Little Alpaca – Chapter 36

Volume 1: Little Alpaca

If in this world, there was one person who loved her.

——Have you thought about cultivating into a human?

For Yi Qiu, this question could not have a second answer.

I have. Ever since I came to this world, I’ve even dreamed about it.

Even though I have lived in this body for some time and have basically adapted to life as a pet.

Even though as an alpaca, I can eat when I want to eat and sleep when I want to sleep, with someone taking care of me every day. Besides the great villain, no one else can bully me in the slightest.

Even though… just a few minutes ago, I had just resolved to smash a cracked pot¹ and stop trying to raise You Yan’s favorability score.

I still want to become a person.

After all, I was originally a person, a person who was inexplicably stuffed into an alpaca’s body.

But more than becoming human, I want my conscience to feel a little better.

So just now, I did some rather irrational, stupid things.

I was abandoning myself to despair², trying to prove that You Yan’s kindness toward me wasn’t genuine, and even more, I wanted to use this conclusion to lessen the guilt I would feel when I betray her.

Just like that, a pet roared at its own master for a long time. Every sentence was full of complaints, all in the hope that my master would treat me a little worse.

But what I failed to expect was that not only did this master not get angry, she even added three hundred favorability points for me…

Actually, if it had only been the addition of three hundred favorability points, I would definitely have been like every other time my favorability went up, thinking that this bird woman You Yan was simply inexplicable.

But afterward, the question You Yan asked truly made my heart 「thump」.

I suddenly felt that I had misunderstood You Yan more than once.

Perhaps that up-and-down, erratic favorability score was never vulnerable to a single blow³.

On the contrary, through this process of twists and turns, You Yan had already begun to understand how to care for my feelings…

I am an alpaca spirit. For a demon spirit to become human, it needs a cultivation base⁴, and how could something like a cultivation base be raised just by increasing someone’s 「favorability score」?

Thinking about it carefully, when I first arrived here, I couldn’t even speak. But as the favorability score increased, You Yan had successively transferred cultivation power⁵ to me three times.

The first time, I felt my body become much lighter, but there was no specific effect.

The second time, she opened my spiritual meridians⁶, allowing me to speak, and my limbs also became much more flexible.

The third time, You Yan gave me spiritual power to protect my body⁷, so I no longer feared the summer’s intense heat.

Does this mean that the so-called standard for becoming human isn’t that you become a person once you reach it, but rather, once you reach it, You Yan will then grant you the cultivation base sufficient to let you transform into a human?

So the attribute most needed for 「becoming human」 isn’t the spiritual root⁸ that represents the level of one’s cultivation base, but that seemingly useless favorability score.

Even though You Yan is extremely powerful, and the cultivation base to allow a small demon to transform might be nothing to her at all, anyone’s contribution and giving should not be entirely without seeking reciprocation.

Yi Qiu knew that in You Yan’s eyes, she was extremely weak, completely without any use value.

Precisely because of this, if one day You Yan was truly willing to give this little demon such a cultivation base, then what she sought in return should be very simple.

So simple that it was just wanting that little fellow to accompany her, always and always.

Thinking to this point, Yi Qiu became even more uncertain of how to choose.

Originally, gaining so much favorability was something to be very happy about, but now I feel extremely uneasy.

The only one to blame is the system for holding a knife to my neck. If I want to live, if I want to go home, then I am destined to do things that will let You Yan down.

To avoid hurting You Yan’s heart so much, perhaps the only way is to leave early, to be an alpaca for a lifetime, to be… a little alpaca destined to walk a different path from You Yan.

But, but…

This favorability score is only a hundred points away, and because of our companionship these past few days, You Yan really does seem to have undergone some kind of change that deviates from her character setting in the novel.

Do I really have to leave?

Is it possible that there is some way to have the best of both worlds?

Yi Qiu couldn’t help but think, I’m probably the most conflicted alpaca in the world, unable to make up my mind, unable to come to a decision. Every thought at the bottom of my heart could be shaken in an instant.

At this very moment, You Yan was right in front of me, so close to me, so close that I could clearly feel her every breath.

You Yan asked me if I had ever thought about cultivating into a human.

She asked me at such a close distance.

