"What a pity, I'm still short 3 points of Wish Power, otherwise I could've directly attained enlightenment here on Qingao Island."Master Fuli closed the Wish List and secretly sighed in his heart. Right now, the Wish Power column already had 9 points stored; just 3 more points and he could upgrade the fox statue to the seven-tail form.
Once the fox statue reached six tails, it already had the ability to influence the physical engine through the Power of Will.
It's just that the range it could affect wasn't large, and there was still a short, unskippable cast time at the start.
"Hey, you white blob over there, get over here!"
Master Fuli's gaze shifted toward the Sea Hare leader sprawled like a corpse on the breakwater. He waved at it, signaling it to come over and clean up the mess it had caused.
"Kii....."
The Sea Hare lifted its head and answered, then dragged its exhausted body onto the pier, letting out a long sigh.
"Which countryside are you from? How'd you end up coming to my Qingao Island to stir up trouble?"
As soon as the Sea Hare leader got onto the pier, the Golden Lion and the lioness both looked a bit off. They quietly backed away, putting a full three meters between themselves and the Sea Hare before stopping. Ansheng gave the couple a glance, then turned to the Sea Hare and asked.
"Kii....."
The Sea Hare raised a side flipper, rubbed its head, and spoke to Master Fuli in a somewhat slurred voice.
Listening to the Sea Hare's not-so-smart speech, Ansheng barely managed to understand what it was saying.
The Sea Hare said its family originally lived in the outer sea region, but some time ago—about thirty sunrises and sunsets back—it heard from its upstairs neighbors that some big boss over on Qingao Island had a sudden attack of kindness and granted a general amnesty.
After getting the news, the Sea Hare family migrated along the route everyone mentioned, wanting to check out the situation on Qingao Island.
Simply put, the Sea Hare family had heard from other Spirit Beasts that Master Fuli had taken over a territory and was currently recruiting, so they brought the whole family over to defect.
Living in the territory of a powerful Spirit Beast meant the Spirit Beasts inside would stop meaningless fighting. For Sea Hares, whose overall strength wasn't that high, it was a good place to go.
"Alright, is there any way to turn him back? You've caused this couple to turn against each other."
Ansheng nodded slightly, more or less understanding why the Sea Hares had migrated to Qingao Island—they just wanted to pledge themselves to a big boss.
Ansheng raised his hand and pointed at the male lion, asking if the Sea Hare had any way to change him back.
"Kii....."
The Sea Hare lifted its head and stared hard, using its poor eyesight to size up the male lion, then nodded.
I remember him... When we had just landed, he almost stomped us all flat with one foot.
"Turn him back, then come with me to the hospital and turn the old sis in the mech repair team back into an old bro, and then you all come with me to the hotel to go through onboarding....." Ansheng said.
Under Ansheng's gaze, the Sea Hare's body gradually curled up like a spring. It opened its mouth slightly, then shot toward the outline of the male lion's body.
The Sea Hare slammed into the male lion's chest, bit into him, and began injecting the toxin "The victor is male, the losers are all female."
"Roar....."
The male lion let out a muffled groan as the mane around his neck quickly shed onto the ground. His tough features softened, and his body shrank back into a lioness's build, overall slightly smaller than the Golden Lion by one size.
"Rooaar——"
Just as the lioness changed back, the Golden Lion hadn't even had time to breathe a sigh of relief before he suddenly felt a sharp pain between his legs.
The lioness slammed her head into the Golden Lion's crotch and let out a roar of dissatisfaction at him.
"......"
The Golden Lion's face collapsed. Still clamping his tail between his legs, he quickly ran off the pier, a look of utter misery on his face.
"Tsss..... she just went straight in with her teeth?"
Seeing how the lion couple got along, Ansheng couldn't help but suck in a cold breath, his expression turning strange.
So... she actually bites for real! I thought earlier the Golden Lion was just being shy around me.
"Forget it.... bros have their own bro-luck. Without bros, foxes can't enjoy blessings. You all come with me to the hospital first!" Ansheng waved at the mischievous monkeys, and the monkeys waiting at the pier immediately reversed the ferry cart up to Master Fuli.
