Chapter 128: Chinchilla
After realizing that the mother cat wasn’t moving anymore, the little cat’s feelings turned from its initial puzzlement to grieving, before it eventually became mournful. Its tender and sharp cries made everyone want to look away. It was really too regretful, none of them had realized that there was still a little cat alive just now. Otherwise, the mother cat wouldn’t have tried to kill the enemy at all costs, eventually dying together with it.
After Momo got Bai Yi’s approval, she immediately wanted to pick the little cat up, but it suddenly bared its teeth at her extremely viciously. It blocked them from the mother cat behind it.
“MEOW!” The little cat shouted as if it was protecting the mother cat. It was very young yet stubborn.
“Sigh~!” Bai Yi sighed lightly, and his Reverse Flower Eyes appeared as he looked at the cat. Slowly, the little cat calmed down and fell on the floor. "Although it’s an animal, death is still too cruel to a baby cat like this. Let it calm down a bit first,” Bai Yi slowly explained.
Momo ran over and carefully stroked the little cat’s head and picked it up in her arms. This little cat was also as big as a palm; it wasn’t too different from the normal little cats you would commonly see. In New Zealand now, this was actually a rare sight. No matter what, the mother cat could be considered to have created a benign fate with Bai Yi’s team, so they were fated with this little cat as well. They only didn’t expect that they would adopt a little cat when they just said they wanted to add new members to their team.
Bai Yi and the rest of them buried the mother cat’s corpse, while the corpse of that other unknown creature naturally became their food. New Zealand now didn’t have any specific cattle for them to feed on, and there weren’t so many animals to waste like that either.
This little cat was a female, and after getting affected by Bai Yi’s Reverse Flower Eyes, it slowly fell into a deep sleep. However, Bai Yi was more concerned about the form of this little cat. This little cat was completely like a house cat, and there weren’t any changes to its physical form at all. One must know that the mother cat’s form had changed greatly, and it only still roughly looked like a cat.
Seeing Momo carefully looking after the little cat, Bai Yi couldn’t help but think about how the activated cells had influenced various lifeforms.
Don’t tell me that it’s not hereditary?
Bai Yi looked at the little cat and slowly thought about it. It was good news if that was really the case, even if they couldn’t find a good solution for the problem caused by the activated cells, their future generations could still return to normal human society. However, Bai Yi didn’t think that this was too possible. Forget about it, leave it as a question in his heart for now. For now, he would slowly observe the little cat’s changes in the future. The most important thing now was, just what was Momo and Sharpei hiding?
“Momo!” Bai Yi’s tone wasn’t heavy, but Momo’s body instantly tensed.
“Oh daddy, is there something? Ah! I suddenly remembered that this little cat should be very hungry, the mummy cat was looking for food for it just now,” Momo immediately said as she thought of a way to change the topic. She immediately tried to carry the little cat away as she spoke.
“Momo.” Bai Yi’s tone became slightly heavier.
Momo’s body immediately stopped; she lowered her head, not daring to look at Bai Yi. If Bai Yi also had some suspicions before, then he could be sure that something had definitely happened to Sharpei. Momo’s actions were too obvious. Really, she didn’t even the have the basic idea of how to deal with things. However, that was how a little kid should be like.
“Speak, what are you and Sharpei hiding.”
“Actually, it isn’t anything much either…” Momo replied softly, but she didn’t seem convincing at all like this.
“Raise your head, look at me, and answer me seriously.” Bai Yi was starting to get unhappy. It wasn’t because of Momo hiding things from him, but how she was being so timid and scared.
“Yes!” Momo replied on reflex and raised her head.
After calming her emotions, Momo started to tell them about Sharpei’s recent changes. At the start, Momo was still somewhat scared and uneasy, but she slowly became calmer afterward and talked about everything in an objective way. This was exactly what he wanted Momo to develop from now on. He wanted her to have a broad and level-headed personality.
“Sharpei, let me see,” Bai Yi said to Sharpei.
Bai Yi didn’t get angry and blow his top like how Momo had imagined, but still maintained a calm look on his face. Even if Sharpei was eating humans, he still didn’t seem to be angry. Indeed, he wasn’t angry. Why should he be angry in the first place? Sharpei’s change could be said to be completely due to them. Even if things really became very bad, the fault shouldn’t lie with Sharpei either. This kind of baseless accusation and blaming before getting things clear was the worst thing to do.
Sharpei heard him and walked two steps to come beside Bai Yi, waiting for his inspection.
Bai Yi slowly observed Sharpei. They were always together usually, so Bai Yi didn’t notice the small continuous changes that happened to Sharpei. However, now that he looked carefully, he suddenly realized that Sharpei’s appearance had changed a lot.
Sharpei was now roughly 4 meters long, excluding his long tail. His left shoulder blade grew out of his left shoulder, forming a white bone armour around half of his body. On the outside of this bone armor were some sharp bone spikes that would cause people to feel intimidated with just a look. There was not much fur on the upper half of Sharpei’s body, and ever since that time where his skin was ripped off by the Tentacle Slug, his skin didn’t regrow again. His muscles were revealed on the outside, sturdy and very tough. However, even with such a tough surface, many scars could still be seen on it.
