I Am Your Natural Enemy

A fixed ability is something that comes from himself, something he comprehends on his own.

But here comes the question again—how did his first fixed ability, ”I Am Your Dad,” come about?

Wen Yan can barely remember what he was even thinking at the time.

He doesn’t even remember how his soul ended up being given away.

Wen Yan thought about it, glanced again at Heart Fire’s hint, and wasn’t too bothered—if my mind and my actions are in agreement, then I don’t need to care about anything else.

What actually caught his interest was that last line of the hint.

This was the first time he’d encountered a situation where a hint didn’t require him to intervene—he just guided Lu Jing, gave her a push, and the rest wasn’t up to him, nor could he do anything about it anyway.

He actually felt pretty relieved—not because there’d be a bonus fixed ability for hitting a goal.

It just felt like his heart had suddenly loosened up.

He’d been brooding about the whole irreversible, unchangeable, damaging nature of things, regretting how he’d lost his temper and burned Big Mouth Ghost to ashes—he should’ve just built something like a Tower of Suppression and locked him up inside to stew slowly.

But now it turned out Lu Jing could try to make up for it herself, which made Wen Yan feel way better inside.

It didn’t need to get back to a hundred percent—as long as it was ninety percent, things wouldn’t be much different from before.

As for whether it would ever get to 100%, just let it go, whatever.

He looked at this Big Mouth Ghost Bone, considering that he might as well find a chance to give it to Lu Jing in the future.

There was no real use in keeping it himself—it was basically just a quest progress tracker, or a collectible, or at best, crafting material.

Might as well get it over with. He’d already calcined the ghost bone, and now it just looked like an ordinary gray bone, not a hint of Yin energy or ghostliness left.

He’d even thought about carving his name into it, in case it got lost or stolen.

But in the end, he couldn’t find any decent tools, so he just scratched a ”Wen” character on the back of the ghost bone with his fingernail.

Then he printed out a note, found Scorching Sun Department’s courier, and sent the thing out directly.

Sending it off was good too—he was in a mood today, thinking that progress didn’t matter, what mattered was feeling at ease.

Because you never know, you might just end up checking on progress one day, and then go back to check again.

Forget it, better not to obsess about it from the start—it spares you the disappointment.

He called someone in, paid, got the goods sent, and Wen Yan stopped worrying about it.

He was originally planning to go to the backyard to practice his forms, but Little Zombie was clinging to him. With no other choice, Wen Yan scooped up Little Zombie in one arm, and grabbed Sparrow Cat with the other.

”Let me warn you in advance: if you skip your exercise once, I’m docking one day of takeout.

Twice, it’s a week of no takeout.

Three times, that’s a whole month!

And believe me, I could make a single phone call and no one would ever deliver takeout here again.

If I’m at home, don’t even think about slacking off. Even if I’m not, I’m still watching the cameras!”

Sparrow Cat didn’t even get a chance to object—Wen Yan cut him off immediately, blocking all escape routes for laziness.

After he finished, Sparrow Cat just had this face of utter despair, not even enough energy to argue.

Wen Yan casually used some strength and tossed Sparrow Cat far up in the air, letting him move his body a bit.

Cradling Little Zombie in one arm, Wen Yan went next door to visit the neighbors.

Zhang Laoxi was still off training at Fuyu Mountain, hadn’t come back yet, which was normal—it had only been a month, no way it’d be that quick.

At Pei Tugou’s home, his daughter had been getting more and more well-behaved and hardworking lately. Whenever she saw Wen Yan arrive, she’d rush to greet him.

Still holding Little Zombie, Wen Yan took a look at the silly son.

The silly son was sprawled out fast asleep, blissfully snoring away. Even asleep, whenever Wen Yan came near, his head would tilt unconsciously in Wen Yan’s direction and drool would start leaking out the corner of his mouth.

Wen Yan was slightly worried—hopefully this didn’t become a conditioned reflex, otherwise the kid would just start drooling every time he saw him.

Granny pulled out a little handkerchief, wiped the silly son’s drool, and straightened him up.

She seemed to pick up on Wen Yan’s confusion and said casually,

”Kids drooling is totally normal, just let it be.”

As she spoke, Granny reached out and took Little Zombie into her arms.

Little Zombie was dressed festively—apart from the odd skin tone, just like a model kid in a little padded jacket. Granny held her, fussed over her, chattering away as if she were entertaining a toddler, baby babbles and all. Not like you needed her to understand, anyway.

Facing Granny, Little Zombie was even more well-behaved than she was with Wen Yan.

When she was with Wen Yan, Little Zombie would sometimes raise a ruckus and act a little spoiled.

But with Granny, she was the textbook ”other people’s kid,” making Granny dote on her even more.

After a bit of chatting, Wen Yan still hadn’t seen Pei Tugou come back, so he casually asked,

”Has your old man not come home yet? There’s no overtime at his work tonight, is there?”

”He’s off on a business trip to the next city over. I heard they’re short on people over there and got him seconded for something—getting paid by the day.”

”He got seconded from the funeral home?”

”Yeah, could be three or four days, maybe up to a week before he’s back.”

Wen Yan had considered calling the director to check, but thought better of it—might as well let the director get a decent night’s sleep.

The director was getting on in years, couldn’t handle any more of Wen Yan’s surprises.

He’d gotten much better at looking out for people now—though he still felt the director was biased against him, he still stuck to his principle of respecting the old and cherishing the young, and made his absence official.

After ambling around for a bit, Wen Yan wandered some more through the neighborhood.

Didn’t see Pei Tugou either—probably off on that business trip with Pei Tugou. With Wen Yan at home, he ended up taking over the patrol duties.