Chapter 25: Monster
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Majority of his succeeding joy was taken away from various unexpected incidents. Zhang Lisheng who was dizzy took a good look at the gigantic toad in front of him. After a moment of silence, he began to chant an incantation again while frowning.
Feeling annoyed, he wanted to experiment to see whether his second wizard worm’s attack ability was worth his effort. He wanted to see if the wizard worm had the strength of four Qing Hongs combined.
As ‘psh shh…’ incantation sound came out again, the spring water toad opened its gigantic mouth all of the sudden and breathe in an endless air in the jungle like a whistle. Within a couple of minutes, it had expanded to the size of a mini car with a single row seat.
Later on, it extended its tongue that was as thick as an elevator cable at a tremendous speed. Just like that, its tongue shot onto a cedar tree that had the width of a wide mouth bowl that was 50 meters away. The flesh hook on the tip of its tongue shot a hole in the tree trunk and pulled half of the tree towards itself.
After swallowing the tree bark in one mouthful, the body of the toad that completed its attack once and for all was like a balloon that was deflated, eventually shrunk back to the size of a water tank at a high speed.
When the toad was attacking with its enlarged body, the very limited wizard power that remained in Zhang Lisheng’s body was flowing out continuously and absorbed by the wizard worm next to it. He almost pa.s.sed out from that.
However, the magical and powerful ability that the toad performed had taken all of the resentment that he had away.
It could still be explained forcefully as a biological mutation, to justify his wizard worm Qing Hong’s attack with its sharp fangs and intensifying its venom. However, the ability of the spring water toad transformed into the size of a car by inhaling air and used its tongue to ‘chop the tree’ could only be described as a monster.
It definitely was not an elevation of a certain type of gift. Instead, it was the omniscient power that was produced naturally, when an animal turned into a monster in a legendary myth.
Meanwhile, two hieroglyph words ‘expand, shrink’ appeared in Zhang Lisheng’s mind naturally when he was driving the wizard worm and placed no doubt on proving that point.
After being stunned for quite some time, he joyfully snapped out of his thought and said, “Omniscient power, omniscient power hahaha…”
“I didn’t know that a Rank-1 Wizard could drive such a monstrous wizard worm. It’s not that a Wizard isn’t powerful, it’s me. It’s me who is an apprentice to this, and had no idea how powerful witchcraft is…”
After a while of shouting and laughing, the lack of oxygen in his head given Zhang Lisheng a spur of dizziness.
He stopped laughing frantically as he stumbled on with his steps due to his wobbly legs. He then looked at the toad that was next to him as if he was in love with it.
He caressed the spring water toad’s b.u.mpy skin softly and mumbled to himself, “Good, good. You, toad monster with a big belly is so much powerful than Qing Hong.”
“I must give you a majestic name, otherwise I would be sorry to a toad with such a skin like yours.”
“You’re a spring water toad that’s so big and living in the dense jungle in the deep jungle. The old saying goes ‘There are mountains and water’, I think I’ll call you Mountoad.”
“Mountoad, Mountoad, what a catchy and majestic name.”
Zhang Lisheng mumbled to himself while carrying his bamboo basket again agilely. He knew that his body condition was terrible right now and he had no ability to drive his wizard worm to fight at all.
If he did not return home immediately, his happy ending would turn into a tragedy as soon as he encountered attacks from beasts in the jungle. After all, he was just a little Wizard.
Fortunately, he would not consume any more wizard power to drive his Mountoad to be in a caution mode under normal condition. Zhang Lisheng began to chant an incantation to get Mountoad to protect himself. He found the direction and followed the tracks that the young mule left last night and walked out of the jungle slowly.
As soon as Mountoad started moving, its body that was the size of a water tank could not maintain and began to deflate. However, the speed of air leaking out of its body was much slower this time.
As the journey of walking in the dense jungle following Zhang Lisheng grew longer gradually, Mountoad that was crawling fast and hopping while guarding next to him became smaller and smaller. When it finally stopped shrinking, its body was just the size that was similar to a football. Its size had no difference with a fat bullfrog.
Perhaps n.o.body would ever expect that such toad was an extremely dangerous monster if one did not witness its ability to grow its body size to hundreds and thousands of times bigger, while its tongue could break a tree and pull it forward just by breathing in air.
With the Mountoad’s protection and worms would naturally avoid him due to the incantation that he was chanting, Zhang Lisheng spent around an hour to walk out of the ancient jungle safe and sound at six to seven o’clock in the morning.
Right before he took his last step out of the jungle, he removed the bamboo basket that was on his back and put Mountoad into it. He then appeared in the Guawo Village entrance once again.
In the misty drizzling rain, criminal police Long Guangsheng who was standing next to the police car in the village entrance’s empty s.p.a.ce had cigarette b.u.t.ts all over his feet. He wore a stunned expression with his blood-shot eyes when he saw Zhang Lisheng appeared suddenly, after disappearing into the dense jungle for the entire night.
Long Guangsheng could not help but ask with his deep voice, when the Miaowei young man whose clothes were torn and filled with blood stains walked to him like nothing happened, “What did you do in the jungle when you went in last night? Why did you stay for the entire night?”
“And what’s with the blood stains on your body?”
“I went for mountain wors.h.i.+p and the blood belongs to the mule.”
Long Guangsheng had no idea what was the meaning of the mountain wors.h.i.+p that Zhang Lisheng had just said. However, the literal meaning of the word and the mule’s blood on Zhang Lisheng’s body were enough to give him gooseb.u.mps. He regretted that he even asked.
