Mutated Pheromones

Qin Xiujie received the news after breakfast.

Jiang Xiao had a big family. His grandparents and uncles lived close to each other. In order to avoid making Qin Xiujie uncomfortable, he didn’t take his friend to his childhood home. Instead, they stayed at an unoccupied, small apartment owned by his family in the business district. 

Living away from the family, they didn’t have anyone to prepare them breakfast or to wake them up. So once they woke up naturally, they climbed out of the bed and went through their morning routine. With neither of them knowing how to cook, they went out and chose a place with good reviews to solve their food issue.

Because Qin Xiujie ate too much, as all his body functions shifted to his happy stomach and his brain went into a food coma. After reading Yue Ran’s messages, he couldn’t understand the purpose of Sunken Moon’s action. 

[He could only ask: What did they do?]

There was a moment of silence from the other side before a reply came through: [At the moment, it looked like they just wanted to get close to me.]

Qin Xiujie stared at his phone blankly before a flash of inspiration.

He quickly scrolled through his browser history, found the already inactive post, and sent the link to his cousin. [His conclusion: You stay low and observe. They might be Sunken Moon’s fans and planned to steal you away from him because they think Sunken Moon took an interest in you.]

The further Yue Ran read the It Looks Very Much Like Love post, the gloomier his expression became. He exited out of the browser, quietly glanced at the players around him and continued to mine for materials.

After the players diplomatically attempted to befriend the little summoner for quite a while, they all failed and dispiritedly reported similar messages to their respective guilds: [He is staying very vigilant. Difficult to get close.]

Their guild leaders were surprised and asked: [Isn’t he a sweet, naive, young wife?]

[Members: All he said was ‘I don’t want to party with strangers, I only want my hubby’s company >_<’. If we continued to persist, he would reply with, ‘Go away and stop following me. You’re scaring me (sob)’.] 

The guild leaders were speechless.

The guild leaders pondered over this and came to the same conclusion without prior consultation, that perhaps they approached this in the wrong way. So they changed tactics. 

When Yue Ran moved to a different location to gather herbs, he found that he was surrounded by crying players. 

[(Local) Watch the Moon on Hill: Waaaah, my hands are so sour and tired. Why don’t we lads create a party to gather herbs (tears)?] 

[(Local) You Come Here: Please add me (cry), I’m so tired too.]

[(Local) Mouse Growing Legs: Me too (sad).]

Yue Ran stared at them deadpan.

Those guild diplomats thought their target had taken the bait and immediately felt that their plan had worked. 

The tall, buff men behind the screens continued to whimper, hatefully using all the cute and pitiful emotes available. 

[(Local) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Alright, I will help you guys (sweet).]

Excited, they accepted the invitation and joined the party, one after another.

The next moment, however, they saw a new message on the party chat. 

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I’ve already gathered what I need and changed the party leader. Now everyone is in the party, you guys can help each other out, as the more, the merrier. This way no one will be tired (good luck) (good luck) (good luck)!]

Snfgsbcf: “…”

Tef Ejc milmxfv bc atf bqalbc ab ifjnf atf qjgas jcv wbnfv ab atf cfza ujatfglcu rqba.

Ktf ‘mgslcu qijc’ ojlifv. 

Yatfg lcvlnlveji ueliv wfwyfgr mtlqqfv lc bc mbwlcu eq klat lvfjr, jr atfs yfujc ab mbwf eq klat wbgf ecbgatbvbz qijcr.

Mbg fzjwqif, vfilyfgjafis rfcvlcu rbwfbcf ab mjerf agbeyif obg atf rewwbcfg jcv atfc atfs kbeiv ub tfiq tlw. Vb wjcs uelivr tjv vlrqjamtfv wfwyfgr ab ufa mibrf ab tlw jcskjs. Lf kbc’a xcbk ktlmt ueliv kbeiv yf yftlcv la.

Unfortunately, it was a good idea with too many volunteers at once. 

Without waiting for their own guild members, the guild diplomats took things into their own hands. Then they clashed with other guild diplomats and rolled into a mess. Those suffering a loss would return with backup and continue with their plan. As this continued, there were more and more players fighting on the map which was filled with abilities’ special effects. 

Yue Ran was hit by a skill from who-knows-where for the third time, and after failing to gather the herbs because of the interruption, his string of reason snapped—like his patience.

His hands trembled in rage as he opened the ‘summoned refinement’ window and tossed herbs, minerals, and random materials into it to refine a plant spirit beast. Although it was a relatively low-tier summoned beast, it was one that could attack.

After setting it as his sixth, he immediately enabled player killing and quickly materialized his White Bear for protection. Closely followed by the Light Bird for its golden buff, the White Wolf, and his newest summon, Seeding. He seamlessly buffed all of his aids and himself with the White Wolf’s crit buff, as he rushed into the fray while the White Bear rode on his shoulder.

In an instant, the system channel was filled with new messages. 

[Player ‘Likes to Eat Tomatoes’ was slain by player ‘Vault of Heavens Essence<’]

[Player ‘Optimistic Sect’ was slain by player ‘Vault of Heavens Essence<’]

[Player ‘Friendship’ was slain by player ‘Vault of Heavens Essence<’]

… 

The moment they saw the little summoner join the blitz, everyone felt a cold chill on their backs and their fingers froze.

