A Dog's Body

In the great river, an enormous Water Python had coiled around a Giant Hippopotamus.

The thick python constricted with all its might. The Giant Hippopotamus let out anguished bellows and struggled violently in the water.

An indistinct black shadow swept swiftly beneath the surface. The Water Python's savage head emerged from the water, its mouth opening in a silent hiss as its massive body steadily tightened. Blood flowed from the Giant Hippopotamus's seven orifices, dyeing a broad stretch of water red.

On the riverbank, Old Wu, Luolin, and Ding lay sprawled on the ground.

The burlap around Old Wu's left shoulder had fallen away, and blood continued to spill out.

Luolin and Ding were both vomiting blood, coughing up black, bloody fluid again and again. The poison had corroded their windpipes, and every breath made their chests rasp like windmills.

Wu Tie landed heavily and stood more than ten meters away, looking at them.

The three stared back at Wu Tie with ugly expressions. There was no fear in their eyes, only a trace of shame, as though they did not dare face anyone.

Wu Tie was silent for a while. He took out a small animal-hide pouch and tossed it before Luolin. "The white one. It works whether applied externally or taken internally. Want to try it? Old Wu, you've lost quite a lot of blood."

Inside the hide pouch were three bottles meant for Foundation Establishment Potion, filled with the white liquid from the Crystal Ball.

This liquid was extraordinarily effective against external wounds and had an equally powerful restraining effect on all kinds of poisons. Several times when Wu Tie had been injured, he had relied on the Crystal Ball's treatment to turn danger into safety.

Gritting his teeth, Luolin said one word at a time, "We... have medicine."

Old Wu gave a bitter laugh from the side. "Third Brother, this is no time to worry about our dignity. Qiao usually kept the medicine. Where would we have any potions now?"

After looking deeply at Wu Tie, Old Wu said in a low voice, "Thanks... This is embarrassing. You had to see us like this."

Wu Tie's faceplate opened, revealing a scalp burned smooth and covered in blisters. Holding a bottle, he smeared the white liquid over his scalp, gritting his teeth through the pain and itch surging from it. "Embarrassing? Why would you think that? Qiao was the one in the wrong..."

The blisters on his scalp quickly shriveled and fell away. Dead skin peeled off, tender new flesh grew out, and Wu Tie's scalp became a patchwork of white and red.

The medicine's effects were plainly remarkable.

Luolin picked up the hide pouch and took out a bottle. He swallowed half of the white liquid in one gulp, then drew a deep breath.

A stinging itch slid from his throat down into his stomach, but it was immediately followed by a refreshing coolness and ease that seeped into his heart and lungs. Clearly, the white liquid was tremendously potent at healing injuries and purging poison alike.

Having personally experienced the white liquid's miraculous effects, Luolin could not help sighing in praise. Then, with a dark face, he forced half a bottle down Ding's throat before applying an entire bottle of the white liquid layer upon layer over Old Wu's wound.

Watching the color return to the faces of Luolin and the other two, Wu Tie asked in a low voice, "Just now, did you kill Feng Yu? He was your own companion."

Luolin's face turned ice-cold, and he said nothing for a long while.

Old Wu looked at Wu Tie and said gravely, "The hatred between us and Shi Lingqing runs too deep... Feng Yu fell into her hands. Who knows how much torment he would have suffered... Rather than live worse than death and be used as bait against us, it was better to let him find release."

Before Wu Tie could ask another question, Luolin sneered from the side. "You understand what kind of woman Shi Lingqing is now, don't you? Do you still have any good feelings toward her? If we want to kill her, will you still help her?"

Wu Tie opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He could not answer Luolin's question. He himself had no definite answer either, so he turned and left.

Over the following days, Wu Tie curled up alone in the wooden shack, blankly playing with an unlucky Little Flying Snake that had come knocking on his door. Every day, he arranged the three-foot-long little snake into countless strange poses.

Old Wu, Luolin, and Ding had vitality like cockroaches. After resting for only half a day, they were once more full of energy.

The three left their temporary shelter and disappeared somewhere unknown.

Wu Tie guessed that they had gone to seek revenge on Shi Lingqing, but he did not want to concern himself with it. His heart was a mess. All kinds of strange thoughts sprouted within it like weeds, making him agitated without knowing how to deal with them.

Especially since, the previous night, he had dreamed of Shi Lingqing while sleeping.

The dream had been strange and ambiguous. He and Shi Lingqing had done some things that he could not remember after waking.

