you didn’t come here just to give me a friendly reminder, did you? Unfortunately, I don’t know how to terminate the contract with the system, so your efforts might be in vain,” Shi An’an said. He could sense that Shu Shuishui had come for the system, but he had never heard of the system being unbound. So, Shi An’an couldn’t help feeling a bit satisfied. “Regardless of how you see it, you have to admit that I’m the chosen one. The person the system chose is ultimately me, not you.”

After saying this, Shi An’an felt his frantic heartbeat inexplicably calm down. He intended to savor Shu Shuishui’s frustrated expression. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see it. Today’s Shu Shuishui was different, with no hint of a smile in his eyes, and his seriousness was somewhat unsettling.

Shu Shuishui took out a talisman with complex patterns inscribed on it. Shi An’an instinctively tried to dodge, feeling that something ominous was happening. “Is this a talisman? It’s really you!”

Standing nearby, Gu Langu’s eyes flickered. Shi An’an knew about talismans? It seemed that there were quite a few secrets about him.

Shi An’an had always known that this world was destined to develop into a cultivation realm, but he had never been certain about the key figure, commonly known as the protagonist. Since his arrival, Shu Shuishui rarely used talismans in front of outsiders, even the Wind-Defying Talisman was used cautiously. Therefore, other bases only knew that the Shui Jing Gong had a method to resist storms but didn’t know the specifics.

Although all current clues pointed towards Shu Shuishui from the Shui Jing Gong, due to his dislike for him, Shi An’an subconsciously avoided this answer. He always found various excuses, telling himself that the right person hadn’t appeared yet, that person would be someone he would romance, and that person was closely related to him.

An hour later, the door opened. Shu Shuishui and Gu Langu walked out first, and the onlookers waiting outside the door immediately turned their attention to them. They didn’t see anything unusual, so their gazes shifted back to the room, where they found Shi An’an looking distraught.

Shi An’an’s gaze instinctively followed, then suddenly widened, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. After a while, it seemed he realized what had happened and burst into manic laughter. “You all lied to me! You lied to me! You think you’re so noble! You’re nothing but robbers! Stealing the system, so what? You’re not necessarily better than me! Want to escape this world by binding to the system? I’ll be waiting for your expressions when you fail, hahaha…”

The reason for Shi An’an’s sudden loss of control was that Fei Luo, who stood at the door, was clearly aware of everything that had just happened in the room. He even actively assisted Shu Shuishui. Next to Fei Luo stood a member of Fei Luo Base, the same teammate who seemed impulsive and repeatedly misspoke yesterday.

In Fei Luo’s eyes, as he looked at Shi An’an, there was disgust, caution, and impatience, but not a trace of emotion. Obviously, Shi An’an’s attempts at seduction had never succeeded.

Shi An’an couldn’t understand where he had gone wrong in this world. After all, in his previous tasks, he had used a similar approach.

Seeing the confusion in Shi An’an’s eyes, Fei Luo, who had initially intended to leave, turned back. “I don’t know why your previous targets didn’t notice, but every time I developed negative feelings toward you, almost immediately, I would find some inexplicable reasons to dismiss them. I might even suddenly lose control and develop favorable feelings. Perhaps in others’ eyes, this is what they call ‘involuntary emotions,’ but for me, everything uncontrollable is abnormal.”

In the end, Shi An’an had never regarded Fei Luo as an equal. Fei Luo had his own way of thinking, and he was exceptionally skilled at managing his emotions and thoughts. The only time Fei Luo had hesitated and wavered in his life was probably related to Xie Feng. So, when his emotions started acting up uncontrollably, Fei Luo immediately understood that something was beyond his control, and he needed to find someone to collaborate with.

During the Great Migration, in order to avoid being detected by Shi An’an, Fei Luo rarely interacted with the Shui Jing Gong’s people. However, thanks to the Gray Rat Company of the Shui Jing Gong, it seemed that the gray rats were exceptionally skilled at such underground work, enabling Fei Luo to successfully establish contact with Nan Ge.

The confusion in Shi An’an’s eyes didn’t dissipate. He did indeed use items he had acquired in the past to forcibly increase Fei Luo’s favorability towards him. But wasn’t this a common practice? After all, if Fei Luo’s favorability towards him dropped to a dangerous level, his seduction would fail.

So, whenever he noticed Fei Luo’s favorability towards him dropping to a dangerous value, Shi An’an would forcefully use items to boost it. Unfortunately, the usage limit for items was 80% favorability, or else Shi An’an might directly use items to complete a seduction mission.

Leaving Shi An’an seething with resentment, the group departed. As for Shi An’an, he was naturally expelled from the Shui Jing Gong.

