Lí Wēnrán was both shocked and angry, "Your injury... she did this?!"
Yue Liánjì also quickly stepped forward, crouched down to examine Biān Chóu's condition carefully, his brows furrowing almost imperceptibly.
He noticed that the dressing on Biān Chóu's wound seemed unusually neat, and he could even smell a faint herbal fragrance, his suspicion deepening.
Biān Chóu, lying on the bed, slowly opened his golden vertical pupils, meeting the concerned and angry gazes of his two companions.
He shook his head.
"It wasn't her. I accidentally injured myself while hunting, I ran into a Black Bear."
Yue Liánjì and Lí Wēnrán's expressions eased slightly upon hearing this, but their worry did not diminish.
They glanced at each other, nodded, and they knew all too well how fierce Black Bears were.
Beastmen without awakened supernatural abilities usually needed a hunting party of ten to surround and subdue such a ferocious prey to ensure safety.
Although the Beast-Husbands that Wǎn Fēngmián saw were all top-tier in terms of physical ability among males.
It still usually took the cooperation of three of them to hunt without injury.
"You're too reckless! Next time you encounter one, just run away,"
Lí Wēnrán's tone was full of disapproval, hoping that Biān Chóu wasn't seriously injured.
Yue Liánjì remained silent, his cool gaze falling on the leafy dressing on Biān Chóu's waist.
He crouched down, and his long, slender fingers very gently lifted the edge of the grass leaves covering the wound. Lí Wēnrán also leaned in to examine it.
However, when the unusually neat wound, which seemed to be perfectly closed, was revealed before their eyes, both of their expressions became visibly perplexed.
This wound... the marks were strange.
It didn't resemble the tearing wound caused by the claws of a bear, nor the bite marks of a ferocious beast.
It looked more like it had been punctured and stitched at regular intervals by something extremely sharp and tiny?
They had never seen such a wound.
Biān Chóu saw their confusion and moved his pale lips.
He uttered the name that made them instantly tense up: "Wǎn Fēngmián did it."
"What?!" Lí Wēnrán was like an ignited explosive, abruptly straightening up, his eyes burning with rage that was almost ready to erupt.
"I knew it! I knew that Vicious female wouldn't stay put! What new trick has she come up with to torture you?! To do this to you when you're injured..."
His chest heaved violently with anger, as if he could already see Wǎn Fēngmián gleefully abusing Biān Chóu's wound with a deadly weapon.
Compared to Lí Wēnrán's fury, Yue Liánjì appeared much calmer.
His ink-black eyes carefully examined the wound. Although its shape was strange, there were no signs of deterioration, and the redness and swelling were exceptionally minor compared to normal injuries.
This didn't look like torture at all, but rather like some kind of processing method he couldn't understand?
Biān Chóu listened to Lí Wēnrán's relentless scolding of Wǎn Fēngmián, and a strange feeling, one he hadn't even noticed himself, inexplicably arose within him.
A subtle emotion, a reluctance for her to be misunderstood like this, quietly grew.
He pursed his lips and interrupted Lí Wēnrán's indignation.
"I initially thought it was another new torture method she came up with."
He recalled the sharp pain of the embroidery needle piercing his flesh, and Wǎn Fēngmián's harsh words.
"She used something very thin and sharp, like a plant's thorn, to repeatedly pierce my wound."
Lí Wēnrán clenched his fists, making a 'just as I suspected' expression.
However, Biān Chóu's tone shifted: "But that stinging pain only existed while she was moving. Afterwards, the wound didn't continue to burn like it usually does after being scratched by prey."
He gestured to his waist and abdomen, "Instead, it quickly stopped the bleeding, and the wound healed at an abnormally fast rate."
He paused, as if organizing his thoughts, "She might have been... helping me treat my wound... After I got injured, she took care of me."
He pointed to the bed beneath him, which belonged to Wǎn Fēngmián: "She let me sleep in the bed yesterday, and she made a bed of dry grass in the corner and managed for the night."
Lí Wēnrán's face was filled with disbelief, "Biān Chóu, are you hallucinating from blood loss?!"
This was even more unbelievable to him than Biān Chóu hunting a Black Bear alone!
How could that Vicious female possibly do something like this?
Yue Liánjì looked at Biān Chóu silently, waiting for further explanation.
Biān Chóu knew it was hard to accept: "When you two just came back and saw her, did you hear any strange sounds?"
Lí Wēnrán frowned, "What bizarre sounds? Other than her annoying chattering, what else could there be?"
Yue Liánjì's eyes, however, sharpened, and he slowly spoke, "She didn't speak, but I heard her voice."
This was the source of his earlier suspicion.
Biān Chóu's golden vertical pupils brightened slightly, "You can hear it too."
He looked at Yue Liánjì and Lí Wēnrán and began to recount everything he had heard from Wǎn Fēngmián's inner thoughts from last night to this morning.
From her binding to the System, needing Viciousness Value, fearing Electric Shock Punishment, to her secretly applying medicine but pretending to be testing it, disliking his thinness, and making a fire to cook...
Outside, Wǎn Fēngmián was listening to the constant notifications in her mind about her Viciousness Value increasing, and she was overjoyed.
In just a few minutes, her Points/Credits jumped from 3 to 5!
As happy as she was, she was also very curious.
So, Wǎn Fēngmián couldn't help but call out to the System in her mind:
【System Unit, how is this Viciousness Value calculated?】
Yesterday, I pricked you, verbally abused you, and tied you up, and it barely accumulated two Points/Credits after a lot of effort.
Just now, I only said two or three sentences to those two, so why is the Viciousness Value skyrocketing by more than three hundred points?
Robbery... no, earning Points/Credits isn't this easy, is it?
System's electronic voice carried a hint of cheerfulness:
【Host Baby, the calculation of Viciousness Value is mainly divided into two parts!】
【The first part is the act itself that you actively performed, which fits the Vicious Persona, and you will receive a basic Viciousness Value. For example, your commands, threats, and smashing things just now.】
【The second part, which gives more points, is the negative emotional feedback your malicious actions cause to the target! For example, anger, humiliation, fear, resentment, etc.! The stronger the emotion, the more Viciousness Value you get! The golden-haired one inside just now provided super strong negative emotions!】
Wǎn Fēngmián suddenly understood, then her eyes lit up, "Doesn't that mean I can easily complete the mission every day from now on just by standing in front of them and spewing insults? Just based on the basic Viciousness Value?"
The System immediately shattered her fantasy: 【Dream on, Host! There is a daily cap on the basic value for each type of malicious behavior! For example, for 'verbal abuse', the maximum basic value per day is 50 points. 'Physical conflict' might be higher, but there's a cap too.】
【Otherwise, you really think you can lie down and earn Points/Credits by scolding someone a hundred times? There's no such easy way to earn Points/Credits in this world！】