Chapter 137 (Patreon)

Chen Haoran slowly rose. A single step carried him out of a hole taller than three men. He followed the Yellow Dragon’s glare into the sky and cycled qi to his eyes. Of the two Crystal Transformations in the air, only one had butterfly wings. He was clothed in purple like ancient royalty might wear and over that laid the red official uniform of the empire like an overcoat. A purple-gold circlet of interlinked scorpions sat on his brow. Rows of small bone butterflies hung from thin threads attached to his sleeves. He wasn’t paying them any attention.

Phelps dropped Xie Jin and Bao Si back to the ground, and Chen Haoran rounded on them. “What the fuck was that!”

Xie Jin cast his eyes toward the sky. “A Crystal Transformation Realm Shaman.”

The dirt at Chen Haoran’s feet was blown away by an unseen force. “And they can just do that? Steal my voice? My body?”

“A Golden Silkworm can,” Bao Si answered.

“It was a scorpion. Not a silkworm,” Chen Haoran said. He touched his mouth and then cursed loudly. Angry was good. Loud was good. The louder he cursed, the more it felt like his voice was still his own, that it was actually him speaking and not a body-snatching cultivator.

The thought drew him up short. Did he not technically qualify as a body snatcher himself? The body snatcher got body snatched. It was such a ridiculous idea that it actually drew a laugh out of him. He spun and kicked a fallen tree with a trunk wider than he could wrap his arms around and sent it careening into the tree line in a cacophony of shattered wood and the groaning fall of yet more trees. “Fuck!”

Chen Haoran stepped on another tree trunk and crushed it in half. He flexed his qi, and the air around him visibly pulsed and fled outward with a sound akin to a whip crack. He raged amongst the wreckage he’d created, flinging trees and cracking the earth with every step. The commotion he made did not go unnoticed, and soon enough, he felt two Second-Layer Liquid Meridians approaching the hill. Unfortunately for them, there was no treasure to be had on this hill, just one angry Chen Haoran.  When they dared to reach over with their senses and try to spy, he turned on them. “What do you think you’re looking at!?” Qi flooded his voice and pitched his words that they became a roar worthy of the Yellow Dragon, shaking the leaves off standing trees. Through his sense, he felt the two Liquid Meridians spike their qi to brace themselves, then turn and flee.

Chen Haoran’s chest heaved with every breath, and he dragged his hands across his face. Bao Si and Xie Jin remained silent as he raged and made no move to come closer. Phelps floated to and fro between them. Chen Haoran breathed once. Then twice, then pulled his hands from his face. They came away shaking, and Chen Haoran stared at them as if it were the first time he’d ever seen them before. He exhaled. “Fuck.”

Phelps let out a soft bleat behind him. Chen Haoran turned and opened his arms up to the sloth. Phelps floated over and Chen Haoran enveloped the sloth in a crushing hug.  “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He buried his face into Phelps’s fur. “Sorry.”

“Putting aside how you were able to discern that,” Bao Si finally said after a moment had passed. “A Golden Silkworm isn’t a literal term, at least not anymore. It refers to a powerful type of Gu. One with far more exaggerated abilities than the norm.” She glanced at Xie Jin with a none-to-kind look. “As soon as we got here, we were outed and remembered by a Gu Department official with a Golden Silkworm. I hope you’re happy, Xie Jin.”

Xie Jin frowned. “Get off my back. We expected there to be shamans here. How was I supposed to know a crazy freak like him would be here? Since when did the Gu Department even have Golden Silkworms.” His eyes flickered to the Crystal Transformation Realm. He didn’t dare let them linger for longer than a second, however. “I don’t recognize him. Do you?”

Bao Si mimicked Xie Jin’s actions. “I don’t.”

“There’s no way someone crazy like him is unknown,” Xie Jin said. “It’s impossible.”

“What’s the significance of the Gu Department having a Golden Silkworm?” Chen Haoran didn’t raise his head when he asked the question.

