Chapter 97 - Feiyi
Gusts of cold wind swept past. Fu Li jumped off Zhuang Qing with some embarra.s.sment and transformed into his human form. “About that – thank you very much.”
“It’s a small thing,” Zhuang Qing glanced at Fu Li. “No need for thanks.”
Fu Li was relieved after seeing that Zhuang Qing’s expression was normal and that he didn’t disdain him for being scared of snakes. In a very good mood, he said, “I’ll treat you to dinner, let’s go.”
Zhuang Qing couldn’t remember where he had read that delicious food could alleviate one’s fear and distress. It wasn’t time for them to get off work yet, but the mental health of an employee was also very important. He hesitated for no more than three seconds before agreeing.
The two people went to Restaurant Night Owl. There weren’t many customers in the restaurant, but Fu Li realized that there was an extra helper – the owl who had been captured while stealing food and then released. The owl was a bit nervous upon seeing them. Without even thinking, he proclaimed, “I’m working at this shop as a helper in the kitchen.”
“Don’t get anxious, we’re here to eat,” Fu Li and Zhuang Qing sat at a table. Fu Li returned the smile that the boss flashed at them.
Seeing that Fu Li and Zhuang Qing really weren’t going to arrest him, the owl also felt at ease. He placed the menu in front of them, took out a tiny notebook and pencil, and got ready to jot down the dishes they wanted.
“Have there been larger clams and crayfish lately?” Fu Li asked.
“The clams are plump and fresh, they’re guaranteed to taste good. The crayfish are indeed a bit on the small side, but I guarantee that every one is fresh,” The owl pointed at the tank at the corner containing crayfish. “They’re freshly-slaughtered and cooked. If you order it, I’ll add… two for every portion!”
“Then one portion each of clams and crayfish,” Fu Li also ordered a whole bunch of seafood. The owl was a little worried as he went in search of the boss, menu in hand. How exactly should he prevent the boss from finding it strange that two people had ordered so many dishes?
The boss took the menu. Noticing something off about the owl’s expression, he told him in a low voice, “Some people naturally have bigger appet.i.tes. As people in the food and beverage business, we can’t be emotionally affected just because someone eats a lot. That would be impolite.”
The owl: …
He had really thought too much.
“If every customer was like them, I might even have made a fortune a long time ago.”
After their meal, when Fu Li was footing the bill, the boss took ten yuan less, saying that it was a friendship discount for regular customers. Delighted, Fu Li spent another hundred yuan and ordered two large portions of clams to bring back for the Kunpeng and Gong Fu to try.
Zhuang Qing drove Fu Li to the management bureau. “Sleep early after going back. Get to work on time tomorrow morning.”
“Kay,” Fu Li yawned. Carrying the takeaway boxes, he flashed into the dormitory located behind the bureau’s office and knocked on the Kunpeng’s door. As expected, Gong Fu was also present. During the ancient times, the Kunpeng and Gong Fu were yao cultivators who stood on different sides. However, in the current times where great yao gradually perished, they no longer needed to adhere to the old notions of the auspicious versus the fiend, and started to interact peacefully.
Perhaps to them, they could only reminisce about the past with the other. There was already no one else who knew what exactly the era of the ancient great yao looked like.
Seeing the crayfish Fu Li brought back, the Kunpeng and Gong Fu split the chopsticks in their hands simultaneously, took out a few cans of beer from the fridge, and happily dug in.
“Take your time eating, I’m going to sleep,” Fu Li yawned and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Gong Fu stopped Fu Li. Wiping the oil stains on the corner of his mouth, he told Fu Li, “Have you been feeling sleepy very often lately?”
Fu Li nodded and sat cross-legged in front of Gong Fu. “Gong Fu daren, do you know what’s going on?”
“Just a bit,” Gong Fu put down his chopsticks. “Your cultivation has advanced by leaps and bounds, so your body also has to evolve. However, the spiritual qi in the human world is spa.r.s.e, preventing your body that has just undergone a breakthrough from getting enough spiritual qi. That’s why this is happening.”
