Little Alpaca – Chapter 67

Volume 1: Little Alpaca

You were willing to die with me.

You want to be like a human, right?

For Yi Qiu, this question was truly far too important.

From the first day she arrived in this world, she had incessantly wanted to become a human.

In order to be able to become a human, she was carrying her heart and hanging her gallbladder¹ and acting cautiously and carefully every day, hating that she could not figure out all of You Yan’s preferences, and then go and please her in all sorts of different ways.

However, You Yan’s favorability score was simply a kind of metaphysics².

To say it without exaggeration, during the entire process of her trying to grind favorability, You Yan had been unilaterally toying with the favorability score between them.

Actually, saying she was toying with it isn’t quite appropriate; after all, You Yan fundamentally didn’t know about this matter of a favorability score. She just decided whether she liked or disliked the little alpaca according to her mood.

However, this did not prevent Yi Qiu from having already accumulated deep resentment over this.

Originally, she had thought that one thousand was already a very high value, but at the moment this weird favorability score suddenly soared to six thousand, she finally discovered that, as it turned out, the revolutionary friendship³ between her and this bird woman could actually have such a large room for growth.

No wonder, ah, she didn’t transmit power when it was at one thousand before; it was simply because the feelings weren’t there yet, you see.

Actually, she should have thought of it earlier. She and You Yan were people who had gone through life and death together; now that You Yan had a favorability of six thousand towards her, she should be willing to transmit power to her no matter what.

But she swore to the heavens that she had run to this place on these four hooves wrapped full of gauze only to confirm how many breaths this bird woman had left.

She had absolutely not thought of letting the bird woman expend spiritual power to help her transform into a human at a time like this.

“I… what I want isn’t important.” Yi Qiu rejected You Yan’s good intentions against her heart, only fixing her pair of round, glistening eyes on You Yan’s body. She said, “You should nurse your injuries first; you’re very heavily injured.”

Her tone was so well-behaved that it didn’t resemble in the slightest the little alpaca from usual days who would get angry at the slightest disagreement.

After hearing this, You Yan chuckled lightly and sat up, rubbing Yi Qiu’s little head.

She said, “My injuries are recovering very quickly.”

Yi Qiu pouted and said, “Cut it out! I just saw Jiang Yuyao next door, and she said you were very heavily injured and had been unconscious the whole time!”

“I didn’t want to talk to them, so I slept a bit more,” You Yan said faintly. Seeing that the room door wasn’t closed, she made a light swipe with the index finger of her right hand, and the door closed by itself.

On usual days, Yi Qiu would always kick the door shut upon entering a room.

You Yan subconsciously glanced at Yi Qiu’s four little hooves, which were wrapped very tightly in gauze. After a moment of daze, a trace of heartache couldn’t help but flash through the bottom of her eyes.

Her thumb and index finger touched the little alpaca’s pointy ears and began to caress them lightly, her gaze incomparably gentle.

Yi Qiu’s ears trembled unconsciously, and she blinked her eyes, saying in disbelief, “Really?”

“Mhm…” A gentle arc lifted the corners of You Yan’s lips, and she also blinked at the little alpaca.

Hearing You Yan say this, Yi Qiu felt much more relieved for the moment.

But on second thought, she was mocked by You Yan no small amount on usual days; now that she had a chance to nag back, she definitely couldn’t give it up.

Thus, the little alpaca raised her fluffy head and, gaining an inch and advancing a foot, said, “I don’t believe you at all! You love to show off the most! You clearly knew it was a trap, but you insisted on jumping into it; you clearly knew you couldn’t beat that big black dog, but you insisted on staying behind to cover everyone’s retreat!”

“You! You, you!” Yi Qiu said, wrinkling her brow. She let out a displeased “harrumph” from her nose, turned her head to the side, and muttered in a small voice, “You can’t be so careless about yourself like this!”

You Yan pondered for a moment, then asked in return, “Then what about you?”

“Huh?” Yi Qiu secretly snuck a glance back at You Yan.

You Yan lowered her gaze, looking at the little alpaca’s four hooves, and asked in a deep voice, “When you ran back, what were you thinking in your heart?”

“I…”

“Did you think that you, just by yourself, could save me?” You Yan raised her eyes to look at Yi Qiu, her gaze flickering, yet it prevented people from seeing through the emotions within.

Yi Qiu was dazed for a good while before she shook her head, feeling wronged.

She was just stupid. She clearly knew she couldn’t do anything at all, yet her head got hot⁴ and she ran back anyway.

You Yan will definitely laugh at her, right?

It’s a certainty. This bird woman has always been very mean and would never let go of any opportunity to mock the little alpaca.

Thinking like this, Yi Qiu unhappily lowered her head.

But the expected mockery did not arrive.

The room was very quiet. She could hear You Yan’s long breaths, so she counted them one by one, waiting for that line of mockery that surely wouldn’t fail to arrive.

Maybe it would be 「idiot」, or maybe 「stupid」; perhaps it would carry a bit of slight anger, or perhaps only a trace of a light laugh.

But in the end, You Yan only asked her one more question.

“You wanted to die with me?”

Yi Qiu couldn’t help but raise her eyes, meeting that pair of eyes that was currently gazing at her.

She opened her mouth, as if wanting to say something, but discovered that she couldn’t say anything at all, and could only stare back dazedly at that incomparably complex, yet almost scorching, gaze.

She and she looked at each other for a long time, and the one who had been pressing the question gradually relaxed the space between her brows.

She pinched the little alpaca’s cheeks, then suddenly opened a hand toward that silly little fellow.

A flash of spiritual light passed, and a small, gloomy-green bead appeared in the palm of her hand. A spiritual light like a cold mist slowly coiled around the top of the bead.

