40: Chapter 40 The Turkey Standing Among the Chickens

Xie Feng stood up, his knees feeling a bit weak.

Leaning on his blind staff to steady himself, just as he was preparing to walk back, his spiritual power perception suddenly caught a hint of movement.

In the southeast direction, about three hundred paces away, a team of people was crossing the hills and walking east; the spiritual power fluctuations of the five people were all around the Second Realm.

The person walking at the very back of the group was empty when the spiritual power swept past. Although they were also in the Second Realm, it seemed as if a humanoid mist was standing there, and the spiritual power outlined the shape of that "mist".

Abnormally thin, with wrists as thin as firewood sticks.

Xie Feng did not hesitate. He pulled a jade plaque from his sleeve, poured spiritual power into it, pressed down on the Spirit Stone, and thought of Tu Ziguan in his heart.

The jade plaque lit up twice, and Tu Ziguan's voice came out, carrying the hoarseness of someone being woken up.

"Brother Feng? Do you know what hour it is now?"

"Stop sleeping," Xie Feng lowered his voice. "Outside the city walls, two miles away, in the hills, five people, around the Second Realm, and an anomaly. The thin man that Old Li saw is in the group."

The other end of the jade plaque fell silent for a moment, followed by a rustling sound as someone fumbled in the dark to put on clothes.

"Position! Specific location!"

"Come out of the city gate, walk along the dirt road toward the hills, and it's just past that pine forest. When you arrive, you'll be able to sense the spiritual power I left behind; I've left traces for you."

"Wait for me, I'll be right there."

The jade plaque dimmed.

Xie Feng stuffed the jade plaque back into his sleeve, facing the direction where the group of people had disappeared. They were walking north, not fast, as if carrying something. Xie Feng reduced his spiritual power perception to the minimum, leaving only a thin layer covering within ten steps of his body, and then silently followed them.

Meng Yi was behind the scenes.

But there was another link in between. Meng Yi was a City Defense Cultivator, and it was impossible for him to personally run to the Black Pine Forest to preside over it; he needed a proxy, someone who could complete the summoning for him on site.

Yet it was impossible for him to choose an anomaly to help him; there was more to this matter. Xie Feng tapped his blind staff gently across the grass without making any sound.

Xie Feng followed the group for about half an hour.

The moon completely emerged from behind the clouds, casting a silvery-white glow over the wild grass on the hills.

The spiritual power fluctuations of those five people swayed not too far and not too close ahead; two clusters were slightly stronger, two were slightly weaker, all around the standard of the Second Realm, while the "mist" cluster at the very back maintained the exact same distance, following unhurriedly.

While tracking, Xie Feng compared locations in his mind: north of Cangyun City was the direction of Liushu Village, and that peddler lived in Liushu Village.

"This matches up now."

The dirt road made a turn between two hills, and a pitch-black outline appeared ahead. Scattered about, a dozen or so households were crammed into the mountain col. Under the moonlight, thatched roofs and adobe walls could be seen; the village was not large.

At this hour, not a single light was lit in the village, and not even a dog was barking.

That group did not take the main road at the village entrance. They bypassed the side of the village, walking along a dried-up drainage ditch toward the end of the village. At the end of the drainage ditch was a half-collapsed earthen wall. Inside the wall was an independent small courtyard, separated from the other houses in the village by a small patch of vegetable plots, squatting lonely at the northernmost part of the village.

Is this a stronghold?

Xie Feng stopped outside the earthen wall. His spiritual power perception crossed the top of the wall, outlining the situation inside the courtyard: three adobe houses formed a "C" shape, the main room faced south, and wing rooms were on both sides. In the middle of the courtyard was a well, and a few broken baskets were piled on the well platform.

After entering the courtyard, the spiritual power fluctuations dispersed: two guarded the courtyard gate, one entered the wing room, and the leader stood by the well platform, whispering to the "mist".

The leader hunched over, his head tilted to one side, as if pressing his ear close to the mouth of that mist. The mist was writhing, like a lump of wet mud being pinched back and forth.

That mist looked like a constantly slightly deforming outline, as if something was continuously surging beneath that layer of skin.

Xie Feng was waiting for Tu Ziguan.

