The off-road vehicle had been circling in the desert for an entire day.
Relying on the cheetah’s keen sense of smell, they finally found the initial location where everyone had been separated.
Unless the terrain was particularly unique, the desert looked the same everywhere. Now, as they looked around, it was an endless flat expanse. The hurricane and ground collapse from that day had completely disappeared, as if no disaster had ever occurred here.
Only in a sand dune a few kilometers away did Su Su find the completely scrapped seven-seater off-road vehicle.
The vehicle’s body was still there, but several doors and the roof were missing, and many internal components had also vanished.
Even with the cheetah’s metal-type ability, it was beyond repair…
Su Su silently touched it for a long while before letting out a quiet sigh.
“Let’s check other places.”
She still firmly believed that Pang Cancan, Sun Zhichun, and the others had definitely survived. However, it had already been two or three days since the sudden event, and any lingering human scent in the air had completely dissipated.
The cheetah sniffed with all its might and only managed to lead Su Su to seven or eight corpses left behind in the desert.
Some had been sliced in half by metal sheets lifted and thrown by the hurricane’s vortex.
Some had been buried under sand and rocks, unconscious, and suffocated to death.
Some had the misfortune of running straight into the fleeing Tier 7 zombie and had their necks bitten off.
And some…
In short, the ways they had died were varied and gruesome.
Su Su anxiously examined each corpse one by one. After not seeing the faces she feared the most, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“Cancan and the others must still be alive.”
It was just that, for now, she had no idea where they were.
But the sun was already about to set.
After hesitating for a long time, Su Su finally made a decision:
“Let’s leave the desert first. They might have already gone back.”
Continuing the search would only waste time.
Xuan Mang and the cheetah had no objections.
One human, one snake, and one cheetah set off again, this time heading straight for the desert’s exit.
The return journey was even more monotonous.
Especially for Xuan Mang. Given his current size, he could only curl up in the back seat of the car, and their time together during the day was pitifully short. As a result, every night, he would become extraordinarily clingy.
Su Su had no choice but to set up two tents.
One for her and Ah Xuan, and the other for the cheetah.
The latter didn’t find anything unusual about it. Back at the base, it had seen plenty of humans and their battle pets partnering up as companions, so it was already used to it.
Moreover, from the moment they first met, it had caught a faint, not-too-severe scent of “greenish hue” from that venomous snake.
The undercurrents between the human and the snake could never be hidden from their kind.
Only humans remained oblivious to it.
Another night with sparse stars and a bright moon.
Without Xuan Mang even needing to threaten it, the cheetah took the initiative to stand watch for the first half of the night, curling up alone in a corner by the fire, its eyes open as it gazed at the moonlight above.
—
Inside the tent.
Su Su changed Ah Xuan’s bandages once again.
The moment she tied the butterfly knot, the strong half-snake body unsurprisingly pressed down on her.
Su Su’s face flushed red. In the dimly lit tent, she could only make out the broad, moonlit chest right in front of her.
She had found some clothes belonging to Le Rui that had been left in her space. Back then, in order to keep warm, she didn’t have time to find the right size and could only take larger ones. Now, it turned out to be a bargain for Ah Xuan—at the very least, it covered up everything that needed to be covered.
However…
During the day, the half-snake man would obediently wear the clothes as told. But at night—especially after dinner and washing up—his speed in slipping into the tent was astonishingly fast. The moment she turned her head, all that would be left at the tent entrance was a small section of his swiftly vanishing snake tail.
By the time she crawled inside, she would always find a shirt tossed into a corner, crumpled up like pickled vegetables.
“Ah Xuan.” Su Su reached out and pushed him. “We’re still on the road.”
“Hiss!”
Ah Xuan’s vertical pupils turned particularly cold when he was displeased.
Su Su was no longer as afraid of those eyes as before. She had even learned to bite her lip and show weakness. “I’ve been driving all day, my mind has been tense the whole time, and I have to rest properly at night.”
It was the exact same excuse as last night.
Ah Xuan had been understanding once, but he wasn’t falling for it again.
He leaned closer to the female’s cheek, gently licking the corner of her lips. “Hiss~”
The cool breath against her neck made Su Su instinctively shiver.
She was deeply embarrassed.
And utterly flustered.
Even though they had kissed once before, the experience… wasn’t exactly pleasant. The snake tongue probing into her throat had only brought an awful gag reflex.
Su Su trembled as she looked at Ah Xuan.
The latter gazed at her intensely, his eyes filled with possessiveness and an unfulfilled craving for intimacy.
She suddenly realized—he had waited too long and had to taste some sweetness.
To be honest, she wanted to be close to him. But at the same time, she was afraid of being close to him.
Whether it was the “scenes” she had witnessed in hunting grounds or the terrible “kissing experience” she had endured in the laboratory…
Su Su bit her lip.
After much hesitation, she burrowed into Ah Xuan’s embrace, her pale fingers tightly clutching the fuzzy blanket, her voice as soft as a mosquito’s whisper:
“We… we can only kiss once.”
The cheetah was still outside.
It… it wasn’t just an ordinary animal. It definitely knew what was happening inside the tent. If Ah Xuan weren’t so utterly shameless, she wouldn’t have wanted to do anything intimate at this moment.
Half-snake men had sharp hearing.
