My game, Orange Flavor, is great!

Although Li Manqiu comes every night now, the two of them haven't spoken much in the past ten days. Usually, she takes her medicine and wakes up in the middle of the night. The only time they've spent soberly together like tonight was on the first night.

"How's Qin Xiao doing?" She coughed lightly, trying to start a conversation.

Li Manqiu turned her head to look at her and said calmly, "She's awake now, but many bones in her body have been nailed with steel pins. She'll be worse off than an ordinary person from now on."

That's true. Using psionic energy also depends on one's physical health. Don't expect someone who can only lie in bed all day to be very powerful.

"I heard you want to adopt that child." Before Lu Zhao could reply, Li Manqiu took the initiative to ask.

She paused for a moment, then smiled sheepishly: "So this news has reached you? Duan Yue and I get along really well. Since she doesn't have anyone at home right now, she might as well come with me. At least she won't go hungry."

Li Manqiu's expression shifted slightly. She looked up and stared at her quietly for a while. Just as Lu Zhao felt a little intimidated by her gaze, she lowered her eyes silently. "Not bad. That child is very intelligent. If he follows you, he will surely achieve great things in the future."

Tsk... why does that sound weird to her?

Lu Zhao frowned. "You've seen Duan Yue?"

"I took a look before coming here." Li Manqiu didn't hide anything and handed Lu Zhao a water glass. "Drink more hot water."

"……Oh."

She obediently took it and had just taken a sip when she heard the other person calmly say, "I heard that child calls you Mom."

"Pfft...cough cough cough!" Lu Zhao almost spat out a mouthful of water, coughing with his face turning red. But when he looked at the person in front of him, he looked completely at ease and showed no panic whatsoever.

Good grief, they're deliberately messing with her.

After coughing for a while, Lu Zhao slammed his water glass on the table with a "bang" in dissatisfaction. "What? Are you not satisfied with Duan Yue?"

“There’s nothing to be dissatisfied with; it was your own decision.” Li Manqiu slightly curled her lips, revealing a cold smile.

It's clear he's dissatisfied with her child.

Lu Zhao immediately adopted a protective mother hen mentality and sat up straight to look her in the eye. "Captain Li, we're colleagues, so you can speak frankly. Xiaoyue is just a child. If she has offended you in any way, I can apologize on her behalf."

"Replace?" Li Manqiu narrowed her eyes, then looked away, not looking at her. "Captain Lu is joking. How could a child make me angry? You should rest well and get discharged from the hospital as soon as possible so that you can go through the adoption procedures sooner."

This person...

Lu Zhao glanced at the other person with hesitation.

He's a lunatic!

It's her business which child she chooses to adopt, and some outsider is coming up to her and giving her orders.

With a nameless resentment festering inside her, she snorted coldly and shrank into the covers. "I'm going to sleep now. Captain Li, please make yourself at home!"

As she spoke, she closed her eyes.

Without the aid of medication, and still unable to understand why Li Manqiu would get involved in such matters, Lu Zhao stayed in bed for a long time without falling asleep.

Damn it, this body can really hold up!

He didn't know how much time had passed, his mind wandering between Duan Yue and Li Manqiu. Completely unable to sleep, Lu Zhao turned uncomfortably, cautiously lifting his eyelids a crack to peek at the figure under the bedside lamp—

I was so scared that my heart almost stopped.

Li Manqiu is incredibly boring; she just sits here doing nothing and stares straight at her!

She was so frightened that she quickly closed her eyes. After a while, she opened them again, only to find that the person who had been sitting upright at the head of the bed had suddenly disappeared.

Why are you looking at me like that?

A calm, questioning voice came from the other side.

Startled, Lu Zhao immediately sat up and turned to look in the direction of the sound, only to see a figure standing motionless at the head of his bed.

"Why are you suddenly standing here for no reason!" she asked sharply, her face flushed with excitement.

The other person seemed to have heard some profound question, tilted their head in confusion, and after a while suddenly leaned close to her eyes: "But Lu Zhao, this time you looked at me first."

amount……

Suddenly faced with such a perfect and exquisite face so close to him, Lu Zhao was so startled that he quickly shrank back, "W-what? Let me look at you first..."

