When We Meet Again, She's Pregnant - Chapter 11

The morning was bright and sunny.

After finishing her morning routine of brushing her teeth and washing her face, Liu Ying returned to find Liu Zhao sleeping precariously on the edge of the bed. Half of her body was sprawled over the side, one long, snow-white thigh already dangling off, her disheveled hair cascading over her fragrant shoulders. Her cute pink nightgown was both sexy and adorable.

“What kind of sleeping posture is this?” Liu Ying shook her head. “Honestly!”

She quickly walked over, pushed her sister back onto the bed, and properly tucked her in. Then she poked Liu Zhao’s pretty little face and said, “Another busy day ahead. I’m heading out first.”

Since she had promised to help the city lord’s residence resolve the barrier issue, Liu Ying was determined to give it her all. For now, she set aside her observations of Yang Xiyan and Tuoba Yichen, prioritizing the safety zone’s barrier instead.

Though she was a student at the magic academy, her abilities had long surpassed her sister’s. Moreover, her family’s prominence had boosted her reputation, so she rarely used her real name when interacting with outsiders to avoid unnecessary trouble.

And so, Liu Ying and Liu Zhao stayed in the safety zone for a full eleven days, finally succeeding in resolving the problem that had plagued the city lord’s residence.

It had been easier than expected.

She had assumed the Wien family would interfere and had prepared for all sorts of obstacles, but to everyone’s surprise, the matter was resolved peacefully.

Some even teased her for making a mountain out of a molehill. “If you’d just used a magic conductor as the array’s core, you could’ve saved 81 SS-rank magic beast cores!” they said. “Those SS-rank cores are hard to come by who knows how long it’d take to gather 81 of them? What a waste to just use them like that.”

Liu Ying merely smiled faintly. After all, they weren’t wrong. She had indeed squandered 81 SS-rank magic beast cores an incalculable loss. But in exchange, she had earned a favor from the city lord’s residence.

In the world of powerful families, favors and connections could sometimes be invaluable.

After attending the celebratory banquet, on the twelfth day, Liu Ying finally set out to track down Yang Xiyan. Her goal for this trip wasn’t just to protect the girl. It was primarily to trace the source of the threat and eliminate any potential dangers.

Future Ying had told her the outcome but not the process. She didn’t even know why Future Ying had been sealed away, who had done it, or how it had happened.

Before, she had thought that as long as she heeded Future Ying’s warnings and followed her three instructions, everything would be fine. But after that encounter with her sister, she realized that passively waiting for the enemy to come to her was far too risky.

If that was the case, why not follow the clues, trace the source, and eliminate all potential threats?

If the enemy’s target was her, then she would simply kill them first. Otherwise, even if she could protect herself in the future, she couldn’t guarantee the safety of her family and friends at all times.

Act first, think later. That was Liu Ying’s life philosophy. Once she decided on something, she wouldn’t turn back until she had achieved it flawlessly.

……

And so, early in the morning, Liu Ying mounted her off-road motorcycle, laced up her hiking boots, and donned camouflage-like attire. After passing through the city checkpoint, she hit the highway.

She revved the engine and sped down the road.

Along the way, she saw flowers of all colors—beautiful but deadly, planted to deter wild magic beasts from approaching the highway. She also passed by various caravans and campsites. Aside from magic academy students or members of special factions, most of the travelers were from energy companies.

The current era has undergone tremendous changes. After graduation, the vast majority of mages join energy companies, also known as Infinite Energy Adventure Corporations.

These companies establish a “Magical Adventure Resources Department,” where, apart from the logistics team, all members are mages. The department is headed by the mage with the strongest “commanding power,” a position comparable to the company’s sales or HR departments.

However, since the Magic Department is predominantly composed of mages, its status is exceptionally high, serving as the core of the energy company. In smaller firms, its influence often rivals or even surpasses that of the general manager.

The primary role of the Magic Department is to venture into the dangerous zones of the Monster Island to hunt monsters, extract their cores, and transport them back to the company. This is the most indispensable profession in the modern world, yet it also holds the highest mortality rate.

Monster cores have a multitude of uses. Enhanced by alchemical technology, smaller cores can power ordinary electrical systems, flying car engines, city defenses, and other modern energy applications. Larger cores can serve as the core propulsion for aircraft carriers or their shield systems, including fighter jets, spacecraft, and even terrifying nuclear-grade monster core bombs.

In modern magical civilization, monster cores have become irreplaceable.

Liu Ying’s off-road motorcycle swiftly left the highway and entered a dirt path, maintaining its speed without slowing down. After a brief rest at noon, she continued southward, though the journey grew increasingly bumpy.

Yet her speed remained unwavering.

Suddenly, her motorcycle transformed, its wheels retracting like something out of a sci-fi movie as it levitated and soared into the jungle.

The wilderness was teeming with creatures; lightning-fast adorable rabbits, bizarrely cackling pheasants, double-headed venomous snakes lying in ambush, and inconspicuous yet deadly insects.

This was the Monster Island, the training zone!

The training zone’s danger level was relatively low, typically reserved for students of magic schools to hone their skills. Spanning approximately 500,000 square kilometers, it was nonetheless filled with towering trees that reached the clouds, making every step forward a challenge. The dense underbrush and treacherous terrain made even the slightest misstep potentially fatal.

Only certified mages were permitted to venture into the adventure zones, let alone the six forbidden areas.

Forbidden zones were strictly off-limits.

Surrounding the Monster Island was a vast ocean, with the nearest landmass lying 5,000 kilometers away. Within a 1,000-kilometer radius of the island, human presence was strictly prohibited.

