Chapter 2: Energy Card

The other party didn’t care what Long Yin was thinking; with gleaming fangs, he lunged forward and bit down without hesitation.

A mate contract? Long Yin felt terrible inside. “Little sister, you’re too young for this. Don’t be reckless, don’t mark at random, don’t—ah…” A blood-curdling scream burst forth as Long Yin, with nowhere to hide, was bitten hard on the neck. Sharp fangs pierced deeply into his skin; pain shot through him, and simultaneously, he felt something foreign seep into his body. He knew it was a contract—the bloodkin mate contract was taking shape. He couldn’t push the other away; whenever a bloodkin revealed their true nature, all their physical abilities would surge! Long Yin screamed, not wanting to be bound in a mate contract with a bloodkin girl.

“Let go of me!” When the other finally released him, two words flashed through Long Yin’s mind: It’s over.

He was on the verge of tears—he’d been forcibly marked with a mate contract by a little girl!

“What are you doing?” Long Yin shoved her away, not caring if she was a girl. He was truly furious, clutching his bleeding neck in despair. Why did he meddle and save her? If he’d known it would come to this, it would’ve been better to let her suffocate!

“I’ve marked you,” the other said, retracting his sharp fangs and wiping the blood from his lips. He looked intently at Long Yin.

Long Yin pressed his hand to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Is there any way to undo it?”

“Yes,” the other replied.

“How?” Long Yin looked at the child with hope. He knew it was a mate mark but had no idea how to break it.

“You have to bear our child,” the other answered quietly.

Long Yin was instantly petrified. To hell with bearing children! I’m a man, and you’re a woman. Isn’t it your job to have children? When did it become the man’s responsibility in the union of a man and a woman? His mind was in chaos.

As if reading Long Yin’s thoughts, the other tugged at the hem of his skirt and said nonchalantly, “I’m a boy.”

Long Yin’s petrified statue seemed to shatter into pieces. Why are you wearing a skirt if you’re a boy? Are you deliberately messing with my feelings?

The boy tidied his candy away and gave Long Yin a long, deep look. “I’m leaving now. Don’t run off. I have things to do these days. I’ll come back for you in a few days.”

With a flash, he was gone. Watching this display of agility, Long Yin felt a pang of annoyance. Clearly, he was only here to toy with his feelings, wasn’t he? With skills like that, how could he have been captured by his sister? Long Yin’s headache worsened.

Furthermore, do bloodkin children grow up with the concept of mates drilled into them? On this point, Long Yin’s guess was correct.

He felt powerless. This wretched reincarnation had landed him with two extraordinary sisters. He’d been orphaned from a young age, with no house, no car! But that was the least of his worries. The worst part was that his two sisters were natural-born spendthrifts—one a collector, the other a fighter—piling up debts to the sky. And now, with the bloodkin entanglement and being forcibly marked by some unknown brat’s mate contract, life suddenly felt even more miserable.

From the shattered mirror in his hand, barely the size of a palm, Long Yin saw the crimson bloodstains as proof that he’d truly been bitten. Everything else felt like a dream. What was he to do now? Wait for that four-year-old brat to “collect” him? Did the brat think of him as Cinderella—lucky to be chosen as a bloodkin mate, turning from a sparrow into a phoenix? Nonsense! Bloodkin might be mysterious to others, but not to him. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t even the mate yet—just a candidate!

Being a bloodkin’s mate wasn’t so easily achieved! In his past life, he’d once witnessed the bloodkin patriarch selecting a mate—a veritable massacre. Hundreds of marked candidates, men and women alike, lined up. Only one was chosen; the rest were slaughtered in an instant. The scene of carnage was still vivid in his memory. He’d be mad to gamble on odds of a few percent… That little brat—even without his previous life’s status, he was still himself: impossibly picky. To be his man, you had to be a better card artisan than him, a stronger card warrior, or, as a mechanic, have the ability to dismantle the entire Federation Bureau. Even as an ordinary person, as long as you had what it took to win his heart, he’d acknowledge you.

But for now… Long Yin touched the bite wound and felt a wave of frustration. There was nothing he could do about the contract with his current lack of strength. Sitting inside his box, he thought for a long time and concluded that he had to leave this place.

Actually, there were many benefits to being a candidate for a bloodkin mate. Every candidate taken back to the bloodkin would receive the best education; all their talents would be fully developed, and even their families would benefit. These advantages made even those aware of the brutal selection process flock toward it like moths to a flame.

Long Yin shook his head. That brat wasn’t qualified to designate him as a candidate!

He returned to his humble room and lifted the floorboard under his bed. Underneath, cards were laid out in a dense layer—tens of thousands of rectangular energy cards, each the size of a palm. These were all discarded energy cards he’d acquired from Uncle Li, the administrator at the energy card recycling station. He would select the cards that weren’t too badly damaged and repair them. Most were one-star energy cards, but there were some two-star cards as well. This time, he’d even managed to retrieve three three-star energy cards—a rare find in such a small place. Long Yin spent half his materials restoring these three cards. One of them, lightly used and relatively undamaged, was perfectly restored on a particularly good day—upgraded into a pseudo four-star energy card. This technique was more than mere repair; it was a level above manufacturing—a true reset.

Resetting meant improving the existing energy structure to make it even better. This method, which saved materials but required great skill and focus, was highly valued among advanced card artisans.

Long Yin actually wanted to keep the pseudo four-star energy card, but ultimately, it was still just a pseudo four-star, not the real thing. One- to three-star energy cards, once depleted, could only be restored by a card artisan—or else they’d go to the recycling station. But as soon as a card reached four stars, it would gradually regenerate its own energy, as long as it wasn’t depleted instantly. Even with a sliver of energy left, it would eventually recover. That was the difference above four stars.

Four-star energy cards could only be made by artisans of level four or higher. Card artisans were rare; high-level ones even rarer. Four-star cards were almost unseen in the local markets—here, a level four card artisan was the stuff of legend!

Imagine the commotion if he brought out a four-star card here. If not for being in a hurry and wanting maximum profit, even a pseudo four-star should have been auctioned at a local house, but he had no time.

He slipped the card into his pocket and took out a black bag. Into it he stuffed four neatly stacked piles of cards: five three-star energy cards, three hundred two-star cards, and no one-star cards. Repairing one-star cards barely covered the cost of materials, so unless he could reset a one-star to a two-star, he focused on upgrading two-star cards to three stars. Out of two thousand two-star cards, only three had been successfully reset, but these three were enough to cover all material costs and the three hundred gold coins needed to buy up the cards.

A three-star energy card fetched a hundred gold coins, a two-star twenty, and a one-star just one. As for a real four-star card, the price jumped ten thousandfold—ten thousand gold coins, or a thousand xuan crystals! Yet, even at that price, demand far outstripped supply; it was pure profit.

He’d thought about manufacturing a four-star card directly, but the materials alone would cost at least ten thousand gold coins at his current skill. Even making a two-star card required one gold coin’s worth of materials. In the end, resetting discarded cards was far more cost-effective.

After all his hard work, the three hundred gold coins he’d squirreled away had all been converted into cards. How much could he multiply his money? He calculated: Uncle Li, the shrewd merchant, might pay market price for the five three-star cards, but for the three hundred two-star cards, he’d get at most fifteen coins each—no more than five thousand gold coins in total.

Five thousand gold coins looked like a lot, but what could that really buy?