But Tu Ziguan was hurrying over from the south of the city; even with a motorcycle, it would take at least the time of two incense sticks. The people in the courtyard obviously wouldn't wait that long. After hearing the mist's words, the leader straightened his waist and made a gesture toward the wing room, and the person in the wing room dragged out an ox.

"Are you guys out of your minds?! That's not a Dreamlands entrance! That's the Black Goat Young Summoning Technique!"

Xie Feng truly felt that lack of knowledge could kill people. These people probably didn't recognize the contents of the ancient texts and imagined the Black Goat Young Summoning Technique as a teleportation spell. This thing couldn't send the few of them to see Nodens, it could only send them to see the Black Goat.

Their movements were proficient, as if they had done it many times. The leader pulled a talisman paper from his bosom and pasted it on the well rim. Xie Feng recognized the symbols on the talisman paper from across the wall: the pattern of three snakes entwined together was identical to the impressions on that stack of blank talisman paper in Xie Yuan's room.

The five people stood their ground, surrounding the well platform in the middle, facing outward, lowering their heads, and began to chant. Their voices were very low—so low that Xie Feng's spiritual power could only capture some fragmented syllables. It was not human language, nor was it any kind of Cthulhu incantation he was familiar with, but something distorted, lying somewhere in between.

That mist stood directly north of the well platform, which seemed to be the position of the chief priest.

The form of the mist began to change. Its outline no longer maintained a human shape, but instead expanded in all directions as if propped open from the inside. The things surging beneath the skin finally broke through the surface, and black slime oozed from the mist, spreading along the ground toward the well platform.

"This size? This feeling?" The things in Xie Feng's mind gradually began to correspond with his spiritual power perception.

Xie Feng's blind staff tapped on the ground, his body leaning forward slightly. He could not wait any longer; once it was summoned, it would truly become troublesome to handle. If the Dark Young couldn't be killed with a glance and hit him before dying, he was afraid he would also suffer a terrible ordeal.

Just as he was about to vault over the wall, a muffled sound suddenly came from the courtyard, and the door of the main room was slammed open from the inside.

"Who is it!" A man stumbled out from the main room, barefoot, draped in a ragged tunic, with hair as messy as a chicken coop. He rushed into the courtyard, came face to face with the five people by the well platform, and froze in place as if paralyzed. "You... you guys..."

The leader turned his head, the moonlight shining on his face. Xie Feng's spiritual power traced his expression clearly: it was surprise, which quickly turned into impatience.

"Why is there someone in this courtyard?" he asked the two people guarding the courtyard gate.

The two looked at each other. "I... I don't know. The main room was empty when we came."

"Empty?" The leader pointed at the man standing blankly at the entrance of the main room. "You call this empty?"

"N-No... The little one didn't..." The lazy man's voice seemed squeezed out from his throat. Even if he was foolish, he realized something was wrong by now; these people's whereabouts were suspicious, were they hardened bandits? "The little one's surname is Wang, called Wang Er, I am... from the west end of the village..."

"Sun Dayou usually carries poles to travel from village to village selling needles and thread. The little one knows him and knows he hasn't been home these past few days, and there's an extra ox at home, so... so I wanted to borrow his house to stay for a few days... The little one really doesn't know anything! The little one was just greedy for a small advantage! The little one has elderly parents above and young children below ah!"

Only then did the man react, his legs going soft as he dropped to his knees. "Great lords! Spare my life, great lords! The little one is not from this family! The little one just saw that this courtyard was uninhabited and wanted to... wanted to stay for a few nights! The little one doesn't know anything! Saw nothing at all! Spare my life, great lords!"

He spoke incoherently, his voice shaking beyond recognition. Xie Feng's spiritual power swept across him; this person had no spiritual power fluctuations, an ordinary person, not even in the First Realm. His frame was not small, but his muscles were loose—a person who lived lazily on a daily basis. He was probably here to steal the ox. This kind of person would want to take advantage upon seeing someone living in an empty courtyard, but instead of gaining an advantage, he bumped into a group of desperadoes engaging in a blood sacrifice.

The leader glanced at him twice, then turned to the mist.

The mist did not respond. It was concentrating on the expanding fissure above the well platform. Most of the black slime had already flowed out from its "body," paving a patch on the ground, and the edges continued to spread outward, less than three feet away from the kneeling man on the ground.

