Chen An had just shouldered his pack when Rongrong ran over from the veranda. Seeing a corner of paper sticking out of an outer pocket, she reached over and tucked it farther in for him.
"Didn't you pack it all last night?" Chen An asked.
"The corner was still sticking out. It would've fallen out after a couple of steps." She pressed down the pocket opening. "Once you're in the forest, don't just keep your head down writing."
Chen An felt the sheet through the fabric of his bag. The boxes Rongrong had drawn on the back yesterday were still empty, and at the very bottom she had written another line: don't decide based on one spot alone.
"Got it." Chen An patted his pack. "If I get a chance, I'll draw it for you."
"Don't get close just to draw."
"You give even more reminders than Grandpa Sword."
Chen Xin was already standing at the courtyard gate. Hearing this, he glanced at the two children. Rongrong tightened Chen An's pack strap a little before letting him go. Shao Heng and his master were waiting beside the carriage. When he saw them come out, he shifted his share of the dry rations farther inside to give Chen An more room to sit. Several other adult instructors from the sect had also packed their gear.
While they were eating Guobaorou yesterday, Fang Ming had said he would keep an eye on the little stove for him. Now that it was actually time to leave, Shao Heng wasn't thinking about the dining table. All along the way, he leafed through the two pages of Soul Beast records they had discussed last night.
"When I went out for my second ring, I was gone for seven days," he said, folding the papers shut. "Even then, I wasn't this eager to get back early."
"What do you want to come back for this time?" Chen An asked.
"To try it again and see whether I can make it in time."
Chen An knew which stretch he meant. His black panther Martial Soul charged forward quickly, but during training, when a companion suddenly came under attack behind him, he was always half a beat slow turning back. Shao Heng had reached rank thirty, and that was the moment he wanted his Third Soul Ring to make up for—not merely whether the new Soul Skill had a nice-sounding name.
The journey took about as long as Chen An's last visit. They stopped for one night along the way. On the second day, as they neared the forest's edge, Shao Heng's master had them get out of the carriage and divide their water and dry rations among their carry bags first. Once they truly entered the forest, a leaf or a patch of wet mud could delay their steps. There was no need to put off until then anything they could finish by the roadside.
Shao Heng followed the instructors at the front. Chen Xin kept Chen An at his side and did not let him stray far. Light and shadow lay broken across the woodland, and old traces from the past few days marked the ground. At first, Chen An's eyes were dazzled by it all. Several times he thought he had found something, only to discover on approaching that it was merely where a fallen branch had dragged across the mud.
"Take your time looking," Chen Xin said.
Chen An acknowledged him. He had come to learn how to look, and to accompany Shao Heng in finding a ring. Racing to call out a beast's name served no purpose at all.
That afternoon, they stopped beside a patch of shrubs. Half a grayish-white snakeskin hung from a branch. Several clumps of grass beneath it leaned in the same direction, and a long sliding mark ran across the mud. Shao Heng spotted the old skin first and quickened his pace.
"A snake?"
"Looks like it." The instructor leading them bent down and lifted the old skin with a twig. "Check the surroundings first."
Chen An circled halfway around it. The sliding mark was indeed fresh; the mud had not dried completely. But the edge of the old skin had already turned brittle, and a small piece flaked off at a touch. Just because the two things were close together did not mean the same Soul Beast had left them. He was about to speak when he suddenly remembered how, beside that specimen in class, the teacher had first asked how many separate spots they had seen, refusing to let anyone give an answer based on a single trace.
"This skin is older than the mark in the mud," he said. "And there's only half of it left. Neither the head nor the tail is here."
The lead instructor glanced at him and nodded for the others to keep investigating. Chen Xin did not praise the child. He simply took him a few steps back, leaving the shrubs to the adults who actually needed to approach.
Shao Heng half crouched and looked ahead along the sliding mark. It curved around a rock, then broke off on the other side, as though something had swept over the branches and leaves. That did fit the sort of speed-focused Soul Beast they were looking for. But whether it was a Phoenix-tail Crested Serpent still had to be settled by seeing the living creature.
They had followed the traces slowly for only a short distance when the grass ahead suddenly rustled. A large, dark-brown snake shot out close to the ground, springing off a rock so fast that it became nothing but a dark streak. Shao Heng's black panther Martial Soul was just about to possess him when the lead instructor raised a hand to stop him.
"Look first."
The snake hurtled past diagonally ahead of them. Chen An only made out its pointed tail and the absence of that bright-red fleshy crest on its head. It plunged into denser undergrowth without revealing even a glimpse of pale-red wings.
Before it entered the undergrowth, it knocked a slender branch aside, but its body failed to turn immediately, sliding several more feet along a rock face. Shao Heng watched particularly closely. It was fast, certainly, but not necessarily nimble when checking its momentum and turning back. That was not the same as the few steps he currently lacked.
