Night fell. 

 

With it came a creeping silence upon the forest. The creatures that filled it during the day seemed overcome with a collective hush as the shadows grew longer, as if holding their breaths in dread of the horror that haunted its darkened depths.

 

Nestled behind some bushes, Wu Lianlei drew her robe tighter around herself before stifling a sneeze. The chilly raindrops falling from the air splashed against her mercilessly before slipping icy fingers into the depths of her robes.

 

That's right, it was raining.

 

It hadn't rained during the Hengchun Village arc in the novel, but then again, this mission had come a few weeks later than canon. Wu Lianlei wasn't sure if her transmigration was to blame or some other butterfly effect, but so far everything else was proceeding exactly as planned.

 

"Lei Lei, do you need a hot drink? I can warm up some water."

 

"Don't. What if she needs to use the restroom later?"

 

Well, almost. Wu Lianlei glanced at the two figures camping in the undergrowth with her. On her right was Wu Yelin holding a flask of water, while her left crouched Li Hanlan with his fan over his head. 

 

"Shouldn't you two be somewhere else?" she asked them. Rather, Li Hanlan was supposed to be within viewing distance of Qi Yuan, while Wu Yelin had watched everything from the trees until she found a perfect time to strike. Why were they hanging around her instead?

 

"We're exactly where we need to be," Wu Yelin said firmly.

 

"The spiritual beast has always taken the weakest disciples every time, which makes you a prime target." Li Hanlan added.

 

Then why didn't you take some of the other disciples as distractions? Wu Lianlei complained internally. There were plenty of Yin Yang Sect and Skyedge Sect members at a similar cultivation level, but they'd all been left behind to guard the inn. Instead, only their trio and a handful of high level Yin Yang Sect disciples had come to the evening stakeout.

 

"If the two of you are so close, it'll get us all in one bite," Wu Lianlei reasoned. 

 

"It won't."

 

"I'll break its teeth first!"

 

Wu Lianlei rolled her eyes as she sent her senses into the earth, feeling with tendrils of qi for the familiar hum of her seeds from that afternoon. All of them were resting quietly within the Yin Yang Sect's trap array--also infused with Wood element qi. The disciples who'd survived the first attacks had already determined the spiritual beast to be an Earth affinity beast and in the five elements, Wood overcame Earth.

 

"It might go for one of you first," Wu Lianlei muttered. Earth overcame Water, so both Li Hanlan and Wu Yelin were at an disadvantage when it came to elemental attacks. 

 

Wu Yelin seemed moved by the possibility. "What if it does, senior brother?"

 

"Then we push little junior sister in front of us instead." Li Hanlan's reply was characteristically merciless.

 

Wu Lianlei wiped rainwater out of her eyes and shot him a glare. And you call yourself my senior brother!

 

The plan was this: hide in the forest until the spiritual beast came hunting, then lure it into position with a low-level disciple. Once the beast followed the bait, they were to trap its movements with the seal array and deal with it afterwards. In the original novel, Li Hanlan had cherished Wu Lianlei too much to ever see her hurt, so he'd brought along a few more disciples to act as bait. While it'd been successful, some of them had incurred injuries during the battle that followed.

 

In this timeline, Li Hanlan was openly feeding her to the monster. She couldn't say his reasoning was wrong--having never worked with the Yin Yang Sect, it was better to rely on a small and experienced team than a chaotic legion of underlings to deal with an unknown threat. But she couldn't help feeling cheated.

 

Where was all the doting and spoiling he owed her character, huh? What was the point of being labeled a white lotus when people treated you like dirt?!

 

"You've prepared for this, you have your backup," Li Hanlan replied to her glare. "We'll be right behind you if anything happens."

 

"Hah." Wu Lianlei sniffed, before squeezing her eyes shut to ignore him. Once again, she went to look for her seeds, which thrummed back with her qi in reassurance. She could feel herself glowing with energy, as well as the dimmer signatures from her senior siblings and various other disciples scattered around the array. Everyone was suppressing their qi signatures except for her, all the better to draw the beast out.

 

Slowly, the steady pitter-patter of raindrops calmed her heart, allowing her to clear her senses. More hints of qi appeared intermittently to her around the forest, those of the Yin Yang Sect members hidden nearby. As she skimmed over their relative positions, something pricked at the edge of her mind. She followed the sensation to a slow, sluggish force of muddled Earth affinity qi coming from the distance.

 

Wu Lianlei's eyes snapped open at the same time Wu Yelin's hand rested on her shoulders.

