“Ahaha, I’m so dumb…”
Amber panted like a puppy, stretching her tongue hard into the bottle, saliva dripping down the smooth neck.
She suddenly froze, realizing how stupid she looked, but she didn’t feel embarrassed at all—perhaps because Ashley had just done the same thing, which had messed with her perception.
“Yes, you are a dummy,” Ashley agreed.
“Giggle giggle…”
Amber laughed so hard she trembled, her pearly white teeth clacking against the glass with a pleasant tinkling sound.
Ashley was annoyed beyond words. This girl was actually having fun? What right did that useless, bead-fumbling fish tongue of hers have to laugh? So shameless!
Amber, on the other hand, was thrilled. Though she worked at the Tribunal, she was still just a kid at heart, usually forcing herself to act like an adult with overly formal speech and a pinched voice to fit in. She’d suppressed her childish nature to blend into the environment, but once it broke free, she couldn’t stop playing.
After struggling for ages without success, she whimsically decided to drink some of the soda to lower the liquid level below the neck, exposing the glass bead and maybe making it easier.
But she hadn’t anticipated that without the bottle cap’s rubber seal holding it back, the bead would slip right down her throat with a gurgle!
At the same time, she choked on a big gulp of soda and started coughing violently.
Ashley facepalmed in speechless exasperation. This girl was way too lame—it was painful to watch.
But she quickly noticed something was wrong. Amber’s little face was turning beet red, her eyes bulging wide in terror, her expression twisted in agony, mouth agape but unable to utter a word.
“Hey, you didn’t actually get it stuck in your throat, did you? That’s too stupid.”
“Wu wu…”
Amber couldn’t speak, only letting out faint cries for help as she tremblingly reached out, pawing at Ashley like a cat.
“No way…”
Ashley blinked, glancing around for anything she could use, but her gaze returned to the writhing Amber in distress.
There was only one way to dislodge a slippery glass bead from a narrow bottleneck—whether it was the soda bottle or a little girl’s throat.
Amber shakily raised her little paw, holding up four fingers.
That’s right!
The fourth way to drink Pop Soda!
That’s the one I made up, you idiot!
Ashley clutched her head in silent breakdown.
What now!
She was usually so cool, but deep down, she was pretty traditional and deeply resisted intimate physical contact.
Ashley shook her head frantically.
This job was way too intense—no way.
But if the Trial Judge found out she’d let her beloved disciple die without helping…
“You wouldn’t want to wear silver handcuffs forever, would you?” Letisia’s voice echoed in her hallucination.
“Wu wu…”
Amber’s face screamed ‘I’m Pop Soda’ as she proactively leaned in, clutching Ashley’s collar desperately like a drowning person…
Her soft, trembling lips were inches away, pitiful tears glistening in her eyes.
Wait a moment! I have an idea!
In this dire moment, Ashley’s quick wits saved her once again!
For emergencies, her pre-reincarnation method would work too!
The Heimlich Maneuver!
Also known as the Heimlich abdominal thrust technique, the principle treats the human lungs like a balloon, with the windpipe as the balloon’s mouth.
By physically compressing the balloon, you can force out any object blocking the opening—like a heavy punch (no, not that).
Ashley demonstrated correctly. She moved behind Amber, crossed her arms over the girl’s small abdomen, and yanked hard, compressing the lungs. The glass bead slid out of her little mouth and clattered to the floor.
“I’m saved…”
Amber collapsed limply in her chair, exhausted. Her neatly combed bob from before leaving home was now a total mess, stray strands sticking to her slightly sweaty forehead and cheeks. She panted in small gasps, faint red flushes lingering on her cheeks, making her skin look especially delicate.
“Hmph, dummy,” Ashley said, tilting her chin up and giving her a sidelong glance.
“It’s not… dummy…”
Amber turned her face away evasively, weakly protesting.
After all this commotion, not only had the soda spilled everywhere, but they were also politely warned by a theater usher.
Without soda, drugging it was impossible.
She’d planned to scrap the mission, but luckily, through this twist of fate—nearly dying and the resulting mental and physical exhaustion from surviving—Amber fell asleep on her own.
