Chapter 81: Trekking into the Mountains Alone is Like Trekking into a Haunted House

There is no calendar in the mountains, and I don’t know the year until the cold ends.

In the blink of an eye, twelve... working days had passed. During these twelve days, Chu Hengkong completely integrated into the simple town at the foot of the mountain, living a simple life of working from sunrise to sunset. Every morning, he would go to the square on time to listen to the 7:00 a.m. poetry recitation. After listening to the poems, he would go down the mountain to provoke the jade fox to throw stones.

Yingluo Mountain towered into the clouds. The boulders, already imbued with the Jade Fox's uncanny strength, rolled down the mountainside, their impact even more powerful than a Shadow Giant's punch. For the first three days, Chu Hengkong couldn't withstand the impact, even if he tried to remain motionless. He was sent flying by the mere touch of the boulder, nearly being crushed beneath it. But thanks to the sheer force of the attack, his will was forced into his bones, and his physical fitness soared at a visible rate.

From the fourth day on, Chu Hengkong stopped spitting blood after being knocked away. From the fifth day on, he began to stand firmly. On the seventh day, even rocks hitting him could not shake him at all, so he began to use his fists and tentacles to fight the falling rocks head-on. By the ninth day, he was able to penetrate the jade pendant with just brute force, without any skills. And now, on the twelfth day...

"eel!"

Chu Hengkong lowered his head and charged forward, crashing into the boulder like a savage triceratops. His eel-like head smashed through the enormous jade pendant. Amid the sound of shattering rocks, he raised his head and let out a proud, heroic cry: "Eel!"

The fox on the mountain was silent, probably because it was so angry that it fainted.

Chu Hengkong finished his meal by picking up rocks and then casually pulled off the eel's headband. Fander, hiding from a distance, asked, "What were the results?"

Chu Hengkong patted his stomach and gazed at the distant mountains, speechless for a long time. He took off his hood and sighed deeply, "Finally, I don't have to eat stone eels anymore..."

Fander was shocked: "That's a bad ending to your sentence! Is there something worse than stone that was eaten?"

Chu Hengkong coughed dryly a few times, silently channeling his willpower to dispel the demon's influence. He was truly overwhelmed with mixed emotions; no one could have imagined that a single thought, a change in technique, would lead to such a series of problems.

In fact, over the years that Longxiang Fist has been passed down, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of geniuses who have managed to survive after adapting the bone-strengthening method. However, those geniuses were all under the care of their teachers and had prepared themselves well before daring to attempt improvements.

Unfortunately, one of Chu Hengkong's arms was a tentacle, and his body was already unbalanced, so this random practice made things even more chaotic. Without Ji Qiufeng's guidance, getting through this time was truly a combination of talent and luck...

At least he got through this level by gnawing on stones. Now, all the bones in his body have been trained except for the 24 vertebrae that he really couldn't train. If he hadn't been in the unstable kingdom of God, he would have tried to upgrade to metamorphic point 2 a long time ago.

Chu Hengkong put away his hood, put on his coat, and waved his tentacles toward the top of the mountain, as a way of thanking the fox that had been helping him beat him up. He turned and walked towards the town. Fander jumped into his pocket with ease, muttering, "That fox kept beating you for 12 days. Don't you feel anything is wrong?"

"What would insist on doing the same thing regardless of the objective situation?" Chu Hengkong asked.

"Mechanical," said Vander. "Mechanical that was programmed long ago."

"Haven't we seen enough machinery since we came to this deep mountain?"

Fan De nodded thoughtfully.

When Chu Hengkong returned to the town, Qi Su's hymn singing had not yet ended. He blended in with the townspeople familiarly, listening to those long-standing and obscure poems.

In the past twelve days, he has listened to half of "Poetry by Candlelight", the mythical story of an old dragon turning into the sun; part of "Tales of Chaos and Demons", the classic chapters telling the adventures of wandering warriors and knights; and the entire "Songs of the World", the timeless story about giants, light and shadow that were talked about by the ancestors.

