A nighttime conversation

Xiao Ran leaned against the bed, watching her count out the items one by one. "You're better prepared than I am."

"I grew up in Spirit Hall." Hu Liena looked up at him. "I've been on plenty of soul hunting operations. Death is nothing new. This is your first time going deep into the forest. Don't treat it like a game."

"I'm not."

Hu Liena pushed the supplies toward him and sat down in a chair. Her foxlike eyes studied him for a few seconds, their scrutiny entirely different from Bibi Dong's. Bibi Dong peeled you open to look inside; Hu Liena stood outside and waited for you to speak.

"Xiao Ran," she began, "the Supreme Pontiff sent just the two of us, with no one else from the Golden Generation. Don't you find that strange?"

"I do."

"There's another line in the mission instructions, on the back of the parchment. Did you turn it over?"

Xiao Ran froze. He took out the parchment and turned it over. A line of exceedingly fine script lay on the back, so small he would never have noticed it without looking closely:

"If you encounter the Sealed Land, retreat. Do not approach. Do not look upon it."

His fingers tightened around the parchment for an instant.

"You knew all along?"

"Ghost Douluo had someone bring it to me before we left." Hu Liena's fox tail swayed gently. "He told me to remind you if necessary. But after thinking it over, I decided it was better to tell you beforehand."

Xiao Ran fell silent for a moment. "Ghost Douluo is helping me?"

"He's keeping you alive," Hu Liena corrected him. "There's something about you he wants to understand, so he won't let you die easily."

That was blunt enough. Xiao Ran folded the parchment, put it away, and sat up straight. "Do you know what that seal is?"

Hu Liena shook her head. "I only know a little. Spirit Hall once lost two Soul Douluos deep in Sunset Forest—at that spot three hundred li in. It happened over ten years ago, when I was still little."

Two Soul Douluos. Over ten years ago.

Xiao Ran quickly pieced it together in his mind: Bibi Dong had sent people to investigate that location over a decade ago, suffered heavy losses, and then buried the matter. Now she was sending him there again, while Ghost Douluo was secretly passing him a warning to avoid the seal.

Everyone had a different aim.

"What time do we leave tomorrow?" he asked.

"Daybreak. Meet at the main gate."

Hu Liena stood up. At the door, she paused without looking back. "Xiao Ran, some things about you are more complicated than you realize. I won't ask, but remember one thing."

"What?"

"To survive in Spirit Hall, what matters most isn't how strong you are." Her voice was soft. "It's making others think you're useful, without becoming so useful that they have to get rid of you."

The door closed.

Alone beside the bed, Xiao Ran took out the Ultraman Tiga Card and laid it in his palm. The silver card gleamed coldly in the candlelight. The golden marking had already spread across a third of it, like a slowly growing crack.

It had grown again since yesterday.

He tucked the card back against his chest and put out the light. In the darkness, he closed his eyes and extended his spiritual power outward. A searing current of fire-attribute soul power flowed from the direction of the Training Ground; Yan was still putting in extra practice. The old well in the Side Hall remained deep and still. Farther away, in the direction of Sunset Forest, that heartbeat remained steady.

But this time, it had quickened.

Like someone slowly waking from a deep sleep.

Xiao Ran abruptly withdrew his spiritual power. He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, his palm pressed to his chest as he felt the faint warmth coming from the Ultraman Tiga Card.

"What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.

The card gave no answer. Yet in that instant, he clearly felt it—the card against his chest gave a faint pulse.

Like a heart.

At daybreak, outside Spirit Hall's main gate.

Hu Liena was already there when Xiao Ran arrived. Ghost Douluo stood beside her, holding a palm-sized black metal box in his withered hands. Dense soul power patterns covered its surface.

"A Soul Tool Communicator." Ghost Douluo handed the box to Hu Liena. "Inject soul power to contact me. One-way transmission. Use it only if you encounter something you can't handle."

