Where Immortals Once Walked

“It was my woman. I thought she was obedient to me in every way, sweet and compliant, good in every possible sense. Whatever she wanted, I gave her.” Dong Rui spoke coldly. “Later, I started to feel that something was off. I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t say. Then one day, while I was dead drunk, she poured the most vicious poison from my apothecary straight down my throat!” He then stroked the lower part of his face and let out a mirthless laugh. “Women, hehe, women!”

He Lingchuan pressed a hand against the wine jar. “You can’t skip the details. Your story doesn’t add up. Why would she suddenly poison you for no reason?”

“She found herself a lover outside,” Dong Rui chuckled. “The son of some chieftain. He had soft skin, delicate features—a pretty boy, just like you. I sent a ghost ape to tear that lover of hers apart, bit by bit, piece by piece, and eat him. She cried for two days. After that, she didn’t say anything more, so I thought she’d come to her senses.”

He Lingchuan touched his own cheek. After being battered by wind and sun every day, do I really count as a pretty boy?

But then again, Dong Rui’s own facial features were really just quite far from what one might call handsome. To him, anyone with decently arranged features or a symmetrical face probably qualified as a pretty boy.

“So what happened next?” He Lingchuan asked. “Did you kill her?”

“No.” Dong Rui took two more swigs, clearly annoyed. “She ran out crying and jumped off a cliff herself. Tell me, wasn’t there something wrong with her head?”

He Lingchuan patted him on the shoulder. “You and her, you simply weren’t cut from the same cloth.”

People who were not meant to be family would never truly share the same door.

At that moment, their line of sight was suddenly blocked by an enormous dark figure.

Zhu Erniang had emerged.

“You have wine?”

Apparently, she had followed the scent.

He Lingchuan pulled another jar from his storage ring. “You want some?”

Zhu Erniang did not even wait for him to break the seal. She plunged her fangs straight in and sucked. Given that she could drain a living human in one gulp, finishing off a jar of wine took no more than two or three breaths.

“Any more?”

“Here.”

In the blink of an eye, she had downed four whole jars of He Lingchuan’s good wine. When she reached for another, he spread his hands helplessly.

“That’s it. I’m out.”

The giant spider actually liked wine, which surprised both men. But wine was a broom for sweeping away sorrow. After drinking, Zhu Erniang was clearly much more agreeable. She even let out a wine belch. “Good stuff. Strong, too. Those were much better than those merchants’ wine.”

“Merchants?” He Lingchuan raised his brows. “There are merchants here?”

“You think this place is cut off from the world?” Zhu Erniang snorted. “Your human merchants come once a month to buy spider silk.”

That made sense. The silk of burrow spiders was exceptionally tough, and Zhu Erniang’s craftsmanship rivaled that of the most skilled human weavers. The cloud brocade she produced was light as drifting feathers yet tougher than iron.

Just a couple of offhand remarks, and He Lingchuan’s eyes lit up.

Over the past few days, Zhu Erniang had also called him over to chat from time to time, though they mostly shared idle talk. They would talk about the changes in Yuan over the years, the He Family’s affairs, the relationship between He Lingchuan and Dong Rui, and so on.

She seemed particularly interested in Beijia, but unfortunately, He Lingchuan did not know much about it.

He had tried to extract information from her as well, but Zhu Erniang was a seasoned greater monster with a tight tongue.

Despite the pleasant conversation on the surface, it was really just idle chatter, nothing more.

And it did not stop her from someday getting bored and eating him in one bite.

When would the next batch of merchants enter the swamp? He Lingchuan did not ask, nor did he let Dong Rui ask. Instead, he casually shifted the topic.

“What’s so bad about Beijia that made you leave?”

The northern monster state had a resounding reputation. It had stood for nearly six hundred years, making it one of the longest-lasting states in the world. Monsters everywhere yearned for it, so why did Zhu Erniang leave after seeing it for herself?

He Lingchuan remembered that the Crocodile God had also left Beijia. And Hong Chenglue had chosen to retire to Xia Province with his wife, living in abject poverty rather than staying.

After remembering all that, He Lingchuan really just could not hold back his curiosity.

“You’d know if you’d been there. It looks glamorous on the outside, but it’s a complete mess within!” Zhu Erniang sneered. “Some monster state that is, bowing and scraping before humans, careful and deferential! In the Ancient Era, monster immortals ruled their own domains. Common folk were nothing but ants. You ate them if you wanted, used them if you felt like it. There were none of these shackling rules!”

He Lingchuan and Dong Rui exchanged glances. To Zhu Erniang, were the two of them not also expendable—things to be eaten or used at will?

As a greater monster from the Ancient Era, Zhu Erniang naturally missed the glory days of the greater monsters.

However, times had changed. Her views no longer aligned with those of the modern monster state, and forcing her to stay in Beijia would only invite trouble.

Then Zhu Erniang continued, “And those sitting in high positions are nice enough to humans, but utterly shameless toward demons! I’d barely been in Beijia for two months before something important of mine was stolen!” After saying that, she laughed coldly.

Both men asked what had been stolen, but Zhu Erniang refused to elaborate.

He Lingchuan felt a realization dawn on him.

Could it be that shell of hers? The largest and oldest of the six?

He changed tack. “Did you ever get it back?”

“They flatly denied it,” Zhu Erniang said. “Their family holds a high rank in Beijia, with countless subordinates and origin energy protecting them. They thought a backwater monster like me couldn’t do anything to them!”

