Free Web NovelChapter 84: Chapter 84: One month gestation period!
In her original life, Yue Yue was never a fan of studying.
Her mother had tried to teach her the basic characters, but Yue Yue had always found an excuse to sneak out and play.
She hated sitting still, and she hated memorized writing even more. Now, she was being asked to copy a literal book by hand.
Ten times!
"Wait, High Priest!" she cried out, but before she could finish, she felt a sharp thwack on her forehead.
"Ow!" she yelped, rubbing the spot where his finger had flicked her.
"If you don’t write it, forget about eating today," Feng Yanshen said, his voice cold and final.
Yue Yue gasped. No food? She was eating for two now! How could he be so cruel to a "delicate" female? ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
But before she could argue or beg for mercy, the High Priest’s figure blurred, and he disappeared, leaving her alone in the garden with nothing but an ancient scroll.
Damn! The world has advanced, but these temple people are really living the life of cavemen.
Even she was clearly more advanced in her previous life.
She sat at a small stone table in her room, staring at the blank paper.
"We have starships and mechs and spiritual energy! Why on earth do I have to sit here and scratch ink on paper like a caveman? What’s the point? I could just take a photo of this with a terminal...if I had one and memorize it in five minutes!"
In her mind, she was already coming up with ways to cheat. Maybe she could just skip every other line? Maybe she could make her handwriting really big so it looked like she wrote more?
Suddenly, the High Priest’s voice echoed through the air, even though he wasn’t there. It was like he was speaking directly into her mind. freewebnøvel.com
"If you try to cheat, I will know. I can sense the intent in every stroke. Begin."
Yue Yue jumped in her seat, nearly knocking over the table.
She realized she couldn’t hide anything from this man. He was a human lie detector.
She looked at the scroll again. If she didn’t do this, he would definitely starve her, and worse, he might stop teaching her.
As much as she hated him, she knew she needed him. He was the only one who could teach her how to use her green energy to grow things and her pink energy to heal spiritual seas.
If she wanted to protect her baby and survive this temple, she had to become strong. She couldn’t be a useless "worm" forever.
With a heavy sigh, she picked up the brush. Her hand felt clumsy. The first character she wrote looked more like a squashed bug than a word. She groaned, biting her lip in frustration.
"One... two... three..." she counted as she struggled through the first line.
Her fingers started to ache almost immediately.
She was so bored and tired that she wanted to face-plant onto the table and sleep for twelve hours.
But every time she slowed down, she imagined the High Priest’s red eyes watching her from the shadows, and she forced her hand to move again.
She worked for hours. The sun moved across the sky, and her back began to feel stiff. She was hungry, and her stomach gave a little growl of protest.
"Sorry, little cub," she whispered to her belly. "Mommy has to write these stupid words so we can get some dinner."
But what she didn’t realize was that the High Priest was testing her patience as much as her knowledge.
To control spiritual power, one needed a calm and disciplined mind. Writing was his way of forcing her to focus.
***
Time flies when you are busy suffering through learning work and hiding a secret pregnancy.
Two weeks had passed in a flash, and Yue Yue was still living in the Inner Sanctum.
Technically, her serving period was long over, but the High Priest hadn’t kicked her out, and she wasn’t about to remind him.
Where else was she going to get a world-class education for free?
Under Feng Yanshen’s brutal training, Yue Yue had improved at a scary speed.
She was no longer a leaky faucet of energy. She could now control her power so well that she could enter the spiritual sea of an A-level beast.
She hadn’t tried it on a real male orc yet...mostly because that was considered a super intimate act, like a marriage proposal...but she was a pro at healing the temple’s celestial animals.
Her green energy was also off the charts; she could purify toxic soil and grow a whole big tree in minutes without even breaking a sweat.
But while her "career" was booming, her personal life was a mess.
She had found out through a temple servant that Han Soi had been assigned to another SS-level polluted zone.
He had to leave reluctantly, leaving a message for her with a temple servant. He was out there fighting monsters, and she was stuck here, unable to tell him the biggest news of his life.
Yue Yue was now three weeks pregnant. For a Winged Serpent, the gestation period was only one month. That meant in seven days, she was going to lay an egg.
She stood in front of the full-length bronze mirror in her room, lifting her robe to poke at her stomach.
Her belly wasn’t big or round like the pregnant women in the reality.
It was just a little bit hard with a tiny, barely-there bump. If she ate a big lunch, she looked more "pregnant" than she did now.
"Baby? Are you actually in there?" she whispered, poking the bump again. "Why are you hiding?"
She felt like crying. This was her first time being a mom, and she didn’t feel pregnant at all.
No morning sickness, no weird cravings for any food, just a slightly firm tummy and a lot of anxiety.
"Is the system scamming me?" she hissed under her breath. "System! Are you sure this isn’t just a food baby? What if I lay a potato instead of a legendary winged serpent?"
[System: Host, please maintain your dignity. The life signature is stable. The Winged Serpent egg is currently absorbing your energy to strengthen its shell. It is not a potato.]
"It better not be," Yue Yue grumbled. She looked back at her reflection.
"How am I supposed to do this alone? Han Soi is in a wasteland, I’m stuck with a red-eyed psycho teacher, and I’m about to lay an egg in a week. This is the worst scenario anyone could find themselves in."
She tried to imagine the scene.
Would she just be sitting at dinner and suddenly...pop...there’s an egg on the chair? Would Feng Yanshen think she was hiding a snack? The drama of it all was making her head spin.
Suddenly, she heard a knock on the door. She jumped a mile into the air, quickly smoothing down her robes to hide her tiny bump.
"Lady Yue, the High Priest is waiting for you at the dining table," Wei Han’s voice came through the door. "He says if you are late, your writing assignment will be doubled."
"I’m coming! I’m coming!" Yue Yue yelled back.
She took one last look at her stomach. "Stay hidden, little egg. If the Priest sees you, we’re both going to be boiled in a soup."
