Chapter 761: The Ant’s Tale

The “ant” tried to stretch out its hand again, but Qi Xia once more brushed it aside.

This strange behavior made the creature before him realize the current situation.

It understood that there was a person standing before it—one who neither feared it nor attempted to flee.

Qi Xia glanced into the distance and saw more and more “ants” beginning to gather toward them.

Yet their demeanor remained unchanged from his memory, merely crouching far away, too afraid to approach.

Finally, the “ant” in front of him shifted its expression, exhaled, and stretched out its hand once more.

This time, however, it didn’t extend its palm but instead a single finger.

Qi Xia pondered its intent for a moment before reaching out and touching that icy fingertip.

The moment their hands made contact, the “ant” sucked in a sharp breath, as if about to pull back, but hesitated, its face twisting into something grotesquely exaggerated.

For the first time, Qi Xia realized that when a person loses all their facial features, their expressions become infinitely more pronounced.

The next instant, the “ant” flipped its hand and clamped onto Qi Xia’s wrist, its body leaping up from the ground to crouch on the windowsill.

A wave of putrid stench assaulted Qi Xia, but he didn’t retreat.

He was too eager to know what this “ant” intended to do.

With one hand gripping Qi Xia’s wrist, the “ant” turned his palm upward, then extended a finger from its other hand and lightly traced circles on his skin.

A few seconds later, Qi Xia realized it was trying to write something in the center of his palm.

But its hands had been twisted backward and healed poorly, making its fingers clumsy and the resulting words nearly illegible.

When it saw Qi Xia’s lack of reaction, it lowered its head, lifting his palm to its eyes, and carefully traced the characters once more.

This time, Qi Xia vaguely recognized it.

A single word: **Who**.

Qi Xia understood it was likely asking for his identity, but the absurdity of the situation struck him.

Were these “ants” reduced to identifying someone solely through such a method?

With that in mind, Qi Xia took the creature’s hand and wrote two words on its cracked, desiccated skin.

**Qi Xia.**

It felt like carving letters into brittle bark—he couldn’t tell if the other understood.

The “ant” waited in the dark as Qi Xia finished writing, its hand trembling faintly.

Its withered mouth gaped wide, exhaling ragged breaths.

Before Qi Xia could speak, it seized his hand again, this time with far greater force.

Its finger pressed down hard, carving a single word into his palm.

The strokes were jagged, but Qi Xia pieced it together from the structure.

**Run!**

“What…?” Qi Xia narrowed his eyes, staring at the invisible word on his palm, utterly baffled.

First, he didn’t understand the “ant’s” identity or stance—only that it was one of them. Second, he couldn’t be sure if it was fully lucid. Third, there was nowhere to **run**.

So where exactly was this “run” supposed to take him?

The “ant’s” face twisted into an exaggerated expression, and Qi Xia realized communicating with it would require effort.

He took its hand and carefully drew a question mark.

At the sight of it, the “ant’s” expression convulsed again, limbs flailing as it let out incoherent noises.

It clearly wanted to speak but couldn’t.

The commotion roused Chen Junan and Qiao Jiajin from their sleep.

Bleary-eyed, they jolted awake only to see Qi Xia holding hands with a monster by the window—a sight too horrifying to process.

“Bloody hell!!” Qiao Jiajin bellowed, flipping upright and snatching a nearby chair.

“Fuck me!” Chen Junan tumbled off the table, steadied himself, and frantically scanned for a weapon, settling on lifting the table itself when he found none.

Qi Xia didn’t turn around, merely raising a hand to stop them as they charged forward.

The two froze, bewildered.

“Old Qi… if this bug’s kidnapping you, blink twice,” Chen Junan said.

Qi Xia ignored him, motioning for them to approach.

Exchanging glances, they lowered their makeshift weapons and crept closer.

The scene only grew stranger.

The “ant” perched on the windowsill now cradled Qi Xia’s hand like a treasure, tracing something on his palm with its fingertip.

“Damn…” Chen Junan forced a grin despite the absurdity. “Couldn’t sleep, so you’re getting a palm reading?”

“Wha…?” Qiao Jiajin scratched his head. “They do house calls for fortune-telling here?”

“Look,” Qi Xia said.

They leaned in, studying the odd “ant.”

Its face flickered between panic and shock as it repeatedly wrote a single character on Qi Xia’s palm.

Qiao Jiajin squinted. The strokes were simple, yet he couldn’t decipher it.

“What’s it sayin’…?”

Chen Junan shot him a look. “Are you blind? You don’t recognize that?”

“Legit don’t.”

When the “ant” finished, Qi Xia withdrew his hand and sighed.

“**Dragon**,” he murmured.

“Eh?” Qiao Jiajin frowned. “That’s how you write ‘dragon’?”

He waved a hand through the air, as if to demonstrate the character’s proper complexity.

“Bro, we use simplified now,” Chen Junan said, patting his shoulder.

“Ah…” Qiao Jiajin’s hand hung awkwardly midair.

Ignoring them, Qi Xia focused on the “ant.”

First **run**, now **dragon**—was this supposed to mean something?

Either the creature had lost control of its body, or it believed these two words were enough.

Qi Xia offered his palm again, hoping for more, but the “ant” only repeated the same two characters.

“Are you telling me… to **run from the dragon**?”