The deeper one ventured into the mountain range, the more likely they were to encounter high-level Aberrant Beasts. If it hadn’t been for chasing down the “mutated” black serpent, Zhou Yu would never have dared to transform into his Beast Form as a white egret and make such a conspicuous display in the sky.
Now that they were heading back, for safety’s sake, Lu Feng decided they should travel on foot.
Qibao didn’t want to walk anymore.
Her tower body was impervious to blades and arrows, indestructible—but this newly condensed physical form of hers was even more delicate than those pampered young masters and misses of the mortal world. After a full month of trekking over mountains and valleys, a layer of calluses had formed on the soles of her feet, and every bone and muscle in her body was exhausted beyond measure. She alone had to endure it, but now that there were people who could carry her, Qibao no longer wished to suffer.
Not wanting to impose on strangers, Qibao walked slowly while using her Divine Sense to communicate with Yin Mo inside the tower: “I told them you’re my pet, so they won’t kill you anymore.”
Yin Mo heard her, suppressed the displeasure rising in his chest, and gave a faint, terse thanks with his eyes closed.
Qibao: “Since you’re a pet, you must be useful to me. Otherwise, who would take on the risk of being injured by their own beast to keep it?”
Yin Mo: “…What do you want me to do?”
He was four thousand years old this year—he hadn’t bothered to keep track of the odd years, only remembering that he had lived freely for a thousand years, and the remaining three thousand had been spent imprisoned within the Qibao Tower. But during those long three thousand years of captivity, he had only ever suffered the Suppression and burning of the tower’s Restrictions. He had never sensed the presence of the Tower Spirit, so he couldn’t quite gauge its temperament.
Qibao: “I’m tired. Come out and be my mount.”
Yin Mo: “…Didn’t you see that I’m covered in wounds?”
Qibao: “I saw you running like the wind even with all those wounds. And don’t try to play the victim with me. For a Millennial Great Demon like you, these injuries are barely skin-deep.”
When the seven Great Demons had first been sealed inside the tower, each of them had been fiercely unwilling, raising a ruckus every few days trying to break through the array’s Restrictions. Take Yin Mo for example—a full month of True Fire burning couldn’t kill him. He was still full of vigor, charging left and right. What were a few shed snake scales compared to that?
Yin Mo’s injuries truly weren’t severe, but he had no desire to serve as someone’s mount.
His first thought was to flee, but he couldn’t even defeat two human Ability Users, and he had no idea whether the Tower Spirit had other means to suppress or kill him.
After weighing his options, Yin Mo probed: “If I refuse, will you burn me with fire?”
One might think this layer of tower space was quiet and peaceful, seemingly ideal for rest and recovery—but that was only because he had stayed obedient and hadn’t attempted to escape. Throughout those three thousand years, no matter how much time had passed, the moment Yin Mo tried to run, the True Fire within the Suppression Array would ignite and burn until he settled down before it disappeared.
The array’s pull had weakened. Yin Mo was curious whether the True Fire’s power had also diminished significantly.
Qibao: “No need for that. I’m just thinking—if you listen to me and do as I command, I’ll also let you out regularly to get some fresh air. We’ll benefit each other.”
Yin Mo’s pupils shifted from vertical slits to half-circles, then contracted back to slits, indicating he was deep in thought.
Yin Mo suspected the Tower Spirit was trying to trick him. The fact that the several Great Demons had managed to escape meant the tower could no longer hold them, which was why the Tower Spirit was pretending to be kind by letting them out for air.
But the Tower Spirit could indeed offer him benefits—for instance, the tower’s absolute defense could protect him from attacks by powerful Ability Users or Aberrant Beasts in this world.
Yin Mo, accustomed to ruling supreme in the mortal realm, couldn’t accept a life of constant fleeing, unable to even claim a fixed territory.
“Fine. Tell them first, then release me.”
Having easily obtained a mount, Qibao was delighted. In a casual tone, she informed the two Ability Users of her transportation arrangement.
Zhou Yu’s eyes went wide: “It listens to you that well?”
Qibao: “Mm. I can communicate with it through my Spiritual Entity. It’s seen the dangers out here, so it has no choice but to accept my protection.”
With that, she released the tower she had stored in her Sea of Consciousness and opened the first layer’s gate.
A streak of black light shot out, rapidly transforming into a black serpent over ten meters long and as thick as a water bucket before the wary eyes of Zhou Yu and Lu Feng. Its massive head hovered slightly above the ground, obediently facing forward like a proper mount, showing no sign of fleeing or even glancing back.
