Chapter 616: Big Cousin Becomes Little Cousin

In the forest of the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area.

Lu Yibei and Huá Sāng followed the hoofprints left by the Shuishu Shou (Water Savage Beast). When they finally found it and Fu Xinyi, they saw from afar that the divine beast lay on the ground atop a pile of fresh grass, displeasure in its eyes.

It thought Lu Yibei had taken far too long. While waiting, it had even found time to make simple grass mats for itself and Fu Xinyi.

Who knew it was such a refined girl? Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly. He walked over, took out a packet of spicy strips, and offered them to the Shuishu Shou while praising it. “Amazing, Big Cousin! Beautifully done!”

The Shuishu Shou lifted its head proudly toward Lu Yibei. Then it sniffed the packet, picked up two spicy strips in its mouth, and chewed several times. An unusual light immediately appeared in its enormous eyes.

These spicy strips contained psychic energy. They tasted no worse than the whitebait in the Great Pure Palace’s pool and even had a pleasant kick. Excellent!

While Lu Yibei bribed the Shuishu Shou with spicy strips and showered it with flattery, Huá Sāng walked to the unconscious Fu Xinyi. She grabbed her by the collar, lifted her for a brief inspection, and shook her head.

Then…

She let go, and Fu Xinyi dropped limply back onto the grass mat like a puddle of mud.

As a psychic, Fu Xinyi was physically strong. However, once the Shuishu Shou, which commanded the power of thunder, began running at full speed, it moved with truly terrifying velocity.

What Fu Xinyi had just experienced was even worse than riding atop the engine of a train traveling at full speed—and one of the high-speed trains whose model number began with G.

Without the traditional skill of India’s psychics—clinging to the outside of fast-moving vehicles—it was already impressive that she had managed to hold tightly to the Shuishu Shou without falling off halfway.

“There really aren’t any left!” Lu Yibei shook the empty spicy-strip packet and spread his hands toward the resentful-looking Shuishu Shou. “If you want more, Big Cousin, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

Hmph! The Shuishu Shou snorted, apparently accepting his explanation.

Lu Yibei put away the empty packet, turned to Huá Sāng as she examined Fu Xinyi, and asked, “How is she? She’s all right, isn’t she?”

“She’s fine. She isn’t injured…” Huá Sāng looked up at Lu Yibei, then down at Fu Xinyi, and frowned slightly. “But what do we do next?”

“She’ll definitely wake long before we close the net tonight.”

If that happened, the fact that they had abducted the Mountain-Guarding Divine Beast would be exposed.

“That is a problem…” Lu Yibei thought for a moment, then asked seriously, “Your junior sister hasn’t committed any heinous crimes lately, has she?”

“Probably not. Why do you ask?” Huá Sāng tilted her head.

“Good. Then I can safely knock her out for longer. At the same time, I’ll help cleanse her mind, eliminate her inner demons, and improve her future cultivation!”

Lu Yibei spoke expressionlessly as he silently drew the Pure Lotus Sword and made two practice swings toward Fu Xinyi’s skull.

Whoosh! Whoosh! The blade cut through the air twice.

Huá Sāng: “???”

————

A short while later.

Lu Yibei repeated his old trick and lightly tapped Fu Xinyi’s skull several times with the Pure Lotus Sword. He then used a spell formation to bind her to a large tree in the forest.

Worried that a wild beast—or one of its venerable elders—might carry her junior sister away, Huá Sāng thoughtfully added a series of defensive and illusion spell formations.

“Not bad, not bad! This way, she can sleep until tomorrow, perhaps even the morning after, right?” Lu Yibei praised. Then he turned toward the Shuishu Shou and frowned. “Now only one problem remains…”

Huá Sāng followed his gaze and nodded. “Indeed.”

The Shuishu Shou was far too large. Traveling toward Shizhou City would not be much of a problem, but once they entered the city, it would inevitably cause a commotion unless it was the middle of the night.

“Do we have to wait until late tonight before acting?” Lu Yibei muttered.

Huá Sāng said nothing.

Understanding their meaning from their expressions and conversation, the Shuishu Shou slowly stood and growled. Its body shuddered, and dazzling arcs of electricity spread between its scales.

Dense mist appeared from nowhere, surged around its massive body, and wrapped it like an enormous egg. In the span of a breath, the shape within shrank more than tenfold.

When the lightning and mist dispersed, the Shuishu Shou, which had just been as large as a tall warhorse, was now no bigger than a teacup dog. With pale golden fur floating around its body, it even looked rather cute.

In the blink of an eye, Big Cousin had become Little Cousin.

It lifted its tiny head, rolled its eyes at Lu Yibei and Huá Sāng, flicked its tail, and skipped down the mountain.

Wasn’t it common knowledge that a divine beast could make itself larger or smaller?

