Suddenly a loud hissing sound interrupted Xue Yi’s thoughts and reminded both of them that they were not alone. They both jumped in surprise to find the lake monster that rescued them was still there. Seeing such a huge creature staring straight at its much smaller body, as though it was about to be eaten, Xiao Ji fainted from the shock and fright.

Thankfully, Xiao Ji was still standing on the palms of Xue Yi and didn't land roughly on the ground. Xue Yi steadily caught the tiny child and slowly turned towards the large monster in fear, though a number of questions still ran through her head.

What was this creature? What did it want? Why did it help them? And most of all, why was it still here?!

Despite her many questions, she couldn’t very well directly ask the lake monster as she was pretty sure that the lake monster couldn’t communicate with her. Thus, all that happened was a long staring contest. Upon a closer look, the terrifying lake monster was a giant serpent. It had shiny green scales that looked like precious jewels under the sunlight, sitting majestically on its smooth head was a pair of transparent blue horns spiraling towards the back. However, the most striking thing was its pair of deep purple pupils that freezes the person it’s looking at, either in fear or in awe, or both. Either way, they would not be able to escape being eaten or pierced by its sharp deadly canines, dripping with red venom. Only its head could be seen as the rest of its body was under the water, however, one could see that its size was not to be trifled with as Xue Yi could see with one glance that they were only about half the size of its head. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if this ginormous serpent decided to see them as snacks. No doubt they would be swallowed completely in an instant.

Xue Yi didn’t dare move as they continued to stare at each other, afraid that she would trigger the serpent’s response to attack her. Just as she thought this staring contest was going to last forever, the serpent suddenly made a loud hissing sound and started to slither towards them. Seeing a giant snake coming for Xue Yi, she unconsciously squeaked in fright and tried to run, only to trip over herself, falling backward painfully on the ground for the second time that day. How could she have made such a cliche mistake as to fall over when trying to escape? What was she a horror movie cannon fodder?! But she didn’t have time to further reflect as the serpent was already right in front of her. Xue Yi closed her eyes, waiting for the impending doom that would befall them, just as they thought they were saved, only to become a snake.

But instead of a painful death, all she felt was a gentle bump by something soft on her head. She opened her eyes curiously, expecting to see the terrifying sight of the serpent’s sharp teeth about to swallow, only to see the serpent she just now thought was horrifying was rubbing its head against her, like a cat looking for affection. Xue Yi froze in shock and stayed still, letting the serpent do what it wanted. Seeing as it wasn’t going to harm her, she hesitantly reached out her hand and lightly patted its large head. Instead of scales, its head felt smooth and soft, like a stuffed animal, it felt nice to touch. Xue Yi unconsciously started scratching the serpent, like she would a cat and the serpent also happily rubbed against her hand. Somehow, the serpent didn’t want to hurt her and instead seemed to take a liking to her.

Since there was no immediate danger, Xue Yi turned her attention from the serpent to Xiao Ji who was still unconscious in her palm. She gently placed the cute little machine onto the ground and checked to see if it was alright. After confirming that Xiao Ji only fainted from shock, Xue Yi tried to communicate with the serpent that was still rubbing its head against her back when she was checking on Xiao Ji. When it saw her looking at it, the giant serpent tilted its head adorably. Only two words came to Xue Yi’s mind when seeing its action. Selling meng. This large monster that could kill anyone with a bite was definitely selling meng to her! But it didn’t matter whether it was selling meng to her or not, as long as it didn’t plan on hurting them, Xue Yi felt it’s fine to indulge the serpent by simply patting it. Besides, she liked the feeling of its soft head, and the more it sold meng to her, the more she felt that this big lake serpent was a bit cute.

“Hey hey, do you know where we are?”

Hiss

“Hey, what are you?”

Hiss

“Do you have a name?”

Hiss

“Can you even talk?”

Hiss

“......” (-_-* )

Xue Yi gave up trying to talk to the serpent and instead decided to explore her surroundings. The place they had arrived at seems to be a forest as they were surrounded by trees. However, this forest was unlike anything she had ever seen. The tree trunks were a deep shade of violet with leaves that exhibit an azure hue, the other thing that was surprising to Xue Yi was that the trees around them were massive. Bigger than anything she had ever seen and she came from a world filled with skyscrapers before she died. The most she could reach was the trees’ roots that were as thick as the serpent beside. The only thought she had was wondering whether she was the one that had shrunk when arriving to this world, maybe that’s why everything was much bigger compared to her small self.

Other than the abnormal appearance of the trees, another thing that left her confused was the lack of animals in this forest, there wasn’t even the sound of an insect nor were there any mosquitos that would be expected in a place such as a forest. But then again, if it was her that had shrunk, it would be a good thing that there weren’t any giant animals around to prey on her. Imagine being eaten by a squirrel or some other normally harmless animals.

Xue Yi decided to sit down beside Xiao Ji and wait for it to wake up to ask it more questions about their situation as there was nothing else she could do other than stroke the clingy snake. Maybe she could try riding it later.

To pass time, Xue Yi started talking to the snake that kept being affectionate with her. It turned out that even though she couldn’t understand the large snake’s hissing, the serpent could understand her…..at least she thought it did since it could only hiss in response to her one-sided conversation. Xue Yi decided to name the snake.

“Let’s get you a name. Umm…. What about Mao Mao?”

The serpent immediately shook its head in protest. Xue Yi thought it even looked a bit offended which made her laugh a little. Xue Yi had the urge to tease the cute snake a bit but then decided against it as it wouldn’t be nice if she got eaten by the snake in anger.

“She Guai?”

