Jade Marsh Beneath the City

"One month! A whole month!" Youyou threw back his head and sighed at the sky. "How did I not think of having him try that book... What an idiot! I'm too ashamed to face anyone!"

The white snake rolled about on the table in frustration, using his long, chestless, legless body to vividly demonstrate what it meant to beat one's chest and stamp one's feet. Ji Qiufeng looked utterly unruffled. "It's not your fault. I never expected that book's appraisal level to be so high either. We got lucky~"

Jie An wiped the sweat from his brow. "This is your life we're talking about, Mr. Ji. Could you not act like it has nothing to do with you?"

"Keeping a level head is what matters most." Ji Qiufeng looked leisurely at the yellow crystal on the table and cleared his throat. "Ahem! Can you hear me? If I try a little harder, staying alive for another two months definitely won't be a problem. You two, don't do anything rash. Stay safe. That's all."

A muffled female voice came from the yellow crystal. "Dad..."

"That didn't exactly lift my spirits," Chu Hengkong commented.

Youyou rushed up to the crystal and shrieked, hissing, "Don't listen to his nonsense! Even if you have to smash the swamp apart, you must find the gold, understand?!"

"Understood!" "Orders received."

Chu Hengkong put the communication crystal back into his pocket and looked into the distance alongside his excited partner.

The damp wind billowed the white sails. The dragon god statue at the bow sliced through the water as the Dragon-Rowing Boat moved in fits and starts along the city's waterways, heading toward the terminal station in the lower levels. This vessel was the most commonly used means of transport between the middle and lower levels. It resembled a medieval three-masted sailing ship, but like the city's other machinery, it was powered by Flow Pearls. Its three decks could hold up to three thousand passengers at once, making it a genuine behemoth.

Naturally, overloading was the shared fate of vehicles like this. No matter how sensible the original design, the actual cabins were packed to the brim from overcrowding. So the two of them slipped onto the roof of the cabin, where standing was strictly forbidden, and flagrantly enjoyed the wind that swept past the white sails.

"Yahoo!" Ji Huaishu pumped her fist, looking exactly like a child on a spring outing. Chu Hengkong could not help smiling. "Watch your image, Captain Huaisu."

"Can't I be happy? You've got a silly grin all over your face too." Ji Huaishu bared her teeth. "By the way, you obviously cared so much. Why did you put on that deadpan face and act like you had no feelings at all?"

"You mean last night?" Chu Hengkong hesitated. He was about to bring up the past again. "It's a habit from when I was in the underworld."

"...The underworld has rules about suppressing your expressions?"

"No, but we controlled our emotions." Chu Hengkong said, "My boss said grief was another name for giving up. Only after exhausting every possible means did a person earn the right to grieve. So we tried every idea we could think of, no matter how absurd it was, until the person died and the dust settled. Only then did we mourn silently before their grave."

Ji Huaishu stared at him as though she were looking at an all-powerful super machine. She vigorously slapped Chu Hengkong on the shoulder. "I really admire your boss's iron will and forceful bearing... But if you keep this up, I think you'll turn into a machine! You're a living person—cry when you need to cry, laugh when you need to laugh. Please, next time, can you just normally say, 'I've got another idea'?"

Girl, you're really overthinking it. My emotions are plenty rich, and my mind works perfectly fine. But if I also stood around heaving long sighs whenever something happened, wouldn't the team atmosphere completely collapse? Chu Hengkong could not be bothered to argue. He merely gripped the railing. "We're about to drop. Be careful not to fall."

The waterway ahead was plunging downward. The thunderous roar of water reduced even the wind to a faint whisper. Before the route lay an enormous void, where the water poured upside down over its edge, becoming a thousand-zhang waterfall that dropped from the Central District to the lower levels. The Dragon-Rowing Boat accelerated toward the waterfall with such ferocity that it seemed to be staging a grand suicide. The cabins were full of children's excited screams. Ji Huaishu obediently grasped the railing, but her expression abruptly changed.