“Then what should I do?”
“It’s like this at the start, but you’ll get used to it over time,” Gong Fu picked up a clam and sucked up the sauce on the sh.e.l.l. When he finished eating and saw Fu Li’s large, pitch-black eyes fixed on him, his heart softened. He sighed helplessly. “Take it as me giving in to you. I learnt a folk remedy twenty thousand years ago. It was learnt to pa.s.s the time when I was bored, I never expected it to come in useful now. Although I have the pill-concocting furnace and know the method to concoct the pill, I’m short of three types of spiritual medicine.”
“Short of which types? I have some medicinal ingredients here that I randomly kept in the past. I’ll rummage through them later, maybe I’ll be able to collect them all.”
“Five thousand year old Taisui, less than seven days’ old Three Lives’ Beard, and Moon Quicksand,” Gong Fu sighed. “These three things wouldn’t be difficult to find if this were the past, but now…”
“I have Moon Quicksand here,” The Kunpeng took a jade gourd from his Qiankun pouch and placed it on the table with a bang. “Feel free to use it.”
“What did you take out so much for? To flaunt your wealth or for me to paint walls with it?” Gong Fu took a bit of Moon Quicksand from the jade gourd before returning the gourd to the Kunpeng. “Take it back, take it back. I’m too lazy to help you safekeep sc.r.a.p metal.”
“Tsk,” The Kunpeng stuffed the jade gourd back into his Qiankun pouch. “You look down on this sc.r.a.p metal of mine, but do you have it?”
Seeing that the beginnings of a fight was stirring between them, Fu Li hurriedly interjected, “Wait wait, what is a Three Lives’ Beard?”
“The hair of a three-headed child who hasn’t reached seven days’ old. The three-headed clansmen live and die for trees. They have three lives before their companion tree withers and dies, which is why their hair is called the Three Lives’ Beard. Newly-born three-headed people have not been tainted by the mortal world and are full of vitality and spiritual qi.” Gong Fu sighed yet another time. “Although it seems easy to obtain, it’s actually the most challenging, because only hair that a three-headed person gave willingly will contain spiritual qi. If it’s forcibly obtained, the Three Lives’ Beard will turn into resentment. Someone who consumes it might go crazy if slightly affected and may lose their lives if severely affected.”
“It’s just a few strands of hair, why so many things to take note of?” The Kunpeng clicked his tongue, instantly thinking of the three-headed people who crawled all over the Langgan Tree in the bureau all day, catching insects and watering it. “Little rabbit, aren’t there three-headed people in your bureau’s courtyard? You can just ask them for a few strands of hair.”
“That won’t work,” Gong Fu shook his head. “Those three-headed people don’t seem to have recently been born as companions to the Fuchang Tree. Even if they gave it to me, it can’t be used to concoct the pill.”
“Then what should we do now?” The Kunpeng tossed aside his chopsticks, saying in frustration, “The spiritual qi in the human world now is spa.r.s.e, and the number of Fuchang Trees were originally already dwindling. A Fuchang Tree that can produce three-headed people is even harder to come by. The world is vast, where are we going to find a three-headed person who was born less than seven days ago?”
Seeing Gong Fu and the Kunpeng worrying for him, Fu Li cheered up. He took Taisui meat out of his Qiankun pouch. “I have Taisui meat.”
Gong Fu forced out a smile and picked up the Taisui meat. The Kunpeng was unresigned. “Little rabbit, you were the one who brought those three-headed people back when they were just born. Didn’t they give you any thank-you gift?”
“Thank-you gift?” Fu Li suddenly recalled that Long Hair seemed to have given him a tuft of hair at that time. He didn’t know what use it had, so he had casually thrown it into his Qiankun pouch.
