Stranger Danger

Chapter 386: Switching Brains

Chapter 386: Switching Brains

[1]

“You have quite the appetite, don’t you?” Ye Qing wore a smile that didn’t reach the eyes.

“Hahaha... I’m just lucky. Plus, Chen Ah Sheng is pretty strong. If I can occupy his body, then I can help you, can’t I?”

The Heartless Brain pretended that he couldn’t notice the evil eye Ye Qing was giving him and continued, “If I became Chen Ah Sheng, I can help you with many things. For example, I can help you locate the rest of the Chaos Heaven Brigands’ treasuries and treasures. This is but one of the many bases they have after all. I also know you offended a bigshot in the Ghost Tower, and no, I’m not talking about that bitch. I am much more helpful as a Spirit Master than a weakling, don’t you think?”

“How did you know that?” Ye Qing narrowed his eyes a little. The Heartless Brain should not know anything about his quarrel with Mister Nine.

The Heartless Brain chuckled. “It’s my innate magic. All things in this world are connected by karma, and I can view the threads of karma to a certain extent. I simply need to read the threads to find out a certain event that has happened a short time ago.”

“Can you see everything as long as it happened within a certain timeframe?” Ye Qing exclaimed in shock. If that was true, then it was a bullshit ability, almost as bullshit as the Annon Sutra itself.

“Nah,” the Heartless Brain denied while scratching his head. “The simpler the matter, and the weaker the strength of the people who are involved in the matter, the clearer I can view a certain event, and vice versa. This is especially true if one or more people in the event is blessed with great destiny. People like them can muddy the rivers of fate and complicate the web of events so much that even I can’t make sense of it.”

“Besides, my innate magic exhausts me greatly. I can’t use it whenever I want to. Otherwise, I would become the strongest Stranger in the world already.”

“So, you’re saying that the reason you can find me is because I’m an ordinary person?” Ye Qing rubbed his nose, insulted.

The Heartless Brain knew better than to answer that and continued his explanation, “Take your conflict with that bigshot for example. I could neither see his face nor obtain any information because the threads of karma surrounding that man are too complex. He is definitely a man of great destiny and is protected by the world itself. If I try to glean into his fate, then I will pay a hefty price.”

Scarlet tears abruptly slid down the Heartless Brain’s cheeks. “See this? I just tried to take one glance at the man’s threads of karma, and already I’m pushing it.”

An idea suddenly occurred to Ye Qing. “Do you see a woman in that event?”

“Woman? What woman?” The Heartless Brain looked confused.

Ye Qing hesitated for a moment before telling the Heartless Brain about Greenlake and how she framed him for the theft of the yin gold. Earlier, he already asked the Stranger why the Ghost Tower had come after him.

It wasn’t the proudest moment in Ye Qing’s life for sure, but if he looked at the result alone, he couldn’t say that he had come out shorn. If the Heartless Brain could help him locate Greenlake and take revenge, then even better.

“I see, I see now!” The Heartless Brain murmured with quiet realization and disbelief. “I noticed that one of your threads of karma is missing, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. It’s because someone had removed it!”

“Can you find her?” Ye Qing asked.

“I’ll give it a try,” The Heartless Brain replied before he started walking. He looked like he was following a certain pattern that only he recognized, and transparent threads began appearing in his eyes. One look at the threads caused Ye Qing to feel dizzy and sore like he had stayed up the whole night playing games in front of his desktop.

The next moment, the Heartless Brain let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed to his knees. His eyeballs abruptly exploded into gooey bits, and blood sprayed out of every orifice. Disturbing cracks also spread all across his skin like a spider web and leaked blood.

“Are you alright?!” Ye Qing hurriedly supported the Stranger.

“Take... Take my brain out and press it against Chen Ah Sheng’s head... quickly!” The Heartless Brain gasped out while clutching Ye Qing’s hand.

“You want me to... remove your brain? Are you sure?” Ye Qing blinked. No seriously, brother, are you sure about this?

