The First Savior and a Feverish Encounter

Although Yuan Anqing had no idea how he had once again attracted Zhuo’s favor, it didn’t matter. He had grown accustomed to the monster’s capricious moods.

Zhuo had practically draped his entire massive body over Yuan Anqing, his tail wrapped securely around Yuan Anqing’s waist. Yet, Yuan Anqing managed to walk forward with an air of absolute composure, completely unfazed by the terrified stares of onlookers.

“We will arrange for new glasses for you, sir,” Bai Tian said, attempting to meet Yuan Anqing’s gaze. However, Bai Tian found themselves unable to do so; their single large eye kept uncontrollably flickering toward the top of Yuan Anqing’s head. “Regarding the leak of your identity and the ambush, we have already initiated an internal investigation.”

“Understood,” Yuan Anqing replied.

Zhuo continued to rub his chin against the top of Yuan Anqing’s head like an overgrown cat. Yuan Anqing’s hair hadn’t been washed yet, so Zhuo ended up with mud smeared across his handsome face, but he seemed utterly unconcerned.

“You are in great danger,” Bai Tian warned Yuan Anqing quietly, implying that Zhuo’s affections were not a blessing.

Yuan Anqing simply hummed, indicating his awareness. He had never been truly safe from the beginning, and being devoured by Zhuo was one of the outcomes he had already mentally prepared for.

“I recall you mentioning a previous Savior before me, correct?” Yuan asked.

“Yes,” Bai Tian confirmed with a nod. “Her health has significantly improved now.”

“Could I meet her?”

Zhuo, who had been purring against his head, finally reacted. “But you’re still running a fever, you know.”

“It’s just a slight fever, nothing serious,” Yuan Anqing said, instinctively reaching to adjust his glasses. His hand met empty air, and he remembered his nose bridge was bare.

“Then I’ll come with you,” Zhuo declared.

“No,” Yuan Anqing refused. He needed to speak with the other person alone. Zhuo’s presence would inevitably turn a simple conversation into an unsettling food-tasting session.

“Alright,” Zhuo conceded, sounding a little disappointed, but he didn’t press the matter.

Bai Tian was shocked by Zhuo’s compliance. They had expected Zhuo to vehemently demand permission to accompany his “Savior,” or at least devise a way to sneak along. Yet, after agreeing to stay behind, Zhuo made no further moves.

The first Savior resided in a specially constructed temporary ward, located right next to the high-security room where Zhuo was originally detained. After watching Yuan Anqing enter the ward, Zhuo returned to his old suite and settled down.

His room was well-equipped, featuring a living room, a bathroom, and a separate bedroom. However, the decor lacked any personal touch, resembling a sterile corporate apartment.

Upon sitting back on the sofa, Zhuo suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the fabric sofa beneath him was missing a cover—much like the cheap, easy-to-clean slipcover Yuan Anqing had purchased for their apartment.

“I need antipyretics,” Zhuo informed the accompanying guard through the open door.

“Are you running a fever, sir?” the guard asked, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“I would never get a fever,” Zhuo retorted, feeling his superior biology was being insulted. “The Savior you fools chose is the one with the fever. You’d better prepare some medicine quickly, or his brain will turn to mush.”

The guard didn’t react immediately, which displeased Zhuo. He barked the guard’s name, asking if he was deaf.

“Ah? Oh, yes, understood! I’ll go prepare it,” the guard stammered, snapping back to attention, a tempest raging in his heart.

The guard had never had direct communication with Zhuo before. According to the organization’s files, this Differentiated Being was an immature, extremely self-centered apex predator. Zhuo was childish because he had never needed to mature; he had never faced the struggles of ordinary people, so his personality remained unrefined.

The difference between Zhuo and ordinary humans was akin to that between a tiger and a forest wolf. Wolves were not individually formidable; they required socialization and pack adaptation to survive. Tigers had no such need; their immense power granted them absolute confidence. A tiger could sleep spread-eagled, belly exposed, in the middle of a perilous jungle because it was too lazy to be wary. The tiger was the danger.

Could such an arrogant monster actually care for someone’s well-being? It was a terrifying, bizarre thought.

Zhuo could sense the guard’s bewilderment, but he paid it no mind. If Zhuo wasn’t interested in playing, he wouldn’t bother with the emotional fluctuations of prey.

