The Snail Traveler gave Shen Cong not one shred of a pleasant face — get lost at every turn, hate you at every opening. But so long as it didn't actually raise a hand, Shen Cong ignored the loathing entirely and kept up his probing, baiting out emotion after emotion, logging each into the Snail Cicada-Language, perfecting his first Cicada Language.

A full afternoon of baiting later, Shen Cong had successfully mastered over sixty items of Snail Cicada-Language vocabulary.

The sun set. The sky sank slowly toward black.

The once-lush hilltops nearby had been grazed bare in great swaths by the Snail Traveler, reduced to bald wasteland — with generous heaps of reeking dung left behind for good measure.

Fortunately, the Activity density carried in by the sea wind still hadn't collapsed back to its old levels, holding instead at that average gain of roughly 70%.

And that 70% of extra Activity had, in the space of a few short days, made the green of the Yimeng Mountains all the more exuberant — tender new seedlings unfurling one after another.

Life force blazing up from beneath the earth.

Right at nightfall, the Snail Traveler finally radiated a feeling of full now — then sent Shen Cong one more helping of get lost, little bug. It drew its body slowly back into the shell, and gave the shell one final roll.

Whud.

The shell's opening pressed flat against the ground, leaving only the intact whorl exposed to the world, its soft body sealed safely inside. It settled in to rest. An Activity wave with the cadence of slow breathing radiated gently outward.

Shen Cong patted the Four-Legged Dragon's head and returned to the Great Vajra across the valley.

Fire lit, dinner cooked, a simple meal eaten.

Afterward, he sank straight back into building the Snail Cicada-Language. And a sudden flight of inspiration struck him: watching the Snail Traveler sleeping so soundly, it occurred to him that hypnotic technique might be a way to imitate how the Golden Cicada lured its prey.

"My Cicada Language can listen and speak. Ordinary 'speaking' is…