“Quick!” The Heartless Brain urged again, and this time Ye Qing didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the Stranger’s skull and spat out a tiny bit of force from his palm. Slowly, he peeled away the skull without hurting the brain like he was peeling a rambutan or lychee.

If this was a few days ago, he probably wouldn’t be able to pull this off. However, his force control had increased by leaps and bounds thanks to the Nanke Dream. Danger was everywhere on the battlefield, and any power he managed to conserve now might contribute to his survival later. Like a miser, he came to learn how to spend no more power than what was absolutely necessary to achieve his goals. If he could spend ten percent power to accomplish a certain objective, then he wouldn’t spend eleven. If one slash was enough to kill an enemy, he wouldn’t slash twice. Efficiency was the key to everything.

Of course, efficiency didn’t matter much if his effectiveness was shit, so he learned how to identify the most effective action in a given set of circumstances and apply it perfectly. Inside the dream, he had continuously fine-tuned his movements and decision-making until it was practically magic even in the eyes of a warrior. If he could kill two birds with one stone, then he would strive for three. If he could kill three birds with one stone, then he would strive for ten. So on and so on.

That was how he managed to survive the endless battles; how he managed to last until the end of the dream.

After he had successfully pried open the man’s skull, a brain slid right out of the hole and into his hand. It was twitching rhythmically, but each twitch was just a little weaker than before. It was only a matter of time before it ceased moving entirely.

This brain was the Heartless Brain’s true body. In this state, it was so weak that even a child could stomp it to death.

Ye Qing didn’t rush to save the Heartless Brain, however. Instead, he rubbed his nose as if he was contemplating something.

A few seconds later, he produced the Annon Sutra and sprayed his blood on it. When he had gotten what he wanted, his eyes lit up, and he wrapped the vellum around the Heartless Brain. It was only then he pressed the Stranger against Chen Ah Sheng’s head.

Ye Qing watched with great curiosity as Chen Ah Sheng’s skull abruptly split open on its own. Chen Ah Sheng’s shot out of his head, and the Heartless Brain occupied the space where it was before. The gap closed after the Stranger was in place, and he couldn’t see a single wound on Chen Ah Sheng’s skull whatsoever.

Ye Qing was pretty impressed. Chen Ah Sheng was a Half-Step Grandmaster. An ordinary human would never be able to hack open his skull even if he was dead. However, the Heartless Brain could make it split open and heal back on its own. Not only that, he would gain the body’s abilities as soon as he occupied the body, meaning that he was now a Half-Step Grandmaster, one who was a body-tempering warrior no less.

Two or three Ye Qings wouldn’t be able to defeat him. Four or five Ye Qings would be a different story, but the point was that there was no way Ye Qing could defeat the Heartless Brain right now.

So why did he agree to the Heartless Brain’s proposal despite the risks? It was because the Stranger’s plan was sound, of course. When he ran into Chu Wangsun at Tian Yong, he no longer had to fear for his life. Besides that, he could see how the Heartless Brain’s innate magic could be useful in certain situations.

Most importantly, he wasn’t worried that the Heartless Brain would slip out of his control after taking over Chen Ah Sheng’s body. When they signed Oath of Burden, he had specified that the Heartless Brain to help him to his fullest capabilities. Through the Annon Sutra, he had also learned of the Heartless Brain’s incredible power and magic. There was no way he was going to let such a useful helper go without having exploited its abilities to the fullest.

On top of that, he had prepared some insurances just in case the Heartless Brain had second thoughts. If the Stranger decided to exploit a loophole or two, he would find himself regretting the decision. Worst case scenario, he might even cease to be altogether. So no, Ye Qing wasn’t worried in the slightest.

A while later, Chen Ah Sheng abruptly opened his eyes and panted heavily for a moment. A while later, he slapped the ground with both hands and caused a massive ripple that shook everything within two hundred meters of him and shattered the dead bodies on the ground to bits, causing blood and flesh to rain from the sky.

“Hahahaha! I love this body!” Chen Ah Sheng got on his feet and let out a powerful roar. Then, he opened his mouth and sucked all the yin souls created from the dead brigands into his stomach.

