Huang Jiutian was still very thoughtful.

It was already past eight in the morning when he got home from work.

Letting himself in with his spare key, he tiptoed inside, carrying a bag of breakfast foods like fried dough sticks, sticky rice rolls, and soft tofu pudding.

Doudou’s private nickname for him, "Mrs. Huang," wasn’t for nothing.

When it came to doting on Doudou, even Qin Xiaoxia, his older cousin, couldn’t compare.

But Huang Jiutian, who had expected Qin Xiaoxia to be sleeping in as usual, was surprised to find both Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou sitting on the living room sofa, staring at the coffee table.

Qin Xiaoxia: "Yo, Jiutian’s back~"

Doudou: "Ooh, breakfast is here~"

But they both just glanced at Huang Jiutian for a second before turning their full attention back to the coffee table in front of the sofa.

With red eyes from working overtime all night, Huang Jiutian’s curiosity was piqued by the pair.

’What’s so special about the coffee table? A beat-up beer bottle?’

From Huang Jiutian’s perspective, there was only a beer bottle with a cork in it on the table. And, yes, it was empty.

"Have you two lost your minds? What are you looking at? Is there a sealed Demon God in that beer bottle that’ll grant a Wish if you let it out, or is the Black Pearl in there?"

But Qin Xiaoxia paid him no mind, and even Doudou ignored him.

The two of them stared at the beer bottle, occasionally glancing at each other.

"GULP~"

That was the sound of Doudou swallowing his spit.

"Big Bro... this... what’s going on!"

Doudou was clearly very curious, but even Huang Jiutian could detect a hint of fear in his voice.

Qin Xiaoxia’s expression was grave; he just stared at the beer bottle without a word.

Huang Jiutian closed the door, walked into the living room, and put the breakfast aside. Seeing that they had treated him like he was invisible aside from their initial greetings, he had reached his limit.

"You two! What the hell are you playing at?! This is my house, don’t I get any dignity here???!!!"

Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou looked up at him at the same time.

But Huang Jiutian felt the two of them had only looked up instinctively because he’d yelled so loudly.

How to put it... In any case, their gazes were unfocused. It was obvious they weren’t looking at him, but were each lost in their own thoughts.

This hurt Huang Jiutian a little.

’What’s the deal with this beer bottle? Is this one of Little Hero’s new pranks?’

...

In truth, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou weren’t intentionally ignoring Huang Jiutian. They were simply too shocked and baffled by the current situation to react.

The beer bottle was an ordinary one, which Qin Xiaoxia had casually grabbed to "seal" the Faceless Shadow Ghost’s corpse. The seal itself was, in essence, Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power.

What had captured Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou’s full attention were the changes happening inside the beer bottle.

The Faceless Shadow Ghost—that is, the corpse of the Ghoul larva—had vanished.

But neither of them believed that something already dead had escaped on its own.

In fact, as a low-level being of Corpse Shadow Qipero, a Faceless Shadow Ghost couldn’t produce something as high-end as Magic Power unless it mutated.

The quality of Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power, in Doudou’s words, was "quite high"—several levels above a Faceless Shadow Ghost, let alone a dead one.

And there was another point that confirmed the corpse hadn’t "broken out" on its own.

The total amount of Magic Power in the bottle had increased!

Although the total increase was perhaps only ten percent, one of them was responsible for "guarding" the bottle at all times while the other was the Magic Power’s master. How could they possibly not notice?

As much as they were unwilling to admit it, this situation had only one explanation.

Qin Xiaoxia’s own Magic Power had "eaten" the Faceless Shadow Ghost.

Even though he hadn’t physically eaten it, the thought of having consumed something like a Faceless Shadow Ghost still made Qin Xiaoxia feel disgusted.

Aside from the increase in total volume, the Magic Power in the bottle didn’t feel any different to him.

This reminded Qin Xiaoxia of the panicked way "Haohao" had looked when it saw him yesterday.

