When these two old men were young, one had proposed that "Dragon Blood" was an independently existing form of energy, wholly unlike any substance in the world; the other believed precisely the opposite: it was the "one" that encompassed every substance in existence.
Yet no one could witness the miracle unfolding at that moment.
The spectral blue throughout the space gathered into rivers and flowed toward the center. They converged, compressed, and finally took shape, becoming a humanoid figure similar to a Frost Wraith.
It was just as tall and just as fearsome, but this form was far more majestic and imposing. Rather than the Frost Wraith's elongated build, its proportions more closely resembled a human's-only enlarged to more than twice the size.
Its scales were black, with faint glimmers of spectral fire, dark frost, and violet lightning shining from beneath them.
Across the entire barren wasteland, he alone hovered in the air, the Lord of All Spirits.
His golden eyes shifted slightly, fixing on a direction. He vanished in a flash, stretching the air into a distorted ripple.
Meanwhile, in the sky above Fenghuai, several short, slender blue threads drifted in the wind.
When they first rose on the wind, Profound Wind had enveloped them, carrying them over two high mountains at tremendous speed.
Now they seemed to have reached their destination. The Profound Wind dispersed, but they had flown a little too high; the wind kept tumbling them about, preventing them from descending.
There were many others like them. Some had drifted down along the way, some had encountered mountains and snagged on trees, and a few had been lucky enough to collide with a bird.
Only these few had drifted on and on, until they finally began descending slowly above this small town. Built between two high mountains, it had much gentler winds.
They descended slowly, altering their minute structures to adapt to the air currents, striving to carry themselves onto those enormous, moving sources of food.
For their excessively tiny companions, even the slightest air current was impossible to resist. In the end, they could only helplessly settle wherever fate carried them.
Only a few the size of peanuts achieved their goal.
A farmer taking a break removed his straw hat and wiped away his sweat. Suddenly, his neck itched. He slapped at it, but caught nothing.
He turned and looked around. "Filthy flies. You've got another month to hop around at most."
Chapter 69: Searching for an Object
The County Office.
Pei Ye looked at the black cat, and the black cat gazed quietly back at him.
"You know I haven't seen much of the world," Pei Ye asked hesitantly. "Is this thing really that important?"
"To be singled out by an Immortal Lord is the highest recognition."
"Then what do we do?"
"Find it before he arrives, then have Ming Qitian take it away," the black cat said calmly.
Pei Ye set down the basin, placed the cat on his shoulder, and strode to his room to fetch his sword. "How do we find it? Should we ask Official Chang to mobilize people?"
"No need. A handful of capable people will do," the black cat said. "The clues aren't in our hands, and I don't know where to begin either. More people would only mean more flies buzzing around without heads."
"Then how do we search?"
"Follow the Supreme One True Dragon Immortal Lord's perceptions."
"Didn't you say he might not be able to find it either?"
"He doesn't know what this thing is, nor its exact location. But he can follow his perceptions to find things connected to it. Once he has enough of those, he can pinpoint its location."
Pei Ye had never heard of such an ability, but he could roughly understand the logic behind it.
Yet if that were the case, Black Chi's talk of "getting there first" sounded like a tale from the Arabian Nights. Pei Ye frowned. "You mean we trail behind him, wait until he finds it, then snatch food from the tiger's jaws?"
"What nonsense are you talking?" The black cat glanced at him. "We're doing our best to find ways to stall for time, and he's doing his best to gain time. He was probably laying plans for this from the moment he awoke."
"You mean... Zhu Gaoyang?" Pei Ye now understood why the Immortal Lord had not devoured him.
"He probably is one too, but Zhu Gaoyang has no fragments of my consciousness inside him, and we have no way to follow him. I mean some other 'little fellows' who have come searching. I can roughly pinpoint their locations."
Pei Ye nodded. He understood Black Chi's meaning: use the hands the Immortal Lord had extended to find this object, then take it away during the window before his arrival.
Once fully dressed and equipped, Pei Ye returned to the old man's room.
The old man leaned against his wheelchair, the contentment on his face not yet entirely faded.
"Going home?" the old man rasped when he heard him enter.
"Aren't you eating well and sleeping comfortably? What's the rush to go back?" Pei Ye said softly. "It's not over yet. I need to find something."
Then he explained the current situation.
"You're saying that thing could already fight the third-ranked person on the Crane List to a standstill last night?"
Clearly, no one had told the old man about the situation Fenghuai now faced. His voice compressed into a harsh, iron rasp, and a cold hardness emanated from his ruined body.
The danger of what the boy had become involved in exceeded the old man's expectations. He rasped, "This is what you've been facing these past two days?"
"Yes. He may arrive before long. Stay here at the County Office," Pei Ye urged. "It's at least a little safer here."
"What does any of this have to do with you?"
"..." Pei Ye froze, unable to answer immediately.
Indeed, this affair no longer had much to do with him.
He held no official post, and his strength was meager. He had merely been dragged into events before; now Ming Qitian had freed him from that spiderweb. He was only an ordinary citizen.
"It's all right. What I'm going to do now isn't dangerous. I won't come face-to-face with that thing," Pei Ye reassured the old man. "Besides, I couldn't sit still and wait for the outcome anyway."
"Idiot," the old man rasped.
"Haha." Pei Ye laughed.
He knew the old man was anxious out of concern. Over these past few days, the two who had depended on each other for so many years had suddenly barely seen one another. It was easy to imagine the old man's worry.
Now he had finally returned in one piece, only to head out and stir things up again before they had exchanged more than a few words.
