When Lin Jianyuan said he was going to herd sheep, he really meant it.

The chaotic, disorderly Aberrants were like a huge flock that was packed together. The difference was that there were far more Aberrants than sheep, and they were even more stupid than sheep.

That was because none of them had ever been herded in their entire lives.

But that's not a problem because Lin Jianyuan has a spiked mace.

He sat inside Mouthball’s mouth, while Mouthball obediently retracted its shark teeth and cinched its black sack-like opening tightly around Lin Jianyuan’s waist.

That secured Lin Jianyuan beneath the angel eyeball.

The eyeball flapped all three pairs of wings hard, soaring, diving, and weaving through the air with remarkable agility.

It also helped that Lin Jianyuan finally got off the eyeball itself and was now using it like a hot-air balloon instead of riding it like a horse. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be this nimble.

As for Lin Jianyuan himself...

Good heavens, he was a full-on God of War with a spiked-mace!

In his left hand, he held the reins made from Socially Anxious Lego’s spinal cord. And in his right, he raised the spiked mace, made from Socially Anxious Lego after an extreme calcium boost.

With the angel eyeball repeatedly diving at high speed, he charged again and again into the flock of sheep... No... into the horde of Aberrants!

Then, he forced every single Aberrant to rotate clockwise!

Rotate! Rotate! Death rotation!

Why call it a death rotation?

Because the whole point of the rotation was to unclog the obstructed digestive tract!

To drive all those chaotically piled-up Aberrants into the pylorus in an orderly, disciplined fashion!

The pylorus is the lower opening of the stomach, which is where the stomach connects to the duodenum.

Binge eating could cause pyloric spasm. In other words, the stomach’s exit could close up.

Naturally, food would then pile up inside the stomach.

...It was honestly kind of funny.

Lin Jianyuan went from someone who knew practically nothing about medicine to being nearly half an expert on the digestive system.

All for his wife.

Because his wife loved eating, Lin Jianyuan learned massage techniques that aided digestion.

Because his wife got sleepy whenever he was full and his stomach was always rumbling, Lin Jianyuan studied the physiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of the digestive system, just in case his wife ever felt uncomfortable and needed help.

And because his wife literally was a digestive system, Lin Jianyuan got passive anatomy and physiology review every single day just by looking at him, hugging him, kissing him, and touching him.

Because he loved him, he wanted to understand him better.

He wanted to know everything there was to know about his wife.

Even if he was a digestive system.

...It was so funny.

The moment Lin Jianyuan realized that “everything there was to know about him” meant anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnostics, internal medicine, and surgery, he found it absurdly funny.

He actually laughed.

As the mountain of Aberrants gradually became unclogged and began forming a death spiral, passing little by little through the pylorus, Lin Jianyuan thought of Xie Yu and couldn’t help smiling.

Lin Jianyuan himself was human, but every little toy on his body was A-class.

For Lin Jianyuan, being A-class was merely the minimum requirement to qualify as a little toy. But in the Aberrant world as a whole, A-class was already an extremely high level!

So when all the little toys released their pressure together, they exerted a tremendous suppressive effect on the mountains and oceans of low-level Aberrants below.

Most of them instinctively shrank backward the moment Lin Jianyuan and his little-toy army approached, allowing themselves to be driven into the proper position.

Of course, there were always a few blind idiots with a rebellious streak who dared to stick their heads out and ruin formation.

Lin Jianyuan didn’t mind giving those with a spiked mace straight to the skull.

And this wasn’t just some ordinary hard, bone-spiked mace. It was enchanted!!!

Though in this case, it wasn’t even magical enchantment.

Little Stone’s Luck Reduction debuff didn’t have much effect here anymore, so this was pure physical enchantment.

The principle was simple: placing a stone at the tip of the mace increased its counterweight during a swing.

In simpler terms: it swung harder! And hurt more!!!

And if there were still some exceptionally tough bastard that beating couldn’t wake them up, no problem!

Lin Jianyuan would simply pull open his waistband... no.

He would open Abyssal Maw, make it scoop the Aberrant up and swallow it whole!

In short, under Lin Jianyuan and his little-toy army’s herding efforts, the mountains and oceans of low-level Aberrants were quickly beaten into complete obedience!

All of them became nice and orderly. They rotated clockwise and queued nervously but efficiently to pass through the pylorus. To sum it up, they were obediently delivering themselves downward for Xie Yu to digest!

The number of Aberrants was visibly decreasing, and the pylorus, which was originally tense and spasming, gradually resumed regular movement as well.

Open. Close. Open. Close. It was devouring the Aberrants in perfect order.

Was it finally recovering?

Lin Jianyuan gripped his spinal-cord reins and looked down from above. He was seated inside his angel-eyeball hot-air balloon as he surveyed the entire stomach.

But his newly relaxed brow tightened again when he caught sight of a flash of light.

“What’s that?” Lin Jianyuan pointed with his spiked mace.

The angel eyeball beat its wings and carried the whole little-toy army in the direction the King indicated.

Only once they got closer did Lin Jianyuan see clearly.

They were transparent, crystal-like formations.

Some were huge, more than a person tall, while others were only the size of a fingernail.

