Chapter 113: Infamy, I’ll Bear It, Yu Jingzi!
In half an hour, the shop owner not only packed up his bedding, but also stuffed all valuable property into a backpack. He then took out a small portion of his savings (cash) and went on a spending spree at several nearby shops, procuring dried insect meat, cultivation pills, some spirit plant seeds… looking just like someone committing a crime and about to flee.
When he returned to the shop with his big and small packages, he gazed at every inch of the cave with reluctant, emotional eyes, and sighed: “Alas! Master, this shop is actually worth quite a bit of money. It’s a pity to leave in such a hurry without time to sell it, and who knows which lucky person will take it over in the future. Truly regrettable.”
Hearing the shop owner’s fleeing sentiments, the Tiger Demon raised an eyebrow: “Who said you can’t come back? I had you gather funds and buy food not to run away, but to support my undertaking. Don’t worry, you’re just leaving with me for a few days to receive secret training. Once the training is done, I’ll let you return as my spokesperson to establish new trade relations with Cicada City. You just need to close shop for a few days; in the future, you won’t need to buy ‘Insect Scrolls’, but take on new business.”
“Huh?”
The shop owner was greatly shocked; he had thought this pitch-black demonic creature wanted him to sell off his assets, follow it into hardship, with a bleak future ahead. He hadn’t expected a chance to return? So, what exactly is this ‘secret training’, is it legitimate? And it requires avoiding Cicada City’s eyes and ears.
Meanwhile, the Tiger Demon also quickly devised the steps to create a ‘force’.
It was actually simple: recruit a batch of destitute bottom-level natives who couldn’t survive happily. Set up a shell company, provide basic food and water, and have them raise insects for him. Simple and reasonable.
But unfamiliar with people and place, without power or influence, this shell company was doomed to stay small. That bit of output would inevitably fail to meet Mao Mao King’s demands.
So on this basis, he also needed to control a batch of local middlemen like the shop owner, borrow their networks and channels to contact Cicada City’s small landlords and City Lords, and carry out follow-up cooperation.
For example, outsource part of the ‘insect raising business’, act as middleman for Mao Mao King to earn price difference, and incidentally sell ‘luxury children’s wear’. Even act as agent for the ‘local specialties’ smuggled in from Du Ling, opening flagship stores in various Insect Cities.
Finally, use this portion of price difference profit to in turn expand his shell company, step by step shedding the mortal body and exchanging the bones, take root locally, and grow into a non-negligible native force.
This way, his ‘colonization company’ would have preliminarily stood firm.
The above was just purely commercial approaches.
In this world full of supernatural powers, Yuan Zhu had even greater advantages. Like the Holy Cough Breathing Technique being tested on the little girl and younger brother, and the feasibility of stacking Shadow Dream Hole with Mountain Lord’s Domain that he somehow came up with.
Once the former succeeds, he could mass-produce Holy Light-affiliated ‘Holy Cough Qi Refiners’. Greatly suppressing Immortal Zombie Tendrils, Iron Poison, corrupt spiritual energy… and other pollution, improving survival rates, which holds huge appeal for the bottom level. Branding this could recruit a large amount of cheap labor.
As for the latter, once successful, Yuan Zhu guessed he might create a low-end version of ‘Disease Garden’ in the underground world, forming his own Shadow-Nightmare Garden domain? This way he’d even have home ground, allowing more stable long-term rooting and living, evolving into a local tyrant.
So commercial talents like the ‘shop owner’ ultimately needed to return to Cicada City to maximize their value.
The reason for taking him away now was just to avoid Cicada City’s eyes and ears, brainwash him thoroughly, control him on a deeper level, and incidentally force out intelligence about Cicada City to further refine his main plan.
His brainwashing and control methods would inevitably employ Holy Light and Shadow, scattering powerful energy fluctuations. So it couldn’t be done in the Insect City; he had to go far away. After completing the interrogation and conditioning, confirming reliability and inability to turn the tables, then releasing him wouldn’t be too late.
Understanding this reasoning, the shop owner, filled with unease and confusion, also relaxed and fully chose to accept his fate.
…
After repeated confirmation, the search team sent from the Lower Urban Area had ended their search of the Central Urban Area and finally returned empty-handed.
After a brief disturbance, Cicada City did not publicize any shadow invasion or a True Qi powerhouse inexplicably going missing in their main city’s core area.
