27: Chapter 27 There's no military enthusiast like you

Xie Feng sat on the bed until dawn. There was no helping it; whenever he closed his eyes, he ended up in Lord Cthulhu's bed.

Drifting gently in the deep-sea undercurrents.

"If you guys keep messing with me like this, I'll die of insomnia sooner or later."

Xie Feng managed to endure until dawn, got up, put on his veil, and got dressed.

Tu Ziguan was squatting at the doorway munching on a steamed bun.

Seeing Xie Feng come out, he took the steamed bun out of his mouth and looked him up and down.

"Your complexion doesn't look too good."

"Do you have X-ray vision? I'm wearing a veil."

"Just a feeling." Tu Ziguan handed over another steamed bun.

Xie Feng took it and took a bite.

"Tu Wu."

"What is it?"

"I saw Lord Cthulhu last night."

Tu Ziguan swallowed the steamed bun in his mouth.

"Which Lord Cthulhu?"

"Is there a second Lord Cthulhu? The one with an octopus head, bat wings, and sleeping deep beneath the South Pacific."

"Didn't you say it was sleeping?"

"It is sleeping. I just took a look at what it looks like when sleeping."

Tu Ziguan stuffed the remaining half of the steamed bun into his mouth, chewed, stood up, and patted the crumbs off his hands.

"Are you a pervert?"

"No, I have nothing to say to someone like you who doesn't understand."

"Then tell me about it."

"Then you'll become a pervert too."

"Forget it then. Oh right, someone from the Affairs Hall came. After you left yesterday, a mission came from there. They specifically asked for you."

Xie Feng's blind cane stopped in mid-air.

"Am I a massage therapist? They specifically asked for me?"

"It's from Cangyun City. Something anomalous happened over in your hometown's Black Pine Forest, and the Sect sent people to handle it."

"According to the rules, missions involving one's hometown require someone familiar with the local area to guide the way. Among the Outer Sect Disciples, only a few of us are from Cangyun City, and since you never take missions, it fell on you."

Xie Feng stood in place, tapping the ground with his blind cane.

Black Pine Forest. He remembered that place; it was in the original owner's memories.

An old pine forest north of Cangyun City, where the tree canopies blotted out the sky, making walking in during broad daylight feel like dusk.

Black Pine Forest... damn it, it sounds like there are goats inside.

"I'm not going," Xie Feng said.

Tu Ziguan didn't try to persuade him; he just pulled a mission slip out of his sleeve and handed it over.

Xie Feng took it, his fingertips brushing across the surface of the paper.

Mission location: Black Pine Forest, north of Cangyun City. Mission content: Investigate the hunter disappearance incident.

Suggested number of people: Three.

At the very bottom was another line of text: Accompanying Disciples: Tu Ziguan, Tie Rong.

He folded the mission slip and stuffed it back into his sleeve.

"Tie Rong is going too?"

"She said she's never been to Cangyun City and wants to take a look." Tu Ziguan stretched his waist. "Actually, she heard there's a kind of pine wood in the Black Pine Forest with high hardness and dense grain, which is suitable for making scabbards. She wants to go find a piece."

"What is there to be afraid of? Surely in that myth of yours, there isn't also some kind of Black Pine Forest God...?"

Xie Feng didn't speak; he nodded.

"Damn"

This time it was Tu Ziguan's turn to speak.

Xie Feng tapped his blind cane on the ground and walked toward the mountain gate.

Walking two steps away, Tu Ziguan called out from behind: "Brother Feng, didn't you say you weren't going?"

Xie Feng didn't look back.

"Who told you, this idiot, to accept it!"

At the mountain gate, Tie Rong was already waiting.

Today, she wasn't carrying her blacksmithing gear; she only had a short hammer hanging at her waist, with the hammerhead wrapped in coarse cloth. On her back was an extra rod. Xie Feng couldn't see it, but he could sense that there was an extremely faint spiritual power fluctuation on the rod. It wasn't a Magic Treasure, but rather something that naturally seeped in during casting.

"Speaking of this thickness, is this thing a pillar?"

"Everyone is here," Tie Rong said.

Three words, just like Gu Jian.

Xie Feng suddenly missed Gu Jian a little. At least when that kid didn't speak, it wasn't because he was sullen, but because he genuinely didn't know how to speak.

The three of them walked down the mountain path.

Tu Ziguan walked at the very front, Tie Rong walked in the middle, and Xie Feng walked at the back.

The blind cane tapped the ground, one tap after another.

This blind cane was given by Tie Rong a few days ago; the cold iron cap at the end of the cane made a very crisp sound when it touched the ground.

When they reached a fork in the road, Tu Ziguan stopped to identify the direction.

Tie Rong squatted by the roadside, tapped a stone on the ground with her short hammer twice, picked up the stone, and stuffed it into her bundle.

"Wait, why are you picking up a stone?"

"Uh... It can be melted."

"Is your furnace a volcanic crater?"

