Chapter 18: Before the Final Battle

As soon as she returned home, Nuobai felt that something was wrong. Why was Bai Luxin walking straight toward the bathroom?

Taking advantage of her distraction, Nuobai prepared to flee, but she didn’t notice her hind leg being grabbed.

“I don’t want to take a bath!”

With a howl of grief, she was still dragged into the bathroom.

Looking at Bai Luxin blocking the door, Nuobai felt like a princess captured by an evil dragon, hiding in the corner and shivering.

The splashing water droplets fell to the floor, soaking her fur.

“Be good~ Nuobai, you’ll get sick if you don’t bathe.”

‘Is she trying to fool a kitten?’

‘How could I possibly get sick!’

……

After finishing the bath and drying Nuobai’s fur, Bai Luxin couldn’t help but lean in close. She was so fluffy and light…

“Baby, you smell so sweet. Come, let Mama give you a kiss~”

Nuobai saw her having another fit and pressed her forepaws against the girl’s mouth, resisting with all her might.

In the midst of the struggle, as expected, her claws snagged the bath towel once again…

‘Was I set up?’

‘Why does the bath towel fall down every single time!’

For a moment, she lost her focus. Bai Luxin seized the opportunity to lean in hard and take a deep sniff.

“Hehehe, baby, Mama caught you~”

Nuobai was completely out of options now. She couldn’t exactly give her own Beast Master a face full of claws, so she had to use her front paws to cover her eyes.

‘I don’t dare open my eyes. I hope this is just a hallucination…’

After a round of inhumanly close snuggling, Bai Luxin finally noticed that her towel had fallen off. She didn’t care much, casually grabbing something to cover her waist.

Lying flat, she placed Nuobai on her chest and toyed with the kitten’s shy, small ears.

Nuobai kept her eyes tightly shut, slumped between the peaks without moving, looking as if she had lost all signs of life.

Bai Luxin wasn’t going to be fooled this time. The last time Nuobai played dead like this, she took advantage of Luxin’s concern and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Thinking of this, Bai Luxin tightened her arms around her a bit more.

“Nuobai, against the Sun Wheel Bird, are you confident?”

She felt like she was getting ahead of herself, actually thinking that Nuobai would win.

No, it wasn’t that she was getting ahead of herself.

It was that she trusted Nuobai.

Nuobai’s eyelids flickered slightly, but she chose to continue playing dead.

Seeing this small movement, Bai Luxin’s eyes filled with a smile as she feigned worry.

“Nuobai, if you lose, I won’t have any money to pay the debt. I’ll have to pawn you to Wei Wanqing.”

“But don’t worry, I’ll work hard to earn money and redeem you as soon as possible.”

“!”

She actually wanted to mortgage her to someone else?

Nuobai stopped pretending. She glared at her angrily, her heterochromatic eyes full of displeasure.

“Don’t even think about it. Even if I can’t win, I won’t lose that easily.”

“Don’t you dare think about giving me away to someone else.”

Nuobai pressed her front paws against the girl’s collarbone, looking down at her from above.

She appeared mysterious and elegant, with a hint of a proud, tsundere attitude.

Seeing her like this, Bai Luxin’s breath hitched.

“Baby, you’re so cool!”

“Ahhh, let go!”

A second time, even a third… there is a limit to one’s patience!

I…

And then, Nuobai endured it.

She would just treat it as if she were raising a fool at home. She wouldn’t lower herself to a fool’s level.

“By the way, Nuobai, shouldn’t you explain to me what happened with [Light Arrow]?”

“Uh…”

Under her accusing gaze, Nuobai explained for a while, mentioning that she had also achieved a slight breakthrough.

Knowing that Nuobai still had a trump card, Bai Luxin was no longer as worried.

Although she had been joking before, she really was worried that Nuobai would be taken away to pay the debt.

The kitten had recklessly eaten the reward, leaving herself no room for retreat.

Forget it. If they really lost, she would go beg Wei Wanqing. Even if she had to work for her for the rest of her life, she couldn’t let her take Nuobai away.

