Stranger Danger

Chapter 375: Head

Chapter 375: Head

“As you command!”

Fire Skull produced an account book and flipped through it carefully. A while later, it replied, “There are three people who spent around two hundred and fifty yin gold, First Young Master. However, we never register the names of our customers when we carry out a transaction, young master. There are only numbers in the account book. How are we going to identify the culprit like this?”

Instead of answering, Corpse Child took the account book from Fire Skull and brushed his finger across the three unnamed transactions. The next moment, three silhouettes appeared above the account book. They were all donning burial clothes and wearing masks, and they could be seen making purchases in the Ghost Tower.

If Ye Qing was here, he would recognize himself among the silhouettes. However, Greenlake was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s them.” Fire Skull nodded before frowning at Ye Qing’s silhouette. “But I thought... I’m sure he...”

It thought that something was off with Ye Qing’s silhouette, but it couldn’t really pinpoint the source of that strange feeling. It was almost like it had forgotten something.

“You may leave and go about your normal business. Leave the rest to me,” Corpse Child instructed before sinking into his corpse pool.

After he was gone, Fire Skull shook its head and muttered, “Strange. I keep having this feeling that I’ve forgotten something.”

A pool of corpse water appeared on the seventh floor of Ghost Tower. Corpse Child quickly emerged from it.

Most people thought that the Ghost Tower only had three floors. In fact, it had nine. It was just that the floors above the third floor weren’t open to outsiders because they were sealed with all kinds of evil and terrifying Strangers and Strange Artifacts. The higher the floor, the stronger they were.

After appearing on the seventh floor, Corpse Child opened a door and stepped inside. The room was empty besides a single jar. The jar held half a human brain, or at least it looked like it. It was soaked within some sort of smelly, yellowish liquid.

Corpse Child waved his hand while staring at the brain, and a youngster abruptly plopped down on the floor. It was a living human.

“Who... who are you? What do you think you’re doing?” The youngster fired off some hollow threats after he recovered from his shock. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Manor of Dragons! You’d let me go if you know what’s good for you! The Manor of Dragons will never forget this transgression!”

Corpse Child paid no attention to his threats, of course. He walked up to the jar, opened it, and grabbed the brain. Then, he walked back toward the youngster.

“W-What are you doing? No. Don’t come closer! Don’t come closer!” The youngster screamed on top of his lungs as Corpse Child came closer and closer, but the pool of corpse water beneath his feet kept him pinned. He was unable to move a step no matter how hard he struggled.

When Corpse Child finally reached the youngster, he slapped the half a brain on top of his head.

The second the brain made contact with the youngster’s skull, it immediately twitched once as if it had come alive. Then, it began pulling the youngster’s head apart.

“What are you doing?! Let me go! Let me go!!!”

The strange head bobbed up and down with exertion. It wasn’t long before the youngster’s head slowly split into two like it was cut open by a knife.

The youngster was still alive, however. He was howling with rage and terror. He could clearly feel his skin being torn apart, his skull snapping in half and a tingling sensation that suggested that his brain was exposed in the air, but there was nothing he could do to save himself, nothing at all. The fear, helplessness and despair drove him into madness.

After the youngster’s head was exposed, the brain threw the youngster’s brain out of his head as if disgusted before taking over the space. The split head began healing slowly until not a single wound was left behind. If it wasn’t for the blood and brain fluid splattered all over the youngster’s hair, face and shoulders, it would be as if nothing had ever happened.

As if on cue, the youngster stopped screaming. The fear and despair etched on his face was replaced by an eerie smile. Then, he greeted Corpse Child teasingly, “Oh my, it’s you, Corpse Child? You’re not dead yet?”

“Why would I die before you die?” Corpse Child replied expressionlessly. “Cut the nonsense, or I’ll toss you back into your jar.

“Oh, I’m so scared, hahaha...” The youngster patted his chest and laughed mockingly. “But you clearly need me for something, or you wouldn’t have released me. Feel free to put me back if I’m wrong. I’m fine either way.”

Corpse Child couldn’t be bothered to waste his breath on the youngster and produced an account book. “The Ghost Tower lost some items, and I need you to identify the thief, his background, and his current location.”

“Oh. My. Hells! The Ghost Tower actually lost stuff? Unbelievable, truly unbelievable...” The youngster remarked with a mad cackle. His expression was full of ridicule and schadenfreude. “Let me see, let me see. Oh, you didn’t lose your items, you were scammed! Ahahahahaha! The scammer finally got scammed for once, and by their favorite victim no less! Oh no no no no, how embarrassing it is for the Ghost Tower, how embarrassing!”

“Say, did this anger the crap out of that little bitch? Did it piss him off so much that he jumped out of his coffin?”

“Insult father again, and you will regret it.” Corpse Child narrowed his eyes, and a deathly energy spread throughout the room. Bluish black spots began to appear on the youngster’s body, but...

“Hahahaha! Are you serious right now? Come on then, kill me dead! If you can’t, then I am your father, and that little bitch your mother!”