Once the effect of the skill subsided, Vault of Heavens Essence was the only one standing. The White Bear that tanked most of the damage and protected its master was slowly dematerializing. On the ground lay four to five knocked unconscious players.

“Fuck me—!”

The members couldn’t hold back their cries in the voice chat. “This naive-sweet cutie appeared to be a master!” 

Several guild leaders were not on the same page. “What did he do?”

The members replied, “He killed many players in one sitting!”

The guild leaders said in disbelief, “You’re joking, right? Isn’t he a support?”

The members were shocked and agreed with their guild leaders. 

After Yue Ran vented his anger, he calmed down a bit and began to click a few words.

[(Local) Vault of Heavens Essence<: That was so frightening! Please stop fighting around me, scaring me to death (sob)!]

[(Local) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I even clicked on my key blindly from how scared I was. I thought I was going to die (sob)!]

[(Local) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Luckily, my character is still alive (sob) (sob) (sob).] 

Everyone: “…”

Don’t you know that not only did you not die, but you have also slain several players? 

The members’ mouths twitched as they reported the situation to their guild leaders.

Being experienced guild leaders, they have the knowledge to make a wild guess. They thought it was blind luck that the little summoner could kill those players. Either because those players played glass cannon job class, or they already had dangerously low HP. After a quick check, the members found that they were indeed playing glass cannons. 

However, the person who was involved in the massacre paid zero attention to the dead bodies around him as he sent a message with a horn closely after.

[(Horn) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Why is it so hard for you fans to get it through your head that Moon God didn’t want his fans to cause me trouble. Why are you guys bothering me (sob)? And did you think I couldn’t tell you guys were acting? Is there a fan club that can help me (sob) (sob) (sob)?]

The guild leaders: “…”

The guild diplomats: “…” 

As it turned out, their half-day of hard work was all for nothing! 

But that wasn’t important. What was important was the immediate response.

[(Horn) Moon God Fan Club Group: Yes, send location.]

[(Horn) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Vegetable Flowers Field (90,67).] 

[(Horn) Moon God Fan Club Group: On our way.]

The guild leaders: “…”

The guild diplomats: “…”

The first thing the fan club would certainly do is check their identities with their insane sleuthing skills. They couldn’t afford to lose their anonymity, so they all ran away.  

The ‘unorthodox plan’ also failed. 

Their target undoubtedly looked weak and a good point of breach, but they had never expected it to be this difficult.

The guild leaders didn’t want to continue to go around in circles and planned to wait for Smashing Vault of Heaven to come online so they could poach him directly.

On the other hand, the members of White Koi saw that their soft and adorable sister-in-law was bullied again, so they rushed to the scene to really protect him this time. 

Yue Ran didn’t want to be disturbed any longer, so he didn’t insist on declining their help. With the help of his guild members, he gathered enough ores and herbs and went to tame a fierce beast. He finally felt at ease.

[(Party) Ashen Inner Thoughts: What else are you missing? I have some rare materials here.]

[(Party) BB Love: Same here. Do you need anything?]

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: No thank you. Hubby gave me a lot already. I have enough (happy).] 

He, in fact, didn’t want to use those precious rare materials right now, because if he accidentally refined a rare summon, changing his identity later would be meaningless. It was better to make one at random first and then concentrate on researching summoned refinement after his appearance change.

He clicked on the summoned refinement window and placed the materials exchanged from the arena, plus the tamed beast and other minerals. He did a brief prayer as he clicked ‘Refine’.

There was a flash of white light, and a chubby little white chicken appeared in the middle of the array.

Yue Ran: “…” 

He had no words for this!

The crowd waited for their sister-in-law’s response for minutes, so they asked him if he refined it or not.

Instead of replying, Yue Ran expressionlessly let the white chicken out.

With a plump body covered in white feathers, it looked super fluffy. 

Probably because it was its first time being summoned, the bird was extremely happy. It fluttered its little wings around its master. But flying just one-fourth of the way, it dropped to the ground with a ‘poof’ as it gasped from exhaustion.

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: So cute ~\\(≧▽≦)/~]

Bah! Cute your younger sister!

Yue Ran quietly looked at it and hated that he couldn’t cut it open to take back all the materials he had worked so hard to obtain in the arena! 

The guild members were completely unaware of his inner struggle. They all thought that this adorable spirit beast really fitted their sister-in-law’s image, so they called his newest summoned spirit beast ‘cute’.

Yue Ran needed to stay in character, so he took the fat little chicken with him the rest of the day. In the blink of the eye, the day turned to night.

When Jiang Xiao came online that night, he saw Yue Ran rushing toward him while dragging a chicken with him.

[(Guild) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Hubby! You are online (dances in happy circle)!] 

[(Guild) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Hello, and this is?]

[(Guild) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I refined it! Isn’t it cute (happy)?]

[(Guild) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Very cute.]

[(Guild) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (happy)] 

Jiang Xiao studied those emotes and had to send a private message to confirm.

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Do you really like it?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: What do you think.]

Jiang Xiao recalled the little summoner’s temper, and a faint smile appeared on his face. 

[(Guild) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Come, let this husband take you to the arena to test this little fat chicken out.]

Translator has something to add:

Question: Why did you decide to pick up this novel?

Teo: I saw the chicken and translated chapter one appeared out of no way… 

Editor has something more to add:

Sahl: It’s true! She’s been waiting for the ‘Chicken Chapter’ and so have we…?