novelraw Chapter 137: Speedrunning the Second Round of Illusory Realm Trials
Chapter 137: Speedrunning the Second Round of Illusory Realm Trials
The assistant was just an ordinary mortal. He couldn't hold out against the Soul-Pulling Technique for long, and before much time had passed he had given up everything he knew.
Their group were bandits from the Daqing Mountain outside the city.
The assistant went by the name Han Laosi, and served as the group's silver-tongued liaison, one of the four pillars and eight posts of the bandit hierarchy, tasked with talking his way into people's money.
The pork shop owner, Zheng Laohai, had originally been the big chief of their mountain stronghold.
He had once been a figure of considerable renown on the outlaw road, but for reasons nobody could determine, he had vanished without a word three years ago, leaving the entire group leaderless and sending it into a steady decline.
After much deliberation, the remaining members concluded that the chief had almost certainly pulled off some large score behind everyone's backs, decided to keep the silver for himself rather than share it with his brothers, and quietly retired.
Only recently had they tracked down the former chief's whereabouts, and discovered he had changed his name and come to the county seat to slaughter pigs.
The brothers put their heads together and agreed this couldn't stand. They had to bring the chief back. Without him at the helm, their outfit simply couldn't get anywhere, stuck between too big for small work and too small for big work, and it was driving everyone mad.
So the whole group came down from the mountain, hoping to persuade the chief to change his mind. And if persuasion truly failed, at the very least they needed him to hand over whatever silver he had kept for himself back then, so it could be divided among the brothers.
Once he had extracted every last detail and confirmed that Han Laosi had nothing further to offer, Li Qiuchen gave a casual flick of his fingers. The wooden spike detonated, turning the man's brain to pulp.Countless roots and vines grew up from the earth and wrapped around the body, and within the span of a quarter-hour had dragged the whole thing down into the ground.
When Li Qiuchen returned to the general goods shop, the owner and all the assistants had vanished without trace, whether from guilty conscience or some other reason he couldn't say.
Coming out of the general goods shop, Li Qiuchen immediately sensed hostile gazes closing in from the surrounding area.
They believed themselves well-concealed, but to Li Qiuchen's cultivated eyes, that kind of intent was as visible as a candle burning in the dark.
The young constable was still at the Yue household, drinking.
When he saw Li Qiuchen return, he immediately reported, "The old man tried to do something to himself and I pulled him back. The smithy owner crept over looking like he was up to no good. One look at me sitting here and he turned around without a word. I'd say that man has bad intentions written all over him!"
Congratulations. You've learned to tell good from bad.
Li Qiuchen picked up a fried meatball from the table and popped it into his mouth.
Say what you would, old man Yue's widowed daughter could really cook.
"I've already sorted out the whole matter for you. It's a bit complicated to explain, and you might not believe all of it."
The young constable perked up immediately. "Let's hear it!"
"It starts three years ago. Do you remember I asked you to go look up the case files? When you came back, I asked you what sentence those traffickers received in the end."
"They must all have been executed."
"Did the authorities behead them, or did someone slaughter them all and only then did the authorities discover the situation?"
"Well..."
"Since you don't actually know, don't worry too much about it. My guess is that those people made trouble with someone they shouldn't have."
Li Qiuchen smiled. "Then as now, the circumstances rhyme closely."
The young constable looked surprised. "It can really be that similar?"
"Very similar. Except three years ago, the one who was taken was not the county magistrate's daughter."
"Three years ago, the bandit chief of the outfit operating from Daqing Mountain outside the city had a daughter who came into the city to watch the lantern festival and got separated from her companions. The chief followed the trail into Pig-Slaughter Lane and killed every last one of the traffickers looking for her."
"But even though he killed them all, he couldn't save his daughter. She had been tortured to death, and her spirit lingered on, wailing day and night. To comfort her grieving soul, the chief changed his name, bought out the former base of the traffickers, and turned it into the pork shop you see today."
"He built a ritual altar in the underground chamber, and every day he fed his daughter's spirit with the blood, flesh, and organs left over from slaughtering pigs."
"He had already put down his sword, but the brothers he had left behind on the mountain were a thoroughly incompetent lot, and their situation had grown worse year by year. With no other options, they came down the mountain to find their former chief and beg him to return and lead them again."
"He refused. So these brothers hatched a particularly vicious plan. They abducted the county magistrate's daughter, then deliberately left clues to draw official attention toward the pork shop. Once the authorities discovered the chief's true identity, he would have no way to remain in the city and would be forced to go back to the mountain and live among his brothers."
"Unfortunately for them, the clues they left were not obvious enough."
Li Qiuchen looked at the young constable with a smile. "The authorities barely took it seriously, and sent only a green newcomer like you to investigate. At your level of experience, I estimate it would take ten days to half a month before you found anything at all."
The young constable flushed with indignation. "You've said all this, but where's the actual evidence?"
"Evidence of what?"
"Evidence that these people are bandits!"
"You came here to find Miss Xu, didn't you? What does it matter to you whether they're bandits or not?"
"Then what was the point of telling me all that?"
"The point is that I can take you to find Miss Xu. I laid out the background so that when something unexpected happens, you won't be confused by whatever anyone tells you and not know how to respond."
"So where exactly is Miss Xu?"
