Stunningly Beautiful

The four days passed quickly, and the group's wilderness survival experience had been very fulfilling.

In a sense, tropical rainforests were easier to survive in than true wilderness.

After all, food was never scarce in the rainforest. With its abundant species, a capable hunter would never go hungry.

In contrast, even the most skilled hunter would face the test of death in an icy wilderness or an endless desert.

Fang Moqi did not explain why he was injured and easily led everyone through the rainforest.

Lan Mu blended into the team and filmed the rainforest's natural ecology in full.

From all kinds of wildlife and plants to strange natural environments, as well as the survival skills humans needed to understand in the dense forest.

He recorded all of it. Lan Mu had prepared a large bag of batteries, and after four straight days, he had filmed more than two thousand minutes of footage.

It was the seventh day since he had returned to human form, August 27.

As night fell, Lan Mu handed the camera to Du Yu and told him to head back first and deliver the equipment to Cheng Ming.

"What? You're leaving on your own? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

When the others learned that Lan Mu was leaving the team alone, they all spoke in shock.

Fang Moqi had known about this beforehand, so he handed his quiver to Lan Mu.

"I don't know what you're going to do, but take these arrows. Your knowledge is still lacking."

Fang Moqi meant survival skills, as well as knowledge of the environment and animal habits. These were Lan Mu's weaknesses, things transformation simply could not make up for.

Lan Mu had deliberately tried to learn over the past few days and had asked Fang Moqi for plenty of advice, but the time had ultimately been too short. He was still only a beginner.

Still, Fang Moqi was not overly worried about his safety. Though they were still in the rainforest, it would not be difficult for Lan Mu to get out with his skills.

Lan Mu nodded, took the quiver and the torch Du Yu handed him, then headed in a different direction from the others.

"Don't forget, I'll only wait until the fourth before leaving."

Lan Mu waved and disappeared into the trees.

He and Fang Moqi had made an agreement to meet in Kuala Lumpur on September 3.

After walking for around thirty minutes, he made sure he was far away from them.

Lan Mu's body rapidly expanded, transforming into the mighty Hunter.

After spreading his senses over the surroundings and confirming there were no humans nearby, he ran freely through the rainforest.

After taking a wide detour, he finally reached a high mountain late at night. This was the most primitive region in the entire tropical rainforest.

Fang Moqi had told him that the team would inevitably pass this mountain while crossing the rainforest, though they would only go around its base.

Yet in merely a few hours, Lan Mu had climbed the mountain. Finding an ancient boulder at the summit, he chopped down some trees with his claws and tried to make a campfire.

The wind at the summit was strong, so Lan Mu had no choice but to build a stove out of stones. Only then did he barely manage to start a fire. Because the wood was damp, thick smoke billowed from the flames.

"First, I'll fill the White-haired Lion's stomach. I never had the chance to let this body eat its fill back in Magic City."

Lan Mu stood at the mountaintop, looking down at the layers upon layers of towering tree canopies below.

"Lots of animals out in the dead of night..."

Lan Mu was in Malaysia, so he did not care whether they were rare animals or not. He pounced down from the mountaintop, racing downhill with the force of his descent, swift as lightning.

When he returned, he held three black-furred rabbits in his left hand and carried a large, strange-looking animal over his right shoulder.

He tossed the prey to the ground and saw that the fire was nearly out. Hurriedly, he carefully added branches until he blew the flames back to life.

"I'll roast the rabbits first."

Lan Mu quickly dressed the rabbits, roasting them while looking at the strange animal.

He had found this thing by a stream after catching the rabbits. Its ears resembled a horse's, its hind legs a rhinoceros's, its body a pig's, and its nose an elephant's. It was a bizarre creature, broad and burly, fat and sturdy, yet timid as a mouse. It had run faster than the rabbits upon seeing him, but it still could not escape Lan Mu's pursuit.

There was no helping it. It was so fat that eating it would save Lan Mu from having to hunt many other wild animals.

"This should be a tapir, right? I heard it's Malaysia's national treasure... Whatever. I'm eating it!"

After swiftly finishing off the three rabbits, Lan Mu used his claws to butcher the tapir. He arranged the large cuts of meat around the campfire in a circle, setting them on stones to roast.

Every so often, Lan Mu turned them over. After around twenty minutes, fat began to sizzle out.

It smelled quite good, so he dug right into his feast.

When Lan Mu ate in Hunter form, he was simply feral.

