Night deepened.
Ordinarily, the Fire Cauldron Sect disciples would have stopped to rest by now. But after learning there was a colony of Nightglow Rats nearby, Angelica did not allow them to halt. Instead, he had the group press onward through the night without pause.
Several disciples were clearly unhappy. Though they said nothing aloud, their resentment showed plainly on their faces.
Scholar Xiao watched with a pleasant smile. He warned the disciple walking ahead, “Careful. There’s a Nightglow Rat colony nearby, so the ground is riddled with burrows. Watch your step.”
The disciple was just about to stumble into a hole. At the warning, he narrowly avoided it and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Senior Brother Xiao!”
Then he asked, “There’s a Nightglow Rat colony nearby?”
He clearly had no idea how dangerous the pack-dwelling demonic beasts were. Curling his lip dismissively, he said, “No wonder Senior Brother Angelica is in such a hurry. But there’s no need to be this frightened... We’re cultivators. Are we really supposed to fear a few rats?”
Scholar Xiao chuckled. “Your senior brother is only concerned for your safety.”
The young disciple did not seem particularly grateful.
“But Senior Brother Angelica didn’t explain anything to us. If you hadn’t told us just now, we still wouldn’t know why we were being forced to hurry like this!”
“Hmph.” Another young disciple lowered his voice in complaint. “Senior Brother Angelica is an inner disciple. Why would he bother explaining himself to the likes of us?”
Scholar Xiao looked troubled on the surface, but inwardly, he shook his head.
They truly were a scattered mess.
Still, it was hardly surprising. Angelica had always been arrogant. If he treated a rabbit demon that way, he was hardly going to be any kinder to outer disciples.
Scholar Xiao lazily waved his folding fan, his gaze drifting into the distance.
The bloody odor in the air was growing stronger. Even Angelica had noticed it now, and his agitation visibly increased.
“They’re here,” Scholar Xiao warned softly.
Sure enough, a scream rang out from within the group.
A sharp-fanged rat the size of a human head shot from one of the burrows and lunged straight at a young disciple’s face.
Angelica cursed. “Fight back! What are you all standing there for?”
Scholar Xiao sent his folding fan flying, knocking the rat away.
“Don’t scatter! Form ranks!”
The moment he spoke, his orders somehow carried more weight than Angelica’s.
The young disciples hurriedly clustered together. By supporting one another, they barely managed to hold their ground.
Scholar Xiao guarded their flank and raised his voice. “Brother Angelica, I’ll protect these junior brothers. You open a path out!”
Angelica had already summoned his pill furnace. The blazing red cauldron spewed fire, temporarily forcing the Nightglow Rats back.
When he heard Scholar Xiao’s words, his expression shifted several times.
There were far more demonic beasts than he had expected. Breaking through their encirclement would not be easy.
But in front of everyone else, he could hardly afford to lose face by asking Scholar Xiao for help again.
Snowwarm suddenly cried out, “This won’t work! More and more of them are coming!”
Angelica snapped, “I can see that! You—”
“Put out the fire!” Snowwarm looked directly at him. “You can’t keep using it. They’re being drawn to the flames!”
Angelica froze, then glanced around.
Sure enough, the disciples who had not lit any flames were facing far less pressure. Most of the Nightglow Rats had made him their primary target.
But he was a pill cultivator. Aside from medicinal pills, fire control was his strongest offensive method. If he put away the furnace...
Angelica hesitated.
Snowwarm stamped her foot in desperation. “Put it out! Trust me this once! Any later, and none of us will escape!”
Angelica gritted his teeth and recalled the pill furnace.
The firelight vanished at once, swallowed by the dense darkness.
The Nightglow Rats stared around with enormous lantern-like eyes. Having suddenly lost their primary target, the entire colony fell into chaos.
Snap.
A tiny flame appeared in the night.
Snowwarm raised a torch.
The Nightglow Rats immediately locked onto it and surged after her in an unending wave.
More than half the colony was drawn away in an instant.
Angelica stared after her retreating figure in disbelief.
“She...”
“Go, now!” Snowchill was visibly worried, but still reminded him in a low voice, “Nightglow Rats attack anything brighter than themselves!”
Angelica came back to his senses. He kicked away the few remaining rats and darkened his expression.
“Move!”
Scholar Xiao glanced at his face and obligingly sighed. “She certainly is loyal and righteous.”
For once, Angelica did not argue.
...
Snowwarm had lured away more than half the Nightglow Rats.
Their shrill squeaking pursued her like a death sentence. Unable to maintain her human form any longer, she let her rabbit ears spring free. They pressed tightly against the back of her head, and panic filled her face.
When she had agreed to Scholar Xiao’s plan, she had sounded perfectly confident.
