"I didn’t say it wasn’t possible, just that Xiao Ji has its own ideas, different from Xuerongrong... Xuerongrong is almost still ruled by instinct..."
"Uh, Feng Yuan, I have something..."
Mo Li said hesitantly to Feng Yuan, just when Feng Yuan looked up at Mo Li with some confusion, Hua Yiyou said with a smile,
"I told you he wouldn’t leave it behind."
"You’re here about the original cat too?"
"Yeah."
Mo Li spoke earnestly as he stared at Feng Yuan,
"The original cat isn’t suitable for Yongning, after all, we don’t know if one day... Yongning might... turn into something like the Bei Ding Domain..."
Feng Yuan scrutinized Mo Li for a long time before he laughed and said,
"That’s your business, not mine. I can’t possibly help with such a big issue."
"I understand, but I’m worried that if you take it back, you might have to intervene because of it..."
"Wouldn’t that be good for Yongning?"
Feng Yuan smiled as he looked at Mo Li, who, gazing back, said in a low voice,
"Although I don’t know the reason, you’ve been avoiding getting too involved in major events, which shows you’re quite wary of something. Even though I don’t know what you’re wary of, I don’t want you to encounter any trouble because of it."
"As you said, protecting Yongning is my responsibility, and you are my friend... I don’t want to involve you..."
After locking eyes with Mo Li for a long time, Feng Yuan looked away and said,
"You win, I really can’t meddle in significant matters readily, or I will have trouble, though it’s not insurmountable... But anyway... since you’ve recognized me as your friend, I’ll see what I can do to help."
"There’s no need, I didn’t tell you all this to get something from you."
Mo Li said sincerely, and Feng Yuan glanced at Mo Li and said,
"Are you going to refuse even a friend’s gift?"
"But... this..."
"Alright, I know what you’re worried about, and I certainly don’t intend to trouble myself. Anyway, I’ll do my best, but don’t get your hopes up too high for the gift~"
Agunas’s shadow flicked its tail and glanced at Feng Yuan. It always felt like Feng Yuan was plotting something, but it couldn’t find any useful information. However, Agunas didn’t think Feng Yuan would do anything too outrageous. After a moment of contemplation, Agunas put the thought aside.
"Are you planning to take care of them personally?"
After dinner, in Feng Yuan’s room, Agunas’s shadow asked curiously upon seeing Feng Yuan feeding birds again. Glancing at Agunas’s shadow, Feng Yuan smiled slightly and said,
"No, I don’t have the time."
"Then what are you doing now? If you’re not planning to take care of them personally, wouldn’t it be better to let Mo Li and the others do it?"
"There are two problems with handing them over. Firstly, they still haven’t fully adapted to living with humans, and secondly... Mo Li simply doesn’t have those fruits. If I leave their care to them, they’ll end up coming to me for the fruits anyway."
"Besides, when I get back, there will naturally be people skilled in bird care who will take over. Don’t worry~"
"By the way, Mo Li seemed a bit troubled by those little messenger birds before."
Feng Yuan looked at Agunas’s shadow with some surprise and asked,
"Why?"
"It seems to be about the fruits; there apparently aren’t any of the kind you have here in Yongning."
"Then why didn’t he ask me?"
Agunas’s shadow stared at Feng Yuan for a while and said,
"He probably thought you had other plans, so he didn’t ask."
"This really is... I wouldn’t have known about it if you didn’t tell me..."
"I thought their kind had those fruit trees, considering that their place of origin is in that area."
"In that case... I’ll need to let them know to look out for Pinecone Balls in the vicinity. I remember that the Yongning Army doesn’t have any such Spirit Beasts."
"Induce growth?"
The Agunas phantom quickly realized what Feng Yuan wanted to do, nodded, and as Feng Yuan stood up, he said,
"Exactly, if we don’t use inducement, that thing will take over a year to bear fruit. If there weren’t a lack of Spirit Beasts with tree-growth inducing abilities within the Yongning Army, there’d be no need to seek out Pinecone Balls."
As Feng Yuan left the room, the small messenger birds started to look for perches to preen their feathers in the absence of someone to feed them. Noticing Xiao Ji following Feng Yuan out, the Little Green Snake gave Pomiti a pull back from the edge of the bed to prevent it from accidentally falling off.
