A rainy night

Stone Village could perhaps be called a special place amid the vast mountain ranges. Though mountains surrounded it on all four sides, it brimmed with life, giving Di Yi an entirely different feeling.

This was an experience wholly unlike either being in that place that formed a world of its own or wandering aimlessly through the boundless mountains.

He seemed to have grown somewhat fond of this atmosphere.

At dusk, the setting sun hung among the branches, spilling light like shattered gold and staining the clouds along the horizon red. It was beautiful.

A group of twenty or thirty children, ranging from a few years old to their teens, had long since gathered in the clearing at the village entrance. They played in little clusters, waiting for the rare, lavish evening feast.

As for the adults, they sharpened their knives and carved up the enormous beasts. Clanging rang out from time to time as blades struck bone; clearly, the beasts' skeletons were astonishingly hard.

As night fell, cooking smoke rose and bonfires were built. The butchered meat was laid out in an orderly fashion, and before long, its aroma filled the air.

Slowly, as the women turned the meat roasting over the fires, it became golden and glossy with oil. Fat dripped from it now and then, sizzling as it fell into the flames.

At that moment, even the burly men, let alone the children, could no longer restrain themselves. The scent of meat made their mouths water.

"Today, a guest has come to our Stone Village, an honored guest..." Knowing it was his moment to perform, the old clan chief stood up, drew Di Yi over, and launched into a long speech.

Of course, much of it was empty talk, or rather, polite pleasantries, but his simple feelings were quite sincere.

Soon, once the opening speech was over, men and women, young and old all grew lively. With the bonfires dancing, they chatted about their families and everyday affairs.

"Food..." Di Yi held the beast meat the old clan chief had handed him, feeling its searing heat. This would be his first time eating, and the experience was entirely new.

"Is it not to your taste?" Seeing that Di Yi had not taken a bite right away, the old clan chief wondered whether he disdained the village's food or had some particular requirements.

Yet Stone Village had nothing else to offer its guest. After all, in the cruel Great Wilderness, where savage birds and fierce beasts roamed and lives were constantly threatened, even this beast meat was hard to come by.

"No." Di Yi shook his head, then imitated the way most of the others ate and began eating the meat in his hands.

The taste was very distinctive.

"By the way, I forgot to ask earlier. Have you come to our Stone Village, to this part of the Great Wilderness, for some particular reason?" The old clan chief tried to draw closer to Di Yi, asking with great care.

"Nothing in particular. I simply walked here." Di Yi wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth and took the opportunity to ask, "Do you know what this place is called? Does it have a name like those terms mentioned earlier, 'beyond the Great Wilderness' or 'kings and lords'?"

"It seems you must have come here from a very distant place." The old clan chief gleaned quite a bit from Di Yi's words and gained a clearer understanding. "We're within the area of Lone Mountain. A little over a hundred li away is Lone Mountain Town. Beyond that are territories named after great tribes and clans, such as the Thunder Clan, Luofu Marsh, the Purple Mountain Clan, and the Golden Wolf Tribe. Of course, all of that is still considered part of the Great Wilderness. As for its actual name in the broader sense, I recall it being called the Western Frontier. Beyond that lies the Stone Kingdom. The entire Great Wilderness falls within the Stone Kingdom's borders."

"Lone Mountain Town, the Western Frontier, the Stone Kingdom... What about farther beyond?" Di Yi nodded. Applying the earlier explanation of kings and lords, this was undoubtedly an immense place, and people like him numbered at least in the hundreds of millions.

"This old man knows nothing of what lies farther beyond. Everything I know has been passed down from generation to generation. No one from our village has left the Great Wilderness for a very, very long time." The old clan chief shook his head, indicating that his knowledge was limited and he could not answer everything.

"I understand.

" Di Yi did not pursue the matter further. After all, he already knew the general picture and understood where he was and what sort of world he inhabited. "Where do you intend to go next?" Seeing the conversation stall awkwardly, the old clan chief changed the subject to continue drawing closer to him.

"I haven't decided." Di Yi did not know where he should go either. "By the way, do you know where I can find people like me?"

Earlier, Stone Village's clan chief had said that people like him could be counted on one hand. That meant that while people like him were rare, they did exist. He felt he could seek them out and see whether they had a way to heal him.

"Well... this old man doesn't know. Someone as powerful as you-I imagine such people could only be found in the Stone Kingdom's imperial capital." The old clan chief shook his head. This question lay beyond his knowledge, and he could offer no useful answer.