The serpent tilted its head up in thought before shaking its head against the name.

“Hmm…How about Qing Qing?”

The serpent’s purple eyes lit up in excitement and quickly nodded its head. It then continued rubbing its head on Xue Yi and acting cutely as thanks for the name and wanted her to give it some pats. Xue Yi did as it wished and played some games with it.

After some time, Xiao Ji was starting to wake up. When it saw Qing Qing, it started to panic and hid behind Xue Yi in fear. Xue Yi saw its cute reaction and gently patted its head in reassurance to comfort the scared little machine. Qing Qing stared at Xiao Ji curiously, but it saw Xue Yi giving the little thing more attention, it hissed in annoyance and glared at Xiao Ji, making Xiao Ji even more frightened at the large snake. Xue Yi realized what happened when she saw Qing Qing threatening the poor little Xiao Ji, she lightly flicked it on its forehead.

“Qing Qing, stop glaring at Xiao Ji Rou. Don’t scare it so much. You have to get along together, alright?”

Hearing Xue Yi’s stern scolding, Qing Qing lowered its head, feeling wronged. Xue Yi turned towards Xiao Ji and explained what happened.

“Xiao Ji Rou, this is Qing Qing. Even though it looks scary, it’s friendly to us. So you two can get to know each other.”

Xiao Ji immediately doubted her words when it saw Qing Qing continue to secretly glare at itself. But it didn’t want to offend the still terrifying large snake, so it could only turn towards Xue Yi and hope desperately that she would notice its silent call for help. Unfortunately, Xue Yi was completely oblivious to its signal and started to question it about their situation.

“Anyway, where are we right now? And how come you became so small all of a sudden? Also don’t think I forgot about you not explaining what World Energy was yet.”

Being bombarded by questions made Xiao Ji wanted to dig a hole and hide as all of the questions asked were violating the company's privacy rule. But since it had no place to escape to, it could only obediently answer Xue Yi’s questions.

“I just got the information that we landed in a Cultivation World where people would cultivate into immortals. This world is very dangerous, filled with all kinds of people and monsters. The only rule here is survival of the fittest.”

Seeing this information, Xiao Ji instantly became depressed. It felt that there was no way for it to preserve it’s small life anymore. It was definitely going to die, either being eaten by a monster or eaten by a monster. How was it supposed to even defend itself with its small body? If this was a normal world, it might be able to escape, but in a world where there were deadly monsters everywhere, it was already a miracle that it had survived this far. Xue Yi saw that the cute little machine was getting lost in its thoughts, she poked it to pull it out of its daydream.

“Xiao Ji Rou, you haven’t finished explaining to me yet.”

At this point, Xiao Ji didn’t even bother to correct Xue Yi anymore and just resigned itself to the nickname and continued to explain depressingly.

“Hahh, the reason I became this small was because I ran out of World Energy and if I don’t stay in this form until the end of a story, I would be detected by the World and be rejected and terminated. World Energy is a type of energy that the World needs to be maintained and function, the World gets this energy from a story happening in the World. When the story ends, there would be World Energy produced for the World to take in and then a new story takes place. It’s similar to Soul Energy, however, Soul Energy is much more precious and it represents the uniqueness of a soul, it’s thoughts and personality. This is all I know, I’m just a small insignificant company machine, so please don’t let me be eaten by that lake monster.”

Qing Qing seemed to have heard what Xiao Ji called it and proceeded to glare harder at the hateful tiny figure. It didn’t know why this nice and soft Xue Yi would be with something useless and weak like Xiao Ji Rou. If only she didn’t prohibit it from hurting the worthless thing, it would’ve treated it exactly like its name as chicken meat and swallowed it in one gulp. Maybe this cunning useless thing tricked Xue Yi into signing a contract with it, that’s why it still stuck to her. If that’s the case, then it wished to sign a contract with Xue Yi as well to prevent Xiao Ji Rou from further swindling its favorite person.

With the new determination to protect Xue Yi from this ‘swindler’ in her palms, Qing Qing curled around Xue Yi and hissed angrily at the once again frightened Xiao Ji, only to earn another light smack on the head and a warning from Xue Yi about getting along. Even though on the surface, it pretended to listen to her, the words of warning went in from the left ear and out from the right ear. It decided to continue selling meng and slowly draw her away from the tiny evil, before secretly dealing with the deceiving little creature.

After a round of scolding the large clingy snake, Xue Yi saw that the sun was setting and decided to find a place to settle for the night. She was also getting hungry, not to mention her promise to Xiao Ji about feeding it delicious food. She told her plan to the other two and prepared to set out when Qing Qing motioned with its head for her to follow it instead.

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Small theatre:

Xue Yi: Xiao Ji, this is Qing Qing. Qing Qing, this is Xiao Ji. Now get along ok?

Qing Qing: Ok Xue Yi jie jie!

Xiao Ji: O...ok? Do I have to?

Xue Yi: *Turns around to find food*

Qing Qing: Listen here you little chicken meat! Don’t you dare go near Xue Yi jie jie! Otherwise, I’ll make sure you won’t even have bones left behind after I’m done! *Glares at Xiao Ji*

Xue Yi: *Turns back around* Did you guys get along?

Qing Qing: Yes! I’ve been good, Xue Yi jie jie.

Xiao Ji: *Cries*

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Footnotes:

賣萌: selling meng or mai meng, means to act cutely in order to draw attention to benefit oneself

毛毛: 毛/Mao means fur, Xue Yi here was being ironic since the serpent didn’t have any fur but scales

蛇怪: She Guai means Basilisk, a giant magical snake. (The one you find in Harry Potter)

青青: 青/Qing means green