"Um..." The blonde girl stammered. "I just remembered something."

"What is it?" Chu Hengkong immediately had a bad feeling.

"The outside of the Dragon-Rowing Boat doesn't seem to be waterproof..."

Darkness fell before Chu Hengkong's eyes. "That was your rotten idea!"

In an instant, heaven and earth flipped upside down. The Dragon-Rowing Boat crossed the boundary and plunged down along the waterfall's surface. Towering waves swallowed their vision, and roaring filled every direction, as if the waterfall itself were bellowing in fury. Chu Hengkong hurriedly pulled down his hood, preparing to become a drowned rat, but the impact he had imagined never came. Before him was only a faint golden glow.

Ji Huaishu had raised a spherical shield and was secretly watching his reaction. Chu Hengkong yanked back his hood. "I can tell you really like this gag."

"You're just too steady. You hardly ever get flustered!" Ji Huaishu snickered. "How does it feel to ride the waves?"

"Honestly, it's spectacular." Chu Hengkong said. "Even taking a bus here is an epic adventure. Only this place could manage that."

By then, the vessel gradually steadied. The Dragon-Rowing Boat landed upon the waterfall and sailed straight down with an unnatural stability, following the rushing current. Once the mist dispersed, a rich expanse of jade green unfolded before them. That color came from leaves, grass and trees, lakes, and swamps. Verdant forests spread out like a painted scroll, dotted with deep-green marshes of every size, like the eyes of the earth.

At the heart of the forest stood the giant tree that pierced through Dragon's Return City. Its gnarled roots floated over the lakes, holding up patches of brown earth amid the swamps. Low houses had been built against the roots and extended in every direction, forming settlements within the forest. There were dozens of such settlements, large and small, and nearly half of Dragon's Return City's population lived here.

This was the lowest level of Dragon's Return City: the Jade Marsh District, belonging to plants and swamps.

"Fresh giant squid! Five Flow Pearls each!" "Genuine swamp treasure maps!" "Miracle medicines!" "Mushrooms. Tasty mushrooms."...

Right outside the terminal station was the local marketplace, where vendors' cries rose in a deafening clamor. Big geese with blue feathers honked loudly between the stalls, occasionally brawling with the watchdogs kept by merchants. The mud they splashed landed impartially on the trouser legs of both vendors and customers, drawing bursts of shouting. Hot and humid, filthy, alive with insects chirping everywhere—the air was full of grimy vitality. Compared to the Central District, this place was astonishingly lively.

"Your outfit is out of place," Chu Hengkong said.

The moment she got off the boat, Ji Huaishu wrapped herself tightly in a yellow raincoat, hiding both her blonde hair and pretty face in the shadow beneath the hood. Chu Hengkong was already tempted to take off his own coat. He could not imagine how hot it must be to wear a raincoat in a place like this.

"There's a reason for it... Anyway, it's inconvenient for me to show my face in the Jade Marsh District." Ji Huaishu lowered her voice. "You'll have to handle external negotiations this time. Do you know much about the lower levels?"

"It's my first time here."

"All right, then. Your captain will teach you some basic common sense about the lower levels. First lesson: all the children at the docks are thieves."

"Very timely." Chu Hengkong caught a small hand reaching for his pocket.

That filthy hand belonged to a horned boy. Having been caught, he shamelessly grinned in apology. Another horned little girl emerged from the crowd and, taking advantage of the diverted attention, reached for Chu Hengkong's left pocket. It was bulging; surely it was stuffed full of Flow Pearls.

The little girl grabbed nothing. She only saw the sleeve of the coat flick, and somehow her hand had grabbed the arm of the gap-toothed boy instead. The two little thieves stared at each other's horns. When they turned around, the man in the coat had already vanished into the crowd.

"Their horns look like rhinoceros beetles'."

"That means they have Forestfolk blood, like Mrs. Ansa. Whenever you see horns, unusually colored skin, scales, or similar traits, you can generally conclude they're immigrants from the Divine Tree City-State." Ji Huaishu slightly raised her chin. "Look over there. Your peers."

