Chapter 427: Sister-in-law, Is There Someone Else in Your Room?

The once-cozy bedroom was now strewn with white bones, steeped in a thick, dark crimson and a nauseating stench.

It was a scene and scent Ye Linyuan knew all too well. He was long used to it.

But Jiang Qingli, who didn’t belong here, was from a completely different world.

A cold, arrogant male voice suddenly echoed in his mind—

"An unnatural, malformed creation like you is utterly unworthy of her."

Images flashed before his eyes, and a dull ache struck him. The fingers of the hand holding the hair tie tightened unconsciously.

Before he could pull his hand back, Jiang Qingli snatched the hair tie and, faster than he could react, threw herself into his arms.

Foul blood stained the hem of her dress.

There wasn’t a hint of displeasure in her voice. Instead, she laughed and said, "There, now I’m just as filthy as you are. You don’t have to avoid me anymore."

His reptilian, ice-cold body was enveloped in warmth, like a lonely, drifting boat finally reaching shore.

Ye Linyuan snorted. "Who’s avoiding you?"

Despite his words, his arms wrapped around her fiercely, holding her so tightly it felt as if he wanted to merge her into his very bones.

Jiang Qingli didn’t resist. She simply ran her hand along his spine, stroking it gently.

The scene might have been gruesome, but it was rare for the two of them to share such a quiet, tender moment.

Jiang Qingli thought the atmosphere was nice and was about to resume their interrupted conversation when she suddenly heard the sound of frantic footsteps.

W-103 burst into the room with his eyes squeezed shut, weapon in hand, yelling his head off. "AAAAH, EAT THIS—"

The sudden silence startled W-103.

He opened his eyes to see his boss holding the girl, staring at him coldly.

It finally dawned on W-103 that he’d interrupted them. He stammered, "B-Boss, I-I-I... I came with Q-29 and the others! We were worried about you-you-you-you..."

He said, hoping to call his companions for moral support.

But when he looked back, Q-29 and the other four test subjects had already turned and were a good distance away. Q-29 even raised a hand to wave at him.

W-103: "..."

’Why am I always the unlucky one!’

The young man shot Jiang Qingli a pleading look.

Jiang Qingli tugged on Ye Linyuan’s sleeve and suggested, "Hey, can we go somewhere else to wash up? This is starting to feel... This Mutant Beast blood is disgusting."

Ye Linyuan glanced at W-103. After the boy had scurried away, he looked back at her and asked in a low voice, "Where to?"

"The military district," Jiang Qingli said. Fearing he might think she was tricking him into going back for a check-up, she added, "We won’t tell anyone. We’ll use your Superpower to slip into my room. After you’re clean, you can go wherever you want. I won’t stop you."

Ye Linyuan looked down at her. Seeing her eyes darting about, he raised an eyebrow.

His instincts told him that whenever she made that face, she was probably planning to set a trap for him.

Ye Linyuan replied coolly, "If you want to wash up, there’s a lake right there."

’He’s as wary as ever.’

Jiang Qingli decided to pull out her trump card.

She took a deep breath, tugged his sleeve, and softened her voice. "Hubby... I want to go back and wash up now..."

Ye Linyuan froze.

Almost against his will, he teleported them both to her apartment, still holding her in his arms.

The entire trip took less than a minute.

Standing in the living room of Jiang Qingli’s apartment, Ye Linyuan was utterly silent.

Jiang Qingli had expected as much.

Back in the Underground City, she had called him ’hubby’ once, and he had immediately spent ninety million on her. Compared to that, a trip to the military district was nothing; of course he would comply.

Jiang Qingli stood on her tiptoes, about to give him a kiss as a reward.

But then she froze. "Wait a minute, I never told you where I live, did I? How did you find this place?"

Ye Linyuan: "..."

If it had been the twenty-five-year-old Ye Linyuan standing before her, he would have likely pinched her cheek, raised an eyebrow nonchalantly, and told her to guess.

But the one standing before Jiang Qingli now was the twenty-year-old Ye Linyuan.

He could only avert his gaze, his eyelashes fluttering in guilty silence.

Jiang Qingli crossed her arms, interrogating him like a criminal. "Aha! So you’ve been spying on me!"

She pounced on him, grabbing him by the collar and shaking him. "Were you the one who snuck in here in the middle of the night and touched me last time?"

Losing his balance, Ye Linyuan was tackled onto the sofa.

He grabbed her wrists, his brow furrowed. "I came during the day," he said coldly. "Who came at night?"

’He dares to question me back?’

"I said the wrong time on purpose! It really was you!" Jiang Qingli knew it. "You touched my waist and my leg! You! Big! Pervert!"

Ye Linyuan let her hit him a few times with a throw pillow. "I wasn’t touching you," he said. "I was examining you."

At the time, he hadn’t understood his strange reaction to her and had wanted to check if she had drugged him.

But he hadn’t found anything.

Jiang Qingli wasn’t actually that bothered by it. She was already used to Ye Linyuan’s habit of appearing and disappearing like a ghost. Hitting him a few times was enough to cool her down.

She was still covered in blood, which felt sticky and horrible, so Jiang Qingli went to take a shower first.

Before she went, she warned Ye Linyuan not to move and, more importantly, not to run off.

The untamable beast was surprisingly obedient in her presence. When Jiang Qingli came out of the shower, he was still sitting on the sofa, examining the Ruby figurine that had been on her table.

"Is it nice?" Jiang Qingli asked, walking over to him while drying her hair. "A friend of mine gave it to me."

"It stinks," Ye Linyuan said, looking up. "A male friend?"

"Yeah, a friend I made in the First District. I’ll introduce you two properly next time." Finding his comment odd, Jiang Qingli took the figurine and sniffed it. "It doesn’t stink. It actually smells really nice."

She barely got two sniffs in before Ye Linyuan snatched it from her.

He wanted to throw it out the window, but seeing how much she seemed to care about it, he resisted the urge and tossed it onto the sofa instead.

"Don’t smell it," he said coldly.

’The reek of that bird is overwhelming. What a restless flirt.’

Jiang Qingli just assumed he was jealous and quickly pushed him toward the bathroom to take his own shower.

Ye Linyuan closed the bathroom door and scanned the room, his eyes landing on a corner.

A single, snow-white strand of animal fur.

Rabbit fur.

The instant he thought of a rabbit, a pretentious face popped into his mind.

His expression grew even darker.

’A sly fox, an ugly dragon, a brainless, busty snow leopard, a flirtatious bird, and now a rabbit...’

’And just moments ago, she was calling me ’hubby’.’

’Just how many men has she called that?’

’What do those flirts have that I don’t?’

’What gives them the right to stay by her side?’

Thick jealousy almost twisted Ye Linyuan’s normally impassive face into a snarl.

His face grim, he turned on the shower and stood under the cold spray, letting it wash away the blood and grime.

The shower hadn’t been running for long when Ye Linyuan heard the front door open.

Someone had arrived. Jiang Qingli’s voice was bright with pleasant surprise. "Long time no see! You don’t have work today?"

The other person laughed and said he was on leave.

’A man’s voice.’

’He sounds about eighteen or nineteen.’

’The voice didn’t belong to any of the other males who had been around her recently.’

Ye Linyuan sneered.

’Another restless pest, serving himself up on a silver platter.’

He lifted a hand and knocked over the bottle of shower gel.

CRASH—

The sudden sound of something heavy hitting the floor echoed with startling clarity.

The young man at the door froze and looked at Jiang Qingli.

"Sister-in-law, is there someone else in your room?"