 

"It's coming," Li Hanlan murmured.

 

"Right." Wu Lianlei's eyes were fixated on a point in the northwest, even though she couldn't see a thing. "I'll get into position."

 

As she rose to her feet, Wu Yelin and Li Hanlan followed suit. While Wu Lianlei stepped forward, the two of them scattered in opposite directions to flank her from the nearby trees. Spiritual beasts had cultivation levels too, but their intelligence varied wildly. The novel had described this fifth-rank creature as a simple-minded beast who acted on its instincts. 

 

The array hidden within the earth thrummed briefly in her senses as she stepped onto its surface. It was her first time exposed to something like this and it felt like slipping within the confines of a well-woven net. As her feet settled within the array, it pulsed and channeled a burst of qi that surrounded her body briefly, making it glow in the dark. It was equal to a giant shoutout for the beast, a big Come and eat this free buffet! in case she didn't get the creature's attention.

 

Moments later, the presence from the northwest quickened its steps. Branches rustled and shook in its wake as it traveled through the forest, its footsteps skittering over the mud. Soon enough, its sleek green-black body with round white spots emerged into view, soaked with rain. Two long antennae curled from the top of its head, feeling blindly in the dark. Wu Lianlei resisted the urge to back away as the large--very large--horn beetle beast loomed into view.

 

-A few more feet.- Li Hanlan's voice coaxed in her ear, reminding her to learn how he did that someday, and soon.

 

She nodded to show she understood, and cleared her throat. "Hey, over here!"

 

The beetle paused, clicking its mandibles as its antennae stretch towards Wu Lianlei. She wrinkled her nose and leaned back before tapping her feet impatiently. "Here, you blind thing!"

 

The beetle lurched forward a few steps, finally stepping into the center of the array. Immediately, there was a flash. The next second, countless strands of silver thread appeared to wrap around the beetle's legs and body, binding it in place within the array. Wu Lianlei watch its antennae thrash wildly until more threads rose from the seal to tie them in place. It froze, unable to move a muscle.

 

Qi Yuan's voice rose up somewhere from the left. "It's clear!"

 

Wu Lianlei marveled at the smooth process. Originally, it'd taken three minor disciples and a brief fight to subdue the creature, but they'd just tamed it in under a minute. She felt almost silly making all those preparations now. It'd be easy enough to trace the beast back to its master, then deal with the true culprit afterwards. After confirming that it was fine to leave, she took her first step out of the array--

 

--and stumbled. Thanks to the rain, the ground of the forest was wet and muddy. Wu Lianlei's foot slipped off a rock, but seconds before she crashed to the ground, a vine burst out of the ground and grabbed her around the waist.

 

"Lei Lei, are you okay?!" Wu Yelin called from the treetops.

 

"Fine!" Wu Lianlei waved at her sister while safely cushioned by her vine. "Go ahead and secure the beast, I can get out by myself." 

 

They'd set up the seal array in a sunken part of the forest, so she'd have to do some climbing to get out of the pit. Holding onto the vine wrapped around her waist, Wu Lianlei tapped lightly against the ground before she leaped into the air. Like a cable line, the vine grew with her in its grasp until she was deposited safely on higher ground. 

 

"Thank you," Wu Lianlei patted its leaves politely as she landed. "You can go back now."

 

By now, a few of the Yin Yang Sect disciples had scrambled up the beetle's back to inspect it closely. Qi Yuan and Li Hanlan stood side by side at its foot while Wu Yelin was still watching from the treetops with the rest of the group. Wu Lianlei's vine waved lazily in the air before sinking back towards the earth, but then!

 

A tendril shot out and wrapped itself around the vine! Alarmed, Wu Lianlei realized that it was the antennae of the horned beetle! The vine thrashed and tried to break free, but when that didn't work, it grew extra tendrils to bind the antennae in place. The two forces struggled with each other, earning the attention of the Yin Yang Sect disciples and her own sect siblings as the beetle's body trembled with the fight.

 

"What's going on?" Qi Yuan grew alert.

 

"It caught my vine!" Wu Lianlei called out.

 

Without hesitation, Qi Yuan shot Li Hanlan a look. "Cut it!"

 

Li Hanlan sliced through the plant with a blast of icy qi. Its severed end flew in the air, the tendrils still locked in a death grip with the antennae. At the same time, there was a gurgle in the ground before it suddenly gave way! Li Hanlan and Qi Yuan were forced to leap into the air as the beetle sank feet first into a pool of mud. A few of the silver strands binding it in place abruptly snapped.

