“Your cooking is getting better and better. This dish smells fantastic,” Ying Li said with a smile, placing two water chestnuts on the table. “Xiang Ye, I brought some water chestnuts back from outside the city this time. They’re delicious. Let’s eat them together.”
As he spoke, Ying Li had already picked up a small knife and started peeling.
The uses of mental power were truly numerous. At this moment, for example, he focused his attention on the knife, allowing him to peel the skin extremely thin without wasting any flesh.
His peeling speed was also incredibly fast. With a slight flick of his wrist, he had one water chestnut peeled in under a minute.
Xiang Ye’s eyes went wide. “Mr. Ying, you peel so fast and so well!”
In his previous life, Ying Li had rarely heard praise.
His parents, crushed by life, never praised their children. His teachers didn’t praise people much either.
Wu Nian, for his part, spent most of his time complaining, always thinking Ying Li wasn’t as good as others.
Hearing Xiang Ye’s praise, Ying Li felt his mood lift. He handed over the peeled water chestnut. “Here, try it.”
Xiang Ye quickly refused. “Mr. Ying, you eat it. I can peel my own.”
Ying Li pressed the water chestnut into his hand. “Go ahead. I peel faster; it’s better if I do it.”
He’d been quite comfortable on this trip outside the city and hadn’t really suffered, so unlike in the past, he wasn’t both exhausted and starving.
Peeling water chestnuts was hardly any trouble for him.
In any case, it was far better than coming home to hear someone say the money wasn’t enough, or to be told how much better other Sentinels were.
Xiang Ye took the water chestnut and bit into it gently.
The water chestnut was very sweet, its flavor excellent.
And Ying Li had peeled it for him with his own hands!
Xiang Ye almost couldn’t bear to eat it. He lowered his eyes to hide the sudden surge of complicated emotions, then quickly looked up and smiled at Ying Li. “Mr. Ying, the water chestnut is really delicious. It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
“It is delicious, sweeter than fruit,” Ying Li said with a smile. He had eaten fruit produced in the Ecological Zone before; it didn’t taste like much.
“Mr. Ying, you’re really amazing! People online say it’s incredibly hard to find edible things in the wild, but you found white fruit last time, and now water chestnuts!” Xiang Ye couldn’t stop praising Ying Li.
He was afraid he might be thrown out by Ying Li someday, and that feeling had reached its peak when he saw Guides coming to seek Ying Li.
He liked Ying Li. And if he were a Guide, he could never accept having someone with designs on his Sentinel around.
Once Ying Li found a Guide, he would surely be driven away. He wouldn’t have the nerve to stay there, eating and drinking for free.
He wanted to create some good memories with Ying Li before he had to leave.
When Ying Li praised him, he felt very happy, so he tried hard to praise Ying Li in return.
Ying Li truly deserved praise. He thought that in all of the Upper City District — no, in the entire world — there was no better Sentinel than Ying Li!
Ying Li was indeed very happy with the praise. “I brought back a lot of water chestnuts. You can eat one every day from now on.”
Xiang Ye hadn’t known much about the wild before, but lately, he’d read a lot of material.
He knew water chestnuts weren’t cheap.
Instinctively, he wanted to refuse, but then he remembered that if he refused repeatedly, Ying Li would just insist, making it seem like everything was being forced on him. That felt a little wrong.
He spoke seriously: “Mr. Ying, thank you!”
Whether or not he could awaken in the future, he would find a way to earn money to repay Ying Li.
“No need to thank me. I think of you as a younger brother,” Ying Li said with a smile.
When Xiang Ye first arrived, he had been extremely reserved, but now he was much livelier. Ying Li felt quite gratified by this.
Xiang Ye froze for a moment at those words. By the time he came back to his senses, he realized Ying Li had already finished all the food.
“I’m going to sleep,” Ying Li said to Xiang Ye before heading to his room.
Although Luo Qiming and the others had kept watch during this trip outside, he hadn’t dared to sleep deeply at night, so he was a bit tired.
Xiang Ye waited until Ying Li had gone to his room before remembering he had forgotten to mention that a Guide had come looking for Ying Li.
It could wait until Ying Li was well-rested. He shouldn’t disturb Ying Li’s rest with such a trivial matter.