The youngster wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. “Seriously, we both know it’s the truth. Your so-called father is neither a woman, a man, or even a hermaphrodite! He’s just a freak of nature who got the short end of every deal, kakakakaka!”

“I don’t know what you know, but back in the day, that bitch was so submissive when I got him under my... alright alright, I’ll stop. Man, youngsters these days can’t hold a joke!”

The youngster finally shut his mouth when the bluish purple spots on his body exceeded a certain threshold, and he started feeling like an old man.

“I’ll ask you again. Who is the one who stole our items, what is his background, and where is he right now?” Corpse Child repeated.

“Haha, it’s quite easy for me to answer those questions, but you know the rules, don’t you?” The youngster replied.

“I do,” Corpse Child answered. “I’ve prepared ten thousand yin souls as your payment.

“Hahaha... I love interacting with people with direct personalities like you!” The youngster cackled. He sucked in a deep breath, and the three silhouettes were pulled into his mouth.

......

“Phew...”

Inside a dilapidated temple, Ye Qing suddenly opened his eyes. His eyes were bloodshot, and bloodthirst rolled off his body like a tidal wave. There was a red flash that looked like the spring wind and fine rain, and suddenly, crisscrossing cuts appeared on the temple’s walls, roof, floor and more. The bird singing and insect chirping happening outside the temple instantly disappeared like they were dead.

A fog appeared inside the temple, and there was a vague silhouette inside the fog. “What kind of nightmare did he have? He just barely stopped himself from cutting this poor temple into bits. Strange!”

The next moment, the redness in Ye Qing’s eyes faded, and his killing intent was pulled back into his body. Then, he let out a deep sigh and put on a refreshing smile on his face.

“What the hell did you dream, boy? It felt like you just crawled out from under a pile of dead bodies!” Although Ye Qing looked no different from normal, the Fog Demon felt like he was different for some reason.

“You guessed right. I had just crawled out from under a pile of corpses!” Ye Qing sighed again and stepped out of the temple. As he stared at the bright sun outside the temple and basked in its warmth, his smile widened. “I’m so glad I could see the sun again!”

“You look like you’ve lost more than a few brain cells, boy!” The Fog Demon floated over to Ye Qing and mocked him.

“I did. In fact, I almost went insane.”

Ye Qing felt a shiver when he recalled what happened last night. After arriving at this temple, he had asked the Fog Demon to protect him and used Nanke. Although it was clear from Chu Wangsun’s actions that the Duckweed Flower was far more valuable than most people seemed to believe, whatever power it might bestow him would arrive far too late to aid him with his current predicament. He needed power now, and Nanke was the only Strange Artifact that could do so.

This time, he didn’t get greedy and try to hone all of his martial arts at once. Instead, he focused on the “Saber of Spring Wind and Fine Rain”, “Illusionist’s Grace”, and the “Nine Impetus of Tai Chi”.

He chose to hone his saber art to improve his offense, his movement art to improve his ability to escape, and his defensive art to improve his defense. These three martial arts he needed to hone to maximize his growth given the amount of time he had.

He had considered improving his fist art of course, but he had reached a bottleneck. It would be difficult for him to break through it even with the help of Nanke, and he didn’t want to risk dying inside the dream and getting ejected prematurely again.

On the other hand, the “Saber of Spring Wind and Fine Rain” was new to him and still had a ton of potential to uncover. That was why he chose to hone it after careful consideration.

In this dream, he was a greenhorn participating in his first war, and he was just an early-stage Vessel Augmentor. The martial arts he knew were none other than the “Saber of Spring Wind and Fine Rain”, the “Illusionist’s Grace”, and the “Nine Impetus of Tai Chi”.

His martial arts were incredibly powerful, but at the beginning, he had actually performed worse than an ordinary veteran. He nearly died multiple times on the battlefield either because he was too kind, too careless, or placed in a situation where his martial arts were less than useful.

After barely surviving his first major battle, he was forced to fight almost everyday. He had fought in a forest, a mountain, a desert, a river and more, and he had participated in all kinds of operations such as assassinations, raids, sieges, wipeouts and more, sometimes as the receiving party. Barring exceptional circumstances, he had encountered almost everything a soldier might encounter on the battlefield.

Life was cheap, and the fight was endless. His comrades kept dying, the enemies kept coming, the battlefield was littered with countless broken bodies, and the end seemed as far away as eternity itself. Such were his hardships that he nearly broke down and lost his mind inside the dream.

He didn’t know how long he spent inside the dream, only that he went from a greenhorn to a veteran whose spirit was just as old and scared as his body. As his friends and allies disappeared from his life one after another, his heart slowly turned numb, and his blood gradually turned as cold as ice.

In the end, after killing several hundred people during a siege and completely exhausting himself, a crossbow bolt finally hit him in the head and ended his life.

That was why he was overflowing with killing intent when he awoke just now. Luckily for him, the “Paranirmitava?avartin Heavenly Demon Sutra” was excellent at curbing one’s emotions. Otherwise, he strongly suspected that he would’ve suffered a mental breakdown and turned into a madman.

This was probably one of the hidden dangers of Nanke.