Innate Exotic Treasures could not be obtained without great fortune, and Zhuo Yuzi, the founding patriarch of the Heaven Swallowing Sect, had been but a mere mortal back in the day until he encountered a fortuitous coincidence and obtained the bizarre object known as the Gluttony Mark.
Later on, after going through no end of trials and tribulations, he finally stepped onto the Immortal Path and founded his sect.
Chen Hu never imagined that while he had merely wanted to slay the demon and harvest its bones, he would inadvertently discover an Innate Exotic Treasure.
Who needed demonic bones after this? If he brought this demon infant back—one that could no longer resist—his master would surely be overjoyed, guide him into the Dao, and perhaps even grant him further rewards.
This old man's good fortune has arrived! Hahaha!
Heavenly Dao shows mercy! Heavenly Dao shows mercy!
I, Chen Hu, am finally going to step onto the Immortal Path!
Chen Hu laughed in excitement. He leaned over to grab the demon infant, countless joyful images already flashing through his mind.
In a trance, he seemed to see himself ascending to immortality, enjoying boundless happiness, wandering the Northern Sea in the morning and lodging at Cangwu in the evening...
Pfft!
Every single one of his illusions was suddenly awakened by a touch of iciness and intense pain at the back of his neck.
A rusted firewood chopper had plunged deep into his neck, cutting through more than half of it!
He even heard the sound of his own bones snapping and the gushing, surging motion of fresh blood.
Chen Hu stiffened, his eyes bulging wide with utter disbelief.
The posture he had assumed to lean down and pick up the demon infant was simply ideal for someone to sneak up from behind and deliver a vicious decapitation!
The curved blade had sliced in from the back of his neck as effortlessly as splitting firewood, perfectly embedding itself and severing his bones and meridians.
It was only because the assailant lacked sufficient strength that his head wasn't completely severed, and blood sprayed like a fountain.
"Who is it... It's him... Hehehe... It's him..."
With one hand gripping the demon infant's head and the other gripping its lower leg, Chen Hu slowly straightened his waist with a firewood chopper stuck horizontally right through his neck!
Yet because his neck was broken, he was unable to turn his head back, and could only stumble as his entire body turned around...
His eyes were bloodshot, staring fixedly at the trembling, hunchbacked old man standing behind him!
"Pah!" Eyes about to burst with fury, Chen Hu was so angry he spat blood!
He had been far too careless, far too dismissive of this old man! Having already exhausted his true qi on the demon infant, he had furthermore grown dizzy with success and lost in daydreams, dropping all of his defenses entirely.
A dignified, top-tier expert had actually been ambushed by a decrepit old man!
Feeling his life force drain away, his whole body turning weak and his consciousness blurring, Chen Hu felt an extreme unwillingness!
"Mere humble commoner! How dare you kill me!" Chen Hu stubbornly took a step forward, holding onto his breath and roaring.
An Innate Exotic Treasure! An Innate Exotic Treasure! He hadn't even become an immortal yet, his dream wasn't even finished, and he was going to die?
Chen Hu's face was distorted and purplish-black. Although his head had not been completely severed, the bones and sinews of his neck were completely broken, and fresh blood gushed from the wound like wine overflowing from a full cup.
At this moment, he was purely relying on his formidable physique, coupled with the firewood chopper wedged across his neck, to keep from drawing his last breath immediately!
"Will you just die!" Old Man Jiang had no strength left; his left wrist was fractured as well!
Just like when he had slain the cannibal refugees earlier, he had seized the prime opportunity while Chen Hu was leaning over, muttering to himself and apparently daydreaming... and decisively unleashed the decapitation strike he had honed through thousands of refinements in the military!
So what if he was a martial arts expert? A neck wasn't made of iron!
He just hadn't expected the fellow's life force to be so tenacious; even with his head practically hacked off, he could still stand tall and walk around!
To prevent a desperate counterattack on the verge of death, Old Man Jiang backed away repeatedly, putting distance between them.
"Dog thing... State your name!" Chen Hu chased after him for a few steps before he could no longer walk.
He felt as though his head was about to detach, knowing full well that he was about to die. Feelings of pain, resentment, and despair surged over him. His hand touched the Demon-Startling Bell hanging at his waist, rubbing it a few times as he demanded the old man's name; he needed to know whose hands he had fallen into.
The old man rasped, "Late of Great Wei, Qingzhou Soldiers... Jiang Shouyi!"
A rattling sound came from deep within Chen Hu's throat as he said with resentful hatred through gritted teeth, "Dog... thing... you're dead!"
His hand rubbed against the Demon-Startling Bell and tapped it a few more times before he finally exhausted his last breath and collapsed in reluctance.
