Night had completely fallen. The cool evening breeze blew over everyone around the campfire, trying to ease their tension. Su Jiu sat alone on a distant tree stump, took a sip of egg liquid, and closed her eyes to cultivate.
"Sister Qianyu, are there really powerful demons?" The speaker was the girl from Bai Qianyu's dorm who had previously said Su Jiu went to "nightclubs."
Following her inquiry, several more girls gathered around—all from their dormitory.
"Yes..."
Looking at Su Jiu sitting cross-legged alone in the distance, Bai Qianyu pursed her lips, used a burning stick to push dry grass further in, then suddenly smiled at their tense faces: "But with Sister Jiu here, we'll be fine."
"Sister Jiu?"
The girls instinctively thought they'd misheard, but following Bai Qianyu's gaze, they understood that their backbone had always revered Su Jiu, whom they'd once looked down upon.
"Crack crack!"
The grass stems crackled as they burned. As some girls mustered courage to sing and ease the atmosphere, their faces seemed less tense.
Another gust of wind blew—had the wind gotten stronger?
Some people seemed to notice something and were about to investigate.
"So it's come after all?"
Su Jiu, who was sitting cross-legged, suddenly felt something in her heart. Opening her eyes, she drew her dagger and shouted loudly: "Everyone get back!"
Suddenly, a golden light flickered in the distant grass. Everyone was stunned and instinctively retreated as commanded.
Seeing the speed of that golden light, Su Jiu stopped hiding. Her figure moved, vertical pupils leaving pale blue traces in the night. She gathered power for one slash—a blue light flashed quickly like lightning in the night sky, illuminating the distant scenery.
The golden light in the distance suddenly became bright at this moment. A huge writhing body charged out—a strange python with green flesh wings, the golden light emanating from its eyes.
But just as the strange python charged out, the blue light struck. In an instant, frost appeared, frost qi surged, the golden light was instantly extinguished, the strange python let out sharp hisses, then abruptly stopped and fell silent.
Next came a huge muffled sound—the strange python's massive body had crashed to the ground, its bulging belly suggesting something.
"Wind Demon Python, Intermediate Warrior level. Creates strange winds when moving. Looking at this bulging belly, it might..." The blue light flashed and vanished. Su Jiu lowered her head and walked toward the Wind Demon Python with a stern face.
Then, under everyone's uncomprehending gazes, she stabbed her dagger hard into it. With a "rip," she cut open the hard scales, revealing scenes that needed censoring—severed limbs, undigested human hands...
"Pythons don't tear apart their prey..."
Suppressing her nausea, Su Jiu used her dagger to break the python's digestive membrane, picking up a piece of clothing from inside. The clothing vaguely had a "Zhiyuan" school badge pinned to it.
"Those people probably encountered something even more terrifying. We can't stay here. We need to go back tomorrow."
Su Jiu's brows furrowed slightly. This was obviously just two corpses—with so many of them, they couldn't possibly be afraid of just one Wind Demon Python with average aggression...
Casually wiping her dagger clean, she sent a message to Liu Hong requesting retreat. These students had no way to survive in such a crisis-filled place.
Everyone stared dumbfounded at the ten-meter-long giant python corpse, seeming not to have reacted yet.
The girl from Bai Qianyu's dorm suddenly seemed to think of something. Her pupils contracted sharply as she pointed at Su Jiu, trembling and crying out: "You... you're the Frost Swordsman?!"
Her voice startled everyone else. Another girl beside her took out her phone, frantically comparing that video with Su Jiu's silhouette, stammering: "Identical techniques... Su... Su Jiu is a Dragon Hunter?"
"Isn't Su Jiu just a student?"
"You don't know? Outstanding Dragon Hunters can be cultivated from childhood."
"From now on, I'm following Big Sister Su Jiu."
Immediately the surrounding voices exploded. They looked at that small figure and felt even more glad they had stayed. Being with the Frost Swordsman was much safer than wandering around with that idiot Xiao Yun.
Some people looked at the dead Wind Demon Python still emitting frost and had thoughts of taking scales to sell for money, also taking out knives wanting to pry them off.
But no matter how hard they tried, they could only add scratches to the scales. Su Jiu glanced at them, then with a few more cuts, scraped off all the 10-centimeter scales for them to collect.
Though Su Jiu was short on money, she really didn't care about things worth only a hundred or so yuan. Looking at her somewhat worn precision steel dagger, she touched the still-sleeping Hungry Ghost.
When they returned, she'd get this glutton a magic crystal. Daggers would wear down even against Warrior-level opponents, let alone fighting cult leaders in Su Jiu's imagined scenarios.
Snakes generally manifested as long-handled swords or whips. Hungry Ghost should be similar, right?
The next day, dawn was just breaking.
