Chapter 156: Wilderness Cookout
After sharing a few more juicy bits of gossip with Si Er, Si Xu saw the little ones who had gone out searching for the Azure Dragon Tokens all return.
“Xuanxuan, let’s go, let’s go! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
The group of little beasts had all been teleported back by Yu Bei Tiger. As soon as they arrived, Yu Bei Tiger leapt into Yu Beixuan’s arms and tugged frantically at his sleeve, urging him on.
The moment Yu Beixuan saw that look, he knew it had done something naughty.
“What is it? Did you cause trouble again?”
Yu Bei Tiger protested, “How can collecting Azure Dragon Tokens be called causing trouble?”
“The competition rules clearly say the Four Symbols Tokens can all be snatched, right? When we were at Black Tortoise Mountain, we snatched from the other academies too!”
“Those other academies might not have been happy, but they admitted their bad luck. Unlike the students from Azure Dragon Academy—they simply can’t accept defeat.”
“They think this is Azure Dragon Mountain, so we’re not allowed to let them walk away empty-handed.”
“Is that even possible? This is just Azure Dragon Mountain, not Azure Dragon Academy.”
“And they were so arrogant! They’re not as strong as Xuanxuan, and not as good-looking as Xuanxuan—how can they be even more arrogant than Xuanxuan?”
By the time the little black tiger said this, its fur was practically standing on end.
Yu Beixuan sighed helplessly. “So what exactly did you do?”
“So I took all the tokens on them. And then I sent them all out.”
Si Er gasped. “So Azure Dragon Mountain has already been cleared out by you?”
The little black tiger licked its paw, looking slightly bashful. “It wasn’t just me. Big Brother Wolf and Second Brother Eagle helped too. Mengmeng was amazing as well.”
“Yes, Mengmeng was the best!”
Guagua looked puzzled. “If you’ve already cleared out the mountain, why are you still running?”
“Even if there are a few stragglers left, wouldn’t they be the ones running around in panic after being scared by you?”
The little black tiger lowered its head, still clutching Yu Beixuan’s sleeve, and muttered, “But if you’ve done something bad, shouldn’t you run?”
Yu Beixuan laughed. “How can something that follows the competition rules be considered bad?”
“You’ve all worked hard. Rest for a while.”
As he spoke, he rewarded the three of them with a few demon spirit stones.
“By the way, which group won this round?”
Yu Bei Wolf and Yu Bei Eagle both obediently looked at Yu Bei Tiger. Although the little black tiger could be mischievous at times, it was fiercely protective of its master when outside.
Though the motivation for that protectiveness was somewhat baffling. The other party often didn’t even know who its master was—just because they acted more arrogantly than its master, they’d get beaten up. After the beating, they’d be robbed. After being robbed clean, they’d be sent out.
To be honest, aside from the first group that offended Yu Bei Tiger with rude remarks, most of the others had no idea how they had been eliminated.
On Qingyun Plaza, the crowd was completely stunned, jaws practically dropping to the ground.
“What kind of soul pet is that little black cat? It looks like a kitten—how can it be that strong?”
“Is it even a cat? I feel like it looks more like a tiger.”
“Are there fully black tigers? It doesn’t even have the ‘?’ marking on its forehead!”
“Who cares what it is—it’s terrifying! If we run into it in the future, we’d better avoid it. Don’t recklessly charge at it.”
“Right! I watched them rob people all the way here. At first they were pretty polite—after taking all the Four Symbols Tokens, they even returned the storage bags.”
“…You call that polite? They were robbing people!”
“But compared to what they did later, that was indeed polite! And the competition rules do allow robbery.”
“When I first saw them, I was thinking—such cute little kittens. What kind of stone-hearted owner would send child laborers out to work together? Turns out these two are bandits among cats.”
“To be fair, the black one kind of looks like a cat, but the white one clearly has tiger features, doesn’t it?”
“I think they’re about the same—both half cat, half tiger. Let’s just treat them as cats. Since they’re so strong, I’m willing to call them the Black-and-White Cat Gods.”
“More like Black-and-White Cat Fiends. They’re terrifying!”
The people inside the arena were completely unaware of the discussion outside. They felt that first place for Black Tortoise Academy was already secured, so they simply sat down on Azure Dragon Mountain and started a wilderness cookout.
After all, Azure Dragon Mountain had already been cleared out. Only the three of them remained. It was perfect for an outing.
Si Er suddenly felt a pang of conscience and asked softly, “Shouldn’t we go look for Classmate Lu?”
Yu Beixuan didn’t really mind either way. It mainly depended on the Si brothers’ opinion, so he turned his gaze to Si Xu, curious about what answer he would give.
Si Xu merely smiled faintly, leisurely roasting the mushrooms in his hand.
Alas, according to competition rules, they couldn’t pick the spiritual plants here, nor could they kill the spirit beasts. The only ingredients they could use on the spot were mushrooms—naturally grown ones of relatively low grade.
Whether they benefited from them didn’t matter. As long as they weren’t harmful and could be eaten, that was enough. What they were really enjoying was the fun of a cookout.
Si Xu smiled. “Why go looking for him? I think this competition is also a kind of training for Classmate Lu Taiping.”
“If we go find him, then in the end we’ll be the ones leading the way.”
“It doesn’t matter much to us, but it wouldn’t be good for him.”
“He’d develop a habit of relying on us. Every time he gets lost, he’d want to ask us for help. But we can’t possibly be together all the time.”
“So it’s better to let him figure out the way on his own. Perhaps after enough times, he’ll slowly learn how to navigate and stop being directionally challenged.”
Si Xu still had high hopes for Lu Taiping. After all, they had been desk-mates for so long—there was some camaraderie there.
So before entering Four Symbols Mountain, Si Xu had given Lu Taiping a handbook on wilderness navigation, as well as a compass. He felt the problem shouldn’t be too serious.
Of course, if the problem turned out to be very serious, that wasn’t his responsibility. He had prepared so thoroughly—if Lu Taiping still couldn’t learn how to find his way, then that was clearly Lu Taiping’s problem.
Si Er was still worried. “Is this really okay? What if Classmate Lu gets trapped somewhere?”
Si Xu smiled. “Then let him stay trapped. The current Four Symbols Mountain is only at beginner difficulty. There’s no real danger inside.”
“If he’s trapped, he can treat it as a rest.”
“That makes sense!”
Si Er nodded, fully agreeing.
Isn’t this just ‘where you fall, you lie flat’ instead of getting back up?
Second Brother is indeed my real second brother—our thoughts are practically the same!
Si Xu also felt his reasoning was perfectly sound. According to Si Er’s earlier inner thoughts, the biggest hurdle in Lu Taiping’s life should have been those two lunatics—Si Ran and Di Lintian.
Since those two weren’t inside Four Symbols Mountain anymore, Lu Taiping was safe. Hopefully he would work hard on his own.
And Lu Taiping truly was working hard. When he got trapped inside a maze formation, he practically flipped through the handbook Si Xu had given him until it was falling apart.
But no matter how he read it, he couldn’t get out of the area, which gave him a terrible headache.
Was there something wrong with the book, or something wrong with him?
After pondering for a long time, Lu Taiping finally reached a conclusion.
There must be something wrong with this world.
