novelraw Chapter 8: Li Qiuchen Escapes with His Life
Chapter 8: Li Qiuchen Escapes with His Life
At the same time, Li Qiuchen also arrived at the altar outside the village.
Sanskrit sounds as if from beyond the heavens swirled in his mind. The mournful chanting almost twisted his thoughts, trying to transform him into a devout Medicine Master believer.
"In a moment, no matter what happens, just follow me and run. Don't look back!"
After instructing Hong Yang, Li Qiuchen raised his hand toward Guan Damu, spread his five fingers, then clenched them into a fist.
"Ten years."
A simple and honest smile appeared at the corner of Boss Guan's mouth as he muttered to himself.
"Although it was true that when I came back seeking medicine, saying it was to treat a child's illness was a lie. But you deceived me for a full ten years without giving a single hair. That's really too much."
"People should be more generous and not so selfish."
He took out a fire starter, lit the fuse at his feet, then turned and ran at full speed.
A tremendous explosion rang out. A terrifying fireball detonated beneath the altar, completely engulfing the old peach tree in front of the altar.The strange phenomena between heaven and earth instantly froze.
Li Qiuchen pressed Hong Yang's head down to avoid the blast's impact. Without waiting for the smoke to clear, he charged toward the center of the explosion.
Countless petals fluttered up and down in the billowing smoke in the sky. The old peach tree had been blown apart at the waist, revealing its snow-white core.
Boss Guan, who was closest, pulled out an axe from who knows where and chopped it straight at the tree core. In just a few strikes, he cut off a piece of tree core as crisp and tender as bamboo shoots.
A three-thousand-year-old peach tree that had never borne fruit in its lifetime, storing all its essence in the tree core. The nutritional value of this tree core could well be imagined.
Just the woody fragrance it emitted had a refreshing and invigorating feeling.
The crayfish spirit eagerly pounced forward, grabbed the severed tree core, and began wolfing it down. It had guarded the spirit spring at the back mountain of Songlin Village for so many years for exactly this bite. The core of a thousand-year peach tree was a genuine heavenly treasure.
In any other place, how would it be qualified to share such precious materials? Being served on the table together with the tree core was more likely.
"Go! Hurry! Quit while you're ahead!"
Li Qiuchen snatched a piece of tree core and stuffed it in his pocket, grabbed the crayfish spirit's claw and dragged it backward, "Stop eating! If we don't leave now and it recovers, you'll have to spit out everything you ate!"
No matter how crisp and tender this tree core was, it wasn't real bamboo shoots. The crayfish spirit was stuffed until its eyes rolled back. It looked back reluctantly, then kicked up a surge of water beneath its feet, wrapped up Boss Guan and the two children, and turned to flee.
The difference in strength was real.
The crayfish spirit knew in its heart that it was actually the old peach tree's prey.
The reason it could complete such an earth-shattering reversal today was entirely due to Li Qiuchen's planning.
Even if Songlin Village was a pig pen, the pig farmer wasn't human.
Grand Uncle, as the fattest pig in the pen, had persistently snatched other piglets' food over the years, eating himself plump and strong. But no matter how much he ate, a pig was still a pig.
Although every pig couldn't escape the fate of being slaughtered, before that final knife came, the pen's owner first had to ensure the pigs' survival.
Through careful observation over the years, Li Qiuchen had unexpectedly discovered a loophole in the pig pen's operational mechanism.
There was only one true Medicine Master believer in the village, and that was the pen's owner, the old peach tree.
A tree's brain was different from a human brain. Although its spiritual intelligence had awakened, it wouldn't be affected by various insignificant emotions like humans.
If villagers were injured, the old peach tree would, under the guise of the Medicine Master, prioritize treating the villagers.
If the number of wounded was large, it would also mobilize more power. Just like when capturing the crayfish spirit, to heal the villagers, the old peach tree had even devoted part of the power it used for monitoring every movement in the village and controlling puppets.
Grand Uncle had fallen into slumber at that time. Because the old peach tree no longer had the energy to attend to him, this advanced puppet, it could only put him into standby mode.
Simply put, this was the Medicine Master's "Dao."
As the saying goes, if you're a monk for a day, ring the bell for a day. As a follower of the Medicine Master, you must heal the wounded and rescue the dying.
Who to save wasn't important. Saving yourself was fine too. The key point was to save.
The old peach tree's cultivation was to root itself in the soil and silently guard its pig pen.
As a tree, it didn't need to go out and gain experience.
As long as this operational mechanism in the pig pen didn't have major problems and didn't trigger an alarm, it didn't even need to actively manage things. Staying at the village entrance and waiting for Grand Uncle to deliver offerings to its mouth was enough.