The leader turned back, looked at the man on the ground, and placed his hand on the hilt of the knife at his waist.

"Don't blame me for being ruthless; you're just unlucky yourself."

Xie Feng crossed the earthen wall.

Not by vaulting over it, but by crashing through it. The earthen wall was already half-collapsed; spiritual threads wrapped around his body, his shoulders pushed in, and a humanoid breach cracked open on the wall surface, with rammed earth chunks and broken bricks clattering onto the ground in the courtyard.

The people in the courtyard turned toward him simultaneously. Four Second Realm Cultivators, four knives, were unsheathed at almost the exact same instant.

Xie Feng's blind staff tapped on the back of the first knife. The cold iron staff tip collided with the three-foot steel blade, and the web of that man's hand felt as if it had been struck by an iron hammer. The knife flew out of his hand, nailing into the wall of the adobe house, its hilt vibrating with a buzzing sound.

"Are you kidding me, buddy? I am from a reputable School, you, a Loose Cultivator, want to compare spiritual power quality with me?"

Xie Feng did not retract his staff. Utilizing the rebounding force, the staff tip swept horizontally to the left, smashing into the second person's knee. The sound of bones shattering sounded muffled in the night, like stepping on a rotten wooden board.

The third knife slashed over from the side. Xie Feng sidestepped, the blade scraping past the edge and cutting off a string tying his veil.

"Holy crap! Wang Er! Close your eyes if you don't want to die!"

Wang Er was startled, then immediately closed his eyes.

The veil slanted to one side, and a sliver of The Guide's light leaked out from the gap, shining on that person's face. That person was stunned for less than half a breath, and the illuminated spot began to burn. In that very half-breath, Xie Feng's blind staff thrust into his abdomen, spiritual power infusing the staff body and exploding out from the staff tip.

The fissure above the well platform abruptly shrank by a circle, and every inch of the surface of that slime's entire "body" vibrated simultaneously, emitting a sound resembling a hiss. Like an enraged snake, it bounced up from the ground and lunged toward Xie Feng's direction.

"Come, let me give you a big one!"

Xie Feng ripped off his veil, and The Guide's light poured out unobstructed from the two hollow eye sockets, spreading across the courtyard. As soon as the black slime was illuminated by the light, a layer of fine foam instantly rose on its surface, as if scalded by boiling oil.

It abruptly shrank back, coiling by the well platform, not daring to move forward again.

The leader became so anxious that his voice went out of tune: "Quick! Put it back! It cannot be cut off!"

Silly boy, your ritual is purely flirting with a blind man, it's nothing more than self-consolation. Xie Feng did not tell him this. His blind staff tapped the ground, his whole body leaping up with the leveraged force, and the staff tip descended from the sky, smashing onto the leader's shoulder.

The sound of the collarbone breaking and a scream erupted simultaneously, and the man tilted heavily to the side. The last person lunged from behind the moment Xie Feng landed, the blade aiming straight for the back of his neck.

Without even looking back, Xie Feng reverse-stabbed with his blind staff from under his armpit, the staff tip precisely poking the opponent's throat. Clutching his neck, the man knelt down, his knife dropping to the ground with a crisp sound.

"I am so strong! How can I take on five people of the same Realm by myself? Wait, that's not right, I didn't even use a Cultivation Technique?"

Xie Feng suddenly felt that he was so strong! As expected, his hard training every day in the Sect had results. Being beaten in a circle by that group of geniuses in the Sect every day—compared to these Loose Cultivators, he was truly unimaginably strong!

"Although it cannot be considered standing out like a crane among chickens, it can at least be considered a turkey standing among chickens."

Just as Xie Feng was feeling good about himself over here, that lump of mud over there gradually disappeared; it slowly vanished while Xie Feng was attacking.

The courtyard finally became completely quiet.

That lazy man was still kneeling at the entrance of the main room, trembling all over like a sieve. His mouth was wide open, making a rattling sound in his throat, yet he couldn't utter a single word. He had heard everything and dared not move at all.

Xie Feng retied his veil and turned to him.

"Get up."

The lazy man did not move.

"Get up," Xie Feng said again.

