Chapter 47: Metamorphosis

At that moment, the small wooden box in Baichuan's claws began to tremble violently.

Along with the trembling, the Ice Silkworm inside the box let out an extremely shrill shriek.

This was an unprecedented strange phenomenon; even before, when surrounded and attacked by a large group of humans until it was utterly exhausted, this Ice Silkworm had never let out such a wretched scream.

No, it had never even made a sound.

But at this moment, it did!

Baichuan was startled, and as he came to his senses, he instinctively tried to press down on the wooden box with his claws and carry it over to Xiao haozi.

But it was too late, or rather, it had no effect.

The wooden box's trembling grew more and more terrifying, and Baichuan, also startled, instinctively gripped it hard, and the result—

"Crack—"

With just a light squeeze from his sharp, blade-like claws, the already flimsy wooden box split apart completely.

A small, tender-white Strange Insect appeared in the air.

Its tiny, soft little feet, its white and tender soft body, and a pair of eyes like two tiny black dots.

No matter how you looked at it, it had nothing to do with ferocity; it was the very image of something cute.

This scene, however, made Baichuan's scalp tingle, as if every scale on his body was about to stand on end.

Just as Baichuan thought it would unleash that terrifying cold aura the next moment.

He saw the Ice Silkworm let out another wretched scream, then its whole body floated in mid-air, twitching unnaturally.

Amid the twitching, tiny, extremely fine yet incomparably bright white Light Points gradually emerged from within the Ice Silkworm's body.

The instant these Light Points appeared, wisps of bone-chilling cold air actually rose from them.

In an instant, the temperature here suddenly dropped several degrees, and it kept dropping; the speed of the descent quickened as the Light Points multiplied.

After just a few breaths, these Light Points gathered together, transforming into a ghastly-white stream of light that rushed toward Baichuan.

And the Ice Silkworm dropped from mid-air with a soft "plop."

What is this?

This scene startled Baichuan into a jolt; in an instant he raised his slender neck and explosively retreated backward.

Because that extremely obvious stream of light was the very white light that had frozen that group of humans to death before!

Although the stream of light before his eyes was faint and much smaller, it still wasn't something he could easily withstand.

However, before he could escape.

That stream of light, upon discovering its target fleeing, abruptly halted mid-flight, changed direction, and came at him again.

"Holy crap, it tracks too?!"

Seeing this, Baichuan, extremely rarely, blurted out a coarse curse, and was then struck on the head by the stream of light.

The next moment, Baichuan was seen frozen in place.

Of course, this didn't mean he was dead.

At this moment, Baichuan, who had thought he was about to die, astonishingly found that he was actually fine, and the sensation he felt was extremely strange.

A torrent that he felt should have been extremely cold was continuously pouring into his body from his forehead, yet he couldn't feel a trace of cold.

Right, not a single trace of cold. In an instant, a confusion of flesh and sensation assailed his heart.

This feeling was quite strange; clearly his senses told him this was a cold current comparable to a frozen lake in the dead of winter, and he should have been frozen to death at this moment.

But his body was like a hungry wolf seeing fat meat; not only did it not detect that deadly chill, it eagerly welcomed the arrival of this cold current.

He even seemed to sense a joy emanating from this cold current, like a student far from home finally returning to his hometown.

Instinctively, he narrowed his eyes, savoring this wondrous sensation.

At the same time, as Baichuan froze and narrowed his eyes.

Astonishing changes also began to appear in his body.

It could be seen that the snake head struck by the stream of light slowly began to form a thin layer of Ice Frost, and wisps of ghastly-white cold air began to spread from his snake head toward his entire snake body.

Cold air began to rise from his body without cease.

Not only that, before long.

An even more astonishing scene appeared.

As ghastly cold air emanated from his snake body, a large pile of all kinds of densely packed tiny insects actually emerged from various spots on his body.

Among these insects were some as small as grains of rice, some as slender as threads, some as large as peanuts, and some flat and wide like pork tapeworms…

These parasites, which had always lived inside his body, eating his flesh and drinking his blood, now scrambled to emerge, as if something terrifyingly powerful existed within him, desperately trying to escape.

But before they could leave, many of them, as they crawled, gradually lost their ability to move, began to stiffen, and in a series of "plops" fell to the ground like rain.

This was an extremely horrifying and bizarre scene.

And such a scene was now witnessed only by a little mouse.

The incident happened so suddenly that the little Xiao haozi didn't even have time to react before it was already over.

Then it saw this astonishing scene: this kind-hearted big snake actually had a huge pile of strange insects emerging from its body.

It was so startled that it immediately stepped back, its two little paws tightly clutching its small body, but the next second it also realized something.

If this big snake had these things on its body, then could it have them too?

The little Laoshu, suddenly discovering this blind spot, also looked down at its own body in some terror; its once glossy, smooth fur now looked jarring and horrifying no matter how it looked!

In its panic, it scratched here and there with its two paws, as if trying to dig out the little insects inside its body this way.

……

And when Baichuan came back to his senses from the incomparably comfortable sensation.

What met his eyes was a listless-looking Xiao haozi; at this moment it no longer had its previous excitement, its fur was in complete disarray, it leaned weakly against the earthen wall with its little head drooping, and its two little paws occasionally scratched at the fur on its body.

As if it had been subjected to someone's vicious attack during this period.

What's going on?

Baichuan was stunned, unable to understand what was wrong with the little rat again.

Until he lowered his head and saw all kinds of bugs on the ground, with some still clinging to his scales.

The sight gave him the creeps, and he instinctively shook his whole body to fling the bugs off.

In a series of *pap-pap* sounds, the few bugs still clinging to his scales were flung off one after another; some even hit the listless little mouse, which let out a series of aggrieved squeaks and dodged away.

Only then did Baichuan steel himself against the disgust and take a careful look at the bugs — they all looked different, the only similarity being that they were all dead.

"Are these parasites from my body?" Baichuan thought for a moment and figured out what had happened.

Right — no wonder the moment he woke from that comfortable feeling, he felt an extremely pleasant, carefree sensation all over his body.

It was as if he had been carrying a burden of dozens of jin all along, and had now finally cast it off completely.

His whole body felt light and airy, as if he were about to ascend to immortality.

Even his breathing felt considerably smoother.

It was because the power of ice within him had cleaned out his insides.

(End of chapter)