"Um... well..."
"Lady, I haven't said anything to offend you, have I?"
As the crowd gradually made way, the girl slowly walked up to Shen Mu. With her golden eyes, which held a strange charm, she sized him up.
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Shen Mu's collar, forcing him to bend down. She brought her nose close to his body and sniffed.
"Do you have a spirit pet that can search for spiritual treasures?" the girl asked in a low voice, her eyes slightly narrowed, right next to his ear.
"!"
Shen Mu's eyes widened in shock. An unprecedented sense of strong and unknown crisis welled up in his heart.
[Come to the place twenty li outside the east of the city in an hour. If you can't arrive on time or if you dare to bring others, I'll come and take you as my human pet directly. Understand?]
Faced with the powerful deterrence of the girl's divine sense transmission, Shen Mu could only helplessly show a hint of bitterness on his face and nodded. "Um... I understand."
"You're obedient. Not bad."
The girl smiled with a hint of pride, let go of him, turned around, walked towards the middle - aged man, threw a bag of heavy spirit stones at his face, and then flew away in an instant.
At this time, Lin Yuhe also came to Shen Mu's side and asked him with concern, "Senior brother, are you okay?"
Shen Mu didn't say much. He just left the crowd absent - mindedly and quickly.
"..."
Seeing this, a hint of worry welled up in Lin Yuhe's eyes. She quickly followed him. "What did she say to you just now?"
"Don't ask. I think I'm going to be in big trouble soon..."
"Master, that guy is very likely to be a dragon. You'd better be careful," the Golden Toad said, sticking its head out from Shen Mu's arms at this time.
A dragon?
Shen Mu pinched his chin and thought.
As far as he remembered, there were basically no traces of the dragon race on the map of the Red Nether Continent.
In his memory, the dragon race, an extremely powerful special race, would only be encountered in the Central Heaven Continent and the Eastern Saint Continent in the later stages of the main storyline.
Now that one appeared here and targeted him...
This wasn't just bad luck. It felt like the heavens were deliberately targeting him.
"Senior brother, if you don't tell me what's going on at this time, I can't help you," Lin Yuhe said seriously.
Although at the moment, faced with the possibility that the other party might be a member of the dragon race, she couldn't think of a more appropriate way to deal with it either.
But two people thinking together was always better than one person trying to bear it alone, right?
"..."
Shen Mu lowered his eyes and thought for a moment. He also felt that it would be better to tell her about this.
"Let's find a place with fewer people to talk first."
...
"What?! A human pet?!"
In a quiet and uninhabited place outside the city, Lin Yuhe looked extremely surprised, and she even had an urge to laugh out loud.
"Did she really transmit that message to you like this?"
"Yeah."
Shen Mu gave her a blank look when he saw her gloating expression and answered affirmatively, feeling rather speechless.
"Do you think she thinks you're good - looking and wants to take you in as an excuse?"
"Get out of here!" Shen Mu directly slapped the back of her head. "Not to mention that I don't have any special physique. Can the aesthetics of other races be the same as that of the human race?"
Moreover, the dragon race had an innate pride in their blood. How could they take a fancy to an ordinary cultivator like him who only had a good - looking face?
"You never know. Maybe she really has a crush on you," Lin Yuhe raised her eyebrows, already in the mode of a trouble - maker.
"Scram... If you don't help me think of a way, don't bother me!"
"Just keep saying such unhelpful and sarcastic things..."
Shen Mu waved his hand at her, leaned against a tree, rubbed his eyebrows, and looked depressed.
This was exactly what he was most afraid of.
If he was really caught by that guy and made into a human pet, he was really going to meet his end prematurely.
After all, with his fragile body, how could he withstand the fierce impact of a dragon?
Not to mention an adult dragon, he might not even be able to withstand a young dragon in the early stage of growth.
And...
According to the information he knew about the dragon race, the mating time of this race was counted in "days", and when they got excited, the time was even harder to estimate.
It really fit a word described by the ancients.
"Master, since she mentioned me, she's probably looking for you because of me, right?" the Golden Toad said, sticking its head out.
"That's true, but we can't rule out the possibility that she has other ideas," Shen Mu said.
After all, the thoughts of others were like a wall that couldn't be crossed. It was difficult for outsiders to peek into and understand their true intentions.
Shen Mu slightly shook his head, stood up, and stopped thinking too much.
"Forget it. At this point, we can only take things one step at a time."
To be targeted by a dragon just by passing by, this kind of bad luck was really something.
"By the way, if something unexpected happens to me on this trip, when you go back, just tell Master that I encountered an accident in a randomly opened secret realm."
"As for how to fabricate the details of the accident, I think your brain can figure it out."
"..."
Hearing these "last words" that he told her before leaving, Lin Yuhe didn't show much expression for a moment. She just nodded and replied, "Okay, I understand."
"Now I'm the one with a tragic fate..."
After a self - deprecating sentence, Shen Mu leaped away and went to the place the girl had mentioned.
"..."
After his figure disappeared, Lin Yuhe pursed her lips slightly, as if she had already come up with a way to deal with the worst - case scenario.
...
"Hum - hum - hum~♪"
By a clear and bottom - visible quiet lake, the girl sat on a cobblestone, humming a song. Her smooth, tender, and lovely white feet were gently kicking the lake water, splashing up a string of crystal - clear white water droplets.
"It seems you're quite sensible," the girl said, her pink lips curving slightly as the rippling lake water gradually spread away.
At the same time, the figure in black behind her arrived just in time, as promised.
"I've never met senior before, and I've never said or done anything to offend senior. I hope senior can tell me what you want me to come here for," Shen Mu said.
"Um..."
The girl hummed for a while, her feet still kicking the lake water.
"The spirit pet on you is the Red - Gold Toad, right?"
"Yes," Shen Mu answered truthfully.
"I need you to use it to help me find a special natural treasure. You can do that, right?"
Hearing this question, Shen Mu immediately felt relieved.
Fortunately, it was just asking him to find treasures.
"I can, but whether I can find it depends on how much senior knows about the natural treasure you need.
If you can give a general range where the natural treasure exists, it will be much faster to find it."
"Um..." The girl tapped her chin with her index finger and thought for a moment.
"I'm not sure about that."
"What about the natural environment where it grows?"
"I'm not very clear about that either... It should be in an environment with relatively abundant fire spiritual energy."
Shen Mu's mouth twitched slightly. He asked one last crucial question, "What's the name of this natural treasure?"
"I heard those human cultivators in the restaurant say... it seems to be called the Fire Infant Fruit."
"..."