Chapter 88: Star Map? Star Path!
“Join us, and I’ll tell you.” Zhang Min’s tone became cold and stern, her words faintly carrying a murderous intent.
Yun Ce lowered his head helplessly and said, “I don’t want to leave the Royal Hunting Ground, nor do I want to join any side. I just want to get the Shang Zao rank to go see Chang’an. My name is Liu Chang’an. If I die in this life without ever seeing Chang’an, I’ll really die with regrets.”
Zhang Min hesitated for a moment, then still said to Yun Ce, “Liu Chang’an, this time it’s me coming to persuade you. Next time, it might not be me. For you, I admit I’m a bit soft-hearted. Others might not be.”
Seeing that Zhang Min was about to leave, Yun Ce hurriedly said, “You’re not even giving me the dream of living a peaceful life?”
Zhang Min’s voice came from afar: “You, wherever you go, great chaos will happen there. Hekou Village, Pingyuan, Sheyang, and now Chuyun all prove your jinx identity. Someone so useful—how can we let you go?”
Watching Zhang Min ride the large bird away, Yun Ce felt a bit troubled. It was now Deep Winter Month; he could only get the Shang Zao rank in Flower Festival Month, with Twilight Month and Early Spring Month in between. Now, Zhang Min was growing impatient with him. It probably wouldn’t be so easy to casually brush her off next time.
While Yun Ce was wandering alone in the Hunting Palace, trying hard to think of a countermeasure, Doggy’s weak voice came from his heart.
“I’m back.”
“Huh, after swallowing that bead, shouldn’t you be stronger? How are you weak like you’re about to croak?”
“Who told you that bead was a great tonic? Damn it, that was just a star map. These days I’ve been trying to figure out this star map—calculating it has nearly killed me, and I’ve only figured out a tiny bit. In the end, the data volume of this star map is too huge. I need time to slowly dig it out bit by bit.”
1 Hearing Doggy say this, Yun Ce’s heart trembled violently. It took him half a day to calm down before saying to Doggy, “You mean if we figure out the star map, we can go back?”
1 “Impossible. Based on just this tiny bit I’ve calculated, even running nonstop at third cosmic velocity would take 1,500 years. Yun Ce, you can’t overcome the pass of time, so give up on the thought of going back.”
1 Yun Ce found a threshold to sit on. His brain was bubbling like it was boiling, and he muttered to himself, “Even running 16 or 17 kilometers per second—I can’t do that.”
1 Doggy tossed out a battered mobile phone from the Dragon Pearl. Yun Ce took it in his hand and bent it slightly, discovering the inside had been burned to charcoal.
1 With a flick of his fingers, the mobile phone, which was claimed to represent the world’s highest technology, turned into a pile of dregs.
1 “Calculate slowly next time, don’t rush. If you burn out too, I won’t even have a place to speak my true thoughts.”
1 “Aren’t you going to ask how the person these Han people call the one closest to the Divine Dragon got this star map?”
1 “He was closest to the Divine Dragon? Huo Qubing and I should be the ones closest to the Divine Dragon. After all, we’ve both lived in the Divine Dragon’s claws for a while.”
1 “Moreover, I even ate dragon eggshell—same treatment as the dragon cub.”
1 “Exactly, you were grabbed by the dragon. But he was personally sought out by the dragon. You know how big the gap is between those two.”
2 “He still died anyway.”
2 “Who told you he died?”
2 “Zhang Min.”
2 “What does she know? I even suspect Huo Qubing isn’t dead.”
2 “What makes you suspect that?”
2 “Someone who can live 600 years has long broken through genetic limits. For such a person to live 600 years, there’s no reason he can’t live another 600.”
2 “The worst thing about you humans is being suppressed in your thinking by rules consciousness. You always say human vitality is in a state of decay—what exactly is vitality? Have you figured that out?”
2 “You’ve left Earth, yet you still use Earth’s thinking to understand the Great Han. Earth’s physics laws apply to Earth; Great Han’s physics laws apply to the Great Han. You can’t always look for similarities between you two—you should seek the differences.”
2 Yun Ce chuckled, “It’s great that you’re back. Just now, I discovered there’s someone right by my side who doesn’t conform to Earth’s common sense.”
2 “Who?”
3 “Peng Zeng. I found this guy, as long as you leave him one breath, he can recover quickly. Oh, expanding my thinking as you said, I even suspect that even if you chop off his head, he could revive.”
3 “Come on, I’ll take you to see.”
3 Yun Ce hurriedly arrived at Peng Zeng’s room. The old woman was feeding Peng Zeng some soup through a hole Yun Ce had specially left. From the swallowing motion in this guy’s throat, his internal injuries were almost healed.
3 Seeing Yun Ce enter, the old woman trembled and spilled quite a bit of soup. Still, she boldly said, “Chief, can you please not beat him? He’s too pitiful.”
3 Yun Ce coldly waved her out. The old woman muttered on and on about how people are born to suffer, and this suffering never ends.
