Chapter 8 Bird and Quesi Meet After 10 Years 8-1 She rubbed the gold coins in her hand, her white, focus-less eyes, rolled back and forth in her head. “Taohua Village was slaughtered by the monsters 10 years ago, and someone has blocked it to both humans and monsters since then, no one could get in. Who is this young man, and what did he have to do with the destroyed village?”
She turned up her mouth and removed her old lady disguise. Taking off her dirty linen frock, a pretty face emerged, she was a young woman who wore light blue. Ten years have pa.s.sed, the seven- or eight-year-old girl has since grown up, but she was still recognizable. She was none other than the girl who was at Taohua Village, the daughter of the Que (Sparrow) family, Quesi Yu. Her family was one of the four hidden families of the Domed Moon Kingdom.
Quesi was still distraught about the slaughter at Taohua Village, and the death of Bird Three. Now that she had heard something about the village, she was excited, maybe she wanted to learn more to prove that Bird hadn’t died.
Quesi listened for Bird’s movements, chasing after him behind the kitchen toward the mountain.
The mountain had a robust forest. Deeper in the forest was a mora.s.s covered by trees and rarely had sunlight. Many dead bodies were tossed here. After hundreds of years, the decay has covered the area with a foul scent, and was known as the “Mora.s.s of Ten Thousand Bones.” The mora.s.s was despised by both monster leaders at Cloud River Island.
After a while, with the way monsters gossiped, this mora.s.s became a place of adventure for thrill-seekers who wanted to look for a supposed buried treasure, and the surrounding forest became a perfect place for monsters to ambush any human adventurers.
“Inside the forest is the Mora.s.s of Ten Thousand Bones, he’s not looking for that rumored treasure too, is he?”
Quesi followed Bird, and was not noticed inspite of getting close to him. Before she could stop tracking him, she heard a few yelps in the forest, and then the voice of the man she was following.
“Whoa, a little monster!” Bird ignored the couple of grown men in the carnage, and looked at who was yelling yelp. It was a young monster of about seven- or eight-years old, who was under the knife of another monster and about to be slaughtered. He waved at the monster who was struggling.
“Help! Help!” The monster struggled even more as he panicked.
“If you have the strength to yell, why can’t you save yourself?” Bird shook his head at the monster.
When Bird came over, the monsters who wanted to kill the little monster froze. When the little monster realized its enemies were frozen, it used the opportunity to run and get away.
Bird watched the little monster run out of the forest. He ruffled his messy hair and dirty clothes before heading deeper into the forest, but then a sound came from behind him. Someone stopped him from leaving.
“Hey, that little monster didn’t even thank you. You saved him for nothing.” The person who controlled him was Quesi, who was disguised as an old lady earlier.
“He got away on his own, I had nothing to do with it.” Bird watched the red shadow on the ground and thought of what his teacher said. The only people who could control others’ minds from a long distance in Canghun was a Mind Master like his teacher, but since his teacher pa.s.sed so quickly, he never learned the skill. “You are the one who pretended to be an old lady. Aren’t you afraid of being eaten by monsters?”
“I didn’t think there were people who didn’t know how to use spiritual fire in this world. You know abusing the spiritual fire would only make your life shorter and self-immolate.” The young man had used spiritual fire to conjure the illusion of a demon behind him, what kind of hatred has made him create this kind of terrifying image? Quesi quirked her lips before continuing, “what a pity. Aye, those two monster leaders are coming soon, you better leave if you want to stay alive. If you didn’t know something I wanted, I wouldn’t bother with you.”
“Monster...”
“What are you mumbling about, you better run before they show up.”
“Are you talking about the monsters who fought?” Bird’s voice was hoa.r.s.e but not thick. “They can’t come into this mora.s.s.”
“There’s many kinds of monsters, with nine levels in three grades. These two are bottom of the second grade, but they’ve still been around for more than a hundred years. How do you know they can’t come into the mora.s.s? Their target is you!” Quesi’s white eyes rolled a few times, a disdain filling her young voice.
“So this is that Mora.s.s of Ten Thousand Bones? My teacher has said monsters didn’t step inside graves or burials. They hate the decaying smell. Mind Master, am I right?” Answered Bird.
“If you learned so much from your teacher, how come you don’t know how to control the spiritual fire? Your teacher didn’t really teach you enough.” Quesi complained.
“It’s not that he didn’t teach me, he didn’t have a chance.” Thinking of his teacher, who was killed by the human-monster blood contract, Bird hated the monsters more than ever.
Meanwhile, two gusts of dark energy arrived. The Faceless Girl and the Snake Woman were here. They stared at the mora.s.s deep in the forest and angrily shouted.
“The kid went into the Mora.s.s of Ten Thousand Bones?” The Faceless girl twitched her face.
“Your getting mad won’t do anything! You may be the leader of the Black Mountain Village, but you can’t go into the mora.s.s! Ha ha!” The Snake Woman chortled as she twisted her flexible torso flying out of the forest, her whip slashing many ancient trees.
“How dare this Snake Woman ridicule me! It’s just a young human, I don’t need to catch him from the mora.s.s myself!” The Faceless Girl gritted her teeth as she watched the Snake Woman leave. Motioning her underlings to watch the forest, she too flew away, heading for the Cloud River Springs at the foot of the mountain.