Where Immortals Once Walked

However, the grass here had grown wildly. One could easily tell that it had not been trimmed in a long time.

After the Panlong army occupied West Ji, this garden had been left to rot. The capital had a thousand urgent tasks clamoring for attention, and during that time, no one had the time to care about a neglected royal garden.

General Nanke’s brow furrowed. “This grass is way too tall.”

The fountain grass[1] by his side was nearly two meters tall. Even if no one had tended it for two months, could it really grow that tall? Give it another month or two, and this place will become a paradise for weeds.

Attendant Chang said, “The western garden is always like this. Any plant you put here grows like crazy. Leave it untrimmed for a few days, and it gets out of hand.”

General Nanke was puzzled. “And you never looked into why?”

“The late king ordered people to dig a meter down and search before, but nothing was found,” said Attendant Chang. “The palace also invited spellcasters to examine it. They only said the life-force here is thick and abundant, that it stimulates plant growth, and that it’s also very good for the human body. The queen was physically weak, so she often came here to sit in the pavilion and watch the flowers.”

“It does stimulate plant growth, but it’s not beneficial to humans. Instead, it’s even harmful.” The Red General said flatly, “The queen died young, didn’t she?”

“Ah, yes. She passed in the third year after moving in.”

The Red General turned to the soldiers behind her. “Spread out. Find the spot where snakes, insects, rats, and ants are most concentrated and where they’re the largest!”

Everyone scattered at once.

The garden was huge. With thirty to forty people entering, they disappeared immediately into the greenery.

These were not men who would pity petals or spare leaves. They drove weapons straight into the ground. Thick grass mats were the perfect habitat for small creatures; rats and insects fled in a panic. Willow even stabbed into a snake nest.

If they were not on a mission, she would have happily roasted those seven or eight snakes into spicy jerky.

Just then, He Lingchuan caught movement in the corner of his eye. A small figure darted past and plunged into the grass.

It was fast, but He Lingchuan’s eyes were faster. He instantly recognized it as a yellow weasel[2], one that was shockingly as large as a wild dog.

At that size, it has to be a monster, right?

He took two quick steps after it. There was a rustling ahead, then it vanished.

He Lingchuan followed the direction where the sound disappeared, parting the grass as he went. Soon, he discovered that the end of the tall grass opened onto a massive tree.

He was met with the sight of an old dragon-claw locust. It was so large that it would take six men to wrap their arms around its trunk. Its branches and leaves were lush, and in the sunlight, the leaves even reflected a metallic sheen.

He circled the tree once and saw no holes or any visible entrance.

How’d it disappear like that then?

He widened his search, spiraling outward.

Finally, at the base of a low mound about six meters away from the roots, he found a broken burrow entrance. Dense shrubs masked the opening, and a few pieces of shattered roof tile were laid over it. Those tiles were common in the garden, and you could find them everywhere.

He Lingchuan studied the marks around the entrance and got a rough sense of the situation. From his experience hunting monsters in the Chipa Highland, there were at least four or five yellow weasels living in there, probably a whole family.

With the western garden’s lush growth and abundance of snakes and rats, it was paradise for weasel monsters.

He pulled out a bundle of herbs from his robes, lit it, and tossed it into the burrow, eyes sweeping the surroundings without blinking.

Soon, smoke began seeping out not only from the burrow but from the trunk of the old locust tree itself.

So the dirt tunnel’s connected under the tree.

He raised his voice. “There’s a nest of weasel monsters here!”

The grass whispered. Before He Lingchuan could even blink a few times, the Red General was at his side.

That was... absurdly fast.

She looked at the old tree, then bent to examine the burrow and praised him. “Good work.”

A sharp chittering sounded. One weasel monster emerged from the hole and lunged straight at the Red General.

He Lingchuan covered his face. He could not bear to watch.

And sure enough, the next second, the Red General had it by the neck, dangling it in her hand.

She specifically did not lift it by the tail, aware that weasels came equipped with biological weaponry.

No matter how it bared its teeth and writhed, the Red General shook it once. “I know you understand human speech. Cooperate, and your whole family won’t be harmed.”

Small animals were extremely sensitive to aura. The oppressive pressure radiating from her was terrifying. The monster struggled twice, then gave up, squeaking a few times.

It could not curl into a ball while hanging by its neck, but its tail trembled nonstop like it had met a natural predator. He Lingchuan was genuinely afraid that it would lose control and spray.

Fortunately, the Red General immediately asked, “What’s under the old locust tree?”

The weasel monster squeaked again. The Red General seemed to understand, because she said to He Lingchuan, “Call everyone over. Bring digging tools.”

He Lingchuan nodded and went to do it.

Within a quarter hour, Gale Army soldiers and craftsmen arrived with tools.

The Red General had already released the weasel monster. She pointed at the old locust tree. “Dig under the tree in the direction of the burrow. Keep going until you hit something.”

No one knew how many years this ground had gone untouched. It was as hard as iron. Nevertheless, under the combined assault of shovels and picks, it could not hold. Soon, a large pit was carved out.

The deeper they dug, the darker the soil became.

Below a bit over a meter, the earth was a deep, vivid red. With groundwater seeping up, it felt wet and sticky, almost like blood.

Seeing it, the Red General said, “The yin qi is thicker than the life force. And you’ve got a wood ghost growing here. If someone with a weak constitution stayed around this place long-term, how could they possibly live long?”

Attendant Chang craned his neck into the pit. “Then that spellcaster was talking nonsense.”

Willow snorted. “Or maybe that spellcaster knew exactly what it was.”

As they dug, the old locust tree suddenly moved despite there being no wind. Its branches and leaves shook with a harsh rustling sound.

