After the Immortal Disappeared

Everyone was stunned.

His teammates already trusted his judgment quite a bit. Door Panel asked in surprise, “Why?”

Hu Min quickly cut in, “Hold on, hold on! Place your bets first, then listen to the explanation!”

He followed Hee Lingchuan and bet one tael of silver. Aluo thought for a moment and also bet on “Return West.”

Door Panel fumbled for his silver, looking from one side to the other, and hesitated, “Well then, I… I’ll bet on…”

He also wanted to bet on “Return West,” but just as he puckered his lips to say the word, he saw Willow’s slender eyebrows shoot up as her eyes narrowed.

He immediately changed his tune. “I’ll bet on ‘Advance East’!”

“What about Old Yu?” Old Yu the Beast Tamer was also on their team.

Old Yu scratched his head. “I don’t gamble.”

Everyone tutted. ‘No fun at all.’

Hu Min put his silver away, and only then did Hee Lingchuan clear his throat.

“Jintao to the east is already prepared. I’ve heard their troops are much higher quality than Xiji’s. Plus, it’s mountainous terrain, giving them the advantages of geography and popular support. This battle will likely be very difficult to fight.”

Willow shook her head. “We’ve fought and won difficult battles before.”

“Furthermore, we’d be fighting without a just cause,” Hee Lingchuan analyzed. “The Red General led us on our unstoppable charge because of a suspected summons to return to the National Capital, wasn’t it? Now the Monarch has explicitly said we are not to return. If we continue to advance east, we’d be disobeying a royal command. Morale won’t be as high as before.”

“To fight without a just cause is not only to court failure, but to invite disaster upon oneself.” He sighed. “This brings me to my third point: Xiji was only acting up against us before because they were instigated by the Baling Kingdom. Now that we’ve crushed Xiji, there’s no guarantee Baling won’t make a move. If we fail to take Jintao, and Panlong City is then harassed by Baling, we’ll be fighting on two fronts. That would be extremely dangerous.”

Hearing this, the team members felt deeply frustrated.

There was one more thing Hee Lingchuan hadn’t said:

‘If Zhong Shengguang were to lead millions of people back to the country, such a massive population would inevitably have a huge impact on the current Xiluo.’

‘All those people would need a place to settle down, to eat, sleep, and do business, right?’

‘It would be enough to establish a kingdom within a kingdom.’

‘Therefore, as soon as Zhong Shengguang returns, he would, at the very least, have to carve out a fiefdom for himself. He doesn’t have any territory in the country, so he’d have no choice but to seize it from others.’

‘That would be the start of a new round of turmoil. Isn’t the Xiluo Kingdom chaotic enough as it is? Would they really dare let Zhong Shengguang return and add to the mess?’

‘If he returned to Xiluo, he wouldn’t be a welcome fire in the winter, but another layer of frost on the snow.’

‘It would be a miracle if the Monarch let them return!’

***

「The next morning, at Yulun Mountain.」

The straight-line distance from here to Youtian Town was only twelve li, but with the eighteen bends of the mountain path between them, the actual walk took more than a double-hour.

The White Stone County Magistrate had sent a local villager to guide them. His nickname was Zhao Big Mouth, and he had spent the last twenty years hunting on Yulun Mountain. He was even the one who discovered last year’s incident.

Yulun Mountain was composed of more than a dozen peaks. The deeper they went, the more Hee Lingchuan felt the richness of the Spiritual Qi. Not only was breathing exceptionally refreshing, but even walking could stimulate the flow of True Power within his body.

‘The efficiency of Cultivation here is higher than elsewhere. In this day and age, this place could already be called a Grotto Heaven Blessed Land, right?’

‘No wonder the Porcupine Demons refused to move.’

Not only was the vegetation here denser and taller than elsewhere, but all sorts of rare flowers and strange herbs were also commonplace.

Hee Lingchuan even saw a shadow flit across a cliff, looking like a person.

But it was a fully-formed Ginseng Doll.