Instead, they loudly proclaimed capturing a gang that had long been stealing in the Lower Urban Area, now brought to justice! Thus, the originally panicked masses gradually calmed, greatly praising their Insect City as having the best security and order, with the City Lord’s grace forever unrepayable!
Meanwhile, the true culprit behind the disturbance wrapped up the shop owner’s procured supplies and assets with his snake tail, then released the Ghost Companion to drag the shop owner together into the Shadow Layer, successfully using shadow stealth to bypass patrol teams and quickly arrive at the Upper City District.
Caves and burrows along the underground passages became fewer, resident distribution sparser, and forks leading ‘upward’ more numerous. As the Tiger Demon went upward, the air he breathed grew increasingly turbid and earthy, pure spiritual energy declined, and corrupting miasma with deadly poison pollution began to increase.
Seeing that the surrounding tunnels had no more residents, the Tiger Demon leaped out of the Shadow Layer and dumped the shop owner and goods onto the ground.
When it escaped into the shadows, he could perceive the closely linked Shadow Dream Hole also floating in his ‘shadow’. Whenever he wanted, he could summon this black disc and actively open or close it.
Moreover, when the Tiger Demon used shadows to touch the Shadow Dream Hole, a 3D projection in his brain could display scenes inside the Shadow Space.
…
The True Qi Cultivator he had imprisoned once wreaked major havoc inside the Shadow Space, releasing qi threads from his body to condense various powerful martial arts, attacking the fluctuating ‘walls’. He wanted to break through the restraints and return to the underground world.
The result was terrifying: these black barriers were fragile, his True Qi attacks easily penetrated the walls, then vanished, sinking into the nightmare without any response.
Any True Qi attacks he released in the Shadow Space were like hitting a one-way permeable membrane, exiled by the space without causing substantial damage.
Thus, the True Qi Cultivator immediately changed strategy to physical attacks for destruction.
This time, the Shadow Space barriers fluctuated violently, even cracking. The Tiger Demon observing this from outside also tried manipulating the internal space rules via the Shadow Dream Hole.
The result succeeded!
He deliberately allowed the chaotic and evil Nightmare Pollution from the external Nightmare Layer to seep in through the cracks in the walls broken by the other party.
At the same time, the Tiger Demon turned the Shadow Space walls into unviewable, chaotic, and distorted one-way glass. From inside, one could see the indescribable Nightmare Dimension outside, suffering visual and mental painful stimulation and torment. But the outside couldn’t see the pitch-black misty interior.
Then, many ‘dream creatures’ drifting aimlessly in the nightmare sniffed the cultivator’s scattered aura, tracked the scent all the way to the Shadow Space periphery, and violently attacked the barriers.
Suddenly facing the Nightmare Layer, the cultivator’s eyes bled tears, emitting painful sharp bursts, clutching his eyes in agony, while also feeling the frenzied pounding from external nightmare demonic creatures trying to break into the Shadow Space (Shrimp Cage) to devour madly.
Realizing his self-destructive actions not only failed to save him but attracted terrifying monsters from the outside (nightmare), the True Qi Cultivator had to calm down and recall many rumors about Dream Holes.
Finally, he sat cross-legged in the Shadow Space, meditating to heal injuries, silently awaiting judgment from the Tiger Demon.
This desperate struggle, besides wasting massive True Qi and attracting external demonic creatures’ prying eyes, also revealed a terrifying reality to the cultivator: this cramped shadow cell had no spiritual energy replenishment.
He couldn’t use breathing methods to convert and refine True Qi. The pills he carried had long been consumed; now he could only deplete his reserves step by step toward death. He might not even wait for judgment before his True Qi ran out, letting the unviewable demonic creatures outside the cage break in and eat him?
…
The Tiger Demon outside indeed had the ability to reject the ‘cultivator’ out, exiling him to the Nightmare Layer; or open the one-way permeable membrane to let external nightmare demonic creatures into the Shrimp Cage for another round of slaughter with the cultivator, depleting his True Qi reserves and weakening his strength.
Additionally, he could touch the Shadow Dream Hole to transfer the shop owner’s purchased supplies inside without opening it, using it as ‘storage space’.
But doing so would just aid the enemy, feeding the weakened cultivator. So the Tiger Demon personally wrapped the supplies with his tail, turned into a porter, personally carrying the big and small packages while fleeing, utterly lacking Mountain Lord King’s style.
Now far from Cicada City’s outskirts, he could finally pick up his idol image and let the shop owner carry the bags himself.
