Chapter 67: The Limits of One Person’s Wisdom

Over the past couple of days, he finally understood why Yu Yan had initially refused, only to agree to bring him along later. This woman clearly suffered from some serious malady—every so often, she would plunge into fits of unprovoked agitation and moodiness! And then, his misery would begin: no matter what he said or did, he would somehow manage to offend her, giving her the perfect excuse to pummel him.

Sometimes, after a particularly severe beating, he'd even receive a mysterious little nugget of fruit, no larger than a soybean. That fruit was truly extraordinary—one bite, and he would spring back to life, as though nothing had happened. Not only that, but his strength would increase noticeably each time. Were it not for the bone-crushing force of her fists and the excruciating pain of her blows...

Zuo Changyu had even considered wishing she would beat him a few more times every day. So long as she didn't kill him, as long as he got one of those mysterious fruits afterwards, it would be worth it.

But, of course, good fortune is always fleeting. After consuming the third fruit, his body had grown much more resilient. Yu Yan clearly had no intention of beating him to death—she took great care to hold back, usually dragging him along at a breakneck pace after each thrashing.

Somehow, his injuries would heal rapidly on their own.

So now, not only were there no more fruits, there was not even a fart to be gained!

At this point, Zuo Changyu strongly suspected that the only reason Yu Yan brought him along was because he could take a beating.

And under these circumstances, since he had no taste for self-abuse, whenever Yu Yan cast a searching glance his way, Zuo Changyu would immediately wise up and change his tone, calling out meekly, “Sister Yan, are we really planning to ambush those two big birds?”

Peeking out cautiously, he pointed to the two large blue birds not far away.

They were clearly a pair, nestled together and preening each other's feathers in a tranquil, harmonious scene. If one ignored the tangible sparks of electricity crackling at their wingtips, it would have made a perfect painting of bluebirds on the Gobi.

But truth be told, if not for Yu Yan by his side, Zuo Changyu would have run as far away as possible.

He would bet anything that either of those birds alone was more terrifying than the entire pack of a hundred snow-crowned wolves that had once hunted him and Zhu Le. At least with the wolves, he had a fighting chance—his bullets could hurt them.

Especially with the rocket launcher: one shot, and he could take out over a dozen wolves!

But with these two birds, Zuo Changyu had the distinct premonition that even the rocket launcher would be useless.

And now, he didn't even have that—he was nearly out of bullets, with only a handful left.

Yu Yan nodded. “Yes.”

After two days of searching, only these two Lightning Beaks—no one knew why—had become separated from their flock, and their grade was exactly Fifth Rank. So long as she could slay this pair of Lightning Beaks, she and Yun Duo’er could escape the instance. There was no way she would let them go.

Now, the problem was that the Lightning Beaks were incredibly fast—swift as thunderbolts! In this S-level instance, apart from the top boss Qu Ru, only they could match such speed. Compared to Yu Yan, a wind-ability user who had come to it late, these birds were true masters of speed.

Yu Yan was not afraid she couldn’t defeat them—she only worried that they would flee at the first sign of trouble.

If that happened, there was little she could do.

Two heads are better than one; so, Yu Yan, rarely lowering herself, asked Zuo Changyu, “Do you have any ideas to make them fight me to the death, without retreating? I mean, so that even when they're about to die, they won’t choose to run away.”

Zuo Changyu was speechless.

He truly couldn’t think of anything.

If he encountered those two birds, he’d be lucky to escape with his life. The fact that Yu Yan was confident she could take them already surprised him; who would have thought she was worried about them fleeing? What kind of grudge was this... “Only by killing them can we leave this instance.”

“Let me think.”

Zuo Changyu racked his brain.

If it was just about harvesting top-tier materials from the birds, or out of pure spite, he wouldn’t care whether they were killed or not. If Yu Yan had the skill, great; if not, what did it matter to him?

After all, how could an ordinary enhancer like him, without even a rank, hope to keep two high-level birds that even Yu Yan was not sure she could hold?

These past two days, following Yu Yan around, he hadn’t only taken beatings.

He’d also managed, when her mood was good, to glean quite a bit of basic knowledge about instance worlds.

Of course, Zuo Changyu knew that Yu Yan was deliberately letting him in on these things—it wasn’t that his questioning technique was particularly brilliant.

Yu Yan didn’t seem to care about such trivial details, nor did she mind letting some benefits slip through her fingers to him. So long as he remained useful to her—for instance, as a punching bag during her emotional storms!

Zuo Changyu shed a silent tear of sympathy for himself.

But that’s enough digression.

Since killing these two birds would allow them to leave the instance, Zuo Changyu had to take the matter seriously.

Although he was thinking of his brothers and had no intention of leaving immediately after the kill, at least with the experience under his belt, he’d be more confident in leading his brothers out alive when he found them!

He stared intently at the two birds, mulling over the situation, and soon noticed some useful details.

The two birds were clearly deeply attached to one another.

If one was trapped, the other would likely refuse to leave.

Moreover, the two of them had been hiding in a cave, watching the birds for over ten minutes. In that time, the birds had done nothing but preen or wander around the area. It wasn’t their nest, and there were no other plants or animals nearby.

There should be nothing in the area attracting them.

Therefore, this place must hold special significance for them.

But Zuo Changyu couldn’t be sure that these two points alone would guarantee the birds would stay, even in the face of death.

“I can’t be certain,” Zuo Changyu finally admitted, spreading his hands. “I know very little about high-level monsters like these—I don’t even know what abilities they have, or how they’ll react when threatened. There’s just not enough information for me to do much.”

Yu Yan fell silent; this was indeed something she’d overlooked.

In a low voice, she shared everything she knew about the Lightning Beaks, including information she’d gained from killing a few black-rank Lightning Beaks during a previous instance.

“So, these two birds are called Lightning Beaks, and they’re Fifth Rank?”

“They usually have two abilities, one related to lightning. The other is typically a spatial blink, allowing them to appear anywhere they wish within a dozen meters?”

“And as for the lightning ability, it could be a thunder strike, an arc, storm cloud, or lightning flash?”

“And you’ve already seen them use four types of lightning skills, but there could be even more?”

Zuo Changyu summarized.

Yu Yan gave him a look of approval; his ability to seize on key points was impressive. Over the past two days, it hadn’t just been Zuo Changyu trying to ferret information out of her—she’d also more or less uncovered his entire background.

Given Yu Yan’s overwhelming strength, and the fact that Zuo Changyu had nothing to hide, he hadn’t withheld anything. Even Zhu Le knew he had a wife named Zhou Rou, a retired special forces mercenary.

Facts that were well known in their small circles—there was no point hiding them from Yu Yan, who could probably guess most of it anyway. So he had simply confessed everything, even describing his brothers’ names and appearances in detail, just in case.