Having lost the system, Shi An’an felt that nowhere was safe in this apocalypse. He knew that his only remaining reliance was his connections and followers in Fei Luo Base. So, after a brief period of despair, he quickly headed towards Fei Luo Base.

But what Shi An’an could think of, Nan Ge and the others had surely considered. When Shi An’an was detained, Fei Luo, who had been planning for a long time, immediately conducted a major purge of Fei Luo Base. Cang Zhan Star, in reality, was never benevolent; there were conspiracies and calculations everywhere. This was its true nature from the beginning.

“Shui Shui , you look very different today, quite handsome!” Xie Feng was also one of the onlookers during the unbinding process. Despite not being used to this assertive version of Shu Shuishui, it didn’t affect his fanboy status.

Shu Shuishui took a deep breath and scratched his head. “I’m just angry.”

Nan Ge and the others were puzzled. They hadn’t realized that Shu Shuishui could get angry like this, but it was indeed intimidating.

If it were someone else, perhaps they wouldn’t have been so easily overwhelmed as Shi An’an. However, all the speculations made by Shu Shuishui were reasonable. The system did have a tendency to change hosts; otherwise, Shi An’an’s mission wouldn’t have been so troublesome. Of course, choosing the wrong target for seduction was also a major mistake.

After learning the entire story from Little Gray Rat, Shu Shuishui had been accumulating anger. According to Little Gray Rat, it did indeed see a particularly large grasshopper that it wanted to catch and bring back to Shu Shuishui. But that was in a safe area. After all, before leaving, the gray rats had been repeatedly reminded. Little Gray Rat being selected as a member of the exploration team was a guarantee of its quality among the rats.

Along the way, Shi An’an was very friendly with Little Gray Rat, often patting and petting its head. So, it was only after the attack by the mutant wolves that Little Gray Rat realized something was wrong. It was likely during those interactions that Shi An’an had sprinkled the potion on Little Gray Rat.

Faced with the onslaught of the mutant wolves, Little Gray Rat naturally panicked and fled. However, it remembered seeing a white deer the day before and knew that the white deer was the boss of this forest. So, it could only run towards the area where it had seen the white deer based on its memory. But along the way, it attracted more and more mutant creatures. Seeing no hope of escaping, a giant owl swooped down from the sky. According to Little Gray Rat, this was a true owl hero saving a rat.

The mutant owl had clearly consumed the lotus flower from the deer’s antlers, so it didn’t go berserk like other mutant creatures. With the help of the owl, Little Gray Rat narrowly escaped the ordeal.

Little Gray Rat’s attempts to stay optimistic still made Shu Shuishui feel guilty. After all, Shu Shuishui had promised the valley’s gray rats that he would take care of the gray rats that joined the Shui Jing Gong. Shu Shuishui had never encountered someone like Shi An’an in his limited social circle, someone who didn’t treat rats as rats or humans as humans.

So, all of this led to what happened next. Fei Luo had been silently studying Shi An’an for a while, and with Shu Shuishui’s insights from their shared dream, he concluded that he couldn’t let things continue this way. Whether he could successfully unbind the system depended on fate.

As it turned out, the system itself was actively seeking to unbind, and Shi An’an was also shaken by Shu Shuishui’s words. With the contract no longer solid and the help of the seals, they managed to successfully unbind.

Speaking of the system, Shu Shuishui opened his palm, revealing a faint blue orb of light, resembling some kind of energy. “What should we do with this system? Would you like it, Xiao Feng Feng?” he asked.

Xie Feng stumbled a bit. “What?! Give it to me! Shui Shui, don’t you want it?”

Shu Shuishui nonchalantly shook his head. “Of course not. What if binding means traveling through time and space? I have to be with Gu Gu.”

Xie Feng, now slightly upset, pouted. “So, is it okay for me to travel through time and space then?”

Shu Shuishui glanced at Xie Feng. “Aren’t you a single dog?”

A wounded Xie Feng: “…” At this moment, he could only be thankful that Yu Jin wasn’t here; otherwise, he’d be subject to some teasing.

Nan Ge, trying to hold back his laughter, chimed in. “Actually, Xiao Feng can try binding it. After all, this system seems to be some kind of advanced technology, and it aligns with Xiao Feng’s research direction. Who knows, you might discover something. If you really need to travel through time and space, you can unbind it later.”

Xie Feng firmly refused. “I don’t want it. What if I’m too exceptional, and the system doesn’t want to unbind?”

The system, feeling unappreciated: “…” What’s going on? This isn’t how I imagined it at all!