I'm Your Yin Zhiping

After everything that had happened, Tang Zhong — patriarch of the Totem clan — could do only one thing: protect the Totem Xuan Serpent's life.

Even if this plague was its doing, the Totem Xuan Serpent could not be killed. Its existence carried enormous significance for all of Hangzhou. Without it, this city would have been ravaged and torn apart through countless historical wars — reduced to ruins, or erased from the world entirely.

Tang Zhong had one demand, and one alone: spare its life.

Exile was exile. It was better than dying at human hands.

"Chief Adjudicator, you overestimate my mercy. The Hidden Danger Strategy means eliminating root and branch — how can you be certain this Totem Xuan Serpent won't return? How can you be certain it won't turn its fury on humanity the moment we drive it away? When its Molting Season ends, this Totem Xuan Serpent will be unstoppable. Do you truly believe your pitiful offerings will be enough to pacify it then? I'm sorry — Zhu Meng will never gamble with the lives of the people. This Totem Xuan Serpent must die, and that is final." Zhu Meng declared, his voice iron.

"Then I'm afraid I cannot tell you where the Totem Xuan Serpent has gone. Whether you arrest me or hold me solely responsible for this plague — I will not reveal its whereabouts." Chief Adjudicator Tang Zhong was equally resolute.

No one understood this city's history better than Tang Zhong.

The divine was this city's blessing, not its pestilence. He believed that with absolute certainty.

Even if it had sinned, so long as no true catastrophe had been wrought, humanity had no right to put it to death.

"Hmph. You think your silence will stop me? My informants have already told me that your niece Tang Yue and a man were spotted near Bai Town. By tomorrow at the latest, I will have its head taken and mounted in the very marketplace where it once appeared — to give the people the truth, and to give them peace." Zhu Meng declared with righteous conviction.

Tang Zhong's brow furrowed tight.

*Bai Town...*

So Tang Yue and Mo Fan's whereabouts had already been exposed. He could only hope they were using the Totem Xuan Serpent's senses to stay ahead of Zhu Meng's Palace Guards.

In Bai Town, a man in the long coat of a Palace Guard captain stood atop the watchtower, his gaze fixed on the mountain range swallowed by the darkness ahead.

"Captain Wu, should we give chase?" a guard asked.

"Hold position. The Trainee Tribunal Agents and Reserve Tribunal Agents have already moved in pursuit — we wait for word here." Guard Captain Wu Pinjing replied.

"Captain, I've heard the Totem Xuan Serpent is extraordinarily powerful. Even with everyone here closing in on it, we might not be able to hold it. Without Lord Zhu Meng stepping in personally..." the guard murmured.

"Don't worry. A Totem Xuan Serpent in Molting Season is extremely weak — no different from an ordinary Demon-Beast. This serpent has lived for untold years, and it violated the laws of nature. Nature will have its punishment. The Molting Season is that punishment." Wu Pinjing said.

"That's a relief... So all we really need to deal with is that Tang Yue and whoever's with her. I wonder how capable the man is."

"Intermediate-Level Mage, nothing more." Wu Pinjing smiled.

"Oh — then any Trainee Tribunal Agent could handle him."

Bai Mountain was a landscape of sun-baked rock, its slopes sparse with vegetation — jagged and unbroken, a natural barrier dividing human territory from the Demon-Beast wilds.

At the mountain's base lay a broad plain carpeted in tall grass, without a single tree in sight. The night wind swept through, sending waves of autumn grass rolling all the way to the mountainside in a sweeping, wild spectacle.

Deep within that sea of grass, a wolf beast whose coat shimmered with blue starlight was tearing across the plain at breathtaking speed — a streak of light cutting through the dark earth, sleek and untouchable.

"Faster — push harder!" Tang Yue glanced back at the shadowy figures closing in behind them, urgency sharp in her voice.

"Already at full speed — watch out ahead!" Mo Fan called.

Before the words were even out of his mouth, the tall grass ahead erupted. Countless vines burst from the earth, growing at terrifying speed and weaving themselves into an enormous cage, waiting patiently for them to walk straight into it.

Along the ground, more vines surged upward — some impossibly soft, coiling into ropes to bind the Swift Star Wolf's legs; others hardening into steel cables, whipping down toward it with crushing force.

*Whooooosh—*

The steel-cable vines slashed through the air, each crack carrying devastating power.

The Swift Star Wolf wove and twisted frantically, but the steel-cable vines kept multiplying. Every blow carved a deep furrow into the earth.

**CRACK!**

Too many vines — there was nowhere left to go. One steel cable caught the Swift Star Wolf across the skull, splitting open a vivid gash of blood.

The Swift Star Wolf lurched sideways, and Mo Fan and Tang Yue were sent tumbling into the tall grass along with it...

The soft vines pounced the moment the Swift Star Wolf went down. They surged forward in a wave, growing wildly across every inch of its body — binding it so completely it couldn't move a single muscle.

"Careful — this is an extraordinarily powerful Plant Element Mage!" Tang Yue scrambled to her feet, her expression sharp and wary as she turned to Mo Fan.

Mo Fan nodded and Released his Mental Intent, reaching out through the grassfield to sense the Plant Element Mage concealed somewhere within it.

*Fwoosh!*

*Fwoosh!*

Without warning, two more vines shot toward them — one aimed at Mo Fan, one at Tang Yue. These had hardened into spearheads, driving straight for their bodies.

*A jolt of alarm shot through him. That Trainee Tribunal Agent isn't pulling any punches — those are kill shots.*

"Burn this entire field to the ground." Mo Fan said.

The tall grass was severely hampering their vision, and the Plant Element Mage moved through it like a fish in water — every blade and root his to command.

"No — there are more people tracking us. Fire would give away our position." Tang Yue said.

"Any way to draw him out?" Mo Fan scanned the surroundings, every sense on edge.

The grassfield was the Plant Element Mage's perfect terrain. And his goal wasn't purely to capture them — he was using Plant Element magic to stall them, to keep them from reaching the mountain.

"How would I know... watch your back!" Tang Yue called.

Mo Fan spun around and found a cluster of vines threading through the grass, racing straight for him.

He reacted in an instant, dissolving into a mass of dark shadow and sinking beneath the moonlit shade of the tall grass. The vines lunged through empty air, found nothing, and vanished back into the grassfield — giving Mo Fan and Tang Yue no chance at all to determine where they had come from.

"That's quite the mastery of Shadow Fade." Tang Yue watched Mo Fan surface from a different patch of darkness and offered a word of praise.

"All thanks to Teacher Tang Yue's excellent guidance..." Mo Fan replied with a modest smile.

"I'll cover you here. Use Shadow Fade to flush him out — but don't injure him. Just pin him with Wolf Soul Shadow Nail." Tang Yue said.

"Got it!"