At first glance, it looked like a crystal mine, but strangely enough, every crystal was a different color.

Black. White. Yellow. Pink...

As more and more Aberrants entered the lower digestive tract, the stomach gradually emptied. The gastric fluid receded like a tide, slowly exposing these crystals growing inside the stomach wall.

The enormous gaping maw overhead was still open, allowing light to leak down through the esophagus and refract through the crystals, creating brilliant flashes of color.

Lin Jianyuan: “What are these?”

Squishy: “...They look kind of familiar.”

Little Stone: “Is it that?”

Squishy: “Not sure. They’re too big.”

Little Stone: “The Evil Domain itself is bigger than a human.”

Squishy: “Then yeah, that’s probably it.”

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

Lin Jianyuan finally snapped: “SPEAK HUMAN!”

Squishy and Little Stone hurriedly answered in unison: “Reporting to Your Majesty! These are emotion crystals!”

It turned out that Aberrants fed on human emotions, but certain emotions, if intense enough, could solidify into crystals.

It wasn’t that crystallized emotions couldn’t be eaten. They were just hard on the teeth, like drinking porridge and suddenly biting down on a pebble. It was particularly annoying.

“Why are there so many here?” Lin Jianyuan frowned.

Squishy: “Exactly! That shouldn’t happen. Doesn’t he usually crunch them up every time?”

Lin Jianyuan froze.

Little Stone explained, “The Queen occasionally eats crystals when he sucks on your head.”

Squishy added, “Especially back when you were still working at the advertising company.”

Lin Jianyuan looked around and murmured, “Then these...”

He instinctively raised his hand and touched the nearest black crystal.

“S-class Aberrant [Hesitation] is attempting escape! [Evil Domain], return to the Aberration Management Bureau immediately and assist with containment!”

“REPEAT! S-class Aberrant [Hesitation] is attempting escape! [Evil Domain], return to the Aberration Management Bureau immediately and assist with containment!”

The familiar alarm exploded beside his ears.

Lin Jianyuan jolted in fright and instinctively looked down toward his mobile terminal. But the sound wasn’t coming from the terminal at all.

Almost at the same time, an image appeared before his eyes, along with Xie Yu’s voice, which was tightly suppressing his anger:

“I’m going to kill it... I’m going back right now and kill it!”

Everything was turbulent and chaotic.

The image showed the inverted spire with a blurry figure standing in the center. It was surrounded by countless wildly thrashing intestinal tubes.

The figure dodged left and right.

Every time the frenzied intestines were about to seize it, some invisible obstruction would interfere, causing the intestines to pause for the slightest instant in midair.

And during that tiny pause, the blurry figure would shoot away and narrowly evade the attack.

This was... Xie Yu fighting [Hesitation]?

Lin Jianyuan’s eyes widened as more images appeared across his vision.

“Wifey!” The Lin Jianyuan in the image looked delighted, spreading his arms and rushing toward Xie Yu.

Chewing sounds came from the background.

Xie Yu chewed, chewed, and chewed.

Gulp.

He swallowed whatever was in his mouth. Only afterward did he become puzzled and tilt his head slightly.

“What was that thing you just told me to eat?”

“Wifey.” The Lin Jianyuan in the image looked both amused and exasperated as he reached over and pinched him.

Lin Jianyuan remembered pinching Xie Yu’s throat that time.

The Lin Jianyuan in the image seemed surrounded by a layer of soft light.

There was a smile on his lips and light in his eyes when he looked at Xie Yu.

“Wifey, how come you only remembered to ask after swallowing it? You trust me that much?”

Lin Jianyuan leaned over and hugged him affectionately before finally saying, “That thing just now was [Remorse].”

The image shook violently.

Lin Jianyuan, standing beside the giant black crystal, felt like a sledgehammer struck his entire body.

He nearly lost his balance.

In the image, Xie Yu’s voice was full of shock.

“[Remorse]?!”

“You just... you encountered [Remorse] by yourself?!”

Bang!

Bang bang!

The sound of metal striking something came from deep within the image. It was incredibly familiar.

The bronze imprint was crashing against the inner walls of the digestive tract.

[Remorse] was repeatedly trying to escape, attempting to smash its way out of the digestive system.

But from the first-person perspective in the image, there was only Lin Jianyuan.

The entire field of vision was filled with Lin Jianyuan.

Nothing else.

Xie Yu’s worried voice came from outside the frame.

“Then you...”

The Lin Jianyuan in the image smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Really? But that was [Remorse]. Its ability is extremely... extremely...”

“It really was hard to deal with. Good thing you came.”

The Lin Jianyuan in the image rubbed his nose and grinned proudly. “Good thing I have you, baby! Otherwise I seriously wouldn’t have known what to do with it! Come on, let’s go home. Oh, no, wait. We still have to go back to the Bureau and hand in the mission...”

“You’re really okay?”

“I really am. If you don’t believe me, come inspect me.”

“Okay.”

“AAAAH wait! I didn’t mean that kind of inspection! Don’t... don’t do it here! Let’s go back, baby, okay... mmph...”

Inspection complete. Perfectly intact.