Qibao, who knew no other practical spells besides controlling the tower, clumsily climbed onto a section of the serpent’s body where the scales were intact. To maintain her balance, she straddled it with legs spread apart and braced her hands on the hard, cool, neatly arranged scales in front of her.
A giant serpent of this size—even if Zhou Yu and Lu Feng were both A-rank Ability Users capable of defending themselves—still sent a chill down their spines at such close range. They worried the serpent might turn and attack them at any moment. In contrast, the girl called Qibao’s eyes grew even brighter at the sight of the enlarged black serpent. The way she smiled while climbing onto it made one can’t help but imagine the carefree joy of settling into one’s own luxury car.
It was clear now—she genuinely loved this serpent. No wonder she wanted to catch it as a pet!
“Let’s go. You two lead the way.” Qibao said in a light, cheerful tone.
Lu Feng and Zhou Yu’s mercenary squad consisted of five people in total. They had entered the mountains on a mercenary mission. After Lu Feng and Zhou Yu chased off to hunt down the black snake, the remaining three teammates stayed behind to wait for them. Given the stamina and speed of two A-rank Ability Users, they would still need another three to four hours to return.
In the gap where he didn’t have to chat with the two Ability Users, Qibao had been communicating with Yin Mo through Divine Sense the entire time.
Qibao: “When did you all run out? Where are the fox demon and the others?”
Yin Mo: “Five years ago. You know, for those three thousand years, you kept us cut off from any perception of the outside world. We could only sleep to pass the time, with no idea what you and your master were doing…”
Qibao: “She’s just my Contractor, not my master.”
Yin Mo: “…Anyway, five years ago, the Restriction on the formation suddenly weakened. The bear demon noticed it first and was the first to escape. Once he left, the fox demon, the ox demon, and a few others followed. I was more cautious—I worried your Contractor might be deliberately testing whether we’d truly reformed, so I waited another three months before leaving.”
“The nearest base to this mountain range is Tancheng Base. When I went over, I only ran into the ox demon inside the base. According to him, the fox demon and the others were afraid your Contractor might come after them, so they split up to make their own way elsewhere. Not long after, the ox demon left too. I was still cautious—I didn’t want your Contractor to misunderstand that I was running around causing trouble—so I stayed living at Tancheng Base. Later, I found it too noisy inside, so I returned to the mountains and went to the base periodically to trade for food.”
The Aberrant Beast meat here didn’t contain Spiritual Qi and tasted terrible. Only after being processed by humans at the base could it barely go down.
After all, Yin Mo was a demon snake that had awakened spiritual intelligence—he had long since shed the crude dietary habits of ordinary wild beasts.
Qibao: “Do you have any way to contact them?”
Yin Mo: “No. The base issues Identity Bracelets to residents who check in, but signals can’t connect between different bases. The ox demon added me as a friend before he left, but he didn’t say where he planned to settle.”
Qibao: “How big is this world?”
Yin Mo: “Not big. From Tancheng Base to the Capital Base in the northeast is only three thousand li. Without flying, without a car, traveling only on foot, and with no Aberrant Beast interference, it would take a month.”
Compared to a Cultivation World where a single continent spanned hundreds of thousands of li, this world was indeed very small.
The problem was, without those Immortal Cultivation Spells, Qibao trying to find six Great Demons that had already been on the run for five years was like searching for a needle in the ocean.
This matter couldn’t be rushed. Qibao continued to ask Yin Mo about the situation at the base.
Yin Mo—a snake demon who had been locked up for three thousand years and had barely spoken a few words inside the tower—was today forced to serve as a guide for the Tower Spirit riding on his back.
Only then did Qibao learn that the people of this world were all ordinary humans who had been living fairly peaceful lives. Eight years ago, an unpredictable cosmic ray suddenly descended, and billions of ordinary people fell ill and died because they couldn’t adapt to the new radiation. The survivors had adapted to the environment, but they still had to face hunting by Aberrant Beasts, until some survivors awakened their Spiritual Entities and gained powerful abilities, gradually building up bases one after another to shelter the masses.
Qibao: “Mental Body Detector? When you entered the base, didn’t it detect that you weren’t human?”
Yin Mo: “My human form was cultivated through a thousand years of cultivation—even the Heavenly Dao acknowledges it. On what basis would the detector judge that I’m not human? A low-grade machine. I released an Original Body Phantom, and it said my Spiritual Entity was a snake, A-rank, with an attached A-rank water ability.”
