novelraw Chapter 5: The Net of Heaven is Wide-Meshed, Yet Nothing Escapes
Chapter 5: The Net of Heaven is Wide-Meshed, Yet Nothing Escapes
At the third watch of the night, Li Qiuchen suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.
Hearing the noisy footsteps in the distance, he felt his way to the temple entrance and looked outside. He saw a fire dragon in the mountains moving in their direction. He quickly returned and woke Hong Yang.
"The villagers are catching up!"
"Don't they sleep?"
Hong Yang's face was full of disbelief.
Traveling in the dark was already a great taboo. Traveling mountain paths in the dark was courting death.
Even if you carried torches it wouldn't work. The mountain paths wound this way and that, and if you weren't careful and your feet slipped, who knew where you'd roll to.
Did they really not care about their lives? Or was it that...
Only at this moment did Hong Yang truly believe Li Qiuchen's words.
Grand Uncle had already turned the villagers into puppets. Otherwise, in the middle of the night like this, who would be so obedient as to come out chasing people?The two of them together couldn't make half a set of parents. They'd wandered around the village since childhood. What deep family affection could there be to make them value them so much?
Even if they were chasing, they were coming to chase Yingcao.
After all, she was the village's only spiritual root, the village's only hope for good food and drink.
After realizing this problem, Hong Yang's heart immediately filled with regret.
If they hadn't brought Yingcao along, the two of them might really have been able to escape.
Children had simple minds. When they really encountered trouble, how could they think so thoroughly?
Now it was too late for regrets.
"Let's split up and run!"
When the moment came, Hong Yang didn't hesitate further and said to Li Qiuchen in a low voice, "I'll draw them away. You run from the back."
"Alright!"
Li Qiuchen nodded forcefully.
However, just as the two stood up and before they could walk out of the temple gate, they felt the ground beneath their feet tremble. Four or five tree roots suddenly grew from underground and sealed the temple gate tightly.
Although the temple gate was sealed tight, the temple itself wasn't tight at all. It could be said to be open to the wind on all sides.
Li Qiuchen leaped out through the broken window. Drawing on his memories from daytime, he crawled and scrambled onto the road.
Behind him, rustling sounds continued without end.
"You two little bastards, where do you think you're running to?"
Grand Uncle's sinister voice came from beside his ear.
Li Qiuchen paid no attention. Drawing on the strength he'd recovered while sleeping, he ran wildly along the mountain path with his head down.
He hadn't run more than a few steps when his feet suddenly went soft. From the rubble beside him, a tree root had grown at some unknown time, silently blocking the road. Caught off guard, Li Qiuchen was directly tripped and fell.
His knee was scraped and bleeding profusely.
This escape plan with no planning was declared a failure that very night.
Although Li Qiuchen had already used all his strength, in the end he still hadn't been able to escape beyond the twenty li radius of Songlin Village.
The next morning, Li Qiuchen and Hong Yang, securely tied up like zongzi, were back in the village.
Grand Uncle's expression was frighteningly grim.
To bring these two little bastards and the spiritual root back together, the village had lost several more hands.
In one night, six legs were broken, and there was an even more unlucky one who rolled down a mountain cliff, his head bleeding profusely, unconscious.
But none of these were problems.
If the little bastards ran away, they could be caught and brought back. If people were injured, they could be healed.
The problem was that the village had made too much commotion these two days and attracted outsiders.
Just after returning to the ancestral hall and settling Hong Yang and Li Qiuchen properly, before his backside had even warmed the seat, villagers rushed over to report that an immortal had fallen from the sky. This scared Grand Uncle until his hands and feet were ice-cold and his scalp tingled.
Pies wouldn't fall from the sky for no reason, and neither would immortals.
The villagers had no experience and their descriptions weren't accurate enough.
It was a cultivator flying on a sword.
Bai Yuhang steadied his footing, restrained the sword qi behind him, and carefully surveyed the village before him. His brows couldn't help but furrow slightly.
There were far too many trees in this village.
What proper village would have so many trees? They'd either be chopped down for firewood or cut up to build houses.
This reminded him of some not very pleasant things but right now he had no mind to investigate, because there were more pressing matters.
Glancing at the inn with its door open beside him, he stepped inside.
The moment he entered, the innkeeper actively came forward to greet him warmly, "I didn't know an immortal master would grace us with his presence. A thousand pardons."
Bai Yuhang cupped his fists in salute and smiled warmly, "I've taken the liberty of calling. Please forgive the disturbance. I'd like to ask the innkeeper, have you recently seen any traces of my Bai family's disciples nearby?"
"The Bai family?"
The innkeeper froze for a moment, then suddenly thought of something and his expression changed dramatically, "Could it be that..."
"Precisely."
"Oh my! So it's an immortal master of the Bai family. This humble one has eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai. I deserve ten thousand deaths!"
"It's not that serious. I'm just passing through here, making some inquiries."
"Ah, well..."
The innkeeper's forehead broke out in a slight sweat. For a moment he didn't know how to answer this question.
"You haven't seen any?"
Seeing him like this, Bai Yuhang's brows furrowed slightly.
"Immortal Master, please don't be anxious. This small shop truly hasn't heard any news of Bai family disciples. Please be patient for a moment. I'll go invite the clan elder over and have him gather the villagers to inquire. Perhaps there will be some findings."
