Chapter 51: Nine-Leaky Fish? Make Up Lessons!Â
General Chu was completely obsessed with the training ground. Su Wudeng watched him for a while before heading back to the pet center alone.
“Oh, Governor, you’re back early. Where’s General Chu?” Zhong Huihui had just finished feeding the cubs. She turned around, a bit surprised to see Su Wudeng returning by herself.
Su Wudeng took the bowl from her hands and saw it was a specialized nutritional meal for Xiao Sanhua. “He’s addicted to the training ground. Huihui, you should go over there too. Xiao Sanhua is the only one left in the store who hasn’t been fed yet, right? I’ll handle it.”
Aside from training Baiyun, Huihui was currently managing most of the daily operations at the pet center. Fortunately, the hyperactive Snow Crystal kittens and Husky pups now had their own owners to look after them, or her own conditioning schedule would have been completely derailed.
No, this won’t do, Su Wudeng thought. The recruitment plan had to be pushed to the top of the agenda.
“Alright!” Huihui thought it over and nodded. “To be honest, Xiao Sanhua is still a little skittish around me. It’s probably better if you’re the one feeding her, Governor. By the way, what do you think? Will Xiao Sanhua and her friends choose to stay with us at the Pet Home?”
Su Wudeng sighed softly. “Her leg is practically fully healed now. I was actually just about to ask her.”
“I really hope they choose to stay. They’re still so small and haven’t even reached their transition period yet. It would be incredibly difficult for them to survive out in the wild on their own.”
Especially in an era like this, where the law of the jungle ruled supreme and the weak were constantly preyed upon.
Su Wudeng glanced around the quiet lobby. “Oh, right, where’s Yu Lan? Is she not in the building?”
Zhong Huihui shook her head, her expression turning complex. “Governor, you have no idea how badly you terrified Yu Lan today. When you ordered us to evacuate the experimental plot while you stayed behind to handle the vanguard, Yu Lan went entirely frantic. She almost broke the console trying to force the shuttle back down.”
“Thank goodness Executive Officer Lin pinned her down.”
“If my calculations are correct, she’s over at the training complex right now,” Huihui added with a sigh. “She’s thoroughly convinced that her current lack of strength makes her a liability to you, so she’s pushing her limits like a madwoman.”
“That stubborn kid,” Su Wudeng muttered, rubbing her temples. “Alright, I understand. Go ahead and head out.”
She had formulated a solid tactical plan at the time, but she hadn’t anticipated her actions would cause Yu Lan so much psychological distress.
It looked like securing a suitable pet for Yu Lan had to be prioritized. Perhaps only by acquiring her own combat familiar and growing stronger would the girl finally find some peace of mind.
She had brainstormed the topic with Yu Lan before. The girl was fiercely determined to secure an aerial or flight familiar… but that profile was incredibly difficult to source.
During her extensive surveys across the regional forests, she hadn’t cleared a single wild avian species whose combat metrics could even compare to the legendary Mechanical Wyverns of the core worlds.
Am I going to have to expand our exploration mapping to a different sector?
Su Wudeng pondered the logistical issue as she stepped into Xiao Sanhua’s recovery room.
Thanks to Nuannuan’s high-tier healing magic, the calico kitten’s cellular regeneration had broken records. The catastrophic laceration had cleanly knit itself back together, leaving nothing but a faint, shallow silver line across her front leg.
“Huahua, dinner time!~”
Inside the room, the calico was happily tumbling across the floor with the snow leopard cubs, while the two little orange kittens hovered on the periphery, their paws twitching as they tried to find a window to join the scuffle.
But Huahua and the little leopards were locked in an intense wrestling match, rolling so fast that the orange kittens couldn’t find a clean angle to pounce.
Seeing Huahua roll past their paws, the orange kittens immediately lunged forward to aggressively lick the dirt from her fur.
But the calico executed a swift mid-air kick, breaking free to plunge right back into the play-fight!
Yingying lay stretched out lazily on her side, her massive leopard head resting comfortably on her paws. Her smoky silver eyes blinked sleepily, her long tail swaying rhythmically against the floor. With the cubs fully occupied, the majestic cat was enjoying a rare moment of absolute peace.
The second her eyes locked onto Su Wudeng, Yingying’s gaze ignited, and she immediately stood up to pad over, pressing her heavy shoulder against her master’s hip.
“Our sweet Yingying is doing such an amazing job managing this entire daycare center,~” Su Wudeng cooed. “Incredibly good girl!”
Su Wudeng was completely powerless against Yingying’s affectionate displays, wrapping her arms around the big cat’s neck for a massive hug, showering her with praise.
