Shi Hou raised his hand and landed a heavy slap on Kang's pitch-black rump.
"Quit playing dead and get to work. Find out which way those old fossils fled!"
Kang's short, thick black snout twitched hard twice, then both huge ears began flapping rapidly. The black pig turned toward a corner shrouded in dense fog and snorted, its scaled tail cracking with a sonic boom.
Shi Hou's expression turned cold. He raised his right hand and pointed his index finger in another direction, radiating absolute authority.
"Right there. After them!"
Shi Hao followed his finger with his gaze. His fair little face twisted, the corners of his mouth twitching as he said quietly,
"Skinny Monkey, that's the way we just flew in from."
Shi Hou's finger froze in midair.
A mountain breeze swept over the treetops. All around them was deathly silence.
The corner of Shi Hou's eye twitched twice. The White Bone Forbidden Land's adverse effects were getting increasingly ridiculous. If this distortion of his senses grew any worse, the first rule in the Great Wilderness survival guide would have to become-never let someone with no sense of direction lead the way.
Well, this was awkward.
"Ahem. I was testing your sense of direction." Shi Hou withdrew his hand without batting an eye, though his ears grew slightly hot.
"Big Red, head down to the ground. We're too conspicuous up here. We'll give ourselves away."
The Fire Cloud Sparrow rolled its enormous eyes. It had just watched this dark-skinned brat point back the way they had come and give orders with a perfectly straight face. If its neck had not still been numb from the lingering lightning, it would have flattened this wildly blustering cook with a wing long ago.
Big Red folded its wings, which spanned dozens of