This should... be the place, right?
Looking at the darkening sky, Chen Qing grew anxious. If he couldn't find it now, he really wouldn't be able to find it once night fell, and he would have to tough out the night in this godforsaken place.
There were no wild beasts here to carry him off, but it was cold. It was only March, and even though he had exercised since childhood, he didn't think his body could withstand a cold spring night in the wilderness.
Finally... just as the sun was about to sink completely below the horizon, the sickle the carpenter had sold Chen Qing broke through to a relatively open patch.
Chen Qing's eyes lit up, and he picked up the pace. There were scorch marks here, proof that someone had visited within the past two years!
As for who that visitor was, Chen Qing already had a guess. A face surfaced in his mind, belonging to someone with a humorous personality who had taken care of him in many ways.
Now... it was time to find out if he was right!
As he hacked through the new thorn bushes outside, the cave they concealed came into view. It was huge. Once inside, one would find that the cave alone was over ten meters high, more impressive than many natural limestone caves. It truly was a whole other world.
And the deeper Chen Qing went, the more he felt the temperature rising.
This wasn't a case of a cave being warm in winter and cool in summer. Clearly, something at the center of the cave was giving off a tremendous amount of heat.
Chen Qing approached step by step. The familiar yet unfamiliar scene around him made everything seem increasingly clear. If one listened carefully at that moment, one would hear a dragon's roar coming from the cave entrance behind him.
The rumors had not come from nowhere. The dragon's roar often sounded at dusk, and villagers passing by to cut wood frequently heard it. That was why there was a legend that a water dragon had been suppressed here.
There really was a dragon here, but it wasn't being suppressed. It was being used to suppress the thing inside!
Chen Qing reached the center of the cave. Looking at the incredibly ingenious core of the cavern and the beautiful spell runes, he couldn't help marveling at how good Tencent's artists really were. There was no scene they couldn't draw.
"Has Daddy finally come?"
A young voice rang out, interrupting Chen Qing's thoughts. It sounded soft and sweet, like a child of three or four, but Chen Qing couldn't help breaking out in goosebumps. As the designer, he knew exactly what kind of being the owner of that childish voice was...
This place's real name was Azure Dragon Mountain. It was a mountain-range prison formed using the power of the Azure Dragon, one of the thirty-six Heavenly Stems, as a medium. The one who had done all this was the last Azure Dragon Sorcerer in the game. If players found this place, they could obtain the Azure Dragon Inheritance. Of course... they also had to face a monster that the last Azure Dragon Sorcerer had once given his life to suppress!
"Daddy, can you stay with me a little longer this time? I'll give you any part of me you want!" The child's voice was pleading and heartbreaking, but the moment he saw Chen Qing, his voice changed. "You're not Daddy!"
It was still a child's adorable voice, but it had turned utterly cold, a chill that pierced to the bone and kept the wild beasts for dozens of miles around from daring to approach!
Even though Chen Qing knew the thing was suppressed and couldn't hurt him, the chill frightened him so badly that his legs gave out, and he fell to the ground.
And he hasn't even been unsealed yet...
Chen Qing could see clearly that at the center, bound from head to toe by chains that looked like flood dragons, was an extremely adorable-looking child. Of course, only his head was adorable. His lower body was frighteningly brawny!
Ghost Child.
He was a monster Chen Qing had created based on the character Nezha from One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes, one of the seven great Ghost Generals who had forced their way from the underworld into the human world. He possessed immense strength, the power of nine dragons, and could stand alongside Ghost King Xiang, one of the three great Ghost Kings!
In the original plot, this thing would be released by a treacherous traveling merchant who happened to pass by. The merchant would use him to amass wealth, only to fail to control his frenzy, resulting in the slaughter of all of Liuzhou. The former dynasty's army of a hundred thousand would prove unable to defeat him. Eventually, he would devour flesh and blood and evolve into his final form, becoming the fourth Ghost King and one of the hardest bosses for players to defeat in the early game!
"The Daddy you're talking about... is he Master Huang?"
Chen Qing suppressed his fear and forced himself to speak.
He had only one chance. If he couldn't overcome his fear at the start, then once the other party truly turned hostile, he probably wouldn't even get another chance to come close enough to speak.
The chained Ghost Child raised his head in a daze. He rarely saw a creature that didn't run away after being frightened by him. The last one had been Daddy, and this was the second...
"The Master Huang I'm talking about is an old man who likes to wear plain white robes. His beard is neatly trimmed, and he has a big mole between his eyebrows... oh, and a scar on his right hand..."
"You know Daddy?" Ghost Child grew curious. The wariness gradually faded from his face, replaced by an adorable, curious expression tinged with obvious excitement.
Chen Qing breathed a sigh of relief, crawled a little closer, and sat down. He carefully studied the genuine Ghost Child. He looked exactly like the model Chen Qing had designed back then, with the adorable doll-like face of a little girl and a body that would put even a burly man to shame.
"Child... let me ask you something." Chen Qing lowered his voice. "Did this Daddy of yours cut off your skin, dig out your heart and liver, and even take apart your bones?"
Ghost Child froze and clenched his teeth, remaining silent for a long time. After who knew how long, he finally said in a small voice, "Daddy was trying to save me."
Just as I thought...
Understanding flashed in Chen Qing's eyes. It was exactly as he had imagined!
When he realized that the fake Yuchi Peng looked a little like Ghost Child, he had already guessed it. The real Ghost Child didn't look like that. It was an imitation, but a very convincing one, since it could control a Ghost Horse. Only one kind of thing could produce an imitation of that caliber.