Now that the calico had been thoroughly cleaned and groomed, her breathtaking aesthetics were on full display. Not only were her orange companions completely obsessed with her, but even the little snow leopards preferred playing with Huahua over any other toy in the nursery.
But Huahua was entirely consumed by her wrestling match, failing to register the announcement of dinner. Yingying calmly extended her massive, fluffy tail, looping it around the kitten’s torso and lifting her clean off the floor to drop her directly before the nutrition bowl.
The calico had been right on the verge of executing a flawless counter-strike against a leopard cub when her momentum was abruptly canceled. She unhinged her jaws, ready to let out a furious hiss at the intruder—until she looked up and realized it was the matriarch leopard who had relocated her.
Huahua’s fierce posture vanished instantly, her voice dropping into an ultra-soft, submissive “meow~” as she immediately buried her face in the formula.
Good reaction time… nearly forfeited my remaining life credits right there!
Su Wudeng watched the behavioral shift and couldn’t contain her laughter. Yingying had essentially adopted the calico into her own litter! She was raising the stray alongside her own cubs, enforcing maternal discipline the second the little ones became unruly.
The calico and the orange kittens polished off their bowls within minutes. Su Wudeng knelt down to run a manual diagnostic check over the calico’s shoulder.
“Spectacular! The tissue density has completely stabilized.”
She was fully aware that Yingying had frequently visited the suite during the off-hours to tend to the calico’s recovery; the leopard’s maternal devotion was the primary variable driving this recovery rate.
She scratched behind Yingying’s ears. “Thank you for looking after her, Yingying.”
“Now, Huahua, your leg is perfectly healed. Are you ready to return to your ancestral woods? Or would you prefer to remain here with sister?”
The calico tilted her head, her round eyes wide with sudden panic. What does she mean? Is sister discarding me?
No!
“Meow!”
Xiao Sanhua launched her tiny body straight into Su Wudeng’s lap, digging her claws into her shirt. I refuse to leave sister!
“Meow~ meow~” Huahua promise to be the most obedient cat in the universe!
She had never experienced a sanctuary this absolute in her entire life. She didn’t have to spend every waking hour terrified of being devoured by predators, hunted down by humans, or starving in the winter mud. Every morning when she opened her eyes, her only problem was deciding which cub to play with and secretly watching what her kind human sister was organizing.
Furthermore, she had a giant cat protecting her who felt exactly like a mother. Huahua stole a glance at Yingying—so powerful, so majestic, so elegant. As long as she was within Yingying’s aura, her anxiety dissolved completely. Yingying was everything she had ever fantasized a mother should be.
And the big cat wasn’t hostile at all! She would never eat her! She even spent her evenings gently licking Huahua’s shoulder when the stitches began to itch in the middle of the night…
She refused to go back to the wild!
Tears welled up in the calico’s large eyes, fat droplets spilling over to soak into Su Wudeng’s uniform.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry! You don’t have to leave, I promise!” Su Wudeng frantically gathered the weeping kitten into her arms, patting her back soothingly. “Why are you crying so hard?”
“Huahua, stop crying, sister isn’t mad at you!”
“I’m not trying to evict you, baby. I was just asking for your personal opinion, right?”
“If our beautiful Huahua wants to stay, then this is your forever home, okay?”
“Meow!” Huahua is never leaving!
Su Wudeng hadn’t anticipated the calico’s psychology would be this incredibly fragile. “Alright, alright! You’re staying!”
Yingying trotted over as well, using her massive pink tongue to gently lick the tears from the kitten’s face. The little snow leopard cubs, picking up on the emotional distress through their shared bond, scrambled over anxiously, forming a protective wall of white fluff around the calico. The two little orange kittens chimed in with a chorus of worried meows.
But seeing how incredibly tender and protective they were only caused Xiao Sanhua to sob harder. It all felt like a beautiful, fragile dream, and she was terrified she was about to wake up back in the cold mud beneath the roots.
“Shh, it’s okay, let’s dry those eyes.” Su Wudeng pulled a soft cloth from her kit, carefully dabbing at the kitten’s face. “Look at you, you’ve turned yourself into a soggy little fluff-ball.”
The kitten’s long fur was completely matted with tears. She stared up at Su Wudeng with wide, moist eyes, the rims pink with exhaustion and relief. As a long-haired variant, she felt like a giant, dense cloud in Su Wudeng’s arms, her tiny body radiating a comforting heat. Staring into those vulnerable eyes, Su Wudeng felt her heart melt entirely. She wanted to give this creature the entire galaxy just to ensure she never shed another tear.
Huahua let out a tiny, hiccuping sob. Really? Sister? You promise you won’t throw me out?