He Lingchuan thought, If you really could do something, would you have hidden away in this desolate Demon Nest Swamp?

By Zhu Erniang’s own account, she had left her cultivation within those remains. That meant the monster immortal remains held her deepest accumulation of cultivation.

If that were the case, it would not be surprising if the other party refused to return it.

“I couldn’t swallow it,” Zhu Erniang went on, tapping the ground. “I injured and killed a few of their juniors. Beijia sent troops after me, so I came here.”

He Lingchuan let out a long sound of understanding before saying, “So you want a way to counter origin energy, then go back to Beijia and reclaim your treasure?”

Zhu Erniang said grimly, “They rely on nothing more than Beijia’s origin energy for protection. As long as that is gone, I’ll have my way of dealing with them.”

He Lingchuan noticed she said “have my way,” not “take them easily.” Clearly, even without origin energy, the opponent would not be a pushover.

They did hold high rank and power, after all.

And besides, Zhu Erniang was an ancient greater monster who had lived two to three thousand years. Her mind had more twists than her eyes. How much of what she said was true was hard to judge.

Then Zhu Erniang turned to Dong Rui and asked, “How’s the medicinal liquid I asked you to make coming along?”

“There’s good news and bad news, which do you want first?”

Zhu Erniang replied without hesitation, “Good news.”

He Lingchuan shot Dong Rui a frantic look, but he ignored it. Zhu Erniang noticed instead and mocked, “Your eyes twitching?”

With twelve eyes, there was no way she would miss anything.

Dong Rui took a gulp of wine. “We tested it on over thirty spider monsters, and there was one success. That’s an astonishingly high success rate. Clearly, your offspring inherited an exceptional bloodline, one far purer than ordinary monsters.”

Every spider monster here was a direct descendant of Zhu Erniang, far surpassing the muddled bloodlines of common monsters. It was thus no wonder that her progeny had such a high chance of awakening.

“Out of over thirty trials, only one success, yet you call that a high success rate?” Zhu Erniang could not be bothered to mock him. “When can I use it?”

“That’s the bad news,” Dong Rui sighed. “With the materials I currently have, the medicine probably can’t meet your requirements.”

He Lingchuan rubbed his temples.

“So it can’t be done?” Zhu Erniang rose abruptly, her belly lifting from the ground like a small mountain rising in place.

They looked up at her. Under the moonlight, her mouthparts looked especially vicious.

Dong Rui dared bring this up only because he’d prepared his follow-up. “I said the materials weren’t enough, not that I couldn’t do it! Ending up in Demon Nest Swamp was an accident. This place is a desolate backwater, so how could I possibly find every ingredient I require?”

He met Zhu Erniang’s gaze calmly. “You once had a monster immortal body, a body that was tempered thousands of times. Trying to induce mutation with medicine is like trying to poison a rock.” He kicked a large stone nearby. “It’s not impossible, but you need a far stronger drug to destabilize your body!”

“What do you need?”

“Poison dragon saliva.”

Zhu Erniang thrust her head right up to Dong Rui, her mouthparts hissing. “You want to use poison dragon saliva on me?!”

Seeing her anger flare, He Lingchuan quickly chimed in, “Does something like dragon saliva even exist anymore?”

There aren’t any dragons left in the world, so where would you possibly get something like that?

“Doesn’t exist?” Dong Rui lifted his chin, practically looking down his nose at him. “Look at my face. This is what poison dragon saliva can do even after being diluted a thousandfold! Just one drop! One!”

Staring too long really did risk nightmares. He Lingchuan hurriedly looked away.

Dong Rui turned back to Zhu Erniang. “I’ll be frank. Even if you get poison dragon saliva, even if the medicine is perfected, even if it works when you take it, the pain will be hell itself. For one treasure, are you really willing to pay that price?”

Zhu Erniang’s twelve eyes fixed on him, as if weighing the truth of his words.

Dong Rui did not back down, and he met her gaze head-on.

This guy really is stubbornly fearless, He Lingchuan thought with some admiration.

After a long while, Zhu Erniang said darkly, “You’re deliberately bringing up poison dragon saliva because you know it’s stored in the capital of Beijia, aren’t you?”

She had left Beijia because she could not counter origin energy, yet the key ingredient that could help her counter it was in Beijia.

If she had the ability to enter Beijia and seize the poison dragon saliva, why would she not also reclaim her monster immortal remains?

And if she reclaimed her remains, why would she need to ingest poison dragon saliva at all?

It was a perfect paradox.

Sensing her aura grow increasingly violent, He Lingchuan hurried to mediate. “You don’t have to go yourself. Just find someone to steal the dragon saliva, or your treasure, for you. Surely they aren’t kept by the same family?”

“Who would I send?” Zhu Erniang snorted. “You two?”

“If you can’t find anyone else, we could do it,” He Lingchuan patted his chest. “No problem.”

Dong Rui immediately added, “I have a personal amnesty from State Preceptor Shuang Ye of Beijia. I can travel freely there.”

Zhu Erniang burst into laughter, shaking leaves loose from the trees above. “You think such petty tricks will make me let you go?”

She turned and began climbing toward the sinkhole above. “Stay here and behave. If you can’t produce the medicine in thirty days, I’ll swallow you two whole!”

“Hey!” He Lingchuan protested. “If he can’t make it, why eat me too?”