Zhu Yan

Just half an hour after Bai Yixin had put away the White Bone Cube and left without a trace, a figure came flying down from high above. They, too, noticed something strange about the lake, but discovered nothing and shot back into the sky.

In the days that followed, Bai Yixin searched outward in every direction, using the lake where he had found the White Bone Block as his starting point.

Perhaps hard work really did pay off. After wandering around for three or four months, he finally found what he was looking for, nearly three or four thousand li from the lake.

It was a range of shattered mountains. As Bai Yixin rode the wind through the collapsed peaks, carefully searching for the traces of battle that remained, he discovered a huge basin.

No, it couldn't be called a basin. It was a vast lake that had dried up.

After flying around the dried-up lake, Bai Yixin spotted a living creature lying at the bottom. It was covered in dirt and lay completely still, as if it had been buried there for ages. Were it not for the faint glow in its eyes, anyone would have thought it was a mud statue.

Bai Yixin cautiously approached, golden lightning coiling around him. A crescent of Silver Moon quietly appeared in his palm, just in case anything went wrong.

The great lake had dried up, and the mud at its bottom had baked as hard as iron. The creature's lower half was buried in it, as though sealed inside stone, making it difficult to pull free.

The mud statue was only a foot long, but it had three heads and six arms and resembled a monkey.

Bai Yixin circled the Mud Monkey once, then surveyed the surroundings.

All the mountains around them had been snapped in half, as if someone had swept through them with some enormous object. The entire mountain range had been devastated, leaving only the lower halves of the peaks.

"Ho, ho! I can't believe I actually found you!"

A smile spread across Bai Yixin's face.

The monkey-like creature, barely a foot tall, stared wide-eyed at the human approaching it, looking a little nervous.

Bai Yixin casually took out a whole roasted ox, already prepared, and tossed it toward the creature.

The creature seemed absolutely famished. It picked up the roast ox beside it and wolfed it down. In the blink of an eye, it had eaten every bit of meat on the ox, more than ten times its own size, leaving only a pile of bones.

It didn't seem full. It gazed up at Bai Yixin hopefully, its eyes filled with longing.

Though it looked adorable, Bai Yixin didn't let his guard down for a moment. His arm glowed as he waved it toward the creature. Runes appeared in a shower, and a vast swathe of shimmering light swept over it.

The rain of light drenched the Mud Monkey, making its whole body crystalline and nearly transparent.

This was an application of Bone Text used to probe an enemy's strength and condition.

"It really has suffered severe injuries. The danger can be set aside for now." Bai Yixin nodded slightly.

"Chik, chik..." The three-headed, six-armed creature squeaked, waving all six arms as it begged Bai Yixin for food.

"Do you remember what you are?" Bai Yixin took out a roasted Golden-Bearded Fish and handed it to the creature.

The foot-long little monster stared with its huge eyes as it wolfed down the fish and tried to think. At last, a bewildered look came over its face. It even forgot to eat. It rubbed its head furiously, seeming frustrated with itself.

The creature's old hide was stuck with clods of dried mud.

One of its arms stripped away several pieces of hard skin, revealing gleaming fur beneath, radiant as golden satin. It looked much better than the dusty old hide.

It was clearly very weak, as though it had only just awakened. It couldn't even pull its trapped leg free, and every so often it looked lost, scratching its head and cheeks as it struggled to remember something.

"Crack!"

The monkey-like creature suddenly blazed with Golden Light. Its whole body split with a series of cracking sounds, and all the old skin fell away, revealing its true form.

As this happened, its three heads and six arms blurred and rapidly transformed into one head and two arms, giving it a normal appearance.

Watching this, Bai Yixin looked on with envy at Zhu Yan's transformation technique. If he could learn it, his combat strength would shoot up several times over.

Unfortunately, the profound Runes inside Zhu Yan were impossible to make out, blocked by some mysterious force.

Zhu Yan—no, after its transformation, it should be called Furry Ball.

It was round and plump, like a golden fist—or a little ball of golden fur. Its coat gleamed, and its large eyes were especially bright; every blink sent out a soft, shimmering glow.

"Wow, your fur is so soft!" Once he was sure Furry Ball posed no threat to him, Bai Yixin scooped it up and rubbed and kneaded it with both hands. Golden light streamed between his fingers.

"Chik, chik, chik..." The golden ball struggled with all its might, its enormous eyes glaring as it squeaked nonstop.

"Chik... whimper!" Bai Yixin casually took a chicken leg from his backpack and stuffed it straight into Furry Ball's mouth. The little creature stopped shrieking at once. Like a starving ghost, it clutched the food and rolled around in his palm, gobbling it down.

Bai Yixin watched the golden tail swaying in front of him, then grabbed it and lifted Furry Ball up. But the golden ball didn't so much as stir. It dangled there, clutching its food and eating without paying him the slightest attention.

Grinning, Bai Yixin swung it back and forth like a pendulum.

At last, the golden ball got angry—but not because of that. It was angry because it had finished eating and Bai Yixin hadn't had the sense to give it more.

"Hahaha..." Bai Yixin laughed happily and handed it another piece of dried meat. The golden ball promptly stopped caring about anything else. He could tug at it and knead it, or hold it by the tail and swing it around; it didn't mind. It just dangled there, clutching its food in its little paws and burying its head in the meal.

"Hey, you're a funny little thing. Come back to the village with me, Furry Ball. I'm sure Little One and the others will love you."

Bai Yixin grabbed the golden ball by its tail. With his other hand, he lifted a boulder weighing ten or twenty thousand jin, a piece of equipment he used for strength training, then flew into the sky toward Stone Village.

The wind howled as Bai Yixin descended near Stone Village, beside a waterfall hundreds of meters high.

This was where Bai Yixin trained every day. Several boulders of different sizes and weights were scattered around it.

Bai Yixin casually tossed the ten- or twenty-thousand-jin boulder onto an open patch of ground. Then, holding Furry Ball—which was still eating—by the tail, he headed for Stone Village.

Hearing the familiar sound of a boulder striking the ground, the villagers knew Bai Yixin had returned.

As soon as Bai Yixin reached the village entrance, a crowd of children gathered around him, staring in amazement.

"Little Bai, Little Bai, what's that? Is it a baby monkey that just opened its eyes? It's all golden, and its eyes are so bright they're dazzling!"

"That little thing can really eat! You can pull its tail and it doesn't even get mad. It just keeps its head down and stuffs its face!"

"All right, all right. You can play with it in a bit. I'm taking it to show Grandpa Clan Leader first."

Bai Yixin felt a little helpless, though he was still smiling. He should've known better than to act younger before. If he'd tried to seem a little more mature, he wouldn't feel so awkward.

But that probably wouldn't have made any difference to this group of children. No matter how old someone felt inside, a young bone age was still a young age. In the eyes of these older kids, he was probably still a little child who needed looking after.

Even though the two strongest people in Stone Village were also its two youngest.

Bai Yixin was nearly seven, while Shi Hao was already six, even counting those few months he had "died" as a baby.