Su Wudeng gave a firm, absolute nod. “…Never! You will stay by my side forever!”
The calico’s features instantly broke into a pure, joyful expression. She lunged upward, wrapping her tiny front paws tightly around Su Wudeng’s neck, aggressively rubbing her wet cheek against the human’s jaw. Huahua loves sister the most!
“Sister loves you too, sweet girl~”
Once Su Wudeng managed to stabilize the kitten’s emotional state, the calico transformed into an absolute shadow. No matter where Su Wudeng moved within the suite, the kitten was glued to her boot heels. And the second the calico moved, the two orange kittens, Yingying, and the entire litter of snow leopard cubs fell into an organized march behind her.
Su Wudeng: “…”
Should I consider it a structural blessing that the other owners took their hyperactive pups out to the training complex?
But before she could even celebrate her relative peace, the heavy doors opened, and Aihua sauntered into the room, carrying three squirming, wrestling panda cubs stacked precariously across her back.
The iron-eating beast cubs hadn’t seen their mother in months, and their separation anxiety had manifested as an absolute, relentless physical attachment. They refused to let go of her fur for a single second.
Aihua wore an expression of total, profound existential dread, lifting her gaze to fix Su Wudeng with a look of pure, desperate pleading.
She had deeply, intensely missed her babies while she was trading strikes on the front lines. But the exact millisecond she reunited with them, every buried memory of parenthood had come crashing back!
These cubs were entirely too high-energy! Too clingy! Too destructive!
And the sheer volume of their screaming was devastating!
Su Wudeng: “…”
Aihua, you came looking for sanctuary? Look around my room, I’m currently running an absolute zoo!
There was only one logical solution to manage this level of collective juvenile chaos: a family excursion.
They have too much metabolic energy, right? We take them for a march! A grueling, exhaustion-tier walk through the woods!
Coincidentally, she needed to escort the Lingnai Deer back to the perimeter of their valley and check in with Nuannuan regarding the harvest of medical flora.
“Amber! Get your gear ready, we’re deploying! And pack your own cubs into the transport line!”
“Woof! Woof!”
Amber’s head popped through the doorway, his eyes blazing. Another outdoor survey excursion?! Outstanding! Let’s ride!
Advanced Training Complex.
The customized conditioning roadmaps for the combat familiars had been fully executed across the diagnostic data arrays. Even Zhong Huihui, who had been the last to clear the baseline tracking benchmarks, had successfully initiated her regimen.
General Chu stood by the primary observation pane, tracking the precise execution of the drills across the simulated environments.
He let out a heavy, wistful sigh. “What I wouldn’t give to command a familiar of that caliber…”
He had never harbored any delusions of establishing a contract with Aihua; the panda’s soul-link was anchored entirely to Su Wudeng. He understood the math perfectly. To be completely objective, he was still shocked the panda had agreed to lend her apocalyptic combat metrics to his theater of operations in the first place.
“But… a personal pet is out of the question for my profile,” he muttered, his gaze dropping to the floor. Given his frontline deployment and the mortality rate of his position, he had no idea how many fiscal quarters of life he had remaining. Why drag an innocent animal into his personal meat-grinder?
Suddenly, a soft, hesitating voice broke through his thoughts. “General Chu… could you… would you be open to analyzing my baseline form?”
Chu Tianhe raised his eyes. “Su… Yulan?”
The governor’s little sister?
Su Yulan’s heart was hammering against her ribs like a piston. She had never fantasized that she would stand face-to-face with a five-star supreme commander of the active trenches. But this was the ultimate opportunity to bridge her weakness; she had to seize it.
“Yes, General Chu. I’ve studied your tactical field campaigns since my freshman year. I… I am formally requesting your personal mentorship.”
“I am currently tracking a top-tier curriculum at the Kyoto Beastmaster Academy, entering my sophomore cycle. My absolute career objective is to enlist in the Eighth War Zone immediately upon graduation and serve directly under your command!”
She blurted out the entire speech in a single breath, her voice trembling slightly from the raw adrenaline.
Chu Tianhe raised an eyebrow, a keen interest glinting in his eyes. “The Eighth Theater? If my administrative records serve me correctly, top-tier scions graduating from the Kyoto Academy overwhelmingly lobby for placement within the First or Second War Zones to secure premium corporate funding.”
“Yet you’re purposefully targeting our underfunded outer-rim sector?”
“Let us look at the facts… you’re structuring your entire military career around your sister, aren’t you?”
Su Yulan didn’t attempt to dodge the analysis, giving a firm, absolute nod. “The only viable method to guarantee the absolute sovereignty of the Ether Front—and by extension, shield my sister from galactic threats—is to become a commander within your fleet.”