Creatures with low intelligence survive either through numbers or through instinct—and relying on numbers is also a form of instinct.

Perhaps the Ghoul possessed some kind of instinct that allowed it to detect an unknown threat in advance.

"Doudou, I’m going to open it!"

Hearing this, Doudou immediately leaped up from the sofa and hid behind Huang Jiutian, leaving the latter even more baffled.

’What kind of charade are these two playing?’

Qin Xiaoxia ignored both Doudou and Huang Jiutian and pulled out the cork himself.

He guided a sliver of Magic Power out of the bottle.

In reality, his Magic Power could completely ignore the glass of the bottle; pulling the cork was merely a psychological cue for mental preparation.

This sliver of Magic Power returned to his body, feeling no different than it had before he sent it out.

It was easy to control, and it even seemed to carry a "joyful emotion" upon its return.

Magic Power has no consciousness; its actions can only stem from its master’s commands. However, it wasn’t unheard of for certain special types of Magic Power to possess strange, emotion-like factors.

But for the most part, these "emotions" also originated from the master.

For example, when a master was angry, the Magic Power they released would also be more frantic. If the master was gloomy, their Magic Power would also lean towards being cold and sinister.

But the sliver of Magic Power Qin Xiaoxia recalled was clearly different.

’Did it become sentient?’

Shaking the somewhat amusing thought from his mind, Qin Xiaoxia reclaimed all the Magic Power from the bottle at once.

Magic Power was so precious it could often be considered a type of Life Force; he couldn’t possibly abandon it over a small psychological hurdle.

Only after the surrounding fluctuations of Magic Power had subsided did Doudou emerge from behind Huang Jiutian.

When it came to Magic Power, if there was anything that could block it, it was a body of flesh and blood.

If Huang Jiutian knew all this, who knows what he would think of this "child" he doted on so much.

"Whoa, there’s soft tofu pudding! Nice, nice. Hey, Jiutian, why aren’t you in bed? What’s with you, standing there in the living room like a psycho?"

Qin Xiaoxia grabbed the soft tofu pudding from the bag, opened the container, and started eating with a disposable spoon.

Meanwhile, Doudou was already one step ahead, gnawing on a rice ball.

A vein throbbed twice on Huang Jiutian’s forehead.

"What exactly were you two doing just now? Tell me! Right now! Immediately!"

No matter how good his self-restraint was, Huang Jiutian wasn’t a saint. He could let Qin Xiaoxia’s behavior slide, but to think Doudou, his own younger cousin, was truly his relative—they were cut from the same cloth!

Everyone’s curious. And from what he knew of Qin Xiaoxia, it didn’t seem like he had just been putting on an act to mess with him.

Hearing this, Qin Xiaoxia, who was eating his tofu pudding with his chin in his hand, tilted his eyes at a strange angle to look at him.

The stare sent an inexplicable chill down Huang Jiutian’s spine, and his "aura" weakened a notch.

"What are you doing? I’m asking you a question!"

Qin Xiaoxia put down his spoon and held out his hand, palm up.

He said, completely off-topic,

"Jiutian, remember back in the first year of middle school when I got this brand and had to take a long sick leave? When I finally went back to school,"

At this, Qin Xiaoxia looked up at Huang Jiutian and smiled.

"You said this brand was totally awesome! Right?~"

For some reason, Huang Jiutian felt goosebumps crawl all the way from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

PS: Thank you to book friend With the Tide of Flowering and Withering for the 2100 coin donation, thank you to Purely↑Bored for the 1000 coin donation, thank you to book friend True God Tree for the 500 coin donation, and thank you to book friends Xiao L and Su Yi Wen Huai for the 100 coin donations~

Regarding updates, I’ll be able to get home tonight. I’ll be back to two Chapters a day tomorrow!

Thank you, everyone. I also hope you’ll all vote to show your support. I’ve made it to the Urban category’s strong recommendation list. If this round flops, my next recommendation will probably be up in the air...