"Of course I've seen it. But I was lucky enough to run into Senior Wei Zhao, and he stepped in and saved me." Fei Yangnian's tone carried an involuntary note of pride, even a hint of showing off—after all, apart from Leng Leng and a few others, there were precious few people whom Wei Zhao would go out of his way to rescue. That in itself counted as a rare honor.

"The one surnamed Lin? He'd take the initiative to save you?" Xue Jianming shot him a glance, his eyes plainly tinged with disbelief. He knew Fei Yangnian and Wei Zhao had crossed paths to some degree, but in his view that had been nothing more than Wei Zhao casually forcing Fei Yangnian to do a stint of hard labor for him. As for Fei Yangnian being one of Wei Zhao's own people—he did not believe it for a moment. Otherwise he would have dealt with the fellow long ago.

"But of course," Fei Yangnian said brazenly. Wei Zhao really had saved him—that much was true—but it had been purely incidental. Had Wei Zhao known from the start that he was the one trapped by the Twin-Stem Man-Eating Flower, he might well not have wasted his time on him at all. This was nothing but Fei Yangnian flattering himself.

Xue Jianming was half convinced at best. He did not much believe Fei Yangnian's words, but the fact remained that the man was alive and unharmed. He smiled a thin, ambiguous smile. "So you and the one surnamed Lin are on good terms, then?"

"More or less... I suppose..." Fei Yangnian felt a pang of guilt now—not for fabricating the connection, but because he remembered that Xue Jianming and Wei Zhao did not get along. If the man hardened his heart and killed him just to vent his spleen, with his meager strength he would not even have room to run.

"In that case, you stick with me for now. Maybe the one surnamed Lin will come looking for you before long." Xue Jianming thought it over and said.

"What? Go with you?" Fei Yangnian was startled. Had this been before, the chance to latch onto Xue Jianming's coattails in a place like this would have been exactly what he wished for. But now, in order to talk himself up, he had voluntarily branded himself as Wei Zhao's man. What good could come of following Xue Jianming now?

"You're not willing?" Xue Jianming said, eyeing him sidelong.

"Well... it's not that I'm unwilling, exactly. It's just—whether Senior Wei Zhao comes looking for me or not, what business is that of yours?" Fei Yangnian muttered, full of misgivings. He had no idea what the man was scheming, and it left him uneasy.

"Hmph. Save the chatter. Are you coming or not?" Xue Jianming's eyes bulged.

"Coming, coming! I'll come with you!" Fei Yangnian was startled on the spot. He dared not defy Xue Jianming to his face, and besides, going with him now was not entirely without benefit—at least he would not casually end up in some other spirit beast's jaws, and his life would gain a measure of security.

Privately, though, Fei Yangnian could not resist grumbling in his heart. This fellow bringing me along is surely up to no good. Just wait till Senior Wei Zhao gets here—then I'll see you done in but good. So what if you're a fine hand at the Golden Core stage? Last time you could barely beat even Leng Leng, let alone Senior Wei Zhao. Senior Wei Zhao subdued even the Water Lily Guardian—what the hell are you, Xue Jianming!

Before they had gone two steps, Fei Yangnian suddenly asked again, "Er... where are we going?"

"Is that even a question? The River of Divine Consciousness, of course." Xue Jianming tossed the words over his shoulder and strode on ahead. With his strength he naturally had no need to be cautious the way Fei Yangnian was—unless it was a creature like the Primeval Giant Lizard. Otherwise, ordinary spirit beasts could not even flee in time when they saw him; and if any were foolish enough to try, the black mantis was a warning of what became of them.

Fei Yangnian had been somewhat worried that Xue Jianming would take him somewhere dangerous, but hearing it was the River of Divine Consciousness, he relaxed at once.

The two of them pressed on toward the River of Divine Consciousness, one ahead and one behind, and walked along without incident for a full two or three hours. Then the Xue Jianming in the lead suddenly froze in his tracks, and his expression changed drastically. "Damn it all! How did they chase us all the way here?"

"Who?" Fei Yangnian asked cautiously, secretly delighted—he assumed the man meant Wei Zhao and Duanmu Yu.

"Heh heh. You'd best pray for yourself!" Xue Jianming gave a cold laugh. In an instant his figure flickered as he made to shake off Fei Yangnian and leave alone, and beneath his feet the snow trace appeared faintly—he had, unmistakably, already employed Traceless Treading on Snow.

Fei Yangnian had not yet worked out what on earth was going on when a rumbling boom reached him, growing from distant to near. In moments it was right before his eyes, and when he made out just who was producing this enormous commotion, he collapsed on the spot in terror, his face ashen, stammering, "Pri... Pri... Primeval Giant Lizard?!"

Nor was it only the Primeval Giant Lizard—Bing Wushuang appeared together with it. Compared to before, Bing Wushuang was visibly far more bedraggled now, while the Primeval Giant Lizard bore a dozen or more wounds, some shallow and some deep, and its state was even more savage than before!

There was no help for it. This Primeval Giant Lizard was too fast; even relying on the Heartless Ice Force, Bing Wushuang could not shake it off. Each time he could only wear it down for a spell before fleeing himself, whereupon the Primeval Giant Lizard would come after him relentlessly, and Bing Wushuang would again contrive to delay it a while—and so the cycle repeated, all the way here.

By rights, every spirit beast had its own territory, and save for a very few special circumstances, such beasts seldom left it, since doing so amounted to a public declaration of war on all other spirit beasts. Bing Wushuang had thought that once he escaped the Primeval Giant Lizard's territory he would be safe. Facts proved he had thought too much.

This Primeval Giant Lizard paid no mind to any such trifles; it simply pursued him single-mindedly with brute obstinacy. The other spirit beasts, seeing it, did not dare bar its way in the slightest—they were no fools. Against such a brainless fiend, they could not flee fast enough; who the hell would step up and throw their life away?

Xue Jianming had fled first, leaving the field, and Fei Yangnian, taking in the scene, was so frightened that his legs turned to jelly and he collapsed on the spot. He gritted his teeth a long while before tottering to his feet and backing away. Fortunately the Primeval Giant Lizard's attention had been fixed on Bing Wushuang the whole time; otherwise, in the moment his legs gave out, even the slightest stray brush of that battle would have killed him ten times over.

"Good thing I've got no presence to speak of, or my little life would've been forfeit today." Fei Yangnian counted himself lucky as he retreated. But he had not rejoiced long when he suddenly felt a searing pain at his back, as if cut by a blade. He whirled around and only then discovered that at some unknown point threads of ice had congealed out of thin air behind him, dense as a spider's web, slender and transparent and razor-sharp.

"What's going on?!" Fei Yangnian was startled yet again. These ice threads, thick and close, had all but sealed off every path of retreat. With Bing Wushuang and the Primeval Giant Lizard drawing nearer and nearer, this was shaping up to be a case of becoming cannon fodder in earnest! (To be continued.)