When the first heavy snow fell on the Island of the Captured Tassel, Ri Yan finally returned.
This time, he seemed to have traveled to many places, even carrying a huge cloth bag in his mouth, bulging with who knows how many things. Seeing Li Fei, he immediately wanted to show off and taunted, "Half a year has passed, and you're still miserably sleeping alone in a tree? Look at how much you've wasted in all this time! I've been to so many places and brought back so many things—enough to dazzle your eyes!"
With that, he tore open the bag with his teeth, and its contents spilled noisily onto the ground, startling Li Fei.
Most of the bag was filled with grotesque corpses, bloody and mixed with glowing stones, tangled clumps of plants, and branches. Far from being a pleasant surprise, it looked downright horrifying.
Li Fei stared speechlessly at the corpses strewn across the ground, then at Ri Yan's gleaming green eyes. He was clearly proud of himself, his five tails practically standing on end.
"...Are these corpses from the Thousands of Islands?"
She moved closer and picked up one of the more intact bodies for a closer look. The person looked no different from an ordinary human, except for a mouthful of black, sharp, fang-like teeth. The rest of the corpses had clearly been killed by Ri Yan—either their shoulders or necks were torn apart, their deaths gruesome.
"Not just them!" Ri Yan said triumphantly, using one of his tails to scatter the pile of corpses and roughly separate the tangled stones and plants. "Not only are there people from overseas, but also all kinds of legendary Demon Beasts and auspicious creatures! Look, this is a Mie Meng Bird! That one’s even rarer—it’s called a Cheng Huang! And these leaves on the branch—don’t they look like jewels? This is called Ruo Hui! Even overseas, these are hard to come by!"
After sifting through the pile for a while, Li Fei sighed. "Ri Yan, did you just attack and kill anything that looked strange to you?"
Ri Yan glared. "So what if I did?! I’m stronger than them—they deserved to die!"
She knew it was both difficult and pointless to lecture this thousand-year-old Demon about morality. He had always been eight parts wicked and entirely self-willed, so she simply gave up and spread her hands. "You brought back all these corpses—where are we supposed to put them? Just leave them on the ground? They’ll rot in a few days."
Seeing she wasn’t going to nag, Ri Yan brightened again. "You’re a mature Graftwood Seed now—surely you’re more capable than you were back in Azure City? Why don’t you open up a Grotto Heaven, or create a Lesser World like that damned Celestial? We’ll make our own Outlander Tomb for the Thousands of Islands—not just for overseas people, but also for all those legendary plants, trees, and Demon Beasts. Wouldn’t that be far grander than the one in the Central Land?"
Li Fei’s eyes lit up. "That’s a great idea! But the spiritual energy overseas is too sparse for a Grotto Heaven. A Lesser World is doable, though. When I go out with you in the future, we can carry it with us—much more convenient."
Ri Yan burst into laughter. "Finally coming around, are you? Done wasting time here with that brat? Perfect! When that kid remembers everything, he’ll come chasing after you on his own. No need to worry about him!"
Li Fei bent her head to sort through the tangled branches and leaves, murmuring, "I said in the future. Besides, if I go with you, at least I can keep you from killing indiscriminately.""Tch!" Ri Yan was exasperated by her lack of progress. "Still dragging your feet?! Men and women have just that one thing between them! Take off your clothes and slip into his bed at night! I refuse to believe it won't work!"
Li Fei rolled a large snowball and hurled it at him fiercely: "Don't say it like it's so simple! Without feelings, what's the difference from just coupling like animals?"
Ri Yan shook off the snow from his fur, fuming: "Who cares about all that! Your prattle is so annoying! First open a Lesser World! I need to store these things inside!"
Li Fei asked curiously: "How do I open one? I don't know how."
Ri Yan was also taken aback, pondering: "I only heard Azure City mention it in the past. It seems you need to first find an object that can attach to spiritual energy. Look at that damned Celestial—he used a mirror as his attachment, so his Lesser World is the Mirror Image Art. There seems to be some particular requirements for this attachment object... Let me think more, no rush."
Li Fei looked at the bloodied corpses strewn across the ground and sighed, shaking her head: "Then we'll have to leave these corpses here for now. Luckily, it's cold—they won't rot in a day or two."
As soon as she finished speaking, a cool male voice spoke up behind them: "Leave them with me for now."
Both of them were startled and quickly turned around, only to see Lei Xiuyuan standing in the snow holding an umbrella. He seemed to have been standing there for a long time in the heavy snowfall, as a thick layer of snow had accumulated on the umbrella.
Li Fei rushed over, both surprised and delighted: "Why did you come all of a sudden?"
Lei Xiuyuan deliberately kept a straight face, replying lightly: "It's almost mid-morning. I thought a certain student was slacking off."
She had always been very regular in her routine—returning to the mountains at nightfall and coming back down between dawn and mid-morning the next day. Last night, the sudden heavy snowfall had kept him from sleeping well, even though he knew she wouldn't be affected by the cold. Before dawn, he had already been waiting at the village entrance, but by mid-morning, there was still no sign of her. Worried, he had come up the mountain to look for her, only to run into the Nine-tailed Fox boasting about his pile of "spoils."
Li Fei chuckled awkwardly: "Sorry, I didn't have time to let you know."
Lei Xiuyuan closed his oil-paper umbrella and walked over to the pile of corpses, examining them carefully. Ri Yan sneered: "You brat, these past two or three years of easy living have dulled you! Do you even know what these are? Have you seen them before? Hah! Hah!"
Lei Xiuyuan also smiled: "These gray-feathered Mie Meng Birds are everywhere—what's so special about them? Have you seen the ones with green feathers and red tails? And Ruo Hui's leaves aren't big enough either—they're all just second-rate goods."
