On the other hand, Su Qinglan was almost losing her mind from worry, her heart beating so wildly and painfully that even she couldn’t understand why it refused to calm down.
"Where is he?!" she shouted again, "Where is Xuan Long?! Someone tell me!"
Han Jue reached for her shoulders, his voice trembling as much as her hands.
"Lan Lan... please, come inside first. You’re getting drenched."
She yanked away angrily.
"I don’t care about the rain! I want my husband back! Why hasn’t anyone told me where he is?!"
Rong Ye stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
"Listen to us! We’re not hiding anything. The men who went with him—they said he just disappeared!"
"Disappeared?!" she repeated. "How can a giant snake disappear?! Was everyone blind?!"
Her three beast husbands were just as panicked because it was the very first time they had seen her this distressed, her hands trembling, her voice shaky, and the fear on her face was squeezing their hearts so tightly they couldn’t even breathe properly as they kept trying again and again to calm her down.
Rain dripped down her cheeks, mixing with the tears she didn’t want anyone to see.
Hu Yan tried to hold her arms gently.
"Qinglan... please calm down. You’re shaking. You shouldn’t be out here like this."
She shoved him weakly, crying harder.
"Don’t tell me to calm down! He’s out there somewhere! Something happened! I know it... my heart won’t stop beating!"
Su Qinglan refused every attempt, pushing them away, ignoring their words, and even trying to storm out of the tree shelter to interrogate the thirty beastmen who had gone with Xuan Long but returned without him.
Her father rushed toward them, his clothes soaked through, his hair dripping.
"Lan Lan!" he shouted. "Stop screaming like that! Come here!"
She turned toward him with red, swollen eyes.
"Father! They’re lying to me... Xuan Long would never leave like that!"
"No one is lying," he said firmly, grabbing her hands. "We will find him. Nothing will happen to him. He is stronger than all of us combined."
But she shook her head violently.
Because she was in no condition to listen to any comforting words, she was almost blinded by fear, and her voice cracked as she kept asking where he was, why no one had answers, what exactly happened.
And her eyes were so red that even the rain could not hide it completely, because even though the water washed her face clean, the redness in her eyes still made her husbands’ hearts twist painfully.
"You don’t understand! I feel something is wrong! Something terrible!"
Her father saw the trembling of her lips and the way she kept pressing a hand over her stomach to steady herself.
"You’re pregnant," he reminded softly. "You cannot let panic harm the little ones."
Her chest heaved.
"I can’t just sit and wait... not when he’s missing."
To them, seeing her like this made all three of them feel useless and guilty, thinking how incompetent they must be to not even keep her safe emotionally, let alone find the husband she was crying for.
And even worse, she was pregnant, and all of them knew stress was the last thing she should be experiencing, which made the guilt in their chests feel even heavier.
"Stay here," her mother said, enjoying the drama. "Let her suffer."
Both watched happily as Su Qinglan stood soaked and broken below, tears hidden by the rain but agony clear on her face.
But before their twisted happiness could rise any further, the entire sky suddenly rumbled violently, the kind of deep, earth-shaking rumble that made the ground crumble for a moment, and everyone outside flinched hard as Su Qinglan’s father shouted urgently, "Everyone inside! Go inside the tree houses! It is not safe outside!"
Hu Yan was also shocked before he immediately scooped Su Qinglan into his arms because she refused to move on her own, and Han Jue and Rong Ye followed closely behind, practically shielding her from all sides, pulling her toward the safety of their tree shelter.
A heavy, roaring wave of water fell straight from the sky like a broken river, smashing into the ground and sending mud, leaves, stones, and branches flying.
The force shook the entire lower domain.
The tribe screamed.
Su Qinglan’s father yelled again,
"Hurry! Inside! Don’t stop!"
Everyone scattered inside the tree houses as water rushed across the ground, rising ankle-deep in seconds, then knee-deep, threatening to drag anything weak away.
Su Qinglan clung to Hu Yan’s shoulders, tears mixing with the storm.
"Xuan Long..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "Please... come back..."
As the sky continued pouring fury, her fear only grew stronger.
The scene was terrifying... just like when a rain cloud bursts in real life, not just pouring rain but releasing a sudden flood, a violent wall of water that slammed into the earth and spilled everywhere, turning the ground into a dangerous, swirling current of mud and rushing water.
In a matter of seconds, the ground was drowning in a rising flood, rain crashing harder and faster with no sign of stopping, as if someone high above the sky was emptying their entire fury onto the land below.

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