This had been her north star since the day she arrived on this planet. Her singular, unyielding purpose.
Chu Tianhe observed the fiery determination blazing in her eyes, a complex expression passing over his handsome features. This young girl truly possessed a remarkable spirit.
“Very well. Show me your primary familiar asset, let me benchmark its stats.”
The girl’s eyes ignited. The general accepted her request!
But as the realization of her current status settled in, her features fell into an embarrassed pout, her voice dropping into a low murmur. “My mechanical dragon familiar suffered total structural failure during our last engagement…”
“The conditioning I’m requesting… is for my personal physical form. Not an animal…”
As she reached the end of the sentence, her voice became so quiet it was nearly swallowed by the facility’s ambient white noise.
Chu Tianhe’s brow furrowed. “You want to train your own biological body? Completely detached from a familiar?”
“If my information is correct, Governor Su is currently sifting through premium genetic pools to source a high-tier companion for your affinity, correct? There is zero logical reason for you to force this level of anxiety.”
“The foundational law of the craft dictates that a beastmaster must condition their physical and mental loops in tandem with their pet.”
He refused to believe a Kyoto Academy scion didn’t understand basic familiar mechanics.
But Su Yulan met his gaze with an unyielding, fierce intensity. “I understand the theory perfectly, General. But I refuse to sit in a transport shuttle ever again, watching my sister face a Zerg vanguard alone while I am physically pinned down by an officer’s arm.”
“I am fully aware that you were the sovereign owner of this planet, and Commander Lin Yue is your direct subordinate.”
“I want to acquire a physical output threshold that matches Lin Yue’s baseline!”
During the initial skirmish, Lin Yue hadn’t even deployed her familiar, yet her raw human kinetic output had entirely neutralized Yulan’s ability to resist. She refused to ever experience that level of absolute powerlessness again!
After a long silence, General Chu offered a soft, serious murmur. “Your psychological courage is commendable.”
“…I will authorize a customized personal conditioning matrix for your profile. But you must understand—my training protocols do not contain a cancellation clause. Once we initialize, you do not quit.”
“Are you prepared for the parameters?”
Su Yulan tilted her chin up, a bright, unbroken light dancing in her eyes. “Absolutely!”
The Postpartum Care Center… cough, The Pet Home Branch.
Su Wudeng arrived at the woodland clearing, leaving Yingying behind at the main facility to oversee the nursery.
The survey team—consisting of herself, Amber, and Aihua—was tasked with safely escorting the Lingnai Deer back to the perimeter of their valley.
Amber was thoroughly acquainted with the coordinates by now, bounding through the undergrowth ahead of the group like a puppy, while Aihua, who hadn’t stepped foot in her native woods for months, enthusiastically sniffed every passing moss-covered trunk.
“Nuannuan, I’m going to offload the cargo logistics to you for this cycle. This is a specialized vector satchel; ensure you utilize the internal space efficiently during the harvest.”
Su Wudeng handed a compact leaf-woven pouch to the mother deer. While the physical exterior appeared tiny, the interior architecture utilized advanced space-folding technology manufactured by the Interstellar Peace Corporation, allowing it to hold several tons of cargo.
Nuannuan accepted the satchel, nudging Su Wudeng’s palm reassuringly. Do not let it stress you! Low-to-mid-tier therapeutic plants are incredibly dense within the valley. I promise to redline the internal capacity for you before tomorrow morning!
“Thank you so much, Nuannuan!” Su Wudeng leaned forward, planting a warm kiss on the deer’s cheek. “I’ve secured a localized playback terminal within the interior pocket. Ensure you stream the terraforming footage for the rest of the herd exactly like I demonstrated.”
“If you hit any psychological resistance from the elders, ping my frequency immediately~”
Nuannuan nodded intelligently. Understood!
Nana executed a high jump, launching her front paws directly into Su Wudeng’s torso to demand a final cuddle. I’m going to act as Mom’s assistant officer!
Doudou and I will personally systematically corner every single fawn in the herd and break down the benefits of the care center! Don’t worry, Sister!
Su Wudeng buried her face in the fawn’s neck fur, inhaling her clean scent. “Nana is sister’s best marketing executive!”
“Sister has absolute faith in your pitch!”
Standing nearby, Doudou swallowed hard, her mouth watering as her tastebuds replayed the intense, savory crunch of the roasted pine nuts. It was entirely too delicious! If she hadn’t been assigned a formal recruitment mission, she would have never voluntarily returned to this damp valley. The facility Su Wudeng provided was absolute paradise—premium catering, secure lodging, and total freedom to channel her plant magic into the soil. It was the ultimate dream job, and she was sick with relief that she had chosen to trust Nana and board that shuttle.