His tail swayed back and forth as he stared at the wall, deep in thought. Zhuo concluded that Yuan Anqing wasn’t healthy enough. He wouldn’t just drop dead in that former Savior’s ward, would he?

Yuan Anqing, who was currently sitting in the ward, sneezed.

“What’s wrong? Is someone thinking of you?” the lady in the hospital gown asked, offering Yuan Anqing a plate of sliced apples, each piece neatly pierced with a toothpick.

Yuan Anqing silently accepted it. “You’re the patient. I should be the one peeling apples for you.”

“You look worse than I do,” the lady said, gesturing toward Yuan Anqing’s muddy, rumpled clothes.

This lady appeared to be in her early twenties, yet she completely lacked the vigor of youth. Her beautiful face, even when smiling, carried a hint of maternal weariness, and Yuan Anqing couldn’t fathom how she managed it.

“If you were willing to take over my duties, I would be much relieved,” Yuan Anqing reminded her.

His trans-dimensional kidnapping was solely due to this woman having jumped from a building.

“I am not willing,” the lady replied, maintaining her gentle smile.

“A Savior should be selfless,” Yuan Anqing recited dryly.

The lady and Yuan Anqing faced each other—one expressionless, the other habitually smiling. Neither spoke. Yet, in their thirty-second exchange of glances, they understood each other perfectly.

Yuan Anqing knew there was no possibility of her helping. “Madam Chen Jiao, your unauthorized jump from that building has caused me considerable trouble.”

“You can jump too,” the former Savior, Chen Jiao, said kindly. “It’s no big deal. I just regret that these people managed to save me.”

Yuan Anqing instinctively reached for his glasses again, but his hand met empty air.

“You and I are very similar,” Chen Jiao sighed. “So, I’m actually quite curious: do you not want to die? Have you not felt despair?”

“I have. A little,” Yuan Anqing admitted with a nod.

“Our lives are truly boring, lacking the drive of desire… Well, I can’t say there’s none, it’s just that our desires are terrifyingly low,” Chen Jiao’s voice was slow and measured. “I actually had friends. Three of them. We had a very good relationship.”

Yuan Anqing remained silent, knowing it wasn’t his place to interrupt.

“The four of us grew up together. Then they each started their own families, shifting their focus to their new lives. We naturally grew less close.” Chen Jiao reached up to touch her flawless, unaging face. “It’s even more isolating as we’ve aged. They grew old, and standing next to them, I look like their junior.”

Because her body had been altered by the Savior system, Chen Jiao was incapable of experiencing romantic desire for any individual; she didn’t understand what ‘liking’ truly meant anymore. She had no desire to be the center of attention, yet her eternal youth ensured she could never simply blend in.

“Can you understand?” Chen Jiao asked him.

“I don’t have friends, so I’m not entirely sure,” Yuan Anqing replied honestly.

Silence descended between them once more.

Finally, Chen Jiao broke the quiet. “You don’t even have friends, yet you’re still reluctant to die?”

“It’s not that I’m reluctant,” Yuan Anqing said, taking a bite of his apple. “I just figure I’ll die eventually, so there’s no need to rush the process myself. It requires effort.”

“They’ve told you how cruel those differentiated rebels are, haven’t they? There are differences in how one dies. There’s no need to seek out suffering,” Chen Jiao reminded him.

Yuan Anqing nodded. “I’m well aware, but I still feel suicide is unnecessary. Furthermore, if I die, those two children will be brought in next.”

Chen Jiao finally understood. “You care about them a great deal?”

“Moderately,” Yuan Anqing replied. His empathy wasn’t abundant, but he possessed a tiny sliver of it.

Those two children were still young. They hadn’t experienced the crushing monotony of the real world. Of course, children were bound to be full of youthful enthusiasm, but most of the time, enthusiasm alone couldn’t solve any problems.

The story of “saving the world” was only truly exhilarating when confined to a fantasy novel. And the concept of a ‘future’ was only romantic at the moment it was conceived. Yuan Anqing’s mind no longer held any concept of the future, but those two children certainly still did.

Yuan Anqing felt that the children’s survival held slightly more meaning than his own life; at least they seemed to be living happily.

