The woman turned and walked away, her qipao hem flashing amidst the lush foliage before vanishing.
Frey gently nudged Hermione, who was curled up in a hammock.
“Keep watch. I’ll be right back.”
Hermione was still dazed.
“Huh? Frey? Is it morning? Where are you going…”
Before her sleepy murmur could even fade, Frey had already plunged into the pitch-black jungle.
He quickly caught up to the woman.
Or rather, she was waiting for him.
He had barely gone a hundred meters when, just as she elegantly stepped over a massive buttress root, a wand pulsing with searing magical energy pressed firmly against the small of her back.
“Don’t move,” Frey warned, magic churning wildly at the tip of his wand.
The woman stopped, slowly raising her hands to show she was unarmed.
Even at this life-and-death moment, her voice retained a stirring, lazy composure.
“You’re fast, young Mr. Scamander.”
“What? Are you going to tell me this is another chance encounter?” Frey sneered, shoving his wand forward another half-inch, jabbing it directly against her spine.
The woman tilted her head slightly, revealing her stunning face.
“Why so angry? I mean no harm.”
Ignoring the threat behind her, she stepped forward as if completely unbothered by the powder keg at her back that could detonate at any second.
“Let’s walk a bit further and talk business. If we make a deal, great. If not… If not, I can’t beat you anyway. Don’t alert your grandfather. An old-school English gentleman like him would never agree to such a dirty deal.”
Frey frowned deeply, keeping his wand pressed against her lower back.
“If you try any tricks, I swear you and your pretty qipao will be blown to pieces.”
The woman paused, letting out a soft scoff.
“Is that so? Blown to pieces sounds nice. It would end everything once and for all.”
Her tone carried a deadly, hollow finality that startled Frey.
The magic surging within him instinctively receded a little.
There was a contradictory aura about this woman; she was like a roaring fire, yet she smelled of cold ashes.
The two navigated the jungle in silence.
Frey stared at her back, finding her movements oddly reminiscent of a feline’s grace.
They walked until they reached an ancient tree as wide as two men embracing.
The woman pointed to the thick branches above.
“Let’s talk up there.”
She climbed the trunk, her movements so agile and effortless they seemed inhuman.
Frey followed closely behind.
The two settled onto a horizontal branch ten feet off the ground.
Not far from them, on another branch, hung the carcass of a muscular jaguar.
Its cause of death was identical to the peccary from this afternoon: two puncture wounds on its neck.
“Did the Taowu do that?” Frey looked at the dripping carcass.
“Is that Taowu yours?”
“My, as expected of a Scamander, actually recognizing a Taowu. My Taowu? You could say that… This jaguar is yours. Consider it a greeting gift. Did that Vipertooth in your bag enjoy the peccary from this afternoon?”
Frey raised his wand again. The source of this chapter is g.com.
This woman…
she knew the secret inside his backpack.
“I was in the forest when you put it inside. Don’t bother looking around; the Taowu won’t show itself. It only appears when I want it to.”
The woman leaned against the tree trunk in exhaustion.
Her qipao had a large tear along the slit, revealing a long, slender leg covered in scratches.
“No such thing as a free lunch. You lured me out of camp in the middle of the night. You’re definitely not here for small talk. Speak, what do you want?”
“Sell me those three dragon eggs,” the woman said, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“Just one is fine. Name your price—Gold Galleons, magical items, or information, take your pick. Or you can hire me to work for you. I don’t need wages and I’ll cover my own room and board. Just sell me an egg.”
Frey appraised the woman’s elegant curves with amusement.
The woman tugged at her collar.
“No, that won’t do. I don’t sell my body.”
“Cut it out, don’t flatter yourself. That egg thief—what was his name? Is he one of yours?”
“His name is Banco… He was once one of my men, or at least I thought he was.” A shadow crossed her face.
“I had only reserved one live dragon egg from him. You know how it is—if there are still two eggs left in the nest, the mother dragon won’t pursue too far. However, I didn’t expect that idiot to steal all three eggs at once, nor did I expect him to bring them straight back to the village. That wasn’t part of the plan. I must apologize for that.”
“Where is he? He has to go back and confess. Dick’s tribe was nearly destroyed because of him.”
The woman spread her hands, a mocking smile on her lips.
“Don’t ask me, I don’t know either. But the last time I saw him, he was with a Third Salem patrol. He clearly found an employer who is much more generous—and far crazier—than me.”
“What do you want a dragon egg for? To sell on the London black market? For a mansion?”
“No, I’m going to raise it,” she interrupted urgently, leaning forward slightly as a faint scent of sandalwood wafted into Frey’s nose.
