Chapter 266 – The World of Classic of Mountains and Seas
However, the girl in the middle had a severe leg injury, and, overwhelmed by fear, her legs gave out. The girls on either side were holding her up as they ran, slowing them down significantly.
The creature quickly caught up to them.
Fear swept through the hearts of all three.
The girl in the middle pushed her two companions away, collapsing onto the ground with an ashen face from terror. “You two, run! I’ll… I’ll hold it off.” Her voice trembled terribly.
“You can’t hold off anything! You’re not even a snack for it! Get up!” The short-haired girl grabbed her arm, desperately trying to pull her up.
The girl in sportswear picked up a branch from the ground, shielding the other two behind her, glaring fiercely at the creature chasing them.
Tu Ran had already confirmed that these people were from the First World.
The creature didn’t pay any attention to the branch. It roared at them, a blast of air pushing all three back half a step.
Then, the creature opened its enormous mouth, lunging at them.
“Ahh—” The short-haired girl hugged the girl in the white dress tightly, screaming in terror.
Perhaps her scream was so piercing that it stunned the creature for a moment.
In that instant of hesitation, Tu Ran flashed in front of it.
The laser gun activated, and a blue beam shot directly into its mouth. Tu Ran moved her arm upward, slicing the creature’s head in two with the laser beam, leaving it with no chance to fight back.
The creature’s body collapsed to the ground, thick green blood pouring continuously from the wound.
The forest fell silent in an instant, with only the sound of blood flowing.
Tu Ran took a step back, looking at the three stunned people in front of her, and said, “Leave here. This blood is corrosive.”
Upon hearing her warning, the girl in sportswear reacted first, pulling her two companions up from the ground and retreating several steps back.
Just as they left, the green blood flowed to the spot where they had just been standing, producing a sizzling sound.
The three watched this scene, then looked back at Tu Ran.
Their eyes held caution, gratitude, curiosity, and disbelief.
Tu Ran ignored these looks. She glanced at the wound on the girl in the white dress’s leg, took out a healing injector from her space storage, and walked toward them.
All three instinctively took a step back, watching her nervously.
Tu Ran stopped, opened her hand to reveal the injector in her palm. “Her wound needs immediate treatment. Inject this into her, and it will heal quickly.”
Hearing her voice and realizing she was female, their wariness eased slightly.
The girl in sportswear stepped forward and took the injector from her, still somewhat skeptical. She asked cautiously, “Will this really work?”
“It will,” Tu Ran nodded.
Though still doubtful, the girl in sportswear had no other options, and since this person had saved them, she figured there was no reason to harm them now.
“Thank you.” She returned to her companions, pulled off the needle cap, and hesitated, unsure where to inject.
“Anywhere is fine,” Tu Ran advised.
“Okay.” Her hand trembled as she carefully inserted the needle into her companion’s arm and pushed the liquid in.
The other two watched their companion’s reaction tensely.
“We can’t stay here long. The creature’s corpse will attract more of its kind. Carry her on your back, and we’ll relocate,” Tu Ran said.
At the mention of attracting more creatures, the two girls didn’t hesitate. They worked together to hoist the girl in the white dress onto the back of the girl in sportswear, then followed Tu Ran away from the area.
Tu Ran led them to a spot where the trees were sparse, letting sunlight filter through, making it less eerie. A river, about three meters wide, flowed nearby, with a bank strewn with stones of various sizes, making it a good place to rest.
Along the way, the wound on the girl in the white dress visibly healed. The bleeding had stopped, fresh pink skin had grown over the wound, and the pain had faded, leaving only a mild itch.
The three were astonished at this miraculous sight.
“Where are you from?” Tu Ran asked, though she already suspected the answer.
The three exchanged glances, and the girl in sportswear spoke up. “It seems like we came from another world. This place is entirely different from our original world.”
“Could you explain how you got here?”
“We went on a day trip. There was a small, shallow stream with clear water and tadpoles swimming inside. She,” the girl in sportswear pointed to the short-haired girl, “went down to play in the water, but then she slipped. We both rushed over to help her, and all three of us fell. When we stood up, we found ourselves in this forest, facing that creature.”
Tu Ran speculated that the spot where they fell might be a Threshold gate.
A connection had formed between the First World and the Third World!
A sense of heaviness filled Tu Ran’s heart.
“From the time you fell until you arrived here, did you stay together the entire time?”
“We did,” the girl in sportswear replied, looking at Tu Ran with a puzzled expression.
People from the Second World who arrived in the Third World were always separated and placed in different locations.
Yet, people from the First World seemed to arrive together.
Why was that?
How many Threshold gates were there in the First World? Had any relevant departments discovered them? If they hadn’t, what if someone inadvertently stumbled in and found themselves in the Third World, unarmed and at the mercy of the alien creatures?
Tu Ran’s frown deepened.
There was an even more pressing question.
Was there a door that connected the Federation and the First World?
Tu Ran was far more afraid of a connection between the Federation and the First World than of a link between the Third World and the First World.
The greed of the Federation’s financial magnates and their advanced technology were far more daunting than the aliens.
“Who are you? Is Tu Ran your name?” The girl in sportswear asked cautiously, not noticing Tu Ran’s anxiety.
To them, Tu Ran appeared as a figure out of a sci-fi movie, clad in high-tech battle gear, wielding a massive laser gun they had only seen in films, and wearing a full-face helmet that obscured her features. Everything about her was unfamiliar.
The words “Pioneer Tu Ran” on the front of her suit were the only information they had.
But they had never heard of what a Pioneer was.
“Where are you from? Are there humans in this world?” she asked tentatively.
Tu Ran looked at her in surprise, taken aback that she had arrived at this question so quickly.
“My name is Tu Ran. There are no humans in this world; it is a world of alien creatures, or you could say it is the world of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.”
“Classic of Mountains and Seas?”
The three of them turned to look at her in unison.
Though Tu Ran hadn’t said it directly, the moment she mentioned the Classic of Mountains and Seas, they understood that this person before them came from the same world they did.
Their last remnants of wariness vanished completely.
**TN
Classic of Mountains and Seas – The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), an ancient Chinese text, is a collection of mythic geography, folklore, and early natural history. It dates back to the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE and is composed of various sections, each describing different regions of China, their mountains, rivers, and the deities, creatures, and peoples that inhabit them.