"What did you say?!" Ri Yan flared up. "Then why don't you show me a green-feathered, red-tailed one!"
Lei Xiuyuan gave him a glance, which only made him even more furious: "If you can't produce one, I'll bite you to death!"
"Follow me." Lei Xiuyuan handed the oil-paper umbrella to Li Fei, casually brushing the snowflakes off her shoulder.
Seeing the two of them about to leave just like that, Li Fei hurried after them. They raced like the wind back to the village, only to find the usually busy and hardworking villagers all shut inside their homes with no one in sight. After looking around for a while, she exclaimed in surprise: "Where is everyone?"
"The people here hibernate like bears for three months every winter," Lei Xiuyuan said as he pushed open the courtyard gate, speaking casually. "Starting from the first snowfall, just leave them be. They'll naturally wake up when spring comes and the flowers bloom."
The various peculiar habits of the people from overseas were indeed strange yet fascinating.Seeing Lei Xiuyuan enter the room and lightly push against the southern bookshelf, which suddenly slid aside to reveal a hidden tunnel, Ri Yan swiftly shrank in size and leaped onto Li Fei's shoulder, unusually surprised. "Underground? You dug this yourself?"
Lei Xiuyuan opened his palm, a crimson flame dancing atop it. "There are four levels underground. I dug them out in my spare time. It's inconvenient to leave corpses and such outside. Follow me."
An eerie aura seeped from the tunnel, traces of lingering Demon Qi and spiritual energy. Li Fei hadn't walked far before the space abruptly opened up, and what she saw next shocked her even more. Standing before her was an Otherkin, lifelike in appearance—human-faced but with a beastly body, enormous ears framing its face, each adorned with two green snakes. Were it not for the dull, grayish hue of its eyes, she might have mistaken it for a living being.
Ri Yan, too startled to maintain his usual composure, jumped onto the creature's shoulder, his pointed nose twitching excitedly. "She Bi Shi! Good heavens! Is this really She Bi Shi?! Did you kill him? His clan didn't hunt you to the ends of the earth?!"
Lei Xiuyuan replied calmly, "I didn't kill him. None of the Otherkin here were slain by my hand. They're merely collected corpses."
Li Fei surveyed the spacious underground chamber in astonishment. The room was sparsely lined with numerous Otherkin corpses, each seemingly encased in a transparent, gelatinous substance that preserved their bodies. Yet, despite this, many were incomplete, and some appeared to have been collected after partial decay, leaving much to be desired.
The underground space spanned four levels, all filled with various Otherkin remains. The Mie Meng Bird, with its blue feathers and red tail, seemed utterly unremarkable in comparison. Ri Yan stood before a Merman skeleton in the corner, practically drooling.
"You even managed to get Merman bones! Impressive!" he praised, a rare compliment.
Lei Xiuyuan, equally rare in his humility, replied, "I couldn't find any freshly deceased ones, nor have I ever seen a living Merman. I only stumbled upon this skeleton by chance."
Li Fei watched in disbelief as the two launched into an animated discussion. Who would have thought Ri Yan and Lei Xiuyuan would one day find common ground? The two who used to trade barbs now stood with gleaming eyes, their tones softened, their words flowing freely. It was enough to make her jaw drop.
After listening for a while, she couldn't help but interject, "Why not do what the No Moon Court does with their Outlander Tomb? Write bronze plaques with the clan names and origins. Wouldn't that be more convenient?"
The two, engrossed in their conversation, nodded enthusiastically. "Good idea! That's brilliant!"
With that, they resumed their fervent exchange. Li Fei took the opportunity to explore all four underground levels, examining the collected corpses of humans and beasts. By the time she finished, they were still deep in discussion. Feeling like a third wheel, she decided to head back upstairs.
Over the past few months, studying characters under Lei Xiuyuan, she had gained a decent grasp of foreign scripts. The books on his shelves all hailed from the Thousands of Islands, covering customs, literature, and bizarre tales—a dazzling array of topics.Li Fei picked up the book Lei Xiuyuan had prepared earlier and opened it. Sure enough, red circles were already marked throughout. She was a diligent and obedient student, needing no urging from her teacher as she conscientiously ground ink and began practicing her characters. Learning the Overseas Language had indeed become much easier after mastering the characters. Recently, she could already speak some simple phrases quite fluently, and chatting with villagers no longer required racking her brains as it once had.
Just as she was about to finish writing all the circled characters in the book, Li Fei suddenly sensed someone beside her. Turning her head, she saw that Lei Xiuyuan had quietly joined her at some point and was now sitting next to her, watching her write.
"Where's Ri Yan? Still downstairs?" she asked casually with a smile.
Lei Xiuyuan replied calmly, "He said he didn't want to disturb us and left first."
Li Fei's wrist trembled slightly as she suddenly realized Lei Xiuyuan must have arrived early that morning. She wondered how much of her conversation with Ri Yan he had overheard—especially that nonsense about taking off clothes and crawling into bed. Flustered, she coughed awkwardly and forced a smile. "H-he just likes to joke around. Some things are better taken lightly, don't mind him."
"Hmm? I don't think so." Lei Xiuyuan remained composed. "If you were to take off your clothes and crawl into my bed at night, it doesn't sound bad at all."
So he had heard everything! Li Fei didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or alarmed. After a long pause, she found herself giving a wry smile instead. "For men, maybe being direct like this is better?"
Lei Xiuyuan shook his head. "It depends on the person."
Without waiting for her response, he suddenly produced a crystal-clear glass orb from his sleeve, no larger than half a fist. Inside was sealed a delicate red flower, its petals tender and vibrant, half-bloomed as if shyly hesitating, utterly captivating.
"For you," he said, gently placing the glass orb in her palm. "A Twelfth Life Flower. I acquired it recently. I thought you might like it."
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