Not done yet, Chen Ah Sheng dashed through a couple of buildings and destroyed them in the process. A series of rumbles later, the Half-Step Grandmaster was nowhere to be found.

Ye Qing didn’t try to chase Chen Ah Sheng down or stop him, however. He simply crossed his arms and waited patiently.

About half a teatime later, another thunderous roar broke out from deep within the forest. It sounded like it came from far, far away, but by the time the roar faded, a man descended from the sky and landed right in front of Ye Qing.

Boom!

Once again, the ground rippled like water from the sheer force of Chen Ah Sheng’s descent.

“Hahaha! Hahahahaha!” Chen Ah Sheng, or more accurately, the Heartless Brain threw a couple skewers of heads[2] to the ground and declared, “I’ve located and killed all the Chaos Heaven Brigands who escaped for you.”

“Thanks. That saved me a lot of time and effort.” Ye Qing nodded approvingly while examining the heads for a bit. He could tell that the Heartless Brain had ripped their heads right off their shoulders, and everyone’s faces were frozen in varying expressions of shock, pain, and terror.

Some of the heads belonged to prominent figures in the Chaos Heaven Brigands such as the “Formidable Vajrapani” Hu Yanzhuo, the generals of the Thirteen Armies and so on.

“Hehe, aren’t you worried that I would run away, brother?” The Heartless Brain asked while shaking his head and cracking his neck.

“We are brothers, aren’t we? I believe you won’t do such a thing.” Ye Qing smiled confidently. “Would you?”

“Hahaha... of course not! As you say, we are brothers now. Why would I do such an unbrotherly thing?” The Heartless Brain guffawed, though he was swearing on the inside.

In fact, he was plotting to run away. When they made the oath, Ye Qing had not specified that he must stay by his side. He only specified that he must never harm him in any way, and that he must help him to his fullest capabilities when he needed him.

The crux of this matter was awareness. If Ye Qing needed him to save his life, then he would need to do everything in his power to save Ye Qing. If Ye Qing needed him to serve him wine, then he would need to perform to the best of his abilities. However, this was only possible if he was aware that Ye Qing needed his help. If Ye Qing was, say, a thousand kilometers away from him, and the young man couldn’t contact him during his time of need for whatever reason, then it was hardly his fault that he couldn’t help Ye Qing, right?

This was a loophole the Heartless Brain identified immediately when he swore the oath to the Oathbearer. Theoretically, he could go into hiding far, far away from Ye Qing, and he wouldn’t need to do anything for the young man. It wouldn’t count as breaking his oath.

Of course, the odds were slanted against him because Ye Qing and the Oathbearer shared a good relationship with each other. If the Oathbearer decided to be biased and punish him, then he would be a sad, sad Stranger. Still, he thought that his freedom was worth a gamble.

But no more. When he left just now, he had used his innate magic to check if Ye Qing had done something to him while he was switching bodies. Strangely, he couldn’t find anything not because Ye Qing hadn’t done anything, but because the rivers of fate were completely muddied. He couldn’t glimpse into that particular time and place at all.

This was very, very bad. If he was able to glimpse into the rivers of fate, then he wouldn’t be nearly as worried. He was certain he would be able to resolve whatever insurance Ye Qing had planted in him to control him. But since he couldn’t see anything at all, he had no idea what kind of insurance Ye Qing had planted in him, or if he had done anything to him at all.

There was nothing scarier in this world than the unknown. If he knew what Ye Qing had done to him, then he could be working to solve it. Where there's a will, there's a way. But how could he solve something he knew nothing about? It was simply impossible.

Unwilling to gamble against unknown odds, the Heartless Brain had no choice but to return to Ye Qing’s side. At the same time, his evaluation of Ye Qing had climbed to a new level. The young man’s intelligence and methods were all above average, leaving him no choice but to treat him with the utmost caution and respect.

1. I’ll try to avoid confusion, but remember that the Heartless Brain is technically only HALF a brain, not the whole thing. I think he squeezes out the back half of the victim’s brain and occupies it, which is why he can adapt to a body immediately. ?

2. You read that right. ?