Frey took deep, unsteady steps across the carpet of decaying twigs and fallen leaves.
He tried to step as lightly as possible, but every step still produced the crisp sound of crushing foliage.
He stole a glance at Long Jiu, who was walking not far ahead.
Her high heels glided effortlessly across the moss-covered rocks as if she were walking on level ground, without disturbing a single leaf.
Just yesterday, he had asked her with a touch of superiority why she was wearing high heels into the rainforest, calling it unprofessional.
Today, he was being slapped in the face.
He even wondered if these shoes were some sort of custom alchemical tool from the Nine Dragons Society.
How else could she walk on fallen leaves without making a sound?
He was about to ask her when he suddenly caught a whiff of sour sweat.
“Who’s there?” Frey whispered, bending low and raising his wand in alert.
Long Jiu raised an eyebrow slightly.
“What is it, Frey?”
Frey pointed to the side, where a messy trail of footprints stretched toward the lakeside camp.
“Look over there. The prints are deep; whoever made them was running in a hurry.”
Frey made to give chase, but Long Jiu pulled him back.
“Get back. You’re tracking in the wrong direction,” Long Jiu hissed, a touch of exasperated disappointment in her voice.
“The wrong direction?” Frey was utterly baffled, pointing to the toes facing the lake.
“But it’s obvious they ran toward the lake, isn’t it?”
Long Jiu let go of him, squatted, and gently brushed the damp soil at the edge of a footprint with her finger.
“You’re really a novice when it comes to tracking.”
She sneered, like a professor grading a failing exam paper:
“Look closely. The water content in the soil here is very high. When a foot hits the ground, mud and water splash around it. Notice how the mud splatters at the heel are small and dense, while at the toes, the mud sprayed outward. What does that mean?”
Frey squinted to observe for a moment and said hesitantly, “More force was applied to the toes than the heel?”
“Smart. In a normal run, the heel hits the ground first, and the toes push off last. But in this set of footprints, the force is entirely concentrated on the toes. There are only two possibilities: either this person was walking backward to deceive us, or…”
Long Jiu stood up, took a few steps in the opposite direction, and pointed at a snapped fern:
“This person has an anatomy different from normal humans. Their feet grow backward.”
As she spoke, she nimbly parted the dense foliage:
“And look at the stride. If they were walking backward, their stride would be smaller due to an unstable center of gravity. But this trail is incredibly steady, meaning they were sprinting. Moreover, the deeper we go into the forest, the wetter the mud at the edges of the footprints, meaning they are fresher. Follow me.”
Frey scratched his head sheepishly.
“How do you know so much? You’re only two years older than me. Does the Nine Dragons Society teach this?”
“I’m not like you, Frey. You live in a fairy tale. Your grandfather is the most famous Magizoologist in the wizarding world. He arranges everything for you, and tells you which ants can cure illnesses. But where I grew up, if you didn’t learn these skills, you got disposed of. Many of my peers vanished without a trace. Some became alchemical materials, while others became snacks for fierce beasts. If you don’t want to die, you have to learn well.”
Frey opened his mouth to offer some comforting words, but found that any language felt hollow and powerless in the face of such a brutal law of survival.
Long Jiu suddenly cut him off.
Her right hand had already slipped to a willow-leaf throwing knife.
She became like a shadow hugging the ground, silently slipping into a dense, low patch of bushes.
Catching on instantly, Frey quickly lowered his body and followed.
The bushes weren’t large, and they pressed close together.
Frey could even feel the warmth of her body radiating through her white T-shirt.
Peering through the gaps in the leaves, they saw a small clearing in the heart of the forest.
A few red-haired little dwarfs were gathered in a circle.
They had pointed, monkey-like faces, with skin as wrinkled as old tree bark.
Most strikingly, their feet grew backward, their big toes pointing behind them, giving them a bizarre and comical appearance.
These dwarfs clearly did not care for hygiene.
The sensitive-nosed Frey was nearly choked by the stench, and even Long Jiu couldn’t help but cover her nose and mouth.
“They’re Curupiras.”
