Chapter 76: Backlash from the Spell

“What! You’re not human?” After hearing Shi Chan’s words, Lan Ying’s first reaction was to reach out and pinch his face. His eyes were full of curiosity, practically sparkling with intrigue.

“I am human, of course.” Shi Chan helplessly pushed Lan Ying’s hand down and emphasized, “It’s just that I have something extra… like a special ability. You can understand that, right?”

Lan Ying tried hard to recall something, then his eyes lit up gradually. “I remember! Like those ancient humans in novels who could move mountains and seas with legendary powers, right?”

“Something like that.” In this era, there were similar “cultivation” concepts in entertainment literature, often depicted as legends of ancient humans.

“Then doesn’t that mean you can move mountains and seas?!” Lan Ying’s reaction was very excited. He grabbed Shi Chan and started dragging him toward the door. “Come on, come on! I want to see it. Perform something for me!”

“Stop!” Shi Chan couldn’t possibly live up to his expectations. He said irritably, “What are you thinking? There are omega who get into top research institutes these days. Can you go? Exactly. When I said ‘something like that,’ I meant that maybe someone could be that powerful, but that someone is definitely not me.”

“Dreaming of a friend becoming successful while both of us are just regular salted fish.” After speaking, Shi Chan laughed and tapped Lan Ying’s forehead.

Lan Ying pouted for a moment, then suddenly remembered something. His eyes turned accusing. “Then why didn’t you tell me earlier? Also, the person who healed the cosmic radiation was clearly you! When we were on the Capital Star, you lied and said it was someone else!”

“…People change their minds all the time.” Back then, they had to hide everything. At the root of it all was their lack of power. Now, even if his secret was exposed, Xi Ming could protect him, so telling the truth to someone close didn’t matter anymore.

As for cultivation, the reason he didn’t reveal it initially was because his thinking was still stuck in his past life — a mortal obsessed with immortality. But through Xi Ming, he realized that these low-level benefits of cultivation weren’t nearly as tempting to interstellar people as he had imagined.

At the very least, ordinary cultivators couldn’t fly off a planet. But in the interstellar age, if you had money, you could just buy a ticket to another planet.

Even in terms of lifespan, the average interstellar person could live up to 200 years, and those with good physical constitution could live even longer — not far off from the lifespan of a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment stage. And based on Shi Chan’s current talent, Foundation Establishment was probably his ceiling anyway, meaning his lifespan wasn’t much different from a normal interstellar citizen.

Of course, that’s mainly because Shi Chan had been a bottom-tier rogue cultivator in his previous life. If someone like a cultivation genius or the leader of a great sect had transmigrated, and then started teaching cultivation in the interstellar world, it definitely would’ve caused a major clash between science and the mystical arts, shaking the very foundations of interstellar civilization.

As for the transmigration, Shi Chan didn’t mention it — he just chalked everything up to a dream he had, claiming that he learned these little spells from within the dream.

“Then teach me too, okay?” Lan Ying, curious as always about unfamiliar things, clung to Shi Chan’s clothes and whined playfully.

A pretty and adorable omega acting cute — who could resist that? At least, Shi Chan couldn’t. After all these years, he was still completely defenseless against Lan Ying’s coddling.

“I can teach you, but you won’t be able to do it — these little spells only work for me.” Shi Chan gave him a heads-up and then selected a simple Wind Manipulation spell to explain.

For some reason, maybe due to something peculiar in the bodies of interstellar people, even the improved ancient martial arts Shi Chan had created hadn’t worked effectively on them — not the way it did on the Gudu people, who had shown significant physical improvements.

Shi Chan had even personally taught Xi Ming ancient martial arts, but while Shi Chan mastered it easily, Xi Ming showed almost no progress. After comparing and examining the situation, they discovered that for interstellar people, doing ancient martial arts was about as effective as a regular stretch workout broadcast on interstellar TV.

Xi Ming regretted it, but there was nothing to be done. He had to give up on that path to rapid physical improvement.

Thinking of how Xi Ming had “never existed” in his past life, and how his pheromones smelled just like the healing pills in the cultivation world, Shi Chan suspected that his current body might not be purely interstellar. Perhaps something had gone wrong during his last tribulation, which led to his “reincarnation” here — even retaining his ability to cultivate.

But overthinking it wouldn’t help. No matter what the reason, getting a second chance at life was already a stroke of luck. He would cherish this opportunity with all his heart.

“This is so hard! I don’t get it at all!” Unsurprisingly, his fellow slacker was quick to give up. After just half an hour, Lan Ying was whining and ready to quit. “What is this ‘spiritual energy’ you’re talking about? How could there be some flowing force inside the human body? I can’t even imagine it, let alone follow your instructions about ‘fixed pathways’ and whatnot.”

Frustrated with learning, Lan Ying gave up easily and sprawled on the bed with his brain in rest mode. He tugged on Shi Chan’s sleeve. “Forget it, forget it. Stuff like this just isn’t for an academic underachiever like me. If I could do it, I’d probably already be at the level where my mental power mutated into an ability. I’ll just keep being a salted fish.”

But Shi Chan suddenly froze.

Mental power mutating into an ability… Spiritual energy circulation… Spell patterns…

His eyes lit up more and more. The chaotic thoughts in his head were gradually becoming clear. Something clicked.

“I’m going out for a bit. You stay here. Contact me on the terminal if you need anything!” Shi Chan couldn’t wait to start experimenting and rushed out.

“Hey!” Lan Ying called out instinctively when he saw him leave him behind just like that, but Shi Chan didn’t even hear him.