Realizing he had suddenly arrived at the dangerous forbidden zone periphery rife with miasma, the shop owner also grew tense and cautious. He suspiciously scanned surroundings, assuming a vigilant stance against potential dangers.
The Tiger Demon couldn’t stand it: with this majestic Shadow Mountain Lord at his side, why panic? Looking down on me?
“Why so exaggerated?”
Drawing on his forbidden zone survival experience, the shop owner repeatedly confirmed the area temporarily safe before half-relaxing, explaining to the Tiger Demon: “Master, you may not know, but this forbidden zone periphery near the surface 20km has multiple uncertain underground risks. Including but not limited to sudden outbreaks of corrupting miasma, rampaging uncontrolled root tumor demonic fetuses, earth tremors, magic worm tides, demonic giant insect ambushes, and demonic path martial artists prowling the underground world.”
In the shop owner’s explanation, magic worm tides were the most common: wild insects of various types gnawing polluted slime mold root tendrils, pollution exploding, life breaking limits, becoming more filthy and mad, then mass egg-laying and breeding, gnawing more deadly poison pollution, piling up quantity to form terrifying insect tides.
And the teams of civilians he saw in underground Cicada City transporting ‘insects’ for incineration were these wild demonic insects with deadly poison pollution of no utilization value.
As for corrupting miasma, it came from the Immortal Realm Tree’s century-long destruction, with Corrosive Iron Rain permeating the surface, deadly poison corrosive pollution liquid soaking root tendrils; those not decomposed in time naturally rotted and fermented, compressed and accumulated.
Ultimately randomly erupting through certain decayed root tendrils as conduits in underground tunnels, forming massive toxic miasma zones, indiscriminately polluting and poisoning all humans and magic worms, creating death forbidden zones.
As for ‘root tumor demonic fetuses’, they were ‘Human Immortal puppet soldiers’ refined by Kunlun Earth Immortals when the Immortal Realm Tree still lived. Originally for self-defense, accumulating forces and trump cards. But with the Immortal Realm Tree destroyed, these ‘Human Immortal puppets’ were also polluted by corrupt spiritual energy for a century.
Understandable as century-soaked ‘polluting energy (corpse energy)’ old rice dumplings; once unsealed, they hunt and devour living beings in the underground world, killing rampantly. They are common enemies of Reverse Life Immortal Sect and Insect Cities, Technician Alliance.
Additionally, Earth Tremors were supernatural earthquake assaults, penetrating Immortal World Tree Root Tendrils firewalls in seismic wave form, ravaging underground world’s ‘passages, buildings’, destroying magic arrays, root tendril load-bearing structures.
As for ‘demonic giant insects’, Yuan Zhu was clear on this. Unlike small wild demonic insects, these were from cultivators’ internal pollution outbreaks losing control. ‘Dao Seed (insect eggs)’ gaining upper hand, counter-killing humans with insect system, refining five viscera, six bowels, muscles, bones entirely into ‘life concentrate’.
The ‘meridians, acupoints’ split and extended from the Dao Seed began reverse-absorbing human nutrition, like insects pupating in cocoons; from Human Cocoons, regenerating into original ‘insect’ form.
These ‘demonic giant insects’, perfectly digesting a cultivator’s full foundation, far exceeded ordinary spirit insects or magic worms, body size inflating to human scale, inheriting True Qi and meridian structure internally. Unable to cultivate techniques, but could massively consume polluted root tendrils, instinctively urging qi threads to clear pollution, constantly growing stronger into terrifying single-unit demonic creature disasters.
The above five were the underground world’s most common demonic calamities. Not horrifying legends, but real crises erupting in overlapping waves right nearby.
How common? Just like ancient droughts, floods, earthquakes, famines, plagues, continuously erupting around various Insect Cities.
Forbidden zones formed by corrupting miasma and root tumor demonic fetuses together, due to long-term inability to clear, instead showed signs of expansion. Cutting originally interconnected Insect Cities and Immortal Sects into isolated underground islands, severing contact. Only Technician Alliance’s ‘nomadic families’ could cross forbidden zones for trade connections.
Thus, underground people (insect) clans had to huddle around Insect Cities for survival. Once straying too far from Upper City District, they’d randomly suffer combo strikes of multiple crises, with sky-high death rates.
So even living in barren fringe areas with constant risk of death, the two siblings remained so easily satisfied. Because not living so humbly meant dying even faster and more miserably.
Tiger Demon: “What are demonic path martial artists? Why haven’t I heard of them?”