 

"Senior Brother Qi, the array's breaking apart at the edges!" one of the Yin Yang Sect disciples watching over the seal formation shouted.

 

"Then fix it!" Qi Yuan shouted back, before darting sideways to avoid an impending lash from the antennae. The horned beetle crouched down and sent a deep, soundless tremor though the earth, creating shockwaves in the ground. More threads snapped, and two disciples on its back lost their balance and fell off.

 

Without a thought, Wu Lianlei called on more vines that burst from the soil and caught them before they could land in the mud and be trampled underfoot. Then she summoned the rest of her plants to catch the beast by its ankles and body again, holding it in place.

 

"How is it breaking free?" Wu Yelin yelled. "Isn't it only fifth rank? The seal should be strong enough to hold it in place!"

 

"It's managed to overpower the boundaries somehow!"

 

"That's impossible, it doesn't have the intelligence to understand seal arrays!"

 

Wu Lianlei squinted at the blurry forms of her senior brother and Qi Yuan still battling antennae in mid-air before wiping water out of her eyes. Her eyes were drawn to the squelching noises by the beetle's half-buried body--it was now shooting balls of mud at its assailants.

 

Mud...water...

 

"It's the rain!" she suddenly cried out. "The beetle has Earth affinity and elemental advantage over water! There was mud beneath its feet--it loosened that to displace the seal array boundaries!"

 

Permanent seal formations weren't affected by simple whims of weather, but theirs was a basic Wood affinity seal made to temporarily bind a beast. The boundaries of this seal was secured between the surrounding trees and the earth below, the latter which had been soaked through with enough water to give away at the slightest push.

 

"Then I'll just bake the mud into earth!" Wu Yelin declared, but Wu Lianlei shook her head.

 

"It's still raining, that'll take too long!"

 

"Yelin!" Li Hanlan's voice rang out. "Gather all the rain falling over the beetle! Condense it into a ball!"

 

Although Wu Yelin had no idea what Li Hanlan was planning, she instantly did as she was told. An area of dry air appeared above the beetle as all of the water droplets froze and gathered in the center, slowing creating a round, liquid orb. Wu Lianlei only felt her heart give a tiny skip.

 

He called her Yelin! Ahhh, is this the beginning of their ship?!

 

But then the beetle thrashed again, and she went back to concentrating her efforts on holding the creature in place with her vines. The bulbs she planted had bloomed as well into thick, thorny branches covered in bright red flowers--Beauty's Barbs, which contained a strong anesthetic when in bloom. She reached out with glowing palms and guided one of the flowers straight into the beetle's face before making it open its petals. A cloud of dust hit the creature, sending it momentarily reeling.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the Yin Yang Sect disciples were scrambling to reaffix the silver threads while Qi Yuan was using his own Earth affinity to solidify the mud at the beetle's feet. The beast itself had taken to attacking the trees instead, breaking branches and denting trunks in an attempt to wreck more of the seal array boundaries. Li Hanlan remained staring into the skies, where an water orb about half the size of the beetle was slowly coming into shape.

 

"That's enough!" he said after the orb had swelled in size. "Now splash it over the beetle!"

 

It was a testament to Wu Yelin's control that she followed his directions precisely. The instant the flood hit the beetle, Li Hanlan threw three talismans in the air and started relying an incantation. The talismans glowed between flying to encircle the beetle, bathing it in a circle of light. There was a glimmer before the water dripping off its sides froze solid. A fine layer of ice now encaged the beetle and its vines, stopping all movement. Qi Yuan took this chance to convert the mud into solid earth beneath its feet while the Yin Yang Sect disciples hastened to re-summon the silver threads.

 

At last, all was still again. Wu Lianlei exhaled in relief, wondering if they'd even overdone it. The spiritual beast before them was now identical to a sculpture with icicles hanging off its sides.

 

"It won't hold for long, so hurry and finish the re-binding," Li Hanlan said urgently, looking somewhat weary. Not everyone had absolute affinity with their element, and summoning a sudden influx of ice in the middle of summer wasn't easy.

 

Wu Lianlei was about to move when a bone-chilling breeze whipped past her. Before she could react, she saw a dark mass dive into the sunken clearing and engulf Li Hanlan. She barely got to shout a warning before the black cloud abruptly dispersed.

 

"Senior brother!"

 

Li Hanlan had disappeared.