Chapter 938: A Gift From Zi Qing
Xu Qing led the way through the rain, followed by Fan Shishuang, with Erniu in the rear.
Their positioning made Fan Shishuang nervous. And considering he was in human territory without any backup, his anxiety only continued to mount.
***
After the three of them left, Fourth Prince’s banquet hall was completely silent. Everyone looked around without saying a word. Of course, that silence was only a foil to the tempests raging in their hearts and minds. They were shocked. Incredulous. And there were many other emotions assailing them.
They only knew how Xu Qing’s time in Firemoon lands ended. They hadn’t heard about what led up to Xu Qing becoming the Grand Darkheaven. They also had no idea what sort of tensions had come to exist between him and the Firemoon chosen.
What had just played out gave them some clues. After all, when all was said and done, it was common knowledge that Xu Qing had defeated Sir Firedark to secure his spot as the Grand Darkheaven. But clues were just clues, and they could really only guess at what exactly had happened that would make Fan Shishuang afraid of Xu Qing’s mere presence.
After all, Fan Shishuang was a Smoldering God! He was an amazing chosen from the Firemoon Darkheaven echelon, and he was famous throughout Revered Ancient. Though he had spent almost his entire time with humankind in seclusion, which was slightly suspicious, there also wasn’t anything incredibly unusual about it. As a cultivator who had just stepped into the Smoldering God level, he was in a critical time period, so it actually made sense for him to spend time in meditation.
What was more, he wasn’t required to take part in the negotiations. He was only there to oversee matters and certify the signed treaty. The fact that he had reacted so quickly to prevent someone from talking about Xu Qing had only come across as him being displeased in some way. Anyone who didn’t know the full story would probably assume that there was some major conflict between Xu Qing and Fan Shishuang.
But now... the truth was revealed! The reason Fan Shishuang had been in seclusion the entire time was that he was avoiding Xu Qing!
What was more, the displeasure he had revealed when stopping that young noble from talking about Xu Qing was real. The conflict was real. But the truth was that, in his vigilance, Fan Shishuang was very sensitive to anything that could cause further friction with Xu Qing. As everyone present reached similar conclusions, they were struck to the core. When Xu Qing was with the Firemoon Darkheavens... he must have done some really terrifying things!
Princess Anhai looked a bit dazed as she thought back to all the times she had interacted with Xu Qing. It began in the Holytide Region at the banquet thrown by Seventh Prince. The next time she encountered him, he was already the region lord of Holytide. She was the one who escorted him into the Imperial Region.... She had witnessed him being summoned by Grand Emperor Swordsage, leading the Xeno-Immortal School to prominence, killing Seventh Prince, and in general, shaking the imperial capital to the core.
She had previously assumed that Xu Qing had already reached his peak. But then he became the Grand Darkheaven, was appointed as King Skycrusher, and was also named tutor for the imperial princes.... All of that made her feel like all she could do was look up and catch a glimpse of Xu Qing from behind.
Today, she had yet again witnessed how terrifying Xu Qing was. She and everyone else at the banquet had been careful to act appropriately around Fan Shishuang, and had been nervous in his presence. She could only imagine what kind of fearsome reputation Xu Qing must have won when he was with the Firemoon Darkheavens.
Fourth Prince’s thoughts were in chaos, and his expression was flickering. However... there was a very strange gleam in his eyes.
Some people wanted to use me as bait to draw out Fan Shishuang. Master already saw through the whole situation and set everything up for me to succeed. But then Xu Qing showed up out of nowhere. I wonder... if he’ll die as well!
Fourth Prince was already wrapped up in weighing all of the pros and cons.
There was another woman in the crowd who looked as surprised as everyone else. She was currently looking outside of the hall. She was none other than the famous master musician Su Yue. So, he’s the brother of that certain person, huh...?
***
Xu Qing had no way of noticing what was going on behind him. Before long, he had led Fan Shishuang and Erniu back to his greater spirit mansion. Once inside, he sat down calmly and looked at Fan Shishuang, who was trying his best to look dour and forbidding.
As for Erniu, he was smiling broadly. “Brother Fan, back when I was in Firemoon Darkheaven territory, I saw how spectacular you are. You really have the highest level of mastery possible when it comes to puppets.
“Given that, I’m certain you won’t disappoint me. After all, if I end up disappointed, then my little Junior Brother will also be disappointed. And if we’re both disappointed, well... then you’ll be disappointed too.” Erniu cleared his throat. Before Fan Shishuang could even say anything in response, Erniu quickly took out the jury-rigged puppet and put it down on the ground. “Please, Brother Fan, can you help out with this? Fix it? Do your best... to get it back to its original condition?”
Erniu licked his lips. Xu Qing looked down, his face completely expressionless.
Fan Shishuang had been cursing inwardly, but showed no sign of that on his face. Now he could breathe a sigh of relief. As it turned out, they really did want him to do them a favor. There was no other hidden agenda. If he had been dealing with someone else, he might have dragged things out. But right now, he just wanted to leave as quickly as possible, and that meant both this mansion and these lands.
Therefore, it was without a word that he looked down at the jury-rigged puppet. He waved his hand, and the puppet collapsed into a pile of parts. He picked up one of the parts, took a deep breath to calm himself, and started studying it.
After taking a look, his expression flickered.
