After running all night until the moon came out.

Finally, when that Core-stealing thief stopped, Meng Ruji leaned against a roadside tree and vomited directly.

Ever since she had borrowed the Inner Core’s power to become a half-demon many years ago, she had never felt dizzy and nauseous from simple exercise.

At this moment, Meng Ruji felt like a forced dog with an invisible leash around her neck, being dragged until she was exhausted to the point of dry heaving…

Meng Ruji gasped desperately, almost sliding to her knees. She recovered for quite a while, and during this time, she recalled all the warm moments she had experienced in her past life to tell herself: it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, being walked on a leash by a little thief isn’t embarrassing at all.

Even if she continued to be led around like this in the future, it didn’t matter!

It didn’t matter! Be strong!

Stand up! Live on!

After pumping herself up, Meng Ruji swallowed the sour water in her throat. She shakily straightened her body and only then had the leisure to look ahead.

Three zhang away in the woods ahead, the Core-stealing thief had also stopped beside a tree. He was leaning against the tree but wasn’t gasping heavily like Meng Ruji.

She didn’t know what he was doing—he was slightly hunched over, standing there silently.

Meng Ruji no longer wanted to scold him. She didn’t even dare approach the young man, afraid he would flee like a startled bird again. She couldn’t take another step now—not one step!

“Little thief.” Meng Ruji called out from afar, but her tone unconsciously contained some caution. “Let’s talk.”

The young man seemed to hear her words. The muscles in his back visibly tensed for a moment, but he didn’t continue running.

This was good.

Meng Ruji supported herself against the tree to stand up, her voice gentle: “You must be tired from running so long. Why don’t you sit down first?”

The young man didn’t move.

Meng Ruji slowly shifted her steps, approaching the young man, afraid her movements were too large and would startle him.

She used all her gentleness, speaking with emotion and reason:

“I heard someone say this place is where the half-dead dwell, which sounds dangerous. You and I really shouldn’t stay long. Right? Between us, there might have been some unpleasantness before, but now, to leave this place, my goal is the same as yours. You and I should be friends, joining hands to face difficulties together. Don’t you think that’s reasonable…”

As she spoke, she carefully and quietly approached the young man.

The young man still had his back to her, standing in place. But as she got closer, Meng Ruji noticed the young man was hunched over more severely.

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound, and the young man’s figure directly collapsed to one knee.

Meng Ruji was startled and quickly stepped forward two paces, reaching the young man’s front:

“What’s wrong with you?”

Green moonlight fell through the forest, making the young man’s face deathly pale with a tinge of green—it looked terrifying.

“I…” The young man clutched his stomach, body curled up, leaning against the tree trunk, breath weak as a thread.

Meng Ruji kept thinking to herself: it’s over, it’s over. Looking like this, he might die. If he dies, then my Inner Core…

“Hungry…”

Meng Ruji was stunned: “You… what?”

“So hungry…”

The young man’s body curled up, and “gurgling” sounds came from his stomach.

In the quiet night, his stomach’s rumbling seemed particularly loud.

Meng Ruji stood silently in front of the young man, watching him look like he was severely injured and dying, yet calling out about hunger. For a moment, Meng Ruji found it somewhat amusing.

“You had such good energy when running earlier, how can hunger kill you now?”

Meng Ruji crossed her arms sarcastically, watching the show.

However, the next instant, when the young man’s abdomen faintly emitted a warm orange glow, Meng Ruji couldn’t laugh anymore.

This orange light was warm like spring sunshine—she was all too familiar with it. It was the glow when her Inner Core operated.

He was consuming her Inner Core’s power!

Indeed, the young man’s expression became somewhat more relaxed.

But he still curled up under the tree, the orange glow from his abdomen flickering in and out. The Inner Core’s power seemed to make him feel slightly better but couldn’t completely offset the pain of hunger or support all his bodily functions.

Meng Ruji’s Inner Core possessed tremendous power.

Eight hundred years ago, she had chosen to seal herself because she couldn’t suppress the overflowing power.

She wasn’t worried about the young man completely consuming this Inner Core’s power, but she was concerned that if he consumed her Inner Core whenever he was hungry, over time, this Inner Core’s power might completely fuse with the young man’s body. Then, even if she returned to the mortal world and regained her spiritual power, it would be difficult to extract the Inner Core from his body.

Meng Ruji immediately told the young man seriously: “If you’re hungry, eat food. I’ll go find some for you!”

The young man raised his eyes and glanced at Meng Ruji. Seeing her solemn expression in the moonlight, her words and demeanor completely serious and genuine.

His lips moved slightly.

“Stay here and don’t move. Be good.” After Meng Ruji finished speaking, she turned and walked into the woods.

The young man’s gaze fell on Meng Ruji’s back until her shadow completely disappeared into the dark forest.