Otherwise, how could successive Headmasters of the Great Pure Palace have taken the divine beast down the mountain?

Watching the Shuishu Shou’s tiny back, Lu Yibei whispered, “I think Big Cousin just looked down on us.”

“You can drop the ‘I think,'” Huá Sāng replied.

Lu Yibei fell silent.

————

Fang Ji awoke from his deep sleep and opened his eyes.

The ceiling looked familiar. He immediately realized he had once again been sent to Qingnang Cottage at the Great Pure Palace.

He lay in the hospital bed and stared blankly for several seconds before sitting up and looking around. Gradually, he sensed that the atmosphere in Qingnang Cottage was unusual today.

He was the only person in the vast ward, and the corridor outside was equally silent. The busy Great Pure Palace disciples he had seen before seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Fang Ji got out of bed, put on his shoes, left the ward, and searched around. At last, he found the Great Pure Palace disciple on duty inside the dispensary at the end of the corridor.

She was a girl of thirteen or fourteen, with a small face and twin ponytails. Crouched before a little red-copper alchemy cauldron, she carefully observed the flames beneath it.

“Excuse me…”

At the sound of Fang Ji’s voice, the girl looked up. Their gazes met, and she had just opened her mouth when a soft explosion came from beside her.

Bang!

The alchemy cauldron exploded. The force blew half its lid open, releasing a cloud of black smoke.

“Oh no!” the girl cried. She hurriedly turned back and frantically inspected the cauldron. Then the light that had dimmed in her eyes gradually returned.

Despite the cauldron explosion, her potion had somehow been successfully refined—and its quality was exceptional. According to the description in the formula, such an outcome should have been nearly impossible.

At the same time, a faint golden light gradually faded from Fang Ji’s eyes as he watched the cauldron, and a gentle smile appeared on his face.

He composed himself and asked again, “Excuse me, where has everyone in Qingnang Cottage gone? Did something happen?”

The many fragments of memory that surfaced while he slept had deepened his understanding of his own ability, allowing him to gain preliminary control over his luck.

He was still far from controlling it freely, but he could now barely counteract some of the misfortune he accidentally brought others and create a tiny miracle.

The price of reversing that misfortune was having to suffer the corresponding bad luck himself. But…

After helping those who deserve help, I can simply find a bad person and drain all his luck. Then there won’t be a problem, right? Fang Ji thought.

He still had not realized that he had unknowingly strayed from the Miracle Order’s path and begun developing in a rather peculiar direction.

“Hmm? Oh!” The girl came back to herself and looked at Fang Ji, embarrassment covering her face. “Sorry. S-something happened just now.”

“Um, were you asking where everyone from Qingnang Cottage went?”

“Yes.”

When Fang Ji smiled and nodded, the girl explained, “We received word this morning that a terrifying and powerful haunting had appeared in Shizhou City. Everyone from Qingnang Cottage went to provide support, leaving only two people on duty on each floor. I don’t know anything more specific.”

Fang Ji fell silent.

A terrifying and powerful haunting appeared?

Could it have something to do with the people who attacked us last night?

“Thank you!” Fang Ji smiled and thanked the girl. Then he turned, left the dispensary, and headed out of Qingnang Cottage.

The girl’s attention was entirely fixed on the miraculously successful potion. Overcome with excitement, she failed to stop the injured Fang Ji from leaving…

A short while later.

Fang Ji stood outside Qingnang Cottage, looking at the roads leading in different directions as he considered his next move.

Where should he go now?

Should he find Lu Yibei or infiltrate the Esoteric Society?

Lu Yibei carried an aura that felt familiar to him and seemed to come from the remains of the first Miracle Saint Child. Meanwhile, the reward for the bounty mission to infiltrate the Esoteric Society was very likely another sacred relic.

He had ample reason to approach either one.

Although he had realized that Salih and Shem were members of the Miracle Order, he had no intention of revealing himself to them.

Within the indistinct fragments of memory, a figure shrouded in golden light who seemed to be the Miracle Saint Child had warned him more than once that a vast conspiracy lay hidden behind the Miracle Order’s current objective—finding the First Saint Child’s remains.

Fang Ji did not know what that conspiracy was. However, after sharing his life with the golden figure and recovering some of his memories, he had developed a strange mixture of familiarity and fear toward those so-called sacred relics.

Those feelings left him unwilling to trust any member of the Miracle Order for the time being.

After pondering for a while without reaching an answer, Fang Ji finally decided to leave the choice to a miracle. He drew a deep breath and pushed his luck to its limit.

The next instant, he heard rustling from the bushes nearby. Following the sound, he soon saw two suspicious figures behaving furtively and faintly heard their whispered conversation.

