Chapter Four: I’m an Adult Now!

"Xuan Xuan, time to wake up." As Xuan Xuan opened her eyes, she saw Wan Qi Lianhao standing before her. For a moment, she was completely lost, only recalling after a while that she now lived in a different world, under a new identity.

Wan Qi Lianhao, however, paid this no mind. Seeing his precious daughter awake, he scooped her up, took off her pajamas, grabbed the clothes set aside, and began to dress her with practiced ease.

Xuan Xuan froze. This man was actually undressing her. As an aspiring, ambitious, and principled alchemist, she was, after all, an adult woman. Had she known the slang of the internet, she would probably feel as if a thousand wild horses were stampeding through her heart. How was she supposed to endure this? To be stripped bare by a man first thing in the morning, and for that man to look as if it was completely natural!

Inwardly, Xuan Xuan screamed a thousand times: I am an adult already!

Of course, that was all just in her mind. After a while, she gave up on the struggle. Well, she’d already been seen; at least her body was still that of a little child, and this man was her father. There was no way she could resist.

Wan Qi Lianhao, thoroughly familiar with the process, dressed Xuan Xuan and carried her off to wash up. Once they’d finished, he brought her to the dining room. Xuan Xuan glanced at the table—fortunately, as a little gourmand, her standards for food were high, and the spread looked quite decent. But what was that in front of her?

She stiffly raised her head to look at the bottle before her. Wan Qi Lianhao pushed it closer. Xuan Xuan’s body was weak—milk was essential.

This milk had been specially sourced from a herd of high-quality cows brought in from the livestock planet near the Imperial Star. But Xuan Xuan didn’t care for any of that. With so much food in front of her, why would she drink milk? She was an adult, after all! Of course, she conveniently ignored the fact that she was now a little baby, still carrying the scent of milk on her skin.

Wan Qi Lianhao still held the bottle out. In the current era of the New Federal Alliance, technology had advanced so far that the degradation of the human gene chain had slowed significantly, and aging had become much less rapid. The average human lifespan now reached a thousand years. As a result, the growth period of children had lengthened by more than a generation; people only came of age in their thirties, and a child of three or four was equivalent to a two-year-old from old Earth. Furthermore, with the improved physical constitution of federal children, they could eat normal food after just one year, no longer needing milk. But Xuan Xuan’s health was poor. Following the nutritionist’s instructions, Wan Qi Lianhao insisted that his child still needed milk.

Xuan Xuan didn’t move; she ignored the bottle and instead eyed the two thin sticks on her plate. What kind of cutlery was this? Where was the knife? The fork?

She looked at her hands, freshly washed, and, with her chubby little fingers, grabbed a piece of unidentifiable meat and stuffed it into her mouth.

Wan Qi Lianhao was startled and quickly stopped her. After just waking up, Xuan Xuan’s stomach couldn’t handle such greasy food. “Be good, drink your milk first and then you can have meat.”

Once again, the bottle of milk appeared in front of her. Having just been deprived of a piece of meat, Xuan Xuan was in a foul mood and pushed the bottle away, reaching for the roast meat again with stubborn persistence.

Of course, as she was now, she was no match for Wan Qi Lianhao. Once more, she was blocked. Xuan Xuan’s mood soured even further—her spirit, which had been soothed and stabilized through a night of mental sorting, now grew increasingly irritated.

This was simply adding to her troubles.

But Wan Qi Lianhao was unmoved, insisting on following the nutritionist’s instructions. His daughter’s health was paramount. The bottle appeared before her again, unwavering in its persistence. Xuan Xuan felt her dignity as an alchemist and magician was being thoroughly challenged.

She quietly gathered her mental power into a needle and poked a tiny hole in the bottom of the bottle, delighting in the sight of it leaking. Wan Qi Lianhao was startled—why was the bottle leaking all of a sudden?

Yi Qiong’s work was becoming less and less reliable; it seemed he needed a proper retraining. In the kitchen, Yi Qiong shivered and sneezed, sensing his master’s displeasure, and hastened his pace.

Shaking his head helplessly at the leaking bottle, Wan Qi Lianhao said to Xuan Xuan, “Be good, don’t move. Daddy will go get another one.”

Xuan Xuan watched in silence as he went into the kitchen. With greasy little hands, she set about the roast meat on her plate. She hadn’t cared much yesterday, but today she realized the food in this world was truly excellent. Nodding in approval, she thought it was quite good.

Her talent had improved, her “Heaven-defying” technique had succeeded, her family seemed not to have abandoned her, and apart from her father undressing her in the mornings and forcing her to drink milk, everything else was rather agreeable. With so much delicious food, it seemed that changing worlds wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

When Wan Qi Lianhao returned, he was greeted by stacks of empty plates that once held roast meat. The untouched green vegetables and bread were left entirely alone.

He looked at his daughter, her face full of satisfaction, clutching the last piece of roast meat with greasy hands, and in a flash appeared beside her, intercepting the last morsel. Without a hint of distaste, he brought her saliva-drenched hand to his own mouth and ate it.

His daughter had always loved meat, but since she’d been mentally immature, usually Wan Qi Lianhao would feed her, and she would eat whatever she was given. Why had her habits changed? He sent a message to Yi Qiong via his smart assistant: “Call the family doctor over.”

What kind of father was this, stealing food from his own child after she’d eaten it?

Wan Qi Lianhao paid no attention to her thoughts. He quickly put the bottle aside, took a towel and carefully wiped her hands clean, then sat down on the sofa and massaged Xuan Xuan’s stomach. After so much meat, she’d surely have indigestion. Xuan Xuan, feeling like a grown woman, tried to push his hands away, but Wan Qi Lianhao patiently put them back, continuing to rub. “Be good, or your tummy will hurt if you don’t digest properly.”

Watching him massage her belly yet again, Xuan Xuan decided to be magnanimous and forgive him. She was full, after all. Closing her eyes, she began to organize her own inner space. Every mage had a magic tower, every alchemist a laboratory. On the continent of Mata, every spatial magician-alchemist possessed their own unique space, crafted with spiritual power and painstakingly refined with countless materials. Only those who could truly connect with the element of space could succeed, and while Xuan Xuan’s magical talent was otherwise lacking, her affinity for space was slightly above average. Through constant practice, her inner space had grown to a size unrivaled on the entire continent of Mata.

Meanwhile, Wan Qi Lianhao, finally reassured by the family doctor that his daughter was fine, relaxed at last. Seeing her dozing peacefully, his plan to take her out was once again thwarted. But considering her recent head injury, more rest would do her good, so he let her return to bed and went back to his study to deal with official matters.