But now that the demonic beasts were genuinely chasing at her heels, their foul breath nearly strong enough to make her faint, she could not help feeling afraid.
She raced along the route marked by Scholar Xiao.
He had said his companions were waiting not far behind them. As long as she reached them...
A faint glow appeared ahead.
Snowwarm’s eyes lit up.
“Help!”
“Young Master Ye! Young Master Yu!”
Yu Qingtang was busy researching the art of grilling fruit when he suddenly tilted his head.
“Did any of you hear something?”
Du Heng answered lazily, “I smell blood on the wind. Some beasts have probably left their dens.”
Ye Chenyan stared at the grilled fruit in Yu Qingtang’s hand. “I think I smell something burning too.”
“Really?” Yu Qingtang raised the fruit to inspect it. “But I’ve been turning it evenly...”
His words caught in his throat when he saw the charred underside.
He sprang to his feet.
“No, wait. There really is a voice! Someone’s calling for help, and something else is shrieking!”
He tugged Ye Chenyan up.
“Let’s go see!”
Ye Chenyan narrowed his eyes toward the depths of the forest and rose with Yu Qingtang’s pull.
The pitch-black spear flew from his hand and tore forward with unstoppable momentum, impaling itself amid the rat colony.
“Ah!”
Snowwarm cried out and threw herself to the ground. She hurriedly looked up and shouted, “Young Master Xiao sent me! Scholar Xiao from Four Books Academy!”
They had already spotted her.
Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened. “Huh? One of the Lunar Jade Rabbit clan? Watch out!”
He jogged over.
Snowwarm assumed he meant to help her up and was already raising her hand when Yu Qingtang swept his robes aside with a flourish and sat cross-legged directly in front of her.
Before Snowwarm could react, a golden lotus blossomed and enveloped them both.
The Nightglow Rats sensed the light and charged toward them in wave after wave, only to slam headfirst into the Lotus Realm. They shrieked and tumbled across the ground.
Snowwarm’s eyes flew wide.
Yu Qingtang gestured to her feet. “Tuck your legs in. This is as big as I can make it, so we’ll have to squeeze.”
Snowwarm blinked, then quickly curled herself into a ball and pressed closer to his side.
Ye Chenyan swept his spear horizontally.
An entire swath of Nightglow Rats screamed as they were hurled through the air.
Demonic energy surged around him. A totem flashed into existence behind his back and released a low roar.
The immense pressure made the rats tremble. Their formation collapsed at once, and they scattered blindly like headless flies.
Ye Chenyan turned back.
He looked at Yu Qingtang, who was busy comforting Snowwarm, and raised an eyebrow.
Then he cleared his throat.
“Ahem.”
Yu Qingtang looked up, but before he could speak, Du Heng pressed against his back and squeezed into the Lotus Realm as well.
“Good junior brother, shelter your senior brother too.”
He turned and grinned at Ye Chenyan.
“I’ll leave the rest to you.”
Ye Chenyan: “...”
His face darkened.
He planted the spear into the ground, and savage demonic energy roared outward, flinging away the disorganized rat colony.
Then Ye Chenyan stared directly at Yu Qingtang.
Yu Qingtang looked at Snowwarm trembling on his left, one hand clutching his sleeve. Then he glanced behind him at Du Heng, who was lazily leaning against his back purely for the fun of it.
He blinked innocently and gestured toward the small patch of open space in front of him.
“There’s still a little room here. Maybe you can squeeze in?”
He had only been joking.
But amusement flashed through Ye Chenyan’s eyes. He actually put away his spear and forced his way inside.
“Whoa!”
Yu Qingtang was pulled into a firm embrace and toppled backward with him.
The impact squeezed Du Heng straight out of the Lotus Realm.
Du Heng: “...”
He slowly turned his head.
Ye Chenyan was smiling at him.
“I’ll have to trouble you instead, Senior Brother.”
Du Heng: “...”
Snowwarm glanced from one to the other.
She quietly released Yu Qingtang’s sleeve and tactfully scooted toward the edge.
Yu Qingtang’s face flushed bright red. He shoved Ye Chenyan away in a fluster, then planted both hands on the ground and conspicuously scooted backward.
“What are you doing?! In broad daylight—”
Ye Chenyan pointed at the sky.
Yu Qingtang choked.
“Even beneath a dark and moonless sky, we should conduct ourselves with the same proper restraint as we would in broad daylight!”
He turned toward Snowwarm.
“You said Brother Xiao sent you. Is he in trouble?”
“No.” Snowwarm hurriedly shook her head and briefly explained Scholar Xiao’s plan. “I’m pretending to lure the Nightglow Rats away for them. That may earn the inner disciple’s trust and make things easier for us afterward.”
