Chapter 106: News from Gu Feifei
A night passed in the blink of an eye. Zhou Fan slowly woke from his unconscious state and looked around, bewildered. The giant tree was long gone. Chen Yao was curled up beside him like a little kitten, hugging her legs. Her long eyelashes fluttered. It was unclear what she was dreaming about, but her lips were puckered, and her small face was beaming with a happy smile!
Not wanting to wake Chen Yao, Zhou Fan stretched out his hands and clenched them into fists. He felt that his strength had increased significantly!
In truth, Zhou Fan hadn't actually passed out. It was just that the fiery red fruit was too ferocious and bizarre. He had no idea what kind of fruit it was, but the moment it entered his body, an extremely ferocious power—one that felt as if it would burst his meridians and blood vessels—had begun to rampage through him!
It was precisely because this power was so ferocious that Zhou Fan had been unable to handle it at first!
The entire time, he had been like a bystander, watching the power of the fiery red fruit tear through his body, cleansing his meridians over and over. Even more bizarrely, the fruit had even tyrannically altered the pathways of his meridians!
Only just now, when this power was finally exhausted, had Zhou Fan truly woken up. But as he looked at the branch floating inside his body, entangled with the residual power of his Bodhi Heart, Zhou Fan could only sigh helplessly.
'Is this what they call a legendary great opportunity?'
'It's just that this opportunity is a little hard to figure out!'
In the end, Zhou Fan shook his head and decided not to dwell on it. As long as he had gotten stronger, that was all that mattered!
"Wake up. If you sleep any longer, you'll turn into an idiot!" Zhou Fan crouched down and, with no tenderness to speak of, patted Chen Yao's little face.
"Ugh, don't bother me. I'm so sleepy... just five more minutes..." Without even opening her eyes, Chen Yao swatted at Zhou Fan impatiently, then wrapped both arms around his arm, rested her head directly on his lap, and went back to sleep!
Zhou Fan was helpless. He figured the girl must have been terrified by yesterday's events, so he didn't press her. He took out his phone and saw several missed calls and unread messages. First, he replied to Chu Yan, telling her something unexpected had come up and he probably wouldn't be back until evening. Chu Yan didn't ask too many questions, only reminding him to be careful.
He saw a message from Maten, who said they had found traces of Chu Yifeng in Jiang Province, but their people had lost the trail. Maten was heading to Jiang Province in a few days and asked Zhou Fan to lend a hand if Wolf Fang ran into any trouble in Nanjiang City.
Zhou Fan took a picture of himself and Chen Yao, sent it to Maten, and told him he was on a date with a girl and had no time.
"Brother Fan, where are you?"
Seeing the message from Gu Feifei, Zhou Fan didn't think much of it and just replied that he was on a date with a girl. Afterward, he closed his eyes and focused on the condition of his body.
After some time, Zhou Fan finally understood. The branch seemed to be in league with the power of the Bodhi Heart. They were now united within his body, slowly devouring the power of the Nether River Dead Water together!
Although the mysterious qi generated in his body from cultivating the Longevity Technique hadn't increased, Zhou Fan could still sense that he was now at least a whole level stronger than before!
"Ugh, what time is it?" Chen Yao was finally awake. Seeing that she was lying on Zhou Fan's lap, she showed no signs of panic. Instead, she simply rolled over and looked up at him.
"A little after twelve. Did you sleep well?" Zhou Fan asked in a low voice, glancing at his phone.
"How's your injury? Can you walk now?" Chen Yao slowly sat up, grabbed Zhou Fan's left leg, and rolled up his pant leg. Her jaw dropped in shock. She then looked at Zhou Fan in disbelief. "You're a real freak, you know that? It's one thing for the wound to be healed, but how can I not even see a scar?"
"It must be because of that fiery red fruit!" Zhou Fan could only guess. The medicine Maten had left him could treat injuries, but the effects were nowhere near this dramatic. That left only one possibility: while the fiery red fruit was altering his constitution, it had also drastically improved his body's self-healing abilities!
"So, does this count as you getting a blessing in disguise because of me?"
"Strictly speaking, yes. But don't think you can use this as an excuse to extort me. After all, I got hurt for your sake!"
"Tch, why are you being so guarded? It's not like I'm going to eat you or something. I just want to know, what's your plan with Chen Feng?"
"You know? How did you guess?"
"I'm not dumb; on the contrary, I'm very smart, got it? For instance, I know you were secretly getting fresh with me this morning while I was sleeping!" Chen Yao gave Zhou Fan a flirtatious eye-roll, then held out her hand, and Zhou Fan pulled her out of the stream.
"Er, that was an accident. My hand just happened to end up there!" Zhou Fan looked a bit awkward, having been called out so directly.
"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. Consider it your reward!" Chen Yao casually shook her dripping hair. Uninhibited, she took off her tracksuit jacket right in front of Zhou Fan and wrung the water out, seemingly forgetting that all she had on underneath was a small tank top!