Yue ger watched Yuan Heng leave, wanting to chase after him but unable to move. He glanced at the leader, but the leader pretended not to see him.
Lai Yuan led Yuan Heng to what had once been his home.
Now, it was crawling with giant lizards. Half the house had collapsed, and the lounge chair the little ger used to lie on was shattered into splinters.
The bed—where he and the little ger had spent countless intimate nights—was crushed under the weight of the beasts, the sheets stained with mud and blood...
The little ger’s clothes were scattered on the ground, trampled and torn by the beasts...
A surge of fury burned through Yuan Heng. The great white tiger spread its wings and roared.
The deafening cry sent the lizards scrambling, clearing a path.
The tiger descended, wings retracting as it landed, kicking up a cloud of dust. The force of its tail sent several lizards flying miles away...
Then it moved among the remaining beasts, its fangs sinking effortlessly into their flesh before flinging them aside...
Hundreds of giant lizards were utterly defenseless against the white tiger's fierce attacks, like obedient puppets being casually bitten and torn apart.
Lai Yuan stood watching from a distance... A sense of awe suddenly rose in his heart. He had experienced the ferocity of these lizards firsthand—both he and Xiao Ruo had nearly died under their jaws. Yet, this man killed them as easily as crushing toys...
He was truly this formidable.
Hundreds of lizards were slaughtered in an instant. The white tiger stood before the half-collapsed house, surrounded by the twitching corpses of the lizards, calm as a deity guarding his territory.
Lai Yuan stared in shock, only to see the man glance his way. Jolted back to his senses, he rushed to the spot where Wang Jin had fallen.
The white tiger followed, its gaze darkening at the sight of the bloodstains on the ground before leaping down the slope.
Lai Yuan was stunned...
That slope was teeming with beasts—yet Yuan Heng charged straight in!
He hurried to follow and help, but as he turned, he saw the white tiger spread its wings—massive, iron-hard wings that stirred the wind, sending smaller beasts flying before smashing them bloody into the ground...
Larger beasts tried to attack, but the tiger simply leaped, using their heads as stepping stones. Those trampled beneath its paws never rose again...
He walked straight through the beast tide, slaughtering every creature in his path, carving a bloody trail through the chaos.
Lai Yuan suddenly had the illusion that if this man willed it, he could cut straight through the entire tide...
Dazed, Lai Yuan realized—every past hunt with Yuan Heng had been him holding back...
If he had returned just one day earlier... just one day... would Jin ger have...?
But now, a defenseless ger had fallen into the beast tide a full day ago...
Could Jin ger still be found? Most likely, he was already inside some beast’s stomach...
Lai Yuan didn’t dare voice this thought, silently following Yuan Heng as they traced the ground for any sign of Wang Jin.
But the terrain had long been trampled into chaos by the beasts—how could traces from a day ago still remain?
____
After listening to the man’s words, Wang Jin finally pieced together the original owner’s background.
The original owner had an older brother, Xi Ning, the lord of Ning’an City, who doted on him and had been searching for him since his disappearance.
To this day, no one in Ning’an knew why the original owner had disappeared, only that it was related to an engagement.
The original owner's fiance was this man's elder brother, Cheng Li, while this man himself was Cheng Bai. He had come in his brother's place to search for the original owner...
"...Can the engagement be canceled?" Wang Jin asked after a long pause, his first concern laid bare.
Cheng Bai froze, his expression complicated. "You want to cancel it?"
Wang Jin nodded urgently, as if trying to shake off a terrible burden.
Cheng Bai’s face darkened. "You used to adore my..." He paused. "...brother. Are you really canceling it?"
He rubbed his nose. Originally, he hadn’t liked Xi Yao and had schemed endlessly to break the engagement. Now that Xi Yao had lost his memory and proposed it himself... he should have been thrilled. Yet, for some reason, his mood was tangled.
Pressing his lips together, he said, "We’ll discuss that later. Little brother-in-law, we’re trapped here with no food—we won’t last days."
"..." Wang Jin’s eye twitched. "Don’t call me that!"
Cheng Bai raised a brow, clearly unwilling to comply. Wang Jin glared before giving up.
The ger’s glare was oddly endearing, and Cheng Bai couldn’t help staring a moment longer.
Wang Jin said, "You were strong earlier, can you break out and find—"
"A beastman named Yuan Heng to fetch you, right?" Cheng Bai finished.
Wang Jin nodded, docile as a pampered pet. Cheng Bai’s fingers twitched, barely resisting the urge to ruffle his hair.
Clenching his hand, he said, "Who is this Yuan Heng? Little brother-in-law, you overestimate him. How could he possibly cross the beast tide to reach you?"
"He can!" Wang Jin lifted his gaze, eyes sweet as honey. "Brother Heng is incredible. He can."
The ger spoke as if proudly showing off his beastman, brimming with confidence.
Cheng Bai felt an odd pang. "You’re that sure?"
"Yes!"
The ger tilted his chin up, glowing at the mention of Yuan Heng, his affection unmistakable.
Even in danger, with Yuan Heng nowhere near, this person trusted him so completely.
Cheng Bai couldn’t name the feeling. The original Xi Yao had never looked at him like that...
He coldly doused the hope. "Even if he could, he wouldn’t come for you... I can’t get out." He gestured outside, leaning against the wall to rest.
But they had to try—without food or water, they wouldn’t survive. Abandoning a ger here wasn’t his style. He’d heal quickly and risk his life to at least send this one out.
Wang Jin moved to the cave entrance Cheng Bai had pointed to.
A boulder blocked it, shielding them from the beasts—but not their roars, nor the tremors of thousands stampeding past.
Peering through a crack, Wang Jin saw a jungle hell.
Beasts of all sizes surged in waves toward one direction. The slow were trampled, the weak devoured by larger beasts...
Even the massive ones weren’t safe, attacked from all sides. The creatures seemed mindless, driven only forward, hunting whatever was near when hungry...
Everywhere, the scenes of predation repeated.
But the most terrifying thing wasn’t this—it was the undulating flesh-like wave covering the ground outside their cave...
As it swelled, Wang Jin glimpsed rows of jagged white teeth beneath the rippling surface...
When it lifted, those serrated edges gleamed coldly under the sunlight. When it lowered, the teeth plunged into the soil, into tree roots, into the bodies of dead beasts, devouring the carcasses completely, uprooting the trees, and churning the earth. Every creature hidden beneath the dirt could not escape that fleshy wave.
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