The Insect Lord

Year 1347 of Great Li, the fourth year of Qianyang.

Cloudcang Town, Bailu Commandery, Lingnan Prefecture.

It was the height of summer. The furnace-like sun had blazed overhead for seven days straight, leaving everyone drenched in sweat and struggling through the unbearable heat.

Thunder rumbled, and fierce winds rose. Layer upon layer of black clouds shrouded the sky, pressing down in a gloomy mass. Fat raindrops came splashing down, joining into a curtain of rain in the blink of an eye.

"Finally, rain."

Beneath the thatched eaves, water streamed from the fringe of straw, splashing muddy yellow water beside the feet of a thin, pale young man.

Su Yan paid no attention to the muddy water. His eyes flickered, unusually bright.

He turned back into the thatched hut, briskly took a straw raincoat and hat from the wall, and put them on.

Su Yan was only fifteen or sixteen, with a face as pale as paper and a gaunt frame.

Even beneath the worn-out raincoat, his frail build was apparent.

Once dressed, he stuffed a tattered fishing net into the carrying basket beside him, picked up a chopping knife polished bright from sharpening, and slipped it into the wooden sheath at his waist.

He looked up at the sky. It was as dark as night.

The curtain of rain obscured nearby Cloudridge Mountain in a misty haze. Its rolling ridges resembled a great python stretched across a hundred li.

He strode into the rain, his thin figure beneath the straw raincoat gradually receding as he hurried toward the mountains.

To the south of Cloudcang Town lay the eight-hundred-li expanse of Cloudridge Mountain, its ancient forests dense and maze-like.

To the north lay the six-hundred-li White Reed Lake, with countless tributaries like winding bends that could steal a soul.

Those mountains and waters sustained all the villages around Cloudcang Town, as well as the hundreds of thousands living in the town itself.

The mountains and waters held many treasures, including Treasure Fish, rare beasts, spirit plants, and exotic herbs. None were easy to obtain, and hunters, fishermen, and mountain trekkers made their living from them.

Mountain rain chills you to the bone, and these rugged trails are hard to travel. No wonder Uncle Xie warned me over and over never to enter the mountains in the rain.

Large raindrops splashed into his eyes, blurring his vision. The already muddy mountain trail had become difficult to navigate.

Every step landed Su Yan in another muddy hollow, but his gaze remained firm as he hurried toward Cloudridge Mountain.

Mountain trekkers survived not because they were exceptionally capable, but because they knew where danger lay and where they should or should not go.

He was a mountain trekker. Though he had only been doing it for five months and four days, he knew a little of what he needed to know.

But he had to make this trip.

It was not greed clouding his mind or a desire for treasures found in the rain.

It was his chance to turn his life around.

Five months earlier, he had still been a law student preparing for the public-sector recruitment exams.

He had studied from lamplight in the dead of night until the roosters crowed at dawn. Yet while trying to save someone, he had unexpectedly transmigrated into a boy in Yunqian Village who shared his name, Su Yan.

The boy's mother had died of illness years before. Trying to save her had left the family deeply in debt.

With tax day approaching and debts to those thugs also coming due, the boy's father had taken a desperate gamble and climbed a cliff to gather stone-ear grass. Not even his remains had been recovered.

One thing had led to another, and Su Yan had gained this second life.

Rain pattered and cracked, battering the old trees until they shook their heads and swayed, giving off strange creaking sounds.

The chill gradually seeped through his straw raincoat and spread across his back.

Su Yan pulled the raincoat tighter, wiped the rain from his face, checked his bearings, and hurried down a narrow trail.

The chopping knife at his waist was already in his hand. Shrubs and tangled branches crowded both sides of the trail, and he had to cut them away to pass.

The shrubs are thick, and no one has passed through. That spot probably hasn't been discovered.

The state of the trail eased his mind a little.

He hurried onward, slipping several times on the muddy mountain path and ending up covered in mud.

His straw raincoat was already soaked through, inside and out.

Even so, Su Yan refused to stop.

At last, he pushed aside a shrub, and the view abruptly opened up. Two moss-covered boulders came into sight.

A narrow gap lay between the rocks. A trickle flowed from it and gathered beneath them, forming a small pool four or five square meters across.

Fish surfaced in the pool to breathe, sending up little strings of pearl-like bubbles.

Su Yan's eyes brightened, and he took the tattered fishing net from his basket.

Yet he did not act. Instead, he quietly moved to one side of the pool and hid among the shrubs, straw raincoat and all.

Su Yan remained completely still, holding his breath and watching like a stone.

Rain struck his body and soaked through his hemp clothes, raising goosebumps across his skin.

He gritted his teeth and forced himself not to shiver, his knuckles whitening around the fishing net.

You tread a thousand mountains seeking treasure, only to become dry bones among the peaks.