His only impression of that dream was that he had suddenly woken amid slight convulsions of his body... Some very unfamiliar things had happened.

The cover in the corner of the wooden shack was violently thrown open. Four Metal Spiders climbed up carrying Old Tie. The Metal Spiders carried Old Tie around Wu Tie three times, and a bolt of electricity shot from Old Tie's great teeth, making Wu Tie howl in pain.

"Women, the most terrifying creatures in the world." Old Tie sighed loudly. "Fortunately, this grandpa doesn't need women and has no such weakness at all... Yang Jian, and quite a few others, suffered greatly because of women back then."

"So, little fellow, how does it feel now?" Old Tie gave a strange cackling laugh.

"I can't explain it." Wu Tie looked honestly at Old Tie. "I don't know either. Anyway, it hurts terribly, but it also feels light."

"It's all the fault of that Master Hui you had before." Old Tie pointed it out without the slightest kindness. "He stuffed too much useless stuff into your head... Weak, useless things, even things far too dangerous for this era."

"Apricot blossoms, spring rain... What kind of rubbish is that?" The blood-red glow in Old Tie's eyes blazed fiercely as he looked at Wu Tie and said in a deep voice, "Those things about grieving for the spring breeze and mourning the autumn... You can play with them in peaceful times, but now..."

"What should I do? What am I supposed to do?" As though he had suddenly grabbed a thick tree trunk amid a flood, Wu Tie hurriedly asked Old Tie.

He also admitted that the things Master Hui had taught him before seemed truly useless. Just like the wonderful thing Master Hui had once longed for, the 'love' that had stirred the fantasies of Wu Tie and his three brothers... Were Shi Lingqing and Qiao together 'because of love'?

Wu Tie was not sure.

What had happened between Shi Lingqing and Qiao made Wu Tie feel dirty and disgusted.

"Hold fast to your true heart!" Old Tie roared. "Little rookie, hold fast to your true heart... Do everything according to your most primal, original impulse. Guard your true heart, then clench your fists and use those fists, your blades, your guns... to wipe out every target that makes your true heart weak and confused!"

"This is a dark forest... Only the strongest hunters have the right to survive." Blinding arcs of electricity burst from Old Tie's great teeth, making Wu Tie howl miserably and leap about in wild panic.

"You've already wasted several days of your life... Though you're still young, young people must not waste their lives either!" Old Tie howled. "Little rookie, do something meaningful. No matter what you do, even if it's just going somewhere with a wide view and fresh air to admire the scenery while taking a piss... Run, move, make young life come alive!"

"Get out of this damned wooden shack. Young people can't be shut-ins."

"Run, move, go do whatever... Run... one-two-one... one-two-one... one-two-one... move!"

Wu Tie ran toward the shack's exit. One of Old Tie's eyeballs emitted an extremely thin red beam, striking viciously against the tight armor covering Wu Tie's backside. A small circular patch of the armor, which blades and swords could barely damage, suddenly turned blazing red as its temperature skyrocketed like a branding iron.

With a miserable howl, Wu Tie clutched his backside and leaped and bolted outside, gasping as he ran away at top speed.

He ran around wildly outside for an entire day. He gave a Giant Hippopotamus a savage beating, knocked out a Water Python, tied two Black Ring Snakes into a beautiful butterfly knot, then hung a Black Widow Spider from a lovely glowing fern using its own silk...

After spending the entire day raising hell, more than ninety percent of the stifling gloom in Wu Tie's heart had dispersed.

Then he found Old Wu and the other two.

The three of them were like three wounded hungry wolves, following subtle traces on the ground as they searched ahead.

Luolin and Ding occasionally slashed through mushroom clusters and fern thickets with their straight blades. Whenever they did, faint snapping sounds came from within, and sometimes arrows, throwing knives, and similar objects flew weakly out.

All along this route, someone had laid down ingenious ambushes. It seemed that person had already guessed they would come from this direction.

Yet Luolin and Ding seemed extremely familiar with that person's methods, easily dismantling every mechanism and ambush along the way.

Only people who knew each other best could achieve such a result.

Wu Tie quietly followed behind them.

He had not yet decided whom to help, but he wanted to see what the ending would be.

As they proceeded onward, Wu Tie discovered in astonishment that they had come all the way to the place where four giant spiders and two giant beasts had perished together that day.

Because one giant beast had self-destructed, the entire stone-pillar forest spanning dozens of miles had sunk. Beneath this forest of stone pillars, under a rock layer roughly a dozen meters thick, was an enormous underground space. The giant beast's self-destruction had damaged the stability of the rock layer, causing the entire stretch of ground to collapse and sink.