One should know that it was a very difficult task to give a criminal police such feeling.
However, since he had already asked, there was no way that he would give up. Long Guangsheng calmed down his emotion and said with the tone of discussion and a little bit of begging, “Zhang Lisheng, I was scolded by the leader after reporting about you running into the mountain jungle out of nowhere in the middle of the night last night.”
“My grandfather was a villager as well. He went into the city later on and started a family as he was not capable of anything big.”
“My dad and mom worked for somebody, it wasn’t easy for me to get into university with my own hard work and now a.s.signed to work as criminal police at the Public Security Bureau in the county…”
Looking at Long Guangsheng’s odd expression, Zhang Lisheng patted the bamboo basket on his back and said, “Don’t worry, there won’t be next time.” He then proceeded to walk towards his house ignoring him.
As he was halfway there, a clear girl’s voice came from Zhang Lisheng’s back, “Zhang Lisheng, are you okay these few days?”
“What did you do early in the morning?”
Realizing from the voice that it was Tao Lielin’s daughter Tao Lulu, Zhang Lisheng folded his sleeves up to cover the blood stains. He turned around and told the truth, “Nothing much, I went to perform mountain wors.h.i.+p.”
Tao Lulu was born in the mountain village, she naturally knew what mountain wors.h.i.+p meant. She walked a couple of steps closer and asked in surprise, “You used the mule that the He family compensated for the wors.h.i.+p?”
“Yes.”
Tao Lulu was secretly shocked. She asked again in disbelief after taking a good look at Zhang Lisheng, “You don’t look too good, don’t tell me that you killed the mule alone in the mountain?”
“Yes,” Zhang Lisheng held his head low and nodded while he said that.
“It usually takes a few adults to kill a mule. How-How did you managed to do it on your own?”
“I’m the descendant of the Guawo Village Zhang family, it’s nothing to me.”
Hearing what Zhang Lisheng said, Tao Lulu replied angrily, “What Guawo Village Zhang family, what lord, father, aren’t those ancient superst.i.tions? Don’t tell me it was really you-you who killed Ermu and the foreign robbers…”
“You have good grades especially in foreign language, you’ve always been No.1 in the entire school. Why did you start believing in those ancient superst.i.tions, since something happened to your family?”
“If you believe in those things, you won’t be able to leave this mountain forever, What’s the meaning of everything, even if you managed to conquer this place that’s a size of a palm?”
Zhang Lisheng mumbled while being stunned, “How could you say that? Y-You, isn’t your dad the one who asked you to see me…”
“Me, me, me. What’s wrong with me? Can’t I coincidentally b.u.mp into you while I’m on the way to school…”
“But-But your house is closer to the school than it is to my house, aren’t you be going in the opposite direction if you’re going to school?” Zhang Lisheng said while being stunned.
Tao Lulu’s face turned flus.h.i.+ng red in a second and said bitterly with her low voice, “How I want to go to school is my freedom and my own will.”
“Zhang Lisheng, go ahead and spend your life doing silly things and being mysterious then!” She then turned around and ran away in big steps.
Watching Tao Lulu who was getting far away, Zhang Lisheng felt a spur of odd numbness and warmth in his heart as he slowly realized what just happened.
Now he realized that there was a young girl of the same age cared for him. Moreover, she had never boycotted him for being who he was now and the quiet, introverted skinny young man that he used to be, whose only expertise was having good grades.
Such feeling was incredibly magical to the young man, who was clueless about youth.
After indulging in the feeling for a while, there were more and more people on the village stone roads. Zhang Lisheng did not want to b.u.mp into too many villagers, so he proceeded to walk to the old house.
When he returned home, he put down the bamboo basket after latching the door properly. He then released Mountoad.
Wizard worm would basically not move at all when it was not being driven with an incantation. Zhang Lisheng carried Mountoad like he was carrying a sculpture, then he walked into the central room and placed Mountoad onto the wooden table.
After a while of giggling and admiring it carefully, he grabbed a big piece of raw beef jerky and dried vegetable from the refrigerator and walked into the kitchen.
After boiling a pot of water, the first thing that he put into it was a bowl of glutinous rice. After the rice split opened, he then put raw beef jerky and dried vegetable as well as the other ingredients into the pot.
After soaking in the boiling water, the raw beef jerky and dried vegetable began to expand Zhang Lisheng used a shovel to mix them hard with the sticky glutinous rice. Soon, a pot of thick beef glutinous rice porridge was done.
Naturally, the taste of this meat porridge that was hastily made, could not be compared with the meat porridge that was cooked with skill and patience. However, the winning point was that it was fast and convenient. Zhang Lisheng who was exhausted did not care that the porridge was still hot as he ate two bowls of them consecutively in big, rough porcelain bowls. He had finally filled his hunger.
Later on, he put the remaining meat porridge in a bowl and brought it the central room then placed it next to the Mountoad.
Wizard worm was a type of a witchcraft instrument, it needed a wizard to feed it using wizard power or blood to maintain his powerful ability so that it would not deteriorate. As it was a type of insect, it needed to eat so it can live.
Qing Hong was a centipede that did not have to consume food for months. Mountoad which was a spring water toad was the same, but as Zhang Lisheng looked highly of it, it received different treatment.
Unfortunately, Mountoad had just eaten half of the young mule last night and did not appreciate its master’s kindness. After Zhang Lisheng chanted an incantation instructing it to eat, it extended its long tongue and pieced through the big rough porcelain bowl in a second, then swallowed it into its tummy. However, most of the meat porridge was spilled.