"The Stone Kingdom's imperial capital? What is an imperial capital?" Di Yi asked. He had heard another unfamiliar term that he could not understand.

Hearing this, the old clan chief was stumped. After thinking it over at length, he asked a crucial question: "Did you only learn our language from that bone text, without fully learning what each word means?"

"Perhaps." Di Yi gave no definite answer, though he had a feeling that this might indeed be where the problem lay.

"I see... That is indeed troublesome." The old clan chief's thoughts immediately sprang into motion as he considered the approach that would benefit Stone Village most. "Then... how about this? Since you haven't decided where to go anyway, why not stay in Stone Village for a while? First, you learned the language, yet didn't truly learn it, so that could be considered our fault. Second, it really has been a long time since Stone Village had a guest. Your arrival has given us a new face and brought fresh life here. For our Stone Village, perhaps this could be a new beginning."

"Stay here for a while?" Di Yi pondered, then nodded.

He had not intended to leave so soon anyway.

After all, everything here was so novel to him. In a single day, he had encountered many things he had never experienced before, and he felt he might encounter even more in the days to come.

"That's wonderful-no, what this old man means is..." Just as the old clan chief tried to conceal his excitement and the fact that he had achieved his goal, a sudden explosive crash rang out in the night sky.

Thunder erupted out of nowhere!

Immediately afterward, a fierce wind swept through the Great Wilderness, soon followed by heavy rain. It came so suddenly that the men and women of Stone Village, young and old alike, were drenched like drowned chickens before they could react.

"Why did it suddenly start raining?" Everyone cursed. The peaceful bonfire feast had been forced to end before it was over.

"The weather in the Great Wilderness is unpredictable, and with those huge creatures around, how could we expect favorable winds and timely rain? Since Heaven won't oblige us, let's end things here for today. Everyone, hurry home and don't catch a chill." The old clan chief directed everyone in an orderly manner through the downpour.

"This rain..." Unlike the people of Stone Village, who had been soaked like drowned chickens, Di Yi stood as though nothing had happened. His whole body remained perfectly clean and dry; not a single drop of rain could come near him.

"Honored guest, you should hurry and take shel..." Once the old clan chief had finished making arrangements, he intended to lead Di Yi to his nearby house to shelter from the rain. After all, though he knew the man named Di Yi was powerful and perhaps already impervious to cold, courtesy was still necessary.

But when he turned around, his eyes filled with disbelief, as though he had seen a ghost.

"Lightning..." Di Yi paid no attention to the old clan chief. He felt that this downpour had come far too strangely. Above the pitch-black clouds, somewhere in the distance, there seemed to be flashes of blades and shadows of swords.

"Honored guest, what are you looking at?" The old clan chief wavered, unsure whether to leave Di Yi behind and go inside alone or step forward and bring him in.

"Go on. This rain will grow even heavier soon. Don't catch a chill." Di Yi gestured for the old clan chief not to worry about him.

"Well..." The old clan chief did not know how to respond. After weighing his options, he could only return alone to his house, not far from the village entrance.

Boom!

The rain grew heavier and heavier, and the lightning and thunder reached a frenzy, illuminating heaven and earth from time to time as brightly as day.

The wind between the mountain ridges grew fiercer still, its force unmatched, as though it would not rest until it had torn the thick trees out by their roots.

"Yunfeng, go shut the windows in your room properly. This rain is far too strange. Why wasn't there any warning at all?" In Shi Yunshan's house, he instructed his son Shi Yunfeng while fitting the fastenings that secured the doors and windows of his own room.

"All right." Shi Yunfeng nodded. After closing and securing the windows, he crawled under his covers.

Time trickled past. As the night deepened, the storm showed not the slightest sign of stopping, raging with utter fury. He was startled awake again and again and could not sleep at all, so he simply sat by the window and gazed outside.

Boom!

Lightning suddenly flashed. Amid the dazzling light, it struck a great mountain and split it apart, unleashing mountain floods like a surging sea as countless savage beasts scattered in a mad dash.

Shi Yunfeng's eyes went wide, his heart trembling again and again. That lightning was too terrifying. He worried that it might strike Stone Village, and wondered whether he could survive unharmed.

"Sacrificial Spirit, protect us. Sacrificial Spirit, protect us..." Shi Yunfeng's young heart was shaken. This was a natural disaster no human strength could withstand, and he could only place his hopes in the Sacrificial Spirit.

Boom!

Lightning flashed once more, striking a mountain farther away. Shattered rocks pierced the sky as though the end of the world had come, and the oppressive atmosphere was suffocating.