Chapter 150
Chapter 150: Little Hamster’s Special Life Soul Pact
Little Hamster blinked awake, ears twitching at the jumble of sounds, then scrabbled up the rim of the nest and poked his head out for a peek: when he saw Rong Shu ending her meditation, he snapped fully awake and hurriedly climbed out.
Little Hamster stood at the edge of the table, just about to scurry down; he glanced toward Rong Shu and froze, chirping: “Gu!” He saw her palms continuously gathering wind spiritual energy and striking it into several stones while murmuring to herself.
He halted mid-step and cocked his head, thinking: [Shu Shu is still cultivating?]
Choosing not to climb down, Little Hamster sat on the tabletop; spotting a pouch filled with fruit and seeds, he hooked a paw around a piece of fruit and hugged it to nibble, eating while watching Rong Shu work.
Half a hour later, Rong Shu lifted her hand and laughed softly: “Success!” She watched the little wind vortex coalescing in her palm, delighted as she added: “I can really disguise myself perfectly as third-layer Qi Refining!” Inside and out there was not a trace of early Foundation Establishment aura. Whether in aura or in actual force, the technique now matched a genuine third-layer Qi Refining level. She tested her other elements in turn and discovered that each one could be concealed just as perfectly at third-layer Qi Refining.
With joy on her face, Rong Shu turned toward Little Hamster and called: “Yan Yan!” She had sensed him wake up the moment he crawled from the nest, though she had had no time for him then.
Little Hamster instantly flung away the fruit he was about to bite and scampered to his feet to beg for a hug, chirping: “Gu gu!”
Rong Shu scooped him up and, without the slightest politeness, stroked his fur several times, then said matter-of-factly: “I can form a contract with you now.”
Little Hamster tilted his head in foggy confusion and chirped: “Gu?”
Rong Shu set him back on the table and raised her hand to weave a seal for a binding: “Be good and stay still, don’t move.”
“Gu!”
The Contract Seal sank into Little Hamster’s body, but before Rong Shu could proceed to the next step, she felt the seal dissolve on its own. She narrowed her eyes and sent a second Contract Seal; it struck Little Hamster and still did nothing.
Baffled, she muttered, frowning: “What’s going on? Why can’t I form a contract…” If Little Hamster were rejecting her, even then the Contract Seal should take hold before being repelled; this wasn’t rejection at all. It was as if Little Hamster simply could not be contracted. Yet even a Divine Beast like the legendary White Tiger could be contracted—unless Little Hamster was neither a spirit beast nor a demon beast.
She reached out and poked him, whispering under her breath: “What exactly are you?”
Just then she recalled the men’s clothing she had seen inside Little Hamster’s Spatial Rift, and her gaze shifted. Little Hamster, noticing her long silence, grew uneasy and edged forward to nuzzle her fingertip with his head, chirping: “Gu?”
Rong Shu stroked him and spoke gently: “Yan Yan, let’s try a Heart Soul Pact.”
Unable to contract him meant Little Hamster would always be an unstable factor. Human hearts were never fully controllable. He listened to her now, but who could say what might change in the future?
“Gu!”
Rong Shu returned to herself, rubbed his little head once more, and began to trace the sigil for the Heart Soul Pact. She had once seen a behemoth elder perform it and had memorized the steps of the Seal Tracing. Very soon, matching arrays for the Heart Soul Pact unfurled beneath both Rong Shu and Little Hamster; the instant the array completed, their consciousnesses were drawn into the Heart Soul Pact space.
Rong Shu opened her eyes to pitch blackness, not a single mote of light, as if she had fallen into a lightless abyss: “Is this… a refraction of Yan Yan’s consciousness space?” In a Heart Soul Pact, the reflected scene to some extent mirrored the contracted one’s state of mind. The last time, Little White Tiger’s consciousness space had been a vast desert under which he reigned as absolute master, radiating all the domineering majesty of a Divine Beast White Tiger. But why was this place pure darkness? And where had Yan Yan gone?
