“Ling Xiaodong, are you awake yet?”
Anxious calls from his master echoed in his ear.
Only then did Ling Xiaodong realize there was still a smooth, soft jade-like form cradled in his arms.
Looking down, he saw the familiar face of his master.
The beast’s stomach walls writhed and squeezed, pressing the two tightly together.
“Master?”
Ling Xiaodong looked around the fleshy walls in confusion.
“Haven’t we already retrieved the Xuanyang Grass and returned to the mountain?”
Yue Yingying’s jet-black hair was soaked with slime, strands clinging to her face, making her look utterly disheveled.
“It’s the Mirage Frog! Not long after entering the Ten Thousand Mountains, we were engulfed by its illusion smoke and swallowed whole.”
The Mirage Frog, over ten feet long and enormous, toothless, with very mild gastric juices, usually took an extremely long time to digest its prey.
Its back was full of thousands of pores that released a fog of illusions, causing living creatures to fall into a trance. It hunted by stunning its prey and swallowing it whole to digest slowly.
Within mere hours of entering the Ten Thousand Mountains, the two had encountered the Mirage Frog.
Everything Ling Xiaodong had seen before—the immortal realm, returning to the mountain—had all been illusions.
As a Bagua Realm Taoist, Yue Yingying used her powerful spirit to break free from the illusion and found that no matter how much she called, Ling Xiaodong wouldn’t wake. So she entered his dream.
But upon arriving in his dream, she found her apprentice pressing her down on the bed, behaving indecently. No wonder she had felt so both ashamed and angry before.
Ling Xiaodong had read the description of the Mirage Frog in the Records of the Divine and Strange on his master’s bookshelf. He had dismissed it as mere entertainment back then, never expecting such a beast to actually exist.
Cursing his own carelessness inwardly, he suddenly felt something was off.
Looking down, he saw Yue Yingying’s smooth, pale back in his arms, and noticed that his own clothes had vanished.
It turned out that both he and Yue Yingying were completely naked—the Mirage Frog’s digestive juices had dissolved their clothes.
At this moment, master and disciple were embracing each other bare-skinned!
“Master, your… your clothes?”
The shocking realization made Ling Xiaodong’s head swim and his brain feel flushed.
Yue Yingying’s stunning immortal countenance flushed bright red. Embarrassed and angry, she tried to pinch the soft flesh at Ling Xiaodong’s waist, but the viscous gastric juices made it impossible to grasp.
She could only bite Ling Xiaodong’s shoulder instead.
“Don’t look! Hurry up and find a way out!”
Yue Yingying was so embarrassed she nearly fainted, her mind in complete disarray, unable to recall any spells.
Ling Xiaodong punched out, hitting the slippery stomach wall of the Mirage Frog, but his fist just slid aside.
“Ribbit!”
A low frog croak reverberated inside the stomach. Although the punch didn’t pierce the wall, it caused the beast immense pain, making it roll on the ground.
Ling Xiaodong and Yue Yingying felt as if the world was shaking, pressed tightly together once again.
When the Mirage Frog finally stopped, no one knew what position it had shifted into, but the two who had been standing were now sprawled on the floor.
Ling Xiaodong was on top of Yue Yingying, perfectly mirroring the scene from his dream.
Yue Yingying grabbed Ling Xiaodong’s ears and tugged forcefully outward, her crimson face nearly bleeding from the strain. She scolded in shame and anger:
“Move off!”
“Ouch, ouch, don’t move! Let me try again.”
Ling Xiaodong felt a bubbling joy inside, but staying trapped wasn’t an option. This time, he raised just one index finger and pressed hard against the stomach wall.
That single finger felt like a razor-sharp sword, piercing through the Mirage Frog’s belly.
Before the frog could react, Ling Xiaodong slid in another finger into the opening and pried it open forcefully.
A miserable croak followed.
The Mirage Frog was gutted by his divine power, and the two, covered in slime, slid out of the stomach.
“Close your eyes! Turn away!”
Yue Yingying, who had just stood up, immediately covered herself and turned her back to Ling Xiaodong.
She summoned a spell of holy water to wash away the slime, then looked around for their belongings.
But having been trapped in the illusion for some time, and with the Mirage Frog having no idea where it had taken them, their packs were long gone.
Yue Yingying had no choice but to use an illusion to conjure a flowing white dress, which looked real but left her still exposed beneath.
“All right.”
Ling Xiaodong turned around boldly.
“No! Turn back!”
Now completely naked as well, Yue Yingying, a proper young maiden, had never seen such a scene and hurriedly covered her eyes.
Ling Xiaodong didn’t mind at all—after all, Aunt Yun had seen him countless times before. Having his master see him was no different.
“Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”
Yue Yingying demanded angrily.
Ling Xiaodong gave a bitter smile.
“I’d like to, but where am I supposed to get anything to wear?”
There weren’t even any large leaves in this forest, nor any animals he could skin for clothes.
His current cultivation level wasn’t enough to cast illusions, and Yue Yingying couldn’t do it for him.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. There’s no one else in this forest. No clothes, no problem. Finding the Xuanyang Grass is what matters.”
Ling Xiaodong was carefree, but Yue Yingying was suffering.
She lowered her head, unable to meet her apprentice’s gaze.
At that moment, she finally realized Ling Xiaodong was no longer the little brat he had been four years ago.
The thought made her cheeks burn.
She had originally planned to scold him for his disrespect in the dream, but that matter was now completely forgotten.
Ling Xiaodong washed at a nearby river before setting off again.
The mountain path was treacherous, and without the guiding sword, progress was slow.
Though Yue Yingying could fly, she couldn’t rise above the tree canopy in the Ten Thousand Mountains—too conspicuous and liable to attract dangerous ancient beasts.
The path was littered with stones and thorns, and both were barefoot.
Ling Xiaodong’s thick skin allowed him to endure easily, but delicate Yue Yingying could hardly bear it.
She flew close to the ground to avoid hurting her feet, but such delicate control exhausted her even faster, forcing frequent rests.
After countless times of Yue Yingying suggesting they stop and rest, Ling Xiaodong finally lost patience.
“Master, at this pace, it’ll take us ten days to reach the first location.”
Pouting, Yue Yingying complained:
“But I’m so tired, and with no shoes, my feet hurt walking.”
That was indeed a problem.
After some thought, Ling Xiaodong proposed:
“How about I carry you? You just have to guide us from my back.”
Yue Yingying, who always preferred lying down to sitting, and sitting to standing, readily accepted her apprentice’s offer to bear the burden.
But as soon as she climbed onto his back, she regretted it.
She had forgotten that her white dress was only an illusion—visible but intangible.
Ling Xiaodong grabbed her legs with both hands and ran swiftly forward.
Yue Yingying clung tightly around his neck with her hands and looped her legs around his waist, their bodies pressed close.
“Put me down! You unfilial disciple! I don’t want you to carry me!”
“What was that, Master? The wind’s too loud—I couldn’t hear you!”
Knowing if he indulged her wishes they’d crawl along at a snail’s pace, Ling Xiaodong instead quickened his steps, dashing like the wind through the forest.