Chapter 248: There’s Always a Reason a Wolf Looks Back
As the sky grew bright, the jungle became normal again. Xu Qing quickly found a tree which he ascended. There, he sat down cross-legged to meditate and recuperate. It was late in the morning when he finally opened his eyes and looked in the direction where the ghost ward had appeared the previous night. Eyes burning with animosity, he got to his feet and started moving through the jungle.
He wasn’t searching for the animals he’d hoped to find. He was looking for something else. Eventually, about an hour later, he spotted a valley. Entering the profound radiance state, he searched the place. From above, it was shaped like the character 凹, with only one way in and out.
After confirming that the area was unoccupied, Xu Qing looked at the three sides of the valley, then launched a fist strike at a nearby boulder. A boom rang out as the boulder exploded, leaving behind a large cave.
Xu Qing looked around more, then did the same thing a few more times. Shortly thereafter, he had excavated a few dozen caves in the valley walls. Next, he did the same on the valley floor.
After calculating the time, he entered one of the caves, then took out an iron box from his bag of holding. It was none other than the wish box with the taboo poison pill in it. Opening the wish box, he placed it down in the cave. Instantly, the aura of the poison pill began to spread out. Flying back, Xu Qing then started piling rubble from the destroyed boulders into the cave entrance, creating a wall.
Although the rubble couldn’t completely seal the cave entrance, based on what Xu Qing knew of the pill, as long as there was no strong wind, the pill’s aura would remain inside the cave for at least a day.
Eventually, when there was only a small portion of the wall left to complete, Xu Qing waved his hand. The wish box flew out, and he quickly sealed the cave, then moved on to the next cave. His plan was to fill each cave with the aura of the taboo poison pill, and thus, fill the entire valley. He continued working.
Off to the side, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior watched Xu Qing, and his eyes slowly filled with a malicious glint. Inside, he mused that it was bad enough to provoke people, but what was really a bad idea was to provoke the Fiendish Xu....
In that manner, time passed.
Night fell, and it was around the time the midnight hour was approaching that Xu Qing finished his work. He had dug out about sixty caves, and now, all of them were filled with the aura of that poison pill. By extension, the valley itself was fully infected. Thankfully, Xu Qing had already built up some resistance to the poison. Even still, he had been forced to leave the valley a few times and let the violet crystal heal him.
Now that the work was done, he looked at the valley and felt pleased.
Even after all the work, the resistance he had built up would only sustain him for the time it took half an incense stick to burn. After that, he had to rely on the regeneration properties of the violet crystal. Anything else that got hit with that poison would be in very bad shape.
Let’s see how long that big head can take it!
He left the valley and went some distance away, where he felled three trees and put the resulting logs into a triangle shape. Then he put three white candles on the logs. He was worried that the giant head from the ghost ward wouldn’t come looking for him this night, and thus, planned to bring it to him. All he had to do was wait for the right time. However, events quickly proved that Xu Qing had been overthinking things. Around fifteen minutes before midnight, but before he could light the candles, a frigid white fog started building up in the area.
“It’s here,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes as he looked off into the distance.
As fog spread through the jungle, the familiar ghost ward started to take shape. This time, there were a lot more chains binding the monk head than before. The ghost ward was obviously keeping it suppressed much more strongly. And yet, that didn’t stop the ghost ward from appearing in the open due to the giant head. Clearly, the extra attempt to suppress it wasn’t doing much good.
The moment it appeared, the monk’s eyes opened and locked onto Xu Qing.
“All golden crows shall die!”
Just like the previous night, the giant head lunged forward in Xu Qing’s direction, causing the arm chains to start stretching out.
A moment later, it smashed down into the jungle, felling trees and causing cracks to spread out in the earth.
Xu Qing entered the profound radiance state and started fleeing, making sure to plaster a terrified look onto his face. Although it seemed unlikely the giant head could think clearly enough to realize it was being tricked, Xu Qing wanted to make sure he had really hooked the giant head, so he yelled, “Why won’t you just die? What do you want??”
The giant head rolled toward him, laughing madly as it picked up speed. The ghost ward trembled, and then a host of ghost hands shot out in pursuit of the head.
Things were playing out very similarly to the previous night as Xu Qing dashed into the valley. The giant head seemed supremely confident in being able to get at Xu Qing now that he was in the valley. Either that, or it just wasn’t thinking clearly. Without pausing at all, it rolled right into the valley after him, howling along the way.
But as soon as it was inside, the howling ceased.
