Where Immortals Once Walked

Whatever was on the other side did not back down either. It reared up, towering even higher than Zhu Erniang.

It was a giant python, black and ash-gray. Its body coiled deep within the reeds, its full length impossible to judge, but the thickest part of its body was over a meter and a half in diameter, and it had whiskers hanging beneath its jaw.

It opened its mouth in a show of dominance. The fangs it flashed curved like scimitars, each nearly a meter and a half long.

The wind happened to be blowing toward the shore, and He Lingchuan immediately caught a wave of rank, fishy stench.

The air was tense, the fight seemingly about to erupt at any moment. He Lingchuan quietly edged backward.

No one knew how the two monsters communicated—perhaps by aura, perhaps by instinct—but after a dozen breaths or so, the giant python lowered its head. Zhu Erniang, too, folded her legs back in.

A little while later, the python monster turned north and slithered away.

Zhu Erniang watched it leave, then slowly crawled back.

As she passed He Lingchuan, she spoke suddenly, “You look pleased. Were you thinking that if we two giants clash, you’ll get a chance to slip away?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” He Lingchuan replied with a thoroughly insincere smile.

“Mountain Monarch Bo loves eating humans, and alive at that. The prey it swallows whole can still feel themselves being digested in its stomach.” Zhu Erniang seemed to laugh. After living for thousands of years, did she really have fewer tricks than a green boy? “If you fall into his hands, your end will be ten times worse!”

With her massive belly swaying, she ambled back toward the Demon Nest.

Just like that, the confrontation dissolved without a fight.

From He Lingchuan’s perspective, the giant python had been the more wary party.

* * *

One thing worth noting was that during this time, spiders in the swamp frequently discovered bodies drifting in with the current. These were sometimes wild animals, sometimes livestock, and sometimes humans. They were often accompanied by floating logs and broken planks, clear signs of upstream flooding.

All of it was fallout from the Han River disaster.

Occasionally, He Lingchuan even found the bloated corpses of Yuan soldiers. After drifting for so many days, they were barely recognizable, identifiable only by scraps of uniform.

He had no way of knowing how the war in the northern regions of Yuan was going. Unable to return, he could only dig shallow graves and give them rest.

Over the past ten-plus days, he had also noticed a change in how the spider swarm treated the two humans.

Their attitude had shifted from neutral to hostile.

And this was especially the case toward Dong Rui.

It did have to be noted that it was not coming from Zhu Erniang, but from the burrow spider swarm itself.

And honestly, the blame lay squarely with Dong Rui.

When he conducted experiments, “inhumane” did not even begin to cover it. In-spider-like might have been more accurate. The spider monsters chosen as test subjects went in whole and healthy. When they came out, losing six or seven legs was considered light damage. Some had grotesquely swollen limbs, some had legs reattached backward, and some looked like they had been pumped full of water, bloated and wobbling when they walked. Some others lost their heads entirely, and others more smashed themselves against their cages, attacking everything in sight like rabid beasts.

Every outcome was horrific. Even He Lingchuan felt chilled watching it.

At last, he understood why Dong Rui was universally despised across nations by humans and monsters alike.

He Lingchuan warned Dong Rui more than once, and even Zhu Erniang had summoned the monster puppet master after hearing repeated protests from her offspring.

Each time, Dong Rui shut it down with a single line, “If I don’t do it this way, nothing comes out.”

So, is doing things this way actually going to produce results?

He Lingchuan was honestly not optimistic.

Every time he passed through the swarm and heard the soft skittering behind him, he could feel the spiders’ malice. The Demon Nest Swamp was not a place to stay long. Even if Zhu Erniang eventually agreed to let them go, these little spiders would surely be waiting to settle scores with them later.

For now, at least, Zhu Erniang’s orders served as enough protection. The spider monsters were simple-minded and disciplined, more so than worker bees. Aside from helping Dong Rui, He Lingchuan spent his days wandering under the spiders’ cold gazes.

And while wandering, he discovered something important.

The Demon Nest was at least twice the size of Red Peak Mine, and maybe even more than that. Its tunnels and caverns were sturdier, wider, and layered with comprehensive defensive structures.

That made sense. One had been developed for more than a decade, while the other had been hastily constructed in mere days. The gap in quality was simply to be expected.

Just from the scale alone, He Lingchuan could tell that the ravenous devourer that once lived here had been extraordinarily powerful. He had no idea how Beijia had managed to bring it down.

And that was precisely what made things strange.

By all rights, that battle should have been devastating. Yet he saw no signs of massive divine techniques, no scorched stone, no evidence of bombardment, or even much structural damage.

Even three patrol squads had left clear traces in Red Peak Mine.

Could it be that this Demon Nest had been so strong that it could repair itself?

Too many things simply did not add up.

Still, nests built by ravenous devourers all followed similar principles. After all, they were modeled on the human body.

He Lingchuan tried several times to explore the “coiled intestines” section, only to be stopped every time. It was strictly forbidden.

The spider guards stationed there were nearly as large as those guarding Zhu Erniang herself, and they worked in teams of three, vigilant to the extreme.

Fine. If I can’t enter, then I’ll just observe.

