"Did you hear gunfire?" Jiang Qiao asked.
"I think so." Shen Boxia tilted his head to listen and, sure enough, heard faint gunshots in the distance. There had been two bursts, not far apart.
"Could it be another team on the Icefield?"
"Infighting?"
The Icefield was full of evil spirits. What the hell good were guns? Against low-level Special Ability Users, though, bullets could wound or even kill them.
"Even if they were fighting among themselves, why pick nighttime?"
"Do they really think evil spirits are deaf?"
Jiang Qiao laughed. "I reckon someone got cursed, and the others shot them full of holes."
"That's possible."
Shen Boxia thought it over and agreed with that guess.
"It sounds pretty far away."
Across the vast Icefield, sound scattered so much that they had no idea which direction it came from. All they could tell was that it was probably quite far away.
"Who cares?"
"Maybe they're heading to Rakshasa Lake too?"
"None of that matters," Jiang Qiao said. "It's almost dawn. That evil spirit probably won't be coming back."
He glanced at the sky.
Then he checked the time.
It was six in the morning, and a faint white glow had already appeared on the distant horizon.
Daybreak wasn't far off.
Over the next two days.
Jiang Qiao and Shen Boxia encountered no more evil spirits, though they did come across a village along the way.
A village on the Icefield.
Before they set out, the old man in the village had told them about these places.
There was something sinister about them.
It was best to stay clear.
If they came across one, leaving immediately was the wisest choice.
The two took his advice.
Although the villagers warmly invited them in for a rest, they kept going without looking back.