Running for Her Life

Dongfang Wanyu returned with an armful of fruit and discovered that the person who had been on the bedroll was gone. "Miss, have you seen my ninth brother?"

Mu Qing's eyes were swollen like grapes. She shook her head. "I don't know. When I glanced over earlier, she was still asleep. I don't know what happened after that."

Dongfang Wanyu went over to inspect the somewhat rumpled bedroll. The bundle and everything else were still there, but its owner was missing.

"Strange."

If she had meant to leave, she would certainly have packed her bundle. Given how Dongfang Minghui treasured it, she would never have left it lying around so carelessly.

It did not look as though she had left of her own accord.

Dongfang Minghui followed the Lightning Mouse, marking the trees along the way. Whenever she stopped, the Lightning Mouse sat down and waited without hurrying her.

One person and one pet, one behind the other, walked for the better part of the day.

Dongfang Minghui watched the trees grow increasingly lush. She could even see little creatures on trunks so thick that five people would have had to join hands to encircle them. They seemed to be playing hide-and-seek, poking out a head one moment and a large tail the next. Whenever they noticed Dongfang Minghui looking their way, they immediately hid behind the leaves.

The farther she went, the more she saw. Every tree held dozens, even hundreds, gazing at her adorably with pairs of round, darting little eyes.

"How can there be so many?"

Dongfang Minghui suddenly had a bad feeling. Had she wandered into the Lightning Mice's den?

When the Lightning Mouse saw her stop again, it sat on the ground and stared at her with a goofy, adorable expression, apparently wondering why she was no longer carving marks into the trees.

One person and one pet stared at each other, big eyes meeting small.

Around them, other Lightning Mice occasionally grabbed thick, long branches and swung back and forth through the air.

In the end, Dongfang Minghui conceded defeat. She bolstered her courage. "I'm already here. I might as well see what this little fellow wants."

Farther ahead, she saw purple flowers blooming all across the landscape, each brightly colored. She dared not approach to inspect them, afraid these beautiful blossoms might be the poisonous flowers the heroine had mentioned.

"Why have they all followed us?" Dongfang Minghui glanced back and found a whole crowd of Lightning Mice behind her. Who knew when they had tagged along? Their forelegs rested against their chests, their hind legs stood upright like a person's, and their thick, long tails curled into flowers. They were not shy in the slightest.

When Dongfang Minghui stopped, they all stopped too, looking adorably blank. Now and then, they scratched their bellies, flicked their tails out and back, and played with them in all sorts of ways, enjoying themselves immensely.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak." Seeing that she had stopped walking, the Lightning Mouse that had brought Dongfang Minghui flicked its tail, curled it around her wrist, and gave a gentle tug.

Its meaning was clear: they still had to keep going.

Only when they reached the entrance of a large cave did the Lightning Mouse stop.

Outside the cave, Dongfang Minghui saw an enormous creature several times her size. It had a horn on its forehead and looked something like an ox, but not quite. It lay motionless on the ground.

She looked blankly at the Lightning Mouse before her, completely at a loss as to why it had brought her to see an animal.

Before her question could be answered, she saw several Lightning Mice boldly leap onto the creature. With a few swift swishes of their sharp claws, they sliced off chunks of meat and tossed them in front of her.

"Ah!"

The smell of blood instantly spread through the confined space. The creature on the ground still did not react; clearly, it had been dead for some time.

The Lightning Mice behind them continued slicing away. Before long, they had stripped all the meat from the creature, leaving an empty skeleton.

The Lightning Mouse brought the meat before Dongfang Minghui, scratched the soft fur on its belly with its forepaws, and patted it.

"What do you mean?"

The Lightning Mouse scratched its head with its forepaws, then scratched its belly and patted it again.

Dongfang Minghui stood stunned. Only after they repeated the gesture several times did she understand: they had brought her here to be their cook. For a moment, she felt as though an entire herd of grass-mud horses had galloped past her eyes.

With practiced ease, Dongfang Minghui lit a fire, set up a rack, and skewered all the meat on branches to roast. Perhaps because they had sliced the meat so thinly, it cooked in no time.

