Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 26: Immunity
Shu Jun’s following dreams were chaotic. He even dreamed of a roasted chicken floating in front of him. He happily stretched his head out and took a bite. The taste was slightly warm, but the texture was too tough. Shu Jun opened his eyes, dissatisfied, and saw a person in front of him.
He was biting Zhu Yanchen’s thumb.
There was a refreshing coolness on his face. Zhu Yanchen was holding a damp cloth, probably wiping his sweat. At this moment, Marshal Zhu looked at his bitten hand, then at Shu Jun, with a blank expression.
…Fortunately, he was half asleep and didn’t use much strength in his mouth. Shu Jun awkwardly released his mouth and chuckled twice.
Now he was lying on the ground, with a blanket underneath him that he didn’t know where it came from, and a pillow made of folded clothes behind his head. There was water next to the pillow that he could reach out and grab.
Shu Jun was stunned for a few seconds, as the Grand Marshal’s caregiving skills weren’t bad. Zhu Yanchen’s condition was too normal. If he wasn’t starving and weak all over, Shu Jun would have thought everything previous was all a nightmare.
“Don’t get up too quickly. You need to rest.” Zhu Yanchen wiped his hand. His sharp canine teeth didn’t pierce his skin, but some saliva was left behind. “If you feel uncomfortable anywhere, let me know immediately.”
“Okay,” Shu Jun replied, his voice still hoarse.
The scenes from the dream hadn’t yet dissipated from his mind, and he subconsciously observed the person in front of him.
Zhu Yanchen’s clothes were slightly old-fashioned and probably picked out from the room. The clothes looked like a one-size-fits-all so they seemed loose but when worn on him, the loose shirt and pants now had a slightly fitted feel.
This person had long and strong limbs, just right from exercise. His body wasn’t too thin or too exaggerated, and the fabric couldn’t conceal his smooth muscle lines. As a former “professional player”, Shu Jun also constantly paid attention to maintaining his physique. On the surface, Zhu Yanchen had a similar body shape to his, but considering that the other party had been in a state of heavy erosion, maintaining this state was frightening.
Marshal Zhu’s skin was still pale, but it wasn’t the sickly pale from before. His complexion had visibly improved. He no longer wrapped himself up like a dumpling or wore those cumbersome protective gear. This was the first time Shu Jun had seen Zhu Yanchen dressed so refreshingly.
As if noticing Shu Jun’s gaze, Zhu Yanchen turned his head, and his habitually cold expression softened slightly.
…Shu Jun wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but the awkwardness in Zhu Yanchen’s movements seemed to have disappeared. The other party no longer seemed to deliberately keep his distance. Unfortunately, Marshal Zhu’s temperament was cold, and his sharp eyebrows and eyes had a natural sense of alienation. Even if he softened his attitude, he was still far from the soft limbs of the young master in his dream.
Most likely, Sweet Edge’s intelligence had mixed into his brain, causing him to have strange dreams.
Shu Jun flipped himself over like a pancake, picked up his cup, and took a few sips of water. The cool and clean water slid down his throat, and he couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.
“Hungry—” As soon as Shu Jun woke up, Monday’s voice exploded. The sound was earth-shattering and extremely mournful. Shu Jun’s scalp tingled, and he almost choked on the water.
Zhu Yanchen sighed and decisively picked up Monday, putting it next to the purifier.
The screaming stopped abruptly.
Monday was angry. Its logic was quite simple—it couldn’t afford to provoke Shu Jun, this alpha-level Erosion Swamp. But if it couldn’t even deal with a human, what could it do? It instantly wriggled in the sword hilt, trying to tear a piece of meat from this ignorant human’s hand.
Then it found out that it couldn’t do it.
Not to mention eroding the hand, the erosion was busy huddling together, trying to stay away from Zhu Yanchen’s skin. When it bit down, its power wasn’t even as good as Shu Jun’s bite when he was dreaming, and it couldn’t even leave saliva.
Monday’s IQ wasn’t high enough to understand what had happened. It only confirmed one thing—there was no food to eat, and it couldn’t even bite the human. It was really aggrieved.
So Shu Jun watched as his greatsword slurped water and formed a lump next to the purifier, making a pitiful sound.
