Twenty-Four Frames

What they hadn't expected was that, after leading them in circles nearby, Little Sea Turtle brought them to a place where the scenery abruptly changed. The golden beach and sparse trees gave way to a lush forest, and human voices seemed to drift from somewhere not far away.

Beyond the forest lay a neatly maintained main road leading straight to a nearby city.

Qiao Ranran: "..." This wasn't quite what she had imagined.

Little Sea Turtle spun around happily. It turned smoothly enough not to disturb the mangled man on its back, but that didn't change the fact that it had spun around.

Pei Ling stared at the city for a long moment before slowly saying, "It's best not to let anyone see the Black Jade Turtle."

Qiao Ranran understood at once. Most of the time, the relationship between Demon Beasts and humans was

loving each other and trying to kill each other.

After all, most Demon Beasts liked the taste of human flesh, while humans coveted their flesh as material for all sorts of things.

If Pei Ling had gone out of his way to mention it, was it reasonable to suspect that Little Sea Turtle was worth a great deal in the eyes of human cultivators? The look Qiao Ranran gave it turned a little complicated. And Black Jade Turtle... hadn't she heard that name somewhere before?

Little Sea Turtle didn't understand, but it instinctively took a step back.

Little Sea Turtle seemed to know it couldn't go any farther, and its spirits sank. Even after Qiao Ranran lifted the mangled man off its back and offered it several Hundred-Beast Pills, she couldn't cheer it up.

Qiao Ranran pressed her lips together. "Don't be like that. I'll come see you again. I'll bring you tasty food and fun things, and I'll even cook you seafood, okay? Once you're back, work hard on your cultivation. When you're strong enough, you can go wherever you want!"

Little Sea Turtle: "..." It didn't want to hear the sort of thing adults said to fool children.

"Here. I have a few more bottles of Hundred-Beast Pills. You can have them all, okay? Don't eat them at once. Make them last." Even if she promised to visit, she probably wouldn't be able to for a long time. Qiao Ranran put the pill bottles in a small cloth bag and moved to tie it around Little Sea Turtle's neck. "Don't get into too much trouble, and don't wander too far from the beach, understand?" It was only because the little thing had been mischievous that she had found its tracks.

Qiao Ranran was about to say more when a familiar voice, with a familiar tone, sounded by her ear. "Someone really does talk to Demon Beasts? Can they even understand you?"

Qiao Ranran's hand shook, and the little cloth bag slipped from her grasp.

Pei Ling's gaze instantly turned dangerous. After knowing Qiao Ranran for so long, he knew just how steady her hands were. For her to drop something simply because a stranger had spoken—that wasn't like her.

For an instant, her expression hovered between joy and grief. Then it went still.

So she knew this person?

Chapter 24: Twenty-Four Frames

Wen Ziheng crouched in a tree, smiling brightly as he watched the young girl talking to a Demon Beast by the road. He had only found a good spot to sleep, but when he woke, he heard a lovely woman's voice speaking softly. It was gentle and full of patience. Just hearing it made him think its owner must be a kind person.

One look confirmed it. The girl was in her teens, slender and graceful in a pale-green dress. Before her stood a Demon Beast half as tall as a person, its head raised to look at her. The air between them was remarkably

warm.

Before he could stop himself, he spoke and startled the beauty.

Qiao Ranran really was startled. She had never expected to meet him here. Even the first words he said to her were exactly the same.

In her previous life, on the mountain behind the Clear Feather Sect, that young man had smiled just as brightly, his eyes just as clear, and said, "Someone really does talk to Demon Beasts? Can they even understand you?"

And what had she said? "If you mean it, they'll understand eventually."

But now, looking at the same face and the same smile, hearing the same words, Qiao Ranran had already calmed down. Without a ripple of emotion, she said coldly, "What's it to you?"

Wen Ziheng: "..." With his exceptional looks, outgoing nature, gift for words, and uncanny luck, he had always had an easy time with people.

In all his life, he had never been snapped at by a pretty young girl he had only just met and left at a loss for words. She had been so gentle with the Demon Beast, and so cute when she smiled, with a faint little dimple on her cheek. Why was her voice so stiff, even hostile, when she spoke to him?

Had he done something to offend her without knowing it?

Qiao Ranran wanted nothing to do with Wen Ziheng. Running into him here was pure chance. She knew only the course his life had taken after they met in her previous life; she knew nothing about what had happened before that. And back then, they hadn't met until more than a year later, when he suddenly appeared at the Clear Feather Sect.

Qiao Ranran closed her eyes. She didn't want to remember any more.

Her gaze still once more, Qiao Ranran calmly hung the little cloth bag around the Little Sea Turtle's neck. Then she gave it a firm push and watched it slip into the dense forest and vanish from sight.

Qiao Ranran turned her attention back to the mangled man on the ground. What mattered most now was how to deal with this hot potato. As for Wen Ziheng, he was the sort who took an inch and ran a mile. Give him a little encouragement and he'd light up; give him a glance and he'd get carried away. He was a stranger anyway. She didn't need to pay him any attention.

Wen Ziheng could only watch as the girl he had tried to talk to snapped at him and then ignored him completely.

"Junior Brother Pei?" When Qiao Ranran looked back at Pei Ling, she saw that his face had grown visibly grim. Concerned, she asked, "Does your head hurt again?"

She stepped forward to check his pulse, but Pei Ling turned aside, his gaze settling darkly behind her. Wen Ziheng stood there, having jumped down from the tree. Only after changing position had he noticed that the pretty girl and the now-departed Demon Beast weren't alone. Another young man stood beneath a tree where Wen Ziheng hadn't been able to see him: slender and refined, his pale face sickly, his clear eyes as though tempered in black frost.

Ranking List

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