Flapping its wings hard, Mr. Crow glared at Lana aggressively.
"Oh? I accept my mistake too. But what difference remained between you and me after you knocked me out?"
Lana put on a flattering smile and asked, "Mr. Crow, if you had to describe yourself, what would you say?"
Mr. Crow was caught off guard by the change in subject, his face showing a hesitant look before replying after a deep contemplation.
"Strategic and intelligent."
"I aspire to become like you." Hence, I don't want any difference between our personalities either.
Though Lana didn't say the other half of the sentence, Mr. Crow understood the unspoken words and felt speechless.
'This fool...' Mr. Crow wanted to curse but stopped midway when he realized that it was this exact fool who had tricked him into telling all the useful information and knocking him out.
'No! I need to stay alert. This girl is clearly a fox. A fox wearing the mask of innocence, while calculation is her heart, was as deep as a black hole.'
"You have cleansed your meridians." Mr. Crow shifted the subject when he realized that he would still be at a disadvantage; his beady eyes stared at Lana intently. 'One day, I will take revenge on her for knocking me out!'
"I have." Lana nodded. Suddenly, she thought about the transformation she had undergone the previous night and asked,
"After drinking the herbal soup, I felt a wave of heat pass over me, then black substances started to seep out of my body, and just as I washed up, I suddenly transformed into a silver kitten and was teleported somewhere else. Can you tell why I even transformed it into a silver kitten? And will I ever be transformed back into the silver kitten form?"
The last half of her sentence was brimming with urgency and curiosity.
'If I don't transform back into the silver kitten form, won't I never have the chance to sleep on my white moonlight's abs?'
Mr. Crow narrowed his eyes suspiciously before shaking his head. "Don't know. Maybe you have followed one of the steps wrong. What was the color of the herbal soup?"
"Black." Lana gave a reply in a sheepish voice. 'So the herbal soup was indeed made wrongly by me... ah... I thought I had a talent for food making.'
"What? What did you say?" Mr. Crow bellowed, his eyes shining with disbelief.
Lana's heart skipped a beat, and she asked with slight hesitancy, "That... did I mess up completely?"
"Are you sure it was pitch black and not grayish?" Mr. Crow ignored her question and asked to confirm.
Lana sensed the urgency in his voice and honestly stated,
"Yes, pitch black. Hey... did I mess up completely? Is there no way to reverse the damage?"
Mr. Crow stared at Lana who looked rattled, and wondered just how capable she was of making a black herbal soup. He explained in a helpless voice,
"No, you didn't mess up. In fact, the herbs used in making the herbal soup, if messed up, would either turn out bluish or even yellowish. The best color commonly achieved is grey. However, according to the recipe, the color should turn out black. Till now, no one has been able to achieve a perfect pitch-black herbal soup."
Lana: Σ(°□°˶) !!
"Impossible... pitch herbal soup is always described as a failed product." She muttered, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You can test it out. Each time you mess up the sequence of the herbs, the color of the herbal soup would turn out brighter; this even gave others the illusion that they were heading in the right direction, when in reality they were failing miserably." Mister Crow explained.
Lana took a deep breath and tried to digest the information before asking, "If that's the case, then why did I transform into a cat?"
"I don't know. No one has ever achieved a black mark. You are maybe the first. What I can assure you is that your meridian is cleansed to the superior tier, and now your breakthrough depends on your talent." Mr. Crow descended and sat on the table counter.
Lana sighed and hurriedly took out the snacks from the fridge, munching on them. "Anyways, I am so hungry after just cultivating for 2 hours; I think my appetite has increased due to that soup."
Mr. Crow looked at Lana weirdly and corrected her, "You haven't cultivated for just 2 hours. 3 days have passed."
"Haha! Mr. Crow, are you still angry at me for the prank I played?" Lana chuckled, but when she saw the seriousness in those beady black eyes, her heart skipped a beat.
She hurriedly checked her phone, and sure enough, the date was three days later than what she originally remembered!