Data-Driven Daoist

“Shit,” Yu Han said.

“Well, duh,” Li Yao said.

“I think I stepped on something.” He hooked the thing with his boot.

“What do you want us to say? Huh, tubs?” Li Yao said. “Should we clean your shoes? Were you expecting to step on flowers in a cesspool?”

“Brother Yu, I don’t think this is the time to be joking around,” Fang Zhao murmured.

“You guys suck,” Yu Han said discontentedly. The muck clung to his leg like cement. He lifted his foot; it was like doing a leg raise with unspeakable weights. After a few seconds, he reached into the muck and pulled out the object.

It was a hand.

He let out a scream he would forever wish to forget.

“Dude, it’s just a ghoul,” Li Yao tutted. He tried to hold in a laugh as he pulled the earthworm with Fang Zhao.

The earthworm had no such intentions. It hissed repeatedly as if gasping for breath, but the noise sounded oddly mischievous to Yu Han. He threw the hand at Li Yao. The taller boy had no problem dodging.

Yu Han carefully circled around the marked holes until he reached the first of the fruits. With the same bladed scoop used for harvesting cores, he carefully severed the webs connected to the fruit and put it in the bag.

On the opposite side, Huang Niuniu lifted the halberd like a pole and cut the fruit stems. The bulb-like fruits fell like mangoes in a storm.

“Don’t damage them!” Yu Han shouted.

“Don’t pressure me!” Huang Niuniu yelled back.

As they plucked the treasures, the flame-like glow within the bulbs quivered and dimmed.

Yu Han used to call his ex’s current husband a sewage rat. If they could see him literally trudging through shit, they would probably blow their tops.

Fuck.

The work continued.

“A bit more,” Li Yao said. “Pull!”

The earthworm hissed. Fang Zhao and Li Yao tugged with all their strength, and the worm’s full body was finally outside the cesspool.

“Heavy!” Li Yao dropped the squishy flesh.

It thumped on the floor and hissed.

“Hey, don’t bully it,” Huang Niuniu said. She had a similar hemp bag, now full of fruits. After picking the final one on the wall, she asked, “What do we do with the plants?” �

“The fungi!”

“Whatever. If we keep it, the Sect might see all the plucked stems.”

“Bring it down, then.”

“I can burn it?” she said, sounding oddly excited.

“Heck, you dumb woman. Use the halberd to scrape it off the wall,” Yu Han said.

“Sister Huang, let this one help.” Fang Zhao moved to the other side. He grabbed the bottom end of the web and peeled it off the wall.

“I’m done here too,” Yu Han said. “I got twenty-three fruiting bodies. How about you?”

Huang Niuniu didn’t respond.

“You didn’t count, did you?”

Yu Han was ignored. He groaned, then trudged through the mud back to the “shore.”

After climbing out, he put the bag down. The light of the glow stone had started to dim. They hadn’t noticed at first because the glow from the fungi wall, the fruiting bodies, and the earthworm supplemented it. But with the fruits dimmed and the web brought down, it was noticeable.

The arch-stone doorway cast a shadow inside the cesspool cavern. From it, he could see faint moonlight from above. A pitter-patter sounded.

“It’s raining,” Yu Han said. He looked down at his body. The Coveralls were painted in poop. He was like the swamp monster, but a thousand times smellier and less threatening.

The rain would hopefully wash it away.

I need that hot spring bath. Now. Now!

Huang Niuniu slung the hemp bag on her back, hugged a bundle of webbing, and walked to him, followed by Fang Zhao, who had a similar bundle. It was like fishing nets made of white hyphae, all piled up.

Suddenly, the webs lit up, followed by Huang Niuniu screaming. She glowed, slinging the webs down.

“What happened?” Yu Han asked, alarmed.

She looked confused. “I-I, the light, it—felt like it was—” She clamped up.

