Mixed race clans in the Ice Crystal Elf Forest
Feng Hong climbed onto the stone platform extending from the cliff, stopped, turned sideways, and looked at the tribespeople walking behind her.
Beneath her feet, a sea of white flowers swayed in the cold wind, rising and falling like ocean waves.
Jiang Yunlan and her two cubs were small, and they barely managed to climb onto the high platform by holding onto Mianhua and the two leopard beastmen. Abai, bringing up the rear, watched them settle in, then leaped down onto the flower-covered stone platform.
"I never expected it to be here." Jiang Yunlan gently brushed a maple-leaf clematis with her hand and looked up at the forest below.
She stood on a platform near the summit, from which she could vaguely see the semi-circular platform of the cave where the orcs lived.
"Lan." Feng Hong called her name, and only moved the large rock that was almost embedded in the mountain wall after she looked over.
A rock, half the height of an adult deer-beastman, separated from the mountain, and cold air could be seen emanating from it, even colder than the surrounding air.
Feng Hong put down the large rock in her hand, looked down and paused. Mo Rong, puzzled by her reaction, peeked out from the side and exclaimed in surprise, "There's so much food here!"
The food inside is only available during the flowering season, enough for six deer-beastmen to survive half the snow season.
“They’re all plant roots and stems.” Yan Lin stood behind them, surveying the situation inside the cave.
This cave was half the size of the cave where the beastmen lived, but it was still big enough to hold the meat of seven furball beasts.
Maple Red fell silent, a rare occurrence. She reached out and picked up the frozen plant roots, oblivious to the biting cold in her hands. Only after removing all the frozen food did she look up and see Lan standing beside her, and finally, she smiled again.
"Lan, food!" She held out the food to Lan, her hands red from the cold air emanating from the ice.
Jiang Yunlan looked at her red hands and didn't know what to say. Helplessly, she told her to quickly put the food into the vine basket and praised her, "Feng Hong is great."
Feng Hong was happy to receive the praise. She carefully put the food away and stretched her stiff hands.
After the food placed at the cave entrance was taken away, the cave was empty except for the uneven stones inside. Jiang Yunlan looked inside and saw a faint blue light emanating from it.
Jiang Yunlan was drawn to the irregularly shaped crystal that emitted a blue light. She stepped into the cave and reached out to touch it, but she couldn't reach it despite the increasingly lower temperature.
It felt like being rejected.
Jiang Yunlan suddenly snapped back to reality, belatedly realizing that every breath she exhaled was extremely cold. She heard 022 beside her calling her name, and the beastmen behind her calling out to her.
Jiang Yunlan.
"Lan!"
Feng Hong stooped and hunched over as she walked in with difficulty. She grabbed Lan's hand and pulled her back, saying something in the beastman language, "Lan, yo-woo-ah-woo, let's go."
She couldn't understand, but she realized it was the glowing stone that had led her into the cave. Strangely, now when she looked at that stone, she wasn't drawn to it anymore.
It was as if she wasn't the being it was waiting for, so it stopped calling for her.
Feng Hong, carrying Jiang Yunlan away from the mysterious ice crystal, had a serious expression and made several "stop" gestures, strongly demanding that Jiang Yunlan stand still and wait for them.
"Lan, don't go near nature." Feng Hong's tone was worried, but all she could see was Lan's blank expression.
In that instant, she suddenly understood how Lan felt when they couldn't understand what Lan was trying to say. She hesitated for a moment, then chose to have Mianhua watch over Lan, afraid that Lan would be distracted again.
Nature's blessing was too much for an orc to bear, and she didn't want to kill Lan with her own hands.
Seeing that Mianhua was holding Lan's arm with her hand, Fenghong went to check on the other beastmen with peace of mind. Abai, the two cubs, and the two leopard beastmen looked normal and could be approached.
Feeling like she was being guarded as a prisoner, Jiang Yunlan looked at the cotton tightly clutching her right hand, then at the Feng Hong beastmen busily storing food in front of her, and stood obediently motionless. She felt she should be afraid, but she wasn't.
"Was it calling me just now? Then why did it reject me?" Jiang Yunlan looked at her hands, completely bewildered.
She couldn't understand why. Or perhaps she was imagining things, and it couldn't actually speak.
“You only heard its voice,” 022 floated to Jiang Yunlan’s left, looking at the ice crystals in the cave from afar. “It didn’t call you. You’re too weak, how could it possibly call you?”
Jiang Yunlan remained silent. Looking at her frail body, she found it hard not to agree with 022's assessment. Every beastman here was stronger than her; she was indeed the weakest beastman.
She let out a helpless sigh, then suddenly looked up at 022 in shock, "Wait...you mean, it's alive?!"
“You should have noticed, so it doesn’t matter if I tell you. In the words of Blue Star, it’s an ‘elf’ living inside that rock. In the eyes of our race, it certainly has life. But whether you agree that it has life, 022 doesn’t know. The only human and beastman 022 can talk to is you,” 022 said.
Jiang Yunlan blinked, then suddenly realized, "So it's an elf, a truly beautiful elf."
As she thought of something, her body stiffened, and she instinctively reached out her hand, hurriedly calling out to Feng Hong, who was about to cover the stone, "Feng Hong, stop!"
