In the boundless swamp, a gigantic leech sped through the muddy water.
Li Banfeng sat on the leech's back, holding an umbrella in his hand.
Ma Wu and Feng Daiku, who were traveling with him, also carried umbrellas. The umbrellas not only blocked the splattering mud around them, but also the occasional bits of flying flesh, as this leech had to hunt for food frequently along the way.
Ma Wu patted the leech's spine. "Old Qi, if we were walking on level ground, Huang Mei wouldn't necessarily be faster than you. But in this swamp, your footing isn't steady, you can't put your strength to use, and you might not be any faster than Huang Mei at all."
Leeches are also called maluang, Huang Mei—what they were talking about was precisely the leech beneath them.
Li Banfeng looked over the leech's body. It was a bit smaller than Straw Moth Lady, but quite a bit bigger than the Centipede Mother and Daughter.
"Old Five, how did you and Huang Mei get to know each other?"
Ma Wu stroked the wrinkles on the leech's back with deep affection. "Sha Dingzhong sent Strange Monsters to my territory to test the land-clearing. The other Strange Monsters all knew the way. They came and went straight to work. Only Huang Mei didn't know the way.
She wandered around my territory for a whole day and didn't run into any Pioneers, but she did run into me. Tell me, isn't Huang Mei stupid in an adorable way?"
Feng Daiku let out a cold laugh. "Whether she's stupid or scheming, that's really hard to say."
Ma Wu shook his head and sighed. "What schemes could Huang Mei possibly have? I said we had an urgent matter on our side, and Huang Mei set off with us without a word of complaint. Just look at that sincerity—how many people can you find with that?"
Feng Daiku nodded. "That capital of yours is something you can't find on just anyone either. Once Huang Mei took one look at it, she couldn't move on."
Ma Wu chuckled modestly. "You flatter me, you flatter me."
Li Banfeng said, "When you were investing your capital on Huang Mei's body, you weren't afraid she'd suck your blood?"
Ma Wu waved his hand. "That bit of blood is nothing."
As they talked, Huang Mei leapt over a mud pit, yanked a huge salamander out of the mire, drained its blood and flesh in a few gulps, and tossed its carcass onto the roadside with a flick of her head.
Huang Mei let out a satisfied burp, and everyone bounced slightly. Ma Wu hurriedly shielded the green porcelain jar in his hands.
Ma Wu had been carrying this jar the entire way. Li Banfeng had thought it was some sort of Magical Treasure, but he couldn't sense any Spirit Attribute from the jar at all, not even the faintest trace of Spiritual Sound.
Li Banfeng asked, "What exactly is this jar for?"
Before Ma Wu could answer, Feng Daiku spoke up. "That's Wulang's godson."
Li Banfeng was taken aback. "When did you get yourself a godson?"
Ma Wu laughed. "Calling them godsons isn't wrong. It's fated that I have this bond with these children.
This is Huang Mei's brood. There are five egg cocoons inside, and each egg cocoon can have more than twenty children. All together, that's only a little over a hundred.
I told Huang Mei to just leave the kids with me, that I'd look after them. She said her people had rules: the children can't stay by their parents' side; they must be sent far away."
Feng Daiku nodded. "Exactly, they have to be sent far away. With a bit over a hundred kids, who knows how many are daughters? If they all ended up in Wulang's hands, the family generations would be impossible to sort out."
The leech arched its body, almost bucking Feng Daiku off.
In fact, Feng Daiku wasn't wrong. The leech really was worried about her daughters ending up in Ma Wu's hands, but saying that outright would be too embarrassing.
Getting rammed like that made Feng Daiku angry as well. Just as she was about to lose her temper, Ma Wu tried to talk her down at the side. "What's gotten into you? These past two days your temper's been so short."
Feng Daiku said nothing. Even if she wanted to explain, she had no way to.
How was she supposed to put it? With her status, could she really be seen as competing with a leech out of jealousy?
Besides, right now they really did have to rely on this leech to hurry on their way.
From Ma Wu's New Land to Flower Fairy Mansion, there were more than a dozen routes they could take. The closest route was through this swamp, and the one most adept at traveling in the swamp was this Huang Mei.
As they passed another mud pit ahead, there was another round of jolting. The Gloves poked out from Li Banfeng's pocket to catch a breath.
Li Banfeng felt the Gloves and quietly asked, "What's going on?"
"Nothing in particular, just feeling uneasy, inexplicably uneasy, like I heard something, like I ran into someone I know."
The Gloves drew a few breaths of fresh air, seemed to have recovered, and immediately slipped back into his pocket. By the look of it, he seemed to be getting motion-sick.
Huang Mei was still wriggling forward at high speed when she suddenly shouted, "Wulang, watch out!"
A big clump of mud suddenly splashed up from the ground and almost hit Ma Wu.
Li Banfeng grabbed a handful of silt and rubbed it between his fingers. The silt here was very special—somewhat like the Glue Mud near Blue Poplar Village, extremely sticky.
"Old Five, when I first learned Short Step, that was in a swamp, right?"
Ma Wu nodded. "Yeah. Back then we went to the New Land to collect Glue Mud. You suddenly stole a step out of nowhere and gave me a good scare."
Looking out over the boundless swamp, Li Banfeng felt a bit sentimental.
He still hadn't fulfilled his promise to his wife. When he used the Shadow Hanging Technique, he still couldn't use any other Technique, and he didn't dare ask his wife to take him up to the Second Layer.
"I'll have to come here often to cultivate in the future."
Ma Wu said, "Then you'd better be careful. The silt here is very thick. Once it sticks to you, you can't move at all."
"If someone had cultivation level Above the Clouds, they should be able to break free, right?"
...
"They can't break free," Sun Peiyin shook her head. "Once I've glued him here, unless he sheds his whole skin, there's absolutely no way he's getting loose!"
Jiao Xiu Sun Peiying, the Local Deity of the Sticky Gully, had used a lump of Paste to glue He Jiaqing to the ground.
He Jiaqing had also been struck by Hua Manchun's Joyful Fire Burning Body Technique, and his body had begun to burn from the inside out.
At this point, He Jiaqing seemed to have nothing left but to wait for death. Chu Yaoxian, standing to the side, had to think of a way to save herself.