Cannon Fodder Chapter 7: Phoenix Awakened 7: Practice

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Sulo

 

Yu Ze was expecting Long Yuan to say that he had a tendency to be a Mushroom Awakened. He was also worried about being too suspicious. After all, whoever learned that he was slow to react would be nervous and frightened. He pressed down the excitement in his heart and looked at Long Yuan dryly.

Long Yuan looked at him with pity. For any Awakened, becoming a Mushroom Awakened was a big shock. Long Yuan was silent for a moment, “Maybe you’re too tired from the shock today.”

This was the most believable comfort he could come up with.

After all, Feng Ze was a beast ancestor gene carrier, not an ordinary person.

He quickly said, “I’m going to eat.” Turning around, he left the dormitory.

Yu Ze opened his mouth and watched Long Yuan leave with regret. Soon, he was happy again. Planting a seed in his roommate’s heart so quickly — suspecting him of being a mushroom — had gone well!

—

Late at night, Yu Ze was awakened by thirst. He woke up depressed and thought to himself that the food in the cafeteria was really too heavy. He rubbed his eyes, turned on the light, pushed the door and walked out. The light in the room crossed the door and fell to the living room floor, which lit up a bit.

The sound of “gurgling…” water came from his left, sounding extra clear in the quiet environment.

Yu Ze was startled, turned his head to look over, and saw a dark figure standing in front of the water fountain in the corner, tilting his head and holding a bucket of water to drink.

Yu Ze was stunned by the situation, who could be this thirsty?!

“Gulp……“

Yu Ze stood at the door, ready to wait for Long Yuan to finish drinking before pouring water for himself. But after a while, he realized that something was wrong.

He glanced at Long Yuan’s stomach, it was bloated!

He took two steps that way, “You can’t drink any more.”

Long Yuan came back from his immersion in drinking water, moved a little, put down the bucket, and looked at Yu Ze.

Yu Ze clearly saw a flash of gold in Long Yuan’s eyes, as if he was a beast. He was instinctively startled and took a step back.

“Did I make noise?” Long Yuan covered his stomach and pressed his brow, his voice not quite comfortable.

Yu Ze heard his voice and his mood calmed down.

Long Yuan was a Green Dragon Awakened, and was in the late stage of Awakening. His eyes would normally change color!

He shook his head, “No, I was just thirsty and wanted to drink water.”

Long Yuan looked down at the bucket of water which he had drunk from, it was still half-full. He explained dryly, “I don’t usually drink water like this.”

Yu Ze didn’t care much, he hummed and looked at Long Yuan’s stomach which was covered with his hand, “Are you uncomfortable?”

“No.” Long Yuan quickly retorted, but his stomach did not heed his hand that pressed down on it and immediately let out an ‘ug’ sound.

“Don’t say anything!” Long Yuan felt humiliated and tilted his head towards the wall, then glared at Yu Ze, gritting his teeth in warning.

Yu Ze held his smile and nodded, “Okay.” He was not so sure, and thinking about the director’s instructions, he asked, “Should I take you to the infirmary?”

“No need.” Long Yuan removed his hand from his stomach, switched on the light, walked to the refrigerator, took out a can of drink and handed it to Yu Ze, “Drink this.”

Yu Ze recognized it. It was a special nutrition liquid, special for medium level Awakened people, and just a few cans were expensive.

He didn’t take it. “I’ll just drink plain water.”

Long Yuan forced it into his hand, “It takes time to change the water filter.”

The water in the water dispenser bucket was tightly filtered, automatically letting water in and out, and was usually full, so there would not be a shortage of water. Most of the time, there was no need to wait for the filtering time. However, this time, it was an accident with Long Yuan. Except for him, no one would take the bucket to drink water directly.

Yu Ze actually did not care too much. In his past gym classes, the male students often shared a bottle of water. But since Long Yuan brought it up, it was obvious that he cared. He unscrewed the bottle of nutrient solution, took a sip, and his eyes lit up.

Compared with the meal in the cafeteria, this was like jelly.

He drank a few sips, was no longer thirsty, and said to Long Yuan, “I’ll go to bed first. Remember to call me if you don’t feel well.”

Long Yuan replied, “Yeah.”

Yu Ze woke up in the morning with his pajamas drenched in sweat after dreaming of being burned by fire all night. He looked at the time, 5:20 AM, still very early, but his body was so sticky that he couldn’t go back to sleep.

He simply got up, opened the window to the maximum, the wind blew over, he felt a shock of energy, as if his body was full of power.

He was too comfortable. He stood in front of the window for a while, the morning light spilling onto his face. He looked to the east, staring straight at the sun, with an urge to get closer. He braced his hand on the windowsill and lifted his right foot to climb up to it.

The palm of his hand hurt slightly, making him look back before scrambling to withdraw his foot. When he glanced out the window and saw no one there, he sighed in relief and retreated to the bed.

Thinking of an Awakened Phoenix’s early days, the symptoms were loving the sun, singing, and bathing. He frowned. For the original, it was a week after he entered the Awakened Department that he had the tendency to Awaken, but for him, this was only his second day.

Could it be related to the nutrient solution from last night? Not necessarily, but his genetic testing was also a day ahead of the original.  He stared at the sunlight spilling over the windowsill and felt a strong urge to climb up onto the windowsill and get closer to the sun.

He took a deep breath and restrained this urge, designating the area by the window as a danger zone while reminding himself to be more careful. He changed the sheets and covers, grabbed another change of clothes, and went to the bathroom.

The bathroom door was open, so he walked right in and saw Long Yuan lying naked in a bathtub full of water. His face flushed red and he turned around in a panic, before tripping over the draped sheets and hitting the door with a ‘bang’.