Chu Hengkong found the story increasingly amusing, and was happy to stay. While the old stories were difficult to follow, they were still entertaining. The chases between those gods, heroes, and demons, whose authenticity was unclear, was like a storytelling from another world. If a pretty little girl told storytelling in a teahouse every day, customers would surely be happy to attend, regardless of the quality of the story.

Today's collection features "Earthly Songs," written by the three veterans. It tells the story of a cunning shadow, hoping to play a prank, and a bet with the wise light to see who can solve the puzzle the other poses. Shadow posed a simple riddle, which Light answered instantly. Light, however, posed an extremely difficult arithmetic problem, so difficult that Shadow was dazzled.

It simply admitted defeat and made the same bet with the giant. The giant was a slow-tempered person. He said cheerfully, "You go first, Shadow. I am the biggest and most powerful person. My wisdom can solve your riddle."

The shadow showed the giant the arithmetic problem it had found from the light. The honest giant stared at it for a long time, during which time many dust islands disappeared and reappeared. Finally, it found the light, and the light solved the arithmetic problem in a flash.

"I win!" the djinn announced happily.

"You asked outsiders for help. Is that considered your wisdom?" Shadow teased.

"My super wisdom told me to let the light help me," the djinn said proudly. "The problem was indeed solved, so I am very smart."

The shadows laughed heartily, praising his intelligence. They then discovered that the djinn, while solving the puzzle, had generated many meaningless thoughts, which fell into the sea, causing some of the creatures to become somewhat dazed. However, these djinn had also inherited the strengths of the dust; when faced with difficulties, they knew to ask for help from others. Therefore, while they weren't bright, they lived well, even better than the smartest ones.

“…Alone is foolish, but in a group, wise. One person is weak, but many are strong. The original spirit is pure, and the past is like a song~”

Qi Su finished reading the entire story (in classical Chinese, several times more complex than the previous one), and the townspeople bowed to the statue before dispersing. Finder poked his head out of his pocket and said sarcastically, "I really need these bedtime stories. They're truly essential. I don't know how to be a beholder without them."

"It won't hurt to listen," Chu Hengkong said unconcernedly. He went to the commission board and took down the most recent commissions one by one. Lately, they've mostly been small, gathering odds and ends. It seems everyone's already killed all the monsters they wanted to kill, so there haven't been any large-scale hunting commissions.

"Brother, have you recovered?"

Chu Hengkong turned around and saw Xiang Fuzi looking at him from afar. "It's basically back to normal," he said. Xiang Fuzi felt relieved upon hearing this and congratulated him profusely. After rambling for a while, he whispered, "I have something I'd like to ask for your help."

"But it's okay."

"A few days ago, I heard that you killed the centipede that was causing trouble in the mountains." Xiang Fuzi's eyes were filled with hatred. "To be honest, I have a deep hatred for that poisonous insect. I really need to see its remains before I can rest in peace. If you go into the mountains again, could you cut off a piece of that poisonous insect's claw and bring it back to me?"

"Okay." Chu Hengkong nodded.

Xiang Fuzi was delighted: "In that case, thank you very much, brother!"

He walked away happily, his steps seeming to lighten. Chu Hengkong couldn't help but wonder what kind of past a scholar could have to have such an antagonistic relationship with a poisonous insect. His first thought was naturally the murder of his family, but Xiang Fuzi's expression didn't seem to indicate that was the case.

He shook off the useless doubts from his mind and began to pack his bags for going out.

·

Deep in the mountains, in the old forest, there was a still silence. The treetops, layer upon layer, covered the sky like a giant umbrella. A passerby's footsteps broke a branch, making a crisp sound.

The sound of snapping branches pierced the dense forest, and a stealthy figure approached. It was an ugly lemur, silently descending from the treetops, its claws clasping at the pedestrians' heads, and a colorless blade of wind emanated from its palms.

But the pedestrian disappeared in an instant. Standing in the shadow behind the lemur, he casually punched the lemur with his protruding middle finger knuckle, hitting the lemur in the back of the head. The lemur fell to the ground, dead on the spot.

Vander jumped out of his pocket, saw the lemur's eyes flashing with electricity, and complained loudly: "Another inedible one!"

