Ch. 299 - The One Who's Mentally Ill is Xu Xingxing, Not Him...

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The five of them sat around the iron pot, eating the tender beast meat. For a while, everyone's mood brightened considerably.

"Junior Chen Shu, you really are far-sighted!"

"Yeah, you can tell right away he's a veteran Beast Tamer who's been to Alternate Dimensions plenty of times!"

Lu Zhining and the others showered Chen Shu with praise. A simple hotpot meal had effortlessly won over the senior schoolmates.

"Don't be so formal, calling me Junior Chen Shu is way too distant."

Chen Shu smiled and said, "Just call me Bandit Bro, or Uncle will do."

"??"

All three turned to look at him, sensing something was definitely off.

"Seniors, seriously, you don't know about my past..."

While eating hotpot, Chen Shu launched into telling his legendary tales.

Everyone listened with rapt attention. Even Fang Si kept glancing over now and then, curious to see just how much Chen Shu was going to brag about himself...

Two hours later.

Everyone was full, satisfied expressions on their faces.

Chen Shu put out the campfire. They were in a swamp, after all — if it burned through the night, something unexpected might happen.

The five of them crawled into a massive tree hollow, opened their backpacks, and set up their tents.

Soon, the tents were up.

"A truly perfect masterpiece!"

Chen Shu kept admiring his own tent-pitching skills.

"Goodnight, Seniors!"

Chen Shu immediately fell into a deep sleep. As for watch duty, he left that to the reconnaissance-type contract spirit: the Demon Eye Crow.

...

Early the next morning.

Chen Shu was in the middle of a dream when it felt like something was licking his face.

"Huh?"

Still groggy, Chen Shu opened his eyes, and his whole body jolted.

"You dumb dog, what're you licking me for?!"

Chen Shu rubbed the dog's head and was about to go back to sleep.

Fang Si's voice came from outside: "Chen Pi, get up!"

"This early?"

Chen Shu yawned. Even in an Alternate Dimension, he couldn't sleep in.

"Dumb Husky, give me an ice ball."

Chen Shu spoke up, planning to use it to wash his face.

The Husky nodded and directly released the skill.

An enormous ice ball hurtled straight toward Chen Shu's head!

His body shuddered, his pupils contracted, and all drowsiness vanished.

"Holy crap, are you stupid?!"

He rolled aside, dodging the incoming ice ball, and shouted, "The hell, are you trying to murder your own master?!"

"Awoo~"

The Husky looked utterly innocent, as if none of it had anything to do with him.

"Why do I always feel like you were sent by God to assassinate me?"

Chen Shu's mouth twitched. Helpless, he could only leave the tent.

"Sis Fang Si, let me use your Frost Dragon!"

The moment he stepped out of the tent, all four girls turned to look at him — and their expressions instantly froze!

There stood Chen Shu, calm as could be, eyes still bleary, wearing a ridiculously conspicuous psychiatric gown!

"Whoa!"

Lu Zhining and the other two instinctively backed away from Chen Shu, terrified he might do something.

As everyone knew, crimes committed by the mentally ill weren't crimes!

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Fang Si's mouth twitched. She stared at Chen Shu with equal disbelief.

She remembered he didn't have this kind of hobby before. When had he picked up this vice?

Or had Chen Shu already been... diagnosed?

"This thing's super comfortable as pajamas!"

Chen Shu paused for a moment, then immediately understood the situation.

"Look — the design, the fabric, all top-notch!"

Chen Shu patted his sleeves, showing off the gown's virtues to the four of them.

"I can responsibly say, this is the best sleepwear of the year!"

Watching Chen Shu hold forth so confidently, the four girls exchanged glances. There was genuine panic in their eyes.

At this point, it seemed like... he really was mentally ill!

Fang Si sighed and said, "Chen Pi, tell Sis — was the gaokao pressure just too much?"

"Huh? What?"

Chen Shu was completely baffled. What did this have to do with the gaokao?

Qiao Yue spoke up: "Junior Chen, what did the doctor say at the time?"

"Doctor?"

Chen Shu rubbed his forehead. It seemed they'd really gotten the wrong idea.

"Seniors, I really don't have an illness!"

The moment those words left his mouth, the four of them took another step back. Generally speaking, that was exactly what mental patients always said.

In the end, it took Chen Shu a full thirty minutes before he barely managed to convince them:

The one who was mentally ill was Xu Xingxing, not him...

...

The group left the tree hollow and headed deeper into the dimensional space.

It was early morning now, and the mist had grown even thicker...

"Awoo!"

