Li Lanhao scanned his surroundings and searched carefully, driven solely by the lingering taste of Ice Ling Fish sashimi. Moreover, no matter how freezing the weather was, Ice Ling Fish never froze, and the icy, refreshing sensation upon the tongue was simply unforgettable.
Thinking of the tender Ice Ling Fish sashimi made his mouth water uncontrollably; somehow, he had to catch another one to improve his meals.
That being said, wonderful things were always out of reach. He had only managed to catch one on his way here, and whether he could grab another Ice Ling Fish was really anyone's guess.
Of course, Li Lanhao would not let it delay his journey. By the time he reached the opposite bank of the Frigid Ice Lake, he had found nothing at all. Perhaps his luck had gone bad because he had spanked the Blood Demon Empress's bottom, or perhaps the Ice Ling Fish had gone extinct!
After wandering by the lake for a while, Li Lanhao shook his head and muttered to himself.
"Forget it. Relying on heaven, earth, or luck—when you're out and about, a hard flatbread is still the most reliable thing."
Li Lanhao could not afford to delay and had to leave as soon as possible. For one thing, his flatbreads were running low; for another, he needed to gather the medicinal ingredients quickly, leaving no time to waste. Furthermore, only by reaching a town as soon as possible could he improve his diet.
Li Lanhao pulled out one of today's flatbreads in advance, gnawed on it as he turned away without looking back, and kept walking until he climbed up to the mountain pass on the snowy peak. Only then did he turn back with a trace of lingering reluctance for a brief moment before departing resolutely.
***
Early the next morning, the exhausted Tiger Demon Queen finally crossed the mountains and ridges to reach the Frigid Ice Lake. Had she not rushed day and night without stopping, it would have been utterly impossible for her to get here so quickly.
Wusha was practically starving to death. The only reason she was still alive was because her magical beast body was sufficiently tough, combined with her obsessive drive to hunt down Li Lanhao, which had kept her barely hanging on until now.
The freezing cold posed no threat to Wusha, as such temperatures had very little effect on the Blood Demon Empress.
*Gulp, gulp.* Her stomach had been frantically crying out for food the entire way, yet finding any living creature in the Snowy Wasteland was exceedingly difficult.
As a former overlord of her domain, Wusha held the spear in her right hand while rubbing her loudly rumbling tummy with her left, narrowing her phoenix eyes as she muttered coldly!
"Damned junior! This place is a frozen wasteland—where on earth are the fish? A liar, a damned, big liar!"
Wusha was furious to the extreme. Just thinking about being held down in the snow and violently spanked several hundred times made her blood boil. Then she thought about how he had tricked her into eating a stone, and how Li Lanhao had claimed there were Ice Ling Fish in the Frigid Ice Lake. This place was flat as a pancake and frozen for hundreds of miles—if this wasn't the Frigid Ice Lake, what on earth was it?
"Where's the promised Ice Ling Fish, you damned little thief? You'd better pray to the heavens that I don't catch you!"
Wusha felt as though the Blood Demon Empress's royal dignity had been rubbed hard against the ground. If she caught Li Lanhao, she reckoned hacking him into eight pieces still wouldn't appease the hatred in her heart.
Wusha carried her spear and continued on her way, writing off the claim about fish in the lake as sheer nonsense. Trembling and swaying, she finally reached the center of the lake after a long while.
Curiously, while the entire surface of the lake was covered in thick ice, right here there was an ice hole about the size of a wooden wash tub, the water at its opening gently rippling. There was no sign of any Ice Ling Fish; the water was crystal clear down to the bottom, devoid of even a single living creature. She stood there in a daze for a moment and muttered to herself.
"This Empress really ought to stop and rest her feet. I might as well soak my feet here."
Alas! The Blood Demon Empress was probably the first person in history to soak her feet in the Frigid Ice Lake of the Snowy Wasteland. One could only worry whether her big feet might freeze into blocks of ice.
Afterward, Wusha jammed the Blood Demon Spear firmly into the ice surface, leaning against the spear as she slowly sat down. She was simply too weak; her legs could barely support her body anymore.
Wusha sat squarely down on the ice. Who knew if that bottom—which had taken several hundred slaps—was hurting or not, but at least on the surface, nothing could be seen.
Then she lifted her red long skirt, revealing a pair of charming, extraordinarily long legs. Perhaps because she was a Tiger Demon Empress, her leg muscles were exceptionally developed! At any rate, her calf gastrocnemius muscles were bulging, protruding slightly backward.