Xie Feng stood in place.

"Let's go." Tu Ziguan put away the map and turned onto the road heading north.

Xie Feng followed, the sound of his blind cane tapping the ground heading all the way north along the mountain path, gradually fading into the distance.

The Black Pine Forest was darker than in Xie Feng's memory.

The pine trees grew too densely; the trunks were squeezed so closely together that only one person could squeeze through sideways. The tree canopies intertwined dozens of zhang above their heads into a thick ceiling, and sunlight leaked through the gaps in the pine needles, unable to reach the ground at all.

The pine needles on the ground had accumulated for who knows how many years, feeling soft and fluffy when stepped on, like walking on a thick blanket.

When a foot sank in and was lifted, the pine needles bounced back, wiping the footprints clean.

Xie Feng walked at the very back.

His blind cane tapped on the pine needles, making a muffled sound, not as crisp as when tapping on rocky ground.

The cold iron cane end given by Tie Rong couldn't display its full capabilities in this forest; the ground was too soft, the sound couldn't travel far, and the tactile sensation was also dull.

He could only rely on spiritual power to perceive the surrounding environment, but the wood of these pine trees was too dense. When spiritual power penetrated the tree trunks, it would be weakened by a layer, leaving only a blurry outline after passing through a few trees.

Tu Ziguan walked at the very front, his right hand tucked into his sleeve, his fingertips pinching a strange object with a sharp front end and a flat, straight rear end.

Xie Feng sensed it.

"A bullet?!"

"Bingo."

"You're invincible, brother. If you can make this, you deserved to die in your past life."

"Don't slander a military enthusiast."

Tie Rong couldn't understand what the two of them were chatting about at all.

Mo Tang had told her that this was called "Xie-Tu jargon".

The edges of the bullet glinted with an extremely faint cold hue in the fragmented light leaking through the gaps in the pine needles.

"This place is way too quiet," Tu Ziguan lowered his voice.

The entire forest was like an inverted bell, muffling all sounds on the outside.

"Brother Feng, what kind of thing is that goat you mentioned?"

Xie Feng's blind cane tapped on the trunk of a pine tree, pausing for a breath.

"A monster with a goat's head. It lives in the dark forest, lures humans into making a pact with it, and then devours their Soul."

Xie Feng lied; he was afraid that if he told the truth, Tu Wu would go see the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young at night.

That mother wouldn't be very nice.

"What kind of forest does it like?"

"Dark and dense. The kind where once you walk in, you can't come out."

Tu Ziguan fell silent for a breath. "Can we still get out now that we've walked in?"

"Haha."

"Your laugh sounds a bit dry."

"When you have too many lice, you don't bite; when you have too many debts, you don't worry."

"Full of rhyming slang, are you trying to take the graduate entrance exam?"

"Don't slander a Tianjin person."

Tie Rong walked in the middle, having already taken down the long rod on her back and holding it in her hand.

She didn't participate in the two men's conversation, but Xie Feng could sense that her spiritual power fluctuations had changed, shifting from rhythmic flow like blacksmithing to the contraction of cold water poured onto hot iron.

After walking for about half an hour, Tie Rong stopped.

"There's something ahead."

Xie Feng's spiritual power swept forward.

The pine trees were too dense, and his spiritual power was mostly weakened, but he still swept over it.

Dozens of steps away, a person was embedded in the trunk of a pine tree.

Embedded "in" the tree.

The person's torso and the pine tree's trunk had undergone Fusion, feeling like a human-shaped mushroom had grown on the tree, and a very large one at that.

The person's arms were still exposed outside, maintaining a forward-reaching posture with open fingers and bent knuckles.

Half of the skin on the head was also wrapped by tree bark, with one eye still open, its pupil facing the direction the three of them were walking from.

They had been dead for a long time.

Xie Feng's spiritual power swept across that eye.

The pupil had already dilated, and there were traces of pine resin in the eye socket.

Seeping out from the eye socket on its own.

Tu Ziguan squatted down, pulled a copper coin from his sleeve, and placed it on the fingertips of the person's hanging hand.

The copper coin did not react.

"A hunter. The clothing is a hunter's attire. Dead for at least a month. Not killed by an anomaly, but eaten by the pine tree."

"Trees eat people?" Tie Rong's voice was suppressed very low.

"Trees don't eat people; anomalies make trees eat people."

Xie Feng's blind cane tapped on the trunk of that pine tree. The pine bark was very rough, making a rustling sound as the end of the cane grazed across it.

He withdrew his blind cane, and a small wisp of pine resin was stained on the end of the cane.

The pine resin was amber-colored, wrapping an extremely thin, grayish-white filamentous object inside.

The filamentous object crawled slowly within the pine resin.

"Mycelium."

Tu Ziguan looked at that crawling filamentous object and pinched the copper coin even tighter.

"Keep going or retreat."

Xie Feng rubbed the pine resin off his blind cane onto the pine needles. "There's an anomaly, retreat."