Does this mean that in You Yan’s eyes, I am no longer an ordinary little pet, but… but a friend worthy of talking and having a heart-to-heart with?

At that moment, the change in the little alpaca’s eyes was complex beyond description.

There was astonishment, there was being moved, there was anticipation, there was apprehension, and even more, there was being at a loss.

Actually, I really, really, really want to stay.

Perhaps I can, I really can think of a way to both help the female lead avoid suffering and save my own little life, and also prevent You Yan from being harmed because of it.

In those short few seconds, Yi Qiu’s not-so-flexible brain operated at the speed of light.

At the very, very end, she came back to her senses and blinked at the You Yan who was right in front of her.

Then, she asked softly and timidly, “I… can I?”

Yi Qiu thought, You Yan would probably say: “Behave yourself. One day when I’m in a good mood, I will naturally lend you a hand⁹.”

Although these words were very punchable, they did indeed fit You Yan’s character setting.

But she never, ever expected that after hearing her response, You Yan would be briefly silent for two seconds, then sit up straight, rub her head, and say with curved eyebrows, “A bit stupid. Difficult.”

Yi Qiu: “…”

After You Yan finished speaking, as if feeling it wasn’t scathing enough, she smiled and added another stab: “You just keep thinking about it.”

Yi Qiu took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and bared her teeth at You Yan.

To this, You Yan responded with a faint smile.

She turned her back, and while tidying up the bowls and chopsticks on the table, she said in a tone that was neither salty nor bland, “Remember, I am your master. If I tell you to go east, you cannot go west. You are just a spirit pet, don’t take yourself too seriously. Before you throw a tantrum at me, you’d best think clearly. Without me, what do you count as?”

“I…”

“Why don’t you try it? Run to Changqing Pavilion now, ask that person you were looking for this morning, or perhaps ask Miss Jiang, and see who is willing to take in this…”

You Yan’s words paused slightly here. She turned back and lightly tapped the little alpaca’s glabella with her index finger, a light smile in her eyes as she continued, “this little demon spirit who can talk, and can also betray.”

You Yan enunciated the two words 「betray」 particularly clearly. After Yi Qiu heard it, she couldn’t help but open her mouth, wanting to rebut something, but discovered these words were simply irrefutable.

Snatching bamboo shoots¹⁰! All the bamboo shoots on the mountain are about to be snatched by this bird woman!

After experiencing a round of great emotional ups and downs, Yi Qiu gradually recovered her rationality.

She turned and walked to the floor bedding You Yan had laid out for her, putting on a weak, pitiful, and helpless appearance as she shrank herself into a ball of fur.

She began to repeatedly think about some questions, trying to think clearly and figure out what course to take in the future.

The most important point was whether everything I had just thought was a case of self-pitying sentimentality, or a real, existing change in the world-line.

Just then, You Yan, who had finished tidying the bowls and chopsticks, said something to her.

“You were so long-winded just now, it’s not that I didn’t listen at all.” At that moment, You Yan stood at the doorway holding a wooden square tray, and turning back, she said to her, “Thank you, for liking me that little bit.”

Yi Qiu raised her head in a daze, only to see that You Yan had already walked out of the room.

“Thank you… for that little bit… of liking me…”

She repeated those words once, and in that instant, her heart felt as if it had been forcefully touched by something, and it throbbed, violently.

She suddenly remembered something the author had once said on her Weibo.

——The life of the Demon Lord You Yan had no family, no friends. Every person who knew her great name either hated her or feared her.

She was a madman enveloped by loneliness, who also embraced loneliness with all her might. For her, all distortion and madness were a kind of inevitability.

If in this world there was one person who loved her, perhaps everything would be different. A pity, there was not.

At that time, most of the people in the comments were cursing and swearing. They shouted, 「Please don’t whitewash her」, and they yelled, 「I can’t feel sorry for this kind of character at all」, scaring the author into deleting that Weibo post not long after.

Yi Qiu remembered that at the time, she had been one of those who joined in the jeering.

But today, she once again remembered those words.

If in this world, there was one person who loved her…

One person would be enough.

Perhaps the way to change the ending was never to betray You Yan to do something for the protagonist, but to find a way to change You Yan’s view of this world.

I just don’t know if an alpaca can be considered 「one person」.

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