Zhu Yanchen then moved his fingers, looking unsurprised.
“What’s going on?” Shu Jun really choked this time.
“My equipment is mostly outside, so the test isn’t comprehensive.” Zhu Yanchen pointed to the remaining machinery on the table. There were more than ten test tubes filled with blood next to the machine. Shu Jun was sure that the bright red blood didn’t belong to him.
“But for now, it seems that I am immune to the erosion substance.”
If the water hadn’t gone down, Shu Jun was confident that he would choke for a third time. Monday also wasn’t idle either, letting out a quiet sob cooperatively.
“I think I need to sleep a little longer.” Shu Jun finished the water and slowly laid down. “Well, my brain is having trouble digesting.”
“Sleep then,” Zhu Yanchen said softly. “We have plenty of time.”
“Mm, I like to hear that.” Shu Jun muttered.
“Shu Jun.”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Shu Jun yawned. “Unless I want to kill you, please don’t die so suddenly next time. It scared me to tears.”
Zhu Yanchen sensibly held back the “likewise” that was about to come out. Unfortunately, by the time he thought of a soft enough response, Shu Jun had fallen asleep. Zhu Yanchen wasn’t sure what he had done, but judging from Shu Jun’s physical condition, it must have been something that consumed a lot of energy—after all, there weren’t many things in this world that could tire an alpha-level Erosion Swamp.
The equipment in Zhu Rong’s room was barely usable. Before Shu Jun woke up, Zhu Yanchen tried his best to analyze his situation, and the results shocked him.
Not long ago, his tissue was eroded to the point that it was comparable to a honeycomb, and it could only be barely suppressed with strong medicine. Now, those eroded cells had changed their state and huddled together, simulating the state of normal cells, even obediently following the rules of the human body’s metabolism. Severely infected abnormal cells were then expelled from the body making the eroded scars disappear completely.
The pain that had accompanied him for more than ten years vanished without a trace, and his body was filled with strength that had never existed before.
Zhu Yanchen then tried to infect his own tissue sample with external eroded cells. The response of the external eroded cells was quite interesting—they first came into contact with his cells happily to obtain simple information, then turned their heads and ran away as if Zhu Yanchen was the source of the infection.
Zhu Yanchen couldn’t laugh or cry.
He had collected a considerable amount of data and could guess the general situation. The eroded cells mimicked normal cells and lived less comfortably than before. However, they were still dominated by Shu Jun’s “suppression” and had to follow their instincts. The eroded cells had no brains and had always run rampant in the human body. Now that they had suffered a huge loss, they would surely spread negative information desperately.
He conducted a series of experiments, and the results were similar—all eroded cells avoided him. Even if a small number of eroded cells couldn’t escape and involuntarily invaded his body, they had to adapt and painfully simulate cells, allowing his internal eroded cells to switch shifts and start metabolizing properly.
Together with the case of Greatsword Monday, the facts were already clear. Just like humans couldn’t control the activities of cells, even the sentient Erosion Swamp couldn’t control the instinctive reactions of the eroded cells.
Unless there was an Erosion Swamp that was smarter, stronger, and had highly similar abilities to Shu Jun, this balance couldn’t be broken.
…In retrospect, he might have been the first human to be immune to erosion in history.
Shu Jun had rewritten his fate once again.
Zhu Yanchen sat down next to the sleeping Shu Jun on the floor and quietly watched him sleep. Since they had met again, this person had constantly disrupted his plans—the plan to enter the erosion zone alone; the plan to face death calmly.
And even earlier, the plan was to protect this person from afar.
He could continue to live, which was a good thing. Without a doubt, the main task still had to be carried out, and the plan still had to be followed. However, the unplanned things… He was never good at personal communication, and the question of “how to naturally distance oneself before one’s own tragic death” hadn’t been resolved, but now it had become “how to friendly communicate after the death deadline disappeared”.
Zhu Yanchen thought seriously for a while and decided to keep the tactics simple. As he thought about it, he picked up the blanket, pushed back the hand that Shu Jun had thrown out, and tucked it back into the covers.
