Lu Qiancha’s heart blared with alarms.
“I have to escape!”
That was her only thought.
In the other paw, the cube in Lu Qiancha’s grasp flickered with a dim light, rapidly morphing into a dark green Yixin Pearl.
“Yixing!” Lu Qiancha channeled her spiritual energy, about to vanish at once.
The next instant.
“Wum!”
In Mufeng’s (the thief) hand, a Frost Ring Blade appeared, glowing faintly as he infused it with spiritual energy.
After using the Yixin Pearl, Lu Qiancha’s figure only flickered in place.
Space Lock!
A flash of terror passed through Lu Qiancha’s eyes. She immediately began forming the hand seals for Moonshadow Escape, trying to reach out to Taiyin Moonlight.
Just as her spiritual energy began to circulate within her.
***
In the next moment.
Mufeng’s cold, mocking face suddenly filled her vision. An iron-scented hand gripped her slender neck with brutal force.
He lifted Lu Qiancha entirely off the ground as easily as if she were a chick.
Suffocation, sharp pain, the terror of death—all at once overwhelmed every sense she had.
In Mufeng’s other hand, the strange Ziwuyuan Double-headed Axe, cold light gleaming and still dripping with Linfeng’s blood, stabbed toward Lu Qiancha’s soft belly with a hint of pleasure.
“Urgh… cough, cough—!!” Lu Qiancha’s eyes rolled back from the chokehold, a harsh wheeze rasping from her throat.
Her paws instinctively clawed frantically at that vice-like grip.
The Heavenly Board was still cooling down, and in her panic—
Lu Qiancha poured all her spiritual power into the cube in her hand.
“Wum!” With a hum, a strange spear, half red, half yellow, wrapped in spiraling energy, appeared in her grasp.
Summoning the last of her strength, she tried to block the fatal blade with the spear shaft.
“Heh…” Mufeng gave an utterly contemptuous snort through his nose.
His wrist gave only the slightest tremble, a subtle flick.
That odd axe blade drew a vicious, insidious arc.
In an instant, it swept past Lu Qiancha’s wrist, the one holding the spear.
“Shh—!”
A wound, deep enough to see bone, split open in a heartbeat.
Lu Qiancha’s tendon snapped with an audible snap.
“Aaah—!”
The agony, bone-deep and searing, crashed over her will like a tidal wave. Lu Qiancha’s whole body trembled, vision going black.
The spiral spear, along with all her resistance, fell from her grasp with a metallic clang, clattering to the cold, blood-stained stone.
Now, all Lu Qiancha had left was ragged breathing and pain she could no longer suppress.
The frigid edge of the axe now pressed against the soft skin of her abdomen.
The touch of death was so stark and clear.
At that perilous moment—a coolly amused female voice sounded, like a bystander making a casual comment: “Mufeng… is there really any need to kill him?”
Lingly observing until now, Ling Muxue finally strolled forward, her gaze passing over Lu Qiancha’s pain-twisted face with lively interest.
“Hm? Why not?”
Mufeng’s movements paused, but the hand holding the axe didn’t retreat. He turned his head slightly, a touch of confusion in his eyes as he looked at Ling Muxue.
“In this secret realm, death isn’t possible. Killing him is pointless. Better to send him into Shenmeng.”
A faint smile curled Ling Muxue’s lips, her crisp voice spitting out words chilling enough to freeze the soul.
“Gongzhu Dianxia speaks wisely.”
A flash of realization passed through Mufeng’s eyes, which then turned even colder with cruel delight.
He twisted his wrist, pulling out the Frost Ring Blade, and with a light stroke, slashed it against the mountain wall ahead.
“Wum—!!”
The space, like thin ice hit by a stone, rippled. A deep, swirling black vortex appeared out of nowhere on the indestructible cliff.
With a cruel smile, Mufeng dragged Lu Qiancha and stepped through first, with Ling Muxue following closely behind.
Entering Shenmeng, Mufeng set foot on an endless Xuankong Suspension Bridge, beneath which gaped a bottomless abyss with no trace of light.
He casually tossed Lu Qiancha down into the darkness below, then led Ling Muxue toward the other end of the bridge.
“Ugh…”
Her head spun with a heavy ache, as if it had been rolled in a millstone full of lead.
Lu Qiancha struggled to pry open her heavy eyelids.
What she saw were scattered patches of grass laid atop a cold stone floor.
She’d awoken in this crude place, barely worthy of being called a bed.
Instinctively, she raised a paw, letting the cool, faint light filtering in through the cave mouth fall upon it.
She noticed several fresh scrapes along her paw and arm, but nothing serious.
“Another dream?”
Lu Qiancha rubbed her throbbing brow with her paw, her voice hoarse and lost from sleep.
She seemed to have dreamed of being stabbed by someone… But who was it? She couldn’t recall.
She hadn’t dreamed of her master or her junior sister for a long time now.
Her gaze drifted blankly toward the outside of the cave, where the jagged peaks were outlined by the dim, grey daylight.
Sigh, she wondered how they were faring.
“Gugu~”
Her soft little stomach rumbled in protest.
She was hungry.
Lu Qiancha slumped back down, cheek pressed against the cold stone. Ever since her cultivation was crippled and she’d been cast out into these wild mountains, she hadn’t had a proper meal in a long time.
Even after returning to the path of immortality, spending a year to barely claw her way back to the middle stage of Qi Refinement, it was barely enough.
Sadly, with such pitiful cultivation in these perilous wilds, it meant little. Even filling her belly was a rare luxury.
No use dwelling on it.
The little wolf cub grit her teeth, forcing her heavy, leaden body to crawl up from the cold ground, bit by bit.
While she still had some strength, she had to go out and try her luck, or she might not even find a blade of grass to chew on tonight.
Lu Qiancha staggered with every step, each one like treading on cotton.
Supporting herself against the rough, icy cave wall, she made her way out of the cave in a halting shuffle.
“Rustle, rustle.”
In a thicket strewn with pebbles and dry branches nearby.
Dragging her hungry, exhausted body, she searched the bushes with the utmost caution.
Perhaps Heaven, at last, took a sliver of pity on her.
Just as she was about to give up hope, the corner of her eye caught sight of a Feishuo Wild Rabbit, busily nibbling at a patch of grass.
It was only a few paces away.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
It felt like all the blood in her body rushed to her head.
Lu Qiancha held her breath, her body drawn tight like a bowstring, sinking lower, inch by inch.
When the little rabbit drew near—
Now!
Lu Qiancha pounced.
“Plop!”
The soft, fluffy sensation of prey she expected never came. Instead, a sharp pain shot through her ankle.
In her excitement, she’d failed to notice that a dead vine had snaked out onto the ground, tripping her up completely.
“Owuu~ that hurts…”
Lu Qiancha smacked straight into the grass, picking up a few fresh scrapes for her trouble.
“Squeak!”
The wild rabbit squealed in terror, its hind legs kicking off like a loosed arrow, vanishing into the thick brush in an instant.
Only a few shivering leaves remained, trembling in its wake.
“Ugh…”
Lu Qiancha lay sprawled on the grass, not caring for her image, enduring the sting of her new scrapes.
She didn’t even have the strength to get up. Her eyes were blank and vacant, staring straight at that eternally gray sky that never seemed to clear.
Looks like another hungry day for her.