"You'll know tonight."
"Why does it have to be tonight?"
Because I still need to farm my score.
"Just trust me. Unless you'd prefer to go find the clues yourself?"
The young constable thought about it, then shook his head. "I'll wait for tonight, then."
Before long the night was half-spent, the watchman's drum sounding in the distance, and Li Qiuchen led the young constable to the front of the pork shop. He produced the Soul-Summoning Lantern and lit it, and in an instant a pale green light emerged and spread across the surrounding area within thirty zhang.
He had asked Senior Brother Yang about this item. It was no powerful treasure, just a minor tool.
Its function was to make spirits hidden in the darkness manifest visibly.
As the green light swept through the area, a crowd of children's voices suddenly reached their ears, laughing and chattering. The sounds were coming unmistakably from inside the pork shop.
Li Qiuchen gestured to the young constable and they pressed their eyes to the gaps in the door planks to peer inside. A crowd of small ghosts, their limbs severed and their faces grotesque and terrifying, were clambering all over the shop, playing and roughhousing with each other.
The young constable broke into a cold sweat, and was now about eighty percent convinced by everything Li Qiuchen had told him.
Li Qiuchen waved a hand to signal him to stay quiet and not startle the spirits, then led him around the side of the shop to the back entrance.
This was where the live pigs were kept.
The pork shop received a new delivery of live pigs every ten days, slaughtering and selling them fresh on the day, moving roughly two pigs' worth per day, with the rest kept in the back yard.
Li Qiuchen quietly pried open the back gate, carried the lantern through the sleeping pigs, and stopped in front of the fattest one among them. He pointed at it and said quietly to the young constable, "This is Miss Xu."
The young constable stared. "Please don't make a fool of me. I can tell the difference between someone who looks like a pig and an actual pig."
"Have you ever seen a ghost before?"
"Never."
"Tonight I showed you one."
"Ghosts are ghosts and pigs are pigs!"
"Do you remember the story I told you this afternoon? Do you think there exists in this world some method for turning a person into a pig?"
"..."
The young constable was speechless. After considerable internal struggle he spread his hands and said, "Even so, that doesn't prove this pig is Miss Xu."
"I got a look at all the pigs when I was in the shop earlier today, and this was the only one eating with genuine enthusiasm."
Li Qiuchen explained, "As long as a pig keeps eating, it keeps putting on weight, so it won't be slaughtered immediately. Your young miss may look like a pig, but her mind is still human. She's been quite clever about it."
He gave the pig a firm kick on the rump. "Wake up! Miss Xu!"
The sow let out a startled cry and lurched to her feet, and when she saw two young men in official uniforms standing before her, tears began streaming down her face. She pressed forward with a series of low, plaintive grunts.
"There, you see? Just as I said."
The young constable was left without a word to say.
If Li Qiuchen's story hadn't sounded so entirely plausible, he would not have been able to accept what he was seeing under any circumstances.
If he tried to explain it to anyone, they would take him for a madman.
"So... what do we do now?"
"Looking at the pig pen, there are still ten pigs here, which means Miss Xu has at most five days. You need to find someone capable of reversing the transformation within those five days."
Li Qiuchen smiled. "Surely there must be someone like that around?"
The young constable thought for a moment, then nodded. "I do know someone who might be capable..."
Before the words were fully out of his mouth, every scene before Li Qiuchen dissolved instantly into nothing.
Trial cleared.
A trial that should have had five days of story remaining had been cleared in just two.
[You have cleared the First-Grade Illusory Realm: Pig-Slaughter Lane]
[Remaining Composure: 95]
[Illusory Realm Exploration: 80]
[Overall Rating: First Class, Lower]
[Identity verified. This trial result has been recorded in the Northern Frontier Human Boards.]
[Current Cohort Ranking: 2,047,646]
[Based on your overall rating, please select one reward from the following.]
[Available rewards are as follows:]
[1. Zheng Laohai's pig-slaughtering cleaver]
[2. One copy volume of the Sutra of Rebirth]
[3. Return to Origin talisman]
[4. One copper wayfaring coin]
...
A speedrun meant that many hidden side threads had gone unexplored, and the whole thing had been pushed through largely on guesswork.
The key was that he had guessed correctly.
The main storyline matched his rough predictions closely enough. The missing portion was probably the plot thread involving the young constable going to find someone capable of saving Miss Xu, which under normal circumstances would have been triggered by story events over the final two days.
Hence the exploration score of only eighty.
But First Class Lower was still First Class, and Li Qiuchen was perfectly satisfied with that.
The trial rewards hardly mattered. Nothing particularly useful among them.
One more trial to clear now, and with three first-class ratings in hand he could obtain a first-grade Elixir Viscera and begin proper cultivation.
That was what actually counted.
Li Qiuchen returned just in time for the second-round trial results to be posted.
His second round, technically, though it was everyone else's first.
This time Chen Nangsheng had finally achieved a First Class Lower rating.
The number of students reaching first and second class had also begun to grow, including some who had failed the first time around, with noticeably better results across the board.
As the saying went, the first time is unfamiliar, the second time you know what to expect.
The first attempt had caught everyone unprepared, and it was only natural to falter when facing something for the first time. The second time, knowing what was coming, it was considerably less daunting.
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