“Something terrible happened… The Esoteric Society is finished…”

“We need to get to Chili Hall…”

“…”

The Esoteric Society? Chili Hall?

Fang Ji’s gaze rested on the two Great Pure Palace disciples for several seconds. His eyes sharpened, and he hurried after them.

“Senior Brothers, please wait!”

The guilty pair stiffened at Fang Ji’s call and spun around, their gazes filled with vigilance.

“Are you also members of the Society? I only joined recently. When I woke this morning, I tried contacting the senior brother who recruited me, but I couldn’t reach him. Do you know what happened?”

His exquisite, androgynous face looked utterly harmless. His gaze was sincere yet bewildered, but his attempt to blend in was so clumsy that it bordered on outrageous. There was almost no chance it would deceive anyone.

And yet… it miraculously succeeded!

“Holy crap! Girl, talk about joining the losing side at the worst possible moment!”

“You still don’t know? Something huge happened! It looks like the Dark Emperor won’t allow our Society to exist and is already moving to wipe us out!”

“You’re lucky you ran into us… Come on! Let’s go to Chili Hall together. Every Society member still inside the Great Pure Palace is gathering there to discuss what to do!”

Fang Ji nodded thoughtfully and cupped his hands toward the pair. “Then I thank you, Senior Brothers.”

————

Inside a short-term rental concealed among the maze of buildings near the small-goods wholesale market in Shizhou City.

Hu Chuan sat cross-legged on the bed in meditation. Rings of colorless ripples spread through the surrounding air.

After a long while.

He finished sensing each unwitting Esoteric Society member hidden among the pursuit teams, along with the objects around them. He opened his eyes, and his expression gradually darkened.

The Great Pure Palace had reacted far more quickly than he expected.

He had created only two attacks before the remaining disciples gathered together. Their dozens of teams containing four or five members each had been reorganized into four groups of twenty to thirty people, leaving him no opportunity to strike.

“Hmph. Huddling together for warmth? Do as you please. That was only the beginning!”

He could no longer manufacture chaos among the Great Pure Palace disciples responsible for the pursuit, but the situation remained under his control.

The Great Pure Palace disciples were far from the only people in Shizhou City affected by the Calamitous Corruption.

Many disciples still inside the Great Pure Palace had not participated in the pursuit.

If absolutely necessary, he could even briefly awaken that great lord…

He had little desire to do so. After all, he had already experienced firsthand what could happen when one’s fate lay in another’s hands.

He needed that great lord to exist, and he also needed It to remain asleep forever.

But if he were forced into a desperate corner, he would have no choice but to fight until both sides perished!

As Hu Chuan thought, he circulated psychic energy and tormented Zhang Shuo inside his body for a while. Only then did his agitation subside. He turned, picked up the emblem on the bedside table, infused it with psychic energy, and contacted Elder Wang.

“My dear Elder Wang! So much time has passed, yet you’ve made no progress whatsoever on the task I gave you. Why is that?”

After a brief wait, Elder Wang’s voice sounded beside his ear.

“Damn it! All you do is sit over there making sarcastic remarks. Do you have any idea what’s happening outside?”

“Oh?” Hu Chuan had not expected Elder Wang to speak to him that way. He frowned, suppressed his displeasure, and asked, “What happened?”

“I’m the one who should be fucking asking you! Psychics I’ve never seen before have ambushed me three times! I don’t fucking know any Zhou Shufen or Zhang Yanli, but they insist I killed them. Another group kept shouting, ‘Copper-philes must die’…”

“Damn it! What’s wrong with collecting and forging copper objects? Is a personal hobby a crime now? It’s completely absurd!”

Hu Chuan fell silent.

He heard intense exasperation in Elder Wang’s voice.

Closing his eyes, Hu Chuan sensed the locations of the objects connected to Elder Wang’s little secrets. They had been removed from Zhen Ting Hall and abandoned by someone in the forest of the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area. After a moment’s thought, he understood everything.

Trying to force us to reveal ourselves this way? How naïve.

With that thought, Hu Chuan said to Elder Wang with pointed sarcasm, “I never expected Elder Wang to fall for such a crude provocation. Someone is clearly causing trouble. If you lose your composure, you’ll play right into their hands.”

“This has nothing to do with you?”

“I’m not that despicable.”

“…” Elder Wang was silent for a moment, then snorted coldly. “Hmph. It had better not.”

After a pause, he changed the subject. “The fellow you asked me to contact finally replied. He says he has merchandise ready for delivery—and they’re twins. Perfect. One for each of us!”

“Oh?” Hu Chuan’s eyes brightened slightly. “When can he deliver?”

“Before dark!” Elder Wang laughed. “Heh, that fellow is already tricking the stupid woman.”

“Excellent!” Hu Chuan smiled. “Tell him we’ll meet at the usual place later!”