That was Painted Skin Mister, one of the five great demon artisans he had designed!
Like Thousand-Faced Fox, he was a rare monster who could use puppets to imitate anyone in the world. Not just humans, either. If his level was high enough, he could even imitate demons and ghosts, provided he had enough materials.
If the creature's internal organs, flesh, and bone marrow were preserved, a highly skilled Painted Skin Mister could even create a completely identical being.
High-level demons and ghosts were generally difficult targets, because no one would give him their own flesh and blood. Ghost Child, however, was an exception.
Ghost Child's greatest ability wasn't his strength, but his regeneration. As long as his core remained intact, he could be flayed and have his bones ground down and still regenerate perfectly. Chen Qing had also based this on the legend of Nezha.
He had never expected that the two would meet one day, or that Painted Skin Mister would exploit Ghost Child's emotional weakness to trick him out of his flesh and organs.
Given some time, could he make two? Three? Even an army of Ghost Children?
Would that count as a bug?
Chen Qing rubbed his chin. Unfortunately, he couldn't patch it now. He could only intervene himself!
"That man is lying to you!"
"Nonsense!!" Ghost Child's eyes instantly turned red, and veins bulged across his adorable face, twisting it into a ferocious expression.
"Am I talking nonsense? Child, don't you know the truth yourself?" Chen Qing narrowed his eyes. "You know very well that he isn't your Daddy!"
"Shut up!!!" Ghost Child suddenly roared. His voice was so loud that Chen Qing's eardrums throbbed. If the mountain range's barrier hadn't still been there, Chen Qing thought that roar alone might have shattered his internal organs.
"You've seen him before..." Chen Qing took a deep breath and stepped a few paces closer. The movement startled the furious Ghost Child.
Usually, whenever he flew into a rage, everything around him would instinctively retreat. Everything was like that. It had been so in the sunless underworld, and it was the same after he came to the human world, including that person who had claimed to be his Daddy over the past two years...
Since he was born, the only one who had dared come close when he lost his temper seemed to have been... his mother...
"You've seen him before." Chen Qing forced a smile. "That guy also escaped from the underworld. He'd seen you before, so he recognized you. Naturally, you recognized him too, so you knew he wasn't Daddy..."
Ghost Child said nothing. He watched the man approaching him step by step, somewhat bewildered, and for a moment even forgot his anger.
"And then?" At last, when the man was right in front of him, he spoke. He looked at him very seriously. "What are you trying to say?"
Chen Qing looked at the child who had suddenly calmed down, his legs trembling slightly. At this distance, the barrier was no use. Ghost Child could slap him to death at any moment.
"Sorry, I'm a little scared. My legs are a bit weak..." Unable to hold out any longer, Chen Qing sat down in front of him and gave an apologetic smile.
Ghost Child stared. So this guy... knew what fear was?
"If you're scared, why come closer?"
"Because we're going to be together from now on..." Chen Qing smiled. "I have to get over it. If I'm scared all the time, how can we be together?"
"Together?" Ghost Child stared at him, scarcely able to believe it. Even his voice became cautious. "You... you want to be... together with me?"
"Ah..." Chen Qing drew a breath. "I need you, so come with me from now on. I'll take care of you, but you have to listen to me. You have to listen to me about everything. Deal?"
"Take care of me?"
His porcelain-doll face went completely blank.
He had lived for thousands of years, and this was the first time anyone had said they would take care of him...
It was also the first time anyone had discussed it with him so honestly.
Others had deliberately approached him before, but they had all been lying to him, including the person who claimed to be his Daddy. They had all been lying to him. He could actually tell. He wasn't smart, but his eyes were different from other people's. He could see the light people gave off.
He could actually see who was lying to him and who was afraid of him.
But this person was different...
He had a black light that showed he was afraid of Ghost Child, but he also had a white light. The white light was very faint, yet very warm. Ghost Child hadn't felt this in a thousand years. It was a light that only Daddy and Mommy had possessed...
"You'll take care of me?" Ghost Child asked cautiously again.
He spoke very softly, afraid that if his voice was too loud, he would scare the white light away...
Chen Qing also watched him cautiously, his heart full of apprehension.
Winning Ghost Child over was both simple and difficult. Ghost Child longed for family, so if you approached him with goodwill, he would readily see you as family. The difficulty was that Ghost Child wasn't easy to deceive.
Because his eyes could see through people's hearts!
Anyone who wasn't sincere, anyone who used him, ended up as food.
Chen Qing didn't know how sincere he was, because feelings were the hardest thing for a person to gauge. But he knew he had feelings for the being he had created himself. As his creator, he knew all too well about Ghost Child's pitiful past.
And precisely because of that, he felt pity and affection alongside his fear.
He didn't know whether that counted as sincerity, or whether Ghost Child would consider it goodwill, so he was taking a gamble too.
"I'll take care of you!" Chen Qing mustered his courage once more and stood up, extending his right hand and looking at him seriously. "I'll take care of you, and from now on you'll listen to everything I say. Deal or not?"
Ghost Child's eyes widened. The white light around him had grown, and the light that showed his fear of Ghost Child was weakening!
He had never encountered this before. Apart from Daddy and Mommy, he had never encountered it...
A long-forgotten ache welled up in his heart!
"I... I can eat a lot..."
Chen Qing looked up. At some point, the child's face had become covered in tears and snot.
"It's fine. I'm an official. I'll have plenty of money in the future, enough to take care of you."
"Then... then... what should I call you from now on?"
"Hmm... well, how about this? Until we find your real Daddy, from now on... call me Daddy!"
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