The monkey troop scooped up some seawater, placed the Sea Hares onto the platform of the ferry cart, and headed toward the Qingao Island Hospital.
There was a hospital on Qingao Island, but the medical equipment inside wasn't very complete; they could only do emergency treatment and would send patients to a helicopter to rush them to the city hospital once first aid was done.
They arrived in the hospital lobby.
Ansheng immediately saw Ah Qing sitting with Shasha on the fixed chairs.
"Ah Qing!"
Ansheng clung to the side of the ferry cart and raised a paw, waving at Ah Qing.
Ah Qing, who had been spacing out, moved extremely fast when she saw the little fox. She ran to the doorway, scooped the little fox up in her arms, and carefully examined his belly.
"Phew.... The little bell and the accessories are all still there."
Seeing the little fox return in one piece, Ah Qing quietly let out a sigh of relief in her heart.
If Third Grandmaster Fox turned into Great-Grandma, Ah Qing really wouldn't know how to explain that to the folks back home.
"As long as you came back intact..." Ah Qing patted the little fox's head and said, "Right, you just had a call come to my phone."
"I think it was Lu Tiannan. He said, after you get back, you should return his video call. I just added his WeChat. Is that big bro your friend?"
"Old Lu? What's he calling me for?" Ansheng looked at Ah Qing, puzzled.
Lu Tiannan and Right Hand Head... shouldn't they be in the Security Bureau right now, fighting Shasha for the top sales spot?
"He didn't say. Just said he couldn't reach Huhu on your phone, so he got my number from Sister Dalin."
Ah Qing shook her head. Lu Tiannan hadn't mentioned any details on the phone; he just said one thing: it was urgent.
"Then.... fine! I'll call him back. Where did Ah Bai and Lingling go?"
In a hospital room, while Ah Qing was redialing the WeChat video call, Ansheng was a bit confused about where Ah Bai and the others had gone—he hadn't seen them anywhere.
"They're in the restaurant picking out seafood! Look at the time, will you."
Ah Qing replied with a laugh and handed the connecting WeChat video call to the little fox.
The WeChat video call chimed twice with a "ding," and Lu Tiannan quickly picked up.
"Master Fuli..."
"A whole city has fallen..."
Lu Tiannan's face appeared on the WeChat video. The very first thing he said made Ansheng freeze, eyes going wide as he stared at the screen. "Which city fell? Who did it?"
How could something this big happen in Xia Country without him hearing a single word?
That shouldn't be possible!
"On the plains at the border between Rakshasa Country and Europe...." Lu Tiannan said, his expression grim:
"I was on field duty and heard that there'd been an earthquake here, so I came to investigate....."
"On the first day, the Forest Wolves sealed off this place. I snuck into the lockdown zone and saw..."
Lu Tiannan wanted to continue, but a sharp, grating shriek beside him cut him off.
"Talk. If you don't talk, I'll parasitize you and rip those rabbit ears right off your head."
Right Hand Head's piercing threat carried an indescribable bloody intimidation, like mountains of corpses and seas of blood crashing down.
"Uu-uuu——"
A girl's sobbing came through. Lu Tiannan turned the camera slightly, revealing where they were. It was an old bungalow, its furnishings in a classic Northern Europe style, mostly clear-coated solid wood.
Only, half the bungalow had collapsed, the floor covered in rubble and broken walls.
There were also two men and four women with their hands and feet tied, curled up against the dusty wall, faces full of terror.
But the most eye-catching part was that all six of them bore signs of beastification.
One had cat ears on their head and fuzzy arms; another had a pair of donkey ears on top and their two hooves pressed together, looking shyly at the fierce Right Hand Head.
"In a city of tens of thousands, after the earthquake, everyone in the entire city turned into furries...."
"They should be called furries, right? I don't think I got that wrong."
Lu Tiannan flipped the camera back and said:
"I ran around the city once. These few are ones I dug out of the ruins to interrogate..."
"???"
Ansheng was completely dumbfounded.
An earthquake that big... damn, he's basically a war correspondent!
This was absolutely fresh first-hand intel.
Chapter 1035: 1032: Old Lu the War Correspondent
8 min read