Perhaps she was tall enough! Her calves were quite thick and sturdy, not belonging to some slender, bony beauty. Moreover, her skin wasn't as fair as most women's; instead, it possessed a brownish, healthy wheat tone that was exceptionally sexy and alluring.
She slowly kicked off her combat boots, revealing a pair of peerless, top-tier gorgeous big feet. With their upturned arches and rounded heels, and five lotus-petal toes sporting blood-red nails that were dazzlingly fierce and domineering, they were a sight to behold.
The skin on the soles of her jade feet was delicate and seductively colored—at first glance, they looked like golden-brown baked bread, coupled with a well-dense crisscross of wrinkles that was simply breathtaking.
Only, Wusha's feet were huge, even longer than the big smelly feet of many men. After all, the Blood Demon Empress's height was right there. In her every gesture, every part of her radiated a strong sense of oppression, which could only be described as bizarre.
She slowly touched her toes to the ice-cold water, frowning slightly for a few seconds before submerging both of her big feet into the water up to her knees. Slowly raising her head to look at the sky, Wusha did not find the lake water bone-chilling at all; on the contrary, her entire body experienced a profound sense of relaxation.
"It's been so long since this Empress soaked her feet. How cozy."
Then, loosening her supporting hands, she fell backward onto the ice as if bereft of her soul. She was too exhausted and needed to stop and sleep, drifting off almost the moment her head touched the ground, completely disregarding whether there was any danger around her.
The thick snow was quite springy, and beneath Wusha's fiery body, the snow melted into water before freezing into ice once more. Before long, a layer of frost coated the Blood Demon Empress's clothes.
Not long after Wusha fell sound asleep...
*Pop, pop, pop...*
Bubbles continuously rose from the surface of the lake, countless bubbles drifting away on the wind and bursting one after another, presenting a rather leisurely scene.
Before long, a large, plump Ice Ling Fish swam up from the bottom of the lake. In truth, the ice hole served as the breathing vent for the Ice Ling Fish. The entire lake surface remained frozen year-round, but the Ice Ling Fish secreted a special liquid within their bodies that prevented small patches of ice from freezing solid.
Curiously, the silvery-white, plump fish seemed a bit over-excited. It swam rapidly across the surface of the water, slapping against the ripples with loud *thwacks*.
Even though the Ice Ling Fish was splashing water everywhere, Wusha still did not wake up. The fish seemed somewhat joyful, or perhaps it was searching for something.
After swimming around for a while, the fish slowed its pace, continuously poking its head above the water to catch its breath, looking at a glance as if it were on the verge of suffocating. Then, diving back beneath the surface, the fish's mouth gently brushed against the sole of the Blood Demon Empress's foot.
Wusha, deep in sleep, suddenly sensed trouble. "Who's there?" she snapped, abruptly lifting her head and opening her eyes. All around her was absolute silence, save for the howling of the cold wind.
Just as Wusha was about to fall asleep again, her peripheral vision caught sight of the plump fish thrashing clumsily on the water's surface, and instantly the Blood Demon Empress was struck as if by lightning, her eyes widening in shock.
*Gulp, gulp.*
Wusha swallowed instinctively. She was starving to the point of endurance, wishing she could swallow the plump fish in one gulp. Recovering from her daze, she slowly reached toward the Blood Demon Spear. Reason told her this was a rare opportunity; she had to seize the exact moment to deliver a fatal strike with her spear, otherwise if the plump fish slipped away, she would be completely finished.
*Gulp, gulp.* Swallowing several big mouthfuls of saliva down into her stomach, she kept her pair of exquisite jade feet soaking in the lake without daring to make the slightest twitch. Instead, she slowly reached out to grip the Blood Demon Spear. Just as Wusha slowly grasped the spear and was about to thrust it down, a bizarre scene left the Blood Demon Empress petrified and dumbfounded.
What did she see? She saw the snowy-white, plump fish twitch a few times beneath the water's surface, roll belly-up, and stop moving altogether! Had the Ice Ling Fish just died with its belly facing the sky like that? Could it have been scared to death by the Blood Demon Empress?
Wusha frowned slightly, shook her head, and let out a light sigh!
"Well, that certainly saves me some trouble."
Then, mustering all the strength she had, Wusha thrust her spear downward.
*Whoosh!*
With a single thrust, she pierced straight through the belly of the Ice Ling Fish and hoisted the seventy- or eighty-pound plump fish right out of the water.