Making a Run for It — With a Snake BOSS in Tow

They wasted no time after leaving the conference room. Mo Fan and Tang Yue headed straight for Three Pools Mirroring the Moon.

This time, Tang Yue arrived with something new in hand: a black bead that Tang Zhong had called a Totem Pearl — a specially crafted vessel capable of holding Totem creatures within it.

The space inside the Totem Pearl was substantial, large enough for the Sky-Scraping Serpent to rest there for a time.

At its core, the Totem Pearl was a spatial container — though most such vessels cannot hold living things. This one had been modified to sustain an infusion of life energy. As long as that energy remained sufficient, the Sky-Scraping Serpent could survive inside it. Should the energy run dry, the serpent would have to come out immediately; otherwise it would simply suffocate in that lifeless pocket of space.

Zhu Meng had never imagined that something like a Totem Pearl could even exist. His people were already being mobilized, preparing to carry out a threat-elimination operation at West Lake. He had assigned watchers to keep a tight, unblinking eye on Tang Zhong and all of Tang Zhong's most capable subordinates — never suspecting that Tang Zhong had already made other arrangements, quietly sending Tang Yue and Mo Fan ahead with the Totem Pearl, slipping away under cover of night to spirit the Sky-Scraping Serpent out before anyone noticed.

If Zhu Meng had simply intended to drive the Totem beyond human borders, things might not have grown so complicated. But the truth was that the man wanted the Totem Serpent gone for good — eliminated, not exiled.

A supernatural creature of that magnitude, one that had developed a genuine attachment to a human city? You couldn't just let something like that walk away. Who was to say it wouldn't one day return at the head of a horde of snake demons to slaughter everyone?

Cut the weeds, pull the roots. Tang Zhong was almost certain Zhu Meng planned to seize this moment — the Totem's most vulnerable window — to have it killed outright.

Which meant Tang Yue had to take the Totem away. Now.

Once the Molting Season passed, even if Zhu Meng had ten times his current nerve, he would not dare lay a hand on a single scale of the Totem's body.

"Hey there, big one. That Zhu Meng is after you again. I'm going to take you away right now — somewhere safe where you can rest up properly. Big one, can you hear me?" Tang Yue had leapt to the water's edge at Three Pools Mirroring the Moon and was calling softly down into the lake.

Mo Fan stood on Mid-Lake Island. If he was being honest with himself, he was still more than a little afraid of the Sky-Scraping Serpent.

**Gurgle... gurgle... gurgle...**

The surface of the lake began to churn. The sheer violence of the disturbance told him everything — whatever was rising from below was enormous.

Sure enough, beneath the silver water shimmering in moonlight, a staggering black shape was slowly floating upward. Mo Fan could barely believe that this small stretch of water had concealed something the size of a skyscraper.

*Could there actually be a compressed space inside Three Pools Mirroring the Moon? Some kind of hidden pocket dimension?*

The shadow grew clearer, then broke the surface.

That massive head finally emerged. In the moonlight, the serpent's sleek scales gleamed with a shifting, rippling iridescence.

The moment Tang Yue saw the Sky-Scraping Serpent appear, her face flooded with warmth. There was not a shadow of fear in her expression. She reached out and stroked the serpent's head without a moment's hesitation.

The head alone was the size of a hundred-square-meter apartment. Its flat nostrils were like small caves to a human — never mind the yawning breadth of that serpent mouth. When its long, forked tongue shot out, it was enough to make any sane person's legs give out.

Tang Yue was utterly fearless. She actually jumped up onto the serpent's smooth, gleaming forehead and chattered away at it with visible delight.

In this moment, the Tang Yue that Mo Fan had always perceived as somewhat mature and alluring — she looked, in front of the Sky-Scraping Serpent, exactly like a lively young girl. Bright and brimming with energy, light and guileless.

"This is my student," Tang Yue announced, standing on the serpent's half-submerged head and pointing toward Mo Fan on Mid-Lake Island. "A terrible student who never listens. His name is Mo Fan."

The Sky-Scraping Serpent swiveled its great head. Those lantern-bright eyes fixed on Mo Fan. Then its tongue shot out — an absurdly, jaw-droppingly long dart in his direction.

"Mo Fan, I think it remembers you!" Tang Yue called out, dissolving into bright, bell-clear laughter as Mo Fan spun around and sprinted away.

"Sis — ugh, I mean — dear *auntie*, can we please just get on with what we came here to do?" Mo Fan called back, his face a picture of misery.

"Don't rush me. I have to talk to it slowly. It's very sensitive during this period — even I need to take my time and communicate properly first." Tang Yue said.

"Right, fine. You two chat." Mo Fan muttered.

The moonlight was as pure and clear as ever. Its radiance spilled from the black sky in hues of blue-silver, weaving together with the still lake water to form the most beautiful moonlit scene West Lake had to offer.

And beneath that silver glow, a bewitching young woman knelt atop an enormous black head, her hair — as flowing and wave-rippled as the lake itself — cascading freely around her. In the moonlight, her graceful silhouette seemed almost sacred. She spoke softly, unhurriedly, the way a younger generation talks to an elder — rambling through this and that, the small details of everyday life — while that great, reticent elder simply listened.

Nothing like the terror the Sky-Scraping Serpent inspired in others. Here, before Tang Yue, it was just a great earnest head resting above the waterline; and when she paused between words, those lantern eyes would drift slowly upward, patient, as if waiting for whatever came next.

Watching this, Mo Fan felt something stir deep inside him. He understood — he could almost see the ghost of a younger Tang Yue, a child, a girl, sitting just like this, talking to the Sky-Scraping Serpent the same way she did now.

Growing up with a companion like this — ancient, wordless, steadfast — must have driven away so much of the loneliness and fear that shadowed a girl with no father to come home to.

"Alright, it agreed!" Tang Yue suddenly called over to him, flashing a bright peace sign with her fingers.

"Then hurry up and seal it in, Fahai," Mo Fan said.

Tang Yue had no idea what he was babbling about, but she began guiding the Sky-Scraping Serpent into the Totem Pearl.

The pearl already contained Totem energy within it, and the serpent showed no resistance. Even so, Mo Fan couldn't help wondering how something *that* enormous was supposed to fit inside something *that* small.

And now that he thought about it — the Sky-Scraping Serpent did seem noticeably less massive than the first time he'd laid eyes on it. Why was that?

"It shrinks during the Molting Season," Tang Yue explained.

"Oh. Does it shrink down to, like, an actual little snake?"

The serpent's soul-shaking scale was something Mo Fan simply could not make peace with. Even the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard, massive as it was, had probably looked small standing next to this thing — let alone that centipede.

"Quite possibly!"

"I'll believe it when I see it. Anyway — seal it up, and let's get out of here." Mo Fan urged.

*Wait — eloping again?*

*This time it's a considerably bigger thrill than last time — and not entirely because I'm running off with an older woman. No. This time I'm also hauling along a skyscraper-sized snake BOSS!!*

*Maybe before we go, I should put on some appropriate background music. Something like that old song about the beautiful scenery of West Lake in the spring?*