“It’s….well,” Xie Jin hesitated.

“The Golden Silkworm is the best possible Gu you can create with the Poison Jar Ritual,” Bao Si interrupted. “In them, all the characteristics of a Gu, both good and bad, are magnified. With regular Gu, a shaman being devoured is a potential risk. With Golden Silkworms, it is a daily battle.” She side-eyed Xie Jin. “And as I told you before, selfish shamans raise selfish Gu. Creating such an example for such a dangerous Gu to follow can only be called insane.”

Chen Haoran took one last huff of Phelps’s fur and raised his head. “How does a Black Bone Gu compare to a Golden Silkworm?”

Xie Jin ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “The best shamans in Zumulu are the Black Bones. The best Gu are the Golden Silkworms.” He spoke as if he were reciting the words from a distant memory.

Something nasty welled up in Chen Haoran—a final ember from the dying fire of his anger. “Clearly, the former isn’t true if the latter is.” He immediately regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. Being angry was justified. Taking it out on his friends wasn’t.   “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Xie Jin grimaced. “It’s not wrong in the end. Black Bone Shamans and Golden Silkworms don’t mix well. Our ritual is already dangerous enough that trying to reach the standards to make a Golden Silkworm is almost always fatal. We did have one shaman successfully do it, and he was one of the best in history but….” His eyes flickered to Bao Si.

“He killed himself 400 years ago,” Bao Si said with a blank face. She brushed sawdust and wood chippings off her dress. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time. We need to enter the pyramid.”

“Fuck the trial. I just want to leave,” Chen Haoran said.

“As do I,” Bao Si replied. “If it were any other Crystal Transformation, we might have even had a chance.”

Chen Haoran turned his gaze back to the shaman in the sky. Unlike Xie Jin and Bao Si he did not care to look away. Despite that, the shaman still did not pay him any attention.

“Make sure you find out who he is,” Chen Haoran said.

Because while it might not be now, and it might not be soon. He was going to rip that bastard’s jaw off.

———————

Chen Haoran pulled his cloak around him tighter, and Phelps took the hint and remained as still and silent as he could be. All around them were rushing cultivators, and while they did try their best to avoid the majority, the sheer number in such a small area made it impossible to completely avoid every cultivator on their way to the pyramid, especially since many were going in the same direction as them. Fortunately, even the soldiers were none too keen on observing them with their senses. It could have been out of an ingrained cultural aversion to openly doing so, or it might have been because Chen Haoran’s qi was poised like an animal ready to lash out.

Xie Jin scanned each and every relief and engraving they passed with a rigorous focus, quite the opposite of how he usually acted. Bao Si meanwhile pinched a leaf off a bush as they passed by it and chewed on it.

“It’s faint, but there’s poison in it,” she said.  She screwed her face and spat it out. “Only the Green Hell could be this bitter.”

“That’s a normal bush, no?” Xie Jin asked, turning his attention away from the ruins.

“It is,” Bao Si confirmed. “I can see why the Empire is so interested in this place if even the ordinary plants can adapt to the Green Hell’s miasma.”

Xie Jin rubbed his chin. “This valley is directly connected to the Tenth Green Hell. The whole thing is like a huge channel for miasma. It was definitely made by one of the Greater River Kingdoms.” He pointed to the ouroboros carving atop the pyramid. “The Snake King probably even built it himself.  I don’t think any of his successors and pretenders would have the strength to build a place like this.”

“There’s probably some fascinating history here,” Chen Haoran said. Ruins this large and this complete would have been a huge deal back on Earth. While he didn’t quite have the mood to appreciate them now, they still helped calm his mind. It was just a shame there were so many treasure hunters rather than archaeologists here. There was a faded fresco of a red dragon that caught his attention in particular. The edges were time-worn and damaged, but he could just make out a row of kneeling human figures with spears laid flat in clenched hands.

Then the wall broke.