Rumbling sounds filled the valley as the rolling head spun off to the side. Instead of the half-witted expression on its face, it now looked terrified. Large portions of its skin were now rotting. However, no blood seeped out. After all, the head didn’t have any blood in it, but rather, some other special substance. That said, it didn’t matter how special that substance was, it couldn’t stand up to the aura of a poison pill from a previous epoch.
As the head tumbled to the side, Xu Qing’s hands flashed in a double-handed incantation gesture, and then he shoved his hands out. In response, a huge bluegreen dragon appeared behind him, which smashed down onto the valley.
RUMBLE!
The valley collapsed, and the aura of the poison spill exploded out in all directions.
The giant head simply couldn’t escape it. As it was infected, the terror on its face grew more intense. Finally, a popping sound rang out as the head exploded into numerous smaller heads which tried to race away from the poison.
However, the power of that poison pill was terrifying. Just leaving the area of effect didn’t mean that the poison would just go away. Although the poison wasn’t necessarily very fast-acting, it was clearly potent. And though the giant head was bizarre, it obviously could be poisoned.
Killing intent burned in Xu Qing as he flew forth, lifting his right hand to summon the heavenly saber, which he slashed down toward the heads. Everything shook as the golden crow rose up as well, surrounded by black flames that burned everything they touched.
Neither the shadow nor Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior dared to do anything. Both were too scared of the poison. The beetles, on the other hand, were more used to the poison, and raced out to start devouring the heads.
Xu Qing unleashed a second slash of his saber, causing intense rumbling sounds to echo out. Meanwhile, the heads screamed shrilly as they fled.
The monk’s head was really a strange thing, as the smaller versions it had broken into could actually break into even tinier versions, which was exactly what happened.
Seeing that, Xu Qing didn’t keep attacking. Instead, he took out a magical device he had acquired from Sima Ling that specifically targeted grues.
It was a beautiful crystal pagoda, and it was simple to operate. All you had to do was pour dharma force into it. Xu Qing activated it, then threw it toward one of the tiny heads. Having been split off twice, this head was clearly weak. As soon as the crystal pagoda reached it, the thing was sealed inside. Xu Qing waved his hand to collect it, then turned and started moving in the opposite direction.
He knew that the poison pill was terrifying, but what he had used just now was simply the aura of the pill, not the actual pill itself. There was a big difference. As such, he wasn’t sure exactly how strong it was.
However, considering that the monk head had split itself into even smaller parts to flee, it seemed likely that it would survive. Therefore, after successfully retaliating for the previous night, Xu Qing chose to leave. Having acquired a specimen, he could study it later and figure out a way to actually kill the monk’s head.
Maybe once I’m finally able to study the inside of the taboo poison pill, I can use that to kill the thing!
Suppressing his killing intent, he made his way off into the distance.
A few days passed.
He had no way of knowing how things ended up for that monk’s head. But the ghost ward never appeared again. Nor did he use the ghost flute to check on it. Until he was sure he could kill that thing, he didn’t see the point. However, he did take out his bamboo slip and carve ‘Monk’s Head’ on it.
At that point, he focused all of his energy on searching for the poisonous beasts he needed. The search method was simple. He had his shadow infect other beasts with shadow eyes, which allowed him to widen his search perimeter. As time passed, his search efforts yielded good results, and he found all of the poisonous beasts he needed.
At the same time, he used the poisons he had bought, plus the ones he was harvesting, to constantly transform his beetles. Thanks to that, the beetles were getting stronger and stronger. That said, each transformation took more time, so Xu Qing was thinking of heading to the Supreme Vastness daoist temple in the ruins, to hopefully gain more enlightenment of the Supreme Vastness Solitary Saber.
Just as he was thinking that, his shadow sent him some joyful emotional fluctuations.
“... idiot... close... please praise....”
“Idiot?” Xu Qing said, surprised.
“Milord, milord,” the patriarch said, coalescing in the open, “Little Shadow is trying to say one of its shadow eyes spotted the idiot from the First Peak somewhere close by. It looks like he’s up to something.” The patriarch happened to leave out an explanation for what the shadow meant by ‘please praise.’ [1]
You want Fiendish Xu to praise you? Oh, silly shadow. With me here to translate for you, don’t even dream of it!
1. The idiot from the First Peak is Wu Jianwu, who last appeared onscreen in chapter 197. He was also mentioned briefly in a relevant way in chapter 235. ☜
Deathblade's Thoughts
The title of the the first half of a common saying. In Chinese it rhymes, but basically the saying is “there’s always a reason a wolf looks back, if it’s not to repay a kindness it’s to exact revenge.”