Second Case 15: You’re still you.

It's been 4 hours since Liu Meifeng and Zhao Yu fell unconscious to the ground. The first one to open her eyes was Liu Meifeng, she still had a migraine, but the moment she realized that Zhao Yu was unconscious next to her. She immediately woke up,

"Zhao Yu? Oh my God, what happened?"

Liu Meifeng was about to check Zhao Yu's pulse, however, the moment she touched Zhao Yu's hand, her consciousness was immediately transported to Zhao Yu's dream.

"You said you won't kill him!" Huang Liangjin screamed at an adult man who was sitting on a black chair. Despite his aggressive tone, the man seemed to be calm and looked towards the window as if no one was there, "You know how dangerous Xu Haoran is to our group. I had to do what must be done."

"You, son of a– Ack!"

Huang Liangjin was beaten to the ground, and with blood coming out from his head, but he's still persistently maintaining his consciousness.

"You know, I never planned to do this. But Haoran pushes me to this point, which is why murdering him was the only way to… bring prosperity to our group. But now, you have begun to choose his side, shall I send you to him as well? Who knows, maybe in the next life, you might be able to woe him, hahaha!"

Huang Liangjin flushed his ears, he was about to deny it, however, he loses too much blood and fell unconscious.

"Liangjin? Wait, hold on!" Liu Meifeng who was like an invisible spectator tried to get close to Huang Liangjin, however, something kept preventing her from getting close… to the truth behind her death.

"Liangjin!"

The moment she screamed, Liu Meifeng got pushed back to reality. Sweats dripped from her forehead like a high fever, in front of her lay Zhao Yu who was still in her nightmare.

"Haoran, I'm sorry…" Zhao Yu said weakly.

If Liu Meifeng hadn't seen that dream, she might think that Zhao Yu was apologizing to her. But after seeing that dream, she's pretty sure that the one she loved was also the one who betrayed her in the past, her very best friend, Huang Liangjin.

"Zhao– Liangjin, wake up."

Liu Meifeng poked Zhao Yu's face lightly, her face so pale like someone who suffers from anemia, "Good lord, Liangjin. We just finally 'meet' each other, now you're planning to reincarnate again? Hey, wake up!"

Liu Meifeng slapped Zhao Yu's cheek lightly and repeatedly.

"Liangjin, wake up. You're in a nightmare, hey!" Liu Meifeng felt annoyed, she checked Zhao Yu's pulse again, it seemed to be normal, but her face is still pale. What could have happened?

"Come to think of it, I was supposed to be dead from submerging. Is this related to Liangjin? Oh, wait no… he's Zhao Yu now, ah, damn it."

Liu Meifeng rose from the ground and placed Zhao Yu near the tree. She began to open her spiritual eyes that she learned from Duan Gen. The moment she saw Zhao Yu's spiritual power, Liu Meifeng was shocked.

"How in hell– You… did you transfer most of your Qi to me?! You idiot backstabbing little twat, hey! Wake up!" Liu Meifeng panicked, she immediately took one of her precious Qi accumulation pills and put it inside Zhao Yu's mouth. This pill was supposed to help her when in case she accidentally got submerged, however, never in her dreams that Zhao Yu will risk her life to save her.

After Zhao Yu swallowed the pill, her complexion became better. Only then, Liu Meifeng finally relaxed her body, "Don't die on me, Liangjin."

…

...

"Ugh… where am I?" Zhao Yu opened her eyes and looked to her side. Beside her, Liu Meifeng was fell asleep while guarding her, seeing that she was well made Zhao Yu's heartbeat comfortably, "Haoran…?"

Liu Meifeng heard her name being called, she quickly opened her eyes and looked at Zhao Yu, "Oh, you wake up? How'd you feel?"

"Never felt better."

"Don't lie, you transferred your Qi to me… a lot. You could die, you know?"

"That's fine, as long as you're okay."

Liu Meifeng sighed disappointedly and stood up, "You shouldn't condemn yourself, Liangjin."

Zhao Yu's face immediately changed drastically, she didn't know how Liu Meifeng knew her real identity, but since she already knew, might as well put an end to this farce.

"How did you know?"

"Just a few hours ago, you kept mumbling something that only you and 'I' know."

"Haha, crap…"

Liu Meifeng scoffed and looked at their surrounding, thank goodness nothing attacked them when they were still weak, "Do you want to go back or resume our mission?"