“I promise I’ll buy it the best cage. Just two years—once it reaches adulthood, I’ll release it back into the wild. I won’t hurt it.”
“Raise it in a cage?” Frey curled his lip in disdain.
“You won’t even shell out for an Undetectable Extension Charm and a Weather-Modifying Charm?”
“I… that’s my only option. I can’t use spells…” The woman’s voice suddenly softened.
Frey was stunned.
Frowning, he scrutinized her.
He could clearly feel active magic churning inside her, stronger even than that of an average adult wizard.
“Are you a Squib? No, the magic inside you is incredibly active. You’re practically a powder keg…”
“Stop asking,” the woman turned her head away, clearly annoyed.
“Just think of me as a Squib. A piece of trash who has magic but can’t cast a thing. Frey Scamander! I only want one egg, just one. I promise I’ll provide it with plenty of meat!”
Frey could hear the vulnerability in her voice.
She sounded like someone on the edge of an abyss, desperately clutching at a final straw.
“I’m afraid not,” Frey said after a moment of silence, still refusing.
“Dragons don’t belong in cages. My grandfather wouldn’t agree, and neither do I.”
The woman lost her composure and stood up, the branch letting out a dangerous creak.
For a split second, Frey felt as though the person sitting before him was no longer a frail woman, but a primeval colossus from ancient barrens.
But the aura vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
She forcibly suppressed a sudden impulse, her voice turning despondent.
“Then I guess I deserve… Never mind. I knew it. Everyone in the Scamander family is exactly the same brand of stubborn. I’ll bring you more prey tomorrow and ask again then. I hope you’ll have a different answer for me.”
With resolute finality, she leapt down from the branch and walked away without looking back.
“Hey, wait,” Frey called after her retreating figure.
The woman paused but didn’t turn around.
“Why? Does the Scamander family run background checks before doing business?”
“We need some sort of handle. I can’t keep calling you ‘hey.'”
The woman was silent for so long that Frey thought she had simply walked off.
“You can call me Mu Guiying.”
Frey blurted out in Chinese without thinking, “What the hell? Mu Guiying? Then I’m Yang Zongbao! What, are you going to set up the Heavenly Gate Formation next?”
The woman spun around, her phoenix-like eyes wide with disbelief.
“You speak Chinese?”
Frey made up a lie on the fly.
“A little… My grandfather spent many years doing research in the East.”
The woman stared at him for a long moment.
“Forget it, it doesn’t matter. But you should be careful—the Yang men all die young.”
“Wait, Mu Guiying!” Frey called out as she turned to leave again, quickly throwing out one last question.
“You still haven’t told me how you tracked our location so precisely. Don’t tell me it’s fate again.”
“If you really don’t want to see me, throw away my belt. Also… beware of the Third Salem. They are looking for you, and they will arrive faster than you think.”
The forest fell dead silent as the scent of sandalwood faded.
Frey sat dazed on the branch, staring at the jaguar carcass beside him.
He suddenly raised his wand, pointed it at the carcass, and cast *Incendio*.
Amber flames instantly engulfed the carcass.
Frey controlled the intensity of the heat until the body was charred beyond recognition, leaving no trace of the wounds.
He raised his arm to sniff his sleeve, making sure the sandalwood scent had dissipated.
Only then did he leap down from the tree, carrying the scorched jaguar with one hand as he made his way back to camp.
Halfway back, Frey ran into Dick, who was stealthily creeping forward.
“Dick, why are you awake? What are you doing out here?”
Dick pointed back toward the camp.
“It’s Hermione. She was worried sick and pacing back and forth, begging me to come look for you. She was terrified you’d get eaten by that tiger.”
A warmth rose in Frey’s chest, though he still mumbled, “I knew she was a pain.”
He hefted the blackened carcass in his hand.
“It’s fine. I noticed something lurking near the camp, and it turned out to be this beast. I overdid it a bit and burned it to a crisp. Looks like we can only take it back to feed the Vipertooth.”
When they returned to camp, Hermione was sitting by the campfire, her face tense.
The moment she saw Frey, she leapt up and rushed over to him.
“Frey! Where were you?”
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was red, showing she had clearly just been crying.
But when she saw Frey’s grinning, nonchalant face, her expression instantly shifted.
“I wasn’t worried about you! I was worried about our research progress! You were on watch duty, yet you have absolutely no discipline! You just walked off!”
Hermione stomped her foot in annoyance and walked back to her hammock without looking back.
“Now, I’m going to sleep! Stay away from me, you savage!”
Frey stood there holding the charred jaguar, watching her wrap herself up like a cocoon in the hammock.
He couldn’t help but chuckle.