"Is there something wrong?"
Mo Li looked at Feng Yuan with some confusion, not quite understanding what Feng Yuan needed from him at that time. From inside his Ritual Robe, he fetched a handful of seeds and offered them to Mo Li, saying,
"These are the seeds of the Red Feather Fruit tree. Surely you have messenger birds or some other means to send small items back to Yongning, right?"
Feng Yuan wasn’t entirely sure whether Mo Li had a way to send things quickly back to Yongning, but he presumed there was. After all, he still needed to oversee the movements of the Yongning Army, it wasn’t as if they would just ’search for Spirit Beasts’ and then ignore the Army completely.
Mo Li nodded and said,
"Indeed, I do have messenger birds, but if it’s just seeds, I suppose there’s no urgency over a few days, right?"
Since most Spirit Beasts’ growth-inducing abilities are specific, and the Causal Tree isn’t considered a strategic materials, there are no corresponding growth-inducing Spirit Beasts within the Yongning Army. Feng Yuan glanced at Mo Li and said,
"Why not just send someone to find a Pinecone Ball? Other Spirit Beasts are hard to find, to say nothing of whether they’d be willing to help, but Pinecone Balls are different. As long as one doesn’t harbor malicious intent, they are quite curious about humans."
"Pinecone Ball? Is that a Spirit Beast too?"
Mo Li was slowly getting used to calling them ’Spirit Beasts’, no longer referring to all Spirit Beasts as Divine Lord as he had before, although if he met a Yimu Qingling or an Everlasting Green Vine with immense power, he would still instinctively call them Divine Lord.
Feng Yuan nodded and said,
"That’s right, you guys don’t know about them?"
"This... at least I’m not aware."
Mo Li said somewhat helplessly. Whether anyone within the Yongning Army knew what a Pinecone Ball was remained uncertain, but he certainly didn’t know of any Spirit Beast by that name. Consider that in this era, many Spirit Beasts have different names depending on the region, and it wouldn’t be strange for the same Spirit Beast to have several or even dozens of names throughout the Divine Land Region.
"This is troublesome..."
Feng Yuan said with some headaches. Though he could project an image of a Pinecone Ball, he wasn’t sure if Mo Li could describe it clearly. After a moment of thought, Feng Yuan, somewhat resignedly, said,
"How about this, I’ll go out and search for one later, and bring back a Pinecone Ball for you to see?"
"That... won’t be necessary."
Mo Li glanced outside the window. Although the weather was clear tonight, it seemed inappropriate for Feng Yuan to go out into the dark alone in search of a Spirit Beast. Just then, Hua Yiyou knocked and entered. Seeing Feng Yuan, he asked with a puzzled expression,
"What do you need?"
After understanding the problem at hand from Mo Li, Hua Yiyou thought for a moment and said,
"Pinecone Ball? Is it that Spirit Beast that looks very similar to a pine cone, except it has an additional pair of oval brown feet and a pair of large eyes?"
"You know it?"
Hua Yiyou nodded and said,
"If you’re talking about that one, I indeed know about it. In our Yongning, it’s referred to as a Pineball Fairy."
"So that’s what it is!"
With Hua Yiyou’s reminder, Mo Li also realized what the Pinecone Ball was referred to as. Feng Yuan, somewhat speechlessly, glanced at the two men and said,
"Why would it be called such a strange name..."
"After all, it’s a Spirit Beast that humans discovered long ago, and it resembles a round pine cone. As for the fairy part... weren’t early Spirit Beasts all called that?"
"Weak ones that are unable to protect humans but are friendly to them are called fairies, elves, sprites, while those that pose a threat to humans are called monsters, demons, and the like."
"It seems to be true..."
Mo Li said in surprise, realizing for the first time that this was the origin of the names of those Spirit Beasts. Feng Yuan said exasperatingly,
"So you’re not planning on using the name ’Pineball Fairy’, are you?"
Feng Yuan had already heard from Hua Yiyou that they planned to compile a bestiary of Spirit Beasts. While the version with detailed and specific information wouldn’t be released, having unified names was necessary. Otherwise, situations would arise like the present one, where two people use different names; without careful inquiry, it’s easy to mistake them for two different creatures.

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