Bai Yi slowly touched Sharpei’s tough skin, this was all evidence of the countless battles they had been through.
Although the primary ability of Bai Yi’s eyes was hypnosis, his observation abilities were also very strong when he opened his eyes completely. Bai Yi carefully observed Sharpei, checking the changes on his body. However, at the end, Bai Yi had to admit that Sharpei’s skin looked very normal. If only Mavis was here, she was the real doctor and the specialist in this area.
“I can’t see anything special, Sharpei how do you feel?” Bai Yi asked.
“Woof!” Sharpei immediately barked.
“I’m sorry but I don’t understand you.” Bai Yi heard Sharpei’s bark but felt very helpless. Perhaps it was because Sharpei had heard a lot of human speech, so he could now basically understand their words, and this was the case for Pupu as well. However, Bai Yi and the rest couldn’t understand Sharpei and Pupu’s ‘language’ at all. At this moment, Bai Yi suddenly had the strange idea to let Sharpei and Pupu learn to speak human words as well.
“Momo, you ask him,” Bai Yi said to Momo. Only Momo could vaguely understand Sharpei’s words here, but the meaning would basically be correct.
Under Bai Yi’s instructions, she asked Sharpei a few questions. After that, they found out that Sharpei himself didn’t know what had happened. He only felt that the left side of his neck was aching a lot, and at the same time his body felt very restless. He also wanted to eat corpses, and it wasn’t like carcasses of animals for food or even fresh corpses, but the kind of corpses that got affected and changed by the energy field of the underworld like in Wellington.
The part about the energy field of the underworld was their guess, but after Momo’s questioning, they discovered that there were actually some changes on the left side of Sharpei’s neck.
Cracks appeared on the initially hard bone armor, and it also bulged outward by a bit. Bai Yi had thought that this was how Sharpei looked like all along. However, he realized now that something seemed to be growing underneath. Unfortunately, Bai Yi’s eyes did not have x-ray vision; he couldn’t see what was happening under that thick bone armor.
“Let’s leave it at this. Sharpei you can eat whatever you want, but you mustn’t let people outside of our team see you doing this. Also, do not attack other people recklessly,” Bai Yi patted Sharpei’s head and said.
“Really?” Momo looked at Bai Yi in surprise. Not only Momo was surprised, but Woolf and Heloise were similarly very surprised. Bai Yi actually didn’t blame Sharpei at all and on the contrary implicitly agreed to his actions.
“Really.” Bai Yi nodded.
“But I hope that in the future, nobody will hide things from me and tell me earlier, no matter what changes you may have. You guys must know, no matter what you guys become, we are family!” Bai Yi said seriously.
“Family huh!” Heloise said softly. The family that Bai Yi talked about was obviously different from the family that people normally referred to. But based on their relationships, after going through so many things together, they had become a true, big family.
“However, we need to find other people soon, whether to invite them to join our team or just to help us temporarily. We must at least know what exactly is going on with Sharpei.” Although Bai Yi implicitly agreed to Sharpei’s actions, he still had to be clear on Sharpei’s changes. If it wasn’t a benign change, then he definitely had to deal with it early.
At this time, they finally felt the lack in their team, from the looks of it, they really had to find new additions to their team now. As for whether there would be any barriers between the new members and them after they joined, that was something to worry about it in the future.
Opening the map, Bai Yi took a look and decided on a target.
Wairarapa Snow Valley!
This was a new snow valley found in the Wairarapa Mountain Range to the east of Wellington, and it had become a gathering point for a portion of the evolved humans now. The reason people gathered here was because of a certain mutated plant someone found in this snow valley – Ice Peppermint. This was a plant that they found to be able to be grown in a large volume, and it also had the ability to calm the mind.
Due to the dangers of the Brutal Phase, many evolved humans gathered around this area with this snow valley as the heart after discovering this Ice Peppermint. The reason was of course to make it more convenient to acquire these Ice Peppermints and suppress the berserk state.
“We will go to Wairarapa Snow Valley,” Bai Yi said. They should be able to find quite a few evolved humans at that gathering point. Then, they could see if there were any decent individuals there and try to invite them to the team.
None of them had any objections and after finishing their preparations, they headed off for Wairarapa Snow Valley.
Along the way, Momo wanted to give a name to the baby cat. After Momo’s suggestions of dough, furball and other similar names that were rejected, Heloise finally said a name.
“Let’s call him Chinchilla.”
“Why?”
“Because the species of this baby cat is a Chinchilla! Isn’t Sharpei a Shar-pei dog?” Heloise said teasingly. However, she never expected that both Bai Yi and Momo would nod their head seriously. Heloise couldn’t help but facepalm herself. So it was like this, Bai Yi and Momo both had absolutely no talent for naming things.
Just like this, the name of this little cat was set – Chinchilla!