“This is old. Very old. I’d say that, at the very least, it’s been around for tens of thousands of years. It’s infected with corpse energy.... You know, this looks like the workmanship of the Fardarks. They were around in the time of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity.
“Their puppetry involved living sacrifices. They would use blood as food, meridians as connective elements, bones as building materials, and then would use a host of other items to create puppets of flesh and blood.”
Fan Shishuang was really living up to his reputation of being a grandmaster of puppets, as he knew the entire history of the thing almost immediately.
Erniu let loose sighs of admiration, then followed them up with a loud cheer. Xu Qing made sure to put some praise into his gaze as well.
Fan Shishuang didn’t react visibly to those expressions of appreciation, but inside he couldn’t help but feel both proud and pleased.
Erniu blinked a few times. “Brother Fan, you’re absolutely incredible! It seems to me you’re not going to have any trouble getting this puppet back into perfect working order!”
Fan Shishuang coolly replied, “It’s going to be difficult. But as long as you just give me all the materials, I can do it.”
Erniu smiled. “Unfortunately, these are all the materials we have. But given your level of skill, Brother Fan, I’m sure you can make at least seven or eight versions. Er. Never mind. You know what, just keep it to five. That’ll do. Whatever you make beyond that you can just keep as a reward!”
Fan Shishuang was cursing even more vehemently inside. These two damned idiots! Not only do they want me to work for free, but also, I have to provide the materials? This is beyond outrageous!
“The materials here aren’t even enough to make one puppet. I’m going to need equipment forging materials such as earthlike megacrystals and crimsonsoul iron. Those types of things.”
“We don’t have any of that,” Erniu said with a glare.
Xu Qing’s expression darkened.
Gritting his teeth, Fan Shishuang looked at Erniu and then Xu Qing. After a moment he took a deep breath. “Both of you have to promise that, after this, we have a completely clean slate!”
When Erniu saw that a compromise had been reached, he smiled. “Agreed!”
Xu Qing thought about it and then nodded.
Fan Shishuang gritted his teeth and waved his hand to summon a host of equipment forging materials. As Xu Qing and Erniu watched, he started rebuilding the puppet.
***
A month passed in short order.
During that time, Fan Shishuang went above and beyond. As Xu Qing and Erniu watched closely, he slowly put all the puppet pieces back together and made sure they operated smoothly. He used a lot of equipment forging materials.
Xu Qing didn’t say much, but Erniu offered a lot of encouraging words and expressions of praise.
Although Fan Shishuang started to get annoyed with all that, it did result in him using more and more materials. In the end, he even took out some of the flesh, blood, and souls of various vicious beasts he had killed. By adding those elements into the puppet parts, he was able to make them very agile and lifelike.
On the final day, he performed an incantation gesture to finish the job. There were now two gigantic puppets clad in black armor standing in front of them. Both puppets emanated cold auras and terrifying pressure. Surprisingly, they were actually stronger than the versions Xu Qing had fought in the cave.
“That’s the Smoldering God fleshly body level!!” Erniu said, looking visibly moved.
Truth be told, puppets like these were unheard of in human lands. In fact, even in all Erniu’s past lives, he didn’t remember seeing anything like them.
“It’s my first time ever making puppets of this caliber,” Fan Shishuang said. The reality was that even he felt a bit jealous of these puppets. Being a puppet grandmaster, he knew better than anyone how valuable they were.
Unfortunately, with these two watching me like a hawk, there’s nothing I can do.... I had to use a lot of my valuable materials to push the puppets to this level. But in the end... the spare parts they provided had already been ensorcelled, and were very valuable. Whatever cultivator made these puppets originally was, at the very least, a Smoldering God, and maybe even an Imperial Sovereign.... Only someone like that could craft Smoldering God puppets. Without more spare parts... it won’t be possible to make a third.
Fan Shishuang sighed inwardly and stowed any greedy thoughts. Standing, he looked coldly at Xu Qing and Erniu.
“Can I go now?”
Erniu hurriedly got to his feet and offered some more words of praise.
Xu Qing also flashed a smile. “Fellow Daoist Fan, you truly are amazing!”
Fan Shishuang betrayed no change in facial expression. However, inside he actually felt pleased with how Xu Qing and Erniu were treating him. A bit of excitement flared within him, only to be overwhelmed by grief. Actually, he had experienced a lot of mood changes like this in the past month. Right now, all he wanted to do was leave, so without another word, he flew out of Xu Qing’s mansion and headed back to his garrison.
The two subsidiary species had long since left the imperial capital....
Naturally, Erniu and Xu Qing each took one puppet. Erniu left looking very pleased. He planned to study the puppet further, as he had specifically asked Fan Shishuang to add some tracking functions to it.
After leaving Xu Qing, Erniu grinned and licked his lips. I’m definitely going to find you, you old codger!
In that manner, time passed.
Soon, there were only two days left until the ancestral sacrifices.
Around that time, Xu Qing, who was in the spirit pool in his mansion, opened his eyes and looked outside.
Someone had delivered a wooden box. It was waiting at the front door. The person delivering it was a boy.
“I’m here on orders from the imperial preceptor to give you this item,” he said. With that, the boy bowed and left.
Shortly after, the box crumbled to pieces, revealing what was inside.
It was a cloth doll that wasn’t the work of a cultivator. Rather, it was from the mortal world. From the look of it, it had been ripped apart into many pieces, then put back together. Its facial expression made it seem like it was crying.
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