"Uncle Yan...Thank you!" Yao Si caressed the metallic bangle on her hand. After some thought, she added, "I will pay you back when I have the money."
"Silly child, don't say such a thing." He smiled in delight and explained, "This was purchased with your money, how does it have anything to do with Uncle Yan?"
"Mine?" Yao Si was confused. No way, Earth was gone, how could she have any money? Besides, RMB probably didn’t circulate here.
"This is part of the psychological damage compensation that the Lu family wired to your account a few days ago."
"The Lu family?" The corner of Yao Si's mouth twitched. "Is it… Commander Lu?"
Yan Xuan nodded. "The Lu family guards many energy-mining planets, they can be counted as one of the wealthiest magnates in the galaxy. Since they insist on giving you half of their properties to apologize, then my baby you should accept it no matter how difficult it is."
"..." Awkward 囧1… Do you really have to make looting a burning house sound so impressive?
"Oh, by the way, uncle has already deducted your accommodation and living expenses from your account, my baby," he said cheerily. "This way when we find your sire, it will save everyone the trouble of sending him the bills."
"..." Give me back my affections, *sshole!
No wonder he was a high official of bloodlings! The longest road that she had ever traveled on was definitely his path of trickery.
______
Yan Xuan didn't stay for too long, he gave principal Yu some instructions then left in a hurry.
Principal Yu didn't immediately take Yao Si to the classroom but to a place that resembled a garden. Inside the garden were a few people who stood or played around in groups of twos or threes. They appeared to be of different ages: some were young people like her, others looked forty or fifty like the principal, there was even one who was hoary-headed.
The principal suddenly clapped her hands and announced loudly, "Come over here, my babies, I’m going to introduce you to a new classmate!" Everyone fell silent. Seven or eight pairs of eyes all looked over at her in unison right then.
WTH?
Classmates?
These people!
The scarred and battered common sense that Yao Si owned suddenly fell to pieces with a crash.
She was dumbstruck and didn't even notice the principal Yu leaving. When she came back to her senses, she was already surrounded by a bunch of - very large kids.
"So you're the new baby?"
"You don't even look cute, I’m the prettiest baby."
"New baby, what blood do you like to drink? I like the blood of the starry sky beast."
"I like the blood from the beast of the alien planets."
"Humph, you all don't know a thing, the most delicious is the peeping beast."
"Liar, you can't drink peepie's blood."
"Can!"
"Can't, my daddy said you can't"
"I said you can, so you can. Humph, I'm not playing with you anymore."
"Humph, I’m not going to play with a liar either!"
All of them joined in, and in the end, they even had an argument. Their attention was no longer on her and they began to disperse in twos and threes again, but that conversation… Wasn’t it somewhat odd? It was as if they were really kindergarten children.
She examined them carefully. These "babies" looked bigger than real ones, and she was left confused as hell.
Then she at once recalled Yan Xuan's words. He’d said that newborn bloodlings were all clones that initially had genetic memories which as time passed would eventually fade away and be forgotten. Was it because the clones' intelligence quotient was also completely erased, that's why they had to study from kindergarten?
Then how did one explain the disparaging age gaps? Was it because the Blue Planet genes that were found were all different?
"Oh, you have the newest model of optical computer."
A big kid suddenly pressed near her. Because he had dashed over, he almost bumped right into her face. Yao Si had backed away just in time.
"That's so cool." This big buddy was obviously over-nourished, the fat on his face was almost bulging out, and he had really become round like a ball. His eyes gleamed as he stared at her optical computer. With a face full of envy he puckered his lips, and like a born conversationalist he said, "I asked mom many times and she didn't buy it for me. Your daddy is so nice to you."
Mom? Looks like his sire was a female bloodling.
"Hey hey hey, new baby." He extended his arms and pushed her, but his eyes were still glued to her optical computer. "Want to be friends?"
"Why?"
"Because you have the new optical computer," he answered like it was a matter of fact, not even slightly embarrassed.
"..." The children's words are certainly straightforward.
"Ah, new baby!" He shoved her. "If we become friends, can you lend me your optical computer for me to play games on?"
"Uhmmm… Probably!"
Fair enough, this was a baby who was into games. Just as she thought, no matter what age they were in, fat otaku always had an inseparable connection with electronic games.
"That's great." The fat classmate clapped his hands. "Then from now on we are friends, my name is Zhu Hang! Everyone calls me Baby Zhu, what's your name?"
Zhu2...Baby.
The corner of Yao Si's mouth throbbed. Looking at the proud fatty, she thought, 'My friend, you will cry in the future!'
╮(╯﹏╰)╭
"My name is Yao Si."
"Yao...Shi..."
If you dare make the sound of the word "poo" 3, I will whip your ass!
→ . →
Fatty tried for a while and appeared to come to a conclusion that two words was way too hard to pronounce, so he gave up without any reservedness. He then suggested with a face of excitement, "New baby, want to grind your teeth with me?"
What the hell was grinding teeth together? Was that a new game that was trending among kids from the future?
Fatty didn't show any signs of waiting for her response. He straightaway pulled down a green button-like thing from his collar and pressed it with force. Suddenly, a palm-sized hole appeared on the empty space on the ground.
This… This was surely the dimensional button of the legends, future technology was so amazing.
Fatty immediately extended his hand inside it and began to fumble around. Few moments later he revealed two identical objects and extended one to Yao Si. "Here, my mom bought these for me, they’re in my favorite color."
Yao Si looked at the round-ended long white object in his hand and the corner of her mouth began to jerk.
"..."
Who wants to chew bones with you! *Smash* (╯‵□′)╯︵┴─┴
So the teeth grinding he mentioned was literally it!
"Here here!"
Seeing that she didn't take the bone, Fatty extended it towards her again.
Yao Si looked at that piece of bone which still had the remnants of his teeth marks and saliva, and she felt an uneasy awkwardness. "No... No thanks."
"You can't." Fatty pouted with disapproval. "Mom said that a good baby must grind their teeth everyday, otherwise their teeth will grow into the meat," he said as he pointed at the fangs in his mouth.
Yao Si felt that her entire person was unwell, wasn't the fangs of bloodlings retractable? Since when did you need to rely on teeth grinding, though the main problem was that he’d picked a bone. They were vampires, not dogs!
"I tell you, this is my favorite stick. Mom bought it specially for me, it feels really comfortable when you grind your teeth on it," Fatty continued to persuade her.
Stick... Was it really appropriate to call it by such a dirty name?
"Can I not grind?" Yao Si took a step back.
"If you don't grind then you are not a good baby." Fatty had became impatient. He persistently shoved the bone in his hands to her. "Try it, try it, it's really easy! Really, if I lie to you then I’m a dog," he said as he demonstrated, shoving the bone inside his mouth and intentionally taking a bite with an "arhwooo".
At that moment, the dripping saliva was like a waterfall, flowing like poems had described: "Straight down three thousand feet, the white spraying torrent does run4", "How could heroes not wet their sleeves with tear on tear!"5
Yao Si felt the veins on her forehead pop, and her hands unconsciously clenched tightly.
With a crack, she had snapped straight in two the bone that Fatty had forcibly given to her.
Fatty was stupefied, his entire fat face was filled with confusion. The bone was still in his mouth and the saliva was still dripping. His eyes slowly moved to the broken bone in her hand, and in that moment a large amount of water vapor clouded his crack-like eyes, his lips pouted, his nose snuffed...
Hold on! You're not going to....
"Wahhhhhhhhh… My stick..."
A loud wail pierced the air, heading straight above the clouds and destroying any peacefulness.
Uhhhh… She might be in trouble.