The boy understood the unease and helplessness of an old man who could not move, whose entire world was dark, and who could only wait in his wheelchair as the seconds and minutes passed. He reassured him again. "Don't worry. There really won't be any trouble this time. I'm just taking a look around town. If I find nothing, I'll come back."
Pei Ye gently squeezed the old man's frail hand, then turned and left.
Listening to Pei Ye walk out the door, the old man slowly reclined against the chair back, his two dark hollows staring fixedly into the air.
After a long while, he murmured, "The tides of the times never favor me; how many times have I begun anew?"
When Pei Ye reached the main hall, the black cat was pointing things out on a table, with Xing Zhi, Shang Lang, and several experts from the prefecture gathered around it.
The black cat stood on a map of Fenghuai County that covered the entire table. Bright red, plum-blossom-shaped paw prints marked several places.
Xing Zhi was relaying its instructions to the newly assembled group. "The hosts at these two locations outside town are relatively small, probably rats or rabbits, but they'll certainly try to enter town. Whoever goes there must be especially thorough and sharp-eyed. The hosts at Breezy Lane, the old riverbed, the north bridgehead, and the great willow tree are larger-probably all human. First, you must record where they go and what they search for. Second, do your best to prevent them from spreading-the first objective takes priority."
Everyone nodded.
Shang Lang and the others were all at sixth growth or seventh growth. Dealing with parasitized ordinary people would be effortless, but this mission was not to eliminate the threat. It was to secretly use them as hunting hounds.
"Groups of two or three. Keep one another informed at all times. If you need more people, call in a few more. Lower cultivation is fine, but they must be quick-witted." After giving her orders, Xing Zhi turned and saw Pei Ye entering. "Do you want to go with Shang Lang?"
"No need. Brother Shang can lead his own group. I'll just take the cat."
"All right. You know Fenghuai well. Pick your location first."
Pei Ye swept his eyes over the map, his gaze lingering on the bright red paw print over the words "north bridgehead." Memories of trotting along that route years ago flooded his mind, and he smiled unconsciously. "I'll go here. It's a little out of the way, and you'd have trouble finding your way around."
They quickly divided up the locations, each took a diagram, and vanished from sight in a series of bounds.
Pei Ye led out a horse, tucked the black cat into his clothes, then mounted and rode off.
The north bridgehead felt familiar because it lay on the route Pei Ye had taken to and from the martial school back then. If lessons ended early, he and his friends would use the remaining daylight to fish for fish and shrimp in the stream.
There were few households here to begin with, and many of the buildings were abandoned old houses. The paths twisted and turned, which was why Pei Ye had volunteered to take it himself.
Arriving there, Pei Ye tied his horse beside a tree and surveyed the surroundings. The doors of the few houses were all shut. Their occupants had presumably gone outside town to tend their fields.
"Is this the place?" Pei Ye turned to ask the black cat.
The black cat did not answer, instead indicating a man ahead wearing a straw hat.
The figure looked familiar. Pei Ye remembered often seeing him cheerfully planing new furniture in the courtyard by the bridge when he crossed it years ago. He simply did not know why the man had never moved into a new house afterward.
Seeing him now offered a perfect chance to ask about anything unusual nearby.
He raised his hand and opened his mouth, but "Uncle Guang" caught in his throat.
It was the busy farming season. Why had he come back just after heading to the fields?
And he was walking toward the martial school.
Chapter 70: Wooden Bead, Book, Ming Qitian
Shang Lang found his target faster than anyone else.
Despite fighting almost all night and suffering several wounds, Shang Lang remained one of Fenghuai's strongest fighters below the grandmaster level.
The martial arts he practiced excelled particularly in rapid recovery and resilience under injury and exhaustion, so handling matters like these was naturally well within his capabilities.
His assigned location was Breezy Lane, an old street whose houses and courtyards suggested that its residents were generally somewhat wealthier. Shops lined much of the street: the Li Family Tailor Shop, Old Lu's Wine Shop, the Old Artisan Jewelry Shop... it seemed to be the most "bustling" place in town.
Even so, people were still sparse on the street, allowing Shang Lang to spot something unusual at a glance.
A girl of sixteen ran into the jewelry shop.
There was nothing unusual about a girl buying jewelry, of course, but this girl had been dragged into the shop by a large dog.
"Big Black! Stop! Big Black!"
Sweat covered the frantic girl's forehead as the leash dragged her stumbling along. Then came a sudden sharp turn. She looked up to see the large dog leap into a roadside shop.
"Oh no! Big Black! Don't damage their things!"
The girl was dragged through the doorway and nearly tripped over the threshold. Before she could regain her footing, another violent tug jerked her forward-the dog had leaped straight into the jewelry display.
Silver beads clattered to the floor amid the cracking of crystal and jade. The girl's heart turned to ice, while the shopkeeper, terrified by the great black beast charging in, sprang clear over the counter.
The black dog seized something from the display in its mouth, then turned. Its blue eyes, like ghostly flames, frightened the girl into a cry. She released the leash and collapsed onto the floor.
Having seized the object, the dog seemed to have completed its mission. It opened its mouth and dropped the object onto the floor, then bared its sharp teeth and lunged at the girl.
"Ah!! Big Black!!" the girl screamed. Suddenly, her body felt weightless, and she flew backward as a figure stepped in front of her.
Shang Lang clamped one hand around the dog's jaws, using his body to conceal its mutating form. Turning his head, he said, "Your dog seems to have gone mad. I'll pay for the damage here. Go home."
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