As his time of death arrived, he left a message on the Demon-Startling Bell.
This object was a magic tool; although true qi could not drive it, it could store messages formed from fluctuations of true qi that remained undiminished over time.
As a True Disciple of the Heaven Swallowing Sect who had died an unexplained death, his sect would certainly investigate to the very end. One day, the sect would find this item, learn the identity of the killer, and avenge him.
"Wuwuwu..."
Seeing that Chen Hu was dead, Old Man Jiang hurried over to check on the male infant.
Yet the male infant's body was broken in two, and there was a small hole in its head without the slightest movement—wasn't this thoroughly dead?
Filled with incomparable grief, he sobbed as he clutched the weeping female infant tightly to his chest, then walked toward the cook lying on the ground.
The cook had previously blocked the enemy for him for a moment and had his chest caved in by a punch, leaving him with only a single breath left.
"Lad... hang in there!" Old Man Jiang knelt before the cook, knowing the moment he saw those injuries that the man could not possibly survive.
The cook, however, wore a calm expression. Having learned of the deaths of his wife and child, his heart had already turned to ashes.
He looked at the female infant, his lips twitching slightly. Understanding his intent, Old Man Jiang brought the female infant close to the cook's cheek. "This old man will definitely raise her! Lad, just think of her as your own daughter. What is your family name?"
The cook gently shook his head and said in an imperceptible voice, "Send her... to a household... that can raise her..."
Old Man Jiang sighed with sorrow. He knew that the cook genuinely could not afford to raise her, and that talk of definitely raising her was all nonsense... The child's only chance at survival was to be given to another household.
Even if it meant becoming a slave or a maid, she could at least scrape by and live.
Thus, the cook refrained from mentioning his own name so that the girl would simply take the surname of her master's family.
"Good... good!" Old Man Jiang wiped away his tears. When he looked at the cook again, the man's pupils had already dilated and life had faded away.
He knelt in a daze upon the snowy ground, looking out at the vast white expanse of the world, left once again as a lonely old man.
No, there was still the wailing, milk-starved female infant in his arms.
After resting for a moment, Old Man Jiang forced himself to summon his energy and crawl toward Chen Hu's corpse.
Without the slightest hesitation, he stripped the dead man clean!
He changed into Chen Hu's thick fur coat; even without a grandson to provide warmth, he no longer felt cold.
And lo and behold, there were many good things on Chen Hu's person, such as three catties of steamed buns and a waterskin. Taking a gulp, he discovered it was medicinal wine; drinking it made his whole body warm, and his internal organs felt exceedingly comfortable.
Old Man Jiang pulled at the corner of his mouth and let out a breath. With these items in this freezing weather, he could hold out for quite a while longer—perhaps even long enough for the city gates to open!
There were also two strings of copper coins on Chen Hu's body, which constituted a massive fortune to a pauper like him. Once he got into the city, he would be able to survive!
Aside from that, Old Man Jiang also found four jade pendants, several bottles of medicine, and a copper bell.
He sniffed the scent of the medicine and made out that one of the bottles was a sacred military healing ointment, quickly applying it to his own wounds. He felt an extreme coolness and superb therapeutic efficacy, and immediately tended to his own fractured bone, binding it tightly with strips of cloth.
As for the jade pendants, they bore patterns and seemed to have words carved on them as well, but he was illiterate.
"How could a person like this only have two strings of coins? These jade pendants were hidden in his bosom rather than worn, so they must be used in place of money." Old Man Jiang guessed blindly.
The Great Jin Kingdom did not mint coins and only used Wuzhu Coins from the previous dynasty, but copper coins were heavy, making large-scale transactions inconvenient, so the wealthy frequently used gold and silver.
However, gold and silver were scarce and basically monopolized by large clans, while being quite heavy besides. Some wandering knights, merchants, and martial artists wandering the pugilistic world, constantly journeying across the land, thought of using a lighter alternative: jade.
A meticulously carved white jade pendant was worth at least several strings of coins, and if it was a fine piece, it could even be worth dozens.
Carrying a few such pieces of fine jade was equivalent to wrapping ten thousand coins around one's waist. As long as one didn't go to some impoverished outskirt, there would always be someone who recognized their value.
A wandering knight had once wanted to stay overnight at Tea Mountain Village and produced jade to buy food; he still remembered that back then, no one in the entire village recognized it or dared to accept it.
Come to think of it, what use did a group of impoverished peasants like them have for jade? That had resulted in the wandering knight having to gloomily travel through the night to reach the city.
"Forget it, these two strings of coins are already enough." Old Man Jiang was not greedy and immediately put the jade pendants down.
Perhaps he could make a fortune by selling them, but these were not peaceful times.
