Ice Emperor's voice sounded different up close than it had from afar. Rather than cold or distant, it now carried a surprisingly girlish charm.
"It's perfectly normal to be scared! You're the one planning to eat me, after all! You're not the one being eaten how would you know how terrifying it is?" Cheng Ying shamelessly complained.
"Hurry up and take me to the heavenly and earthly treasures!" Ice Emperor replied, clearly growing impatient.
"But the place I know of is in the south in the human world! How are we supposed to get there like this?" Cheng Ying waved his stubby forelimbs helplessly. The motion looked adorably clumsy, but it was obvious they weren't suited for human territory.
"Tch! Why didn't you say so earlier?" As she spoke, a bright green light shimmered over the body of the one-meter-long scorpion. In an instant, she seemed to melt and transformed into a petite flat-chested loli.
The girl who was now Ice Emperor stood less than 1.6 meters tall. Her twin tails faded from blue to green, tied behind her head. She wore an adorable emerald green Lolita-style dress that clung tightly to her still undeveloped figure an outfit that, in any other setting, would probably earn you three years in prison and a death sentence on the way out.
"Huh? So this is your preferred look, huh?" Cheng Ying blurted out, unable to stop himself from commenting.
"Mind your own business! Now hurry up and transform into human form too!" Loli Ice Emperor knew her new form had a few questionable points, and she smacked Cheng Ying on the head with a sharp thwack. His oversized head sank straight into the ice, proving that her combat power remained unaffected by her appearance.
"But... I don't know how!" Cheng Ying whimpered. He had only just transmigrated here and hadn't inherited Tianmeng's memories. He didn't even know how to use soul power, let alone how to shapeshift.
"Are you an idiot?" Ice Emperor scolded him, arms akimbo and puffed up with anger. Then she tapped his forehead with one delicate finger, and instantly, a stream of information poured into Cheng Ying's mind basic techniques for channeling soul power, and how to use his vast, hundred-thousand-year soul energy to transform.
For him, it wasn't hard. To use a modern analogy, it was like customizing a character's face. Since he could choose how he looked, of course he went for the most handsome version possible. In the blink of an eye, the oversized bug transformed into a tall, dashing young man, about 1.8 meters tall, wearing a sleek blue windbreaker. His muscular frame was defined but not exaggerated.
Unfortunately, Ice Emperor didn't spare him a second glance apparently, beast-girls had very different aesthetic standards from humans.
"Enough. You're done transforming let's move!" Ice Emperor urged impatiently.
"But… which way is south?" Cheng Ying was lost. He didn't exactly have a compass.
"You idiot! I knew you were just trying to trick me! I ought to eat you right now!" With that, her slender hand—delicate and soft—grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and soared off at high speed toward the southern human lands.
"Ah! How did things end up like this?!"
In the streets of Heaven Dou City, within the borders of the Heaven Dou Empire, a handsome teenager in a blue coat was holding the hand of a cute little loli. They strolled down an old-fashioned stone street as the girl happily munched on a candied hawthorn skewer.
The two were none other than Ice Emperor and Cheng Ying. The scene was peaceful and oddly harmonious completely unlike the dynamic of predator and prey. Cheng Ying could only attribute it to soul beasts' unique sense of time. Maybe Ice Emperor saw this whole thing as entertainment.
When they had first entered the human world, Cheng Ying had fared no better than Ice Emperor. In a world with no phones or digital maps, he was utterly lost. In the end, it was Ice Emperor who led the way from the Star Luo Empire to the Heaven Dou Empire.
If you're reading this fanfic, I probably don't need to introduce these two empires to you, right? Cheng Ying had brought Ice Emperor to the Heaven Dou Empire in search of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
That location was known for its abundance of rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures something that would prove Cheng Ying's earlier claims weren't just nonsense. But the Heaven Dou Empire was massive, occupying half the continent. Finding the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well wouldn't be easy.
Fortunately, Cheng Ying remembered the secret realm was located in the Sunset Forestba well-known soul beast habitat that could still be found on maps.
"Xiao Bing, come on! If we don't go now, we'll miss the merchant caravan to Sunset Forest!" Cheng Ying tugged at Ice Emperor, who was lingering around the shopping district, prompting an unhappy humph from the girl.
"Who said you could call me that? You're supposed to address me as 'Lady Ice Emperor'!"
"Got it, Xiao Bing. No problem, Xiao Bing. Anything else, Xiao Bing?" After spending this much time with her, Cheng Ying realized Ice Emperor's emotional maturity was far from developed. Likely due to spending over 300,000 years in solitude, she was actually easier to get along with than he'd expected. Now that his life wasn't in immediate danger, he couldn't help but get cheeky with her.
"Hmph! Call me that again and I'll eat you!" Ice Emperor glared fiercely. "Besides, why are we following that slow merchant caravan? Wouldn't flying be way faster?"
"Did you already forget how you flew straight into the ocean last time? Without landmarks, we can't even fly in a straight line!"
"I hadn't flown in ages, okay?!" Ice Emperor's face turned bright red. "And I told you never to bring that up again!" She punched Cheng Ying square in the chest.
The moment her tiny fist hit, Cheng Ying flew back over ten meters and slammed into a wall, taking ages to climb back out. Yep… despite appearances, he was still constantly flirting with death.
Thankfully, with nearly a million years of cultivation under his belt, he had a thick enough health bar to avoid being one-shot by Ice Emperor, even if she went all out.
And so, under the stunned gazes of passersby, the two made it to the merchant caravan's meeting point. Since they'd paid for passage, they were assigned to a cargo cart rather than needing to walk with the caravan. The caravan manager, a chubby middle-aged man, was very polite probably assuming they were runaway rich kids.
As the caravan bumped along the road, they soon set off. With no videos to watch and no phones to play with, Cheng Ying quickly got bored and dozed off against the crates.
Beside him, the little loli sighed. "What a defenseless idiot. How the heck did he survive for 900,000 years? He doesn't even realize he's supposed to be food! Eating a dummy like this would probably just make me dumber too. So… I guess I'll save you for ten thousand years later—call you emergency rations."
She mumbled softly to herself, then leaned lightly against Cheng Ying's shoulder. She didn't fall asleep, though eyes half-open in alert vigilance, as if silently declaring: Even if this guy's food, he's MY food.
Their journey continued in a steady rhythm, though the cart lacking wheels was terribly bumpy. Ice Emperor began to feel drowsy herself, and just as she was about to wake Cheng Ying so she could nap, a sudden commotion erupted outside.
The caravan manager's pudgy, sweat-covered face appeared in her line of sight. He wiped his face with an oily rag and spoke nervously, "Esteemed guests, please disembark. Due to some uncontrollable circumstances, this is as far as the caravan can take you."
"What are you mumbling about?! I said everyone off the carts! I don't care if it's the Emperor himself if he runs into us, the Blue Wolf Bandits, he's getting off the damn cart!"