The three turned around and walked back along the way they came.

Walking less than a hundred steps, Tu Ziguan stopped.

"We've seen this tree."

Xie Feng's blind cane tapped on the trunk of that pine tree.

At the spot where the end of the cane touched, there was a scratch mark he had made with his blind cane just now.

Fresh, you could tell at a glance it had just been scratched.

They had walked in a circle.

Tu Ziguan pulled three copper coins from his sleeve and flicked them into the air simultaneously.

The copper coins scattered in mid-air, one forward, one to the left, and one to the right.

"Wait, how do you know this move too?"

Xie Feng was stunned.

"Isn't this a must-learn? It's a path-finding technique created by the Ancestral Master."

"I really need to control you; you're so competitive."

The three copper coins flew out less than ten steps, hovered simultaneously, and began to vibrate violently.

When the copper coins fell back into Tu Ziguan's palm, the square holes on the edges were still humming.

"The directions are messed up," Tu Ziguan took back the copper coins. "This forest doesn't allow copper coins to guide the way."

"If your learning is not proficient, just say it's not proficient."

"I @#￥%#￥%"

Tie Rong tightened her grip on the long rod in her hand.

Xie Feng stood in place, tapping his blind cane on the pine needles, mobilizing the spiritual power within his body as six Meridians operated simultaneously.

Spiritual light seeped from his palm into the blind cane, and spiritual power spread in all directions along the pine needles, passing through the grayish-white filamentous objects in the pine trees' root systems.

At the edge of his spiritual perception, something moved.

A soft, sticky thing, like countless fine threads entangled together.

It crawled slowly among the pine tree's root systems, climbing from the roots of one tree to the roots of another.

Then it stopped.

It sensed Xie Feng's spiritual power.

"There's something in the forest, not the anomaly's true body, but its mycelium. The entire underground of the Black Pine Forest is its mycelium; every step we take is stepping on its body."

Xie Feng retracted his spiritual power and lifted the blind cane from the pine needles.

"Stinky M."

Tu Ziguan's face paled a fraction.

"I really give up, Brother Feng. In other people's exploration missions, a hundred don't encounter a single anomaly, but when you go on a mission, have you ever not encountered one?"

"I don't know either; I've become a popular commodity."

Tie Rong didn't speak; she switched the long rod from her right hand to her left hand, and then from her left hand back to her right hand.

Rustle.

The three of them stopped simultaneously.

From behind a tree, behind the trunk of a pine tree a dozen steps ahead, a person walked out.

Attired like a hunter, his clothes were tattered, revealing the lean, pine-resin-stained skin underneath.

He walked barefoot on the pine needles, walking toward the three step by step.

His pace was very slow, as if his legs didn't obey commands.

"Plants vs. Zombies."

Tu Ziguan's bullet was already pinched between his fingertips.

Tie Rong's long rod lifted slightly.

That person walked to a position five or six steps away from the three and stopped.

He raised his head, revealing a face mostly covered by pine resin.

His mouth could still move, his lips trembling as they emitted a muddled sound.

He kept chanting the same syllable repeatedly.

"Anom..."

"Anom..."

Xie Feng's blind cane tapped on the ground, and his spiritual power swept across that person's body.

There were no longer any internal organs in his torso; his chest and abdominal cavities were filled with grayish-white mycelium, which spread upward from his throat, pressing against his vocal cords from the inside.

The mycelium was vibrating, using his vocal cords to emit that syllable.

"Who are you trying to scare? If you were a full anomaly, you would have pounced long ago," Xie Feng said.

"Retreat!"

The three of them retreated simultaneously.

That person stood in place, lips twitching as grayish-white, extremely thin mycelium slowly extended from the corners of his eyes, earholes, and nostrils, fluttering slightly in the fragmented light leaking through the gaps in the pine needles.

Tu Ziguan lowered his voice: "What on earth is that thing?"

"I don't know," Xie Feng's blind cane tapped the ground. "But the good news is, he isn't a goat."

"What goat?"

Tie Rong took up the conversation; she didn't think any sheep could be scarier than that thing just now.

After walking for about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, Tu Ziguan, who was walking at the very front, stopped.

"Brother Feng, touch this tree."

Xie Feng stepped forward, and the spot where the end of his cane touched had a scratch.

Tie Rong's voice came from behind, very low and steady: "That hunter from just now is following behind us."

Dozens of steps away, behind the trunk of a pine tree, a face mostly covered by pine resin was revealed.

"Anom..."

It hadn't decided whether to keep them or not.

Xie Feng withdrew his blind cane from the tree trunk, the cold iron cap at the end of the cane scratching a new mark on the pine bark.

"Yeah, not a full-form anomaly. If all else fails, let's figure out a way to kill him."

Tu Ziguan hated beating around the bush and pulled a strange gadget from his bosom.

"I asked Mo Tang to make it."

Xie Feng sensed it.

"C4?! And you still claim you're just a military enthusiast!"