Only then did the faintly trembling field of vision stabilize.

The image shifted to night.

There was still only Lin Jianyuan in the scene, who was fast asleep on a large hotel bed.

A length of intestine reached out and gently stroked his face, then the image moved closer.

It was as if the “camera” pressed itself against Lin Jianyuan’s forehead.

When it pulled away, a pale red pattern appeared in the center of his forehead. The pattern flickered faintly once, then vanished.

The image moved. Approached. Then pulled away again.

This time, the same pale red pattern appeared slightly to the left on Lin Jianyuan’s forehead.

Move again. Approach again. Pull away again...

It was repeated countless times that dark-red patterns eventually covered Lin Jianyuan’s entire body. As if someone stamped all over him.

And the sleeping Lin Jianyuan in the image knew nothing about it.

With his palm still pressed against the black crystal, Lin Jianyuan suddenly laughed, but the corners of his eyes were damp.

“Baby,” Lin Jianyuan whispered.

The Xie Yu in the image seemed to hear his murmur across time and space.

He let out a quiet sigh.

Did Xie Yu ever sigh before?

Lin Jianyuan couldn’t remember.

He couldn’t remember... because somehow, it felt like Xie Yu never sighed at all.

He always curved his lips into a smile. Gentle, patient, and good-tempered.

After that soft sigh came a sound Lin Jianyuan knew far too well.

Chu~

“Baby,” Xie Yu said gloomily.

Lin Jianyuan’s eyes immediately turned red. He instinctively raised a hand and rubbed at them messily.

The moment his palm left the black crystal, the images on his retina shattered and vanished like soap bubbles under sunlight.

His surroundings returned to the crystal formations. The pink stomach walls looked like a cavern filled with gemstones.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty,” Squishy asked worriedly. “Why are you crying? What did you see?”

“Don’t ask,” Little Stone said. “At times like this, we just play dead.”

Squishy: “?”

Lin Jianyuan burst out laughing at the two little comedians. He reached over and gave each of them a vigorous head rub.

“I’m fine.” He simply realized that his wife loved him even more than he imagined.

“So there are this many.” Lin Jianyuan looked around and saw that the crystals were embedded everywhere in the stomach wall.

Most were black, and the next most common were pink and white. There were only a very small number of yellow ones.

Lin Jianyuan touched several more of the black crystals.

He discovered that these black crystals respectively contained:

Work. Work. Overtime. F**k overtime. I’m going to kill the director. I’m going to kill [Hesitation]. I’m going to kill [Remorse]. Why the fuck am I working overtime again? I’m going to tear up the contract. I’m going to tear Shi Shaoning apart.

Lin Jianyuan: “………………”

So even an S-class Aberrant couldn’t stand overtime!!!

Lin Jianyuan said, “Mouthball, eat these.”

Abyssal Maw stared at him in shock: “Huh? Me?”

That reaction alone told him that the useless thing was being useless again.

But Lin Jianyuan was used to it by now, so he no longer placed any hope in the garbage bag. Instead, he raised the white-bone spiked mace high and twisted his body.

BANG!

The mace smashed violently into the black crystal!

But the black crystal didn’t move in the slightest. It was as hard as bedrock.

Instead, Socially Anxious Lego screamed: “OW OW OW!”

Lin Jianyuan: “...”

Got it. The rank suppression exerted by an S-class entity over anything below S-class was absolute.

Even a random crystal growing inside his wife’s stomach could beat them to death.

So what now?

Lin Jianyuan stroked his chin and thought.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”

Little Stone secretly thanked its lucky stars that it was already free of the mace’s enchantment.

But, afraid Lin Jianyuan would pick it up and use it to smash another crystal, it hurriedly said in an extremely cautious tone, “Actually, it’s fine if you just leave these crystals alone. These crystals were probably here all along. They likely have nothing to do with this Aberrant breakout or the Evil Domain going berserk.”

“Right,” the angel eyeball agreed. “The Queen’s bowel sounds are gradually returning to normal. Once all these Aberrants are digested, he should be fine.”

Lin Jianyuan answered without hesitation, “No. We’re already here.”

“But...” Little Stone nervously looked up at the stomach wall overhead.

The stomach wall started secreting gastric acid again, and corrosive liquid was beginning to drip down, one drop at a time.

It said anxiously, “It’s dangerous for us to stay here too...”

“No.” Lin Jianyuan repeated, “We’re already here.”

He casually swept up every little toy and stuffed them all back into his pocket.

Then he pressed the bronze imprint.

Click.

At that exact moment, a drop of gastric acid fell toward his head and the bronze imprint repelled it.

All the little toys watched in terror.

“At the very least, I’m smashing this largest black crystal before we leave. Otherwise I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

Lin Jianyuan stared at the enormous black crystal.

Then he looked around and began backing away.

The little toys: “?” What are you doing?

Lin Jianyuan took several steps backward, thought about it, and apparently decided it wasn’t enough, so he backed up several dozen more steps.

He kept going until he was fifty meters away.

Then he assumed a runner’s stance... and charged forward at the speed of a hundred-meter sprint!

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! AAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

Every little toy inside his trouser pocket screamed in terror at the same time.