The craftsmen turned pale and hesitated, no longer daring to continue. Only the Gale Army ignored it and kept swinging their tools.

“This tree has been feeding on whatever’s underground. It’s become a monster too, and now it’s afraid we’ll dig up its roots.” As the Red General spoke, she placed one hand against the trunk. “Don’t cause trouble, and I won’t take your life.”

This time, her warning did not work.

The old tree shuddered violently, and the soil beneath everyone’s feet moved.

Doorboard stood at the bottom of the pit. Two roots suddenly burst from the earth. One whipped around his calf and yanked hard, the other wrapped his waist and constricted with brutal force.

Doorboard had not even had time to react. He slammed to the ground with a pained grunt. Willow, beside him, saw his waist cinch tight in an instant. With that kind of strength, tearing a man in half did not seem difficult at all.

The strangest part was this: how could a locust tree have aerial roots as developed as a banyan?

Willow drew her blade and slashed at the root.

With her strength, she could chop a bear’s head clean off, yet the root remained intact, marked only by a pale scrape.

Everyone heard a crisp clang. This supposed wood sounded more like metal than timber.

In the next moment, He Lingchuan plunged into the pit. His blade flashed once, striking the root and snapping it clean in two.

Doorboard clutched his waist and sucked in a long breath. That was too close. I was nearly crushed in half.

“Everyone out!” He Lingchuan shouted, grabbed two nearby craftsmen, and threw them out of the pit. The other Gale Army soldiers did not need his instruction, springing out on their own before he even shouted.

Thanks to his quick instincts, he had managed to save the others from having to face the countless roots erupting from the soil that lashed out at anyone they could reach. The roots moved like pythons, winding and striking.

He Lingchuan’s saber became a storm. He chopped down root after root as they surged toward him.

From each severed end flowed red liquid that looked more like fresh blood than sap.

A craftsman at the edge tried striking a root with a pick, but rather than the root breaking from the force of the pick, the pickhead was simply knocked flying.

Everyone sucked in air through their teeth, only now understanding just how hard these roots were.

They were almost as hard as the palace wall itself.

“So you refuse the toast and insist on drinking the forfeit.” The Red General produced her spear from nowhere. A pale flame danced at its tip as she drove it into the thick trunk.

The moment the flame met the locust wood, it flared outward with a roaring whoosh, spreading fast. It was as though someone had poured oil over it.

The bark crackled as it burned. The sound was sharp and piercing, almost like a scream.

The Red General yanked the spear out and walked in a circle around the tree. She even snapped off a root and studied it closely.

“Not bad, not bad!”

He Lingchuan could hear a trace of surprise, as well as genuine pleasure, in her voice. Then, the Red General lightly tapped the trunk.

The pale flames vanished as if by magic.

If not for the lingering smell of scorched wood and the charred black patch on the trunk, you might have thought the inferno had been a hallucination.

She tapped the trunk again with the spear tip. “Resist again, and I’ll make sure you lose your roots and your seeds.”

This time, the dragon-claw locust did not move.

Only then did she tell the others, “Keep digging.”

The craftsmen and Gale Army soldiers jumped back into the pit and continued.

No matter how they dug, the roots no longer reached out to interfere.

In truth, digging had become far harder now, because even at such depth the tree’s root system was densely twisted and knotted, like a woven net shielding what lay beneath.

At this point, the Red General instead instructed them to avoid damaging the roots as much as possible.

As they dug, they unearthed the bones of various animals—cats and dogs, and even three sets of human remains.

Two were adult male and female skeletons. The last was tiny and appeared to have been a baby.

General Nanke stared. “This locust monster had started catching people and eating them, and the palace didn’t know?”

Attendant Chang was right there. He coughed softly and explained, “These people weren’t caught by the locust monster itself. They were buried here.”

A’Luo flipped the male skeleton over. The back of the skull had a caved-in hole, which was clearly the fatal blow.

Willow spat. “Every royal palace in the world is the same.”

They kept digging.

About a quarter hour later, Doorboard’s shovel struck something hard.

He scraped away earth with his hand and shouted, “Found it!”

In the red soil, a segment of jade-white material emerged.

Once again, they found divine remains!

The Red General did not look excited. She only ordered someone to spread a huge tarp in front of the pit to block the sunlight from reaching the bottom.

In roughly thirty minutes, the sun would set, yet the Red General still wanted to block even this weak daylight.

Once they had hit something, everyone’s energy surged. Shovels bit down with rapid clacking sounds.

Mostly out of curiosity, they wanted to see what a god actually looked like. The divine remains embedded in the palace wall earlier had revealed almost nothing of their full form.

Soon, the topmost remains were cleared.

Perhaps because of the conditions of the soil, more than a dozen sets of divine bones were piled together. The skeletons were gaunt and eerie, but mostly intact.

People clicked their tongues in astonishment.

These dead “heavenly gods” appeared to stand over three meters tall, making them clearly larger than humans. Their heads, necks, and upper bodies resembled those of humans, but their skulls were elongated, and their hands varied. Some of them had six fingers, while others only had four.

Below the waist, the differences were even more dramatic. One set of remains had a tail extending behind it, while another had no legs at all.

He Lingchuan asked in fascination, “So gods aren’t a single race?”

The Red General replied calmly, “Are monsters a single race?”

He Lingchuan rubbed his nose, instantly understanding. “Heavenly gods” was just a general term, not one species. It was just like how birds and beasts could cultivate and become monsters, and monsters came in countless forms.

1. Specifically, Chinese pennisetum or Chinese fountain grass. ☜

2. Note that this is a literal translation of 黄鼬, the characters of which are yellow and weasel, respectively. However, 黄鼬 is typically used to refer to the Siberian weasel in the real world. ☜