The silver tallic egg, still half-buried in the ground, flew up and zood toward Qin Feng like a missile!
"WHOA!" Qin Feng backed up and raised his hand instinctively.
But the egg stopped. Just 0.001 cm from his palm.
Everyone held their breath.
Then...
The egg shimred, as if asking permission.
Cautiously, Qin Feng reached out and picked it up.
It was cold, heavy, but strangely warm inside.
He turned toward Su Jiyai, ready to say, "You take it. You deserve—"
"OUCH!" he yelped, jerking his hand back.
Blood dripped from his finger.
"What the heck?! It bit ?!"
Before anyone could react—
CRACK!
The egg began to break apart, the sound like screeching tal plates being torn apart.
Then—
POP!
A small, silver bird jumped out.
It had glowing blue eyes and soft feathers that shimred like moonlight.
It blinked at Qin Feng and then...
It opened its tiny beak and said in a soft baby voice:
"Dad."
The atmosphere stilled as if soone had pressed a mute button.
Qin Feng: "...HUH?!"
Su Jiyai stared. "Since when did you have a kid?!"
Qin Feng looked horrified. "I didn’t!! I an—I don’t—this isn’t mine!!"
The bird chirped again and flapped onto his shoulder.
"Dad!"
Qin Feng: "I... I need a minute."
Su Jiyai squinted. "So you’re telling you raised a baby bird behind my back?"
Xi Ping looked back and forth between them, confused out of her mind.
She pointed at the little silver bird and mumbled, "Why is this small flying boy calling Qin Feng his dad?"
The bird turned to her and puffed out its feathers.
"I only have ONE dad!" it chirped proudly.
Xi Ping backed up. "OKAY... weird bird, not arguing with you."
Su Jiyai was arguing with the system in her head.
"Didn’t you say that it can awaken a hidden trait or sothing? Why did a silver bird pop out?"
[Host, as I had ntioned before. It was incomplete. Maybe during the trial, it gained wisdom. This was one in a million possibility.]
Su Jiyai: "..." Wow! What a... sigh.
She turned toward Qin Feng and asked softly,
"So when are you going to arrange a eting between the bird’s mother and . After all, I am going to beco a stepmother."
Qin Feng: "..." What a great sense of humor.
Seeing his speechless expression, Su Jiyai chuckled and decided not to tease him anymore.
However, Xi Ping looked at Su Jiyai and Qin Feng as if she were seeing a monster.
From her perspective, a little boy was telling Qin Feng that he was going to beco a stepmother.
"I must be hearing things!" Xi Ping wondered.
The little birds rubbed his cheeks with Qin Feng calling out sweetly,
"Dad! Dad!"
Qin Feng took a deep breath and said sternly,
"Don’t call dad."
The little bird’s puffed chest deflated, and he asked in an aggrieved voice,
"Why? You don’t love ? I am very powerful!"
With that, the bird flew away at a certain distance and closed its eyes.
Whoosh.
The bird closed his eyes and shouted, "Stop!"
A sound wave passed, and the atmosphere suddenly stilled.
Ti stopped.
Literally.
The mont the little silver bird said, "Stop!"—everything around them froze.
The leaves in the trees stopped moving.
The wind stopped blowing.
Even the clouds above paused mid-drift like soone had pressed the pause button on the entire world.
Su Jiyai’s eyes widened. "What... the...?"
Xi Ping slowly turned her head. "Are we dead?"
"No," Qin Feng said, his voice low. "I think... this is his power."
For five full seconds, the world stayed frozen.
Then—WHOOSH!
Ti snapped back.
The trees rustled again, the wind blew, and the clouds continued drifting like nothing had happened.
The little bird flew gently into Qin Feng’s arms and cuddled into his chest.
Qin Feng stood still, his arms shaking a bit. He looked at the bird with a strange, complicated expression.
Su Jiyai and Xi Ping stood frozen too, but not because of the ti power. They were simply shocked.
This bird... could stop ti.
That was a power not even legends had.
For a second, Su Jiyai and Xi Ping both thought the sa thing:
’We should’ve put everything into contracting that bird.’
Xi Ping stared at her hands and mumbled, "I just got tired at 30 minutes... What if I had pushed a little more..."
Su Jiyai looked away and sighed. ’Sister, I was even closer!’
