Suspicion

Zi Yan did not think Chi Huo would be this daring. He was in no mood to even talk about how it happened. His two other members seemingly aware of Zi Yan's temperament couldn't help but show a bitter smile.

Chi Huo immediately turned to them. The one who was in a slightly better condition met his gaze and started recounting their encounters. Chi Huo had a slight impression of this guy.

"I believe his name is Zou Qiang and the other is Han Ding" he said in thought.

…

In a short while everyone's doubts were erased. They now understood why this group was in such a wretched state. Bai Ming did not even give a recount and could only think back in confusion.

Why had that beast ignored them?

No matter how he racked his brain, he could not find himself any answer. This was the same for Cui Rong they and the rest who were also perplexed by this.

Since no answers could be found they could only shove aside these thoughts.

Seeing as how they had recounted their encounters, Chi Huo also shared their own encounters, including the sabertoothed jaguar.

Under normal circumstances, he did not want to mention any of this, but given the way Zi Yan had been looking at Cui Rong's bandaged shoulder, he realized it could not be hidden for too long. And knowing that this part was not his to tell, he did not plan to go into the details, but his intention was only to lay out a precursor.

Hearing them mention the sabertoothed jaguar, Zi Yan turned over with a scoff.

"Heh, how ridiculous"

He did not even find it amusing.

Was this guy trying to convince them that the sabertoothed jaguar was more wary of their group. No matter how he looked at them, he could not find anything worth noting.

He was already irritated and the pain in his eye made his head ache a bit so he felt like this Chi Huo was just trying to tell a bad joke but Chi Huo did not argue and simply said," If you don't believe me, then that is fine, it is not a matter that we would give high priority. At the moment, our top priority is resolving this poison."

Zi Yan did not give it much thought but took a glance at the rest of the group. After a moment, Zi Yan clicked his tongue and did not speak again.

Whether there was some truth to it, it did not matter to him, and if it were the case, he guessed they had probably received help from a wandering hunter.

In these parts, such occurrences weren't rare to begin with.

But even so, how could this affect his objective?

He couldn't help but touch the skin near his wounded eye. After having lost his eye to the sabertooth, he chose to be vigilant and silently watch them to understand what truly happened. Even his thirst for battle had vanished completely. What he wanted more than anything was to be done with this and leave this place. He had lost too much, all just for a little bit of wealth.

He did not feel rushed at all. Looking at Bai Ming's group, it seemed it wouldn't be long before the poison weakens them further. So far, from the time they separated, it had been nearly four hours, and very soon, they would be able to even stand.

With these thoughts in mind, a corner of his mouth rose up slightly.

"At that time…", Zi Yan's eye narrowed, staring at them.

He could already tell that by everyone's expression that they did not doubt Chi Huo's words as if it was an undisputed truth.

"Your wound needs to be attended to, but given that the bleeding has been stopped, I think it will hold until we reach that castle." Chi Huo said, pointing to its direction.

Zi Yan also looked over to the towering figure in the distance.

He and his group had also been heading towards it, but they had slightly shifted their direction at the last minute after hearing a loud sound echoing in the distance. They couldn't assert what had really caused this, but Zi Yan had gambled that it was Bai Ming's group.

They had passed through frozen a corpse, which seemed to be poisoned. Its rear end seemed to have been smashed by something heavy. After seeing this, they became increasingly sure that it was definitely Bai Ming's group. This was how they had found them.

Chi Huo once again looked to Zi Yan, who seemed to be lost in thought, still remembering that this guy had dodged his questions. He did not want to bring a hidden danger to the group, but in their current circumstances, they needed more help. The main fighting force was poisoned, and bringing Zi Yan would be more than enough to resolve this, but this was not the best of ideas.

In his eyes, this was akin to asking for a tiger's skin, but who knew when this tiger would bear its fangs against them.

He could only look to Cui Rong to resolve this. To him, this successor of the Cui family seemed to be very insightful and calculative.

However, contrary to Chi Huo's expectations, Cui Rong simply said, "Well, since you're all here then let us all move together, with brother Zi Yan's strength the rest of the journey will be much easier." 

Without waiting for any response, she turned around and started moving towards the castle with a beaming smile plastered on her face.

Chi Huo's mind felt like it had been hit by a large boulder. He did not even understand what had just happened and kept asking himself if it was really the right choice to let them join just like that.

There were many unanswered questions here.

Along with his eye, Zi Yan had lost a member to the sabertoothed jaguar, and his group had been badly injured. Instead of giving up and returning to the main camp where he could receive better treatment, he had dragged Zou Qiang and Han Ding all the way to this dead land.