Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 348: Zhu Erniang’s Fury

To prevent her home from being looted, when Zhu Erniang left the underground palace to fight the two monster kings outside, she sealed the cave entrance with three layers of webbing. It was so tight that even her own offspring could not squeeze through. They would get stuck the moment they touched it.

Yet by the light filtering in from outside, He Lingchuan could clearly see shadows moving beyond the web.

Tu Zhongli and his men had come carrying wide wooden planks on their backs, boards pried from the caravan wagons. One by one, they set the planks upright and pressed them into the web, letting the sticky silk hold them in place. People could then slip through the gaps between the planks. It took effort, but they did not need to touch the webbing directly.

To keep their hands and feet from getting stuck, they followed Old Six’s method and threw sand and dirt onto the web until the pure white silk turned a dusty yellow. They tested it with a knife first, and only then dared to crawl through.

By now, Old Six’s group had been inside far too long. Tu Zhongli did not know what trouble they had run into. After all, this was the notorious Demon Nest. He had no choice but to enter and provide backup.

But the moment four or five of them had squeezed inside, they ran smack into He Lingchuan and Dong Rui.

“Hey!” He Lingchuan lifted a hand and waved cheerfully. “What took you so long?”

Tu Zhongli’s gaze flickered, sharp and suspicious. “What’s going on? Where’s Old Six? And what are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” He Lingchuan shrugged. “Old Six is lonely in the wine cellar. He’s waiting for you to go keep him company.”

The moment the words wine cellar left his mouth, Tu Zhongli knew their secret was blown. His face twisted, and he barked a vicious “Kill!” before leading the charge with his blade raised.

Before He Lingchuan even moved, the red spider on his shoulder sprang.

Tu Zhongli’s reflexes were fast. A red blur shot toward his face, and he instinctively dodged. The bandit behind him, however, took it full-on. He let out a short, strangled scream and collapsed, his whole body trembling and twitching.

There was a spellcaster in Tu Zhongli’s group. Without hesitation, he spat a mouthful of true fire.

His fire was not bad. The flame stretched over a meter, tinted blue, indicating fierce heat. Any ordinary spider would have turned crisp on the spot.

But what was this red spider, really?

The webs it spat could resist both water and fire. This little bit of mortal flame was like a sauna at best.

It did not dodge. It leaped again, this time straight to the spellcaster’s face.

The spellcaster at least had two protective talismans. They flared at once, repelling the tiny red spider and knocking it aside.

Dong Rui, meanwhile, produced a small golden bell from somewhere. He shook it with a bright, chiming rattle. The spellcaster’s eyes immediately swam. His head spun. A hand seal he had begun forming stalled halfway, then stopped entirely. The red spider seized the opening and bit down on his lip.

His scream echoed through the passage.

On the other side, Tu Zhongli had already closed with He Lingchuan, steel against steel. As they exchanged blows, the bandit leader snarled, “I tried to recruit you in good faith, why are you trying to kill me instead?!”

Because you don’t stand a chance, brother, He Lingchuan thought flatly.

Tu Zhongli fought well. His movements were structured, practiced, and efficient. There was a brutal decisiveness to his movements, suggesting military training.

In the army, you learned killing techniques. The point was speed, precision, and lethality—no fancy flourishes, no theatrical stances.

Tu Zhongli, however, felt his heart sink. His opponent’s saber work was strange. Each of the other party’s strikes seemed to weave invisible pressure into the air, a tightening net that tried to trap him inside. The man across from him was clearly stronger. If Tu Zhongli stayed, he would end up like a turtle in a jar with no way out.

Right then, several spider guards appeared at the far end of the passage. These spiders were thick-bodied, hulking brutes.

Tu Zhongli instantly lost any desire to continue. He feinted with his blade, then flicked his hand and threw something that looked half like sand and half like fog. It was gritty, yet drifted like mist. After throwing whatever that was, he turned and ran.

