Chapter 45: Life or Death, All Up to Fate

Seeing this, Baichuan was stunned for a moment, a strange feeling rising in his heart. For a while he didn't know what to make of it, and just stood there dazedly watching it tremble as it held up the little wooden box, waiting for him to take it.

After a long pause, he came back to his senses, sighed deeply in his heart, and extended his other claw to take the little wooden box.

For a moment, the little wooden box that had always felt light as a feather now seemed rather heavy.

He turned his head and looked up toward the horizon, his gaze passing over the lush green treetops, settling on the azure sky.

In his heart he carefully calculated how far they had fled by now, and just how fast that human's Burst had been back then.

It seemed that over the next few days, they would have to stop and stay for a while.

Fortunately, that human probably couldn't catch up so quickly.

This river tributary twisted and turned every which way, the terrain terribly complex, and a human couldn't possibly keep swimming like he could.

Even if they wanted to build a boat, that would take Time.

Not to mention his swimming speed was no pushover either—Time was on their side this time.

Well then, this was as good a place as any to prepare for his evolution.

The power of Ice Frost…

Having silently made up his mind, Baichuan simply settled down right there.

……

By evening, after spending the whole afternoon at it, Baichuan had finally found a fairly well-hidden hedgehog burrow, and on the basis of that burrow had dug out a brand-new cave.

Although because of Time constraints the cave he dug out was rather shallow, compared to the original hedgehog burrow it was already considerably larger and deeper.

As for the hedgehog?

It had long since been gutted and was now tossed carelessly to one side. It was only thanks to Baichuan's newly dug cave being deep and sealed off that the smell of blood hadn't really spread.

At this moment Baichuan frowned as he stared at this somewhat off-looking mouse—if Baichuan, a snake, even had eyebrows.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was that ever since Baichuan had brought back this injured little fellow, it had remained in this half-dead, half-alive state—still breathing and able to twitch a little, but beyond that, nothing.

He looked at the rather gruesome wound on the little thing's leg, the one bitten by that small snake. The situation there didn't look right.

This was probably a wound infection—or perhaps not just a wound infection; maybe its internal organs were injured too.

Baichuan examined it for a while and guessed.

He should count himself lucky that this little thing had happened to run into a non-venomous snake rather than a venomous one; otherwise it would already be cold and stiff by now.

But looking at it now, there didn't seem to be much difference—only that one died on the spot, while the other was dying in agony now.

Because he didn't seem to be able to help much.

Any animal living in the wild fears getting wounded, because once a wound appears, it's very easy for it to become infected and inflamed.

And sure enough, this little thing had the misfortune of running into exactly that.

This was not good.

At this moment, whether out of rational consideration or personal sentiment, Baichuan felt a genuine, heartfelt urge to try to save this little thing.

Reason told him that the Ice Silkworm he needed still required this creature to keep it suppressed; otherwise, once it died, the Strange Insect in the wooden box beside him would immediately go into a frenzy.

When that happened, no one knew whether he could withstand it.

On balance, he felt he couldn't discard this Ice Silkworm for now—this ability was too strange. Until things were settled for certain, he couldn't act rashly, or he might not even have Time to regret it.

On the emotional side, based on the touch he'd just experienced, Baichuan now also subconsciously didn't want it to just die like this—especially since it was because of him.

He didn't like owing anyone.

But the thing was, he couldn't think of a single useful way to help.

What, go looking for medicinal herbs?

Setting aside the possible differences between worlds, in his previous life Baichuan had never studied this stuff—how would he tell them apart?

Not to mention he was still just a snake.

Facing this moment, Baichuan silently sighed, feeling a sudden sense of helplessness.

Was this little thing's life really meant to end here?

He irritably scanned the surroundings, trying to find a workable solution. If only this little thing could Regenerate like he could, wouldn't that be great?

"Hm? Regeneration?"

Baichuan was stunned for a moment, suddenly thinking that since he himself possessed the ability of Regeneration, how exactly did that Regeneration ability work?

In essence, it was nothing more than having genes in his body that could produce a kind of mysterious cell.

And this mysterious cell was the most primitive, original, and unspecialized cell of a living organism—insufficiently differentiated, with the potential function of regenerating various tissues and organs.

Its name was "stem cell, the all-powerful stem cell!"

And generally, where in the body were these stem cells that could grant the host Regeneration stored? They existed in various tissues of the organism, even in the bone marrow.

So did his blood have them?

Baichuan recalled the changes in his own body last time he was injured, especially regarding his blood.

He found that it seemed, perhaps, to!

Thinking of this, he looked again at this little thing, which was in pain all over.

In that case, whether you live or die from here on will be up to your own fate.

Baichuan brought his tail over, glanced at it, then resolutely slashed hard across it with his sharp claw.

After a brief sting of pain, bright red blood began to overflow along his tail, gathering into a bead at the tip.

Seeing this, Baichuan brought his tail over above the little thing's mouth, and drops of fresh red blood fell, pulled by gravity, into its mouth.

As drop after drop of blood fell and seeped in.

Not long after, when Baichuan felt his tail stop dripping blood and begin to heal, he finally stopped.

"This much blood should be enough, right? If it still doesn't work, then it can only be said your fate was sealed."

After this, Baichuan left its side.

He had done everything he could; if it still didn't work, then there really was nothing more to be done.

Since that was the case, he should have prepared long ago.

For example, finding a safe spot to begin evolving the ability from the Ice Silkworm, and finishing the evolution early to see what its specific effect was.

If it proved useless, he could still take advantage of the little thing being alive to quickly find out the reason, and at the same time scan again to obtain the ability model of this Ice Silkworm.

Otherwise, once it died, there really would be nothing to be done.

Don't blame Baichuan for being so pragmatic — after all, he had long since done everything he could; now it was merely maximizing his gains.

Between the two of them, it was nothing more than a hunter-and-prey relationship, like the wolf and the sheep.

If you said the wolf would fall in love with the sheep, he'd find it laughable.

His reason for catching it was essentially because the Ice Silkworm needed a suppressor; deep down, he already regarded that rat as his possession.

He hadn't eaten it before simply because it was the first time he'd encountered a creature that might possess intelligence, and also because he thought this might be a world of cultivation and the like.

Not yet understanding this world clearly, he feared stirring up a great deal of unnecessary trouble, and besides, he simply didn't like eating intelligent creatures.

After all, in his view, although that rat had a fair bit of Spirit, it still couldn't be counted as an intelligent being; today's stirring of emotion was merely raising its standing in his heart from prey to the level of an ordinary pet.

Even if it didn't die this time, once he obtained the Ice Silkworm's ability—

By then, he wouldn't keep it with him either. After all, every time he grew and evolved an ability, he needed to enter a deep slumber, and slumber meant he would lose all power to resist.

This point alone destined him to be forever a lone snake.

Not to mention it had ultimately been marked with some kind of tracking method by humans; bringing it along would be like asking to stand out even more.

Now he should go out and find a new place to evolve.

Staying here wasn't good, even though this cave was one he had just dug out.

But as long as other creatures existed, he couldn't let down his guard — the panel concerned his entire future, and he couldn't afford the slightest carelessness.

Just as human nature can't bear testing, he, Baichuan, trusted nothing — except himself!

Evolution also required choosing a hidden place where only he existed.

(End of this chapter)