"Run!!"
Chai Xiaomi seized the opportunity, grabbed Ouyang Rui, whose legs were still trembling, and dashed forward without looking back.
She tugged at his sleeve, running desperately along the narrow path beneath the rock wall.
When fleeing, it's taboo to be exposed in the open; the target is too obvious and easily becomes a sitting duck. The only way is to choose hidden, narrow roads with cover.
Catching sight of a dense thicket of shrubs in the distance, Chai Xiaomi unhesitatingly veered towards it. She knew well that with their stamina, they would soon be caught by those two barbarians. Only by hiding could they possibly escape this ordeal.
Chai Xiaomi didn't know how long she had run, only that Ouyang Rui's body behind her was getting heavier and heavier.
By the end, she was almost dragging him forward.
He was practically a burden, but her conscience wouldn't allow her to abandon a friend halfway.
She cast a hasty glance back and discovered that the arrow in his arm had been pulled out by himself at some point. His sleeve was soaked dark red, and right now his face was as pale as paper, cold sweat covering his forehead, while his lower lip was bitten tightly.
It was obvious he had lost too much blood.
Seeing her look back, Ouyang Rui even weakly and boastfully managed a smile, with a self-righteous bravado: "Xiaomi, I'm a manly man, this little injury is nothing to worry about."
But as he spoke, his eyelids drooped heavily, as if he would completely pass out in the next second.
"No, bro!" Chai Xiaomi was so angry her vision went dark. If he wasn't already half-unconscious, she really wanted to split his head open on the spot to see if it was filled with seawater.
This guy actually thought his action was pretty cool?
"Who told you to pull the arrow out yourself?!"
She was going crazy.
How could this person have no common sense at all?
With the arrowhead stuck in the flesh, blindly pulling it out would only tear the wound and make the blood gush out.
No wonder he got heavier the more she dragged him. If the blood hadn't sprayed so fast, they might have been able to run a bit further.
Her own stamina was also about to run out.
After all, she was just an out-of-shape, fragile college student.
Compared to those two wild men behind them, who were as agile as leopards, she had absolutely no chance in speed.
The rough curses were rapidly closing in on this side.
Just when she was at her wits' end, Chai Xiaomi suddenly stopped in her tracks. She saw a small clearing in front of the mountain wall ahead, and on the rock face, there was actually a local earth god temple carved into it!
The entire temple was embedded in the mountain wall, forming a concave space.
For such a desolate place to have a temple.
It was bizarrely abrupt.
Using reverse psychology, the more strange and suspicious a place seemed, the safer it might actually be.
It's the old saying, the most dangerous place is the safest place.
Take a gamble!
Chai Xiaomi struggled to pull the weak Ouyang Rui into the earth god temple. The inside of the temple was more spacious than it looked from the outside, and mottled dragon relief sculptures could be vaguely seen on the stone walls.
But she had no mind to look closely at the moment. She pulled Ouyang Rui to the altar and pointed behind the earth god statue, issuing a hurried command: "Do you still have the strength to climb up? Quick, hide behind the statue!"
"No... I can't." Ouyang Rui was covered in cold sweat. He glanced at the narrow gap that could only fit one person and shook his head in refusal. "If I hide in there, what about you?"
"Every moment you delay now is bringing me closer to harm. I told you to climb, so climb quickly, why so much nonsense?" Chai Xiaomi, brooking no argument, pushed him toward the altar. "Hurry up!"
Ouyang Rui, intimidated by her harsh urging, didn't dare to argue further. He could only grit his teeth, tremblingly climb behind the statue, and curl up to hide.
Upholding the principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket.
After settling Ouyang Rui, Chai Xiaomi hurriedly ran out of the temple, frantically scanning the surroundings. She unexpectedly found an inconspicuous small grave mound in the bushes not far from the earth god temple.
In front of the grave stood a dilapidated wooden stele with no characters carved on it.
It was a blank stele.
The grave soil looked loose and uncompacted, as if it had been dug up by someone, and it was still a bit damp after the rain. Chai Xiaomi's eyes lit up. She hastily gathered dead leaves and broken branches from the ground, muttering softly to herself, "Excuse me, excuse me, just borrowing this place for a bit..."