As they walked, Hee Lingchuan asked Zhao Big Mouth, “The entire Porcupine den was wiped out. Which demons are occupying this territory now?”

Zhao Big Mouth laughed. “Land this good? Of course it belongs to the county now.”

Hee Lingchuan was very surprised. “It was just confiscated?”

“This group of Porcupines received Yulun Mountain as a fief because their ancestors rendered meritorious service. Now that they’ve all been wiped out with no descendants left, Yulun Mountain has become ownerless land. It’s only natural that it reverted to county property,” Zhao Big Mouth said. “The county has sealed off this land, treating it as a Treasure Vault for wild medicinal herbs. Demons and villagers are normally forbidden from entering to forage for themselves.”

Everyone knows that wild-grown is better than cultivated.

General Antelope sighed. “It seems this group of Porcupines only had the merit their ancestors accumulated. They had no connections and no backing in the village. No wonder no one cared when they died.”

Everyone fell silent. Its words were harsh, but they were true.

Because General Antelope was involved, the disappearance of the Wind-Drilling Beasts was a major case, and the local authorities couldn’t get away without providing an explanation. But when over a hundred Porcupines from Zhitian Village died, the county just performed a cursory forensic examination and sealed the den, and that was the end of it.

Connections, backing, support… it seemed these things weren’t just useful in human kingdoms.

Along the way, Hee Lingchuan also saw Zhitian Village’s water source.

It was two long rivers, like jade belts, that first passed through the Porcupine Race’s territory before flowing to the fertile lands of Zhitian Village. The water was exceptionally clear, and the rivers had been widened to be at least five zhang across.

There was even a large, expansive lake. Hee Lingchuan pointed at a dam and asked Zhao Big Mouth, “Was this built last year?”

“Ah, yes. It was just finished this spring,” Zhao Big Mouth answered truthfully. “The village had always wanted to build two lakes to store water, so they wouldn’t have a shortage in winter. But the Porcupines were strongly against it, saying it would take up too much of their territory and require too much logging. The matter was at a stalemate for years. Now, you could say it’s been resolved.”

“That’s not called resolving the problem,” Hee Lingchuan said. ‘It’s called resolving the person—or pig—who raised the problem.’ “Two lakes? What about the other one?”

“It’s seven or eight li to the east. They’re still digging it, it’s not in use yet,” Zhao Big Mouth said. “I’ve passed by it a couple of times. There are always people working there. They say it won’t be ready to hold water until next year.”

Soon, Zhao Big Mouth led him to the Porcupine Den.

The place hadn’t had visitors in a long time. Weeds grew thick in the crevices of the earth, and there were even small trees, three chi tall, sprouting up.

But that didn’t stop Hee Lingchuan from getting a clear view of the terrain.

There were originally several fissures in the ground here, or rather, honeycomb-like caves. They were three-dimensional, with several levels stacked on top of each other, looking as if they had been eroded by water or glaciers in the distant past.

It was more than enough space for over a hundred Porcupines.

But now, the honeycomb caves were completely crushed by hundreds of large rocks. The largest among them was a massive boulder over three zhang high.

‘No matter your level of Cultivation, if you were hit by something like this falling from the sky, there’d be no chance of survival, right?’

Hee Lingchuan looked up and saw that the cliff face above was as sheer as if it had been cut.

“A cliff face like this, can it accumulate snow in the winter?” He remembered the county records attributed the incident to an avalanche.

“Avalanche, rockslide, what’s the difference?” Zhao Big Mouth wasn’t as meticulous as him. “Either way, you’re dead if you get hit.”

“Then why did you report it as an avalanche in the first place?”

“Er…” Zhao Big Mouth scratched his head. “I think there were a lot of avalanches last winter. People died in two different towns. The scene was pretty similar to this—there was snow and fallen rocks.”

‘So the fellow was just guessing.’

‘He dared to guess, and the county dared to report it as such.’ Hee Lingchuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He said to Jiao Yu, “Let’s go in and take a look.”

