It was the second half of the night.
Jiang Qiao and Shen Boxia sat beside the campfire.
Neither spoke.
Shen Boxia was uneasy, his gaze straying now and then to the surrounding darkness.
He was visibly on guard.
The surroundings were so deathly silent that he felt as if he had gone deaf. In an environment like this, it was easy to develop a dreamlike sense of unreality, losing all sense of where and when he was.
And regardless of whether that snow deer appeared again,
after experiencing danger once,
he had to stay even more alert to his surroundings.
He would not always be so lucky, and "Big Sister" would not always be able to save him.
In fact...
he did not even know
whether "Big Sister's" independence would prove a blessing or a curse for him in the future.
They waited quietly like that.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour... As the time slipped by, the hours before dawn arrived before they knew it.
Jiang Qiao raised his wrist and checked the time.
Judging by conditions on the Icefield, the sky should begin to brighten in less than an hour.
It should be soon.
Dusk and the hours before dawn...
Those are when trouble is most likely to strike.
The instant that thought surfaced,
suddenly,
he seemed to sense something. He abruptly sat up straight, his gaze piercing the dancing flames.
It settled on the depths of the darkness to their right.
"What is it?"
Shen Boxia had been watching Jiang Qiao all along. Seeing his reaction, he immediately asked.
"That thing is here."
Jiang Qiao's gaze was calm, betraying no emotion. "Just as I expected. That damned thing won't leave us alone. It still intends to attack us."
Within his Dual Pupils vision,
the