The shop owner gravely recalled: “Demonic path martial artists usually refer to cultivators whose internal True Qi can’t suppress Immortal Zombie Tendrils, Iron Poison… unable to cultivate steadily. To extend life, to gain stronger power to suppress internal backlash, they leave Insect Cities, ambushing and hunting civilians or other cultivators on Insect City forces’ peripheries, practicing with humans.”
“How do they practice?”
“Condense qi threads, pierce into opponent’s flesh, dig out matured meridians and acupoints, transplant into own flesh, forcibly suppressing and subduing, balancing Dao Seed with foreign meridians. This method brings endless harm, strong rejection, severe side effects. But for already demonic or desperate demonic path martial artists, it’s nothing. Besides killing for practice, they also sell corpses for consumption or cultivating spirit insects, spirit medicine… even secretly cooperating with other Insect Cities to weaken enemy forces, constantly trafficking cultivator corpses.”
Tiger Demon: “…”
Is the quality here all so low? Why is the art style turning more demonic sect-like? Are there even insect cultivators secretly refining demonic treasures like Human Emperor Banners?
This underground world truly chaotic and barbaric; if he caught such ‘demonic path martial artists’, he could unburdenedly refine them into Ghost Companions.
Great, Ghost Companion raw materials found! Demonic path martial artists sound hundreds of times higher-end than goblins.
“By the way, haven’t asked your name yet?”
The shop owner hurriedly nodded and bowed to the giant Tiger Demon: “Replying to King, this little one is called Lu Yan.”
This name was way better than Little Girl and Younger Brother! At this moment, the Tiger Demon dispelled Boss Template, reverting to a black seaweed curly-haired human form. Shadow Uniform instantly crawled over his body, weaving a sealed racing suit that highlighted his tall, agile figure.
Seeing those wine-red eyes hidden in deep sockets, the shop owner felt a chill, thinking indeed a demonic monster!
Even in human stance, so eerie. No True Qi fluctuations inside, unlike Immortal Sect immortals carrying wood spiritual energy. Demonic creature, great demonic creature! Who knows if he’s filth drilled down from the surface? Or filth drilled in from outside the Dream Hole?
“As for your boss here, surname Yuan, name Zhu. Watch these things, stay put here and don’t wander; I’ll be right back.”
Shopkeeper Lu puzzled: “King, you…?”
“I’m going up one more level to handle a small issue. If you’re not afraid of death, you can follow.”
Shopkeeper Lu shook his head repeatedly: “No need, I’ll stand guard here for you.”
Yuan Zhu now planned to deal with the cultivator in the Shadow Dream Hole, see if he could subdue him? Recruit as underling, forge great undertaking together! An enemy of this strength, if not for my use, could only reluctantly…
Little Spicy Stick suddenly transformed into malicious thought mouthpiece, shouting in his brain: “Of course, refine him alive into a Ghost Companion!”
Yuan Zhu feigned struggle, hesitating: “Doing that… isn’t great, right?”
Spicy Stick shocked: “Huh? Boss, you’re still too kind! Earth’s excellent education shaped your conscience, but also bound your hands. Your current hesitation is like white lotus in mud unstained, fully proving your noble character. But this bubble world isn’t Earth; jackals rule, ghost realms rampant, rites collapsed, joys ruined, five turbid evil age. In this filthy world everywhere filled with evil and sin, morality has become your greatest shackle!”
Spicy Stick’s words shook Yuan Zhu’s tiger body: “This…”
Little Spicy Stick’s white-haired girl virtual image had gleaming eyes: “King sees clearly! In the past, Chu Overlord softened half a point at Hongmen Banquet, ending in Ujiang elegy; Light Martial Emperor if confined by woman’s mercy, how could he refound Han rivers and mountains? True dragon must not bind own scales and claws; you should abandon Bodhisattva heart, even for this bubble world’s beings, refine him into Ghost Companion, take the first step in entrepreneurship!”
Yuan Zhu hesitated: “I…”
“Aiya, why still hesitate? Torment the natives a bit, the infamy I’ll bear as Yu Jingzi! It’s all this treacherous minister of mine bewitching and forcing moral kidnapping on King you! Go ahead boldly.”
“Sigh…” Is this the correct use of the game sprite? Balala Rainbow Nutritionist truly understands hearts, too cute!
Yuan Zhu sighed; though most unwilling, for saving underground world beings, he could only sacrifice this cultivator. Hopefully he’d know the times.