Zhao Big Mouth yelped, “We still have to go down?” His legs didn’t want to move. ‘How long ago did this happen?’ “The entrances are all sealed.”

Hee Lingchuan just flashed half an ingot of broken silver.

Zhao Big Mouth: “I’ll lead the way!”

He led Hee Lingchuan and the others into one of the side caves.

After the county discovered that the entire Porcupine den had been crushed to death, they didn’t dig them all out. They just sealed the few entrances and exits to the den, considering them buried.

It was a shoddy, corner-cutting job, but there was nothing really wrong with it.

Only the living are particular about being properly laid to rest in the earth.

Hee Lingchuan took out a large hammer and, with a few WHAMS, smashed the entrance open.

It was clear then that the tunnels, originally formed by water erosion, were a sprawling network. The widest parts could fit two or three people side-by-side, while the narrowest spots couldn’t even fit a watermelon.

But the tunnels had collapsed in many places from the impact of the giant rocks, with many paths turning into dead ends.

Zhao Big Mouth led them crawling into a stone hollow and pointed ahead. “This is it! They were piled up right here back then, like a small mountain.”

A person couldn’t even stand up straight in this place.

Hee Lingchuan could only advance with his back hunched.

As for the Wind-Drilling Beasts, they had shrunk back to the size of ordinary mountain goats and could move about as freely as the tiger.

This stone hollow was spacious, but it felt cramped when piled with over a hundred Porcupine Demon corpses. The tiger, Jiao Yu, took one look and said, “Wangg Mazi was right. The way they’re piled up is too strange.”

These were Porcupines! No matter how close they were to each other, there was no way they would huddle together like this.

This wasn’t intimacy; this was mutual harm.

Hee Lingchuan asked Zhao Big Mouth, “Have many people been here?”

“Not many.” Zhao Big Mouth pinched his nose, trying hard to remember. “Just me, the county’s forensic doctor, and a few excavators.” ‘Not many people were willing to come down here to do such a filthy job.’

So the scene was still quite well-preserved.

Although the giant rocks had cracked open the fissures, the stench here was still overwhelming. Zhao Big Mouth dry-heaved a few times and couldn’t help but beg, “Sir, when can we go back up?”

“Wait a little longer.” Jiao Yu was examining the bones while Hee Lingchuan inspected the surrounding hollow. The area was littered with scattered Porcupine quills. Each one was black and white and sharp as a needle.

The quills had barbs and were coated in venom. Anyone pricked by one was in for a world of hurt.

A few quills were even embedded deep in the stone walls.

Even Hee Lingchuan had to use a great deal of effort to pull them out, which showed the immense force with which they had been driven in.

He asked Jiao Yu, “How do Porcupine Demons attack?”

“Them?” Jiao Yu thought for a moment. “They charge backward rapidly, or they just shoot out their poisonous quills.”

“How many can they shoot at once?”

“Dozens,” Jiao Yu said. “And all at the same time.”

“Badass.” He had even thought about crafting a Rainstorm Pear Blossom Needle, but it turned out Porcupines came with the feature built-in.

“These guys wouldn’t have been shooting them for fun inside their own den, would they?” ‘Forget about damaging the plants; hitting a companion wouldn’t be good either.’

Jiao Yu came over, looked, and sniffed. “An enemy appeared in the den. The way these Porcupines died is the same as the Wind-Drilling Beasts.”

General Antelope also said resentfully, “After killing the Porcupines, the murderer threw them back into their den, not even bothering to cover up the inconsistencies. Those people in Zhitian Village are completely useless! They couldn’t even see something this obvious!”

Hee Lingchuan was lost in thought.

It was dark underground, but fortunately, a few stalks of Fluorescent Grass illuminated the area, revealing every detail.

Hee Lingchuan pointed to a section of the rock wall studded with quills and said, “This red stuff isn’t blood, is it?”

There were red patches on the rock wall, but they didn’t look like bloodstains.