Stranger Danger

Chapter 62: Conspiracy

“The General of Punishment’s Martial Courage, huh. It was worth the trip!”

After bidding Yan Yufei and the others goodbye, Ye Qing returned to Endless Horizons and sat on his chair. He then took out what looked like a golden rock from his Nature’s Shell and examined it curiously.

The golden rock was none other than the golden heart he had swiped from the General of Punishment’s shattered body. It was called the Martial Courage, and it was the coalescence of the people’s worship and wishes.

Strangers who absorbed the people’s worship and wishes to grow sentience and strength could usually be split into two types. A Stranger who had received permission and an official title from the imperial court was recognized as a deity, and one who hadn’t was known as a false deity or a heretic deity. In any case, both types of Strangers needed the people’s belief to forge a heart, their wishes to forge a gut, their worship to forge a body, and the Human Way to forge a soul. Only then would the golden body be complete, and the Stranger would become a true deity.

The Martial Courage was one small part of the General of Punishment’s golden body. Since the Stranger hadn’t been worshiped for long, it only managed to forge its heart—the Martial Courage—before it was destroyed.

“Wah wah wah! Something smells very nice…”

Ye Qing had only brought out the Martial Courage for a few seconds or so when suddenly, a childish voice entered his ears. The next moment, a young girl flew out of a book on the table and stared at the Martial Courage with saliva dripping down her mouth.

“What is this thing, friend? It smells incredible! Can I sniff it?”

“Sure, but you’ll have to read an extra book for me tonight!” Ye Qing replied smilingly. Similar to delicious food, stuff like this was very enticing to Strangers.

It was at this moment Kung Fu Frog leaped out from somewhere and landed on the chair next to his and watched over Wawa with a doting look. Unlike Wawa, it didn’t care for the Martial Courage at all. The scorn on its face was as clear as day.

“It’s a deal, friend!” Wawa nodded happily and moved closer to the Martial Courage. She then stood on her tiptoes and took a long, intoxicating sniff.

A while later, Wawa asked dazedly, “Can I lick it, friend?”

“You can, but what happens next isn’t my fault, okay?” Ye Qing agreed as the hint of a cunning smile crossed his lips.

Wawa was just a kid, so she let out a loud whoop, “You’re a good friend, friend!” before giving the Martial Courage a lick. The second she finished, she immediately spat on the ground and grimaced like a bun. “Ugh… it’s so bitter! It’s so bitter Wawa can die! You lied to me, friend! You lied to me! Waaaaaaaah!”

The Book Sprite immediately started bawling. Ye Qing replied in an innocent tone, “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to lick it. It’s not my fault!”

“I don’t care! It’s your fault, you baddie, you liar, you bad, bad friend! Wawa doesn’t care about you anymore!” She threw a fit before vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Ye Qing shrugged. The bitterness Wawa tasted was of course, the taint that made up part of the Martial Courage. Because the General of Punishment was a fake deity, the Martial Courage it formed was nowhere as pure as the real thing.

Next, Ye Qing turned to Kung Fu Frog—the frog Stranger was drinking a jar of wine as usual—and grinned wickedly. “What about you, Brother Frog? Care to give it a lick?”

Kung Fu Frog merely croaked and rolled its large eyes. Do-you-think-I’m-stupid was the expression on its face.

“Never mind then!” Ye Qing shrugged again before putting the Martial Courage away. The reason he interrupted Yan Yufei and stole the heart earlier was because it was a key ingredient in creating the Incense of Worship, the Incense of Ghost Summoning and more. And of course, he had done it to earn some dragon-serpent runes as well.

The result was impressive. A single General of Punishment had netted him three silver dragon-serpent runes in total. That was incredible to say the least. He could finally begin cultivating his “Blood Shadow Divine Art” again!

“Without further ado, it’s cultivation time…”

……

Creak… creak…

Bright, cold moonlight, peered through a window frame and illuminated a mostly empty room. It was simple, decrepit, and devoid of any furniture besides one long wooden table and five wooden stools.

The room was completely empty, but the furniture were surprisingly clean. So clean, in fact, it was as if someone was cleaning them everyday. However, this was a room in an ancient, abandoned house, so that couldn’t be right…

Right?