He tossed huge chunks of meat into his mouth as if they were candy, one after another. He even crunched up and swallowed some of the bones.

After devouring the tapir, which weighed several hundred pounds, Lan Mu covered the fire with stones and lay down to sleep.

By the time he woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. Clearly, no creature had disturbed his sleep, which was why he had slept so long.

"Today is the eighth day... Why haven't I transformed into a new creature yet?"

Lan Mu returned to human form, but after waiting for half the day, there was still no reaction.

"What exactly is going on with the transformation interval? Is there no pattern?"

Helpless, Lan Mu transformed into the Hunter again and began a new day of hunting.

He was the undisputed ruler of the entire rainforest. As for food, it only depended on what he felt like eating that day!

In the afternoon, he found a river. After taking several large gulps of water, he spotted a huge python in the river.

"Heh, you're today's meal!"

The White-haired Lion plunged into the water and pounced at the huge python.

The python was lazing about, completely unaware that danger was approaching.

But after Lan Mu had been underwater for only a few seconds, he felt sticky all over. Water involuntarily poured into his nostrils, making him extremely uncomfortable.

He hurriedly scrambled back onto the shore and forcefully blew the water out of his nose.

"Damn it, can't I swim?"

Lan Mu felt embarrassed. Fortunately, he had returned in time. Otherwise, if he had fought the python underwater, this jungle overlord might have been done for.

But he was unwilling to let the python go, so he climbed a tree and cut off a thick, long branch.

"I have intelligence. Can't I use tools...?"

Lan Mu used the branch to prod the huge python. The python swam sluggishly, trying to avoid it.

But Lan Mu would not let it go. He chased it along the shore, driving it onward. The python grew impatient and coiled its thick body around the branch. With a crack, it snapped the branch in two.

But when it coiled around the branch, Lan Mu seized the chance to yank upward. The python had barely emerged from the water when Lan Mu reached out and grabbed it.

With a burst of tremendous strength, he dragged the huge python ashore and threw it down. A nine-meter-long python smashed onto the riverbank.

The python was finally enraged. It slithered forward coldly, intending to coil around Lan Mu.

But Lan Mu's body was far too robust. He grabbed the python around what was likely its neck, then pulled hard with both hands, stretching its body like chewing gum. Its head immediately drooped.

"This should be enough for one meal."

Rolling up the huge python, Lan Mu did not hunt any other animals. He returned to the mountaintop and began roasting it.

He did not know how to prepare a python, so he simply roasted it whole. In the end, its skin turned into a pile of blackened char.

But after peeling away the skin, the meat inside was quite good. The White-haired Lion ate more than half of it.

He returned to human form and finished the rest, then went back to sleep.

For two straight days, he ate and slept, slept and ate, until the early hours of August 29.

A strange movement swept through his entire body. Lan Mu sensed the familiar renewal of his cells once more and immediately woke up.

"I transformed!"

Lan Mu transformed incredibly quickly. The instant he opened his eyes, it was already over. He hurriedly tried to stand, only to discover that he was on all fours, with limbs standing like a dog's and hind knees bent backward.

His entire body was covered in smooth fur, pale white to the point of seeming colorless, clear and pure like Moon Essence.

When he suddenly looked back, he saw a huge tail like a canopy behind him. It could gather at will or spread apart as he pleased. When spread, there were nine tails; when gathered, they formed a splendid canopy.

Under the moonlight, he looked at the breathtaking nine snow-white tails, seemingly shrouded in a thin, clear mist as they stirred the moonlight.

Instinctively, he crouched facing the moon. The nine tails slowly rose into the air, spreading out and dancing in nine directions. He could clearly feel a kind of energy flowing into the central tail, surging along his spine through his entire body, before finally returning to the tail and settling there.

For no reason at all, he faced the moon for two hours. Only when clouds and mist obscured the moonlight did he finally snap out of it, still wanting more.

"What was I doing? But it felt so good..."

At that moment, dense mist shrouded the area around him. With a thought, the mist gathered into shape and became a Water Mirror.

Through the hazy mirror, Lan Mu finally saw his full appearance clearly.

A pale white Nine-tailed Fox sat prettily on the ground, its nine tails curling around it like white clouds. Its fox face was soft yet seductive, and its pupils were the deep red of blood, though they revealed the lively intelligence of a human.

"Stunningly Beautiful..."

"Nine-tailed... Fox?"