Traveling Under Cover of Darkness (Bonus Chapter)

In the end, the number returning still went from one to four, and Gang Zong went from being a single-person mount to a carriage-pulling tool. Yet not only was he not upset about it, he was actually quite proud.

After all, he was carrying three Super Spirit Beasts at once. Thinking about it, there might not have been any other Thirty-Thousand-Year Spirit Beast on the continent that could come into contact with three Super Spirit Beasts simultaneously.

As for why Gang Zong was pulling the carriage instead of them flying, they had initially considered traveling by air. But later, they discovered that only Snow Empress could fly. Ye Qing had not exchanged for any flying-related skills, and he had even asked Ice Empress at the time,

"Are you, the great Ice Empress with such profound cultivation, actually unable to fly?"

"Fly? There really is something wrong with your brain. I am the king of the Ice Jade Scorpions. Have you ever seen a flying scorpion? And if you put it that way, your cultivation is far higher than mine, isn't it? Why can't you fly?"

Only after she said that did Ye Qing realize that Xiong Jun always seemed to walk over as well. He had actually assumed that all Super Spirit Beasts could fly.

"Speaking of whether one can fly, what exactly is your true form? I've never seen what your true form looks like. I think Xue'er probably wants to know what it is too, right?"

As she spoke, she dragged Snow Empress into it as well. She was no fool. She could not beat Ye Qing in a fight, and she could not outargue him either. Ye Qing seemed to be her natural nemesis, so she directly pulled Snow Empress in. What she had not expected was that Ye Qing simply told her.

"This? I'm a Hou."

"You just said it like that?!"

"Looks like your brain really isn't working too well. Is that important? You'd find out sooner or later anyway, so since you asked, I told you."

"...But what is a Hou?"

Ye Qing had not expected Snow Empress to deal him a finishing blow at that moment. He simply revealed his true form. Seeing Ye Qing return to his original form, Ice Empress burst into laughter. She had found one thing in which she was stronger than him.

"Pfft, hahahaha! Your true form is actually this tiny? And do you think I've never seen a rabbit before?"

Ordinary Spirit Beasts generally grew larger as their cultivation increased. Ice Empress's true form was a scorpion with a body length of one and a half meters. Spirit Beasts like Gang Zong were even larger; thirty-thousand-year-old Gang Zong was over five meters long and more than two meters tall. She had not expected beast-form Ye Qing to be so small.

"What are you laughing at? Don't you know that the essence is concentrated? Besides, it's not like I can't become bigger. This is just my normal form." Ye Qing was referring to the Demon Body Dharma Form from his memories. As a Demon, he naturally had Demon methods of fighting.

"Besides, a Hou isn't a rabbit. Even if I really were a rabbit, I'd still be a rabbit that could pin you down and spank your butt."

"You really can't say anything nice, can you?"

"You started it."

Their playful squabbling ultimately ended with Ice Empress retreating in defeat. To protect her backside and avoid losing face in front of Xue'er, she chose to stop while she was ahead.

At that moment, Gang Zong stepped forward as well. While the important figures were fooling around, he had pretended to be a transparent pig, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. He did not want to be silenced for knowing the gossip of several Super Spirit Beasts. But when a solution was needed, he came forward to show his loyalty.

"My lords, why not all ride on my back? My back is very broad, more than enough for all of you to sit on." However, Ye Qing felt that three people riding a wild boar was rather strange, so he made a carriage compartment. Thus, a carriage pulled by a wild boar continued forward through the wind and snow toward the Star Dou Great Forest.

As the saying went, on a dark and windy night, it was the perfect time for murder and arson. Cough.

It was now a dark, windy night. A faint chill lingered in the air, slightly dispelling the summer heat. On the silent road came the sound of wooden wheels crushing gravel as a pig-drawn carriage traveled along the path.

As for why they were traveling at night, it was because a certain Gang Zong had gotten a bit of heatstroke.

"Sorry, my lords. I didn't expect summer outside to be this hot."

They had originally traveled during the day, but everything changed after leaving the Northland. Even in summer, the Extreme North remained covered in snow, with bone-piercing cold. To adapt to such a climate, Polar Woolly Pigs had evolved thick layers of fat and long bristles, providing exceptional insulation. All of this made them perfectly suited to the Northland's climate.

But as they traveled farther south, the sun of Douluo Continent began to show its power. The heat caused Gang Zong extreme discomfort. He had barely walked a few steps before he was panting heavily—not from exhaustion, but from the heat.

As a species that had lived in polar regions year-round, Gang Zong could not accept such heat for the time being.

"It's fine. Once we get there, I'll be able to solve this problem." Ye Qing meant giving him a cleansing with energy, but undiluted energy was not something Gang Zong could withstand. The energy Ye Qing carried had already been used to repair Snow Empress's core, so for now, in order to accommodate Gang Zong, they ultimately chose to travel at night and avoid the hottest hours of the day.

There had actually been a second option. Ice Empress and Snow Empress possessed Ultimate Ice and the Ultimate Snow that had mutated from it, respectively. They could easily have helped Gang Zong cool down. But because of a Dimensional External Keyboard, everyone ignored that possibility. It seemed that whenever they thought in that direction, their minds would be forcibly interfered with.

On the summer night, fireflies danced through the air. These glowing little insects caught Ice Empress's interest, and even the aloof Snow Empress became curious. Snow Empress sat atop the roof of the horse—pig—carriage, teasing a firefly that had landed on her fingertip, while Ice Empress noisily caught an entire pouch full of fireflies and showed them off to Snow Empress.

"Xue'er, look! I caught so many!" As she spoke, she handed every firefly she had caught to Snow Empress.

Rather than the Ice and Snow Emperors of the Extreme North, they looked more like two sisters who had never left the mountains and were seeing a steel forest for the first time.

"You've never left the Extreme North?"

"Of course I have. But I was chasing down a bastard at the time, and it was winter when I left too. I never expected the outside to look like this in summer. But Xue'er has never left the Northland."

Ye Qing had just wanted to find out who was so unfortunate as to be hunted by her. Given Ice Empress's personality of refusing to turn back until she hit a wall, she would not give up easily. But the movement in the wheat field beside them interrupted him.

"Humans? And the smell of blood?" That was the advantage of beasts. Even before seeing anything, they could roughly determine the situation. Then they saw a blood-covered burly man run out of the field while carrying a young girl.

Upon seeing Ye Qing, he seemed to suddenly find a sliver of hope. When he saw Ice Empress and Snow Empress, one a petite beauty and the other a stunning beauty, that hope seemed to grow. He immediately placed the girl he was carrying into the carriage compartment Gang Zong was pulling.

"Brother, please help me. Take care of the child. You have a daughter too, so you should understand. I'm begging you." As he spoke, he tossed a bag of coins into Ye Qing's hand, then turned to run in another direction.