“Noisy!” Long Yuan, who hadn’t slept all night because he drank too much water and could not easily fall asleep, was on fire, frowning and glaring at the door.

Yu Ze hurriedly lowered his head, rolled up the sheets and quickly exited the door, “Sorry.” He said, quickly closing the door.

Not being able to stay for a moment, he ran back to his room with a red face and thought for a moment before putting the sheets and covers on the chair and preparing to wash them when Long Yuan came out of the bathroom. He then pressed himself against the door and listened to the outside movement to make sure Long Yuan didn’t come out. He took a change of clothes and quickly went to the shower room in the exercise room.

When he saw the bed sheet, he remembered the scene in the bathroom again and his face reddened uncontrollably. He didn’t know how to face Long Yuan at all, so he strained his ears to listen to the movement outside, preparing to wait for Long Yuan to leave the room before going out, so as not to run into each other.

At six o’clock, there was a knock on the door of the dormitory, and not long after, the sound of conversation.

“A’Yuan, you haven’t slept all night, have you? The dark circles under your eyes are so serious!” Bai Yan pointed at the area under his eyes.

Long Yuan put one hand in his pocket, his tone very calm, “Mn, I was training all night.”

Bai Yan questioned, “Why are you working so hard?”

Long Yuan’s face deepened in color, “After facing the middle level zombie beast, I felt too weak.”

Xuan Miao slowly said, “Staying up all night hurts your body, it’s not worth the loss.”

Bai Yan echoed, “A’Miao is right. Let’s go eat. Sleep during the morning class.”

After the three of them left, Yu Ze went to the bathroom with the bed sheet in his arms, pressed the switch of the washing machine and couldn’t hold back his smile. He found that Long Yuan had a lot of baggage.

At a quarter to eight, he arrived early at the Freshman Department classroom, and upon entering, he received many stares, eager, curious, and amazed…

“Look, the new high-flying beauty selected by the department forum!”

“He’s really beautiful!”

Yu Ze’s expression was unsteady, the department forum? Selected? What was this?

When the original entered the Awakened Department, his entire heart was devoted to exercise, only wanting to Awaken early, and after he Awakened, he wanted to upgrade, so he did not pay attention to other things.

The gossip of the classmates completely touched the blind spot in Yu Ze’s knowledge.

A round-eyed classmate approached him and asked, “Hello classmate, what’s your name?” 

Yu Ze deliberately paused for two seconds before answering, “Feng Ze.”

“Hey, are you from the Feng family?” Another student asked curiously.

Before Yu Ze could answer, someone interjected, “He’s not from the Feng family, his mother works as a gardener in the Feng family.”

Yu Ze looked over and saw an unfamiliar face, looking at him with a contemptuous expression.

“A’Hao, how do you know?”

Lang Hao said, “I know Feng Hai, and I heard it from Feng Hai.” He glanced at Yu Ze and raised his voice, “Don’t look at his good looks, he’ll be eighteen in two months.”

“Ah, so old!”

“Can’t see it at all.”

Yu Ze, “……” He was only eighteen years old, not eighty!

“Isn’t it obvious that he’s going to be a Mushroom?” The person next to Lang Hao snorted.

Yu Ze obviously felt that the gazes falling on him were much less and the heat had dropped a lot. He instantly developed a huge favorable feeling towards these two strange classmates.

God’s assistants!

There was a chance so he must stay in front of these two, and play the role of a Mushroom Awakened properly. His heart was full of expectation, looking forward to these two going to the teacher and sending him to the Logistics Department.

Although the director said that he was supposed to tell the teacher on time if he realised his body and behavior was not right, he could also report himself to the Logistics Department. However, he was worried about the trouble in the future from revealing his real Awakened nature. After all, it was too unusual to hide an Awakened in the middle of a crowd of people who desired to be Awakened.

He had no evidence that the Feng family would harm him and could not be able to explain himself. 

If he was instead reported by a classmate to the Logistics Department, and his real Awakened nature was revealed, it would have nothing to do with him since it would be the classmate who misunderstood.

He looked at his classmate and retorted awkwardly, “The doctor said I have Awakened so I will Awaken.”

The classmate grunted, “Everyone can dream.”

The classmate rolled his eyes, “Do you believe in what the doctor said to comfort you?” He pulled his partner to sit down.

Yu Ze pursed his lips and stood in place for two seconds with his head down, as if he was thinking of saying something back. However, in the end, nothing came to mind, and he silently walked to the corner of the last row of the classroom and sat down.

“Too good-tempered, right?”

“Is this a good temper? He feels a little dull.”

“He’s not going to have a tendency to be a Mushroom Awakened on the first day, is he?”

Yu Ze strained his ears to listen and was satisfied, but his expression was taut and unchanged, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

Someone looked at him and saw him like this, and looking at his seatmate, he said, “He’s so unresponsive, he didn’t even react to what others said about him.”

Yu Ze noticed that fewer and fewer people were looking at him, and he went to class in a happy mood for the rest of the morning. As soon as the bell rang, the sound of chairs and desks hitting each other, and within a minute, the class was almost empty, leaving behind only Yu Ze and a group of students.

This group of students were those who already showed a tendency to become a Mushroom Awakened, but were not entirely sure they were mushrooms because of their beast’s ancestral habits.

Yu Ze secretly observed their actions and silently mixed in, thinking of going to the cafeteria together and following what they also ate.

Soon, however, he changed his mind.

Of the group of six people, three walked to the road, saw a big tree and could not move their feet. They then squatted at the root of the tree where the sun did not shine. On the other hand, the other three ran towards the canteen sink, where they squatted by the drip.

Yu Ze looked at their happy and comfortable looks, and suddenly felt a lot of pressure.

He had to practice his acting skills.

He silently touched his stomach again. Next breakfast, he needed to eat more.