Wu Ling moved through the forest. The strange trail and the eerie silence around him raised his guard higher with every step.
A forest was not supposed to be quiet. Even at night, wolves, owls, and other nocturnal creatures made noise. It was broad daylight now. The woods should have been alive.
Insects, birds, beast roars. Even if they were not everywhere all the time, he should have heard something every so often. But aside from the wind and his own footsteps, he heard nothing at all.
He had already been walking for more than an hour. According to the map, this stretch should have entered the territory of thousand-year Soul Beasts. Yet he had not seen a thousand-year Soul Beast. He had not even seen a hundred-year Soul Beast, or even a ten-year one.
At first, Wu Ling had not paid it much attention. But the longer he walked, the more wrong it felt. He had thought the Evil Spirit Master might have cleared the path ahead of time for an easier escape, but then he reconsidered. Would that not leave an obvious trail for pursuers to follow? So he rejected that guess.
After walking until now, Wu Ling took out some water and drank a mouthful. Then he jumped onto a tree and unfolded his map.
He looked at the surrounding terrain, compared it with the map, then thought over the path he had taken. "Mm. Confirmed. I am definitely lost."
Wu Ling pressed a finger to the spot where he had entered, then drew forward along the map while muttering, "I checked the compass three times. I am sure I have been moving north. By that logic, I should have passed a river thirty minutes ago. But in my memory, I did not see a river. I did not even see a little pond."
"Even if I drifted off-course, I should not have drifted this far. And according to the map, the area I passed through ten minutes ago should have been the nest of a thousand-year Golden Tiger. I did not see so much as one tiger hair."
While Wu Ling was still puzzled, a rustle suddenly came from the grass nearby.
Without a word, Wu Ling folded away the map, jumped down, and used the tree as cover while watching the grass.
The grass shook for a while. Then a weasel slowly crawled out.
Wu Ling sensed that the weasel only had a few hundred years of Spirit Power in its body, but he still did not lower his guard. In many horror movies, ordinary animals always appeared first. Then, right when the protagonist relaxed, they were killed to deliver a shock and introduce the real threat.
Wu Ling waited and waited, but nothing came out behind it. As for the weasel he had not been focusing on, it had been staring directly at his hiding place the whole time.
"Hey, brother over there. No need to keep peeking. There really is no other beast behind me."
The weasel's sudden speech startled Wu Ling. His mind went blank for a second. A Soul Beast with only a few hundred years of cultivation had just spoken.
A powerful sense of deja vu rose in Wu Ling's mind. It reminded him of a Blue Planet legend about the Weasel Immortal.
Once he remembered that legend, Wu Ling's imagination opened wide. Or perhaps his brain simply shorted out.
He suddenly leapt out, pointed his long blade at the weasel, and shouted, "Monster! Do you not know that after the founding of the nation, spirits are not allowed to cultivate into demons?"
The weasel was also startled by his sudden yell. It stood upright in confusion and very humanly scratched its head with its front paws.
"Founding? What founding?"
Wu Ling spun his blade in a flourish and continued, "Then you do not know about the 1999 agreement either?"
The weasel stared at Wu Ling with innocent little eyes. Then it spread both paws and shook its head.
"Then do you have nothing to say?"
The weasel seemed about to shake its head again, but after shaking a few times, it seemed to remember something. It hurriedly pulled a piece of paper from the storage ring on its hind leg and began reading carefully.
Wu Ling found that even more unbelievable. A weasel had a storage ring. And was it reading words right now?
"Uh, cough cough. Brother, do I look like a person, or do I look like a god?"
"..."
"I think you look like a beast-eared little girl about 160 cm tall, gentle and considerate, small and cute, outrageously rich, and perfectly obedient to me."
After hearing Wu Ling's answer, the weasel stared at him blankly. It still did not understand what he had just said. Then it looked back down at the paper.
"Um, we only have two answers here: person or god. Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing? Allie gave me that!"
Wu Ling simply stepped forward and snatched the paper away.
The first line on the paper was the exact sentence the weasel had just spoken. Beneath it were two arrows. Under one arrow was person. Under the other was god.
Below person was written: give ten meals a day. Below god was written: give one meal every ten days.
Since the paper gave no answers, Wu Ling reached down and grabbed the scruff of the weasel, which was clearly a hundred-year Soul Beast but was still pawing at his trouser leg like an ordinary pet. He lifted it until it could meet his eyes.
"Tell me. Who is Allie?"
"Allie is just a six-year-old little girl. If I tell you, you cannot hurt her."
"Relax. I am only lost. Right now, I just want to find a place to rest. As long as she does not attack me, I will not do anything to her."
Maybe it had no choice. Maybe it sensed that Wu Ling was not lying. Either way, the weasel told him everything.
It told him that Allie was only six years old, had not awakened her Martial Soul yet, and was especially cute. It also told him about the village she lived in, a settlement of around thirty people, and the village's three elders.
One proper elder liked tying straw dolls. One deputy elder liked making wooden boxes. The other deputy elder changed every time, but for some reason, the name was always the same.
When he heard about the third one, Wu Ling immediately thought of the Evil Spirit Master who could change skins.
"Walk. You guide me. Once we reach that place, I will let you go."
Under the weasel's guidance, Wu Ling walked for another half hour before arriving at an open space.
Before he even stepped in, he saw a black-haired little girl picking mushrooms.
The moment the weasel saw her, it waved while still hanging from Wu Ling's hand. "Allie! Allie!"
The little girl placed a mushroom into her basket and looked up in the direction of the voice. "Goldie, why did you come back ag...?"
The instant she saw Wu Ling, her words cut off. Then, without the slightest fear of strangers, she ran over with a face full of surprise and asked, too excited to speak clearly, "You... you... are you from outside?"