There were two b.l.o.o.d.y holes on its shoulder. Though the blood made it seem like the injuries were severe, they weren't fatal. The foot on Chang's chest slowly pressed him into the ground like a mountain squas.h.i.+ng every bit of strength out of him. He couldn't move just lay under the creature's control.

The gap between their physical strengths was extremely wide.

What's more, Chang was disarmed completely; if he were to force a hand-to-hand fight, he doubted that he could hurt it even a bit.

That's why he was certain that this was his last day alive.

"I said, die under my stomp!"

The creature stretched its leg further. Chang's chest was at the edge of collapsing and his face distorted from torment.

"Ah!"

The last breath was forced out of his lungs. His chest bone crackled as if a firework blooming.

"It hurts, right?"

The creature tilted its head, making a lopsided smile.

"Cut... the c.r.a.p," Chang squeezed out the words through his lips.

"Wait... I changed my mind. Killing you on the spot is boring, I'll torture you to death." The creature drew back its leg and picked all the weapons for itself. "Without these weapons, you're just a bug to me."

The creature tidied up the weapons, then it curiously opened Chang's backpack.

"What is in there?"

It stirred the backpack.

"Some food and water, as well as medications."

Chang slowly sat up from the ground, rubbing his chest bone.

"Food? Is it delicious?"

The creature looked back at Chang, its eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"Nothing special, some hardtacks." The innocence of the creature intrigued Chang. He couldn't help but ask, "How old are you?"

"I just had my first birthday a few months ago." The creature continued on browsing through the backpack until its fingers gripped a piece of hardtack. It clumsily opened the packaging, then pushed the food towards Chang. "You take a bite first. Daddy told me that humans are all insidious. I need you to test if you've poisoned it."

"Okay..."

Chang bit the hardtack from its hand while thinking about some other things.

Judging from its age, he a.s.sumed that the creature was in its early childhood and has lived in the jungle for almost its whole life. Though it was extremely intelligent, it still lacked social experience and seemed to be curious about everything. A beam of hope ignited when he realized that the creature might be less brutal due to having high intelligence.

"Hey, what's your name?" Chang asked searchingly while the creature was busy gnawing at the hardtack.

"Liu Xin, Liu means flow, and Xin means heart. My dad named me," the creature slurred. "This is dry, I like fish better."

"Do you have fish for your daily meal?"

Chang's eyes lingered on the webbed feet while he intentionally continued the conversation.

"We do." Liu Xin dragged Chang up by his collar upon finis.h.i.+ng enjoying the hardtack. "Don't try to dig things out from me. You hurt me today really bad. I'll take revenge on you but I haven't thought of a way yet so I'm thinking of handing you to daddy."

"Is there room for negotiation between us?" Chang quickly asked, going into a slight panic when he heard that Liu Xin planned to transfer him to his father. He was almost sure that the chance of escaping from that experienced creature may be non-existent. The mature one must have an abundance of social interactions, and it had even avoided Qing Shui multiple times.

Taking into consideration that Liu Xin was still an amateur and lacked experience when interacting with humans, he was innocent enough to be tricked. But if Chang was to be brought back to its habitat, he would definitely be caged somehow. Thinking of this, he urged Liu Xin, "Hey buddy, we are both intelligent species, we could just have a talk about this. Though I hurt you but those wounds don't seem fatal. Besides, you hurt me as well, it's fair game, you know?"

"It doesn't count this way." Liu Xin shook his patterned head. "If I were to use human language to describe you, you are my captive. You aren't allowed for negotiate at all."

"If you let me go, I'll bring you yummy food," Chang suggested, making a last struggle.

"Although I'm still a kid, you won't fool me like that." Liu Xin chuckled. His wet and cold fingers gripped Chang's collar again and he started walking into the jungle. "I don't care about what you say, I'll let daddy make the judgment."

Liu Xin steadily walking on. He bypa.s.sed the poisonous region and soon made it to the Yellow River sh.o.r.e. From what Chang observed, Liu Xin was more than three times faster than he was and its endurance was exceptional as his pace was kept constant. Even though he was running fast, his wound didn't lacerate and bleed again. He was simply superior to any of the humans Chang knew.

On this short trip, Chang struggled, joked, teased, and hoodwinked, but none of it worked. Liu Xin only chuckled at his attempts and said nothing about them.

