Chapter 523 - 524: Is He Your Beast Husband?

Chapter 523: Chapter 524: Is He Your Beast Husband?

Qiao Xixi stared at the shocked Langzhu, momentarily stunned herself, but she quickly came to her senses.

"Didn’t you just leave?"

Langzhu’s gaze passed over Qiao Xixi to land on Xijing, who stood behind her. Xijing had used a medicinal powder to mask his natural scent and had changed into beast-hide clothing, completely concealing his merman features. Based on scent alone, Langzhu could only identify his beast form as that of the Cat Clan.

Xijing’s light blue eyes rested on Langzhu. Though his expression was devoid of emotion, Langzhu keenly felt a powerful pressure emanating from him.

Langzhu frowned. ’Based on his aura, this Cat Clan male isn’t a strong warrior. How can he exert such immense pressure?’

"Is there something else you need?" Worried that Langzhu might notice something was amiss, Qiao Xixi spoke again, interrupting his thoughts.

Langzhu retracted his gaze. As a gentle breeze wafted by, he noticed that Qiao Xixi’s scent had become the same as Xijing’s.

’But this must be proof that Qiao Xixi and Xijing were just being intimate in the hut,’ he thought. ’After a male and female mate, the female carries the male’s scent.’

"Female, is he your mate?"

Qiao Xixi nodded. There was no other way to explain why Xijing was in her hut.

"Yes. He survived the Mutant Beast attack and followed the trail I left to find me."

Langzhu shot Xijing a jealous glance. "A Cat Clan male who hasn’t even had his Awakened Beast Soul... of course he can’t protect you."

Qiao Xixi had no desire to waste any more time on him.

"We have other business, so we’ll be leaving." Xijing stepped in front of Qiao Xixi, blocking Langzhu’s view of her.

Though reluctant to let them go, Langzhu had no reason to stop them.

Without giving him another glance, Xijing took Qiao Xixi by the hand and strode away.

Langzhu watched their retreating figures, and on a strange impulse, he entered the stone hut. He wanted to catch one last trace of her lingering scent.

The moment he stepped inside, his attention was drawn to something glinting on the floor.

He crouched down, picked it up, and his expression changed drastically.

’This... this is a scale unique to mermen! Why would a merman’s scale be in their hut?!’

Langzhu clenched the scale and rushed outside, but there was no sign of Qiao Xixi and Xijing on the street.

As Langzhu stood there in a daze, a few beast-warriors approached him.

"Langzhu, have you seen any suspicious beastmen around here?"

Langzhu snapped back to reality and instinctively hid the scale in his hand. "No. What’s going on?"

"The Merman Fiend has appeared. You need to come with us and help search."

For a moment, a dazed look crossed Langzhu’s eyes. "The Merman Fiend? What’s this all about?"

A warrior who was on good terms with Langzhu patiently explained, "You were away with the Hunting Team for the past few days, so you wouldn’t know. A while back, when the adult females went to the inner city for fertility testing, several of them disappeared right after leaving."

Langzhu frowned at his words. "I know about that." He knew because one of the missing females was his own sister.

"Yesterday, the Priest announced that the missing females were most likely abducted by the Merman Fiend. Now we’re all searching the city for any trace of it."

Langzhu’s eyes widened in shock. ’The Merman Fiend... could it be them?’

’But they clearly smell like the Cat Clan...’

Qiao Xixi and Xijing were unaware of this incident. After successfully masking their scents, they passed through the city gates without issue.

They followed the footprints and lingering scent of Jin Wei’s group all the way up a mountain.

"Where on earth are they going?"

Xijing gazed at the mountain forest ahead. "This path should lead to that stone mountain."

"I’d really like to know what secret that stone mountain is hiding!"

Xijing was right. Jin Wei and his men were indeed heading toward the stone mountain.

Meanwhile, Jin Ling, who was staking out the stone mountain, didn’t make a rash move. He was waiting for the blue bird male who had gone inside to emerge.

But he waited until the sun began to set, and still, the blue bird male had not appeared. Instead, Jin Wei and his group arrived.

Jin Ling suppressed his aura as much as possible. The warriors with Jin Wei were all powerful, with high-level beast souls, and they were extremely sensitive to the auras of others.

From a distance, Jin Ling watched Jin Wei’s party reach the large boulder where the blue bird male had vanished. A moment later, they left a squad of warriors to guard the area around the boulder while the rest disappeared into the opening.

Night fell, but Jin Wei and his men still hadn’t emerged.

Just then, he heard a faint noise behind him.

Instantly alert, Jin Ling whirled around and looked down from his perch in the tree.

His vertical, gilded pupils slowly widened as he saw her—the person he longed for day and night!

Jin Ling’s body reacted faster than his mind. He leaped down from the tree and rushed to Qiao Xixi’s side.

"Jin—"

Before Qiao Xixi could finish, Jin Ling pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Xixi!"

Qiao Xixi snapped out of her surprise and threw her arms around him, pressing her face to his chest and listening to the frantic beat of his heart.

"Jin Ling, I’ve missed you so much."

"I couldn’t wait to get back to you."

They both knew this wasn’t the time for a tender reunion, so they expressed their longing for each other with restraint.

"Xixi, what are you doing in Tiger Beast City?"

Qiao Xixi quickly explained why she was there.

"After Xijing found me, we tracked Jin Wei and his men here. Did you see them?"

Jin Ling nodded, then leaped back up into the tree, holding Qiao Xixi.

"They went through an entrance by that large boulder and still haven’t come out."

Qiao Xixi frowned as she looked at the warriors in the distance. ’Considering the changes in Jin Wei,’ she thought, ’if we can find him in this secret passage and trap him, would it be easier to purify the dark power hidden inside him?’

But they knew nothing about the situation inside the passage; rushing in would be dangerous.

Seeing that Qiao Xixi was in danger, Jin Ling cast aside his reservations. "Xijing, you stay here and protect Xixi. I’ll go down and take a look."

Before Xijing could respond, Qiao Xixi interjected with a frown, "If we’re going, we go together. We can leave a Phoenix Wing Clan male up here to cover us."

Both Jin Ling and Xijing frowned in disapproval.

"Xixi, we don’t know what’s down there. We can’t let you put yourself in danger."

But Qiao Xixi was insistent. "I’ve detected the stolen dark power on Jin Wei. That’s why I’m going down. I want to see if there’s a chance to capture and purify him."

A flicker of astonishment crossed Jin Ling’s eyes. ’Jin Wei actually allowed the dark power into his body? I never would have expected that.’

’He knew how much Jin Wei valued his own life. An unstable dark power could consume him at any moment. Someone must have convinced him to do this, told him something to make him take such a risk.’

After some deliberation, Jin Ling and Xijing had no choice but to agree to Qiao Xixi’s plan.

"Alright," Jin Ling said. "We’ll go down together."