Lufeng observed the unbridled, simple-minded enthusiasm of Nana and Doudou with a look of silent, profound judgment. “…”
So this is the textbook definition of the ‘fools’ luck’ phenomenon?
The data suggested that Governor Su possessed a genuinely benign, protective disposition toward their species. Had this coordinate been ruled by any other human faction… his analytical mind refused to compute the downstream slaughter.
Before long, the procession reached the heavy stone gates framing Luming Valley.
Su Wudeng gave each deer an affectionate, individual embrace to close out the shift. “I’ll be monitoring the onboarding registry for your data! Good luck, team!”
“Move out!”
Lufeng halted at the absolute center of the valley pass, executing a slow turn to track the direction where Su Wudeng and the apex familiars were heading.
That vector? Are they tracking a course toward that specific anomalous ridge?
His memory units instantly pulled up the visual data he had logged on the rainy night of the ambush.
“Lufeng! Your processing speed is lagging! Accelerate your pace!”
“Yeah, hurry up!”
Nana’s calls echoed from the forward path, supported by Doudou’s impatient nudges. Lufeng cleared his thoughts, realizing his standing had fallen significantly behind the group’s positioning. He adjusted his stride and quickly caught up with the herd.
With the deer safely secured inside their valley, Amber assumed the vanguard position, guiding Su Wudeng toward the hidden ridge.
The husky had nested within that specific cave for an entire night during the storm, returning with a pristine specimen of the mythic Soul-Bond Blossom. Following her returns, Su Wudeng had run a comprehensive historical cross-reference with Professor Yang, confirming that the species was exceptionally rare and required an incredibly precise micro-climate and soil pH to sustain life.
Furthermore, botanical data dictated that the Soul-Bond Blossom never operated as an isolated organism; they consistently germinated in tight clusters of three to five units.
In other words, that hidden valley likely hosted a wealth of un-harvested mythic flora!
An asset of that caliber—capable of exponentially amplifying the telepathic link between a master and their familiar—was far too valuable to leave unguarded in the wild.
Amber tracked the scent trail with razor-sharp focus, his ears pinned forward as he scouted. Aihua kept pace directly flanking her sister, her massive shoulders offering a comforting wall of muscle. Su Wudeng monitored her system’s tactical display at regular intervals.
Fortunately, this specific exploration corridor was exceptionally secluded and bypassed by major predator paths, ensuring their progress was completely unobstructed by hostile wildlife. However, the mountain trail was incredibly rugged and steep; the raw physical exertion quickly took a toll on Su Wudeng’s civilian stamina, severely bottlenecking their transit velocity.
By contrast, Amber and Aihua cleared the rocky inclines with effortless grace.
Su Wudeng paused to wipe the heavy sweat from her forehead, her hair damp from the dense humidity of the canopy. She glanced at the holographic projection hovering before her visor, which indicated that the primeval forest stretched out indefinitely ahead, showing no clear end to the dense foliage.
She began to grasp the physical distance. No wonder Amber had taken an entire night to return to the cabin given her baseline walking speed.
And… the silence in this sector was absolute. It was a suffocating, heavy quiet that caused her maternal instincts to flash with an uneasy tension.
She leaned her shoulder against Aihua’s flank. “By the way, Aihua, does your knowledge database contain any explanation for why the maternal abandonment rate for felines is so catastrophically high across this mountain range?”
She had intended to run a behavioral diagnostic with Xiao Sanhua earlier, but the mere mention of the topic had triggered a severe panic response in the calico, causing the kitten to weep hysterically. She hadn’t had the heart to push the interrogation further and force the poor thing to relive her trauma.
Aihua rolled her shoulders, her response echoing through the link. What other explanation could there be, Sister? In the wild, everything resolves to the primal baseline—the law of the jungle. If your physical output fails to match the environment, you are systematically eliminated from the registry.
Feline familiars are genetically hardwired as solitary hunters. When you layer that onto malnourished, fragile newborns, the baseline mortality rate naturally breaks records.
However… Aihua paused, her dark eyes narrowing as she re-indexed her historical logs. The localized abandonment metrics for kittens have shown a strange spike this quarter compared to historical averages.
Within this specific valley system alone, we’ve logged the Snow Crystal Cat litter, then the calico princess, then the two orange strays… all pure feline infants.
If your operations hadn’t systematically intercepted their lifespans, Sister, we wouldn’t have even gathered enough data points to map this anomaly.
These kittens had been dropped into the dirt one after another in a tight geographic sequence, yet her sensors hadn’t picked up a single trace or biological remnant of their mothers.