“This is…”

【Blood Coagulation Pearl, requires one’s own blood as a catalyst, and the expenditure of a large amount of spiritual power to refine. Consuming it can cause one’s cultivation to increase greatly.】

“Eat it,” You Yan said, bringing the Blood Coagulation Pearl to the little alpaca’s mouth.

Yi Qiu blinked her eyes in astonishment. This all came too suddenly; she was stunned for a long while and just didn’t dare to bite down.

“What’s wrong?” You Yan asked, raising an eyebrow. “Afraid I’ll poison you to death?”

Yi Qiu came back to her senses, hurriedly shook her head, and took the Blood Coagulation Pearl from You Yan’s fingertips into her mouth.

Should she swallow it directly?

Or, should she hold it in her mouth and wait for it to dissolve, or does she need to chew it with her teeth?

After eating this thing, will she instantly become a human?

When she becomes a human, how old will she look?

Is it possible that she’ll turn out to be relatively ugly?

And also, the first time she transforms into a human, will she have clothes on?

In a short instant, ten thousand question marks had already floated through Yi Qiu’s mind.

She tried to chew the Blood Coagulation Pearl in her mouth and found that it was strangely hard and couldn’t be chewed at all. In addition, after holding it in her mouth for a long time, no taste came out. She probably understood now: this thing had to be swallowed directly.

It’s just that this thing was so big; without a bit of water to send it down, it was really hard to swallow.

The little alpaca held the bead in her mouth and looked at You Yan awkwardly for a long time. Seeing that she was fundamentally unable to read the request in her eyes, she finally, with her saliva, managed to swallow the bead down with great effort.

In that instant, the little alpaca’s facial expression became extremely contorted.

A trace of worry couldn’t help but appear in the bottom of You Yan’s eyes. “Is it uncomfortable?”

The little alpaca held it in for a long time, and finally let out a big burp, then raised her neck and let out a long sigh of relief.

Yi Qiu: “Thanks, I was choked.”

You Yan: “…”

Yi Qiu: “I’ve eaten it, so what now?”

You Yan contemplated for a moment and said, “This is a Blood Coagulation Pearl, refined from my blood with the expenditure of my spiritual power. If you swallow it, it can cause your cultivation to increase greatly.”

Sigh, the bird woman definitely didn’t know that this line of hers had just been snatched and said by the system, so now it was fundamentally unable to bring the little alpaca a trace of surprise.

However, even though that was the case, she still had to put on an act.

Yi Qiu instantly widened her astonished eyes, waiting for You Yan to continue speaking.

But You Yan suddenly stopped talking.

This bird woman! She only gave her a bead and told her its use, but then didn’t give her an instruction manual. Who was she supposed to go to for an explanation?

Yi Qiu was secretly complaining in her heart, but a question suddenly surfaced in her mind.

A very serious, and also very important, question.

“That’s not right, You Yan! You were injured so seriously, yet you still refined this for me. You…”

“It’s no matter…” You Yan interrupted Yi Qiu’s anxious words, closing her eyes and saying faintly, “It wasn’t from these past few days.”

“Then, when did it start?” Yi Qiu asked dazedly.

You Yan lowered her brows and was silent for a moment, then said in a deep voice, “The day you yelled and shouted at me.”

“Huh?” Which day was that day?

Yi Qiu couldn’t help but reflect on the past, and discovered that the number of times she had yelled and shouted at You Yan was not small.

It seemed that, starting from a certain day, she had begun to frequently yell and shout at You Yan.

But that day, which day was it?

You Yan opened her eyes, looked toward Yi Qiu, and said in a low voice, “That day at Xianlu Sect, you said you had had enough.”

“That… that day.” Yi Qiu’s eyes were filled with surprise.

She had never thought that You Yan had, unexpectedly, been expending her own spiritual power to refine this thing for her ever since that day.

So…

As early as that day, You Yan had already had the idea of helping her transform into a human.

So, that is to say…

When You Yan faced the Huodou, she was not at her full strength to begin with.

Perhaps, with her level of cultivation, even if she couldn’t defeat the Huodou, she should have been able to delay it for a moment and successfully escape.

But for the sake of this Blood Coagulation Pearl, she had expended too much of her own spiritual power, and had encountered the Huodou before she had time to recover, which was why she received such heavy injuries.

“You, you…” Yi Qiu wanted to say something, but when the words reached her lips, she felt it was too sentimental.

It had already happened; could she really go and blame this bird woman for her good intentions?

She sniffled, and her eye sockets couldn’t help but become a bit moist.

After briefly calming her mood, she looked at You Yan and asked with a mix of heartache and dissatisfaction, “Then, since you already… already made this thing a long time ago, wh-why didn’t you ever give it to me?”

You Yan couldn’t help but fall silent for a moment, only saying a sentence after a long while.

“If… you were forever a little alpaca, then you couldn’t leave me no matter what you did.”

Actually, she also didn’t know from which moment she had suddenly begun to hope that this little alpaca could grow up.

But thinking about it carefully, it would also be good if she didn’t grow up.

If she didn’t grow up, she would always be like this: clumsy and silly, utterly useless.

Only in this way could she never, ever leave her.

In that instant, the surroundings were silent.

After a brief silence, Yi Qiu couldn’t help but blink her eyes.

She looked at You Yan, and there seemed to be tears in the bottom of her eyes.

“Then why are you willing to give it to me now?”

“Because…” You Yan extended a finger and lightly tapped the center of the little alpaca’s brow.

A spiritual light arose from her fingertip, like smoke and mist, and coiled around its body.

She gazed at the little alpaca before her, watching as, within that gloomy-green spiritual light, she shed a body of fleece and unfurled a human body.

The spiritual light dispersed, leaving behind a pair of reddened, teary eyes, quietly gazing back at her.

——Because, you were willing to die with me.

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