"That's fine. Then I'll wait here."
Watching the innkeeper hurry away, Bai Yuhang frowned as he surveyed the inn.
It didn't look like anyone was staying here. Could they really make money like this?
He instinctively felt something wasn't quite right, but couldn't say specifically what was wrong.
After waiting for quite some time, he saw a crowd of villagers clustering around a white-haired old man as they came over. He could only temporarily set aside his doubts.
"Immortal Master means to say that an underage disciple of the Bai family has gone missing in these mountains?"
"Precisely. I ask that you, elder, help me inquire among the village hunters. If there is definite news, I'm willing to offer one hundred taels of silver or spirit stones as a reward."
"Immortal Master is too courteous. The Bai family has subdued demons and eliminated evil for generations, guarding the northern frontier. We common people are deeply grateful. For such a trivial small matter, how could we be so shameless as to demand payment from the Immortal Master?"
After a round of polite exchanges, Grand Uncle finally understood the origin of this cultivator, and his heart immediately relaxed.
So he was just passing through.
That's... that's wonderful!
"That old bastard has probably gone mad."
In the ancestral hall, the crayfish spirit hanging from the roof beam suddenly spoke.
"Eating young boys and girls isn't enough. He's actually set his sights on a Bai family cultivator. Hehe..."
Hearing this, Hong Yang immediately became excited. He pressed his face against the wall and squirmed around, rubbing off the rag in his mouth, then asked in a low voice, "Crayfish General, are Bai family cultivators immortals?"
The crayfish spirit hesitated, not quite knowing how to explain this question.
"If we cry out for help now, will the immortal come save us?"
"If you dare shout, I'll kill you!"
"Why?"
"I have a grudge with the Bai family."
"Grudge or no grudge, we're already in this state. Could it get any worse than this?"
"It could."
The Crayfish General's answer was resolute, "The one who came is a junior of the Bai family. He might not be able to beat that old bastard."
"Might not be able to, which means there's still a possibility he could, right?"
"You kid don't understand anything..."
The Crayfish General shook its body and nodded in Li Qiuchen's direction, "Let him speak."
Hong Yang suddenly turned his head to look at Li Qiuchen, who sat to the side in silence.
"Xiao Chen, you... when did you two hook up together?"
"Bah!"
Li Qiuchen spat out the rag in his mouth, along with the sour-smelling saliva.
"Last year. And that's not called hooking up."
"How come I didn't know?"
"You never asked."
"If I don't ask, you just won't say, is that it?"
Hong Yang's eyes widened, "That Yingcao would turn out like that, you already knew too?"
"I didn't know."
Li Qiuchen said helplessly, "I told you yesterday. My eldest cousin's spiritual root wouldn't grow out from her mouth."
Hong Yang was stunned for a moment.
Over these past few days, his worldview had undergone earth-shattering changes.
His promised wife had grown grass. Grand Uncle had suddenly become a bad person. Even his brother who he'd played with since childhood had become so unfamiliar.
So I'm the only one who didn't know anything?
"Your brain didn't work very well before."
Li Qiuchen kindly consoled him, "You've only just recently become enlightened. The more you know, the more troubles you have. That's how adults are."
You call this consoling people?
Hong Yang wanted to cry but had no tears. He only felt his little heart had suffered ten thousand points of critical damage.
"So, what do we do now?"
The crayfish spirit asked Li Qiuchen in a low voice, "This isn't the same as what we agreed on. If the Bai family gets involved and discovers the tricks in this village, none of us will survive."
"What other tricks are in the village?"
Hong Yang wanted to cry but couldn't suppress his curiosity.
"Call for help."
Li Qiuchen thought about it and gave an objective, rational, and appropriate suggestion.
"Although he wasn't in the plan, it's not a bad thing for us. We can use him to test Grand Uncle's true colors."
"Just... directly call for help?"
Hong Yang was getting a bit unconfident from his influence.
"Right. Shout loudly."
Hong Yang nodded, got up and hopped to the window, taking a deep breath.
"Help! Help!"
His voice carried out of the ancestral hall and merged into the noisy sounds of chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs in the village, seeming insignificant. But even the slightest bit of sound was clear enough for a cultivator with keen ears and eyes.
Bai Yuhang, who was sitting quietly in the inn waiting for news, had a slight change in his expression. He stood up and walked outside.
Just as he reached the door, tree roots burst from the ground and wound toward him with extremely agile speed.
"As expected, Medicine Master remnants!"
Bai Yuhang sneered. When he had flown here on his sword earlier, he'd realized this village had some problems. He just didn't want to get too entangled with them, being eager to find the whereabouts of his family's disciple. So he'd pretended nothing was amiss and dissembled with them.
He hadn't expected that seeing him alone, they would actually have crooked thoughts.
These Medicine Master remnants truly had no brains.
"Break!"
Seeing the surrounding tree roots closing in, he formed a sword gesture with his hand and pointed forward. A sword shadow flew out from behind him. Wherever the sword light went, all the tree roots broke inch by inch. In the blink of an eye they were sliced into fragments.
"Evil creature, accept your death!"
Bai Yuhang walked out of the inn with his hands clasped behind his back. Just as he was about to swing his sword to eliminate the evil, he looked up and saw the large willow tree beside him pull itself from the ground. Its thick branches, like adult arms, fiercely slapped down toward him.