Compared with Puji Island, the Atacama Mountain Plateau was exceptionally dry and hot this season.
At the same time, snowflakes were probably still drifting down on Puji Island. An orange-red sun hung in the blue-gray sky, washing the whole world in a bleak hue. Even if you stared at the sun all day, it would not matter much.
But on the Atacama Plateau, if you stared at the sun for a while this season, its glaring, vicious light would scorch your eyes blind.
Zheng Qing disliked this kind of uncontrollable extreme weather.
He preferred the mild, polite climate at school—the sort of world where, if the weather grew too hot, it could simply paint two extra layers of clouds across the sky to cover half the sun's face.
Smack!
A heavy boot crushed a hurriedly crawling Peruvian Red Scorpion into pulp. Zheng Qing lowered his head and kicked up several clumps of dirt with his toe, piling them into a tiny, desolate grave for the little creature.
No matter whether it had been a Dark Wizard's eye, now that it was dead, it deserved to be treated with the rites of death. On this Mars-like barren land, life and death carried similarly noble meanings.
The young wizard tugged at the hood over his head, raised his face, and glanced at the blazing fireball overhead.
The good news was that under sunlight this intense, the power of Black Magic would be greatly suppressed—if there really were any Dark Wizards here.
The bad news was that Zheng Qing had a bad feeling.
Another five days had passed since they had set out from Puji Island. Tomorrow would be Little New Year. Seven days after that would be New Year's Eve, and the first day of the Lunar New Year after that would