The aroma wafted everywhere. Though a strong bloody smell remained, she trusted that this bunch, accustomed to eating raw meat, would not be too picky.

Every pair of shifty little eyes was fixed on the meat in her hands. Dongfang Minghui genuinely worried that they might rush over and strip her alive too.

"Here."

Dongfang Minghui threaded all the slices onto a single branch and handed it to the Lightning Mouse that had brought her. She had begun to catch on from what had just happened. Was this greediest Lightning Mouse the leader of the group?

The Lightning Mouse bared a row of sharp teeth and devoured the meat in just a few bites. Even after finishing, it kept staring at Dongfang Minghui, hungry for more.

What it meant needed no explanation.

Resigned to her fate, Dongfang Minghui roasted all the remaining meat. After toiling for the better part of the day, she had fed the little creatures until they walked around with bulging bellies, while she herself was grimy and disheveled, her arms too sore to lift.

Meanwhile, Dongfang Wanyu had searched for the better part of the day without finding any trace of Dongfang Minghui. A hundred emotions churned within her.

At noon, she packed the bundle and slung it onto her back. Leaning against a tree trunk, she took out a flatbread to fill her stomach.

Seeing her grim expression, Mu Qing tried to console her. "Miss, perhaps your ninth brother had something to attend to and left first. It might not be what you're thinking."

Dongfang Wanyu glanced at her with a smile. "She has hands and feet. She'll come back on her own." She had inspected their surroundings and found nothing amiss. Perhaps that was good news in itself.

"Miss, don't-"

"Shh!"

Dongfang Wanyu dropped to the ground and pressed her ear against it, listening for a moment. Her expression changed drastically. "Go, now! A huge swarm of Ironclad Beetles is heading this way."

Mu Qing was startled at first, then delighted. "The Ironclad Beetles are coming? Does that mean Big Brother and the others succeeded? Then my fifth brother can definitely be saved."

"I don't know whether he can be saved, but I'm certain that if you don't leave now, you'll die too." Dongfang Wanyu helped her support him, exasperated at her failure to see sense. "Hurry up and pack! Do you want the swarm to arrive and gnaw everyone down to white bones?"

Mu Qing froze, then lowered her head in shame and hurried to pack. Just then, Zhao Sanqi unexpectedly appeared, covered in blood.

"Big Brother, you're back!" Mu Qing exclaimed happily.

Zhao Sanqi held a live female Ironclad Beetle in his hand. His eyes were red, and his voice choked as he spoke. "Hurry! The swarm is about to catch up."

Seeing him return alone, Dongfang Wanyu knew something had gone wrong, but could not be bothered to ask why.

As Mu Qing packed, she asked, "Big Brother, where are the others?"

Zhao Sanqi covered his face. His voice was terribly hoarse, but he haltingly recounted everything that had happened. "They're all gone. It was Third-he ignored my objections and stole the Ironclad King Bug's eggs. The entire colony poured out of its nest. Fourth also..."

Mu Qing's hands abruptly stopped packing. She stared at Zhao Sanqi in disbelief, her lips trembling. "Big Brother."

Seeing them still hesitate, Dongfang Wanyu roared, "Enough! How much longer are you going to dawdle? Talk after we've escaped with our lives! Don't forget, you still have someone to save."

Neither dared say another word. They finished packing and ran, carrying their unconscious fifth brother.

No sooner had they left than an overwhelming swarm of Ironclad Beetles swept through behind them. Like a passing plague of locusts, they left nothing wherever they went.

Seeing the Ironclad Beetles about to catch up, Dongfang Wanyu handed their fifth brother straight back to the two of them. "You go ahead."

To them, such a righteous act was undoubtedly like receiving charcoal in the snow at a moment of peril.

Dongfang Wanyu was soon surrounded by Ironclad Beetles. They surged toward her in wave after wave; no matter how many she killed, there was no end to them.

With no other choice, she draped the clothes Dongfang Minghui had worn yesterday over herself. The stench of corpse-scent grass did drive away a large swath of Ironclad Beetles.

