Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 477 – There Will Always Be a Day When It Is Spoken

Zhu Yan took three deep breaths, forcibly suppressing the anger surging up inside her.

She looked down at the black hair tie in her hand.

The words she had almost said moments ago had been abruptly choked off by this man’s crude topic.

It was like this every time.

Every time she tried to face him seriously, he could always, at the most critical moment, say the most infuriating thing with pinpoint precision.

Was he genuinely too stupid to read the room, or was he doing it on purpose?

Zhu Yan didn’t know.

But she did know one thing.

She glanced down at the Dragon Scales on the back of her hand.

Then she looked at Lu Yuan in the distance, who was rubbing his ear and grimacing.

The man’s left shoulder was still wrapped in bandages.

That was from two days ago at the Thirty-Ninth Rift, when a peak sixth-tier Dragon Clan’s claws had slashed through the protective suit at her lower back. Lu Yuan had Teleported over from thirty meters away and taken the second strike with his shoulder.

The wound was deep—nearly down to the bone.

When she was bandaging him, he was still grinning and saying, “It’s nothing, nothing, just a scratch.”

Zhu Yan clenched the hair tie.

Forget it.

She removed the old hair tie, put on the new one, and deftly tied her golden hair back up.

That kind of talk… there was no rush.

She’d wait until she figured out the scale situation first.

Wait until she confirmed she wasn’t going to turn into a dragon.

Wait until—

Wait until this bastard could be serious for once.

“Let’s go.” Zhu Yan strode past Lu Yuan without looking back. “Hailar Mountain Range, twelve hundred kilometers. We travel through the night.”

“Wait for me!” Lu Yuan jogged to catch up. “Your legs are so long and your strides so big, I’m exhausted trying to keep up!”

“If you’re tired, then don’t follow.”

“Can’t do that—what if you run into something you can’t beat?”

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Zhu Yan’s steps faltered for a moment.

“…You think you could beat it?”

“I can’t beat it, but I can run! Lure the enemy away and create an opening for you to deal damage—isn’t that our basic tactic from these past few days?”

The corner of Zhu Yan’s mouth curved slightly—so subtle it was nearly invisible in the darkness.

She quickened her pace and said nothing more.

The two of them disappeared one after another into the descending night. Behind them, Wang Shan and his Puppet Soldiers were organizing the rescued survivors into groups and logging their names, waiting for the transport to arrive.

The night wind over Hailar was turning cold.

Her communicator buzzed. Chu Chen had sent a brief message.

[Forty-Eighth Rift intel update: A seventh-tier Pureblood left three hours ago, heading to the Fifty-Second Rift. Current garrison reduced to peak sixth-tier x3. Window period approximately eighteen hours. Recommend striking while the iron is hot.]

Below it was a line of small text.

[You two—stop fighting.]

Lu Yuan glanced at the communicator, grinned, and held the screen up for Zhu Yan to see.

Zhu Yan scanned the last line.

“…How does he know?”

“Chu Chen knows everything.” Lu Yuan shrugged. “Apparently he can analyze sound signatures through the communicator’s frequency bands to determine what’s going on around the other person.”

Zhu Yan was silent for a moment.

“You’re not the only freak.”

“Hey!”

Their bickering drifted farther and farther across the wasteland.

The silver rings on their wrists pulsed with a faint blue light in sync, like two stars traveling side by side through the dark.

Eastern foothills of the Hailar Mountain Range.

4:17 AM.

The garrison camp at the Forty-Eighth Rift was cleared out within five minutes.

Three peak sixth-rank Dragon Clan members didn’t even have time to raise the alarm before they were dealt with—two were punched into the dirt by Zhu Yan, one fist each, and the third tried to flee but was struck precisely in the back of the head by Lu Yuan’s Light Blade from eight hundred meters away.

“Forty-eighth.” Zhu Yan withdrew her fist and flicked the blood off her knuckles.

Lu Yuan jumped down from the elevated position and pulled off the goggles he’d been using as a makeshift sniper scope.

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“Four minutes, thirty-two seconds.” He glanced at his watch. “New record.”

Zhu Yan ignored him.

She walked toward the Rift at the center of the camp, the azure spatial glow reflecting across her face. The Rift wasn’t large—about sixty meters wide, less than a hundred meters tall—and the energy fluctuations at its edges were relatively stable.

In the valley beyond the Rift, over sixteen hundred survivors were being held in hastily constructed iron cages.

Their clothes were ragged, their faces sallow and gaunt. Many bore the marks of whippings on their bodies.

When the Dragon Clan guards were killed, muffled sobs and whimpers rose from the cages.

Zhu Yan’s pace slowed.

She looked at the people huddled in the corners, at the fear and faint hope mingled in their eyes.