The Husky kept throwing out all kinds of skills, every single one hitting nothing but air.

Fang Si looked over and said, "Chen Pi, your dog's gone crazy!"

"Uh... stacking his passive!"

Chen Shu said with a straight face, at the same time showing the four of them 【Sustained Assault】.

"That skill?!"

The four of them froze for a moment, then immediately understood.

Ning Qingyi spoke up: "No wonder you could damage the Boulder Colossus. So you actually had this skill."[1]

"So this skill can stack indefinitely?!"

Fang Si's eyes lit up. She'd never even noticed this skill before.

"Of course... not!"

Chen Shu coughed. If it really could stack infinitely, it'd be way more broken than any divine skill — practically one-shotting heaven, earth, and everything in between...

"The maximum cap is 300%. Once it hits the cap, it lasts for a certain duration, then goes into cooldown."

This was the conclusion Chen Shu had reached after his own research.

As it turned out, the skill had its drawbacks. Shen Wushuang hadn't mentioned them back then — or maybe even he didn't know.

"Triple damage?"

Everyone looked amazed. They'd never even heard of this skill before...

"Awoo! Awoo..."

The Husky was still firing off skills, unbearably annoying.

Fang Si's eyes held a cautious look as she said, "Little Qiao, have the Demon Eye Crow use its reconnaissance skill."

Lu Zhining chimed in: "That Dumb Husky isn't going to attract danger, is it?"

"Ahem!"

Chen Shu cleared his throat and said, "I honestly feel like in the next second, a fierce beast is going to show up."

The moment he finished speaking, a rustling sound came from nearby.

"Huh?"

Everyone froze for a second, then all turned to stare at Chen Shu.

What the hell... did his words just become reality?!

"Awoo! Awoo!"

The Husky bounced around, howling, looking totally wronged: Why is it always me who gets hurt...

A black vine appeared, tightly bound the still-howling Husky by its hind legs, and directly dragged it away.

This guy wasn't just annoying to people — he was annoying to fierce beasts too!

Options immediately appeared before Chen Shu's eyes.

【Option 1: Save the Elemental Beast! Completion Reward: Elemental Beast Obedience +10, Fire Attribute +5%】

【Option 2: Silently leave, ignoring it entirely. Completion Reward: Slime All Attributes +50%】

【Option 3: Abandon the Elemental Beast, pull out the iron pot, and start celebrating right away! Completion Reward: Excitement Potion ×3】

Chen Shu's mouth twitched. As much as he wanted to pull out the iron pot and celebrate...

The Dumb Husky was closely tied to his combat power. He had no choice but to save it.

"Right ahead!"

Qiao Yue called out. The Demon Eye Crow's eyes glowed with black light, fixed straight ahead.

The group brought their contract spirits and ran forward.

Qiao Yue warned again: "Be careful, there's more than one fierce beast!"

"Everyone stop!"

Fang Si called out, wanting to prevent the Beast Tamers themselves from being put in danger.

The Scarlet Flame Dragon let out a roar, spewing a jet of flame that dispersed the mist ahead.

Sssss!

In an instant, over ten black vines descended, directly binding the Scarlet Flame Dragon. Even its wings were restrained.

"It's a Thousand-Vine Poison Tree!"

"It's Heavenly Poison Flowers!"

All five of them spoke at once — except Chen Shu's words were slightly out of sync with the other four.

"You can see the Heavenly Poison Flowers?!"

Lu Zhining's gaze shot toward him, surprise in her eyes.

"I can vaguely make them out!"

Chen Shu pointed ahead and said with a completely straight face.

The four girls paused, following the direction of his finger. There was nothing but white mist — not a single trace of Heavenly Poison Flowers.

And besides, hadn't your Husky just been dragged away?

And the first thing you noticed was the treasure?!

Truly the picture of a merciful master and his filial dog...[2]

[1] Ning Qingyi (宁清怡): The raw text reads 陆清怡 (Lu Qingyi) here, but this appears to be an author typo. The character is consistently 宁清怡 (Ning Qingyi) in all other appearances, including the glossary. She is one of Fang Si's four Huaxia Academy teammates with the S-rank Boulder Colossus.

[2] Master merciful, dog filial (主慈狗孝): A parody of the classical idiom 父慈子孝 (father kind, son filial), which describes an ideal Confucian family relationship. The joke is devastatingly ironic — Chen Shu spotted treasure before noticing his own contract beast was being dragged away by vines, and the Husky spends its time trying to accidentally murder him. Neither "merciful" nor "filial" applies in the slightest.