Seeing the giant snake suddenly collapse, Qi Ming leapt forward and caught the falling Fu An’an. At the same time, they heard Mia’s heart-wrenching scream.
The two of them hurriedly ran over, carrying Fu An’an.
At that moment, Mia’s hands were trembling, her palms continuously sending life energy into Cang’er’s body.
Seconds ticked by, and everyone was too tense to even breathe. Only when Cang’er’s breathing slowly returned to normal did they finally exhale in relief.
Mia’s face was pale, her lips drained of color, but she didn’t stop. She quickly gathered more life energy, transmitting it bit by bit into the unconscious Fu An’an.
She continued until she felt all her own life energy exhausted, and then she herself fainted.
“Mia! Mia!” Seeing Mia suddenly collapse, Aiwei Jilin hurriedly caught her.
“What do we do now?” Qi Ming asked, supporting Fu An’an with one hand while checking Mia’s breathing with the other.
“She’s fine. She just exhausted all her life energy and fainted from fatigue,” Jilin reassured them, pulling out nutritional fluid from his bag to feed Mia and Fu An’an one after the other. When it was Cang’er’s turn, she refused to open her mouth, so they had no choice but to give up.
“I’ll stay with them. The two guardian beasts are dead. The snake’s lair must be nearby. You go look for it. At this point, we can’t let them spend the night outside,” Jilin instructed.
“Got it.” Qi Ming gently placed Fu An’an on the ground and was about to set off.
“Wait a moment.” Jilin set Mia down, stood up, and walked over to the fully dead Soaring Snake.
He took out a dagger, extracted the snake’s inner core, and quickly scraped off its cyan-green scales.
After finishing, he returned to Qi Ming’s side and said helplessly, “Cang’er said the inner core must be taken before the snake stiffens. If she wakes up and sees I didn’t take anything, she’ll definitely scold me.”
“Alright, you go. I’ll stay here,” he added, removing his coat and gently covering Cang’er. His eyes reflected a tenderness even he wasn’t fully aware of.
Seeing this, Qi Ming removed his own coat and covered Mia and Fu An’an before rising and disappearing quickly.
An hour later, Mia slowly woke up.
She first checked on Cang’er, seeing that her breathing was steady and the blood on her face had been cleaned by Jilin. She nodded slightly, then checked on Fu An’an beside her.
“An’an, the venom has been neutralized, but the residual neurotoxin in your body may take a few more hours to fully metabolize,” she told Jilin.
“Mm. Qi Ming went to look for the snake’s lair. Tonight we need to bring them somewhere sheltered to stay,” Jilin said. At that moment, Qi Ming’s figure quickly approached, arriving in the blink of an eye.
“The snake’s lair is on the southeast side of that pink lake. It should take us over half an hour to get there,” Qi Ming said, then turned to ask, “Mia, how’s your body? Can you walk?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Let’s go quickly—the sun’s setting.” Mia wrapped Cang’er and Fu An’an tightly with jackets. Jilin carried Cang’er, and Qi Ming carried Fu An’an. The group quickly set off toward the snake’s lair.
Cang’er felt her head heavy, eyelids weighed down like they carried tons. Her consciousness gradually detached from her body, drifting into the vastness of space.
When they entered the snake’s lair, a strong stench of blood and decay hit them. The cave was fairly spacious, about sixty square meters. Further inside, it plunged into complete darkness, and with the injured, they didn’t venture deeper. Except for the one-meter-high entrance, the rest of the cave was tightly enclosed. In a corner on the right, a pile of white bones—belonging to some unknown animal— was stacked.
Mia laid the torn outer cloth of the destroyed tent on the ground, gently placed Cang’er and Fu An’an on it, and covered them with jackets. Qi Ming gathered dried Qiansui Orchid grass, starting a small fire.