Su Wudeng: “Exactly. My drone sweeps haven’t recovered a single feline corpse or bone fragment across the entire ridge.”
“The pattern is highly anomalous.”
At the very least, standard predator activity would leave skeletal fragments or structural remains behind, right? But despite deploying multiple automated surveillance sweeps across the adjacent sectors, the system hadn’t flagged a single mature feline signature.
Where had they gone?
Had they evacuated the coordinates entirely prior to her taking ownership of the territory?
Suddenly, a sharp, instinctual intuition flashed through Su Wudeng’s mind. Could this anomaly be linked directly to those poaching syndicates?
Did they systematically harvest the mature mothers first?
She resolved to schedule a deep-reconnaissance drone sweep to map the outer boundaries the second she cleared her cash reserves.
After another twenty minutes of trekking, Amber abruptly skidded to a halt, executing a swift turn to bark excitedly at Su Wudeng:
“Woof! Woof!” We’ve reached the coordinate milestone!
Su Wudeng’s features lit up with relief, and she gratefully slid down from Aihua’s back. Her legs had given out miles ago, forcing her to rely on the giant panda to carry her through the final leg of the trail.
But as she stepped up to Amber’s position and took in the immediate topography, her expression blanked into pure confusion.
“Huh? A cave entrance? Amber, are you mathematically certain this is the correct coordinate?”
“Woof!” Absolute certainty! No tracking errors! Trust the radar!
Su Wudeng narrowed her eyes, leveling a deeply suspicious look at the husky. “Hold on a second, my friend. Let’s look at the facts plain and clear. Why on earth did your personal exploration route bring you this deep into an unmapped sector? And what exactly possessed you to go crawling into a dark, subterranean cavern in the middle of a typhoon?”
This layout didn’t look like a casual, accidental discovery during a routine walk.
Amber’s ears instantly drooped back against his skull, his tail tucking. Just as he prepared to launch his massive body at Su Wudeng to execute a high-frequency cuddle routine to scramble her focus, the governor securely clapped her hands around his jaws. She dropped into a low squat, forcing the husky to lock eyes with her, her expression dead serious. “Amber, pause your programming for a second. Do not attempt to act cute to scramble this audit.”
“State the absolute truth!”
“Woof! Woof!”
Amber let out two muffled, defensive whines. Fine. My tactical sensors tracked a poaching operative entering this specific cavern cluster during the initial sweep. My intelligence database confirmed that syndicates always store premium high-value assets within hidden subterranean vaults!
So… so… I decided to execute a high-risk salvage run to secure a legendary surprise for my master!
A cold dread gripped Su Wudeng’s chest, her fingers tightening around the dog’s jaw instinctively. “You actually ventured into an active poacher’s nest on your own?! Are you completely brain-dead?! What if the corridor was wired with proximity mines or automated security turrets?!”
“Woof! Woof!” I executed a full kinetic scan first! The defensive lines were entirely cold! There was zero ordnance! Only the flora looked pretty!
Su Wudeng finally unraveled the mystery of why Amber had redlined an entire night to return to the cabin. It wasn’t just the physical distance; he had been conducting a solo infiltration mission into a hostile syndicate bunker!
“I’m serious, Master! Look at my telemetry, my health bar is at one hundred percent!” Amber wagged his tail at supersonic speed, frantically trying to lick the tension from Su Wudeng’s face. I acknowledge the operational risk was non-standard! I promise to adjust my behavior parameters for the next cycle, okay?
Su Wudeng stared at the dog, her mind reeling with the horrific what-ifs. If those poachers had left an automated defense matrix active inside that darkness, Amber would have been vaporized into digital scrap before she could even process the alert.
She took a long, stabilizing breath, forcing her tone into an absolute, serious command frequency. “Amber, listen to me very carefully. Your master does not require you to take physical risks to secure assets, do you understand me?”
“As long as your life metrics remain green and you are living a happy, peaceful existence, my satisfaction parameters are completely fulfilled.”
“If you ever choose to execute an unauthorized operation into a high-risk danger zone again, your master will permanently sever our verbal and emotional communication links. I will not speak to you again!”
She recognized that his actions were driven by a pure, desperate desire to please her, but the structural risk was entirely unacceptable.
“Woof! Woof!” Amber immediately dropped his head, projecting an absolute, binding promise through the link. I will never override protocol again, Sister! Absolute guarantee!
Aihua’s dark eyes rolled, and she stepped forward, delivering a heavy, echoing swat clean across Amber’s backside, her telepathic voice booming with sisterly discipline. Your processing units are as defective as ever, you idiot!
What if the cavern was a structural cave-in trap?!