Qin Feng finally spoke. "I... I don’t think I deserve him."
Su Jiyai turned around sharply. "What are you saying? Of course you do. You were the one who won."
But Qin Feng shook his head. "No. I saw it. You dropped after . I wanted to fall first... but I didn’t. You held on longer."
Su Jiyai paused, her mouth half-open. "Wait... that’s not what the system said."
"The system said I won by 0.0001 seconds," Qin Feng said. "But what if... what if that bird ssed up the result?"
At that mont, all three of them turned toward the little bird.
The bird blinked innocently, rubbed its shiny forehead, then looked up at Su Jiyai and said seriously:
"You can never beco a winner. You can’t beco a winner."
Su Jiyai’s brows furrowed. "Huh? What do you an I can’t beco the winner? So I was truly not the winner... hm... Qin Feng, you might have made a mistake."
Qin Feng shook his head and said with certainty, "No! I saw it with my own eyes! You dropped after ."
The bird puffed up his chest.
"Dad is right! But you can’t beco a master lady! Because... you have too much power. Too much. Way too powerful. If I go with her, I’ll be... nothing! I’ll shine better with you, Dad!"
Qin Feng: "..."
Su Jiyai: "...Wait, what?"
The bird flapped in panic. "This lady’s power is big! Very big! Even bigger than ti! If I contract her, I’ll be like—useless! That’s why... nope! Not going with this lady!"
Su Jiyai’s eyes twitched. "What do you an? Bigger than ti? That doesn’t even make sense! Ti is the strongest thing!"
But the bird nodded hard. "You don’t know it yet. But you’re scary. You’re like... SKY scary. Big sky."
Su Jiyai lunged forward. "Hey! I’m not scary! I’m small! I’m soft! I’m just a tiny bird—look at !"
But in her heart, she was yelling: WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?! You’re the one who can stop ti!! I should be chasing YOU!!
Xi Ping stared at Su Jiyai with a deadpan face.
"Why is this little boy saying he’s small and soft? And why is the bird calling this boy a lady? Chaos! Too much chaos!"
The bird flapped back a little and shouted, "I will never beco this lady’s beast!"
Su Jiyai’s eyebrow twitched. "Then beco a monk!"
The bird stuck out his tongue. "Then I WILL beco a monk!"
Qin Feng raised a hand. "Okay, hold on, hold on—what is going on?"
The bird grinned cheekily. "Fine! I’ll tell the truth."
Then he pointed at Su Jiyai.
"She won. Not you, Dad."
"What?" all three said together.
"But I didn’t want to go with this lady," the bird said, flapping. "So I changed the result. Just a little. Just 0.0001 seconds. Hehe~"
Su Jiyai’s mouth fell open. "You... cheated?"
Xi Ping looked at the sky. "This world is petty..."
Qin Feng stared at the bird. "So... you chose just because you wanted to look cool?"
The bird looked proud. "Yup! With you, I’ll be the STAR!"
Su Jiyai, Qin Feng, and Xi Ping: "..."
Su Jiyai sighed and slowly stepped back. "It’s fine. If that’s how it is, then I won’t fight it. This whole thing... it was probably fate."
She looked up at the moon above and gave a small, tired smile.
"We ca here to search for so beasts, find so materials, maybe cook so weird at. Who knew... this egg would be our destiny."
The bird fluffed his feathers, still sitting on Qin Feng’s arm, and looked very pleased with himself.
Qin Feng looked at Su Jiyai and then down at the bird. After a mont, he said calmly:
"Even if he’s mine... I want him to stay with you."
"Huh?" Su Jiyai looked confused. "What do you an?"
Qin Feng t her eyes.
"You’re in more danger than I am. People target you more. You take more risks. Beasts like this one... should stay close to you. You’ll survive more easily."
The bird blinked. "Wait, what? ? Stay with Su Jiyai?"
Qin Feng nodded. "Yes. That’s an order, bird."
The bird looked between Qin Feng and Su Jiyai, his feathers twitching.
"But dad... she is very powerful! She doesn’t need my protection!"
Su Jiyai felt that the bird was maybe ntally unstable.
She had almost died just a few months ago when she t those strange entities. Now suddenly she was so powerful that she didn’t need a bird beast with ti?
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