3 Yun Ce found a piece of Yi Tree Cloth towel and covered Peng Zeng’s terrified eyes.
3 Doggy immediately extended two strands of silver thread, inserting them into Peng Zeng’s body. It was clear the silver threads were rapidly exploring under Peng Zeng’s skin.
3 Peng Zeng, with his eyes covered by the towel, seemed to be in excruciating pain. He opened his mouth, which had only a few teeth, and shouted, but his voice was surprisingly weak.
3 “Beast—”
3 Yun Ce actually didn’t quite understand Peng Zeng. The first time they met on the wasteland, his early performance fully matched his great hero identity. If, at that time, he hadn’t stubbornly taken Yun Ce’s casual words seriously but had turned and left instead, Yun Ce would certainly have admired this great hero who rode alone for a thousand li to rescue the people.
4 The second meeting, Yun Ce was just tailing him, and he discovered it. As long as he returned to Duke Yu’s Mansion, Yun Ce could do nothing to him.
4 The third meeting, this guy had clearly won. At that time, if he’d said a few nice words instead of humiliating the infantry armor troops, and hadn’t rudely challenged Zhou Chengming at the end, Yun Ce believed a Shang Zao rank would have been easily within his grasp.
4 As for this injury, he had clearly gained E Ji’s favor. As long as he behaved well as E Ji’s top favored minister, as long as Yun Ce did well, Peng Zeng would surely have a bright future.
4 Unfortunately, with that mouth of his, he always had the ability to ruin things at critical moments.
4 Now, lying in bed and being explored by Doggy like a corpse—it was purely his own fault.
4 There seemed to be many tiny snakes and insects crawling inside Peng Zeng’s body. That’s right, Doggy had inserted over a dozen more silver threads into Peng Zeng’s body.
4 Watching this kind of pain made Yun Ce’s hairs stand on end, yet Peng Zeng still had the strength to keep cursing Yun Ce as a beast.
4 When Doggy slowly withdrew the silver threads one by one from Peng Zeng’s body, his sweat had already soaked through the thick layer of Yi Tree Cloth. The sweat flowed out from under the bedsheet, eventually wetting the ground.
4 Yun Ce lifted the cloth covering his face. Peng Zeng’s eyes, which had some spirit earlier, became dull again, and he no longer cursed him as a beast.
4 “Very interesting. When his body suffers heavy damage, his consciousness can temporarily withdraw from the flesh, returning this body to an infant state, gaining the ability to rebuild the body in the most origin way. Honestly, this is an extraordinary ability.”
5 Yun Ce hurriedly said, “I want to learn it.”
5 “I don’t know yet if this is his innate instinct or something cultivated later. If it’s innate instinct, there’s no way. If it’s cultivated later, then it’s precious.”
5 Yun Ce wiped the drool flowing from the corner of his mouth with the cloth towel in his hand, digested Doggy’s words, and then truly admired Peng Zeng.
5 He just didn’t know why he always ruined things at critical moments. Could it be that all his abilities could only progress through constant beatings?
5 This was very possible—after all, many wuxia novels were written that way.
5 With Doggy back, Yun Ce no longer took the crisis brought by Zhang Min seriously. After relaxing his nerves tensed for two days, he wanted to eat something good to replenish himself.
5 The next day, when a team of murderous prefecture soldiers arrived at the Royal Hunting Ground, Yun Ce noticed that everyone had some blood on them. Some had bloodstains on their faces, apparently having killed quite a few people.
5 The leading Centurion saw Yun Ce and didn’t waste words. He opened a scroll, glanced at Yun Ce, and said, “The Royal Hunting Ground tribute gold, fifty taels.”
5 Looking at the murderous Centurion, Yun Ce obediently took fifty taels of gold from E Ji and handed it over. The Centurion weighed the gold, his words carrying a trace of fatigue.
5 “If you have gold, hand it over. This stuff can buy lives. If the tribute isn’t fully paid and incurs the court’s great anger, sending another army, none of us will live.”
6 As he spoke, the Centurion gave Yun Ce a token forged from green money and said, “This is the smoothest tribute collection I’ve done. This is your tax payment proof. With this token, you can freely enter and exit Chuyun City with your subordinates.”
6 “Seeing you live by hunting and gathering, with caravans not daring to enter the city lately, if you can transport your game and grains to the city, it’ll absolutely make you rich.”
6 Yun Ce handed the Centurion a cup of water and said, “Rest a bit, have some water. We’re a Great Han protectorate prefecture. The tribute was robbed by bandits, not that we didn’t pay—how could that bring court troops?”
6 The Centurion might have feared poison in the water and didn’t take it. Instead, he raised his own water pouch, took a sip, and said to Yun Ce, “You’re still young. The Great Han demands tribute, we have to give it. If not, Great Han troops come to collect it themselves. In countless years, no one’s ever been an exception.”
6 After seeing off the tribute-collecting army, Yun Ce was in an unusually good mood. E Ji asked puzzledly, “That was our money.”
6 Yun Ce laughed, “That was Great Han’s money.”
6 Feng An said worriedly from the side, “It’s already reached the point of sending troops to collect tribute. With Chuyun City as the focus of tribute payment, who knows what kind of miserable state it’s in.”
