Chapter 546: “Oh no, my secret…”
Flashback moment, this conversation takes place a bit after Zhen Liu had blasted Zhen Hai in the face with the knowledge of defibrillation and then has Logos and Pathos scramble the latter’s memories.
“So…you guys are certain he won’t remember how I blasted him in the face with a faceful of kaijin?”
=That should be the case, yes. We are very skilled at manipulating memories.=
“I mean I believe that, but even I know there are exceptions to the rules. Do you know of any possible ways he can suddenly remember that it was me that gave me that knowledge, well, enabled Hurricroak to bestow that knowledge?”
‘What about that last ten percent?’
‘That is…weird.’
=Memory manipulation is an art, not a science.=
‘The fact you’re saying that…’
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=Three percent chance of this happening and we somehow hit it…ya think we should have our lord do the lottery?=
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“Uh…what are you talking about?,” Zhen Liu asked in an attempt to play dumb.
Just as Zhen Liu, Jin Fang and Rianna changed out of their disguises, Zhen Hai suddenly busted through Zhen Liu’s hotel room door and demanded that the former do the “brain blasting thing”.
Evidently, the one thing that Logos and Pathos assured him wouldn’t happen had happened, his cousin suddenly remembering that how he learned how to perform a defibrillation and why he could use lighting aether more efficiently, and now Zhen Liu was stuck trying to figure out how to handle this situation.
Honesty or falsehoods…what the fuck was this, a game with a “morality” system?
Either way, he had to wait for Zhen Hai’s reaction before committing to anything.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Zhen Hai answered, “several weeks back, when Madam Telana Corrada had that heart attack. You blasted me in the face with some weird energy attack, and the next thing I know, I am jumpstarting her heart with lightning aether, even though I had exactly zero experience in both up until that point. You…somehow bestowed that knowledge onto me…wait, is that how your puppets are able to use aether arts?!”
“Oh…that’s what you meant…yeah…you caught me…,” Zhen Liu weakly admitted to his cousin’s speculation, “I’m able to bestow my understanding to my aether puppets…and people too…”
“I KNEW IT!”
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[Really, milord? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just admit that we kaijin exist to him?]
‘You say that, but look how he’s reacting at this fake realization that I can “just” bestow knowledge to people. Now imagine how he would react to the fact that I can instantly make super warriors and have access to a giant magic library that is where I have access to all.’
[…fair enough.]
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As Zhen Liu feigned realization that his cousin discovered (one of) his secret(s), Rianna and Jin Fang proceeded to sneak out the door behind them.
Seeing this out of the corner of his eye, Zhen Liu tried to gesture to them to help him out, only for the two girls to simply signal back that they thought he had this under control while also doing hand hearts.
Needless to say, Zhen Liu was going to strangle Pathos when he had the chance.
“Okay so you now realized that I am essentially the one who helped you figure out that little medical trick,” Zhen Liu said in order to get this conversation moving again, “why are you requesting that I zap your brain again?”
“Huh? Oh, right! Come with me, I will explain on the way!”
“Huh? Bwah!”
Before Zhen Liu could protest or put up any resistance, Zhen Hai proceeded to drag him down the hall and several flight of stairs.
“Okay, so we…might’ve picked a fight with our distant relatives over a slave girl. We managed to win, with some help from…not important! Either way, the girl we saved is currently bleeding a lot and we aren’t entirely sure why…”
“Oh boy…”
As Zhen Hai regaled Zhen Liu with the full story of what the fuck had occurred to lead up to this moment, from his perspective, Zhen Liu was busy prepping for surgery…well, making sure the right kaijin were here for the job.
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‘Razorstella, Frosttusk, Hurricroak, Spring Brawler where the hell are you guys?’
[Huh? Director? We got sidetracked on the way back, we’re heading home now. Is something wrong, you sound panicked…]
‘As I should, I am being shanghaied into providing the information and ability necessary to perform life-saving surgery on someone who has very aggressive hemophilia. I need y’all back here ASAP!’
[Uh…what kind of surgery?]
‘The kind that involves somehow extracting someone’s broken bone shards from their internal organs kind of surgery.’
[Oh…what the fuck?]
‘Yeah…so I need y’all back here because I need you here to slice open this girl without causing too much distress, Frosttusk to slow the blood flow and Hurricroak in case shit goes sideways and cardiac arrest occurs.’
[What about me?,] Spring Brawler asked, [I’m pretty sure spring-limbs and punching won’t help all too much here.]
‘In case shit goes super sideways, I’m gonna need you to bring this girl to an actual hospital…maybe provide traction support.’
[Ah…okay.]
‘Okay that should be-wait…one more kaijin… Arachnidame? Are you free right now?’
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Meanwhile, as Zhen Hai dragged Zhen Liu to the makeshift surgical suite in the kitchen…
“Huh…normally I dislike the taste of mutton…but this stew is damn good.”
“Agreed”
“Huh…not gonna lie my boys, this tastes like the first time your mother cooked dinner on our escape from the main clan.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.”
As the younger generation, and some of the elders, went out to enjoy what the Sapling Festival had to offer, the rest of the members of the Zhen branch clan decided to just relax and enjoy a nice quiet dinner of bread and stew.
This particular group of quiet enjoyers consisted of Patriarch Zhen Shi and his sons, Zhen Ye, Zhen Jin and Zhen Xi.
As they ate though, Zhen Shi decided to regale his present sons about a little event that had occurred many, many years ago.
“Lets see…it was shortly after we had arriving to Stampeding Bison and was about halfway to Stone Claw City. On the way there, we managed to bag ourselves this wild bighorn sheep for dinner that night. Now for the majority of the trip, I was the one who prepared dinner because I was the one who was the most used to camping and such,” Zhen Shi told his sons.
“But your mother insisted that his one time, she would be the one to make dinner that night. Keep in mind though, that she had never cooked before prior to this point, or rather she wasn’t allowed to. Not after the ‘Exploding Buns’ incident.”
“Oh yeah…,” all three of Zhen Shi’s currently present sons said simultaneously, remembering the tale of their mother’s culinary mishap.
“Man, that must’ve made you nervous,” Zhen Jin joked.
“Oh terribly so,” Zhen Shi admitted, “to be honest, I was expecting it to either taste like dirt or be too salty.”
“Much to my surprise though, she managed to turn that big ole sheep into one of the most memorable bowls of stew I ever had in my life. I was so surprised, I asked how’d she managed to pull it off.”
“What she say?,” Zhen Ye asked.
“Well, for starters, she joked that her cooking was proof that people were capable of changing if given enough time and the chance to do so.”
“Noted.”
“Then she told me that on the boat ride there, she ended up befriending this old fox lady who was apparently on her way back to her home country to see if any of her relatives over there wanted to come with her back to here, funny enough,” Zhen Shi explained. “As they swapped stories, the old lady apparently taught her a stew recipe that made use of the ingredients of Stampeding Bison. Nice old lady, never got her name though…I think she passed by now.”
“Aw, that’s sad,” Zhen Xi added.
“Yeah…oh! Actually she did tell me that the country that they came from was one of the smaller countries that got consumed by the Adamantine Empire after a massive civil war though. The emblem of the royal family at that time was…a winged fox? She didn’t remember all to well either.”
“Huh…weird.”
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“Hey! Hey!,” Gao Ren shouted as he took away a wok with a winged fox decoration from the hands of Zhen Feng.
“I understand needing to boil water to help make clean bandages, but don’t use my good wok! Y’all didn’t think to bring her to a hospital?”