The fluffy little Feifei who had just been thrown onto the bed blinked in confusion when its master suddenly ran off. But in the next moment, it flapped its wings, dove off the bed, and zipped through the air in pursuit, its tiny tail swaying rapidly as it chased after Shi Chan.

Left alone in the room, Lan Ying huffed angrily, slammed the door shut, and opened a video call to his alpha to complain.

…

“Brother Ming!” Shi Chan burst in excitedly to find Xi Ming, but as soon as he pushed the door open, he realized Xi Ming was in a meeting. He immediately stopped in his tracks and lowered his voice under the gazes of everyone in the room. “I’ll come back later.”

Many of the upper-level members of Steller already knew that Shi Chan was Xi Ming’s omega—the famed radiation healer. But because Shi Chan had always disguised his appearance, they had never seen his real face. Their impression of him had always been “that highly capable omega” and “someone worthy of respect.”

However, Shi Chan hadn’t bothered to disguise himself while hanging out with Lan Ying in the room earlier, and he completely forgot about it when he rushed out. As a result, many people along the way got a glimpse of this stunningly beautiful omega.

Some still recognized his voice and stammered, “I-Is that… Healer Shi?”

They used to call him “Master Shi” as a nickname, but that had been banned due to a certain alpha’s possessiveness. Now, everyone referred to him as “Healer Shi.”

Xi Ming immediately stood up and walked over to shield Shi Chan from everyone’s view with his body—but it didn’t help much. The group of people who had been dazed by Shi Chan’s beauty just followed behind them in a trance.

Noticing the strange reactions, Shi Chan subconsciously touched his face. “Should I put the disguise back on?” Over the years, he’d grown used to disguising himself in public to avoid attention, to the point where he’d forgotten what kind of “special treatment” his natural looks attracted.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Xi Ming said, releasing a wave of mental pressure to clear a path through the crowd.

Although everyone knew about Shi Chan’s identity as the radiation healer and that he had some special abilities, Xi Ming didn’t intend to let anyone see more of his “cultivation techniques” for safety reasons.

Hand in hand, Xi Ming led Shi Chan away. Shi Chan held back his excitement, deciding to share his new theory once they were alone.

The idea of spiritual power transforming into an ability was a difficult threshold for most people, but Xi Ming was already a top-tier alpha who had undergone this transformation. If Shi Chan’s method worked, Xi Ming would be the most likely candidate to succeed.

After they left, the once-quiet conference room exploded like oil in boiling water.

“That was Master Shi??? That was really him, right??? I’m not hallucinating, am I?!”

“Oh my god, that omega just now—he’s my new dream lover!”

“Are you insane? Aren’t you afraid of being beaten to death by the boss? That’s Xi Ming’s omega!”

“What, is he going to be so domineering he controls our dreams too? We’re space pirates, for crying out loud! We already get worked to the bone by that demon boss. Can’t we at least dream freely?”

“Hehehe… Healer Shi is so beautiful…”

“I’ve decided. My new life goal is to overthrow the boss and steal Healer Shi for myself!”

“No surprise it’s Xi Ming. Even when he was injured, he got matched with such a gorgeous omega.”

“Not just gorgeous! Healer Shi is also powerful, and on top of that, he stayed loyal to Xi Ming through thick and thin. I heard back when the boss hadn’t revealed his identity, his life was miserable, but this omega stuck with him the whole time. You tell me—what other alpha can compare to that? That’s real charm!”

“I don’t care! If I could run away with Healer Shi, I’d travel the stars with him! Compared to him, all the omega celebrities I used to follow online are trash. And it’s not even like he changed his features—how can someone be this stunning once the disguise comes off?”

“Damn, there’s only one word for how good-looking he is: f*ck!”

“When Boss Xi Ming dies, I swear I’m chasing after him!”

Xi Ming hadn’t yet realized that his subordinates were already fantasizing about “rebellion” just because of Shi Chan’s looks. Meanwhile, he walked Shi Chan back to their quarters, shielding him all the way.

Shi Chan looked a little guilty. “I forgot to put on the disguise. I should’ve done it before coming out.”

But Xi Ming gently patted the back of Shi Chan’s head and said, “It’s fine. However you want to appear is your right. You don’t have to hide like before.”

Omegas had the right to display their beauty. Even though Xi Ming hated the way others looked at Shi Chan, he wouldn’t stop him from revealing his true appearance…

“So, what made you come find me so suddenly?” Xi Ming, no matter how busy, always made time to eat with Shi Chan. They saw each other every half-day, so for Shi Chan to come running over like this meant something was up.

Since Xi Ming was already out of the meeting room, Shi Chan didn’t worry about wasting his time anymore and spilled everything—his theory about spiritual power transforming into abilities, and his plan to retaliate against the hateful people on the star network.

“There’s some logic to it. Let’s test it tonight.” Xi Ming didn’t object to the spiritual power experiment. But he wasn’t quite on board with Shi Chan’s idea to curse back at the online trolls. “There are far too many people like that online. Are you sure this method will work? No matter what, don’t harm yourself. If anyone’s gone too far, I’ll handle them.”

Xi Ming had expected public backlash after the revelation that he was still alive—but he hadn’t anticipated that Shi Chan would be dragged into it and slandered so viciously.

“Don’t worry.” Shi Chan explained the principle of the little spell he called “Curse Rebound.” “Basically, it feeds off their own thoughts—what you could call their cursing energy. The backlash’s strength depends on how much malice they direct at me. I won’t lose anything. You don’t need to step in. There are too many of them to deal with one by one.”

Shi Chan rarely felt this kind of restless fury, but the netizens had gone too far. Since they were so used to casually hurting others, he would personally make them face the consequences.

People should bear the cost of their words.

But first, they should retake their marriage registration photo.