Zhao Yu looked at Liu Meifeng, she expect that Liu Meifeng will ask her a bunch of questions regarding her betrayal in their previous lives. However, to see her act like she doesn't care made her angry for no reason.

"You don't want to know what happened?" Zhao Yu asked while gritting her teeth.

"It will be 2 days if I decided to pursue the matter of truth now. We got a dangerous mutated frog killing people in this world, which one do you care about the most?"

"You."

Liu Meifeng put her palm on her forehead, sighing and blushing, "Right, yeah. Anyway, let's just find the frog."

"Why do you care about this monster so much?"

"You know about my illness, right?"

Zhao Yu was stunned, how could she ever forget that Liu Meifeng's life is on the line, due to her incurable illness?

"What do you need?"

"Their heart."

…

It's been 17 hours since all the disciples were dispatched to look for the mutated frog. Most of the group have to regroup back at the entrance.

"Team Zhao Yu? Where's your leader and vice leader?!" Lu Shuchun asked one of the members.

"We were… ambushed by immortal plants and were separated from them." one of the students tried her best to explain the situation to the teachers. However, the more she spoke the more worried the teachers were.

"We need to go and find them." Hu Zhang confronted, he would never think that the situation will lead the two best students to be trapped inside the forest.

While the teachers were busy dividing search teams, Liu Meifeng and Zhao Yu walked through the forest searching for the mutated beast.

"..."

"..."

None of them have spoken a word since they averted their focus toward this mission. However, that doesn't mean Liu Meifeng didn't have a single question. She got a load of questions inside her head, like what happened to her family after she got sentenced to death? How about her fiancee? And how many new episodes of Star Wars right after she died?

"Say–"

"Haoran–"

"Oh, you can go first."

"No, you'll go first. I believe you have so many questions and demand answers, right?"

"Well, yeah…" Liu Meifeng sighed and looked at Zhao Yu seriously, "Did you watch the new Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker?"

"...no, I didn't. I died in 2018."

"A shame… how did you die young anyway?"

"That's a story that I will tell you after we get a nice piece of chair and some green tea."

"They don't sell matcha here–"

"I said green tea, not matcha."

"Okay, fine. Whatever you say." Liu Meifeng lifted both of her hands in a gesture of surrender, "So, do you know anything about this beast?"

"I don't really know, but since it's a frog perhaps they hide in a swamp or something?"

Liu Meifeng propped her chin as if she was trying to remember something from the textbook. Later, Zhao Yu spotted a giant footprint on the ground.

"Look, there is a footprint!"

Liu Meifeng examined the footprint and looked at its shape of it. Later, she shook her head and said. "No, this belongs to an ape-type beast. Hopefully, we don't run into them, because I read in the books that they can be very aggressive when they're in mating season."

"Let's hope we don't."

…

...

After a few hours of searching, Liu Meifeng and Zhao Yu didn't find anything besides small monsters lingering around and attacking them. When Liu Meifeng almost gave up, she saw a bug coming out from a small cave.

"Zhao Yu."

"You rang?"

"I found this cave, there's a bug coming out from it. Perhaps, there are some carcasses inside the cave."

"Shouldn't we stick to the swamp? Besides, it smells fishy in here."

"That's the reason why we should check this cave."

"But, our target is a huge beast, this is barely a cave, perhaps a bear's nest?"

"Maybe, anyway I'm going inside." Liu Meifeng crawled and went inside the small cave. Zhao Yu was about to complain, but seeing Liu Meifeng already go inside, she had no choice but to follow her behind.

When the two finally crawled deep into the ground, they found a larger room inside the cave. Liu Meifeng guessed it right, this is the beast's nest. After she got out of the small aisle, Liu Meifeng spotted a few skeletons dressed in soldier's armor.

"Looks like this is really the monster's nest." Liu Meifeng announced happily, she walked towards the skeleton and examined it without touching the skull, "Their skeletons reek of pollen. Perhaps, the frog got mutated by eating some kind of grass or flower?"

"We should be careful, the beast might come back at any time."

"Then, let's wait until the owner arrived."

"Good lord, Haoran, you're really a handful one."

Although Zhao Yu complained, she still followed Liu Meifeng anyway. Perhaps, this is the instinct she had since their previous lives as a detective, "Anyhow, do you want to put some trap or something?"

