All his earlier hesitation and misgivings were swept away, crushed beneath a surge of jealousy and a sense of impending danger!
He abruptly straightened his round, plump body. An unprecedented resolve and determination filled his chubby face, and two flames of charging headlong into battle for love blazed in his tiny eyes.
"No way! Bingbing is mine! No one's taking her from me!"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm made a bold declaration, though his voice grew a little shrill with excitement.
He looked at Xue Chen as if he'd found his one and only comrade-in-arms and strategist, then vigorously nodded his enormous head:
"Good! Kid, I'll listen to you! It's settled!
"Your big brother can't keep hiding here and sleeping all day! I'm going to see my Bingbing! Now! Right away! This instant!"
He looked ready to brave any danger, even face a savage beating from the Ice Empress without hesitation.
For love, Brother Sky Dream was all in!
Xue Chen watched the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm turn into a firebrand, brimming with fighting spirit, and inwardly rejoiced. His face, however, remained solemn.
Though the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had been blinded by love, he'd lived for so long that he still had basic logic and caution.
He looked at the clear-eyed, harmlessly smiling human boy before him, and knew perfectly well that the kid wouldn't help him for no reason.
He took a deep breath, trying to cool his ardent longing for Bingbing just a little. His tiny eyes fixed on Xue Chen as he got straight to the point:
"Kid, let's not beat around the bush!
"You're putting in an awful lot of effort, analyzing the situation and even creating opportunities for me... You can't be helping for free, can you?
"Just tell me what you want! If your big brother can do it, then for Bingbing's sake, we can work something out!"
Xue Chen nodded to himself at that.
Tsk. He's a hopeless romantic, but he couldn't have lived this long without some brains. He knows how things work.
His mind raced as he considered what he wanted.
At first, he really had considered making Tian Meng his Wisdom Soul Ring. It was practically the ultimate cheat for a transmigrator.
But then he remembered the strange complexities within his body. Adding a million-year spiritual Soul Ring so rashly seemed too risky; he didn't know if it would be a good thing.
Besides, simply asking Tian Meng to sacrifice himself and become his Wisdom Soul Ring was obviously a pipe dream. It wasn't going to happen.
The most pressing matter was to get all the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow in this cavern out of here. He absolutely couldn't let Tian Meng keep absorbing it and ruin this opportunity meant for his mother and Aunt Ice Empress.
As his thoughts flashed by, Xue Chen had already made up his mind.
He put on a seemingly bashful smile, though calculations lurked beneath it. After pretending to hesitate for a moment, he spoke:
"Brother Sky Dream, you really are straightforward! Then I won't stand on ceremony.
"As for what I want... it's not much, really. Just two things."
He held up one finger:
"First, it's simple: you have to get me out of this godforsaken place safely."
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm nodded. It was a perfectly reasonable request. Even if Xue Chen hadn't brought it up, Tian Meng would have to take his guide along when he went to see Bingbing.
Xue Chen held up a second finger. His smile didn't change, but his tone made it sound like the most natural thing in the world:
"And the second thing... Look at all this Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow filling the cavern. Finders keepers, so we split it half and half. That's fair, right?"
"What?! Half?!!!"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm sprang up as if someone had stepped on his tail, his voice so shrill it nearly pierced the cavern roof!
He waved his short, pudgy forelegs, his whole body quivering with agitation:
"You're asking for the moon, kid!!!
"Do you have any idea how precious this Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow is?
"Your big brother searched for thousands of years before finding this treasure trove! You just open your mouth and ask for half?! Why don't you go rob someone instead!!!"
His heart ached so badly he could nearly bleed.
This Profound Ice Marrow was crucial to improving his cultivation and breaking through the million-year bottleneck. Losing half of it all at once was like having a chunk of his flesh cut away!
Xue Chen had expected the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm to react like this. He stayed calm, that same harmless smile on his face, but his words struck straight at Tian Meng's weakness:
"Brother Sky Dream, that's not how you should look at it.
"This Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow is a natural treasure without an owner. It's not like you grew it yourself. Finders keepers, right? Besides..."
He deliberately drew out his words, glancing at Tian Meng with a hint of threat:
"Do you still want to meet Aunt Ice Empress without a hitch?
"Do you still want me to put in a good word for you and create an opportunity?
"Without me on the inside, even if you brought the whole cavern's worth of Profound Ice Marrow with you, what if Aunt Ice Empress got in a bad mood and... Well, wouldn't you be the one losing out?"
Xue Chen's words rang in the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's ears like a demonic chant, striking his weak spot once again.
In an instant, Tian Meng's mind became a battlefield:
On one side was the Profound Ice Marrow he couldn't bear to part with; on the other was his long-awaited Bingbing, along with the threat of potential rivals...
Thinking that Po King and Han King might be courting Bingbing right now, and that without Xue Chen's help he might end up in an awkward, or even dangerous, situation, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm steeled himself. A tragic, ready-to-make-the-ultimate-sacrifice look spread across his chubby face:
"Damn it! I'm going for it!!! For Bingbing! It's all worth it!!!"
"Fine! Half it is! You got me, kid!
"Your big brother agrees! But you have to promise to say lots of good things about me in front of Bingbing!
"Or you and I are going to have a problem!"
Watching the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm agree despite his pained expression, Xue Chen was overjoyed inside, though his face remained perfectly serious:
"Don't worry, Brother Sky Dream! I, Xue Chen, always keep my word!
"I promise I'll make sure you meet Aunt Ice Empress in style, without a hitch!"
The Far North Ice Plains.
The Scarlet King, a Ferocious Beast king of the Star Dou Forest, was relying on his powerful sense of smell and keen perception of energy fluctuations to search painstakingly across the vast snowy plains.
His three savage heads kept turning, and his six eyes swept over every inch of ice like searchlights.
The Master, the Silver Dragon King, had given an order that was branded into his consciousness: find the target and bring it back!
Just as he passed the edge of an unremarkable-looking ice rift valley, the Silver Dragon Scale stored close against his chest suddenly gave off an exceedingly faint glow, without warning!
The Scarlet King's enormous body came to an abrupt halt. All three heads lowered at once, their eyes fixed on the glowing scale.
The middle head let out a low, excited growl:
"A response! It's reacting! The target... is nearby!"
His enormous claws carefully cupped the dragon scale, as if he were holding the most precious sacred treasure in the world.
The scale's glow was faint but steady, pointing toward a certain direction in the ice rift valley. As he moved, the light's intensity shifted ever so slightly.
"That's it... The aura sensed by the Master is somewhere beneath this area!"
A sharp glint flashed in all three pairs of the Scarlet King's eyes.
He stopped blundering around blindly and began using the scale as a compass, carefully narrowing down his search inch by inch through the maze of ice rift valleys.
His formidable spiritual power, mingled with his Soul Power, spread through the surrounding area.
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