With a slight twinge of guilt, Xiang Ye cleared the dining table. Once the table was clean, he took out his communication terminal to look at recipes.
He needed to plan the evening menu.
But as he was looking, he suddenly felt a bit unwell.
His body temperature shot up rapidly, he started sweating profusely, and his head throbbed with waves of pain.
It seemed his old ailment was acting up again.
Ever since he was young, besides eating a lot, he had occasionally suffered from fevers accompanied by headaches.
The episodes never lasted long, though. Usually, he’d be fine after half a day.
He didn’t know why this happened. He had once gone to the hospital for a free examination, but nothing was found, so he let it be.
Who would have thought it would flare up again today!
Taking a deep breath, Xiang Ye returned to his bedroom.
Though the bedroom was small, it was fully equipped, with a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk hidden in the wall.
Xiang Ye loved this room and loved his brand-new sheets and blankets.
Every time he had an episode, he’d sweat a lot. Lying on the bed would probably soak the sheets… After some consideration, Xiang Ye lay down on the floor.
After all, he had cleaned the floor of his room meticulously.
Xiang Ye thought he’d just suffer through the discomfort for a while like before, but to his surprise, in his dazed state, he lost consciousness.
No, he hadn’t lost consciousness. On the contrary, he felt as though his consciousness had detached from his body.
Was he dreaming?
Xiang Ye floated above himself, watching his sweat-soaked body on the ground for a moment, then suddenly sensed something attracting him from next door.
He passed through the wall and then saw Ying Li sleeping on the bed.
Under normal circumstances, he would never dare touch Ying Li, but he was dreaming now!
Instinctively, Xiang Ye drifted closer to Ying Li and wrapped his arms around him, holding on tighter and tighter.
Ying Li, lying in bed, snapped his eyes open. He was completely disoriented.
He had been sleeping soundly when a strand of mental power suddenly latched onto him!
If this mental power hadn’t been clearly non-hostile and obviously belonging to a Guide, he would have launched an attack immediately.
The education he’d received at the Sentinel Academy was that Sentinels must protect Guides.
Wait, why would a Guide’s mental power latch onto him?
The highest-ranked Guides in the Upper City District were C-Rank at best. In fact, even C-Rank Guides were rare; most were D-Rank Guides.
For both Sentinels and Guides, the lowest rank was D. A D-Rank Guide’s mental power could at most extend about one meter from their body.
Back when Wu Nian was only D-Rank, his mental power was weak and tiny. After giving Ying Li a single mental sea combing, he’d need half a day to recover, and the effect wasn’t great.
After he advanced to B-Rank, Wu Nian’s mental combings for Ying Li became barely better than nothing.
That was precisely why he’d been so fixated on pushing Wu Nian to raise his rank.
But the mental power now wrapped around him was incredibly strong and somewhat familiar.
Hmm… this mental power tangling with him was the same one that, in his previous life, had barged into his mental sea and tried to control him.
This was Xiang Ye’s mental power.
Wait, Xiang Ye had awakened?!
The awakening process for both Sentinels and Guides was very dangerous. Generally, when signs of awakening appeared, both the parents and the child undergoing awakening would immediately contact the Guide Academy to have a teacher sent over.
When Sentinels awakened, having a Guide nearby to soothe them made the process go much more smoothly. When Guides awakened, having an experienced Guide to guide them also made it much easier.
Ying Li had previously thought that when Xiang Ye awakened, he would have to promptly contact the Guide Academy. As for what came after… he would instruct Xiang Ye to make more friends and be wary of the Shen Family. If it came down to it, Xiang Ye could also seek shelter with the reasonably decent Qian Family, one of the Upper District’s major clans.
Once awakened, Xiang Ye would be at least B-Rank — extremely valuable. If he was willing to seek shelter, the Qian Family would surely be overjoyed.
If Xiang Ye was lucky enough to awaken as an A-Rank Guide, then he’d have even fewer worries!
An A-Rank Guide could swagger unopposed through Starlight City.
Moreover, people from those great families might be wary of a young A-Rank Sentinel, but they would never be wary of a Guide.
In their view, Guides could only attach themselves to Sentinels and couldn’t survive without them. They didn’t need to be guarded against.
Ying Li had considered many possibilities, but he had never imagined that Xiang Ye would suddenly awaken.
This caught him completely off guard.
