Let's go, brothers!

In the Soul Hunting Forest, sunlight was filtered through layer upon layer of dense canopy.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, broken only by the occasional call of an unknown bird.

Yu Xiaogang walked at the very front, hands clasped behind his back, clearing the path with an air of unfathomable profundity.

Red Hair and Green Hair, those two gatekeepers, flanked Su Yun on left and right, sandwiching him between them.

Yellow Hair and Blue Hair took up the rear, while Tang San kept one hand on his sleeve crossbow, hovering on the formation's flank on alert.

Suddenly, Yu Xiaogang, walking at the very front, halted mid-step, as if someone had pressed the pause button.

He sharply raised his right hand, fingers splayed, then quickly clenched them into a fist, making an extremely standard tactical halt gesture.

"Halt. A major discovery."

Everyone's hearts tightened, and they immediately stopped.

As the squad leader, Red Hair reacted fastest, bellowing, "Protect our foster father!"

The four-man formation instantly contracted, encircling Su Yun as their core. They released their martial souls, stood back-to-back facing outward, as if facing a great enemy.

They saw Yu Xiaogang, his face ashen, slowly crouch down.

By an unremarkable clump of bushes, he stared at a pile of... excrement. It was blackened in color and even still emitting a faint wisp of steam.

Under everyone's utterly horrified gazes, Yu Xiaogang leaned in close to that indescribable object.

Sniff—

He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring violently, his brow deeply furrowed, as if analyzing its fermentation level through his sense of smell.

"Hmm... a bit of a sour, rotten odor, mixed with the taste of berries."

"But the smell isn't right!"

Standing in the back row, Blue Hair froze for a moment, then burst out with a "Pfft!" of laughter, his whole body shaking with mirth, tears flying everywhere.

He frantically slapped Red Hair's shoulder while pointing at Yu Xiaogang, laughing so hard he could barely breathe:

"Hahahaha! Oh, I can't take it! Big brother, did you hear that? The Grandmaster says the shit smells wrong! Hahahaha! This is shit! How is the smell supposed to be right? Was he expecting it to be strawberry-flavored or something?!"

The Grandmaster pretended not to hear. He then extended that same index finger—the one that had just been pointing authoritatively—and gently wiped it across the excrement, even rolling it back and forth a few times to feel the moisture and consistency.

"This..."

Yellow Hair felt his stomach churn violently, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. He couldn't help taking half a step back and muttering under his breath:

"Foster father... does this old man have some kind of... special hobby? Is he playing with shit?"

Su Yun wrinkled his nose in disgust, pulled an N95 mask from his pack, and retreated another three meters, his voice muffled as it came through:

"Don't talk nonsense. This is called... well, sacrificing for the sake of academia. Probably."

But the next scene completely shattered everyone's psychological defenses, becoming a lifelong psychological scar for all present.

They saw Yu Xiaogang, his expression calm, as if the substance on his finger wasn't that, but some precious material.

With extreme naturalness and zero psychological burden, he brought that smear of black matter to his mouth.

Smack.

He even smacked his lips, his tongue swirling around his fingertip for a moment, savoring it carefully, before finally revealing a thoughtful expression.

Absolute dead silence.

Even the birdsong in the forest seemed to have been frightened into silence by this scene. The wind itself froze.

"Blegh—!!!"

Green Hair finally couldn't hold it in. He turned, grabbed a tree, and let out a heart-wrenching retching sound, the kind that threatened to bring up last night's dinner.

Although Red Hair's face was also ashen, the veins on his neck bulging, he forced himself to swallow the bile rising in his throat to look like he'd seen it all in front of Su Yun.

He took a deep breath, raised a thumb in admiration, his voice trembling:

"Bad... badass! Is this the Grandmaster? He even dares to taste-test that stuff? No wonder he knows so much! What a ruthless man! Ruthless to himself!"

But Tang San, standing off to the side, had eyes that were now frighteningly cold.

His left hand trembled slightly within his sleeve, his fingertip already touching the trigger mechanism of his silent sleeve crossbow. Staring at that middle-aged man with a mouth full of filth, still savoring the aftertaste, the murderous intent in Tang San's heart grew like wild weeds.

This man...

Not only does he know the secret of my Twin Martial Souls, but his actions are also so...

unrestrained by convention, or rather, utterly lacking in hygiene to the extreme!

If he becomes my master in the future, or passes such filthy habits on to me...

A cold glint flashed in Tang San's eyes.

This man already has a reason to die!

Just as Tang San was deliberating whether to shoot from behind—through the heart or the throat—Yu Xiaogang finally finished his analysis.

He stood up, pulled a grimy handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth, and revealed that trademark, confident smile of someone who understood everything.

He clasped his hands behind his back and gazed up at the canopy at a 45-degree angle.

"Based on the taste... ahem, based on the residual plant fibers and acidity analysis, this is a Void Shadow Rat with a cultivation of around four hundred years. Moreover, it left no more than five minutes ago."

Yu Xiaogang spun around sharply, his finger pointing like a sword straight to the east:

"It went that way! Full speed ahead! Within two kilometers! We must intercept it before it finishes digesting!"

Red Hair and the others, now that they had a target, still felt queasy about the taste but roared in unison:

"For our foster father! Brothers, charge!"

The group charged eastward like wolves and tigers, kicking up a trail of dust.

Twenty minutes later.

On an empty patch of ground two kilometers away.

Wind swept through fallen leaves, a scene of utter desolation.

Not a trace of the Void Shadow Rat, not even a single strand of rat fur.

Only a few crows cawed mockingly from withered branches, laughing at these foolish humans.

"Impossible..."

Yu Xiaogang stood in the center of the clearing, his face full of disbelief.

His hands trembling, he examined the marks on the ground again, muttering to himself in a daze, sinking into self-doubt.

"In theory, it should absolutely be here... Its habit is to move toward the sun... My data model is built on thousands of years of accumulation from Martial Soul Hall... How could it be wrong?"

"Could this rat have mutated? Or did it learn reverse thinking? No, this isn't scientific!"

Watching Yu Xiaogang spiral into obsession, Su Yun let out a helpless sigh.

"Alright, Grandmaster, stop forcing it. Admitting that theory sometimes loses to reality isn't that shameful. That mouthful you took... was for nothing."

"Foster father, what now? We can't just stumble around like headless flies, can we?"

Red Hair panted heavily, his face full of despair as he asked.

Su Yun didn't answer. He simply raised his left hand, and the silver Storage Ring on his finger emitted a faint, ghostly glow.

This ring had been wrestled back by Lei Zhan under immense pressure from the group of red-eyed physicists at the P4 Laboratory before they set out.

Even though those titans of science had clung to his legs, wailing that the array analysis wasn't complete.

But in Lei Zhan's eyes, with Su Yun about to venture deep into the perilous Soul Hunting Forest, survival in the present was the absolute priority over future technological leaps.

To ensure his safety, this ring had to be on Su Yun's finger.

Hum—

A low buzzing sound rang out.