"Seven days." He looked at the two of them, his eyes cloudy yet sharp beneath his hood. "Return within seven days. One day late, and I'll assume you're dead."

Hu Liena nodded. So did Xiao Ran.

Ghost Douluo's gaze lingered on Xiao Ran's face for an extra moment. Something indistinct lay in that look, as though he were weighing something—or saying goodbye. Then he turned, tapped his cane against the ground, and vanished into the hall's shadows in his gray-white robes.

The two turned and set off toward Sunset Forest.

Hu Liena walked ahead, her fox tail swaying gently, her steps light and quiet. Xiao Ran followed slightly behind her to one side, maintaining an unhurried pace. He did not use Flowing Light Step, relying solely on physical stamina to travel and keeping his soul power above seventy percent.

The forest's edge soon came into view. Towering trees blotted out the sky, the light dimmed, and the air smelled of decaying vegetation and damp earth. Xiao Ran extended his Flowing Light Perception, and the distribution of soul beasts within ten li appeared clearly in his mind.

"There's a pack of Azure Wolves to the southeast, around three thousand years old," he said.

"Go around them." Hu Liena kept walking. "We're not here to hunt."

The deeper they went, the thicker the trees became. Vines twisted and tangled together, leaving almost no visible path underfoot. Hu Liena's fox tail continually swept aside the shrubs ahead, her movements as practiced as if she had walked this route countless times. Xiao Ran kept probing with his spiritual power, reporting everything ahead to her.

They worked together surprisingly smoothly.

By afternoon, they had traveled nearly a hundred li into the forest. Hu Liena found an enormous ancient tree with a natural hollow beneath its roots, barely large enough for two. She crawled inside, set down her cloth bag, and began arranging simple alarm soul tools.

"We'll spend the night here," she said. "Tomorrow we'll keep going deeper. Another hundred li in, the soul beast population will be twice as dense. You won't be able to keep releasing your spiritual power constantly. Conserve your strength."

Xiao Ran sat against a root, took out his dry rations, and bit into them. Hu Liena sat at the hollow's entrance with her back to him, her fox tail spread loosely behind her. Sunset filtered through gaps in the canopy, casting patches of light and shadow over her.

They sat in silence for a while.

"Hu Liena."

"Hmm?"

"Why are you in Spirit Hall?"

She turned to glance at him, a flicker of surprise crossing her foxlike eyes. Clearly, she had not expected that question.

"I was born in Spirit Hall." She turned back, her voice level. "My mother was the previous bearer of the Heavenly Fox Martial Soul, one of the Supreme Pontiff's subordinates. She died during a soul hunting operation when I was six. Bibi Dong raised me."

"So you owe her."

"I owe Spirit Hall," Hu Liena corrected him. "Not her. But everyone who survives here owes Spirit Hall. Yan does. Ghost Douluo does too. Sooner or later, you will as well."

Xiao Ran was silent for a while. "Do you hate them?"

Hu Liena did not answer at once. Her fox tail swayed twice behind her, as though she were considering a question she had never seriously thought about before. Finally, she said, "Hatred is a luxury. Staying alive here is exhausting enough."

She turned her head, her foxlike eyes fathomless in the moonlight. "Why are you asking?"

Xiao Ran thought for a moment. "Because I'm not sure whether you would hesitate if someone wanted me to die for Spirit Hall."

Hu Liena stared at him for a long time. Then she smiled faintly. There was little warmth in that smile, but nothing dismissive either.

"You really know how to make people uncomfortable." She turned away, her tail brushing the ground. "Go to sleep. We have another hundred li tomorrow."

Xiao Ran leaned against the trunk and closed his eyes. He did not truly fall asleep. He spread his Flowing Light Perception at an extremely low output, covering the surrounding three li. That heartbeat was still there in the distance, steady and slow.

But tonight, it no longer felt like a threat.

Instead, it seemed to be counting something.

Counting how far he still was from it.