The Attack

Watching the bonfire burn, Xu Yuan sighed softly, then gave a quiet laugh.

No matter how complicated the Cangyuan storyline had been, it was still just a game. It couldn't possibly show every aspect of a complete world.

In this extraordinary world, many things he'd once taken for granted would become the butt of someone else's jokes.

Getting sick here didn't necessarily mean needing medicine, and suffering from exposure in the wilderness didn't necessarily mean needing a bonfire to warm up.

Xu Yuan considered himself highly adaptable, but when it came to changes in the very rules of the world, habits formed over more than twenty years still influenced how he thought.

His thoughts wandered, and Xu Yuan glanced at the giant python at the cave entrance.

It had been lying there watching him ever since he woke up, as if it recognized his face.

He didn't dwell on it. Though the shift from a 2.5D pixel-art style to a realistic first-person view had changed its appearance considerably, Xu Yuan had still more or less guessed what kind of giant python it was.

A Flame Spirit Python.

A relatively rare elite fire-type material monster, it possessed some intelligence and could be tamed as a pet, then raised into a Flame Spirit Flood Dragon.

Back in the game, taming one of these giant pythons had been simple: beat it into submission. They were demon beasts that were extremely lecherous and afraid of death.

Xu Yuan had thought such a lowlife creature beneath him as a pet in the game, but the Flame Spirit Fluid it produced was quite useful. Some pills made with it as an auxiliary ingredient remained useful even in the late game.

He couldn't make pills right now, but Flame Spirit Fluid was a precious natural treasure that could be used directly.

Recalling the formula book's description of Flame Spirit Fluid, Xu Yuan's eyes flickered.

"It refines the meridians and marrow, dispels cold ailments, nourishes yin, and strengthens yang. Snakes are naturally lecherous, and it also has a mild aphrodisiac effect."

At that thought, Xu Yuan suddenly remembered that this stuff seemed to be one of the ingredients in the supreme treasure Acacia Powder, found on the evil path storyline.

He lowered his eyes to the waterskin in his hand, then instinctively glanced toward the other person in the cave.

After finishing what she'd been doing, Ran Qingmo had quietly sat cross-legged on the other side of the cave and begun meditating with her eyes closed. Her cool, distant air could be felt from far away.

Xu Yuan looked away and silently set down the waterskin.

Flame Spirit Fluid was indeed good stuff, but with things as they were, he'd better drink less. Otherwise, if that Big Ice Block chopped him up, he'd have nowhere to cry.

With all these random thoughts running through his mind, Xu Yuan patted his damp, embroidered robe and stood up, planning to get the python at the cave entrance to dry it for him.

Without a fire, his wet clothes could be dried in no time. In a sense, it was a hundred times more convenient than the dryers from his previous life.

The sound of Xu Yuan's slow footsteps didn't catch Ran Qingmo's attention. She remained seated quietly, eyes closed as she meditated.

When he reached the python, Xu Yuan met its huge, vertical pupils and realized that, in some ways, he really was quite adaptable.

At first, it had startled him. Now he could calmly meet its gaze.

As man and snake stared at each other, Xu Yuan raised a hand and pointed at his clothes.

The Flame Spirit Python simply lay there, staring at him without moving.

Xu Yuan took a deep breath and pointed toward Ran Qingmo.

A flicker of humanlike disdain showed in the Flame Spirit Python's vertical pupils. Then, very wisely, it opened its mouth and stuck out its forked tongue.

As soon as the tongue emerged, a dry, scorching heat rushed toward him. The moisture on his robe evaporated at a visible rate.

The heat from its tongue washed over him, warm and comfortable.

For a moment, the cave fell completely silent.

And just as the embroidered robe on Xu Yuan's body was about to dry completely,

disaster struck without warning!

The once docile, cowering Flame Spirit Python's huge vertical pupils suddenly flashed with murderous frenzy. Its tongue, still extended, became a blur and shot toward Xu Yuan's head amid a wave of scorching heat!

If a creature this enormous landed a blow, there was no question of Xu Yuan's head bursting apart.

This time, Xu Yuan saw it coming, but an ordinary person's body simply couldn't dodge an attack moving that fast.

The stench of death engulfed him like a rising tide. All he could do was watch as the snake's tongue, like an iron hammer, hurtled toward his head with a rush of wind.

At the moment of life and death,

a streak of blue swordlight abruptly slashed through space. The spreading heat was instantly swallowed by an endless, bone-deep cold!

And the black-clad figure had already appeared in front of him at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

"Smack—"

With a crisp sound, the long, thick tongue was severed and fell to the icy ground. Its remaining nerves made it writhe there.

The cave went still for a moment.

"Tsaaaah!!!!"

A sharp, agonized shriek rang out as the Flame Spirit Python's massive body writhed wildly, making the cave tremble.

Standing in front of Xu Yuan, Ran Qingmo watched the giant python with calm, clear eyes. She rested a hand lightly on her sword hilt and made a casual stroke.

Without a sound, a slash that ran across the entire cave appeared on the inner wall by the entrance. Through it, the gloomy, rainy sky outside was clearly visible.

The Flame Spirit Python, which had been thrashing at the entrance, suddenly went rigid.

Ran Qingmo returned her sword to its sheath, then slowly turned to Xu Yuan.

"What are you doing?"

As the woman's cool voice rang out, the Flame Spirit Python's head split in two at an angle behind her and silently slid to the ground.

"..."

Xu Yuan stared at the scene before him without answering and bit his lip hard.

He felt no relief at having been saved. Instead, a creeping chill slowly rose in his heart.

Flame Spirit Pythons were fairly intelligent demon beasts, lecherous by nature and afraid of death. They would cling to life for every last moment and would never risk their lives to strike back.

Yet this one had just tried to kill him, even with Ran Qingmo right there.

Xu Yuan slowly clenched his fists.

Something it feared deep in its heart must have forced it to do this.

Looking at the Flame Spirit Python's enormous corpse, Xu Yuan suddenly felt a lingering fear.

If he'd ventured into the python's attack range while Ran Qingmo was out gathering firewood, he might already have been dead by the time she returned.

In the storyline of Cangyuan, the Xu Family's Third Young Master had nine routes that ended with him dying on the way after being kidnapped by Ran Qingmo, each with a different cause of death.

Because of Ran Qingmo's lack of common sense and her carelessness, dying of exposure was only one of them.

Drowning while drinking from a stream less than half a meter deep, falling off a cliff, getting beaten to death with a wooden stick.

Players often joked about the Third Young Master's various absurd deaths across the different timelines, but Xu Yuan couldn't laugh now.

Thinking it over, those bizarre deaths were no different from being shot in the back and dying by suicide in his previous life.

It hadn't been an accident.

Someone wanted him dead in the Wanxing Mountain Range.

The rain kept falling outside, and the sky remained dark and gloomy.

Xu Yuan let out a long breath, lifted his eyes to the black-clad woman before him, and drew a deep breath.

"Mr. Ran, we need to talk."