He caught her words instantly. Recalling the scene he had witnessed by the lake that night, his mood grew restless and impatient.
Su Su noticed the predatory glint in Ah Xuan’s eyes and trembled slightly.
“But… but you have to listen to me.”
Of course, I’ll listen.
As long as the female was willing to release even the slightest soft signal, when had he ever not listened to her?
Ah Xuan’s gaze burned as he stared at Su Su, his snake tongue already flickering restlessly.
“No sticking out your snake tongue.”
“Hiss?”
Alright then.
Ah Xuan retracted his restless tongue, patiently waiting for the female’s next instruction.
Su Su… Su Su had no experience with kissing either.
She took a deep breath to encourage herself.
Her warm, soft arms wrapped around Ah Xuan’s neck, and her tender lips, as light as a reckless butterfly daring to land on a venomous snake lurking in the grass, pressed against the corner of his lips.
The moment their lips touched, Su Su realized she had aimed at the wrong spot. She quickly adjusted, shifting to the center.
Throughout the process, her trembling eyelashes remained lowered, not daring to lift her gaze.
In contrast, Ah Xuan watched her unabashedly. His already narrow, dark green vertical pupils slowly narrowed into thin slits in the dim light.
He wanted to flick out his snake tongue again.
Only by doing so could he take in more of her scent.
But the female had forbidden him.
A naturally dominant half-snake man had long since mastered the art of lurking in wait—patiently watching until the prey jumped into his jaws, before swallowing it whole—
“Mmph!”
Su Su panicked and began struggling. She hadn’t expected that just as she was starting to get the rhythm, Ah Xuan would seize control without warning.
He wasn’t listening at all!
At first, his tongue merely probed, lightly flicking across her tightly closed lips like a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface. But the moment she began to resist, he realized that if he didn’t seize the opportunity now, this moment of intimacy might end in another anticlimactic retreat.
“Hiss!”
His tongue invaded her lips.
Perhaps learning from last time, this time, though still aggressive like a sudden storm, he at least remained within a “safe” range, persistently encircling and claiming his territory.
Too fierce.
Too… different.
Su Su’s nerves were trembling, let alone her body.
She finally lifted her eyes in panic and, within those rarely expressive vertical pupils, caught a glimpse of an unsettling obsession and possessiveness.
Her waist was nearly squeezed to the point of breaking.
They were only supposed to kiss for a while—just a kiss.
Yet Su Su’s entire body was numb.
It had lasted too long… She looked up at that wickedly handsome face with a pleading gaze, wanting to beg him to stop. But instead, she was forced to tilt her face upward, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. Her expression was both aggrieved and frightened as she silently accused him of his mischief.
As a Tier 7 ability user, Su Su could have forcefully made him stop.
But she rarely did—aside from that one time in the underground cave—she was unwilling to use her ability against him.
This only fueled the half-snake man’s audacity.
…
Outside the tent, the cheetah suddenly froze.
It turned its head toward the pitch-dark tent, its black nose twitching slightly as it sniffed.
The scent of “greenish hue” was too strong.
So intense that even a fellow creature found it uncomfortable.
And it was the middle of summer.
The cheetah couldn’t comprehend why that venomous snake would go against the natural instincts of animal reproduction, instead having learned the essence of human behavior.
It withdrew its gaze, just about to move farther away when it suddenly sensed something. Immediately, it stood up alertly.
“Meow—”
From behind the distant sand dunes, two vague figures emerged.
“Tsk, still as sharp as ever.”
The speaker was a man, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.
The cheetah sniffed twice, then suddenly recognized the person’s identity.
It let out another warning call.
By now, the two figures had stepped into the fire’s glow, revealing a rugged yet unmistakably familiar villainous face.
“Where’s Jiang Hong?” The man’s gaze fell on the tent. “Is he inside?”
The moment his words fell, Su Su lifted the tent flap and stepped out.
At the sight of her, the man froze.
Su Su also froze.
It took her two seconds to recognize the man before her—it was Lu Tao, who had been missing for a long time. Behind him stood another Tier 6 ability user from the Ability User Guild.
He wasn’t dead, but his current condition wasn’t much better. Compared to when he had first entered the desert, his skin was now several shades darker, and the exposed parts of his body were cracked in multiple places. His chin was covered in a scruffy beard—if one didn’t know better, they might mistake him for a native of the desert… No, even the pre-apocalypse desert natives looked far better than he did now.
If he hadn’t appeared so suddenly, Su Su would have nearly forgotten about his existence.
She fixed her gaze on the two men, scrutinizing them for a moment—
On this cold night, they were still wearing the thin clothes from the daytime. Their shoes were severely worn out, and they carried no extra packs…
They had likely survived the hurricane and ground collapse by sheer luck but had lost all their transportation and supplies in the process.
They had walked all this way on foot.
How should she put it?
A narrow road for enemies to cross.
The moment Lu Tao saw her clearly, his expression stiffened, and in his heart, he cursed several times.
Perhaps it was unease, or perhaps he refused to show weakness in front of an old enemy. His gaze flicked toward the tent behind Su Su, and a sneer slipped from his lips.
“Oh? Rolling around in the tent with Jiang Hong?”
As soon as the words fell, a half-human, half-snake figure slithered out from the tent.
Those inhuman vertical pupils burned with killing intent and sparks of fury.
This was true ferocity.