He actually still mastered many spells—such as Cloud-Riding Mist-Driving—but because this world’s Spiritual Qi was far too thin, he could no longer cast any of them. All that remained were his innate Divine Abilities of water control and shapeshifting, and even the water control Divine Ability had been weakened to the level of a human A-rank water ability. Infuriating.
In a bad mood, Yin Mo slithered faster and faster. Lu Feng and Zhou Yu, chasing after him, soon broke into a run.
Qibao snapped back to attention, swept his gaze over the two men pumping their arms as they ran, then patted the snake scales beneath him. “Slow down.”
Yin Mo didn’t listen, because he hated those two Ability Users who had wounded him. “I can take you to Tancheng Base. There’s no need to travel with them. Humans are all cunning—don’t let their appearances fool you. Maybe they’re coveting your beauty and planning to find a chance to control you. Oh, and there’s a kind of anesthetic at the base, specially used against high-level Aberrant Beasts. With my current constitution, even one shot could put me into a coma.”
Qibao smiled faintly. “Don’t compare your scales to my tower.”
Yin Mo: “…”
His scales were tugged, and he obediently slowed down.
Zhou Yu, gasping for breath, asked Qibao in a joking tone, “Your pet is this long—can the two of us ride on it too? We won’t ride for free. We’ll each give you 100 points.”
Before Qibao could answer, Yin Mo whipped his tail around, sweeping toward Zhou Yu.
Zhou Yu promptly transformed into a white egret the size of a sparrow, dodging the attack and flying up in front of Qibao. “Or, I could sit on your shoe?”
Qibao, penniless and in need of points, agreed without hesitation, lifting his right embroidered shoe, caked with mud, slightly into the air.
Zhou Yu landed on the space between the upturned toe and the instep of the shoe, his claws gripping the fabric firmly to steady himself, his bird head facing forward, proving that he wouldn’t peek under Qibao’s skirt.
Lu Feng, whose flame Spiritual Entity couldn’t transform, watched with twitching eyes, envious for a moment. His gaze couldn’t help but travel up from Qibao’s gray embroidered shoes, past her exquisitely embroidered white skirt, past her waistline that swayed slightly with her serpentine movements, finally resting on Qibao’s side profile—thin yet fair and delicate, like a young lady of a wealthy household who had never known hardship.
But Qibao’s temperament wasn’t that of a pampered young lady. Lu Feng still remembered standing on Zhou Yu’s back and seeing Qibao burst through the trees. Though her steps in ancient attire might have been clumsy, her solemn brows carried a righteous determination to save someone, much like the righteous celestial maidens described in literary works.
Lu Feng approached Qibao and said with concern, “I have a batch of women’s clothing in my space. I collected them at a supply depot earlier, planning to trade them for other supplies. If you’re interested, I can give you two sets? They’d be more convenient to wear than your current long dress.”
Qibao looked at his oddly styled fitted top and pants, and asked him to show her first.
Lu Feng didn’t have women’s combat uniforms, so he pulled out a thin long-sleeved women’s athletic set and a short-sleeved and pants set that would be cooler in the peak of summer—size 170L, which suited Qibao’s height.
Qibao was staring at the short-sleeved top that would expose her arms when Yin Mo’s Divine Sense transmitted to her: “Anyone who tells you to wear clothes like that is clearly not a decent person. Let’s ditch them and go on ahead.”
Qibao had a moment of doubt herself, but seeing that Lu Feng’s gaze was still fairly honest, she asked directly, “Is this how women in the base dress?”
Lu Feng: “Yes, men and women are about the same. We wear combat uniforms when going out on missions for safety, but they’re actually stuffy and uncomfortable.”
Zhou Yu, lying on the embroidered shoe on her right foot, tilted his head slightly and joined the conversation: “I’m curious about you too, Qibao. Did you only stockpile hanfu? It’s so inconvenient to wear, especially the shoes.”
Qibao: “…What’s hanfu?”
Her body appeared to be around eighteen years old, but when the apocalypse struck, she’d been a ten-year-old elementary school student. If she was from a small county town or rural area in 2004, it was perfectly normal not to have encountered the concept of hanfu.
The two young men continued explaining to her.
The more Qibao listened, the more she understood. Taking advantage of the cover of her wide sleeves, she pinched one of Yin Mo’s snake scales and yanked hard, punishing him for lying and framing a good person.
Her tower was powerful, but this body’s strength was limited. Yin Mo only felt a tickle. He turned his serpentine body and deliberately rubbed against a row of tree trunks nearby, hitting them with such force that leaves scattered down in a flurry.
Only then did Qibao let go.