Two days had passed since they left town, and after a long detour, they finally reached the mountain. There wasn't much to eat along the way; anything that could run or jump was a cybernetic animal. Chu Hengkong had to eat mushrooms and dirt while wearing an eel mask. None of them wanted to try eating such a modified beast; who knew if they'd end up turning into a cyborg or even a cybernetic eyeball?

Chu Hengkong kicked the lemur's body away, gathered some fallen leaves, and barely made a mat to sit on. The forest was silent for a moment. Fander squinted at him and said, "You're not breathing again."

Chu Hengkong nodded silently, as a sign of acknowledgment.

"What's the point of this?" Fander was deeply curious. "He's not even breathing. What kind of weird Kung Fu is he practicing?"

It fancied itself a traveler, always keen to observe the minutiae of life. Having spent so much time with Chu Hengkong, it naturally noticed his peculiar habits. This killer had many quirks, the most bizarre of which was his love of holding his breath. He would often slumber in silence, holding his breath for at least half an hour, until he felt nearly dead from suffocation before resuming his breath.

After these few days of bone training, the killer's breath-holding time has become increasingly longer. Today alone, it lasted over an hour. The more Fander thought about it, the more frightened he became. Most people would have died after not breathing for an hour. He didn't know what kind of weird internal energy this killer had practiced...

Is this some kind of zombie kung fu? Is it that while practicing, they lose their energy and start eating people?

The Eye Demon shuddered and quickly sat aside. Chu Hengkong had no idea what strange thoughts it was having, and ignored them. He finished his practice, took several deep breaths, and then took out the Silver Eye Book to pass the time during his break. The latest page in the book contained updated information about the gauntlet.

【Iron Spider Gauntlets】

…

[Effect: Once a day, you can move the shadow within a range of fifty meters.]

【Missing: Everyone is evacuating, but I want to give up

There's no point running anywhere, we can't escape

It's looking at me

Want to cry]

It was still filled with inexplicable longing, despair and fear overflowing between the lines, but there was no information that could serve as a clue. Seeing this, Fander also shook his head. Chu Hengkong patted it and said, "You can't even understand what you wrote?"

"What do you mean I wrote it? This is the content of my longing! I just used the manual to express the information."

"My thoughts before were not so vague." Chu Hengkong showed it the previous appraisal document.

"That's because the things you've appraised before were either easily discernible at a glance, or the environment contained ample information," Fander muttered. "This special situation... probably has something to do with the state of the exotic beasts. They might only know this little bit, so their power only contains a small, vague fragment of emotion and memory."

Chu Hengkong stared at the penultimate line. "It's looking at me." He thought of the red light in the shadow giant's eyes, and the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.

If, as Finder said, these events were the beasts' memories, then what had happened to them before? They first lived on the coast, only to be driven back by demons emerging from the sea. And then what happened next? Were they targeted by some great demon, driving the beasts mad?

No. Ji Huaisu often said that sometimes he couldn't figure anything out, but he just felt something was wrong. Now he felt the same way. He simply shook his tentacles and pulled out the lemur's corpse, trying to cover it with the large book to see if he could make any more judgments.

No words appeared. Chu Hengkong pressed the key a few more times, unconvinced, and finally, with great effort, a line of small characters appeared on the page.

[Everyone will die, everyone ......]

Fander quickly tore off the page, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it far away. He grabbed Chu Hengkong's hand and said earnestly, "Dad, please stop! I think there's something wrong with this, but the more you delve into this kind of evil, the more likely you are to die. We've already fallen into this state, can we just stop causing trouble?"

Chu Hengkong was silent for a long time and closed the book.

"You're right, this isn't the time to worry." He stood up. "Do you still have the energy?"

"I can hold on." Seeing that he had given up, Vander felt relieved and responded listlessly, "I don't want to go into the mountains again..."

The forest climbed higher and higher, and mist filled the air not far away. After so much trouble, they returned to Yingluo Mountain. This time, they wanted to kill the fox and bring back the remains of the centipede.

Chu Hengkong had a vague premonition that no matter what the outcome of the hunt was, he was about to uncover the truth of this place.

(End of this chapter)