And what he noticed was that the burrow spiders entered and exited that area far more frequently than anywhere else in the Demon Nest. What they carried was also telling—glowspores, fodder, algae, even fermented compost.

It was the first time He Lingchuan had seen monsters composting.

At that point, he understood what was going on.

The burrow spiders were not originally such tightly coordinated creatures. They were scattered and loose by nature. However, once monsters appeared within a species, the group could transform into something like a hive or an ant colony.

Leopards were solitary animals, but the leopard monster Shiying’s family lived, trained, and worked together, their descendants continuing the pattern for centuries.

These burrow spiders now worked with clear divisions of labor.

They were tending a food source.

Finally, one day, He Lingchuan saw several spiders heading inward, carrying on their heads white, soft, wriggling lumps that looked somewhat like sticky rice balls.

He had actually seen these things before in the dreamscape.

These were those aphid larvae.

Sure enough, Zhu Erniang had revived her old system in the Demon Nest.

She had opened up a farm.

The human intestinal tract was astonishingly long, reaching seven to nine meters when stretched out. This section of the Demon Nest offered ample space. While it could not compare to their old den in Guizhen Stone Forest, with proper control of temperature and humidity, fungal mats could flourish, aphid cattle could produce honeydew, and the spiders would once again have a stable food supply.

He knew that there was simply no way that these burrow spiders would be living on fish and shrimp alone.

If Zhu Erniang had not had her aphid ranch burned down by him in the dreamscape, she would never have allowed humans to stay so close to it.

Should he repeat his old trick? Reenact what he had done in the dreamscape, this time in reality?

But even if he escaped Zhu Erniang’s territory, how was he supposed to break through the mirage fog that surrounded the swamp?

He Lingchuan calculated in secret, occasionally discussing things with Dong Rui.

But Dong Rui, aside from eating, drinking, relieving himself, and sleeping, was wholly absorbed in his experiments. He planned to work flat-out for thirty days. He barely reacted to He Lingchuan’s new findings, responding with a flat “Oh.”

The spiders are ranching? So what.

He Lingchuan grabbed Dong Rui’s wrist as he reached for a vial, his voice barely louder than a mosquito’s buzz, “It’s been more than half a month. Tell me straight, can you make the medicine Zhu Erniang wants or not?”

Dong Rui glanced at the door and whispered, “I can’t.”

“...”

He actually just told me directly? “Then what the hell are you experimenting for?! Why not think about escaping?”

Dong Rui sighed and explained with the patience of a lecturer addressing a clueless student, “Formulating the medicine itself isn’t hard. I have the knowledge, the technique, even partial ready-made solutions. With minor adjustments, it’s doable. The real problem is Zhu Erniang herself.”

“What about her?”

“No two monsters are identical, and the same goes for monster puppets. The core lies in inducing non-directed mutation.” Dong Rui shook his head. “However, Zhu Erniang is an ancient monster immortal. Even though she’s shed power through molting, her body and monster nature are absurdly stable. In fact, they’re far beyond just stable; they’re as solid as bedrock. These medicines probably wouldn’t affect her at all. At best, they’d give her diarrhea.”

He went on, “Even if they did work, she would have to endure prolonged, extreme agony. Of all the monsters I’ve tested, not a single one has been able to withstand the transformation process.”

The pain was certain, but the outcome was not.

Would Zhu Erniang really be willing to pay such a massive price just to counter origin energy?

He Lingchuan frowned as he found himself confused about something. “Then what have you been busy with all this time?”

Dong Rui chuckled and said, “Using a living ancient monster immortal and her molts as experimental material, even just small samples, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! She even has a whole brood of descendants who are like downgraded copies of herself, and they’re volunteering to be test subjects! Where else would I ever find a chance like this?”

In the past, creating monster puppets meant fighting monsters to the death. The stronger the target, the higher the risk. That was how he had ended up wanted by Beijia.

Compared to that, this place was a researcher’s paradise.

“When the deadline’s up, what then?” He Lingchuan pressed. Time was flying.

Dong Rui scratched his head. “We’ll see.”

After being interrupted several times, Dong Rui finally pulled himself out of workaholic mode, though it was also partly because even his mind was reaching its limits.

That night, with the full moon rising, the two of them went to the Demon Nest’s entrance and sat by the water at the sinkhole, drinking under the silver light.

He Lingchuan always kept good wine in his storage ring. He took it out now, bringing out a jar for each of them.

From where they sat, the full moon looked like a silver basin, its light scattering across the water like stars.

Dong Rui stared at it for a long while, then let out a long sigh.

So even this guy has moments of melancholy? He Lingchuan asked, “What are you sighing about?”

“Nothing,” Dong Rui replied. He did not bother with his face covering anymore. Nothing in the swamp cared how ugly he was. To the spider monsters, He Lingchuan probably looked just as bad.

When he drank, liquor leaked from the crooked corner of his mouth.

He Lingchuan had already gotten used to that ruined face of his after all this time. But now, he could not help but bring himself to ask, “What happened to your face, anyway?”

Dong Rui drank in silence.

Only after a long pause did he wipe his mouth and answer, “A woman did it.”

He Lingchuan was stunned. “They were that ruthless?”