Amber didn’t even attempt to dodge or counter the strike, allowing the massive force to knock his body flat onto the mossy earth, letting out a series of dramatic, exaggerated whimpers.
“Awooo!” Sister, she’s committing friendly fire!
Seeing that Aihua was raising her massive paw to deliver a second round of discipline, Su Wudeng frantically threw herself between them, shielding the husky. “Aihua, stand down! That’s enough physical correction.”
She pulled the groaning dog back onto his feet, her features softening into pure worry as she inspected his ribs. “Let me check your side. Did she fracture anything?”
Amber let out a pathetic, high-pitched cry, but as Su Wudeng ran her diagnostics… there wasn’t a single drop in his shielding. His health bars were perfectly pristine.
“…”
Unbelievable. These two absolute frauds are putting on a theatrical performance just to scramble my discipline!
“You two…”
Su Wudeng let out an amused, exasperated laugh. “Alright. I’ll drop the audit for Amber this single time, but if a second unauthorized deployment is logged, the penalties will be absolute!”
“And Aihua is strictly forbidden from executing physical discipline inside the squad, understood?”
“Woof! Woof!”Â
“Awoo~”
Su Wudeng shook her head, a stern light returning to her eyes. “Alright, move out!”
She had identified a massive operational vulnerability within her squad: she possessed zero disciplinary leverage over her combat familiars. If Amber felt confident enough to stalk poachers today, he’d feel bold enough to challenge an orbital fleet tomorrow. And Aihua’s defaults were far more aggressive than the husky’s. If this trajectory continued, a catastrophic casualty was a statistical certainty. She needed a structural solution.
She had to establish strict behavioral boundaries, teaching these wild creatures that a true warrior never exposes themselves to unnecessary danger, and breaking down the severe consequences of operating without direct authorization.
These two are essentially truant students who completely bypassed the foundational education system, Su Wudeng thought grimly. It’s time to enroll them in an intense, non-negotiable summer school!
Oh, wait, let’s add Yingying to the roster too!
The entire squad is getting mandatory behavior conditioning!
Amber, completely oblivious to his impending academic doom, cheerfully resumed his vanguard position, thoroughly satisfied that he had successfully managed to evade the governor’s wrath.
With a swift rake of his claws, he cleared away the thick curtain of wild vines blocking the cavern exit. Aihua extended a heavy paw to help widen the breach.
Instantly, the subterranean darkness dissolved, replaced by a blinding, brilliant wash of natural sunlight. The narrow, claustrophobic stone corridor opened up into an expansive, breathtaking valley.
Su Wudeng stepped through the threshold, completely paralyzed by the sweeping ocean of color before her eyes.
As far as the eye could see, the entire valley basin was packed with a dense, magnificent carpet of exotic flowers, their pristine petals shimmering as iridescent butterflies swarmed the air. The cavern entrance wasn’t a dead-end vault; it was a hidden geographical pass connecting two entirely different biomes!
This was an untouched, secret mountain valley of flowers!
Amber quickly guided Su Wudeng toward the specific cluster where he had harvested the initial specimen.
“Woof! Woof!” Look right here, Master! Last week only a single blossom had cleared its cycle, but now the entire patch is in full bloom!
Su Wudeng’s senses were completely overwhelmed by the profound beauty of the display. “Good heavens… this is spectacular!”
She knelt down to inspect the Soul-Bond Blossoms. A soft, ethereal luminescence pulsated across the delicate petals, an absolute masterpiece of natural design.
More importantly, it wasn’t an isolated cluster—there was an entire, high-density grove of them! There were more than enough specimens to provide premium wardrobes for both the canine and feline divisions!
Su Wudeng quickly initialized her smart glasses, expanding the tracking parameters to scan the remaining flora across the valley floor…
[Diagnostic: Low-tier Medical Flora – Solar Sunflower, Monarch Butterfly Weed, Azure Lotus…]
[Diagnostic: Mid-tier Medical Flora – Twilight Wisteria, Alabaster Magnolia, Coral Rose…]
“Wait… where are the high-tier specimens?”
Su Wudeng’s brow furrowed as she scanned the data readouts. Aside from the localized cluster of mythic Soul-Bond Blossoms, the automated system hadn’t flagged a single high-tier or elite medical plant across the entire valley!
That was a statistical impossibility.
Based on standard ecological principles, a secluded, untouched hidden biome of this scale should naturally maintain at least a one percent concentration of high-tier or elite botanical mutations. How could the registry return a absolute zero?
She adjusted the scanning frequency of her glasses, executing a comprehensive secondary sweep. The results remained unchanged: zero high-tier signatures.