Su Jiu, who had been keeping watch outside the camp, slightly opened her eyes. Seeing an outer garment with a gardenia scent covering her, she smiled slightly in her heart, took off the clothes and slowly stood up, laughing: "Little Bai, this girl..."
She opened her phone again and found Liu Hong had already ordered retreat, so she shouted to the students in the tents: "Retreat! We're going back to where we came from today."
Soon, all students finished packing. They looked at Su Jiu with extremely admiring gazes.
While admiring, they were also somewhat speechless. Last night they'd posted on social media bragging about their choice to friends, but not one person believed Su Jiu was the Frost Swordsman.
During the march, a student suddenly asked: "Monitor Su Jiu, what's that?"
Su Jiu looked up and saw white light flashing on a distant hillside, moving even faster than the Wind Demon Python.
"That's a Spirit-Seeking Fox, a very cute good demon." Su Jiu glanced at it, then looked away, smiling: "This one should be Junior Warrior level."
Everyone was collectively stunned. Bai Qianyu beside Su Jiu took out her phone, showing them a picture: "Although many demons harbor malice toward humans, a small portion are friendly to humans."
"This Spirit-Seeking Fox is one of them. Though small, it's quite strong, especially fast as lightning, far exceeding the ordinary. But it's gentle by nature. There are specialized institutions domestically that sell them as beast companions. They're said to manifest as fans."
Bai Qianyu pointed at the flashing white light and smiled softly: "Moreover, this beast is spiritual and kind-hearted. It actively rescues people in danger who are lost. If you're ever in the wilderness and unfortunately encounter danger and get trapped, you might be rescued by this little cutie and save your life."
Those girls who already loved cute creatures felt fondness upon hearing this, all moving closer to where the Spirit-Seeking Fox was.
The flashing white light now also stopped, revealing its true form. In appearance, it was a fox that looked only palm-sized, with delicate white light patterns flowing all over its body, soft and lively.
A girl even asked directly, looking somewhat pitiful: "Monitor Su Jiu, I'm learning to use fans as weapons in the future. Can I contract with it?"
"That depends on you. It likes to eat some sour berries. Why don't you try feeding it some sour things?" Su Jiu looked at the sky and found it was still early, so she let them play around.
The girl cheered: "Thank you, Monitor. I'll try."
She carefully took out several bottles of apple cider vinegar for weight loss from her backpack and walked toward the Spirit-Seeking Fox.
After initial wariness and familiarity, the person and fox gradually became acquainted.
Seeing this, Su Jiu also wanted to feed and play with it, taking out a strawberry-flavored lollipop to tease it. For a moment, the little fox was thoroughly spoiled by everyone.
Even the boys who had no interest in approaching came over to play, smiling as they took photos with their phones. It seemed that Student Su Jiu, being the Frost Swordsman, was also very gentle.
The Spirit-Seeking Fox transformed into white light, shuttling through the tall grass, running and stopping while several female students chased after it. The emotions previously frightened by demons seemed to relax all at once.
Su Jiu didn't stop them either—demons rarely came out to forage at midday.
After walking for some time, they saw a youth lying on a distant boulder, wearing a neighboring city's school uniform, looking like he'd been attacked by demons and seemed barely alive.
The female students were slightly startled, all moving closer to Su Jiu. Then suddenly they saw white light flash as the Spirit-Seeking Fox appeared, carefully observing for a moment before approaching the person lying on the boulder.
They saw the small Spirit-Seeking Fox walk forward, bite the person's uniform collar with its mouth, and with a forceful neck swing, began dragging him. Its head was indeed small but quite strong.
But just then, the originally seemingly barely-alive uniformed male student suddenly reached out and grabbed its neck, then turned over and sat up.
The Spirit-Seeking Fox let out a sharp cry, desperately struggling, but the male student laughed loudly: "The method the vice monitor introduced really works. Without this, I really couldn't catch something with speed comparable to an Intermediate Warrior. 20 points easily obtained."
The female student who wanted to contract with it stepped forward and questioned: "What do you want to do?"
The uniformed male student turned to look over, saying carelessly: "What's it to you?"
Immediately others angrily stepped forward: "The little fox thought you were in danger and kindly tried to save you, but you deliberately pretended to be in distress to kill it?"
"This little thing is stupid enough to fall for it—who can it blame?" The male student said dismissively. "You Huayang people should learn from us Huawen City folks during training—learn how to kill demons and protect your homeland instead of being dead last every year."
Then his grip strength kept increasing. With a forceful squeeze, the Spirit-Seeking Fox's eyeballs bulged as if about to pop out. The next moment it spat blood, and the student casually threw it aside. It could only convulse on the ground—clearly dying.
Then he smiled and took out his phone to photograph it. Seeing the points transmitted, he made a "yeah" gesture.
Su Jiu looked at her indignant classmates beside her, tilted her head and said expressionlessly to Bai Qianyu: "Little Bai, looks like you can test the techniques I taught you early. Someone's asking for a beating."