Perhaps it was truly as Zhao Sanqi had said: the theft of the Ironclad King Bug's eggs had enraged them beyond measure. A vast number of Ironclad Beetles still swarmed toward her, heedless of death.

"Tsk, tsk. What a sorry sight."

Just as Dongfang Wanyu was at her wits' end, that cool voice sounded in her mind again.

Dongfang Wanyu gritted her teeth in fury. "If I die, your plans will come to nothing too. Go ahead and laugh."

"If feeble insects like these Ironclad Beetles can kill you, I'd say you really do need some training in the Purple Demon Mountains."

How could Dongfang Wanyu not know that? She desperately needed to hone herself. Before, she had been unable to cut loose because Dongfang Minghui was with her.

"Enough nonsense. Is there any other way to counter the Ironclad Beetles?"

Dongfang Wanyu lashed out with her long whip, sweeping away dozens of Ironclad Beetles trying to crawl toward her.

"There certainly is, but-"

"Ahhh, help! Get out of the way! Move!"

A figure suddenly burst in, darting about with her hands over her head as though her backside were on fire. She charged toward Dongfang Wanyu in a frantic rush. Behind her-no, across the entire sky-a dark, dense mass followed.

"Help!"

Dongfang Minghui did not even notice Dongfang Wanyu. Grimy and disheveled, she was desperately fleeing for her life, deliberately diving into dense woods. Who knew that, after all that scrambling, she would end up in Ironclad Beetle territory? They were everywhere. As the saying went, wolves ahead and tigers behind-only she had Ironclad Beetles ahead and Golden Crow Birds behind.

Death this way, death that way-either way, she was going to die. Dongfang Minghui shut her eyes and charged straight ahead, swift and nimble. It had to be said that, faced with death, a person's hidden potential could be drawn out without limit.

She ran ahead while the great flock of Golden Crow Birds behind her spat wind blades. One struck and sliced a tree clean through. Another struck, leaving a pit in the ground.

It was easy to imagine what would happen if one of those wind blades hit a person directly.

Dongfang Wanyu witnessed a miracle. As Dongfang Minghui charged toward her, the Ironclad Beetles around her scattered in a rush, each fleeing at astonishing speed, as though they had seen something even more terrifying than corpse-scent grass. The slower ones were smashed to pulp in great swaths.

The scene was so unprecedented that Dongfang Wanyu did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"Help-"

"Ahhh!"

Dongfang Minghui suddenly rose into the air, scared half to death. She thought a Golden Crow Bird had caught her.

"Shut up."

Dongfang Wanyu seized the back of her collar and carried her through the air in a swift escape. "I haven't seen you for half a day. Where did you go? How did you provoke so many Magic Beasts?"

Once Dongfang Minghui saw that it was the heroine, she knew she was safe and breathed a sigh of relief. Her throat was hoarse and even seemed to hurt a little. She licked her parched lips. "I don't know how I provoked them either."

"She smells of a Golden Crow Bird's egg. Make her throw it away at once. Otherwise, having just escaped the Ironclad Beetles, you'll have a flock of Golden Crow Birds after you. Even if you survive, you'll be half crippled," the cool voice in Dongfang Wanyu's mind warned.

Dongfang Wanyu immediately said, "Do you have a Golden Crow Bird's egg on you? Throw it away! Otherwise, this flock will keep following us."

"What egg? I didn't take-ah." A possibility suddenly occurred to Dongfang Minghui. She searched herself and pulled out a stone only the size of her palm. "This?"

Heavens, all the suffering she had endured had come from this stone? But no matter how she looked at it, it did not resemble an egg!

"What are you staring at? They're catching up! Throw it away!"

Dongfang Minghui summoned every ounce of strength and hurled the stone at the flock of Golden Crow Birds. Sure enough, upon seeing the egg, a Golden Crow Bird opened its beak and caught it. The birds stopped midway and no longer pursued her.

Dongfang Minghui patted her chest. She had almost run out of breath fleeing for her life. If the heroine had not appeared, she would surely have become food in those birds' beaks by now.

"Seventh Sister, how did you know that was a bird's egg?"