Chapter 357: Chapter 356 Richard, you look so delicious! Chapter 357: Chapter 356 Richard, you look so delicious! Early morning.

The Sun rose in the east, casting its rays across the land.

With a “squeak,” the door of the main laboratory opened, and Richard walked out.

Having been bored in the courtyard all night, Pandora immediately looked toward Richard and then froze.

At that moment, Richard was wearing a mask and didn’t look great. Though the pneumonia was contained and the symptoms alleviated through Bacitracin and various other treatments, he hadn’t fully recovered and still needed prolonged care. Additionally, the effects of pneumonia, compounded by a sleepless night, left Richard very tired, his eyes bloodshot and somewhat frightening.

However, that wasn’t the most important part.

The most important part was that Richard had changed his skin color overnight.

Yes, he changed skin color.

Previously, Richard’s skin was pale white, but now it was bright red, mixed with a shiny orange, resembling a carefully cooked blanched shrimp.

This was precisely a side effect of using Bacitracin–staining.

The azo bond in Bacitracin, a coloring group, can turn human skin orange-red. Fortunately, the reducing property of the azo bond is strong, and it would be attacked by a series of oxidases in the body, so the staining wouldn’t last a lifetime but wouldn’t fade shortly either.

Pandora didn’t know what Bacitracin was or what a coloring group meant. Standing in place, she stared at Richard, almost not daring to recognize him.

Not until Richard spoke out, “Didn’t I scare you? It’s just some effects of the medication. It will slowly return to normal, don’t be afraid, come here.”

“Uh…” Pandora finally snapped back to reality, recognized that the person in front of her was indeed Richard, and stepped up to his side.

Richard reached out and rubbed Pandora’s hair while she stared wide-eyed at Richard’s arm, feeling an urge to eat.

“Richard.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I bite you?”

“Hmm? Why?”

“You look really tasty right now.”

“…”
“Can I?”

“Of course… not!” Richard sternly refused. He was contemplating how to quickly rid himself of the orange-red color, yet here was a dragon wanting to taste him, really the worst timing. Despite feeling weak and powerless due to the pneumonia, he still increased the strength in his hand and patted Pandora’s head.

“Ouch!”

Pandora exclaimed, her face showing dissatisfaction, pouting, “If you don’t let me bite, then don’t be so stingy…”
Suddenly thinking of something, Pandora took out something from her bosom and handed it to Richard, a gift that she had carefully crafted over the night.

“This is my gift to you,” Pandora said. “Looks nice, right?”

Richard held Pandora’s so-called gift high to take a closer look, only to see it was an irregular, elongated stone. It looked like it had been battered a thousand, ten thousand times, its surface pockmarked and hideous–to the point that he stared for a long time and still couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Stone dagger?” Richard guessed.

“You!”

“Mud?”

“You!” Pandora shouted loudly, “I carved a stone of you!”

…

Silence, prolonged silence.

After a long while, Richard slowly put the stone into his Space Iron Ring and nodded, saying, “Hmm, not bad, not bad at all, it looks quite like…yeah, very alike…”

Pandora tilted her head, looking at Richard with disbelief.

…

In the blink of an eye, many days had passed.

Under various treatments, Richard’s pneumonia had gotten much better, but there were still two lingering issues caused by the pneumonia.

One was the orange-red skin caused by taking Bacitracin, which, even though it had faded quite a bit, still made Richard look like a blanched shrimp. Pandora’s gaze, which seemed like she wanted to take a bite, had been getting increasingly intense and unabashed.

The other issue was fatigue, caused by the body’s overexertion in fighting off the pneumonia, leading to weakness, which required a long period of convalescence to recover. However, Richard didn’t have that much time to waste and had to keep pushing himself to keep working.

That day, during the daytime, Richard was busy in the laboratory, handling a bunch of culture dishes.

In the corner, Pandora was manually cranking a handle on a strange machine. As she cranked, the machine made “creeking” noises from friction, followed by faint “crackling” sounds of electricity. On one side of the machine, two wires were connected to a heavy grey box. After cranking for a while, Pandora would replace it with a new grey box and continue cranking, having already changed several boxes.

This was a new task Richard had recently assigned to Pandora, an improvement over washing glass test tubes, as she didn’t have to worry about breaking them due to her strength. However, continuously cranking the handle was boring for Pandora, nowhere near as fun as washing test tubes. She had seriously expressed to Richard that she still wanted to wash test tubes, or wash something else.

Richard explained that she had already broken several batches of test tubes, and until a new batch arrived, she had to stick with this task.

Pandora was unhappy, and as she watched Richard busily working, she couldn’t help but pout. Humph, there were still so many test tubes, yet he wouldn’t let her wash them, how stingy! They looked so tasty, yet he wouldn’t even let her gently bite one, utterly stingy!

Thinking this, Pandora put more strength into her hands and started cranking the handle like crazy.

“Creeking…”

“Crackling…”

“Bang bang bang!”

Suddenly, a knock on the door sounded from outside, and Pandora perked up her ears, hearing a familiar voice calling out, “My dearest friend–Lord Richard, I’m here!”

Who else could it be but Alex?

Pandora knew immediately that he was here to deliver test tubes. She stopped cranking, stood up, and shouted toward Richard, “Here they are! Richard, the glass test tubes are here, I want to wash them!”

Richard set aside what he was doing, turned around, and looked at Pandora with irritation, saying, “Behave yourself! Finish your task quota for generating electricity today first. Otherwise, even when the new test tubes arrive, I won’t let you wash them.”

“Why?!” Pandora yelled.

“What do you mean, why?!” Richard retorted, “You’ve been washing them for so long and still haven’t improved.”

“How is that possible!” Pandora protested, “The last time I washed, I only broke a few.”

“That’s because, by the end, the only test tubes left were the spares.” Richard explained. “So, stay here and keep cranking obediently while I go and take care of the delivery.”

As Richard walked out, Pandora stuck her tongue out at his back in dissatisfaction.

Humph, stingy, just stingy, if he doesn’t want her to wash the test tubes, why doesn’t he just say so? What does it have to do with how many she breaks? Besides, if someone else did it, they might not even do it as well as her.

Yes, it must be that way.