Following her gesture, Chu Hengkong spotted a particularly unusual stall among the fruit vendors. A man dressed as a warrior in light purple armor knelt on a white cloth. Behind him stood two large banners, the left reading, "Kill Without Blood," and the right, "Heartless Secret Art." Several thugs carrying blunt swords and clubs stood around the warrior. The moment they saw Chu Hengkong looking, they immediately shouted, "What are you looking at, customer?!" "Want to kill someone, customer?!" "If you want to kill, bring your Flow Pearls, customer!"

Chu Hengkong answered with a gentle smile, then turned and said, "I need to correct your misconception. We assassins are not such a... comical group."

"They're exiles from Asura Island. Their manner of speaking is strange, but most of them are quite capable." Ji Huaishu said, "Watch your step. Don't step on a squid."

Chu Hengkong looked down and met the gaze of a pair of tiny eyes lurking in the mud. A pink creature resembling a squid was hiding underground. It stretched out a filthy tentacle to wrap around him, apparently very interested in Chu Hengkong. But a blue-feathered goose playing by the roadside noticed the little thing as well. It lunged over and swallowed the squid and the dirt in a single bite.

Several tentacles protruding from the goose's beak struggled desperately. The goose shot Chu Hengkong a smug look—but upon noticing Ji Huaishu beside him, it instantly sprang up like a startled bird and turned into a stream of water, shooting into the roadside drain.

Chu Hengkong recalled the cafeteria's most common main dish. "This thing..."

"It's the squid and goose you eat every day." Ji Huaishu explained. "Water-Repelling Geese like eating squid and all sorts of small devices, but the moment they see a woman, they turn into water and flee. Burrowing Squid, meanwhile, love shiny little objects and are drawn to strong men."

Chu Hengkong's expression turned strange as he watched another Water-Repelling Goose "swim" out of a fishmonger's tank. "...Squid emerge from the ground? And geese come out of water?"

"What else would they do?" Ji Huaishu found this amusing. "Don't tell me you actually have to raise things like that?"

"Where I come from, yes."

"God, your home is really strange."

Ji Huaishu nimbly squeezed through the crowd and led him around an alley between wooden houses. This market was too large, with too many chaotic odds and ends; first-time visitors to Jade Marsh could easily get lost right at the entrance. Along the way, Chu Hengkong saw yellow-clad people praying around cherrywood carvings, refugees from the Netherworld Divine Kingdom; tall, stern-faced groups who addressed one another by numbers, descendants of an ancient giant realm; medicine sellers growing mushrooms, fishermen with beast heads, people possessed by demons selling octopus balls...

There were too many people, and they were too diverse. Even he felt dazzled for a moment. They clearly came from different worlds, yet they spoke the same language. This swamp was like an emerald crucible, where races and cultures fused amid the damp air. He realized that Dragon's Return City must once have connected to many Dust Islands, or it could never have attracted so many immigrants. But now the city was sealed off, and those immigrants had become homeless remnants...

The thought made Chu Hengkong feel stifled, and he could not help loosening his collar. Ji Huaishu mistook it for heat and quietly reminded him, "Hold on a little longer. We're almost there."

"I'm taking off my coat."

Thinking that tentacles were hardly anything unusual in a place like this, Chu Hengkong casually began removing his coat. Ji Huaishu hurriedly grabbed his arm. "Don't!"

But she was a step too late. Chu Hengkong had pulled the coat halfway off, exposing his tentacle to the damp air. Curious gazes turned toward him from every direction, and startled gasps rose one after another. Conversations around them stopped. More than half the market turned to look, everyone staring at that tentacle.

Those fanatical, bizarre stares felt inexplicably familiar to Chu Hengkong. The next moment, a fish seller was the first to raise both hands high, his voice nearly reverent with ecstasy. "Oh, oh! The Great Tentacle! The hand of God!!"