She paused her movements, not hiding immediately, but first pulling the string of lily of the valley from her hair. She ran quickly to the fork in the road on the other side and gently dropped the flowers on the ground.
Then she turned back, darted behind the tombstone, and quickly buried her lower body in the loose grave soil. She carefully covered her upper body with dead branches and leaves, held her breath, and remained motionless.
The entire mountain range suddenly became as quiet as a grave.
*
"Master, this is an empty grave."
Jiang Zhiyu sheathed his sword, looking at the loose soil he had just pushed aside, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes.
The tombstone had no words, and there were no bones in the grave. Why set up an empty grave here?
"No, it's not an empty grave." The white cat leaped onto the mound of dirt, pawed lightly a few times, and unearthed a smooth, verdant semi-circular jade pendant. The jade pendant was carved with a dragon pattern, and its shape should be one half of a pair.
"Isn't there a piece of jade buried here! How can you, a young man, have worse eyesight than this old man?"
The white cat held the jade pendant in its paws and examined it closely, but the other half was nowhere to be found.
Just not long ago, the invisibility spell on the two of them was about to expire, almost exposing their whereabouts, so they had to sneak rapidly along a mine tunnel.
Who knew that after passing all the way through, they would arrive in front of this remote earth god temple.
At first, they hadn't noticed this grave mound in the bushes. It was because Jiang Zhiyu needed to relieve himself and wanted to find a corner to do so. When he looked down and saw it was a grave, he was so startled he held his urine back.
Setting up a grave next to an earth god temple was already strange. The white cat had originally wanted to loosen the soil and summon the soul to ask what was going on, but unexpectedly, there were no bones in the grave.
It clutched that half of the jade pendant, its cat eyes rolling twice, as if it had sensed something, and pondered: "There is a remnant soul attached to this jade pendant. Disciple, do you still remember the soul-summoning art I taught you?"
"I remember." Jiang Zhiyu nodded, taking a yellow talisman from his chest, but he was a bit hesitant. "It's just that I haven't prepared chicken blood and glutinous rice yet. What if I accidentally summon some evil spirit? What should we do then?"
The soul-summoning art required thorough preparation. Right now, it was rushed, and he hadn't brought a single evil-warding item.
Moreover, the master's spiritual core was damaged just now when reversing the celestial phenomena. If some dirty thing was really drawn over, it would probably be difficult to handle.
The white cat snorted softly, its whiskers twitching slightly: "With your master sitting here, what are you afraid of? It's just a change in the celestial phenomena, and my spiritual core is only slightly damaged. This old man won't go down that easily."
It raised its head high, its tail sticking straight up, looking proud, as if saying "Even if the sky falls, your master will hold it up."
Jiang Zhiyu hesitated for a moment, sighing inwardly: The old man is putting on a brave face again.
The more he pretended nothing was wrong, the heavier the injury usually was.
But in the end, he didn't expose it. He just raised his hand as instructed, drawing a soul-summoning spell in the air and imprinting it on the yellow talisman.
His fingers moved in incantation gestures, muttering the spell. The yellow talisman floated into mid-air and instantly transformed into a bronze bell, hanging silently above the tombstone.
"Ding-ling—"
The sound of the bell echoed faintly in this clearing, cold and eerie.
The white cat gently placed the jade pendant in front of the tombstone.
Time seemed to stretch out immensely, every breath making one hold their breath.
They waited intently, their gazes locked tightly on the front of the grave.
Suddenly, the sound of the bell trembled slightly.
A pair of faintly discernible feet slowly emerged from the void, moving silently toward the tombstone, and finally coming to a stop in front of it...
*
In the Starfall Plains.
Chai Xiaomi, hiding within a mound of dirt, suddenly froze.
She heard the distinct sound of footsteps heading this way.
They stopped in front of the tombstone.
"Unale, what on earth are you looking at?!" Bagan shouted gruffly from behind. "Hey! Look what I found, the lily of the valley from the little beauty's hair! They must have run in that direction! Hurry up and chase after them!"
"Wait."
Unale suddenly spoke.
Every nerve in Chai Xiaomi's body instantly pulled taut, fear winding around her heart like icy vines.
Those footsteps were actually closing in on her hiding spot, step by step!
Every single footfall felt as if it were trampling directly on her frayed nerves.
