Chapter 380: When Does a Man Stand Up? (1/10, Autumn Reserved)

Night's Breath, forever the GOAT!

Fang Yue was full of confidence in Night's Breath.

But the moment Qiu Dugu said his next sentence, Fang Yue was dumbfounded.

"Also, the strange object 【Frost Flower】 cannot be eaten by men. If a man eats it, it will immediately drain all of his life force, stimulate his potential, and turn him into an ice sculpture frozen to death. That isn't a normal parasitism, but a bottomless-pit-like extraction. Only when eaten by a woman will it work in a mutually beneficial way."

Damn!

Men can't eat it?

Does even a strange object discriminate by gender?

In the middle of summer... oh, in the middle of winter, my hands and feet are burning up, my whole body is shivering—can this world get any better!

Seeming to read Fang Yue's dissatisfaction, Qiu Dugu began to explain.

"The strange object 【Frost Flower】 is a twin species, paired with the strange object 【Flame Flower】. That 【Flame Flower】 can be eaten by men, but not by women. 【Frost Flower】 is the reverse. It's said that if holders of these two strange objects fight together, they can mutually boost each other's strength. So some people out there privately call these two strange objects 【Couple Flower】."

The moment Fang Yue heard this, he immediately became very interested in 【Flame Flower】.

He himself played with fire, so this 【Flame Flower】 sounded like a perfect fit for his attribute.

"Then I'll trade 【Frost Flower】 for 【Flame Flower】."

"Can't trade."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because the Alliance doesn't have it either."

Qiu Dugu spread his hands: "That thing I've only heard about. Seems like a cheater mentioned it offhandedly and it got recorded in the documents. Anyway, neither 【Shadow Society】 nor 【Alliance】 has 【Flame Flower】."

Ah... then what's the use of this thing to me?

Fang Yue stared gloomily at the box in his hand.

Just then, Bai Xiaoya and Yuan Jie beside him also crowded over, curiously examining the flower as beautiful as snowflakes.

"So pretty!"

"Fang Yue, this flower..."

The moment Bai Xiaoya raised her hand to point at 【Frost Flower】, 【Frost Flower】 without any warning suddenly whooshed, anti-gravity-style slapped onto Bai Xiaoya's finger, then covered her arm.

The others froze for a moment.

What's going on? It comes with a magnet-style attraction?

Why won't you stick to me instead—discriminating against cute boys, huh?

Fang Yue reached out to help remove 【Frost Flower】 from Bai Xiaoya while asking.

"Qiu Dugu, nothing will happen from touching this thing, right?"

"Nothing will happen. Touching it won't get anyone pregnant, right? You touched it before too, and nothing happened. According to the data, only eating it..."

Qiu Dugu's voice gradually trailed off, while his eyes gradually widened, staring at the scene before him in disbelief.

The 【Frost Flower】 stuck on Bai Xiaoya's right hand rapidly became thin, as if tattooed, imprinted onto Bai Xiaoya's hand.

"Xiaoya?!"

"Bai Xiaoya!"

Only then did Fang Yue and the others realize something was wrong.

Fang Yue hurriedly tried to grab Bai Xiaoya's right palm, but could no longer pull off 【Frost Flower】—the thing had completely become a tattoo on Bai Xiaoya's right palm, indistinguishable from her skin.

Fang Yue's expression darkened: "Qiu Dugu! What's going on? Didn't you say touching it wouldn't get anyone pregnant... wouldn't cause any trouble!"

"I... I don't know."

Qiu Dugu was also a bit panicked, a bit self-reproachful.

He hurriedly asked: "Bai Xiaoya, how do you feel?"

How do you feel?

Bai Xiaoya only felt cold—extremely cold, bone-piercing cold.

She felt frost condensing on her body, and her entire consciousness was gradually drifting away.

Vaguely, she seemed to hear Fang Yue's anxious voice and Yuan Jie's crying, but could no longer hear them clearly.

The moment 【Frost Flower】 abruptly sucked onto her hand, she felt her mind grow sluggish.

Thud—pale-faced, frost condensing on her body's surface, Bai Xiaoya stiff as an ice block crashed to the ground!

"Bai Xiaoya?!"

Fang Yue immediately panicked, hurriedly scooping the ice-block-like her up from the ground: "I—if I chop off her palm, can that stop this strange object?"