He Lingchuan lifted a leg to pursue. But even the red spider on his shoulder did not notice that, as he moved, He Lingchuan quietly tossed a small object into a recessed hollow near the corner of the passage just behind the underground palace exit.

The spiders inside the palace did not notice either. After Dong Rui’s bell began to ring, a spider guard emerged from his workroom and headed along the narrow path toward the Demon Nest entrance.

They were all spiders. This one was even higher-ranked, so no one stopped it.

Outside, the bandits heard the commotion from within and no longer dared to go deeper. Tu Zhongli sprinted out of the cave. Even when he heard his men screaming behind him, he did not dare turn back. He led the remaining bandits up the tree roots and vines, scrambling out of the sinkhole.

At that moment, King Si Wen and Mountain Monarch Bo were still locked in a fierce battle with Zhu Erniang, but both were already showing signs of defeat. King Si Wen, the least subtle of the two, saw the bandits fleeing and urgently demanded, “Well? How did it go?!”

They had paid an enormous price, completely breaking any good faith with Zhu Erniang, the swamp’s reigning tyrant, for a single outcome.

The bandits did not answer. They kept their heads down and climbed.

He Lingchuan and the red spider pursued without mercy. Bandits at the rear fell one after another.

Dong Rui stopped once he climbed out of the sinkhole. As a monster puppet master, he lacked He Lingchuan’s speed and strength, so he shamelessly chose the lazy route and slipped off toward the halfway slope.

As he walked, he shook the golden bell several times. The sound passed through the underground palace’s web partitions and reached the spider guard puppet’s ears.

When that spider guard reached the entrance of the underground palace, it stopped there.

Meanwhile, Mountain Monarch Bo had not received the answer it wanted. Worse, it feared the bandits had succeeded only to be intercepted. So it immediately abandoned Zhu Erniang and turned to chase after He Lingchuan and the bandits.

King Si Wen was left alone against Zhu Erniang, and the pressure was crushing. It held on stubbornly for a while, but the spider venom began to flare. Its head spun, and its thoughts grew foggy. Zhu Erniang’s eyes even seemed to multiply, increasing to seventeen or eighteen, swimming in his vision.

If this continued, it would die.

At last, King Si Wen let out a howl and fled.

His descendants hurried after him.

After this brutal melee, the boar clan had six or seven bodies lying dead on the spot. These were heavy losses for them.

Zhu Erniang hesitated briefly, then chose to let King Si Wen go and chase Mountain Monarch Bo instead. That damned snake’s devious to the core and poses a greater long-term threat. The stupid boar can live, for now. I can go deal with it later.

Meanwhile, He Lingchuan chased the bandits as far as the Jiana Tribe ruins. Then he abruptly changed direction and slipped into a shell house.

The red spider urged sharply, “Chase! Why are you stopping?”

He Lingchuan ignored it and pressed himself against the wall.

Only two or three breaths later, a massive body thundered past the house, close enough to send the dead leaves on the ground whispering up in a sudden shaa.

He Lingchuan leaned out the window just in time to glimpse Mountain Monarch Bo’s retreating back.

That speed had to be at least two dozen meters per second.

He did not have some blood feud with these swamp monster kings. Why would he chase to the bitter end?

Of course, if he did not chase, someone else would.

A few breaths later, Zhu Erniang’s enormous figure arrived as well. She was about to cross the ruins in pursuit of Mountain Monarch Bo when a spider monster suddenly crawled out from the underground palace entrance, hissing urgently.

He Lingchuan could not hear its sound, but Zhu Erniang abruptly slammed to a stop. All eight claws pivoted. Her head thrust straight to the shell house’s window, her voice heavy with the wrath of an oncoming storm,

“Who stole my molted shell?!”

Her fury made her body swell larger by sheer force of rage, her eyes bulging more prominently.

“...Huh?” They discovered it this quickly? He Lingchuan met her suddenly blood-red gaze, wide-eyed with confusion rather than fear. “I put your molt back where it was. You saw it with your own eyes, didn’t you?” He pointed to the red spider on his shoulder.

