145: Beautiful foster mother

"Did Hain break that trash's legs?"

Kong Jiamu had a sour look on his face.

Tu Nan dodged the subject: "Didn't you say you were going to tell me about your savior? I've been waiting all day with bated breath."

Kong Jiamu was a bit disappointed.

Seeing that Pearl didn't want to bring it up again, he guessed Hain must have let the culprit off easily.

Heh, Hain was always like that, clinging to pointless morals.

If he had caught the person, he would have made them pay some price before throwing them in jail, just to make up for the suffering Pearl endured.

Forget it, he would handle it himself when he got back.

"Fine, since I know you care about me, I'll talk about how I was discovered." Kong Jiamu felt quite smug being cared for by Tu Nan.

"We were covered in mud, running all over the place. We finally managed to hide for a few more days, but our stamina and energy couldn't be replenished; we had to tough it out."

"That damn planet was full of nothing but strange things, and I didn't even know if they were edible. I'd rather be poisoned to death than starve, so I had to pick things that looked edible and try them."

"As it turned out, out of ten tries, nine were failures—either they were too tough to chew or they were poisonous."

The Peacock was quite arrogant. "I'm telling you, it's a good thing my level is high enough to test for poison. Otherwise, relying on my teammates? I don't think anyone would have made it back."

No! Tu Nan realized his purity in this regard; it wasn't arrogance.

This was clearly a sense of responsibility driven by his inner self.

Not everyone could lead from the front at a time like that.

Being at the front during battle could be called duty, but in the long days that followed, using his own life to pave the way for his teammates... Tu Nan looked at him in a new light once again.

Kong Jiamu thought of the food he'd eaten with disgust.

"You know, I can finally empathize with the suffering of you noble Young Misses."

Tu Nan could empathize quite well.

During the days she and Gaia spent surviving in the desert, she had felt despondent about her Physique that couldn't eat anything.

He suddenly became tender, returning to his usual playboy, flirtatious tone.

"I've been thinking about several foods you definitely haven't tried, all top-tier ingredients. I placed the orders yesterday, and you should have started receiving them over the next few days. But you actually moved out?"

He began to feel dissatisfied again.

"It's really inconvenient. My kitchen is fully customized; why don't you just move back?"

Tu Nan ignored him. She was genuinely interested in the Star Worms war, which was clearly the greatest crisis facing everyone in this world.

"In places where you can't find food, can the Star Worms survive?" she asked, puzzled.

Kong Jiamu waved his hand. "Sigh, why else would I say Star Worms are hard to deal with? They eat everything; they can even gnaw a planet clean. That's why we're in a fight to the death with them."

He sneered. "Some people actually say that since the Universe is so vast, we should contract our front lines and leave large areas of Barren Planets for the Star Worms to eat, hoping that once they're full, they won't attack the Core Circles."

"How foolish," Tu Nan remarked.

"Exactly. See, even you know," Kong Jiamu nodded. "What use is that besides breeding more Star Worms? At most, it just leaves the problem for future generations."

His eyes grew sharp. "Fortunately, Your Majesty has ascended the throne, and he never listens to the opinions of such cowards."

That Your Majesty... based on Tu Nan's indirect observations, he certainly didn't seem like someone who would curl up in the Capital City and enjoy himself.

Tu Nan's focused gaze and occasional well-timed comments made him unable to stop talking. He described those days of acting like a stray dog as something magnificent and grand.

But of course, that wasn't the case. They were discovered several times and nearly surrounded, and there were times he was so badly injured he almost didn't wake up.

"That planet was just incompatible with me, seriously." Kong Jiamu felt Life Qi just thinking about it. "It was filled everywhere with a kind of flammable gas, forcing my combat power to drop significantly! Otherwise, I wouldn't have been in such a miserable state."

"Oh, right!" Tu Nan finally realized. She had wondered why Kong Jiamu never mentioned using fire to sweep through the battlefield. "What about breathing then... can't you walk in the Universe?"

"There are always limits; I can't stay like that forever. Besides, I had a teammate who's only B+ Rank. We mostly relied on Breathing Tablets."

Tu Nan nodded as she listened to his explanation.

"So that day, when we were surrounded in a place with an extremely high concentration of flammable gas, I really thought something was going to happen." His expression turned serious as he stared intently at Tu Nan.

"At that moment, I thought it was over. Not only could I not take care of my teammate's Female Beast, but it seemed I couldn't take care of my own either."

He gave a short laugh.

"If I'd known, I would have at least left you the house on Xiuyin Star. Oh, and Ao Ao too; he's my apprentice, after all. You should have been able to help me take care of it. Don't laugh! That house is very important to me..."

He was very dissatisfied that Tu Nan wasn't moved to tears; instead, her eyes were lively, and she was still smiling.

Tu Nan spread her hands. "Oh my! When you put it that way, I don't even know if I should hope for your return. That house of yours plus the collections inside must be worth quite a lot of money."

"What! You actually want them? Are those things worth more than me?"

Clearly, the Peacock had started the joking himself, but now he was unhappy again.

Tu Nan just looked at him with a half-smile.

Kong Jiamu couldn't keep up the act, so he coughed twice and pretended nothing had happened.

Just as he reached a thrilling part, the door was slammed open with a bang, interrupting their conversation.

Great... Tu Nan didn't have a habit of locking the door during the day, and Lance didn't have a habit of knocking first.

"Pearl!" Lance didn't feel anything was wrong at all. Her eyes swept over Kong Jiamu as she greeted him in a roguish manner, "Sorry... Colonel Kong, I didn't mean to disturb you."

"But that guest you sent over seems to have arrived." She asked Tu Nan, "She's standing downstairs all by herself. Why don't you go down and take a look first? You can finish the video call later."

Tu Nan gave Kong Jiamu an apologetic look.

"Go on, go on." What else could Kong Jiamu say? This was something he had asked Tu Nan to do.

***

She was a quite beautiful and fragile Female Beast.

This was the first time Tu Nan had seen someone in this world who inspired such immediate pity.

She stood alone at the door, her long, pale gold curly hair reaching her waist, and her fair, delicate skin glowing in the afterglow of the setting sun streaming through the porch window.

Hearing someone come down, she nervously gripped the hem of her skirt, looked up timidly at Tu Nan, and then stared intently at her toes again.

She looked very uneasy.

Small feathers flickered gently behind her ears. Her watery light blue eyes and slender waist, which could almost be spanned by a single hand, stirred a protective urge even in Tu Nan, a fellow female.

This was a Foster Mother too? Truly... like a character from a fairy tale, like a forest princess or something.

"Hello there, are you Sophia? Welcome, I'm Blue Pearl."

Tu Nan hurried downstairs to meet her.

The little princess-like Female Beast nodded and greeted her softly, "Hello, sorry for the trouble."

She asked bashfully, "Are you my Mistress? I heard that Colonel Kong bought me."

Tu Nan's favorability of Kong Jiamu dropped instantly.

He... was still very unreliable.