Among them was a woman, clutching a child of about three or four years old.

The child had already gone silent, but the woman still held on tightly, refusing to let go.

Zhu Yan’s fists slowly clenched at her sides.

Her nails dug into her palms. Dragon Scales rasped faintly under the pressure.

“Zhu Yan.”

Lu Yuan’s voice came from behind her.

No joking, no smirk.

He walked up beside her and looked at the cages too.

“…Let me handle it,” Lu Yuan said.

He stepped forward and used his Light Blade to precisely sever the locks on all the cages.

“Everyone, come out.” His voice was unusually gentle, completely different from his usual tone. “We’re here to take you home. You’re safe now.”

The survivors hesitated, then stepped out of the cages.

An old man shuffled forward unsteadily and dropped to his knees in front of Zhu Yan.

“You… who are you?” The old man looked up at the Dragon horns on Zhu Yan’s forehead, his eyes filled with terror and confusion. “Aren’t you Dragon Clan…?”

Zhu Yan opened her mouth.

“She’s not Dragon Clan.” Lu Yuan walked over and helped the old man up with one hand. “She’s human. Just like you.”

He glanced at Zhu Yan.

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“Just a bit better at fighting than you all.”

Zhu Yan lowered her eyes.

She crouched down, placing compressed rations and purified water in front of the old man.

“Eat first.” Her voice was a little hoarse. “The transport arrives in two hours.”

The old man took the food with trembling hands, tears streaming down his face.

“Thank you… thank you…”

Zhu Yan stood up, turned, and walked quickly toward the edge of the camp.

Lu Yuan watched her retreating figure.

The golden ponytail tied with the new hairband swayed gently in the night breeze.

He noticed that when Zhu Yan passed the woman holding the child, her steps paused for a few seconds.

But she didn’t look back.

Lu Yuan sighed and lit the last cigarette of the day.

That woman—fierce as hell with her words, but softer-hearted than anyone.

The communicator vibrated again. A message from Chu Chen.

[Hailar Forty-Eight confirmed eliminated. Transport arrival countdown: 1 hour 47 minutes.]

[Next target: Siberia Fifty-One Rift. Distance: eight hundred kilometers. Recommend resting in place for four hours before departure.]

[Additional: Zhu Yan’s wrist ring Spirit Qi transmission data shows her Dragon Bloodline activity is steadily rising, with an increase of approximately 7% over the past 24 hours. It is recommended to control combat intensity to avoid Bloodline loss of control. Data has been synced to Song Qing’s team for analysis.]

Lu Yuan finished reading the message, deleted the last one, and forwarded the first two to Zhu Yan.

He looked up toward the edge of the camp.

Zhu Yan stood alone on a protruding rock, facing east.

In that direction, the horizon was just beginning to show a faint hint of pale dawn light.

The pre-dawn wind was cold, blowing her hair and the hem of her clothes backward.

Her Dragon horns cast two long, slender shadows in the morning light.

Lu Yuan took one last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out on the sole of his shoe.

He didn’t walk over.

Sometimes, distance is the gentlest form of kindness.

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“Rest for four hours,” he called out in that direction. “I’ll take the first watch. You sleep first.”

The figure on the rock was silent for a moment.

“…Switch with me. I’ll take the first half, you take the second.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you snore.” Zhu Yan’s voice drifted over with the wind. “If you take the first watch, I won’t be able to sleep at all from your snoring. If you take the second, you’ll be tired enough that you won’t snore.”

Lu Yuan opened his mouth, a bellyful of retorts stuck in his throat.

He did snore.

“…Fine.”

Lu Yuan resigned himself to heading toward the tent. As he passed beneath the rock, his peripheral vision caught Zhu Yan looking down at the back of her hand.

Dragon Scales glimmered faintly in the dawn light.

Her other hand gripped the silver ring on her wrist, her thumb unconsciously tracing the Runic Patterns etched into it.

Lu Yuan’s steps slowed for half a beat.

“What are you looking at?” Zhu Yan suddenly raised her head, her amber eyes glaring straight at him. “Go to sleep.”

“Sleeping, sleeping, going right now.”

Lu Yuan ducked his head and quickly slipped into the tent.

The moment the zipper closed, he heard a faint laugh from outside.

Probably just the wind.

Lu Yuan turned over, the silver ring on his wrist pressed against his chest, the warmth of Spirit Energy seeping through his clothes into his skin.

He closed his eyes.

Forty-six Rifts left.

That was enough.

There would come a day when he could finally say it.

“Beep beep beep beep—”

Chu Chen’s voice came through the communicator.

“Lu Yuan, Zhu Yan. Rift energy fluctuations are intensifying. Speed things up.”