“Anyway, I’ll die when it’s my time,” Yuan Anqing said, not believing he could change much. “They can take over after I’m gone.”

“Then you’re a slightly better person than I am,” Chen Jiao remarked.

“So, are you willing to help and cover my shifts first?” Yuan Anqing tried again.

Chen Jiao offered no response. Her smile remained fixed.

The atmosphere in the ward became dead silent once more.

Yuan Anqing waited for a long time. When Chen Jiao didn’t speak, he sighed with a hint of corporate helplessness. “If you’re not in the mood today, I’ll take my leave. Let’s touch base another time.”

He picked up the plate of apples and turned to exit the ward.

Immediately after Yuan Anqing’s departure, a nurse entered the ward to check on Chen Jiao’s condition.

“I don’t like that child,” Chen Jiao told the nurse. “So lifeless.”

The nurse looked up in surprise, finding it hard to believe there could be anyone in existence more lifeless than this former Savior.

“Also, I noticed his face getting redder and redder. Is he running a fever?” Chen Jiao asked.

“He is a little, but it shouldn’t be a major issue,” the nurse explained. “Medicine has already been sent to his room.”

Yuan Anqing placed the apple plate on the coffee table opposite Zhuo. “Want some? The former Savior peeled them.”

“Huh?” Zhuo, who had been coiled on the sofa, stretched out his tail and sat up straight. “Are you two done talking? How was she?”

Yuan Anqing’s brow furrowed slightly. “I don’t like her. She has no vitality.”

Zhuo paused his movement to pick up an apple. “Ah? You think she has no vitality?”

“We often found ourselves at a loss for words.”

Yuan Anqing noticed the pills and water on the table. He asked Zhuo if they were for him, and upon receiving an affirmative grunt, Yuan Anqing thanked him and unhesitatingly swallowed the medicine.

Meanwhile, Zhuo pondered what exactly was wrong with these Saviors; every single one of them seemed half-dead.

“I believe I’m slightly more lively than her,” Yuan Anqing concluded, his expression utterly blank.

Zhuo found himself unable to comment on this. The word ‘lively’ had about as much connection to Yuan Anqing as a bicycle did to an electric blanket.

Yuan Anqing sat on the sofa for a while longer. The fever had brought a heavy flush to his cheeks, yet his facial expression remained as steady as a rock—as if the redness was merely a matter for his capillaries, largely unrelated to Yuan Anqing himself.

His detached demeanor affected Zhuo, so much so that Zhuo didn’t realize something was severely amiss until ten minutes had passed.

“Are you burning up quite badly? You’re not even talking anymore,” Zhuo said, extending the tip of his tail to poke Yuan Anqing’s flushed cheek. “Your temperature is really high.”

Yuan Anqing didn’t answer. He continued to embody his cool, aloof persona, staring straight ahead.

Zhuo waited another ten seconds, only to see Yuan Anqing slowly turn his head to look at him, his brow slightly furrowed. “Huh?” He hadn’t understood a single word.

“You’re going to burn yourself stupid, you bastard!” Zhuo cursed, rising to his feet. He grabbed the back of Yuan Anqing’s collar with one hand and hoisted him up like a wet kitten.

Why had Zhuo trusted Yuan Anqing’s assessment of his own condition?! Had Yuan Anqing seemed too reliable?! The man wasn’t even a doctor!

“Hey! Your Savior is about to croak!” Zhuo roared to the guard outside. “He needs an injection!”

Even while being dangled in the air by Zhuo, Yuan Anqing maintained his aloof, impassive expression, as if contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

However, those with severe fevers couldn’t think clearly; their minds were in utter disarray.

“Put me down. I’m not sick,” Yuan Anqing suddenly declared.

Zhuo looked at Yuan Anqing incredulously. “Are you sure?”

Yuan Anqing nodded gravely.

Zhuo pointed to his own chest with his free hand. “Then tell me, who am I?”

Yuan Anqing stared at the massive chimera, not understanding why the other party would ask such a simple question. He slowly reached out and pointed at Zhuo’s crystalline horn.

“A little lamb,” Yuan Anqing said deadpan.

Zhuo: “…”

Zhuo turned to the hallway and raised his voice to a booming roar. “HURRY UP! HE’S SO SICK HE’S PRACTICALLY DYING!”