Bang! Bang, bang! Bang, bang!

Suddenly, a stool in the house swayed back and forth without warning, its feet hitting the floor and making a crisp, banging noise each time. It was as if someone was sitting on the stool and shaking it on purpose.

“I heard you failed your mission, Faceless!”

A playful, childish voice resounded throughout the room, and the silhouette of a person abruptly appeared on the stool. It was almost as if they were there this whole time.

The person was a young girl with a pair of twintails. She looked to be eight or nine years old. However, her head was utterly rotten, and rotting meat and pus continuously dripped off her face and hit the floor, sizzling. They were most likely corrosive.

“Keep your rotting nose out of my business, Rotten Crown!”

A rickety, spindly man appeared on the stool opposite of the young girl. His face was a smooth marble devoid of any facial features whatsoever. He was none other than the incense acolyte who had murdered six bailiffs at the Shing Wong temple.

“Hehe, now you want us to stay out of your business? Who the hell do you think you are, Faceless?”

A sarcastic voice spoke next as a young man appeared on the stool at the farther end of the table. His posture was sloppy, and he was fanning himself without a care in the world. Countless terrifying, dark green eyeballs could be seen squeezing in and out of his face.

“Are you done living, Dark Eye?” Faceless asked in a cold, murderous tone.

“Enough. You can argue after Evergreen Ivy [1] has arrived!” A slow, raspy voice interrupted as an old man slowly sat down on the stool.

At first glance, the old man looked no different from an ordinary old man. However, a closer look would reveal that only half of his face was flesh and blood. The other half of his face was made of weeds, and his hair were really clumps of green grass!

“You’re late, Old Grass!” Rotten Crown teased him while shaking her legs back and forth.

“I’m old. My legs aren’t what they used to be!” The old man named Old Grass rasped.

“What happened, Faceless? How did the humans find out about the General of Punishment?”

A woman suddenly spoke from the main seat. Her voice was kind and gentle, but darkness surrounded her like a cloak of invisibility and masked her face completely. She was, of course, Evergreen Ivy.

Faceless, Dark Eye and Rotten Crown instinctively straightened their backs when they heard the voice. Faceless then answered in a dark tone, “I don’t know what happened either. Earlier this noon, Yan Yufei suddenly showed up at the Shing Wong temple with a small force and searched the whole place. It was how he discovered that the General of Punishment was hiding inside the Shing Wong statue. He might even have found me if I hadn’t acted quickly and escaped!”

“The General of Punishment probably killed one too many people as of late and drew suspicion. One thing led to another, and Yan Yufei realized that a Stranger was behind the murders!” Evergreen Ivy deduced gently. Despite Faceless’ failure, she didn’t sound angry at all.

Faceless abruptly slapped the wooden table and uttered in a cold, bloodthirsty voice, “Dammit! We were one step away from succeeding, and now we have to start all over from the beginning! The smartass bailiff who found out the truth better be ready for me. I’m going to make him wish he was dead as soon as I find out who he is!”

“Hehe, it’s your fault for being careless!” Dark Eye taunted him from the other end of the table.

Face abruptly shot to his feet and uttered, “Do you want to die, Dark Eye?”

The other Stranger snarked back fearlessly. “What, are we not allowed to point out your mistakes?”

“I will—”

“Enough!”

Evergreen Ivy interrupted the duo before a full-blown brawl could break out, “Faceless, I will report your mistake to the Dark Lord as it is. Instead of regretting what could have been, we should come up with another plan to make up for it.”

“Do you have a plan, Evergreen Ivy?” Old Grass asked.

“Something has happened to August Hill Village recently. The entire place suddenly up and disappeared into thin air, and the Pacification Bureau had to dispatch most of their personnel to investigate the incident. Suffice to say, they are severely undermanned right now. We can work on this, can’t we?”

Old Grass nodded in agreement. “This is an excellent opportunity. Assuming that we come up with a good plan, the result may even surpass our initial expectations!”

“I’m glad that you agree. Now, let us discuss how best to utilize this opportunity to destroy Anyang!”