Aihua’s ears flicked, her telepathic voice laced with deep confusion. The data doesn’t compute…
While wild animals didn’t classify plants using human academic tiers, their primal senses could easily measure the raw density of spiritual energy radiating from the flora. Her radar wasn’t picking up a single high-energy botanical source across the basin.
“Amber, did the landscape look identical to this during your initial infiltration?”
The husky tilted his head, his thoughts muddled. The structural diagnostics were obscured by the rain during my last shift, Master. The second my sensors locked onto the Soul-Bond cluster, I executed the harvest and initiated a hard retreat.
Su Wudeng knew something was deeply wrong.
She targeted her smart glasses toward the far edge of the basin, executing a full topographical analysis, until the system suddenly flagged a massive surface anomaly. “Wait!”
“Why is that specific sector completely disrupted?”
The trio sprinted over to investigate the coordinates. Sure enough, the ground was a disaster.
The rich topsoil had been violently overturned and torn apart, leaving a chaotic mess of shattered roots and overturned earth.
Aihua observed the damage, her brow furrowing. The structural profile suggests a localized uprooting sequence. Something has physically pulled these spiritual plants straight out of the substrate.
Amber tilted his head. Could it be a wild predator territory dispute? But my sensors are returning a zero-match result for claw marks or paw prints on the dirt.
Su Wudeng crouched down to analyze the soil density. The data confirmed the plants had been cleanly extracted from the roots, rather than crushed by a territorial animal. And Aihua’s observation was entirely accurate—there wasn’t a single physical track left on the surrounding ground. No paw prints, no heavy tail drags, no sliding marks. Absolute zero.
Su Wudeng expanded the diagnostic perimeter, logging several parallel sectors where the topsoil had been similarly excavated.
“So this valley did historically host high-tier spiritual materials, but they were systematically extracted by a specific organism?”
“What kind of creature possesses that capability?”
The poaching syndicates had been completely neutralized from orbit weeks ago, leaving wild familiars as the only remaining variable. But if it were a land-bound animal—like Aihua or Amber—the physical mass of their bodies would inevitably leave structural impressions in the damp soil.
Su Wudeng lifted her gaze, staring into the silent, pristine sky framing the valley walls, her thoughts spinning.
The weather today was flawless—bright, unobstructed sunlight paired with a gentle, cool mountain breeze. The valley air was saturated with an intoxicating floral perfume as butterflies danced over the petals. The clear blue sky was dotted with lazy, drifting clouds.
…The sky?
Su Wudeng’s eyes suddenly ignited, her head snapping upward. “Of course! The sky!”
“The reason there are zero physical tracks on the dirt… is because we’re dealing with an aerial familiar!”
A flying pet could easily hover over the beds, use its talons to extract high-value plants, and lift back into the upper atmosphere without ever dropping its body weight onto the topsoil!
Right on cue, a sudden memory unit clicked within Amber’s brain. Oh! I register the data now, Master!
During my overnight shelter shift during the typhoon, my audio receptors logged a massive, thunderous kinetic impact echoing from the upper ridge!
My baseline processing classified it as standard atmospheric thunder at the time, but re-analyzing the acoustic data now… that sound profile matched a heavy mechanical crash echoing from the sky!
Su Wudeng’s expression broke into pure elation. The data blocks were locking perfectly into place!
She targeted her glasses toward the overturned soil, picking up a few strands of discarded, withered weeds clinging to the edge of the pit.
“Hold on… these residual cells…”
[Telemetry: Withered Foliage – Companion Grass of the Velvet Blossom. Affinity: High-tier Cellular Restoration.]
She recalled the agricultural files instantly; this specific weed only germinated adjacent to elite healing flora.
“So a high-tier aerial familiar has been systematically consuming every single high-tier healing plant in this valley?”
Amber, Aihua, and Su Wudeng reached the exact same tactical conclusion simultaneously:
“It sustained a catastrophic injury!”
Amber: So that thunderous crash during the storm… it was shot out of the sky by anti-aircraft fire?!
Aihua: That explains the massive pathology! It suffered a severe tissue collapse, forcing it to consume every high-energy medical resource in the area to stabilize its life bar!
Su Wudeng: “And given its flight limitations with an injury of that scale… there is a ninety-five percent probability that it is still hiding deep within this exact valley!”
But a far more critical bottleneck was staring them in the face. The timeline of the overturned plots suggested the extractions had occurred across multiple consecutive days.
In other words, despite consuming the entire local reserve of mythic healing flora, the familiar’s internal damage hadn’t successfully cleared. This wasn’t a standard injury—its health bar was likely flatlining!
And the ultimate crisis? The valley was completely cleared out. The creature had officially consumed its last medical resource.