“Oh—” Yu Qingtang slowly nodded. “Brother Xiao really is full of schemes.”
“So you only need to wait here with us now?”
Snowwarm turned toward the few isolated Nightglow Rats still on the ground.
She gritted her teeth and stood.
“...It needs to look more convincing.”
She abruptly reached out and seized one of the rats.
The frightened demonic beast opened its sharp jaws and bit back. Snowwarm grunted as it tore a chunk of flesh from her hand, leaving behind a bloody wound.
“Hey!” Yu Qingtang froze. He had not expected her to go that far.
“I’m fine.”
Snowwarm’s face had gone pale, and her lips trembled faintly.
She turned back and gave him a weak smile.
“It’s for the future.”
...
The Fire Cauldron Sect group quickly left the Nightglow Rat colony’s territory.
With Scholar Xiao leading the way, their retreat went remarkably smoothly. Before long, the bloody stench hanging in the air had faded considerably.
Several disciples, still badly shaken, dropped heavily onto the ground. Even then, they did not dare remain there for long.
“Senior Brother, shouldn’t we put more distance between us and them?”
Angelica glanced back. His expression changed repeatedly before he flicked his sleeve.
“Move!”
Snowchill opened his mouth, then secretly glanced at Scholar Xiao.
Scholar Xiao smiled and said, “We cannot turn back now. Otherwise, Miss Snowwarm’s sacrifice will have been for nothing.”
“Once the sun rises, we can return and search for her. These demonic beasts fear sunlight and rarely leave their burrows during the day.”
Angelica lowered his eyes.
After considering it for a moment, he raised his head.
“We cannot turn back.”
Scholar Xiao paused.
Angelica gritted his teeth and swept a cold gaze over the other disciples.
“This shipment of medicinal ingredients is already late. We cannot delay any further. Tomorrow, we will wait for her for half a day at most. If she fails to catch up...”
He looked visibly irritated.
“Then she has only herself to blame.”
Snowchill’s eyes widened in disbelief.
He instinctively turned toward Scholar Xiao.
Scholar Xiao narrowed his eyes, but quickly regained control of his expression and smiled.
“Then let us hope good fortune protects her.”
He discreetly gestured to Snowchill, signaling him to remain calm.
The group continued for some distance. Only when the first faint light of dawn appeared did they finally stop to rest.
Snowchill stole another glance at Scholar Xiao.
After receiving an affirmative nod, he quietly passed behind Angelica and lightly bumped into him.
Angelica was about to lose his temper. But when he turned and saw Snowchill, his brows knitted, and he merely snorted without saying anything else.
Snowchill’s hand trembled slightly.
Remembering Angelica’s heartlessness just now, he gritted his teeth and secretly scattered the powder in his hand over Angelica’s body. Then he quickly retreated.
“We rest for half an hour,” Angelica ordered coldly. “Then we leave.”
He looked as though he did not believe Snowwarm would return at all.
Snowchill stared at him from behind.
He could smell an enticing fragrance rising from Angelica’s body—a scent detectable only to demonfolk and demonic beasts.
Then he looked back the way they had come.
The bloody odor that had faded during the night was growing stronger again.
Snowchill quietly backed away until he stood behind Scholar Xiao.
The shadows of the trees swayed.
Grass rustled.
For no apparent reason, Angelica’s heart lurched.
He turned around.
A rat the size of a millstone sprang into the air and lunged straight at his face.
“Ah!”
The attack came without warning.
Angelica retaliated in panic and nearly stumbled to the ground.
The previous night, after the flames had been extinguished, he had not gotten a clear look at the rat colony. Only now, in broad daylight, did he see how horrifying the demonic beasts truly were.
Their bodies were stained with the blood of some unknown creature.
Angelica tried to retreat.
Suddenly, pain shot through his knee.
He staggered and fell forward, then spun around in alarm.
“Who was that?!”
Scholar Xiao reached out as though to pull him up, only to be forced back by another Nightglow Rat lunging toward him.
Angelica’s head began to spin. He could not tell whether it was from the pain.
Before losing consciousness, he saw the other disciples panic and scatter.
Not one of them reached out to save him.
“Go!” Scholar Xiao pushed the others away. “Snowchill, get them out of here!”
Snowchill transformed into an enormous rabbit. He flung the disciples onto his back, kicked off with his hind legs, and fled at astonishing speed.
Only after they disappeared did Scholar Xiao act.
He swept aside the Nightglow Rats surging toward them, all drawn by the fragrance on Angelica’s body.
Then he looked down at the unconscious man from above and shook his head.
“Honestly. Why did you have to be so heartless?”
“All you had to do was go back and look for her. Now you have to suffer for it.”
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