To everyone's surprise, Li Manqiu suddenly smiled and straightened up – not the cold smile from before, but a warmer one.

She raised her hand, seemingly wanting to reach for Lu Zhao's head, but her hand lingered in the air for a moment, and when she sensed Lu Zhao's resistance, she abruptly lowered it.

"Never mind, just get some rest."

Completely bewildered, Lu Zhao watched as the woman sat back down as if nothing had happened, and he was practically cursing her under his breath.

Does this person have some kind of brain disorder?

What good would it do her to suddenly scare herself in the middle of the night?

It's amazing!

He mentally cursed Li Manqiu, but ultimately managed to suppress his anger when he saw her flawless face.

Forget it, let's just say that this beautiful woman has some mental issues. It's a flaw, and she shouldn't discriminate against her!

Lu Zhao lay back down angrily, staring at the ceiling for a while, but he didn't dare to say what he wanted to say.

However, Li Manqiu seemed to know her inside and out. Seeing that she was reluctant to close her eyes, she asked with great interest, "Is there anything else, Captain Lu?"

Since you asked yourself, don't blame her for being impolite.

Lu Zhao cleared his throat, turned to look at her, and said, "Captain Li, you've worked hard these past few nights on watch, so starting tomorrow, you don't need to come here anymore."

As soon as she finished speaking, she saw the beautiful woman under the lamp frown again.

Pretend I didn't see it! ...

She quickly turned over, pretending she knew nothing, and closed her eyes as if she were really asleep.

However, perhaps it was just her imagination, or maybe it was simply because it was time, but this time she soon drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up again, I was awakened by a ray of morning light.

She turned around and found that there was no one around her anymore, only the box of perfume on the bedside table.

Chapter Thirty: S-Rank Potential

Xia Zhifei arrived fairly punctually, just after eight o'clock. However, she was somewhat surprised not to see the other figure in the ward, especially after seeing Lu Zhao's rather unpleasant expression.

"Where is Miss Li? Did you two have some kind of argument?"

The two had been childhood sweethearts for many years, and Xia Zhifei was already used to judging Lu Zhao's emotions from her facial expressions. Although her little childhood sweetheart seemed to be behaving a bit strangely recently, her micro-expressions had not changed at all.

Lu Zhao frowned slightly, looking rather uncomfortable, and said, avoiding the main point, "It's nothing serious, you don't need to worry about it."

Anyway, she's almost fully recovered from her injury, so it's time to return the captaincy of the second team. Too much of a good thing can be bad. Making people work for free will only deepen the conflict between the first and second teams, which would be counterproductive.

Yes, she did nothing wrong!

"Then what's the deal with this perfume?" Xia Zhifei raised an eyebrow, sat down next to her without hesitation, and looked the perfume packaging up and down, which looked quite expensive.

"Take it if you want it!" Lu Zhao glanced at the thing with annoyance, then turned over and chose to face away from it.

You always dodge questions as soon as they arise; typical of you.

Unfazed by her attitude, Xia Zhifei pouted and slapped her on the back: "Alright! Get up and eat breakfast!"

"Oh." Lu Zhao sat up rather spinelessly, gazing longingly at the steaming hot porridge on the counter.

She was starving after all that running around all night!

"Sister Xiaofei! Sister Xiaofei!" Just as she was about to accept Xiao Qingmei's feeding, she heard a cautious voice coming from the doorway.

Lu Zhao frowned, and without even looking up, he said to the door, "Messiah, why aren't you guarding Xiaoyue? What are you doing here?"

"Hehe, Captain..." The older kid scratched the back of his head sheepishly, walked in and smiled at her, "I was just afraid of disturbing your meal."

Lu Zhao glanced at the man, sighed softly, and took the bowl from Xia Zhifei's hands. "Alright, do you need something from Xiao Fei?"