A destitute old man like him daring to take several pieces of fine jade out to sell would likely invite a great calamity. Furthermore, he couldn't even read the characters on them—who knew what was written?
As for that copper bell, it had no patterns, and when shaken it made no sound. At a glance, it was cast solid inside—a mute bell that was probably worthless, though he could keep it.
"It's red copper, after all." Old Man Jiang put the copper bell into his bosom and dug a hole to bury all the fine jade.
Afterward, he tore Chen Hu's undergarments into strips of cloth, found some pieces of wood to fashion into a drag-sled, and pulled the cook's corpse onto it.
He intended to bury the cook alongside that mother and child; the cook hadn't mentioned this request before dying, presumably unwilling to trouble him further.
Still, since he was now well-fed and warm, he didn't mind a minor chore like this.
"Sigh..." Old Man Jiang sighed, then went to collect the remains of his own grandson.
Having his belly ripped open and his upper and lower halves separated—how could the child not even have an intact body?
Wiping away his tears, Old Man Jiang tried to piece the male infant's body back together.
Yet the moment Old Man Jiang picked up the upper half, he saw the male infant open its eyes, cast a sleepy glance at him, and then close them again.
"Ah..." Old Man Jiang's mind went blank!
He remained in a daze for quite a while, feeling the familiar warmth radiating from the child before he realized that the infant hadn't died at all.
His body separated and his head pierced through, yet he was still alive? Just what kind of monster was this!
He was dumbfounded at first, followed by overwhelming joy! As long as it was alive, that was all that mattered—monster or not, he was going to raise it as his own biological grandson!
Old Man Jiang immediately put the internal organs and whatnot back inside, pulled the skin of the belly together, and carefully wrapped it up with strips of cloth.
The male infant was too small; a few strips of cloth wound together formed a sufficiently snug swaddle.
Tighter he pulled his waistband, tucking the two infants into the left and right sides of his chest, and pulled the drag-sled as he walked alone in the snow.
Yet he had not gone far before he felt a stirring against his chest.
Looking down, he met the pure, large eyes of the male infant in the swaddle.
"Wuwu!" The male infant had a scrap of cloth in its mouth, sucking on it with great relish.
"Are you hungry..."
Old Man Jiang looked at the female infant instead; she was tossing and turning unceasingly, her cries growing weak.
This left Old Man Jiang depressed and discouraged. How was he supposed to raise them? First of all, the problem of milk could not be resolved at all!
Under the blizzard, Tea Mountain Village was gone, and refugees were everywhere; he couldn't get milk from a hundred families, nor could he afford a wet nurse—those were meant for wealthy households, costing at least two strings of coins a month, so they said.
The meager amount of money on his person was far from enough to support two infants. Thinking of this, Old Man Jiang regretted not taking those pieces of jade.
Yet those jade pendants were nothing more than death warrants; how could he possibly manage to unload them?
Besides, that martial arts-practicing wandering knight surely had friends, relatives, or a sect. If they recognized the jade pendants and came looking for him, goodness knows how many people would die.
"Forget it, I'll just give them away. Whichever household takes them in, I'll sell myself to that same household so I can watch them grow up..." Old Man Jiang muttered to himself.
In this era, trying to live as a decent citizen was too difficult; he had already seen through this secular world. Though the turbulent times had ended, life hadn't improved.
To support these two children, he might as well sell himself into a wealthy household along with them; keeping watch as they grew up would be fine, too.
Having set his goal, Old Man Jiang wore a smile as he coaxed the two children along the road.
Walking and stopping, he arrived at the frozen lake, first loading his ice-sculpture-like real grandson onto the drag-sled before heading to the spot where the mother and child had been buried, interring the cook alongside them.
Comparing the iron thumb ring on the cook's hand, he found the craftsmanship was truly identical, prompting him to heave a sigh.
"You really were a family; let Nu'er be buried with you as well."
Old Man Jiang buried his own biological grandson right alongside them, casually finding a stone to serve as a tombstone.
It wasn't that he didn't want to bury his biological grandson back home, but rather that the female infant in his arms was continually whimpering and crying for milk, and he dared not delay.
Evening was approaching, and an infant this small had gone a whole day without food—she must be starving.
He now had to immediately find a way into the city; if Hua County proved truly impossible to enter, he would go to another county instead!
He was now fed, warm, and not cold, while that medicinal wine made his whole body surge with energy, so traveling through the night posed no problem.
Thus, walking another dozen or so miles, he returned once more to Hua County, only to find the city gates tightly shut as expected.
Without a second word, he turned on his heel and headed in the direction of Fei County.
Walking all the way into the deep of night until he simply couldn't go on, he finally lay down to rest and eat a steamed bun.