"I can catch it," Shao Heng said.
He could pursue it for a stretch, and the adults could stop it too. If they acted now, the party was not without confidence.
Yet the lead instructor only asked him, "Do you want it?"
Shao Heng looked toward where the snake had vanished and shook his head.
"No. Fast as it is, it's far from what we're looking for."
"If we chase farther and see its whole body, we might identify it," the instructor said.
"Even if we identify it, I won't take it," Shao Heng answered without hesitation. "For my Third Soul Ring, I can't just pick a snake that moves fast."
With that, he withdrew the two yellow rings that had already risen around him. His words, "I can catch it," had barely faded, and of course he still felt an itch to try. But he had come for his Third Soul Ring. If he chose wrong, he could not simply start over tomorrow as though changing a meal.
Chen An looked back at the old shed skin and only then understood why those separate traces had drawn them to the same place. The snakeskin was old, the mark in the mud was fresh, and the speed was genuinely fast. All three were true, yet put together, they still did not make the creature they wanted.
The instructor left a mark beside the shrubs. Shao Heng's master took out a sketch map and pointed out two routes to him. One followed the sliding mark farther in over flatter terrain, but might bring them across the dark-brown snake again. The other crossed a low slope, where old records said someone had seen a Phoenix-tail Crested Serpent skim over the branch tips.
"Which way do you want to go?" his master asked.
Shao Heng chose the low slope. He knew they had only entered the forest today and still had time to search. There was no need to spend until nightfall circling a fast snake simply because one was already before them. His master put away the map and told the party to change routes. Only once everyone had settled into their stride again did Shao Heng say to Chen An, "Rongrong really hit the mark with her questions this time. If I only wrote 'saw a fast snake,' she'd definitely say I was being lazy."
"Then I'll have to write that its tail was pointed."
"And that I didn't attack."
"You can tell her that part yourself when we get back."
They exchanged a few words, but did not dare grow careless with their footing. Encountering one fast creature in the forest did not mean the next would be waiting just as they wished. After checking the sky, the instructor did not let the party press farther into unfamiliar terrain. He chose an open, safe place to rest, with the adults taking turns keeping watch through the night.
Chen An took out the paper Rongrong had given him and recorded the differences between the shed skin and the muddy trace by firelight. When he reached the dark-brown snake, his pen paused. Since he had not identified its species with certainty, he only recorded its head and tail rather than filling in a name at random. Shao Heng came over to add firewood. Seeing that he had even filled the "didn't see clearly" box with writing, he could not help laughing.
"How many questions are you leaving her?"
"She'd ask anyway."
After folding the paper, Chen An went to sleep. He would need his energy when they entered the forest again tomorrow. Those who did not need to stand watch should not compete with the adults for that bit of hard work. Chen Xin sat beside him, waiting until he was sound asleep before quietly discussing with the lead instructor which stretch of forest to take in the morning.
After daybreak, the party skirted yesterday's shrubs and headed toward the sparse woodland on the low slope. The gaps between the trees were somewhat wider here, but the ground held no sliding marks as complete as those from yesterday afternoon. Shao Heng was examining cracks between rocks up ahead when Chen An was the first to hear a faint patter of branches overhead.
The sound was brief, then came again after a while, as though something was skimming along the branch tips.
He looked up without rushing to call out. On a low branch ahead to the left, leaves had been brushed over from beneath, and another spot nearby bore similar traces. Yet the ground between them held no furrow from anything crawling across it. Yesterday afternoon's snake had stayed against the mud the whole time. This one might be different.
Chen An tugged Chen Xin's sleeve and pointed it out. The old man took just one look before signaling everyone to stop. The lead instructor went forward to check the low branches, then returned and told Shao Heng not to rush into the clearing ahead.
A faster rustling came from deeper in the forest. Then a fanlike tail flashed past the leaves. This time Chen An saw it clearly: short, pale-red wings lay against both sides of a long body, and a bright-red fleshy crest crowned its head.
They really had waited until one appeared.
Chen An recognized that appearance. His first yellow ring had come from a Phoenix-tail Crested Serpent nearly four hundred years old. Back then, all he had remembered were the Red Crown and fan-shaped tail. This one was much larger, but he was no longer willing to declare its exact age based on a single glance.
The Phoenix-tail Crested Serpent skimmed low between the trees, abruptly bent its body, and landed on a branch a short distance ahead. Shao Heng took half a step forward, then stopped himself. The living target was right before him, but how long it was, whether he could withstand it, and how they should stop it all still needed a proper look before anything else.
Chen Xin brought Chen An behind him. The lead instructor raised a hand for everyone to spread out, first keeping the child protected on the safe side.
The Red Crown on the snake's head lifted slightly as it looked toward them.
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