……

Some time later, Evergreen Ivy clapped her hands together and declared, “Now that the plan is set, let us fulfill our roles to the best of our abilities! Please remember to be careful, or you may face the wrath of the Dark Lord.”

“She’s talking about you, Faceless! You better not slip up another time, old man!” Dark Eye taunted and vanished into thin air.

“Be careful, Faceless…” Rotten Crown also ridiculed him.

When everyone was gone, Faceless was positively boiling with murderous rage as he slammed the table. “Who’s the bastard who ruined my business? I swear I will rip them to a million pieces!”

“As for the rest of you… I swear I’ll devour you all when the plan is complete!”

……

“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”

Inside his room, Ye Qing suddenly opened his eyes and sneezed a couple of times. When he recovered, he rubbed his nose and complained, “The bloody hell just happened? Did someone curse me or think of me or something?”

“Nah, I’m such a good boy. I’m sure it’s just a beautiful woman or ten missing my handsome looks!”

Ye Qing rose to his feet and stretched a little. It was at this moment a naughty idea entered his mind. He unleashed his Blood Shadows and carefully sent them over to Wawa and Kung Fu Frog. Wawa was playing when suddenly, she sensed danger and let out a frightened scream. She immediately flew into a book and vanished. Kung Fu Frog abruptly opened its eyes and watched its surroundings warily. It stared at the invisible wisps of Blood Shadows and croaked a few times in warning.

“Hehe…”

Feeling much better after playing a joke on Wawa and Kung Fu Frog, Ye Qing withdrew his Blood Shadows and took a moment to perceive his newfound strength. He was very pleased when all was said and done.

Yesterday, he had used three silver dragon-serpent runes and improved the “Blood Shadow Divine Art” to a new level. His internal energy had grown tremendously, and the amount of Blood Shadows under his command had doubled to seventy-two.

In essence, his Blood Shadows were the coalescence of the Blood Shadow true qi and his vigor. Theoretically speaking, Blood Shadow Magic possessed limitless potential so long as the practitioner’s true qi was strong, and their vigor was sufficient. That was the ideal the creator of the “Blood Shadow Divine Art” had in mind when he authored the cultivation art.

Unfortunately, a person only had so much time and energy. There were few warriors who could grow both elements at the same time,? not to mention that the art of honing one’s body was easy to grasp, but difficult to master. To put it simply, it consumed an insane amount of time and precious natural resources to hone one’s body to the absolute pinnacle, and the end result, as far as most warriors were concerned, wasn’t as good as the pinnacle of qi or spirit.

This was why most warriors focused on cultivating their true qi and spirit instead of their body, and why there were very few people in Blood Shadow Castle’s history that converted all of their Blood Shadow True Qi into Blood Shadows.

According to the manual, a practitioner who successfully created thirty six Blood Shadows was considered to have reached the journeymen level, seventy two to reach the adept level, and one hundred and eight to achieve complete mastery. Add to the fact that the “Blood Shadow Divine Art” was just a Vessel Augmentation stage cultivation art, and Blood Shadow Magic was just a method to apply it offensively, there were very few practitioners who truly mastered Blood Shadow Magic.

According to the manual, Ye Qing had already reached the journeyman level of the magic art. He could stop creating more Blood Shadows now and just focus on augmenting his vessels.

Of course, Ye Qing disagreed with this opinion. It was because of the dragon-serpent runes. The gray dragon-serpent runes would increase his vigor, and the silver dragon-serpent runes his true qi. Knowing this, he knew there was every chance he could convert all of his Blood Shadow true qi into Blood Shadows and attain complete mastery of Blood Shadow Magic.

Not only that, his blood was capable of devouring energy. He was going to carry the “Blood Shadow Divine Art” to unprecedented heights.

His goal had always been to convert all of his Blood Shadow true qi into Blood Shadows. Seventy-two was just the beginning, and the end was, as the creator of the cultivation art had envisioned, theoretically endless.

“My internal energy is stronger than ever before, and I still have some leftover dragon-serpent energy in my body. Let’s see if it’s enough to get me all the way to the middle-stage of the Vessel Augmentation stage!” Ye Qing mumbled to himself before turning to Kung Fu Frog. “Please protect me while I cultivate, Brother Frog!”