"Yes, we might need a mannequin to be the bait. We don't know how ferocious this beast is, but we do know one thing this beast got a spoonful of deathly poison. Let's watch how this beast kills their prey."

"Alright, leave it to me." Zhao Yu drew her mannequin paper out, and spoke a few words of the spell, turning the paper into a naked man.

"I didn't know you fancy… this kind of thing." Liu Meifeng tried not to laugh.

"Shut up and just watch." said Zhao Yu with a blush on her cheeks.

The monster has returned to the cave just as predicted. The moment the monster arrived, he could smell Liu Meifeng and Zhao Yu's scents, and immediately become hostile. The monster searched through many rocks nearby and found Zhao Yu's mannequin. Without wasting any minute, the monster immediately spilled its saliva on the mannequin and melted.

Liu Meifeng paid careful attention to how this monster attacked people. It turns out he attacked by using his saliva, and perhaps his skin as well.

Zhao Yu make eye contact with Liu Meifeng asking for the next directions. Liu Meifeng nodded and replied using gesture language. Zhao Yu who didn't know about this language can only shake her head lightly, this made Liu Meifeng pinch her forehead. How could she forget that Zhao Yu's greatest weakness (in the past) is studying language, especially hand gestures.

"You stood here while I draw his attention, after that please use a binding talisman on him." Liu Meifeng whispered.

"But, won't he breaks it?"

"He will, but I've got another plan."

Zhao Yu felt exasperated for not knowing what plans did Liu Meifeng have. However, this is the man–woman that she loved for the longest time, so she believed in her.

Liu Meifeng smiled and immediately throw a rock toward the monster, "Hey, fatty toad, over here."

The monster headed towards Liu Meifeng by just jumping around, Liu Meifeng immediately throw a few small bombs like hand grenades. In the meantime, Zhao Yu drew five talismans all at once and was waiting for a perfect momentum to cast it. Just as the monster spilled another saliva, she cast the binding talismans.

"It's done!",

"On it!"

Liu Meifeng pulled a wooden injection filled with an anesthetic that she had prepared days before the operation. The monster slapped Liu Meifeng with his hand, luckily Liu Meifeng immediately took a step back and avoided his skin.

"Zhao Yu, make sure you don't get in touch with his skin, it's poisonous."

"Roger that."

The two ran away together and hides behind a boulder, "Hey, Haoran. What did you do to the monster?",

"I gave anesthetic to him."

"What?! Where did you get those?"

"Get? I made it."

"No way–"

Just as the two talks, the monster's movement becomes slow, and finally fell unconscious. The two came out of the boulder and checked the monster's breath.

"He's unconscious."

"Great, now you step back and let me work." Liu Meifeng said as she puts on thick black leather gloves, she also took a few sharp knives like a doctor about to perform surgery.

"Did you make all these too?",

"No, I asked the blacksmith in the town to make it. Now, shut up, I need full concentration."

Liu Meifeng began to cut the monster's abdomen with a big and thin knife. She purposely did this so no one would notice the wound after this. What Liu Meifeng want is not the monster's life, but just the Qi beads inside the monster's abdomen. After Liu Meifeng took this bead, the monster can still continue on living, however, the strength will be greatly reduced.

"Done." Liu Meifeng puts the three Qi beads inside a wooden box and stores it inside the dimensional storage. After that, she carefully sew the wound as if nothing happen, "Now, let's go back before the monster wakes up."

"You don't want to kill him?",

"No, I just needed these beads. Besides, he won't be as strong as he was before. However, he will still be highly poisonous. Let the teacher find this monster and kill him themselves–"

"Zhao Yu–!! Xu Haoran–!! Please answer me if you're there!"

"Speak of the devil, let's go outside and continue the mission as usual." Liu Meifeng said and then stopped. She turned to Zhao Yu, "After this, we will talk."

"Yes, of course."

The two walked out of the cave and told the teachers outside that they found the den while the monster is sleeping. The teachers were angry at first for going in by themselves, however, seeing that they didn't attack the monster by themselves is already a smart move. Thanks to Liu Meifeng's small surgery, the monster has greatly weakened, and the teacher could subdue it without any casualties. Not even teacher Hu Zhang noticed the strangeness in the monster's abdomen.