"It's nothing, just some miscellaneous things at the department." Messiah quickly pulled Xia Zhifei to her feet, and while leading her outside, she said to Lu Zhao, "Captain, I'll just borrow Sister Xiaofei for a bit, I'll return her to you soon!"

This guy is actually hiding things from me now.

Lu Zhao gave a light snort, scooped up some porridge, tasted it, and moved it a little further away with some disdain.

In the corridor, Xia Zhifei was dragged to the door and looked helplessly at the little apprentice whom his childhood sweetheart had personally trained: "If you have something to say, just say it. Don't pull and shove in the hospital."

"Huh? Oh!" Messiah quickly let go, then glanced warily into the ward. Only after confirming that Lu Zhao wasn't eavesdropping did she whisper reassuredly, "Sister Xiaofei, have you seen Xiaoyue's medical report?"

She was a little confused: "I've checked. There's nothing wrong with her body. It's just that some cells in her cerebral cortex have had their activity suppressed for some unknown reason, which is why she has amnesia. But it should be the price for her awakening of her psychic powers. It's nothing serious."

Messiah shook her head anxiously: "No! Her physical examination is fine, of course, but the psionic test results only came out last night. Do you want to take a closer look?"

As she spoke, she took a report out of her bag.

"It's just a B-rank fire ability, what's so surprising..." Xia Zhifei's words suddenly stopped when she saw the words on the report.

"Now you understand, right?"

Messiah wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and pointed to the text after "Potential Assessment" on the report, saying, "Duan Yue's current ability is B-level. If she continues to be like this, it will be manageable. But right now, her potential assessment is S-level. You should know what that means, right?"

Generally speaking, the abilities of Spirit Race members who awaken after reaching adulthood are basically fixed. Whatever level they are at when they awaken, there is a 99% probability that they will remain at that level in the future, unless their genes mutate again.

However, if a Spirit Clan member awakens before reaching adulthood, an additional item will be added during the ability test: "potential assessment," because as the human body continues to develop, the ability is also likely to increase.

Of the cases of underage Spirit Race members discovered worldwide, nearly one-third have their abilities continuously increase during development, another third remain unchanged, and the remaining group experience a decline in their abilities.

Duan Yue's psychic potential is rated at S level, which does not necessarily mean that she will definitely be able to break through to S level after adulthood. However, compared to those who are born with the ability to only reach ABCD at most and have no chance of breaking through to S level, this talent is already astonishing enough.

A level A Eldar can theoretically destroy a bustling city.

And S-class...

“Messiah,” Xia Zhifei stared intently at the examination report, his voice trembling slightly, “I remember that the only two S-class spirit races in the world right now both have support abilities, right?”

She sighed and counted on her fingers: "Yes! One of them has the ability of a super brain and is currently being kept at the Academy of Sciences. The other one is from abroad and has the ability of absolute regeneration. I don't know where he is being held now, but I heard that many research institutes are vying for his cells."

These two abilities are alright; as long as they don't do anything malicious, they won't cause any harm. But Duan Yue's fire is a different story. Look at the captain; even his A-level ability makes it hard for him to control his emotions. Duan Yue is still so young. What if his ability evolves one day and he loses control again…”

"Stop talking!" Xia Zhifei quickly interrupted her. "Tell me now, how many people have read her report?"

Messiah thought for a moment, "Besides the two of us, only the attending physician has seen it... Oh right, Li Manqiu came last night, but I wasn't there at the time, so I don't know if she saw the report in the drawer... As for the rest, there isn't any."

As she spoke, she looked at Xia Zhifei with some hesitation: "Sister Xiaofei, should we report this situation to the bureau?"

Xia Zhifei frowned deeply, and couldn't help but look back at Lu Zhao in the ward, who knew nothing about this. After thinking for a while, she said, "I'll ask Lu Zhao for her opinion after she's discharged from the hospital."

“Okay, I’ll keep it a secret for now.” Messiah nodded, looking somewhat forlorn. “If it’s really reported to the bureau, Captain, forget about adopting her, I doubt you’ll even be able to see Xiaoyue again. That child has been talking to me every day about wanting to see her mother.”