Bai Luxin squeezed her paw, rubbing the small pads while lost in thought. Suddenly, she said offhandedly, “Nuobai, you aren’t hiding anything else from me, are you?”

Things hidden from her?

There were too many—the transmigration, the Rebellion talent, the ceremony-less advancement…

Nuobai guiltily pulled her paw away. In that instant, both of them froze.

‘Oh no, my reaction was too big!’

“Wait, you really do have something!”

“Nuobai!”

“Now I really have to educate you. How can you hide things from me!”

“I’m so heartbroken…”

Bai Luxin flipped over and pinned Nuobai to the bed. “Hurry up and confess everything.”

Watching the snowy white swaying everywhere in front of her, Nuobai just wanted to leave this world.

After a round of “education,” Bai Luxin ultimately failed to get anything out of her. She pretended to be on the verge of tears.

“Wuwuwu, the child has grown up. She has secrets hidden from Mama now.”

Nuobai curled into a ball. She wasn’t falling for it.

‘The prettier a woman is, the better she is at lying!’

……

At night, the two of them studied the data on the Sun Wheel Bird.

Its talent was [Sunwheel]. Triggered under sunlight, it boosted the effects of the Sun Wheel Bird’s skills and allowed it to absorb sunlight to recover stamina and heal injuries.

Compared to the Moon Wheel Bird, the Sun Wheel Bird was much better at close combat.

It had five skills: [Raid Dive], [Steel Claws], [Wing Slash], [Radiance], and [Eclipse Strike].

Four close combat skills and one control skill.

The effects, characteristics, and combination methods of each skill, as well as personal command habits and even Wei Zhaowu’s personality, were all clearly written.

Wei Wanqing had truly exposed all of her younger sister’s secrets.

In the attached video, the Sun Wheel Bird looked like a miniature sun, shining brilliantly as it charged at its opponent, ending the battle in an instant.

It was a bit overpowered.

Nuobai calculated for a moment. As a Tier 1 Middle Rank, she was quite confident about fighting a Sun Wheel Bird in its normal state.

But a Sun Wheel Bird in the sunlight would be too much trouble.

Wei Wanqing’s Moon Wheel Bird had a hidden skill called [Call Moon], which could summon a moon and strip the Sun Wheel Bird of its home-field advantage. Nuobai didn’t have a skill like that.

[Call Moon] temporarily summoned a bright moon, followed by three days of weakness and a one-month cooldown.

If Wei Wanqing hadn’t planned to save that surprise for her sister, Nuobai would have had a much harder time fighting the Moon Wheel Bird.

An interesting opponent.

Nuobai licked her paw with interest. It had been far too long since she had encountered such a powerful foe.

The last time was when she was struggling to survive in the Snowy Mountain. But this time, she was no longer a little kitten who could only hide and run without any power to resist.

In the gap between life and death, challenging a strong enemy.

Just thinking about it made Nuobai feel expectant. Fist to flesh, blade to blood—it was exhilarating.

She really needed to vent the suppressed emotions in her heart.

Although life was good now and Bai Luxin doted on her, the dissatisfaction of turning into a cat, Long Qianwu’s betrayal, and even the depression of losing her freedom through a contract haunted her heart at all times.

A heart full of passion had been betrayed by someone. Beneath the seemingly calm surface, the turbulent waves had never subsided.

Nuobai was actually very simple. She didn’t have many schemes; once she recognized someone, she would follow them to the end.

It was exactly because of this that when she realized Long Qianwu had drugged her to sleep just to hand her over to someone else to play with, she had fled in a fit of rage after the Rebellion.

Long Qianwu clearly knew she hated that more than anything and would never agree to it, so she had drugged her!

What a calculated move!

This backstab was like a blade plunged into her heart; it was painful and fatal, and the wound would never heal or disappear.

“Nuobai?”

“Ah, yeah, I’m a bit sleepy. I’m going to bed first.”

Bai Luxin stood frozen in place, watching Nuobai leave.

‘Was it an illusion?’

She had felt that Nuobai was very sad just now… and very angry.