Ashley closely examined the sleeping black-haired loli’s face for a moment, noting the eye movements to confirm deep sleep. She huffed; this girl was way cuter asleep than awake.
She got up and left the theater. Time was tight—she had to complete the plan before the movie ended.
She headed straight for the nearest north gate, exiting the city without any checks or obstructions.
As she ventured deeper into the wilderness, the road gradually vanished under wild grass and sand, with occasional tire tracks marking nearby camps and settlements.
The sense of isolation from civilization grew stronger. Each glance back showed Fountain City’s walls and outer tree lines receding farther, like being an orphan abandoned by human society.
Ashley recognized the terrain as classic karst landscape: active groundwater, surface rock layers etched into vertical corrugations from dissolution, dark gray stone pinnacles and needles dotting the barren plains, clear shallow waters scattered with isolated peaks and residual hills, sparse vegetation mostly lichens and mosses.
Amid the desolation, life thrived. She passed several crystal-clear blue springs, their gem-like surfaces mirroring the sky, bright light patterns dancing over ochre and green tuff rocks.
The little loli nimbly hopped between shattered boulders, her small feet crunching gravel with every step. She’d walk a bit, pause to sip glucose from her bottle for energy, then press on.
Reddish-brown rocks began appearing on the ground, confirming she was on the right path—this was close to the Shriek Devil Crow sighting.
She climbed a crooked ridge, reaching a high vantage with clear sightlines. Squinting into the wind, her windbreaker flapped noisily.
Cross-referencing landmarks, she pinpointed the target: a grove at the valley bottom.
There it was!
Ashley spotted the black shadow embedded in the brilliant blue sky.
Crows were smart birds, highly social.
They used hundreds of different calls to communicate, recognized and remembered hostile creatures’ appearances, and avenged without collateral damage. They loved group activities, like mobbing owls or dismantling other birds’ nests.
Many saw crows as omens of doom, harbingers of death, but Ashley found them spiritual and beautiful—the animals closest to intelligent life.
Crows kept taking flight from the target area, circling the sky. Getting closer would alert the aerial sentinels, who would sound special warning calls.
The whole flock, including the Shriek Devil Crow, would get the alert.
Ashley was certain the Demon Crow existed—no recent captures or kills reported, so it couldn’t have vanished into thin air.
Plus, she had an inside agent—a cunning parrot infiltrating the flock.
Before Little Cousin set out, she’d entrusted Sasha to Ashley, like in an adventure game where the parrot was a great sidekick.
A few days ago, Ashley had painted it entirely black and sent it undercover. It first blended into a peripheral crow subgroup, quickly learned crow language, then used that as a springboard to join the main flock, boldly becoming a local crow allowed into their gatherings.
Ashley approached the crow nest. Whenever an overhead sentinel cried a warning, she’d freeze. Her makeshift moss hat and leaf cape blended her perfectly into the environment, amid the bleak solemnity.
Within the flock, Sasha emitted an all-clear call to confuse them, letting Ashley advance. Human and bird coordinated seamlessly.
Repeating this, she slowly reached the nest’s heart.
Towering, gaunt pines stabbed the sky, the forest floor carpeted in years of accumulated humus.
There it was!
Ashley’s heart tightened, her nerves on edge.
The monster stood atop a moss-covered boulder, emanating an eerie, ominous deep crimson glow. The surrounding light warped and trembled in layers, as if from another dimension—infinitely more terrifying than the portrait in the Nocturnal Creature Museum!
Beside it was a sweet spring, its limpid, transparent flow like delicate fingers stroking the rock crevices.
In the spring’s pool, dead twigs and leaves swirled, stirring the fine sand at the bottom into serene rotation.
The water reflected countless black tendrils writhing along the horrific massive silhouette. Its pupil-less eyes gleamed with delicate scarlet, like dots of cinnabar or congealed rouge.
It was hard to imagine solemnity and eeriness blending, but the Shriek Devil Crow embodied it—a demonic god statue perched on the towering rock.