"Yar!"
As Old Man Jiang pulled out a steamed bun, he discovered that the male infant in his arms had somehow freed one arm from its swaddle and was actually rummaging through a bottle of medicine, sucking on it.
This medicine belonged to that vicious scoundrel; it was the only bottle he recognized, while he hadn't known what the rest were and had simply stuffed them all into his bosom to carry along.
At this moment, the male infant was eating with great relish, which gave him a fright and caused him to hastily snatch the bottle away.
Good heavens, it had eaten the whole thing clean!
"You..." Old Man Jiang hastily unwrapped the swaddle to examine the child closely.
Yet there was no need for prolonged inspection to know there was no harm done, because the bloody seam around this child's waist was still there! The wound from being disemboweled had not healed either.
These injuries were merely held together by his own forcible stitching, but it felt as though the slightest bit of force... no, with the binding cloth removed, the male infant could easily detach its lower body all by itself right now!
"Good lord... How is it even alive?" Examining the infant's self-split bloody seam, Old Man Jiang discovered countless blood vessels within, connected like broken lotus silk!
Although the severed flesh and bone had not truly healed, the countless blood vessels, meridians, and bones that had originally been one matched up together perfectly without spurting blood outward.
To the point that even though the body remained severed, as long as it was plugged back in and straightened out... the infant would still maintain a calm and collected demeanor.
"It really is a monster..." Old Man Jiang swallowed inwardly, hurriedly using strips of cloth to rewrap the infant's neck and waiting for the day it would heal on its own.
If it could survive injuries like this, then eating the wrong medicine probably didn't matter either...
"Eh?" Old Man Jiang paused in surprise. If medicine could be eaten, what about dry rations?
Embracing a try-it-and-see attitude, he pinched off a bit of steamed bun and fed it.
Sure enough, the infant swallowed the piece of bun directly. Aside from a momentary look of pain right as it swallowed, there were no subsequent problems, and it even grew smoother with every bite.
"This baby was born... and already able to eat solid grain?"
Amidst his astonishment, Old Man Jiang had a momentary lapse in attention and discovered that the little rascal had actually swallowed half of the vinegar-soaked oilcloth that had wrapped the steamed bun as well!
He hurriedly pulled the cloth strip out, only to see that a section was already missing. This... was it digested that fast?
"Oh... It seems I was worrying needlessly..."
Realizing this child could not be measured by common sense, Old Man Jiang thought for a moment before plucking a few withered stalks of grass from the roadside snow, presenting them to the infant's mouth with a tentative attitude.
He watched as this miraculous little fellow bit down directly, leaning into Old Man Jiang's embrace to suck vigorously while its two little fleshy hands clutched and grabbed, looking for all the world like it was nursing!
It was actually eating with great relish, smacking its lips with a clicking sound, eyes narrowed into slits as if the flavor were exquisite, and soon a mouthful of grass was swallowed down...
Old Man Jiang stood there dumbfounded, dazed for a moment before bursting into wild joy!
Eating grass was just like drinking milk! Truly a wondrous freak of nature gifted by the heavens! With things like this, the child would be far too easy to raise! There was no need to give him away—he would raise the boy himself!
He tried the same with the female infant, but she was completely normal and unable to eat anything else, unmistakably demanding milk.
Old Man Jiang had no choice but to melt some snow water, soak some steamed bun crumbs in it to make a paste, and feed it to her to tide her over.
"Sigh, she's a real baby after all; she'll have to be sent away."
Old Man Jiang had no idea whether these two infants were siblings or perhaps had no relation at all.
How one human and one monster had ended up lying on that frozen lake, and what the situation had been before that, he knew nothing of.
"Never mind. Xue'er, I'll find you a good household."
"As for you, from now on you're my grandson!"
Thinking that he could personally raise the child to adulthood made Old Man Jiang immensely happy. Although he could only keep one, this was already the best possible outcome.
"Mm, the female infant is called Xue'er, so what's your name?"
Jiang Shouyi pondered giving the baby a name, initially wanting to have the boy also be called Nu'er to inherit his actual grandson's name, but after much thought, he decided against it.
Nu'er had died, and when times got better in the future, they would definitely still need to erect a new gravestone and hire someone to carve the name.
At that time, having the same name on the gravestones of both a living person and a dead person would be far too inauspicious.
"Let's add a character then, but which one?"
"Even though you were found in a freezing snowscape, you're as hot as fire... How about simply adding the fire radical?"
"No, the two of you were picked up together by Grandpa, you are the two fires supporting Grandpa's will to live..."
"Grandpa has heard that two fires make yan, good grandson, you shall be called Yan Nu'er!"