"It's too late!" Qiu Dugu's expression was ugly. While calling his colleague at the Alliance for emergency rescue, he pointed at Bai Xiaoya's right palm and said: "Look, the tattoo on her right palm has almost faded away. Although I don't know why 【Frost Flower】 suddenly seemed to be attracted to Bai Xiaoya, magnetically sucking onto her hand. But the phenomenon now, I understand it.

This means 【Frost Flower】 has already implanted and parasitized inside her body. It's equivalent to her being parasitized by a strange object with zero preparation! This parasitic effect has already spread from her palm into her body. From the looks of it, even her blood may be gradually freezing into ice!"

Damn?!

This terrifying!

Fang Yue's face was uglier than ugly. The Bai Xiaoya in his arms was so cold it was like he was hugging a human-shaped refrigerator! An ultra-low-temperature one at that!

"Didn't you say this thing only parasitizes and doesn't kill people!"

Qiu Dugu also panicked: "I did say that, but that was under the condition that our Alliance medical team was fully prepared—adjusting the user's physical condition, coordinating with special training, taking various preventive medicines, wearing special clothing, all equipment ready, passing the assessment, and only then beginning the parasitism, eating the strange object 【Frost Flower】, and after the host adapted, slowly reducing the burden.

The problem is... Bai Xiaoya was attacked with zero preparation, suddenly thrown directly into that special parasitic state. Can the danger level be the same!"

Hearing this, Fang Yue was also stunned. While comforting the whimpering Yuan Jie beside him, he felt the person in his arms seemingly even have her heartbeat and pulse slowing down, and couldn't help anxiously shouting: "Then what do we do now? She's about to die!"

"Heat her up! Try to keep her body temperature balanced. I've already contacted my colleague—send her to the emergency room now!"

Heat her up?

This Fang Yue could do!

Fang Yue hurriedly Synchronized, then circulated his inner force, controlled the intensity, and small flames emerged from his body, heating Bai Xiaoya up.

"Are you roasting sweet potatoes! This is 【Frost Flower】, the temperature is below zero! If you don't roast her with high heat, she won't last a minute before she dies!"

Amid Qiu Dugu's furious shouting, Fang Yue increased the intensity, roasting Bai Xiaoya like a human-shaped oven, until Bai Xiaoya's entire body was sizzling with rising steam.

"That's it, that's… they've come!"

Sure enough, a group of doctors in white coats hurried in through the door.

Since the situation had already been explained, they brought the person straight to the emergency room.

Once in the emergency room, there was special heating and warming equipment, so Fang Yue no longer needed to actively generate heat.

The three were stopped outside the emergency room, while the doctors rushed in to perform emergency treatment.

"Xiaoya won't die, right… wuu wuu wuu…"

Yuan Jie wiped away tears beside them, and Fang Yue was also feeling somewhat troubled and restless.

Something that should have been a perfectly fine matter—how did it end up like this?

Speaking of which… what exactly is going on with Bai Xiaoya? Previously, being able to bring the Soul-Sustaining Jade Pendant into the game when logging in—something the United Hands Association said had never happened before.

Interchange of items between the game and reality only occurred at the moment the closed beta ended, and never appeared again afterward; the United Hands Association was also completely helpless about it.

Fang Yue's parchment was a special case, but its nature was somewhat different—after all, signing a contract meant the souls were connected.

As for what was going on with Bai Xiaoya, Fang Yue truly had no idea.

He tried to probe Qiu Dugu from the side, but Qiu Dugu also looked completely blank—he actually knew less about the game's affairs than Fang Yue and the others did.

The three of them just stayed outside like that, keeping watch for an entire night.

The next morning, they finally saw the doctors come out wiping sweat from their brows.

The three hurried over to meet them.

"Doctor, how is the situation?"

"Very tricky. Her body's condition is trending toward a vegetable state—no, should rather say a frozen-person state. But her life is saved. Right now our medical team doesn't really have any leads, we don't know how to wake her up. After testing her brainwave activity and discussing internally, we feel perhaps we could let her enter the game to see if it can awaken her subconscious, and have both sides work together to get through the danger."

Frozen person?

Fang Yue was stunned for a moment before he understood what the term meant.

The so-called frozen people were those who had contracted illnesses incurable in this era, and then voluntarily bled themselves out and froze themselves, waiting for future technology to mature before being thawed, revived, and cured.

However… to this day there was still no example of a frozen person 'coming back to life.'

"Doctor, what you mean is, her entire body has already…"

"Mm, basically all the various tissues throughout her body are frozen and necrotic; even the flowing blood has long since solidified into chunks of icy blood, no longer flowing."

(End of chapter)