'What's happening here? This lightning looks awfully familiar...'

A young, well-known voice was suddenly transmitted to Li Meirong. However, it wasn't Chou who communicated. The Plant Spirit was now in his humanoid form and could easily use his mouth to speak.

'How could this be?! He's supposed to be safely tucked inside the dimension!' Li Meirong thought in panic, looking side to side, searching for the owner of the telepathic message.

From the corner of her eye, Li Meirong nervously sighted Ben Mo, the small Lingzhi Mushroom. His reddish cap tipped forward in fear as he remained not too far from Captain Liang's crackling lightning.

As it turned out, when Li Meirong had failed to summon Feng Huang from the dimension, Ben Mo had accidentally arrived instead!

'Master, I'm scared.' Ben Mo spoke again.

When Ben Mo noticed that his Master's attention was finally directed at him, his speech grew anxious and pitiful.

"Stupid Mushroom, run away from this place!" Li Meirong yelled, frantic with worry. Blood kept pouring from her chest wound and soaked the leaves so thoroughly, they appeared to have been dyed red.

In a state of panic, Li Meirong took no notice of her injury. Dread coiled within her stomach as she observed how dangerously close Ben Mo was to Captain Liang's location, whose body was surrounded by lightning that kept stretching further and further away as the seconds trickled by.

'I can't move.' Ben Mo wept.

A sudden soft, warm touch upon her wrist averted Li Meirong's attention from the shivering mushroom to the Pitcher Plant boy at her side.

Chou grabbed Li Meirong's wrist with his small, chubby palm, holding her gaze for a single moment. He might have looked young, fragile, and harmless, but the intensity in his eyes betrayed the powerful strength of a predator that had been drinking blood and feasting on human flesh.

"Don't worry Master. Chou will save the useless one and will come back to protect Master." The Plant Spirit boy proudly announced.

Li Meirong patted his mass of green curls in a doting manner. Her eyes curved into crescents, and her lips formed a soothing smile. "Go, Chou. Pick up Ben Mo and take him to safety. I'll reach your side as soon as I'm able to."

"Alright, sounds good!" After a short, confident nod, Chou immediately leapt into the air, extending a pair of vines and hopping his way towards the Lingzhi Mushroom Spirit.

'Hey, hey! I'm not useless!' Ben Mo's speech filtered through Chou and Li Meirong's minds. 'I really can't budge! I haven't cultivated enough to be able to move myself outside of my field, nor have I received enough blood from Master, unlike a certain someone!' Ben Mo righteously defended himself in light of his predicament. In spite of being frightened, he still managed to sound grouchy as usual.

"Well if you continue talking, Chou will throw your mushroom head into the ocean!"

Ben Mo kept quiet after suffering Chou's unreasonable response. That crazy plant boy nearly killed him once already, and he certainly wouldn't dare risk his life again!

While Ben Mo was being rescued, Liang Rou Yan seemed to have fully charged up, her body kept glowing with white-blue sparks.

She might have looked like a vengeful goddess, if not for the bandages wrapped around her head, which gave more of an impression of a matchstick being lit up.

Liang Rou Yan fixed her blind sight upon Li Meirong with sadistic anticipation, pointing one arm pulsating with lightning energy.

Somehow, she was able to pinpoint Li Meirong's location without the use of her vision. A sinister smile stretched her lips beneath the gauze. "I am doing the world a favour by getting rid of you."