A natural habitat for mutated amphibian creatures was where the flow of the Yellow River was the slowest.

There was a place beside the river where compet.i.tion was the fiercest for that place was the most prosperous. Liu Xin's kind was apparently the most n.o.ble out of all the species near the river.

Some of the creatures were drinking, some of them were resting. None violated others' territory recklessly. It was clear that this place had achieved an equilibrium in power.

Perhaps Chang was the first person to discover these monsters that lived underwater.

In this special habitat, there were pythons coated in thickened and colored scales; frogs that that had their moist and green skin but were now walking with straightened legs; fish which had grown into the appearance of salamanders; as well as species that looked exactly like water plants... This was a heaven that celebrated differences and uniqueness but was dangerous at the same time.

The different species were either resting or lurking for prey. Some were drinking at the waterside but their strained back leg muscles betrayed their nervousness. Liu Xin and his family had to be the top predator as all the other animals spread out to form a circle as fast as a drop of ink dripping into water when he approached.

Liu Xin threw Chang on the beach at the river sh.o.r.e, then shouted at a gigantic sand hole. "Papa, papa, I captured a human, but he is strange, he is capable of a lot of things..."

In seconds, from that three meter wide sand hole, a head sprouted out. The head was a perfect sphere shape, its skin the same as Liu Xin's and the pattern laid over like a well crafted artifact. What came after the head was the body. Its structure was also similar to Liu Xin's but this creature was more muscular. His height was about five meters and his physique stretched out more. Instead of being pale, his skin had a metallic reflection, and his stout tail fell on the ground when he moved out from the sand hole.

Chang felt a pressure coming from the creature that made him feel as if his heart was about to stop beating. The feeling was much more intense compared to when he had met Zhuo.

"Human?"

The amphibians who were resting on the beach all fled like frightened rabbits. They fought on who'll escape first to the Yellow River and soon the turbulent waves swallowed them. The creature's appearance cleared the lively habitat in a few seconds.

"Gak...."

Chang swallowed unintentionally when he saw this gigantic creature.

"Your smell is familiar..." The t.i.tanic creature moved slowly to Chang. He seemed confused after staring at Chang for a moment. Then, he lowered his nose to the top of Chang's head, twitching. "You were in the research inst.i.tute, "the creature said, still sniffing, "am I correct?"

"I did," Chang answered with a nod. "I used to live around there."

"Oh... I think I know who you are. Four years ago, you came with Qing Shui to the poison zone and somehow killed that other scientist." The creature seemed delighted when he talked about this. "I remember you guys were talking a lot, so you're probably a friend of his."

"Yes." Chang nodded, he didn't deny the fact.

The reason why Chang was temporarily submitting to him was that he could only survive if he was

valuable to the creature, since the creature was an intelligent species.

"That's great! Mr. Qing Shui Li is someone that I admire."

The creature helped Chang up upon hearing his answer which overwhelmed him by how unexpected this favor was, yet he felt strangely uncomfortable.

The greatest absurdity was the fact that the creature was huge in size without high degree of similarity to human yet was able to speak human language and make human gestures. This surreal experience dizzied Chang and he felt as if he was teleported to an alien planet.

"Do you find me strange?" The creature was smart, he read Chang's thought just by looking at him. "But you don't need to be afraid, we Amphibia are a friendly species."

"Amphibia?"

Chang was perplexed.

"That how I named myself as a species. I'm the first of our kind, and naming is quite important." The gigantic creature's pale face seemed kind. "I mutated from a frog, but I also evolved some features from other species, so Amphibia sounds like a nice name for summarizing what I am."

The creature spoke with his back bent but felt that he was impolite somehow. He then swept his tail away and sat down. But even sitting, he was still much taller than Chang.

"I see..." Chang didn't feel that the creature would do any harm to him and loosened up a bit.

"So, you were there four years ago?"

"I was, I was there all the time," the amphibia said. "Initially I was attracted by a strange sonar wave, but then the Yessie came.

"Back then, I was still naive about humans and the world as I had just gained intelligence about that time." The Amphibia's mouth curved upwards when he recalled past events. "I even attempted to communicate with the Yessie, but it responded to nothing. And soon, human scouts came..."