A voice in his heart kept warning the young man: don’t trust anyone, should leave, should escape, don’t trust her.

But the hunger in his body was really too unbearable. It was like a hand in his stomach constantly tearing at his internal organs, making him suffer unbearably. This pain was ten thousand times worse than the pain from wounds on his skin and flesh.

He simply couldn’t stand up.

Soon, hurried footsteps sounded in the forest. The young man immediately covered his stomach and warily looked toward the source of the sound.

Meng Ruji returned running anxiously with leaves hanging from her head. She had gathered a pile of half-green, half-yellow fruits in her skirt. Running all the way to his side, to prevent the fruits from falling to the ground, she carefully knelt down and held all the fruits in place.

“I did find some…”

Meng Ruji seemed somewhat hesitant, but before she finished speaking, she saw the young man’s hand reach over.

His overly keen nose caught the fresh fragrance of the fruits, making the hunger in the young man’s belly even more intense. He could barely control his hand as it reached into Meng Ruji’s gathered skirt, grabbed a fruit, and just as he was about to quickly pull his hand back, another hand faster than his grabbed his wrist.

“Wait!”

The young man looked at Meng Ruji, his eyes like an animal cornered to death—his bluff was obvious at a glance, but he still struggled, unwilling to give up his last breath.

“It’s not that I won’t give them to you.” Meng Ruji looked at him and explained. “I really don’t know which fruits in these woods are edible and which aren’t. This place is strangely peculiar. I could only find some things that look like edible fruits from the mortal world.”

The young man bit his teeth slightly, still insisting on pulling his hand back.

Even if poisonous, he wanted to stuff food into his mouth to drive away this terrible hunger.

Meng Ruji crouched beside the young man and once again firmly grasped his hand. On the other side, she herself took a half-green, half-yellow fruit and bit into it.

The fruit was a bit sour and not very tasty, but at least it was juicy.

While eating, she told the young man:

“Just wait a moment. I’ve experienced more storms than you and my mind seems clearer than yours. If there’s really poison, there will be signs. I’ll have ways to deal with it—inducing vomiting, drinking water, all possible. But you don’t look very smart, so bear with it first. If I eat it and don’t die, then you eat. If unfortunately this thing is highly toxic and lays me flat… I hope you have some conscience and use the Inner Core to circulate some spiritual power for me.”

The young man stared at Meng Ruji in a daze.

Moonlight outlined her figure, painting her into his pitch-black pupils.

Meng Ruji finished eating one fruit, waited a while, saw no abnormalities, and then poured all the fruits in her arms onto the young man. She herself thoughtfully stepped back two paces, not putting pressure on the young man.

“Should be fine. Eat.”

Who was waiting for her command? The young man had already grabbed one the moment she poured out the fruits, not even peeling the skin, and began wolfing them down.

Eating was instinct, driving the young man’s limbs to continuously stuff fruits into his mouth, but his eyes unconsciously glanced toward Meng Ruji, who was two steps away.

Meng Ruji seemed exhausted from all the commotion. She sat on the ground, one hand on her knee tapping intermittently, the other propping up her face, watching him with boredom.

The strange moonlight fell on her, but there was no eerie feeling. Instead, because of her overly calm expression, this weird place gained some peaceful, everyday atmosphere.

The young man observed her while wolfing down this meal.

“Are you… full?”

Watching the young man finish the last fruit, Meng Ruji was stunned.

She had never seen such a big-stomached, capable eater! By the end, she even wondered if she hadn’t picked enough.

However, it truly wasn’t enough.

The young man was still very hungry, but compared to the earlier emptiness that seemed to hollow him out completely, now it was much more bearable.

The young man watched Meng Ruji without responding.

“Alright, then let’s find our way back together.”

Meng Ruji stood up, still determined to take the young man back to the ferry. But the instant she stood, the young man immediately became wary again, hiding behind the tree trunk.

Meng Ruji felt speechless, truly unable to understand what kind of life this young man had lived before to be so guarded against people.

“I’m not going to hit you…” Meng Ruji muttered. “Don’t you want to return to the mortal world?”

Meng Ruji turned and walked back. As she walked, she secretly glanced behind her.

The person behind the tree didn’t seem to have any intention of following.

Meng Ruji didn’t want to force him. She guessed that with this young man’s personality, if she went after him, there would probably be another round of “night running.” She tried continuing to walk back.

After walking seven or eight zhang, Meng Ruji felt no discomfort in her body. She glanced back slightly and saw in the moonlight, with tree shadows swaying, the young man was hiding behind a tree closer to Meng Ruji, secretly following her. Only the young man’s shadow was cast on the ground by the slanted moonlight, exposing his whereabouts.

Knowing he was following her, Meng Ruji breathed a sigh of relief. Given his earlier agile running form, following her in the dark night would definitely be effortless for him. Without needing to drive him forward, she could finally focus on finding the way.