Cold wind continuously blew out from the depression spanning dozens of miles. Looking down from its edge, the bottom was perhaps two or three hundred meters below. Countless broken stone pillars and stalagmites lay crisscrossed over the ground, creating a scene of utter chaos.

After searching around the depression for a while, Luolin and the other two quickly found a thick vine hanging down to the bottom.

"They went down from here." Examining the traces left near the vine, Luolin said with certainty, "Qiao knows that with their current manpower, they can't withstand our assassination attempts on open ground."

Old Wu smiled with a trace of coldness. "So he chose this place to fight us to the death?"

Ding also laughed. "This collapse is too deep. Otherwise, we could use the method he thought of that day—lure some big fellow over here, and that would be enough for them to enjoy."

Wu Tie stood over a hundred meters away. Their voices were loud enough that he heard every word clearly.

Ding had mentioned what happened a few days ago. Remembering the miserable state of being chased hundreds of miles by two giant beasts, Wu Tie could not help glaring fiercely at them.

With a cold snort, Wu Tie sprang into the air and jumped into the enormous pit.

An invisible force field enveloped his body, and he glided gently downward. A few breaths later, he safely reached the bottom.

"That kid!" Ding muttered enviously. "What kind of innate ability is that?"

Old Wu patted Ding's shoulder with one hand and said gravely, "What's the point of envying others? Be careful. Let's go down... Shi Lingqing and Qiao must die."

Luolin said in a low voice from the side, "I owe this to my brothers..."

Old Wu laughed and said deeply, "Enough nonsense. We're brothers... Heh, brothers!"

The three climbed down along the vine.

Wu Tie had already stopped paying attention to them. The invisible force field spread across a hundred-meter radius as he moved forward lightly and swiftly.

As he walked, his fingers brushed over a raised diamond-shaped pattern on his chest.

The pale-white tight armor quietly changed color, rapidly shifting from a pale white that was easy to spot into a black as deep as night. Without the slightest reflection, Wu Tie, now completely black, swiftly melted into the darkness in the depths of the pit.

The sunken area was roughly rectangular, over twenty miles long and more than ten miles wide. Wu Tie spent two days searching the bottom of the pit, yet failed to find any trace of Shi Lingqing's group.

Clearly, they had hidden themselves.

He did not know where they were hiding or what methods they were preparing to use against Luolin and the other two.

Wu Tie became increasingly cautious. He used the invisible force field to lift his body, and as he walked, his feet barely touched the ground, making not the slightest sound.

The entire stretch of ground had collapsed, leaving the pit in utter disarray. Howling cold wind constantly blasted from cracks of all sizes in the pit walls. In two days, Wu Tie had searched every area at the bottom of the pit. Only the cracks in the walls remained unexplored.

As he searched along the pit wall inch by inch, Wu Tie suddenly stopped.

Ahead, cold wind kept blowing from a crack in the pit wall over a hundred meters high and more than ten meters wide. Wu Tie's invisible force field had also sensed traces of people moving within.

What caught Wu Tie's attention was not Shi Lingqing's subordinate lying hidden among the rubble at the crack's entrance, but an unusual giant creature over thirty meters inside the crack.

Its entire body was pale white, clearly made from the same metal material as Old Tie.

It looked somewhat like the wolf Master Hui had once described. Its head was identical to Master Hui's wolf head and to the heads of the Azure Wolf warriors and Gray Wolf warriors of the Wu Family.

But at the center of this creature's head was a transparent hole. Near the wound, some crystalline congealed liquid glimmered with a faint light.

Clearly, that hole had inflicted a fatal wound upon it.

"This is... How could this thing be here?" Old Tie's voice suddenly sounded beside Wu Tie. The abrupt voice startled Wu Tie so badly that he nearly cried out.

Whirling around, Wu Tie saw a palm-sized Metal Spider racing toward him from a hundred meters away. After a few bounds, it landed lightly on his shoulder.

"This dog thing, how could it be here?" Old Tie's voice came from the Metal Spider's belly.

"Dog?" Wu Tie suddenly remembered that Master Hui had once said there had been a creature called a dog in ancient times, an animal that ancient people had raised in great numbers.

"This dog thing... is even an old acquaintance of this grandpa... How could it be here?" Old Tie's voice was filled with indescribable emotion. "Bring it back. Now, at once, immediately, bring it back!"