A mountain trekker's life is cheap. We all trade our lives with the mountain lord for treasures. If I can't find a Darkwater Centipede today, even a cold might kill this frail body.

A cold required treatment, and treatment required money.

But he had no money.

Su Yan was gambling—gambling on a chance to turn his life around.

When he had first arrived, who wouldn't have wanted to come up with something new and make a way forward?

But no sooner had the thought arisen than it had been snuffed out completely.

Never mind having no starting capital or living in such harsh times. For a mountain trekker of lowly registered status, the mountain fees and poll tax alone were enough to crush him until he could barely breathe.

More importantly, martial artists ruled this world.

When an individual's strength can far surpass ordinary people, a Little Mountain Market established in a city can keep villages of every size under its heel for two hundred years.

Getting ahead in a world like this was far too difficult.

Su Yan's heart sank as he recalled watching an important figure from the Little Mountain Society subdue a Savage Beast in the mountains.

Two or three effortless steps had carried him hundreds of meters. With a soft shout, the phantom of a black wolf four or five meters tall had risen from his body.

A single point of his finger had brought down a vicious six-meter tiger that had killed over a hundred hunters and mountain trekkers.

If just one person possessed such martial might, Su Yan knew that no number of ordinary people could overturn the heavens above them.

Those at the bottom are just crop after crop of chives waiting to be cut. If I want to turn my life around, I have to practice martial arts!

The rain began to thin, and the scattered sounds in the forest gradually softened.

Rustle.

At the faint sound, Su Yan immediately held his breath and fixed his gaze on the pool.

The water-soaked moss and grass rustled. A streak of dark purple flashed through the gap between the rocks.

Su Yan's entire body tensed at the sound. His eyes locked onto the dark purple creature crawling from the moss and grass in the crevice.

What an extraordinary centipede!

It was three fingers thick and as long as a forearm. Its densely packed, jointed legs resembled a thousand black needles clinging to the moss on the rocks.

[Darkwater Centipede (unranked)]

[A centipede that gradually gained supernatural traits by absorbing vital energy as an ordinary insect. It lives near water, emerges after rain, swims well, and can be used in medicine...]

[Can be refined]

Su Yan concentrated, and the Darkwater Centipede's information appeared before his eyes.

The gleaming words "Can be refined" made his eyes shine and joy well up in his heart.

After months of waiting, roaming these mountains and risking encounters with countless venomous insects, he had finally found a variant he could refine.

The Darkwater Centipede's two antennae swayed slightly. Then it suddenly shot into the water like an arrow.

Before the fish in the pool could react, one doubled over. A black fish as long as a forearm, almost the same length as the centipede, was seized in its vicious bite.

In an instant, the fish stopped moving, a black line appearing along its body.

Now!

Su Yan immediately cast the tattered net in his hands. He had bought it from an old fisherman specifically for this purpose, spending a hundred copper coins.

After stitching and patching, he had barely restored a usable section of the large net, only three or four square meters in size.

Fortunately, he was catching an insect, not fish.

The net struck the water, startling the Darkwater Centipede.

With a hiss, it spat a jet of pitch-black venom that landed beside the shrubs.

Within a few breaths, the weeds it struck had already begun to wither.

Su Yan watched in alarm, but pulled hard, hauling the Darkwater Centipede up along with the net.

The centipede's countless legs were normally its best tools for clinging to rock faces. Now, however, those many limbs became tangled in the net, leaving it bundled up on the muddy ground.

The Darkwater Centipede was small but surprisingly strong. It rolled in the mud, tearing several holes in the net through sheer force.

Seeing this, Su Yan picked up a crooked stick nearby and struck it.

He held nothing back. Uncle Xie had told him during their mountain treks that unusual creatures were always harder to handle than ordinary ones.

Even an unusual insect could not easily be subdued with a blow or two. He had warned Su Yan to be extremely cautious whenever he encountered one.

Three or five blows fell with hard clacks, as though he were striking a tough-shelled coconut. The Darkwater Centipede curled into a ball, its struggles gradually weakening.

Within his sea of consciousness stood a blue-green insect cauldron with three legs and two handles. Its legs took the form of long insects, its handles vicious ones. Hundreds upon thousands of fierce insects coiled across its body, hideous and lifelike, seemingly fighting to devour one another.

The insect cauldron hummed, and Su Yan's eyes flickered.

It worked.

The Fierce Insect Cauldron emanated an aura like the primordial wilderness of an ancient universe. Before it, the Darkwater Centipede seemed no more than an ant and dared not move at all.

Su Yan reached out and touched the Darkwater Centipede. A streak of light sank into the cauldron, and then information appeared before his eyes:

[First-Rank Insect Master: 1/100]

[Insect Realm: 1 cubic meter]

[Mountain Trekking: 94/100 (beginner)]

[Darkwater Centipede: 1/100 (newborn)]