The lazy man gave a violent shudder, scrambled up using both hands and feet, his back pressed tightly against the door frame, his eyes staring fixedly at Xie Feng's hanging veil.

"Let's go, take advantage of others less in the future." Xie Feng turned and walked toward the well platform, squatting down to inspect the residue of that pool of black slime. Just like the previous few times, but this time at the center of the slime was wrapped a small piece of incompletely melted talisman paper fragment. He used the staff tip to push aside the slime and picked out the talisman paper fragment.

The fragment was only the size of a fingernail, with half a symbol remaining on it. It wasn't three snakes, but another kind. A circle, with a curved line inside the circle, and the end of the line branched into three strands.

"This looks unfamiliar, huh?" Xie Feng felt his head growing big again. After all, in his past life, not every deity's imprint was complete; some gods were very famous yet had no imprint. "However, that thing just now looked like a Formless Spawn? But Formless Spawns aren't sweet, are they?"

The sound of clothes cutting through the air came from behind.

Tu Ziguan vaulted in from the breach in the earthen wall, holding two earth-shaking thunders in his hands, clamping under his armpit Wang Er who had just run out—bruised and swollen, obviously having been caught by Tu Wu just after running out and getting beaten up.

Tu Ziguan looked at the mess. "You call this 'watching the situation for a bit'?"

Xie Feng stood up and tapped the ground with his blind staff. "Plans can't keep up with changes."

"I can see that." Tu Ziguan put the earth-shaking thunders back into his waist, kicked a Cultivator who was still moaning near his feet, and asked, "Four Second Realm individuals, one anomaly. You did this by yourself?"

"It ran away."

"Ran away? Where did it run?"

Xie Feng did not answer directly. He felt out that talisman paper fragment from his sleeve and handed it to Tu Ziguan. "Take a look at this."

Tu Ziguan took it and looked at it back and forth. "What is this?"

"A symbol, I don't know whose it is," Xie Feng said. "The one sitting in the City Defense Mansion should have been contaminated by It."

The lazy man named Wang Er was still cowering at the entrance of the main room, his eyes darting back and forth between Xie Feng and Tu Ziguan, his lips trembling, wanting to say something but not daring to.

Tu Ziguan walked to the edge of the well platform, squatted down, and looked at the pool of residue. "The same as the one in Xie Yuan's house?"

"The same kind of thing, looking both like an anomaly and a Cthulhu creature." Xie Feng turned to Wang Er. Wang Er shuddered as he was "watched" by the hollow sockets behind his veil, his whole body shaking.

"Wang Er."

"H-Here!"

"Who does Sun Dayou usually associate with?"

"N-No one in particular. He's just someone who sells needles and thread, staying in one village for a day and then leaving..."

"When did he join that cult?"

"What cult? The little one doesn't know any cult... The little one really just wanted to stay for a few days..."

Xie Feng turned to Tu Ziguan. "Take him back to Cangyun City, hand him over to the county yamen, and don't let him leak a single word about tonight's events. If he leaks anything, use him to take the blame."

Wang Er plopped down on his knees again. "I won't leak it! The little one won't leak a single word! The little one saw nothing at all! The little one slept at his own house tonight!"

Tu Ziguan looked at Wang Er, then looked at Xie Feng. "What about you?"

"I am returning to the Xie Residence," Xie Feng said. "Tomorrow morning, I'm going to the City Defense Mansion."

"Still going? Didn't you say he was contaminated?"

"Precisely because he is contaminated, I must go." Xie Feng tapped the residue on the well platform that had completely turned to ash with his blind staff. "Leave a message for the Sect; this person is not right. Have the Sect send people over, and I will go check what is going on with this person, stalling him so he doesn't run away."

Tu Ziguan looked at him for a moment, then hauled Wang Er up from the ground. "Let's go."

Dragging Wang Er, he disappeared outside the earthen wall.

Xie Feng walked in the direction of Cangyun City. Halfway there, he lifted a slit in his veil, and the night wind poured in, blowing against the two hollow eye sockets, feeling chilly.

He breathed out a sigh and retied his veil.

Tomorrow, he would go see Meng Yi again and ask this "Senior Meng" who had guarded Cangyun City for forty years face to face.