“Long Hair gave me hair,” Fu Li opened his Qiankun pouch and took out the hair that Big Fur had given him. The moment the hair landed on Gong Fu’s hand, it turned into thin, light green threads br.i.m.m.i.n.g with thick vitality. Green shoots sprouted on all the trees outside with yellowing leaves and countless flowers bloomed along the shrubs. It was an incomparably beautiful sight.
“Good stuff. You actually received the leader’s blessing,” Gong Fu only plucked out two strands. “Two strands are enough.”
Fu Li: …
Leader…
The leader of a clan of three was still considered a leader, right?
“I always thought that Zhuang Qing was the dearest son of heavenly law. Only today did I find out that Zhuang Qing might just seem like it, the true dearest child is you,” The Kunpeng looked at the trees outside the windows that had sprouted green leaves. “Someone who is not the dearest child would be unable to grasp such a good chance.”
Gong Fu, who always loved to bicker with the Kunpeng, unexpectedly expressed his agreement through silence.
The Kunpeng might not be aware, but he understood it very well in his heart. The three-headed people were extremely miserly life forms who exhibited very extreme behavior. Born aware, they would bawl whenever there was anything that didn’t suit their tastes, till they exhausted all their energy and pa.s.sed away. Seven days of crying would cause mountains and trees to shake. Forty-nine days of crying would create wastelands spanning over a hundred li and the extinguishing of life forms. Crying for a full hundred days would result in their death, triggering earthquakes.
Overall, they were a strange race who could outcry a hundred people with just one of them. Moreover, they were particularly haughty and looked down on the single-headed humans. Perhaps in their eyes, all life forms apart from the Fenghuang were trash.
The odds of Fu Li receiving a gift from the leader of the three-headed people were even smaller than an ordinary person striking a ten million jackpot.
This was probably… Fu Li’s fortune.
“Concocting the pill will take seven days. During this period, I will let the Kunpeng help with watching over the furnace, so you don’t have to bring us food during the seven days,” Gong Fu was worried that the crayfish would turn cold if left sitting and thus picked out two larger ones.
“Why do I have to fan the furnace?” The Kunpeng was indignant. He was the grand Kunpeng daren, how could he be one of those fire boys?
“You don’t care about Fu Li’s body?”
“I care.”
“You’re not worried about Fu Li’s cultivation?”
“I’m worried.”
“Then why all the questions?” Gong Fu smiled elegantly. “It’s not like you know how to concoct the pill, so other than keeping watch on the furnace, what else can you do?”
The Kunpeng, “I…”
This is exactly why I said those pretentious auspicious beasts are the most hateful – they’re self-righteous and pretend to be n.o.ble and virtuous.
“How can I trouble Kunpeng daren for such a thing, let me…”
“Aren’t you going to work?” Gong Fu waved his hands. “You may not know, but the Kunpeng is an amphibian. Other than spraying water, he can also spit fire. If we can save on the refined fire for the furnace, then let’s not waste it. Life is tough nowadays, everything has to be used sparingly.”
“So that’s the case,” Fu Li understood in a flash. He thanked the Kunpeng, “Kunpeng daren, I’ll have to trouble you then.”
The Kunpeng turned his head. “Forget it, take it as me giving you face.”
“Thank you, daren,” Fu Li took out a large pile of snacks from his Qiankun pouch and distributed it to both of them before leaving with a grateful heart.
“Hypocrite!” The Kunpeng was full of disdain for Gong Fu.
Gong Fu ignored him in favor of rummaging through the pile of snacks for the flavors he liked. In the presence of good food, who cared what nonsense the Kunpeng was spouting.
At the dark underground spiritual formation in the bureau, Zhuang Qing turned on the light switch on the wall and locked the Feiyi into the Spiritual Lock Formation. There was a powerful barrier here, so no matter how powerful the Feiyi’s abilities, it wouldn’t influence the outside world’s natural climate.
