“I shall see if he is worthy of your love is all…” saying this, she leaped from the cliff’s edge and allowed her colossal wings to take flight. A whisper on the wind was all that greeted him as she left.

“Continue your training my son… I love you…”

****

“What do you mean we’re lost?”

“I mean we’re lost!”

“Do you not know how to read a map?”

“This isn’t your run-of-the-mill map!”

“But you told us it’s a map.”

“Doesn’t mean I know how to read it!”

“So you’re the child who knows what numbers are but can’t count.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Careful, it’s learning.”

“Screw you!”

Shen Ling, Tie Lang, Jia Yan, Xiannu Liang, and Zi Yu had their heads turn from side to side as both Long Di and Yaomu Shou exchanged verbal barbs.

This all started when Long Di stared at Yaomu Shou (who was looking at the ‘map’ with a dumbfounded expression) long enough for the latter to be guilt-tripped into admitting that she didn’t know where they were.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know that Long Di was just having one of those moments where you stare off into space and that she just happened to be in his line of sight.

“Fine, whatever… just… give it here,” Long Di took the map from Yaomu Shou and looked over it.

The creature that the beast skin was from was one that Long Di didn’t recognize. This is surprising considering that before he stared off into space, he was going through the bestiary he got from Yang Fuyou. He hated not being able to recognize many of the magical beasts that populated this world and made it his duty to correct this inadequacy.

He had knowledge of hundreds of magical beasts by now, including their traits and characteristics. Yet, this skin matched none of the beasts he had read about. He didn’t finish the bestiary, but this skin felt old, like really old.

There were several lines that covered it in a swirling, sometimes jagged pattern.

“What made you think that this is a map?” Long Di asked, unable to make heads or tails of what he was looking at.

Of course, the beast skin had its own peculiarities, what with its ability to dump the people back at the auction into an illusion of hellfire engulfing the world. Luckily, apart from the first time, such a situation never came back up. Nonetheless, what was really standing out were the veins that covered it.

The veins were pulsating with a red glow. Of course, it was still releasing a ton of heat energy.

“This over here,” Yaomu Shou pointed to a certain section on the beast skin.

Long Di looked to where the veins looked a bit more complex compared to the rest, but apart from that, he couldn’t see what about this looked like a map.

“I don’t get it…” he said finally.

“I’ve seen this pattern before on the map my family has. I don’t have it on me though,” she told him.

“You have?”

She nodded before explaining, “This section resembled the outline of the curve of the Chasmic mountain range, and this part here looks like the path of the Wailing River. I saw so many similarities that I thought it was a map. Maybe I was wrong?”

Long Di stared closely for a second when an idea came to him, “Wait a tick. It couldn’t be so simple…”

Long Di rummaged through his storage ring and took out the map that Yang Fuyou gave him.

He placed the map on the floor of the carriage, and after spotting some seemingly identifiable areas on it, he then carefully placed the beast skin over it.

He had to encase the map with his spiritual force to keep it from being burnt by the aura of the beast skin.

When Yaomu Shou and the rest saw the resulting image, their expressions changed.

“Oh.”

“I thought so.” Long Di nodded.

The beast skin being traced over the map allowed everyone to see where some of the areas advised by Yaomu Shou matched up perfectly with it. Well, the match-up wasn’t exactly perfect, but it was enough for them to see the similarities.

“This thing isn’t a traditional map, but more of a path taken by… something. Look here,” he traced along the vein-like lines. “At first glance, it looks like a bunch of veins, but it’s just one line that took what seems to be a highly convoluted path.”

“You’re right!” exclaimed Yaomu Shou. “It’s like someone penned down the traces of a tracking. As long as we get to the end point, which is here,” Yaomu Shou pointed to where the vein-like lines curled in on themselves into a dot. “We should be able to find what we’re looking for.”

“So that’s our goal.” Long Di decided. He then looked to where Xiannu Liang sat, “I hope you don’t mind the detour.”

She shook her head, “It’s fine. I’m sure the Emerald Forest is far from here so I’m not in a particular rush.”

“Good stuff, let’s move on then,” saying this Long Di traced the path on the beast skin onto the map itself.

“Heavens! This is going to be quite the journey! A few weeks at most since this will have us go through several cities and towns. By the way, you got a really good map to be honest,” Yaomu Shou astutely observed.

“Are complete maps so hard to get a hold of?” Tie Lang asked.

“Yeah,” Yaomu Shou nodded. “After all, a lot of sects, clans or otherwise, don’t want their location to be made public. So very few maps have their locations, or even the large terrains under their control marked out like this. Leave it to the Qian Dao Sect to have something like this at their disposal.”

“Feng Yu, you know what to do.”

Receiving Long Di’s signal, she went to take over the reins once more. They were able to find out where they were when they used an actual map to reference the landmarks they saw in the distance.

“Okay, so the next stop on our journey is Thousand Emo Alley,” Yaomu Shou advised.

“What the heck kind of a name is Thousand Emo Alley?” Long Di asked, confused as all hell. “What? Is it the gathering place for society’s rejects where they listen to the edgiest music because nothing else matters?”

“The hell are you on about!?” Yaomu Shou asked in even more confusion. “Emo in this context means demon!”

Long Di was shocked, though it didn’t show on his face, “… That whole name is trying so hard to be a mood that it’s not even funny.”

“Long Di!” Feng Yu’s shout came from the outside the carriage in a fit of panic.

“What is it this time?” Long Di asked, it seems that every time that Feng Yu took the reins something would go wrong.

“We’re going to be raped!” her shout came once more.

“…“

After a moment of silence, Long Di looked over to where Zi Yu sat, “Hey so, why don’t you take a look out there and see wha-”

“Screw you!”

“Apt choice of words. I’m thinking that that’s whatever entity is out there wants to do to us,” Long Di advised in a deadpan tone.

Zi Yu shuddered in fright, “Then why don’t you go!?” she asked in fright.

Long Di looked at her, amazed at her ignorance, “Do you not see my barely moving body? If I go out there, I’ll be tossed and fought over like products on Black Friday.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Yaomu Shou stuck her head outside the carriage to see what’s causing Feng Yu’s panic.

However, the scene before her caused the colour to drain from her face in shock and fright. “Oh, no!”

“What is it?” Long Di asked from inside.

“Pandas!” she shouted in fear!

“Wait, come again,” Long Di thought he misheard.

“That’s what they want!” she shouted. She then looked back into the carriage. “Pandas in the distance! Unless everyone here no longer wants to be a pure maiden and whatever the hell the male equivalent is, grab your weapons and prepare for battle!”