‘Maybe it’s not that difficult,’ he thought. At least in terms of details, this person hadn’t changed at all.
At the same time, in Y City,
Old Marshal Zhu stepped down from the podium with a gloomy face.
In theory, he was about to become the “former leader”. But since the election hadn’t yet ended, Elder Zhu wasn’t considered retired. The old leader’s oppressive presence was too strong, and none of the journalists dared to approach him—after all, the old sending the young to the netherworld was already bad luck, especially since he had just finished reading his son’s eulogy.
“Zhu Yanchen is really dead? The Zhu family is really…” murmured a journalist quietly in the audience.
“I remember those two from the Zhu family, father and son. Their relationship wasn’t good, was it?”
“It’s still his own son. Besides, Zhu Yanchen has a good reputation in tactics, unlike most of his peers, who are useless. Now, the Zhu family is in trouble. If you ask me, Elder Zhu will choose someone from the Xia family to support.”
“Maybe Elder Zhu will do it himself.”
“Shh, don’t joke about that.”
“Either way, they’ll just find a puppet. They can create another ‘genius’—fame is just a matter of propaganda. Zhu Yanchen may not have real skills. Even if Elder Zhu agrees with Yi Ning’s proposal, he won’t let the Tang family power rise. Let’s wait and see… but speaking of this, regardless of who goes up, as long as Elder Zhu makes a move, it’s already decided that the player system will be optimized, right? The previous disagreement between the father and son in the Zhu family seems to have been about this matter. I really don’t know what Zhu Yanchen was thinking. Maybe the young master really doesn’t know the hardships of the common people—”
“He’s dead. Have some respect.”
“Okay, okay, let’s talk about something else. The election is in less than three months, and Y City is going to change. Oh! What are you doing?”
The journalist was interrupted when someone bumped into his shoulder. He frowned halfway, realizing it was a pretty girl, and then he turned back. “Miss, you look familiar. Where—”
Ai Xiaoxiao bit through the bubble of her bubblegum and sneered, pushing her way out of the venue.
She had seen everything she needed to see, and the coffee flavor of the candy in her mouth had faded. Zhu Yanchen had been her nominal boss for years, so attending his funeral was a way of paying her respects.
She wrapped the bubblegum in paper and threw it into the nearby trash can. As she pulled her hand back, the communicator in her pocket vibrated again.
Strange. This was the reminder that only occurred after the arrival of the communication mutant beast. Did Zhu Yanchen really fake his death?
Two hours later, a loud scream and a change in tone followed in Ai’s Clinic.
“This is truly a masterpiece.” Ai Xiaoxiao looked at the message from the mutant beast and slapped the table. “I have to contact Dong Lao… The next three months will be interesting.”
Then she realized something, and the smile on her face slowly faded—was Zhu Yanchen’s immunity a factor that would prevent her from continuing her medical trials?
Forget it, Ai Xiaoxiao shook her head and opened a can of beer.
“To health.” She raised her can in the air.
Author’s note:
Marshal Zhu: Sorry, I didn’t really die, and I’ll be living for a long time.
Erosion in the Marshal: This is an underground sweatshop. Run away.jpg
Kinky Thoughts:
For those confused, basically what happened is that Shu Jun, using his alpha Erosion Swamp, suppressed the erosion inside Zhu Yanchen. Originally, the erosion was eating Zhu Yanchen’s cells alive, eroding everything. Under Shu Jun’s alpha suppression, they now obeyed his orders, and instead of eating Zhu Yanchen’s cell, they became and replaced his cells.
Erosion acts purely on the instinct of survival, and with an alpha around, they follow said alpha’s orders. However, the erosion acts exactly like cells in the sense that it’s not “controllable”. Just like human cells, they just make up the human, but the brain doesn’t direct the cells to do what the brain wants. It’s purely instinctive and designed by nature.
When other eroded cells come into contact with Zhu Yanchen’s cells, Zhu Yanchen’s eroded cells gives them a warning signal telling them to steer clear, which is why new erosion doesn’t erode Zhu Yanchen, and those that does manage to invade just replaces the current erosion cells that’s already obeying Shu Jun’s suppression.
<<< || Table of Contents || >>>
Kinky Translations 