Even she, who wasn't called by it, could hear its voice. It must have wanted to leave this dark cave a long time ago. Jiang Yunlan didn't know how others and beastmen viewed them, but any living being with consciousness was life.
Feng Hong obediently put down the stone in her hand, turned around to look at Lan, and scratched the back of her head. "Lan?"
Jiang Yunlan forgot that her hand was being held by cotton and resolutely took a step towards the cave, only to be reminded by the pulling force from her right hand.
She looked at Cotton, whose feet were motionless, and said in a calm but unyielding tone, "Cotton, let me through."
Cotton hesitated, glancing at the frowning Maple Red, then at the pursed-lipped Lan. A beat later, he changed his grip on Lan's hand to taking hers, silently following her. He trusted Lan. But Lan's silent walk towards "Natural" startled him.
Like Feng Hong and the others, he was also worried that Lan would consume "Nature".
Before entering the cave again, Jiang Yunlan patiently told Feng Hong and the others that she was conscious.
"I'm going in," she said to the beastmen, leading Cotton by the hand into the cold cave.
Cotton was much taller than her and had to bend over to get inside before she could stand up straight. The young cubs, however, had an advantage and didn't need to bend over at all.
Sober, Jiang Yunlan approached the ice crystal and exhaled a chilling breath. She squatted down and said to the small ice crystal, "I heard your voice. I'll take you out of here, okay?"
After she finished speaking, she reached out to the ice crystal, but her body could not resist the cold aura, and even with ice patterns appearing on her fingertips, she could not touch the ice crystal.
With just over twenty centimeters to go, Cotton grabbed Lan's fingertips, which were covered in frost flowers, with her other hand. "Lan... let's go."
Jiang Yunlan gritted her teeth and was pulled away by the cotton, completely exhausted. Her hands were stiff and numb from the cold, but she still looked at the blue-glowing sprite with unwavering determination. "Don't be afraid. Next time, next time I will definitely come and take you away."
She was too weak to withstand such a low temperature.
The ice crystal, radiating a dazzling blue light, watched her depart before gradually withdrawing its power and dimming.
Jiang Yunlan was carried out of the cave, her body shivering with cold, the ice on her fingers lingering. Her body temperature was so low that her breath almost froze.
"Put the food on the platform, and don't seal the cave entrance." She forced herself to finish speaking, and she and Mianhua went back to their cave to warm themselves by the fire.
She dared not get too close to the fire, afraid of getting hurt, and sat a little further away to wait for the ice on her hands to melt. Cotton was in much better condition than her; it had already recovered while she was still shivering.
"It wasn't calling you, so why did it go over there?" 022's feelings were complicated. It couldn't figure out Jiang Yunlan's thoughts.
Jiang Yunlan sniffed and said in a muffled voice, "I just feel that it shouldn't be there. How sad it must be to be left in the dark."
The beastmen may not have intentionally used it as a refrigerator, but whether it was unintentional or not, it had indeed been locked up there for a very long time. Jiang Yunlan had experienced the oppressive feeling of darkness and deeply understood that sensation.
But she couldn't imagine what it would feel like for a conscious life to be used as a tool; it must be incredibly painful.
“I heard its voice, and I can help it,” Jiang Yunlan said.
After the fleece gloves are made, she will try them on again.
"Just consider it a bit presumptuous of me," she said frankly, watching Maple Syrup's retreating figure as she helped her boil water.
She's been called stupid and foolish before, but it doesn't matter; she doesn't care. She won't give up on what she wants to do because of any obstacles.
Looking into her clear, bright eyes, 022t smiled slightly and said, "Perhaps. But it has been waiting for the creature that will take it away for a long time."
After covering up the flesh of the furball beast, the Feng Hong and his orcs rushed back from the Ice Crystal Stone, only to be greeted by a bowl of ginger soup. Jiang Yunlan held the ginger soup in both hands, urging them to drink it quickly as she drank.
They came into contact with the chill emanating from the ice crystal spirits. Jiang Yunlan was worried that they would catch a cold, so she did not let them go out to gather food, but instead asked them to spin thread and weave clothes in the cave.
The beastmen were busy, completely unconcerned about the food placed in the sea of white flowers. The weather was getting colder; whether the food was in the flowers or in their caves made no difference to them, as both were close to nature.
But the ice crystal sprite, feeling the wind blowing from the cave entrance and gazing at the moonlight streaming into the cave, remained lost in thought for a long time. It wasn't locked up today.
One day, two days, three days passed, and the irritable elf finally calmed down. It suddenly remembered that three days ago, when the orc tried to capture its cub, it seemed that she was the one who stopped the orc from closing the cave entrance. It could recognize her voice.
The cubs. The cubs of those hateful orcs didn't seem to bother the elves as much.
A note from the author:
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The little angel "I Love Taking a Bath" poured 100 bottles of magic potion into the magic circle, successfully using a concealment spell to prevent the beasts from discovering the furry beast meat and ice crystals in the sea of flowers.
The little angel "Baiyuesheng" used 20 bottles of warming potion on Jiang Yunlan, and the cold Jiang Yunlan gradually warmed up.
The little angel "Ling Xiaoling" used four bottles of Mind-Connecting Potion on the Ice Crystal Stone Spirit, and the Ice Crystal Stone Spirit gradually sensed Lan's friendliness.
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