“What?” Yu Han asked. “If something’s wrong, tell us. If you keep it a secret and it worsens then—”

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She shushed him, a thoughtful look in those green, slightly glowing eyes. The girl carefully touched the webs. A slight hue transferred from the fungi and seemed to disappear inside her coveralls.

There was an undertone of excitement in her subtle movements. She stared at him, her pupils quivering. It amazed Yu Han how he instantly understood that Huang Niuniu didn’t want to talk about it now.

“It’s nothing. Maybe it was the remnant Qi in the plant acting up?” She cocked her head.

When did she become so good at lying?

“If you say so, Cow Girl.” Li Yao shrugged. If he noticed anything, he didn’t show it.

Fang Zhao stared her, then the webs, and finally shook his head.

Huang Niuniu put the stuff down beside Yu Han’s bag.

The earthworm hissed.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Huang Niuniu said. She knelt beside it. The full length of the creature was about five metres. The sections that had been inside the cesspool had fewer bite marks and other injuries, but it still looked horrifying, with hair-like fungal tendrils piercing out of its body.

It hissed. The sound was a lot more chipper than when it was connected to the fungi wall. Huang Niuniu gently pulled one of the hyphae. This time, the fungi didn’t glow at her touch.

“Should I pull them out?” Huang Niuniu said. “I don’t know how to treat this.”

“What do you want, earthworm?” Yu Han asked the creature. It had shown enough understanding. “I think it’s better to wait for an expert. Do you want us to take you to King Earthworm Gorge?”

It hissed, and its body convulsed in a frenzy. It opened its segmented mouth and flailed its head about.

“Whoa, whoa! Okay, that’s a clear no. Medical Hall? Hiss once if no, twice if yes.”

It hissed once.

After a while, Yu Han found out it wanted to go to the Night Alchemist’s Yard.

Why?

He tapped his helmet. If we took him directly to the gorge, maybe we could’ve hidden the fruiting bodies. But then again, this guy might tell a stronger spirit beast. Or even the land god. The Sect would know. Let’s report it, then.

“Earthworm,” Yu Han said. “What do we do with the fungi and the fruiting bodies? They probably used you as fertiliser. Do you want them?”

It gurgled, then spat a blob of shit at the bags. Then it hissed once.

“That’s a no,” Li Yao said.

Yu Han shared his thoughts. “The problem is whether these fruits would remain usable by the time we reach the Night Alchemist’s hut. The cart has a waterproof tarp, so they probably won’t get wet if we keep the bags under it.”

That wasn’t the main issue. After plucking, their luminescence had become unstable. One moment, they would dim; the next, they would glow brightly. The frequency of this ebbing glow had gotten faster.

Everyone looked at Fang Zhao. Even the earthworm raised its head weakly, pointing the two dots on its top towards the red-eyed boy.

Fang Zhao had been silent. He squatted near the fruits, counting them. “A hundred and thirteen.” He caressed the stone ring on his right index finger.

From time to time, gas bubbles would pop in the cesspool, and the earthworm would hiss. The rain outside fell louder.

Fang Zhao touched a fruit. Each was about the size of a fist. One second, nothing happened.

The next, the fruit vanished.

“A ghost!” Huang Niuniu shouted.

Li Yao’s eyes widened, and the worm started hissing as if it found Huang Niuniu’s reaction amusing.

“It’s a storage ring. The last of what my parents left me,” Fang Zhao said. “I plead you all to keep it a secret.”

“You have my word,” Yu Han said, but inside, he was boggled. Evil fucking technology. One thing to see it in stories, another in real life. “Won’t it spoil inside?”

“It won’t. I don’t know what dao or magic is used, but the storage ring has a preservation effect,” Fang Zhao said.

“How much can it hold—wait. Don’t tell me,” Yu Han said. “No one speaks a word of this outside. Got it?”

Li Yao and Huang Niuniu nodded.

“So it isn’t a ghost? How can something just disappear?” Huang Niuniu seemed unconvinced.

Yu Han ignored her. He stared down at the earthworm. Damn it. I would have covered its head if I knew about the ring beforehand.