That red spider was Zhu Erniang’s small clone. The two shared vision, so Zhu Erniang had indeed seen everything He Lingchuan had done in the display chamber.

“One of my shells is missing!”

He Lingchuan looked even more shocked. “We’ve been together the whole time. Whoever stole it, it wasn’t me. Besides, your shells are huge. Who could possibly carry one out?!”

Each shell was larger than Zhu Erniang’s current body by an entire degree. Aside from Zhu Erniang herself, who would even know how to move such a massive object through the narrow, twisting tunnels of the underground palace? Storage rings that survived to this day were generally small in capacity; rare exceptions aside. Even He Lingchuan’s storage ring could not possibly swallow one of her shells whole.

No, there’s one other possibility.

He Lingchuan let his face shift into sudden realization at just the right moment. “Wait, could Mountain Monarch Bo have sent snake monsters in for a second infiltration? Look at how it slipped away without a word!” He was hinting for her to recall that it was not like King Si Wen, who had at least asked honestly whether the job was done.

Zhu Erniang’s claws gouged savagely into the earth.

Mountain Monarch Bo!

She had seen with her own eyes that the snakeskin pouch could contain a shell. If Mountain Monarch Bo could make one pouch, who said it could not make a second?

Maybe it used the bandits as bait to pull her attention away while secretly sending little snakes inside to steal.

A fine “lure the spiders away from the mountain!”

Zhu Erniang let out a long screech and charged after Mountain Monarch Bo.

She moved like a gale. He Lingchuan saw flecks of bright crimson blooming across her body and knew her wrath had been ignited completely. She would make Mountain Monarch Bo “pay” no matter what.

Of course, Mountain Monarch Bo could not pay her what she wanted, because it was not guilty. He Lingchuan subconsciously patted the divine bone necklace on his chest.

It’s fine.

As long as the unlucky one isn’t me.

To avoid suspicion, he absolutely could not return to the underground palace right now.

When he turned his head, he saw Steward Zhao and the others being driven out from behind the trees on the halfway slope. Dong Rui was with them as well.

These looked like legitimate merchants. They also knew the Demon Nest Swamp’s outskirts were filled with mirage fog. With their travel flag stolen by Tu Zhongli, they could not leave no matter what, and they did not dare stray too far.

With the boars and snakes near the Demon Nest fleeing, the spiders began to clear the battlefield, and them as well.

Large and small spiders surrounded the group. Their eyes did not change expression, but Steward Zhao could feel the restless agitation and their sharp, feral killing intent.

The spider monsters were furious. They looked like they wanted to drain every last drop of blood from the humans.

Just as Steward Zhao trembled, He Lingchuan walked over. The spiders parted to make way.

Steward Zhao naturally had no idea that He Lingchuan was bluffing. He only saw the spiders making way and assumed He Lingchuan was deeply trusted by the Spider Queen. He immediately dropped to his knees with a thud, voice shaking. “My lord, please see clearly! We were victims too! Those bandits killed our master!”

Once he knelt, more than a dozen behind him knelt as well.

He Lingchuan asked, “What is your master’s surname?”

“Gan!” Steward Zhao said quickly. “Our master’s surname is Gan.”

“Then why were you traveling with bandits?” He Lingchuan started to ask, then abruptly said, “Wait.” He turned and ordered the spider guards, “Go bring out the captive in the wine cellar.”

The spider guards, following the red spider’s instructions, obeyed.

Soon, Old Six was hauled out by two spider guards and thrown onto open ground.

He was wrapped in webs like a rice dumpling, unable to even bend a knee. The spiders peeled the webbing off his face, revealing a face filled with terror.

Seeing the spiders all around, he understood his situation instantly. He answered He Lingchuan’s questions with obedient haste.

With the two sets of answers combined, He Lingchuan pieced together the outline of the truth.

Sure enough, all of this had been Mountain Monarch Bo’s plot. Zhu Erniang had not chased the wrong person. No, she had not chased the wrong snake.