A red-clothed Fifth-Layer Liquid Meridian stepped the rubble of the fresco and onto the main road, dusting off his shoulders as he did. He absently stepped on the intact eye of the red dragon and crushed it. Chen Haoran froze. Then he gritted his teeth.

Xie Jin grabbed his arm with lightning speed and pulled him away. His eyes were steely and aimed toward the pyramid. “Don’t, Brother.” Despite his words, Chen Haoran could hear how he ground them out.

Right. They’d already gotten in trouble with a super shaman. No matter how much While Chen Haoran would have liked nothing more than to beat someone’s face in to reclaim some of his lost feelings of control, it wasn’t the best idea to do so now. He couldn’t just fight every random asshole.

The thing about assholes however was that they never let it stop at just one thing.

“What do you think you’re looking at? Got a problem, you trash?” The Liquid Meridian’s eyes lit up as they settled on a veil-less Bao Si. “Oh? A beauty?”

Chen Haoran didn’t even have to pull his arm to convince Xie Jin to let him go.

The Liquid Meridian sneered. “What? You want to start something?”

“Back off.” Chen Haoran’s tone was flat. “I won’t say it twice.”

A flare of qi was his answer. “More flies that don’t seem to understand the immensity of Heaven. This isn’t a place you can run wild in. I make the rules here.”

Chen Haoran glanced up at the Crystal Transformation Realms. By some unholy miracle, the shaman finally deigned to look his way. They locked eyes. The shaman smiled and nodded. Chen Haoran shivered and looked down.

Connection: Negative

The dumbass across from him clearly misinterpreted it. “Know your place, worm. Nowhere in the Southern Region is safe for you if you offend me, Li Mou.”

Chen Haoran’s palms glowed green. “The only reason you’ll walk away alive today is because of those two in the sky. These ruins didn’t survive the march of time to be destroyed but a piece of shit like you.”

“Well said.” The interrupting voice was deep and powerful. Before any of them could react, a tall, barrel-chested bear of a man wearing a red Garrison uniform appeared next to Li Mou. The man flared his qi, Ninth-Layer Liquid Meridian, and hammered the back of his fist into his comrade’s ribs. The vandal’s chest caved in, and he collapsed to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. Despite the terrifying injury, Li Mou was still alive. It was a testament to the incredible vitality of the Liquid Meridian Realm that he remained conscious enough to have fear in his eyes. The man loomed over him.

“Fool. If it weren’t me, it would be the team from the Ministry of Culture. How much knowledge has been lost in these ruins? How precious is every scrap of pottery and chipped brick? That wall could have held the key needed to control this trial ground, and now we’ll never know because you were too lazy to jump over it.” The man spat on Li Mou and waved over some nearby soldiers. “Get this idiot out of my sight before I kill him.”

As the soldiers carried away the once proud form of Li Mou, the bear-like man turned toward them. Chen Haoran dispersed the qi gathering at his palms but held them at the ready. It wasn’t danger that he felt from this man, however. It was more akin to…. kinship?

The Yellow Dragon crooned for once, taking interest in the outside on its own initiative.

The man smiled. “A fellow cultivator of the Machu River. Who would have thought I would have met another of the same kind so far from our mother river? Friend, may I know your name?”

Chen Haoran briefly considered the merits of answering or not. In the end, it was an easy choice. He clasped his hands in a polite bow. “My name is Lan Junjie. A wandering cultivator.”

The man returned the bow. “I am Pan Gong. My name is not worth much, but I am fortunate to call myself a student of the Palace School.”

The Palace School. The place Lan Fen had felt so called to in order to further her cultivation. Where the future officials of the Empire were molded, and Heaven-Rank techniques could be claimed by the worthy. This Pan Gong in front of him would no doubt become someone important one day.

Connection: Negative

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Chen Haoran couldn’t find it within him to care anymore. He was tired of meeting important people and tired of meeting self-important Crystal Transformations.

He really needed to leave Zumulu.