Shooting Star [Never Let You Go, Again Book 2]

20: One Huge Peacock

"Hm? A-Zhan, where are you running?"

"Light."

"Huh? What light?" Wei Wuxian raised a sleepy head to see Lan Zhan running straight at a distant light. "Poor darling, carrying me like this and running, are you out of your mind?"

"Wei Ying stay there."

"At least... BICHEN! Let your master drive you." Wei Ying commanded. Bichen shot out of the sheath in Lan Zhan's belt and stood beside Lan Zhan, who nodded and jumped onto it. "Bichen, the light," Wei Wuxian ordered and Bichen shot towards the glow.

"A-Zhan, you think it's her?"

"Mn."

"But the light?"

"Aureole. Light of Wisdom."

"Oooh, she sounds cooler every time!" Wei Wuxian smiled. "Oh, look! We're near!"

"Mn." Lan Zhan pressed down on Bichen with his feet, making it slow down as the light grew clearer and brighter.

**********

"Where are those guys?"

"Xiyuan, calm down, they'll be fine," Lan Hao soothed.

"HaoHao, pass me your water bottle," Xiyuan reached out.

"Here."

Nie Xiyuan and the others gulped down water, Xiuying drinking the most as she had never run that much in her whole life. 

"I told you to let me carry you!"

"Zizhen!" Xiuying leant in, whispering, "shut it, they're all here!"

"So what! They all know anyway– Sizhui! Jin Ling!" He waved into the distance.

"At last!" The entire squad stood up to welcome the terrified couple.

"What's with the faces?" Jingyi shouted through a mouth stuffed with a dumpling.

"Found the beast," Jin Ling panted as he snatched Jingyi's water bottle and drank half of it up, before pouring some into an exhausted Sizhui's mouth.

"What are you guys tired for? You didn't kill it already?!"

"No, Jin Chan, no," Sizhui nodded thank you to Jin Ling before wiping his mouth. "Just ran back at top-speed. The tunnel's long: long journey to the inside and back."

"Inside?"

"Mn. There's a cave. Huge, no exit except for an aperture at the top. We could use that if the situation calls for it."

"No. No way we're escaping from it. I don't care how freakish it looks, we're killing it and that's IT," Jin Ling gripped Suihua tighter.

"Er... Guys, you do realise you didn't tell us WHAT it was yet, right?"

"Oh. Sorry," Jin Ling sat down and everyone else sat around him and Sizhui. "Nine Headed Phoenix."

"WHAT!"

"Nine heads!"

"Yes, Nine Headed Phoenix. Terrifying," a deep voice spoke among them. 

"Xiyuan knows the thing?" Sizhui turned to the Nie boy.

"Sure, I do. It was in some book in our Library at Unclean Realm. Apparently, there are so many legends about the Nine Headed Phoenix. The one mentioned clearly in the book — probably because it's the truest or because it's the most terrifying — is that it originally had ten heads."