A white beam fell from above to pool around her feet, encircling her in a ring of light. Beyond the ring remained impenetrable dark, the boundary between light and shadow starkly drawn.
She called tentatively: “Yan Yan? Yan Yan?”
From the darkness came the patter of soft footsteps. She looked toward the sound and saw, where light met dark, a figure just inside the black—small, no higher than her thigh. The shadow hesitated, then stepped into the light.
It was a little boy of about five, exquisitely fine-featured, cheeks flushed with milk-white pink, gem-bright eyes, dressed in clothes a bit ill-fitting and loose, his steps awkward and constrained. He crept closer, eyes unblinking on Rong Shu, lotus-root-white hands twisting together in front of him as he whispered: “Shu Shu…”
He very much wanted to raise his arms as usual and ask for a hug, but worried she would dislike the way he looked now.
Rong Shu asked, testing even as she already knew the answer in this contract space: “Are you… Yan Yan?” Then, more directly, she asked with steady calm: “Are you human, or a person that Little Hamster turns into?”
The little boy bit his lip, eyes aggrieved, and said: “I… I don’t know.” In the depths of his mind he disliked showing Rong Shu his human form; somehow, many people had hated him, loathed him, and feared him when he looked human.
He looked up at her with eyes prickling and rimmed red, pitiful as an abandoned youngling and said, voice small and tight with fear: “Shu Shu, don’t throw me away. I want to stay with Shu Shu.”
He lowered his head, not daring to watch her expression.
Rong Shu crouched and cupped his tender face, asking softly: “Then will Yan Yan ever throw me away?”
He blurted, anxious to reassure her before a single heartbeat could pass: “No! Never!”
“Good,” she answered with a small clear smile, gaze solemn: “Then I won’t throw Yan Yan away either.”
Visibly brightening, the boy finally dared to fling himself into her arms. As he did, a Flame Mark bloomed at his brows, glowing like moving magma and growing hot. Feeling a corresponding stir, Rong Shu lifted a hand to her own brow and hissed when a matching heat stung her skin: “Tsk…” A Flame Mark had appeared there as well.
Before she could react, the boy murmured: “Contract. I only want to contract with Shu Shu…” At once a complex, archaic array flared beneath their feet. Rong Shu studied it briefly and felt certain: it was not the Heart Soul Pact array.
The contract completed swiftly, and their consciousnesses withdrew from that inner space.
Back in the cave, Rong Shu looked down at Little Hamster, now weak and exhausted on the tabletop; she lifted him gently into her palms and soothed: “Yan Yan, rest for a while.” He nodded obediently and promptly fell sound asleep on her fingertip. She tucked him back into his nest and drew his tiny quilt over him.
Watching him sleep, she touched the center of her brow once more, then took a mirror from her Storage Pouch; with a thought, the Flame Mark at her brow surfaced into view. She felt both familiar and unfamiliar with this mark—Little Hamster had always borne the same Flame Mark on his forehead, yet she had never known what it meant. Vaguely, she guessed she and Little Hamster had formed some kind of pact, but it was not the Heart Soul Pact. She frowned slightly and wondered aloud: “What… exactly is it?”
Upper Realm, Northern Domain. Ancient Clan forbidden ground. Around a strange altar stood stone effigies two men tall, lifelike and all seated cross-legged. At the center of the altar, a monolith etched with peculiar runes flashed; a portion of the runes lit for an instant, then slowly vanished. At that disappearance, the effigies’ eyes blazed with white light, and several voices issued from within:
“Curse it! That little wretch actually formed a Life Soul Pact with someone!”
“He handed his lifeline over to another’s grasp? How utterly foolish!”
“What now? Even if we drag him back, we’ve lost the only means to shackle him. A Life Soul Pact has only one slot.”
“Pass the order down and send more men. We must find that little beast as quickly as possible—and the one who contracted with him. Kill that person, and the Life Soul Pact slot will naturally open again.”
“…”