Frey had seen this creature in Newt’s books.
They were the guardians of the South American rainforest, famous for using backward footprints to lure poachers into labyrinths.
But these Curupiras seemed exceptionally agitated right now, shrieking and leaping around erratically in the clearing.
Long Jiu nudged Frey and pointed to a large rock in the middle of the clearing.
Frey held his breath and looked.
There was nothing there, just a rock.
No, wait.
On top of the large rock, there was a smaller rock.
On the stone surface beneath the smaller rock, blood was slowly oozing out, gathering into a small, startlingly red pool.
Something capable of mimicry was severely injured.
The Curupiras screamed wildly at the surrounding woods, even pointing their stubby fingers in all directions.
“Did they find us? Are they telling us to go over?” Frey asked in a whisper.
“You can even understand that?” Long Jiu glanced at him.
“Stay alert. You go over and take a look, I’ll transform and hide to support you. Remember, Curupiras have bad tempers. Don’t go waving your wand around.”
Long Jiu took a few steps back.
The massive silhouette of the Taowu appeared, followed by a ripple of translucent air.
The Taowu then vanished, leaving only the shaking branches above to prove she had hidden herself.
Frey sniffed.
He didn’t know when, but the scent of sandalwood that had always lingered on Long Jiu had disappeared.
The dwarfs’ whistling grew increasingly shrill.
Frey took a deep breath, raised his wand, and slowly stood up from the bushes.
They were even shorter than Frey had imagined, barely reaching his knees.
They chattered and circled around him, their backward feet leaving chaotic prints on the ground.
Frey listened for a moment.
Out of the confusing gibberish, he only understood a few simple Portuguese curse words and a single, desperate English word:
“Help!”
He slowly walked toward the bleeding rock, reached out his left hand, and gently stroked it.
To his touch, there was a layer of extremely delicate, silk-smooth fur.
The moment his fingers brushed against the warm body, the invisible little creature let out a weak, pitiful cry and revealed itself.
It was the most exquisite creature Frey had ever seen.
It looked roughly like a monkey.
Excluding its long, thin tail, it was only two or three inches long.
Curled up in Frey’s palm, it looked like a golden fluffball.
Its body was covered in soft fur, except for the areas around its eyes and mouth, which were snow-white, making it look as if it were wearing elegant white-framed glasses.
There was a bloody gash on the little creature’s left leg, deep enough to expose bone.
It seemed to have been clawed by some predator, and a faint, ominous gray tone lingered around the wound.
Looking into those large eyes, which were constantly welling up with tears from the pain, Frey spoke as clearly as possible: “I can’t treat your wound, but my companion has the best potions. I’ll take you there.”
The little monkey actually seemed to understand human language.
It nodded weakly, its tiny, matchstick-like arms trembling as they reached toward Frey, seemingly seeking a safe embrace.
Frey carefully tucked it into his wide shirt pocket.
The little monkey mischievously clung to the edge of the pocket, poking its head out.
Just then, the noisy Curupiras suddenly fell silent.
As if sensing the arrival of some apex predator, they covered their mouths in terror, let out a series of rapid, low chirps, and scattered in all directions, vanishing into the shadows.
A furious, guttural roar exploded above Frey’s head.
Frey snapped his head up.
A massive horizontal branch that had seemed long dead and draped in lichen suddenly blinked.
Immediately after, the background of the entire forest began to warp and peel away like melting wax.
Four padded claws dug deep into the bark with a screeching scrape.
As the monster slowly shifted, its scales rippled with changing colors, shifting from a deep woody brown to bright emerald green, before finally settling on a metallic silver.
It looked like a hybrid of a lizard and a feline, scaled up ten times and stretched to fifteen meters.
The row of serrated bone spurs on its spine glinted with a metallic luster in the dim rainforest light.
The Taowu leaped from the branches, landing in front of Frey, and let out a menacing growl at the monster.
Frey shielded the shivering little monkey in his pocket and asked, “Long Jiu, is this the big guy you said has been sleeping for two years?”
The Taowu let out a low growl from her throat and shook her head.