The Feiyi had been frozen in ice for too long. After it was locked inside the formation, it was also too weak to struggle. Only its two tails moved a little. The Feiyi race all lived on Hunxi Mountain or Taihuai Mountain from birth. The Feiyi clan on Taihua Mountain had wings and were capable of flight, while the Feiyi clan on Hunxi Mountain had thicker, stronger bodies and two bodies, but no wings. The two clans had never had dealings with each other, and even faintly held each other in contempt.
Subsequently, the weather worsened. It became colder day after day, and many Feiyi silently pa.s.sed away amidst the cold. After that, the Feiyi on Hunxi Mountain never again heard of anything related to the Taihua Mountain’s Feiyi.
As the sole remaining Feiyi from Hunxi Mountain, the Feiyi that Zhuang Qing had captured had little courage. It spent every day either suntanning or sleeping. Two months ago, he suddenly fell unconscious. When he woke up, he was at a new location.
Three thousand years ago, a senior had left the mountain of its own volition and turned into ashes under the sun. When Hunxi Mountain heard of this matter, the Feiyi on the mountain no longer dared to leave. Because of this, they avoided the turmoil between the human and yao world and spent two to three thousand years in peace. However, the weather suddenly became extremely cold a few hundred years ago. Many yao cultivators on Hunxi Mountain were unable to avoid this calamity and quietly pa.s.sed on.
Thinking of its deceased seniors, the Feiyi timidly curled itself into a ball. But his body was too large and he had two bodies, so when he was curled up, he looked even more disgusting.
The beauty-lover, Chao Yun, couldn’t help covering her eyes. Why did all the ancient great yao have such spontaneous-looking original forms? They ought to give aesthetics a thought as well.
“Why did you appear at Zhongshan Province?” Zhuang Qing didn’t abandon the interrogation because of the Feiyi’s pitiful appearance. Because of the Feiyi’s appearance, not only were there economic losses, countless animals had also died from thirst. He could not remain indifferent to this.
The Feiyi made a series of strange noises. Chao Yun and the rest were baffled. What was he saying?
Zhuang Qing had once studied the language of ancient yao from the records left behind by the yao races, so he could still roughly understand the Feiyi. This Feiyi hadn’t understood him, it was just rambling about wanting to return to Hunxi Mountain. Therefore, Zhuang Qing repeated the question in the language of the ancient yao.
This time, the Feiyi understood. He shook his head. “I didn’t do it intentionally, someone else brought me there.”
The Feiyi, who had been sent flying by a swipe of Zhuang Qing’s tail and then frozen by ice, didn’t dare to provoke Zhuang Qing. He replied very honestly, “Our clan has an ancestral rule – there are strange great yao outside Hunxi Mountain that can turn us into ashes, so our Feiyi clan cannot leave the mountain.”
“Turn into ashes?” Zhuang Qing recalled that a great yao had once mentioned a Feiyi suddenly turning into ashes. Did the Feiyi clan’s ancestral rule originate from this matter?
“Yes,” The Feiyi nodded repeatedly. “Our clan has always been cautious, we didn’t leave Hunxi Mountain for more than three thousand years. But several hundred years ago, the mountain suddenly became colder and colder. My clanmates and other yao cultivators died in droves within the short span of a few days, I’m the only Feiyi left on the entire Hunxi Mountain now.”
Zhuang Qing conveyed the Feiyi’s words to his colleagues.
“Suddenly turned cold a few hundred years ago…” As a Feng hairpin, Chao Yun was not sensitive to the temperature, to the extent that she didn’t even know which year was the coldest.
“He should be referring to the ice age,” Zhuang Qing still remembered that period. The world had been in chaos, and the people had no way of getting by. Those who had frozen and starved to death were too many to count.
Chu Yu also remembered it. He nodded repeatedly. “I recall there being a period when it was especially cold. It was so cold that all the water froze into ice. If not for the fact that I had a cultivation base, I might have frozen to death during that age.”
“Who brought you out?” Zhuang Qing furrowed his brows.
The Feiyi shook his head. “I don’t know.”