Uncle Lin shielded them as he backed away, shouting anxiously, "It's impossible! I've never heard of anyone being able to pull a beast-person back from the blackened state!"
"And he's already half-consumed by it! It's too dangerous!"
Yun Manman had finally managed to penetrate the sika deer's mental barrier with her spiritual power, only to be met with a raging storm in his mind.
Half of the sika deer's mental sea had already collapsed, the sky seemingly shattering and slowly disappearing, revealing an empty blackness behind it.
Instinctively, Yun Manman used half of her spiritual power to form threads, patching up the broken sky, while the other half transformed into clouds, striving to purify the remaining mental sea.
The drain on her spiritual power made her dizzy: "I can do it..."
"Uncle Lin, Sisi, you two go first..."
Uncle Lin and Sisi shook their heads: "We're not leaving."
The sika deer's footsteps halted, his eyes alternating between chaos and clarity.
"Kill you all, kill everyone, take back the cub..."
But tears fell from his reddened eyes: "Go... leave this place... I'm sorry..."
"It seems to be working!" Uncle Lin's face lit up with joy, but his wariness didn't diminish. "Manman, if you can't go on, just say so. I'll hold him off, and you two run!"
Sisi mustered her courage and shouted at the sika deer: "You have to hang in there! Only by living can you bring your cub back to you!"
She then supported Yun Manman's weakening body: "Manman, can you still manage? Hang in there!"
Yun Manman's guidance was showing effect, giving the despairing Uncle Lin and Sisi a glimmer of hope.
What if Manman could actually save him?
Hearing their words, Yun Manman felt more motivated to continue guiding the sika deer.
This guidance was Yun Manman forcibly breaking through the other's mental barrier, and with half of the sika deer's spiritual power already collapsed, the guidance was extremely draining.
The sika deer's spiritual power strength should be B-grade, a level higher than Yun Manman's, making the cross-level guidance even more difficult.
It was even more challenging than guiding Lu Qi.
Time passed quickly in the tense atmosphere, with the periods of clarity in the sika deer's eyes becoming more frequent, making it seem like the guidance might succeed.
A dry, painful warning from her mental sea alerted Yun Manman that her spiritual power was nearly depleted, but she still wanted to patch up the last corner of the sky.
"Just a little more..."
She struggled to use her last bit of spiritual power to sew it up, but it dissipated just as it was about to touch.
Yun Manman collapsed to the ground.
"Manman!"
"Manman!!"
A tear fell from the sika deer's eye, the clarity in his gaze about to be overwhelmed by madness: "Thank you..."
"Whoosh!" A syringe flew in from outside the store with lightning speed, suddenly stabbing into the sika deer's buttocks.
The sika deer crashed to the ground, his body returning to normal size. Apart from his wet fur, it looked as if nothing had happened.
A large bird with a black back and wings, and a white belly, flew through the rain curtain, landing at the doorway. It folded its wings and waddled in on its webbed feet.
"I've already injected him with a rapid guidance agent. It looks like there's no problem now." It was a young male voice.
The bird turned its head, looking concernedly at Uncle Lin and Sisi: "Are you alright?"
His cheeks and throat were black, with long, thin white lines extending upward from his beak, looking at first glance like a pair of squinting eyes.
Sisi searched for a while before finding his black eyes hidden under the white lines: "Ah... we're fine, but Manman seems to have exhausted her spiritual power..."
Yun Manman had somehow reverted to her small cat form, cradled in Sisi's arms, her brows furrowed and her body still trembling slightly.
The large bird raised its wings, looking at the fallen sika deer and then at the unconscious feline beast-person, opening its beak in surprise: "Damn, don't tell me she pulled a blackened beast-person back?"
"That's too incredible!!"
Uncle Lin eyed the excited bird warily: "Excuse me, are you a police officer? Did you bring a police car?"
The bird paused: "Oh, I'm from the air control team. My name is Aoka."
"I was on duty, patrolling in the sky, when I sensed the Beastfiend's aura. I happened to have a guidance agent with me, so I came to help."
Aoka showed his credentials, and seeing Uncle Lin believe him, he continued: "I've already called my colleagues at the police station. They'll be here soon."
Uncle Lin nodded.
Aoka hopped around Sisi and Yun Manman: "So incredible, so incredible..."
"Hm, why does she look so familiar..."
When Yun Manman regained consciousness, she knew she was dreaming. The excessive spiritual power consumption had led to increased sensitivity.
Because before her eyes was a completely naked Lu Qi.
The man's muscular physique was fully exposed, a white snake tail extending from above his firm, pert buttocks, tightly coiling around the equally naked Yun Manman beneath him.
Lu Qi's phoenix eyes were moist, tinged with seduction and coquetry, gazing at Yun Manman with lingering affection.
Yun Manman, her cheeks flushed, struggled to escape from the snake tail. After quickly glancing at Lu Qi's lower body, she delivered a fierce cat punch to his face.
It shattered Lu Qi's form, also shattering the ambiguous, romantic dream.
She apologized: "Sorry, something came up, something came up. We'll continue this another time..."
The little cat was still worried about the spiritually turbulent sika deer, as well as Uncle Lin and Sisi.
She was anxious; the spiritual guidance had been just one step away from completion. She could have pulled the sika deer completely back from the blackened state.
If only her spiritual power strength had been a bit more formidable.
Even if it were just B-grade, she could have persisted much longer during the guidance than her current C-grade allowed.
No wonder becoming a qualified guide required spiritual power strength of B-grade or above.
Yun Manman woke up with a start, hurriedly trying to rush out: "Guidance, guidance..."
But her wrist was caught, pulling her into a firm embrace filled with the scent of pine.
It was Lu Qi.
The man held the girl in his arms, comforting her: "It's alright now, it's alright. The delivery man's spiritual power has stabilized. He didn't blacken."
Knowing what Yun Manman was worried about, he quickly explained about Aoka bringing the guidance agent.
Yun Manman's tense shoulders finally relaxed, allowing Lu Qi to hold her. She blinked her slightly stinging eyes, and the fear and panic that had been suppressed in her heart finally surged up.
She sobbed quietly: "Wuu... I was so scared..."
"Now you know to be afraid!" Lu Qi gave her bottom a light pat.
When he had received Uncle Lin's message, his mind had gone blank. It wasn't until he saw Yun Manman lying peacefully on the hospital bed that he finally took a deep breath.
Like a drowning person suddenly grasping a piece of driftwood, able to breathe again.
Yun Manman's pink cheeks were wet with tears: "Wuu... I know I was wrong..."
"I should have let Uncle Lin and Sisi leave first. If I had failed, I would have put them in danger too. I was wrong..."
"It's a good thing the air control team brought that guidance injection, otherwise something terrible could have happened..."
Yun Manman cried like a child, her heart full of fear and guilt.
At the time, she had been solely focused on saving the sika deer, but she wasn't unaware that if she failed, not only would she be in danger, but Uncle Lin and Sisi would be involved too.
But at that point, there was no turning back. She could only recklessly continue the guidance, even at the cost of depleting her spiritual power.
Lu Qi reached out to gently wipe the tears from her face: "You did nothing wrong."
"If it weren't for your all-out effort in guiding him earlier, the guidance agent Aoka brought alone wouldn't have been enough to stop the delivery man's blackening."
"Uncle Lin and Sisi's choice to stay and protect you was their decision. You did nothing wrong."
"I just think you should consider your own safety first, before thinking about others."
He simply couldn't bear the thought of losing Yun Manman.