In the Soul Hunting Forest, sunlight filtered through layer upon layer of dense tree canopy.
The surroundings were eerily quiet, broken only by the occasional call of an unknown bird.
Yu Xiaogang walked at the front with his hands behind his back, looking inscrutable.
Red Hair and Green Hair, the two lackeys, flanked Su Yun on either side.
Yellow Hair and Blue Hair brought up the rear, while Tang San kept a hand on his Sleeve Arrow and patrolled the edge of the formation, on alert.
Suddenly, Yu Xiaogang, who was leading the way, came to an abrupt stop, as if someone had pressed pause.
He jerked up his right hand, spread his fingers, then quickly clenched them into a fist, making a textbook tactical stop signal.
"Stop. I've made an important discovery."
Everyone's heart tightened, and they halted at once.
As the leader, Red Hair reacted fastest. He roared, "Protect our adoptive father!"
The four-man group instantly closed ranks around Su Yun, their Martial Souls released and their backs turned inward as they faced outward, ready for anything.
Yu Xiaogang's face was as hard as iron as he slowly crouched down.
Beside an inconspicuous bush, he stared at a blackish lump that was even giving off a faint wisp of steam... excrement.
To everyone's utter astonishment, Yu Xiaogang leaned close to the indescribable object.
Sniff—
He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring as his brows furrowed. He seemed to be judging its degree of fermentation through smell.
"Hmm... A little sour and rotten, with a hint of berries."
"The smell's not right!"
Blue Hair, standing in the back row, froze for a moment, then burst out laughing. He shook with laughter, tears streaming from his eyes.
He slapped Red Hair's shoulder over and over, pointing at Yu Xiaogang as he laughed so hard he could barely breathe.
"Ha ha ha ha! Oh, I can't! Bro, did you hear that? Grandmaster thinks this shit smells wrong! Ha ha ha! It's shit! How can shit smell right? Is he expecting this stuff to taste like strawberries?!"
Grandmaster pretended not to hear. He held out the same index finger he'd just used to gesture authoritatively, lightly swiped it across the excrement, and even rubbed it back and forth to gauge its moisture and stickiness.
"This..."
Yellow Hair's stomach churned at the sight. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, and he couldn't help taking half a step back to mutter under his breath:
"Adoptive father, does this old man have some kind of weird fetish? Is he playing with shit?"
Su Yun pulled an N95 mask from his bag and put it on in disgust, then backed away three meters. His voice came out muffled.
"Don't talk nonsense. This is called... um, sacrificing yourself for scholarship. Probably."
But what happened next shattered everyone's mental defenses and became a lifelong trauma for everyone present.
Yu Xiaogang looked perfectly calm, as though the stuff on his finger were some precious material and not, well, that.
With utter ease and not a trace of hesitation, he put the smear of black substance into his mouth.
Smack.
He even pursed his lips, his tongue turning over his fingertip as he savored it carefully. At last, he wore a thoughtful expression.
The entire forest fell silent.
Even the birds seemed frightened into silence, and the wind itself appeared to freeze.
"Ugh—!!!"
Green Hair finally couldn't hold it in. He turned and braced himself against a tree, retching with all his might, as if he were about to bring up everything he'd eaten the night before.
Red Hair's face had also turned ashen, and the veins in his neck throbbed. But to look like a man who'd seen it all in front of Su Yun, he forced down the sour bile rising in his throat.
He took a deep breath and gave a trembling thumbs-up, his voice shaking.
"Un... unbelievable! Is this what Grandmaster's like? He dares to taste that stuff to see how it is? No wonder he knows so much! What a tough guy! He's brutal with himself!"
Tang San, standing off to one side, had a terrifyingly cold look in his eyes.
His left hand trembled slightly inside his sleeve, his fingertips already touching the mechanism of the Silent Sleeve Arrow. As he watched the middle-aged man with filth smeared around his mouth savor the taste, the killing intent in Tang San's heart grew like wild grass.
This man...
Not only did he know the secret of my Twin Martial Souls, he acted in such an...
Unrestrained way. He was practically the epitome of poor hygiene!
If he became my master one day, or passed these filthy habits on to me...
A cold glint flashed in Tang San's eyes.
This man had earned his death!
Just as Tang San was weighing whether to shoot him in the heart from behind or aim for his throat, Yu Xiaogang finally finished his analysis.
He stood up, pulled a dirty handkerchief from his clothes, and wiped his mouth. His face settled into that trademark confident smile of someone who had everything under control.
He clasped his hands behind his back and gazed up at the canopy at a forty-five-degree angle.
"Judging by the taste... Ahem, judging by the plant fibers left behind and the acidity, this is the droppings of a Void Shadow Rat with around four hundred years of cultivation. And it left no more than five minutes ago."
Yu Xiaogang spun around and pointed due east like a sword.
"It went that way! Full speed ahead! It's within two kilometers! We have to intercept it before it finishes digesting!"
As soon as Red Hair and the others heard they had a target, they shouted, though the smell still made them cringe.
"For our adoptive father! Charge, brothers!"
The group charged due east like a pack of wolves, kicking up dust as they went.
Twenty minutes later.
In a clearing two kilometers away.
The wind swept fallen leaves across the desolate scene.
There was no sign of a Void Shadow Rat, let alone a single strand of rat fur.
Only a few crows cawed from the dead branches, mocking the foolish humans.
"Impossible..."
Yu Xiaogang stood in the middle of the clearing, disbelief written all over his face.
His hands trembling, he looked again at the tracks on the ground and muttered to himself, caught in a spiral of self-doubt.
"In theory, it should definitely be here... Its habits lead it toward the sun... My data model is based on thousands of years of accumulated research from Spirit Hall... How could I be wrong?"
"Could the rat have mutated? Or learned to think in reverse? No, that's not scientific!"
Watching Yu Xiaogang fall into a daze, Su Yun sighed helplessly.
"Come on, Grandmaster. Stop forcing it. There's no shame in admitting that theory doesn't always beat reality. That mouthful you just had... went to waste."
"Adoptive father, what do we do now? We can't just wander around like headless flies, can we?"
Red Hair asked in despair, panting heavily.
Su Yun didn't answer. He merely raised his left hand, where the silver Storage Ring on his finger gave off a faint glow.
Before they set out, Lei Zhan had braved immense pressure to snatch the ring back from the red-eyed physicists at the P4 Laboratory.
The eminent scholars had clung to his legs and wept, insisting they hadn't finished analyzing the array.
But in Lei Zhan's eyes, Su Yun was about to venture deep into the danger-filled Soul Hunting Forest. Compared to the technological leaps of the future, surviving in the present was the only thing that mattered.
To keep him alive, Su Yun had to wear this ring.
Humm—
A low buzzing sound rang out.
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