Baihe discreetly observed the man next to her; seeing Fenglong with a carefree look on his face, she shuffled her body behind him and allowed him to take the lead. All of her actions were seen by Fenglong. Was this woman depending on him? A faint smile hung on his lips at that thought as he walked ahead with large strides.

Baihe quickly followed behind Fenglong; not because she was depending on him, but because she was using him as a guinea pig to test the dangerous roads ahead. From the moment she entered, Baihe knew this place wasn’t normal. With her current strength, it was best to temporarily latch onto this bipolar Highness’ thigh first until she gathers more intel about this place.

As they calmly strode forward, Baihe registered every single piece of information; from the layout to the terrains, to every twist and turn, to the small movements hidden in the meadow. Yet, nothing came forward to attack them. Baihe briefly glanced at Fenglong. Was it because they didn’t want to deal with this bipolar man either?

Her heart jumped in glee. Was lady luck finally shining on her head? If they continued at this pace with no challenges, then she wouldn’t need to expend much effort to see the Mermaid King. Although Baihe was thinking such thoughts, she still remained vigilant.

From her old life as an assassin, Baihe learned that nothing was more dangerous than being overly complacent. By the time the two of them passed through a rift between the mountains, a loud rumble thundered below them.

The ground beneath them shook and the tall mountains began to move, closing in on them like shifting walls. Baihe’s face turned dark; she knew fortune favors no one — especially not her.

Activating her qigong, Baihe immediately began to run, not giving Fenglong the chance to scoop her up again. He was delusional if he thought she would completely put her life in a stranger’s hand when a freaking earthquake was happening below them and walls of mountains were threatening to squash them from both sides. She much rather trust her own two working legs.

Probably because he had a hunch of Baihe’s misgivings; Fenglong’s face was even darker than hers. His fast and nimble footsteps easily surpassed hers as he ran ahead, but he made sure Baihe was no more than just a few steps behind. Baihe really didn’t know what to make out of his odd behavior.

Why was the man purposely slowing down to match her speed?

If it were her and she possessed his level of qigong mastery, she would have been gone faster than the wind; especially in a life and death situation.

As the two of them tried to outrun the crumbling land, Baihe discerned that a maze was being formed by the advancing mountain walls, directing them down toward a manipulated path. Soon, Baihe saw the outline of a small cottage nestled in the shadows of the mountains ahead of them.

Instantly, Baihe was wary of the cottage being so conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. In fact, if she weren’t wrong, this whole place was shrouded in some mystical array. On any other day, Baihe would truly appreciate the destructive might of a formation set up by an array master, but not when she was the one experiencing it firsthand.

Right when her foot landed on the border to the other side of the mountain, the mountain walls behind her clamped together with a loud thud; the ground vibrated energetically one last time, emitting a large shock-wave.

Baihe continued with her forward momentum to escape; but a sharp pain radiated from her scalp, dragging her forcibly backward. A warm hand landed on her back, stopping her from crashing into the rock solid mountain walls. Taking a small moment to rejoice how her feet was still touching land, Baihe allowed her heart beat to resume a normal pulse rate.

Luckily, the earthquake had stopped; otherwise, judging by how these mighty mountains reached close to the heavens, Baihe was sure she would plummet down to her eternal death where the bottom of the abyss was obscured.

The heat seeping through from the man’s hand made Baihe turn to meet his eyes. Within those brilliant sapphire orbs, amusement shone through as his indifferent face was replaced with a light smile. Baihe frowned when she saw the slight twitches from the corner of Fenglong’s lips; it was as if he was trying with great difficulty to hold in his laughter.

Remembering her plight, Baihe turned her head to the side to identify the force that dragged her backward. From her peripheral vision, she saw that the end of her long black hair was stuck in-between the mountain walls. Baihe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She wondered if perhaps in one of her past incarnations, she’d offended the goddess of fortune.

This awkward situation was like having a piece of your shirt stuck in-between the revolving train doors, except the mountain walls weren’t going to conveniently open up to let her retrieve her hair in the next stop; neither could Baihe pull her hair out by force. Whatever amount of force she applied, the same force would be used against her to drag her ass back; this was Newton’s third law of motion working its finest magic.

She lost a good amount of hair in the process and ended up with a painful ache in her scalp. Left with only one choice, Baihe used three shimmering guqin strings to slice off the end of her hair that got stuck. Even with such a huge chuck of hair cut off, her hair still reached her waistline.

Other than the small patch of bald spot on her head, everything else was good considering she was still alive and breathing.

Turning around, Baihe was shocked to see the pity in his beautiful sapphire eyes. Fenglong was staring at her cut off hair like he had lost some great treasure. “You don’t have some kind of hair fetish do you?” Baihe smiled wryly.

Once those words reached his ears, Fenglong gave her a cold look; the pity in his eyes was replaced with irritation. Actually, he himself didn’t even know why he felt sad at that moment. It was almost like those mountains had stolen a part of Baihe and that thought had made him unhappy while his heart felt irked by the notion.

Fenglong forced his eyes to look ahead as he led the way to the suspicious cottage; all the way, his head was preoccupied with solving the weird feeling he had. At last, Fenglong reached the conclusion that he was simply annoyed because the mountains had bullied this woman when he should be the only one able to bully her.

Finally solving the dilemma in his heart, Fenglong’s expression became much better.

Baihe had no time to pay attention to Fenglong nor had she noticed his inner turmoil. She was too engrossed in examining her surroundings, paying special care to the area around the cottage. Her dark eyes were busy searching for hints of traps or signs of any living being other than the hot and cold man walking beside her.

As they inched closer to the cottage, the tall grass completely covered Baihe; only the top of her black head could be seen. Fenglong fared much better as the tall grass only reached his chest, leaving his view unobstructed.

Both of them moved cautiously toward the cottage. By now, Baihe was able to smell the weird scent coming from the inside; it was a very familiar scent to her — the smell of death. The hair on her body stood up in alert. She turned her body to scout the windows, but each one of them was barricaded with wooden planks — preventing people from peeking in and stopping people from looking out.