Beneath the ocean’s surface lurked countless terrifying monsters, rendering air travel impossible and naval passage unfeasible. The only way for humans to reach the Monster Island was through teleportation arrays.

According to experts, the area around the Monster Island was once the site of the fallen Monster Forest, a relic of the divine-demon war a millennium ago and one of the four great forbidden lands on the continent.

The Monster Island, the Monster Ocean, the Dark Abyss, and the Endless Ice Domain were the world’s four great forbidden zones.

Liu Ying’s flying motorcycle darted through the jungle at breakneck speed. After three days of travel, she finally located the tracking bird following Yang Xiyan, which appeared to have run out of magical energy and could no longer continue its pursuit.

Surveying her surroundings, she saw towering ancient trees piercing the sky and waist-high weeds, making each step arduous. On the ground were human footprints, likely left by Yang Xiyan and her companions.

Liu Ying paused for a moment, gently plucking a blade of grass before taking another step forward. Suddenly, a massive serpent’s head burst from the undergrowth, its fangs sinking into her blocking arm in the blink of an eye. In an instant, she found herself ensnared by a colossal black serpent.

The giant serpent, as thick as a water vat, coiled around itself like a small mountain. But in just a short while, the serpent entwining Liu Ying let out a pained hiss and slowly loosened its grip, its vertical pupils fixed intently on the human before it.

This human was terrifying!

Liu Ying raised her head to stare at the giant snake, flexing her left arm, which had just been bitten. She glanced back at the serpent and muttered, “An AA-rank magical beast, the Sky-Concealing Serpent? Hmm, why would something like this be in the training zone.”

She pondered deeply. The Beast Island had strict zoning regulations. If high-level magical beasts wandered into low-level areas, the consequences would be disastrous.

Regardless, she’d deal with it first.

Without giving the Sky-Concealing Serpent a chance to flee, Liu Ying sealed it into her contract space. Then, she immediately began following the footprints left by Yang Xiyan and the others. She didn’t dare linger any longer. If she delayed, it might be too late.

Tracking the footprints, she suddenly found them disappearing, likely washed away by rain. That meant she was now quite far from Yang Xiyan’s group. Fortunately, she had a solution, she summoned a tracking pet to follow their scent.

Liu Ying chased for roughly seven days, growing more anxious with each passing moment. She had stayed in the safe zone for over ten days before setting out, and now, more than twenty days had passed in total. By the time she found Yang Xiyan, it might already be too late.

……

Her search continued until late afternoon, when the sun had fully dipped westward, painting the horizon in fiery hues. The scorching jungle finally cooled slightly. Riding a tiger larger than an ox, Liu Ying weaved through the dense foliage, her eyes scanning desperately for any sign of Yang Xiyan and the others.

“Master, let’s rest for a bit. There’s a river over there we can drink some water first,” the tiger beneath her spoke in human tongue.

“Fine,” Liu Ying replied, her brows tightly knit.

“Master, don’t worry too much. That girl should be fine. Future Ying said it would take a month before anything happened to her. We’re only at twenty-something days now.”

Liu Ying sighed heavily. “That may be so, but the longer I fail to find her, the more anxious I become. If only I had warned her about this earlier, she could have been on guard. Thinking about it now just fills me with guilt.”

“Tigress believes in Master’s judgment, but Master isn’t just feeling guilty, she likes that girl. I’ve seen it all along. If that’s the case, why not just follow Future Ying’s example and lie back? Then you could have her all to yourself, take her home, and even have babies—”

“Like her? If I liked her, I would’ve pursued her already! Stupid Tigress, don’t spout nonsense if you don’t understand!” Liu Ying tugged at the tiger’s fur in frustration. “If you hear someone planning to do something bad, you help them. A proper mage doesn’t stand by when they have the power to act.”

Tigress was her contracted magical beast, always by her side and thus the only intelligent being who knew about her encounter with her future self.

In truth, Liu Ying had already pieced most of it together.

Though Future Ying hadn’t explained the exact details, the information she’d overheard that day allowed her to guess: during her training expedition, Future Ying had accidentally foiled a scheme to force a relationship, only to end up pushing Yang Xiyan down herself.

Yang Xiyan was Future Ying’s unattainable love perhaps after finally obtaining her, she had been so overjoyed that she let her guard down and got sealed away or something similar.

Liu Ying was fairly certain her deduction was about 90% correct.

In other words, if she didn’t react at all, she would likely end up like Future Ying pushing the girl down and getting sealed away. But now that she had reacted to avoid being sealed, she had to go over and help her, exposing this scheme.

“Master, there are strange clothes here,” Tiger Girl suddenly spoke up, interrupting her thoughts.

“Clothes?” Liu Ying looked down in confusion and saw a blue dress and some undergarments placed in the grass to the left. The sound of flowing water was nearby someone must be bathing.

“Master, it smells like that girl. It’s so fragrant!” Tiger Girl cheerfully took a step forward, but Liu Ying’s eyes widened as she tightly gripped Tiger Girl’s fur and hissed in a low voice, “No, don’t go over there, you dummy!”

“Huh?” Tiger Girl tilted her head but had already pushed through the leaves. The scenery ahead suddenly opened up, revealing a beautiful view yet Liu Ying’s heart leaped into her throat as she stared in shock.

Before them was a small pool, about half a meter deep, its crystal-clear water revealing all sorts of small pebbles at the bottom. But the most eye-catching sight was the stunning woman bathing within. Her jet-black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her clear eyes sparkled with delight as her delicate hands glided over her snow-white, translucent skin. Despite the hazy veil of the water, everything was laid bare.

Liu Ying: “…”