The earthworm hissed as if offended.

“Earthworm, we trust you,” he said. There was no other choice.

It bopped its head.

“Fang Zhao, leave a few fruits outside,” Yu Han said. “The damaged ones. And an appropriate amount of webbing. Make sure that exactly the same number of stalks and stems are in the outside pile.”

The work finished quickly. Li Yao, Huang Niuniu, and Yu Han made rounds in the cavern to clean up any evidence of the excess fruits and double-check if they missed anything. At Yu Han’s urging, Fang Zhao checked the area too. There was nothing else.

The four of them carried the earthworm up the stairs.

“Hey, you brutish men!” Huang Niuniu said. “Carry gently. Can’t you see it’s in pain?”

The worm hissed in agreement. Its tail was wrapped around Huang Niuniu like a belt. She hugged the part before the tail tightly to her bosom, while the others carried parts of its body all the way up to its head like sacks.

“You poor thing. That must’ve hurt a lot,” the girl said.

“Niu’er, at this rate you’ll get swindled bad,” Yu Han reminded her. For some reason, it looked to him that the worm was enjoying the hug. It did a mischievous wiggle.

“You smelly men won’t understand.”

“Have it your way.”

She gave me the ginseng too. And the salve. It’s fine, Niu’er, never change.

They exited the tank, and the rain washed the filth away. The storm was intense, and the gale rose, the whooshing sound deafening all other noises. Above, lightning flashed. A few seconds later, thunder boomed.

They tugged the earthworm under the tarp, above the pile of Filth Eating Ghoul corpses. The creature seemed happy, swallowing a severed ghoul arm.

“Keep the bag with the fruits under the tarp too,” Yu Han said.

They made their way back to the Night Alchemist’s Yard. Yu Han was out of energy, his head throbbing still. He’d lost a lot of lifeforce.

Huang Niuniu was worse. She’d dozed off despite the rain, her head on his shoulder. Fang Zhao sat on the tarp, bandages seeping red. He had a slight fever; the wound must have gotten infected. His eyes bore into the golden ring on his left hand. The earthworm kept munching on the ghoul corpses.

Li Yao was the only one in good condition, excluding the donkey. He drove the cart slowly, as the rain blocked their vision. It would be bad if the cart got stuck. None of them were in the proper shape to carry the earthworm back in this weather. And almost all of them needed medical attention.

They reached the Night Alchemist’s Yard, and Li Yao drove the cart through the gates.

“Wake up, Niu’er.” Yu Han nudged the girl. She swatted his hand away, then groggily straightened herself.

They pulled it into the cart-shed, the same warehouse-like structure with the ten-odd donkeys. As they entered, the other beasts mewled out. A few were sleeping; some were eating piles of straw put in bamboo baskets and hung to the fences of their individual pens. There were some empty pens too.

Yu Han and Li Yao got off first, then helped the earthworm down with Fang Zhao’s help. The shed was dry, if not humid. They found a straw-covered empty pen and put the earthworm down.

“I’ll go get Senior Wen.” Huang Niuniu ran off.

The three boys sat, leaning against the fence.

“What a fucking day,” Li Yao said. “Never knew poop shovelling could be so… so—”

“Dangerous?” Yu Han said.

“Insane,” Li Yao corrected.

“The secrets you have to keep because of me increase,” Fang Zhao said. “I’m pathetic.”

“Shut it. We got the story straight. No one speaks of anything unnecessary,” Yu Han firmly spoke.

Two affirmations and a double hiss came in reply.

Huang Niuniu returned, Wen Liujie behind her. The girl’s helmet was off. She was pale, her eyes nervous.

Because there was a heavyset, grey-haired man looming behind them. He wore a rough-looking robe that had obvious modifications for comfort. An emblem with the marks of the Alchemy Hall in yellow strokes hung from his waist.

His face soured into a scowl the moment he saw the earthworm munching on a ghoul corpse.

“You thief!”