Over two thousand people in all of Songlin Village had lived here for hundreds of years, none knowing that the old peach tree at the entrance was the true master but there were exceptions.
Guan Damu had left the village in his early years to venture out. It was said he even married and had children outside. But because his child was congenitally weak with a short lifespan, he had no choice but to return to the village to seek medicine.
However, Grand Uncle was an iron rooster, and the old peach tree was even more miserly. It just deceived people verbally, saying something about the peach tree bearing fruit once every thirty years, and he just happened to have missed this round.
Guan Damu waited in the village for a full ten years before realizing he'd been deceived by this old fellow.
Since it wouldn't give, he prepared to just take it by force.
Also waiting for an opportunity was the crayfish spirit in the spirit spring at the back mountain. It had long coveted the old peach tree's essence, but unfortunately its own strength was insufficient. It didn't dare get too close and become tree fertilizer. It could only stay in the spirit spring, gnawing on the peach tree roots that grew over.
Li Qiuchen linked these two fellows together and presented his plan.
This plan was very simple to describe: while the village held the great sacrifice, bury explosives to send the old peach tree to heaven, then flee.
The difficulty of the plan lay in how to evade the old peach tree's eyes and ears and how to disperse its attention so it wouldn't notice the explosives' presence.
For example, have the crayfish spirit attack, injure as many villagers as possible, then feign defeat and be captured.
Capturing the crayfish spirit was such a major event that the village would inevitably hold a great sacrifice. At that time, while the old peach tree was distracted, Guan Damu could use the opportunity of building the altar to hide the explosives right under its nose.
Although various unexpected incidents had occurred, overall speaking, the plan had been successful so far.
Perhaps too successful.
Bai Yuhang's arrival had almost attracted all of the old peach tree's attention.
Now this plan had just one last step: how to flee?
Taking the mountain path out of the village seemed to be the only option, but it was a dead end.
The old peach tree had just been stunned by the explosion for a moment. It wasn't dead. The concept of "death" for a Medicine Master believer could almost be ignored.
Its roots underground didn't just spread throughout the village, they even extended to the front and back mountains, reaching as far as twenty li away.
As long as it woke up, Li Qiuchen's group couldn't possibly escape but within this inescapable net, there existed one path to survival that everyone had overlooked.
That was the spirit spring at the back mountain.
There were no tree roots in the spirit spring. They'd all been gnawed away by the crayfish spirit and beneath the spirit spring was an underground river leading to the outside world. They only needed to borrow the crayfish spirit's water escape technique to escape with their lives.
But here was another difficulty.
How to ensure the crayfish spirit was an honest demon that would keep its agreement?
Fortunately it was a crayfish. If it were a fox spirit, Li Qiuchen really wouldn't dare to bet on it.
He could only gamble.
Having schemed to this point, the remaining matters could only depend on fate.
"Ahhhh, arghhhh!"
The crayfish spirit burst forth with astonishing strength. All ten legs beneath it left afterimages.
Not because its demon character was solid, but because the old peach tree had awakened.
Terrifying pressure surged into the sky, scaring the crayfish spirit until it pissed itself.
The old peach tree that had just been blown in half by explosives had already recovered completely in an instant. An aged human face appeared on the thick trunk, turning to look at the group fleeing for their lives.
A tree's brain was a half-beat slower compared to humans. The old peach tree was stunned for quite a while before figuring out what had happened.
My precious tree core!!
The earth began to tremble.
Black tree roots burst from the ground one after another, lashing down toward the crayfish spirit with thunderous force.
The crayfish spirit's mouth was still stuffed with wood. It used every ounce of strength it had, controlling the water flow and charging forward desperately without regard for anything.
Just as the tree roots were about to fall, Boss Guan pulled out the palm thunders in his hand, lit them with the fire starter, and threw them out one after another.
Fire flashed and smoke filled the air. Tree roots as thick as rice bowls snapped on the spot.
As the saying goes, each has its strengths and weaknesses. The old peach tree's defensive power wasn't strong. Otherwise it wouldn't have been blown senseless by a few barrels of explosives.
It was like a healing priest wearing plate armor. As long as the health bar recovered fast enough, defense wasn't needed at all.
These palm thunders that Guan Damu threw out couldn't inflict effective damage on the old peach tree, but they temporarily blocked its pursuit.
At least they delayed it, buying more time for the crayfish spirit.
Using the smoke as cover, the crayfish spirit dove headfirst into the spirit spring. Borrowing its home field advantage, its water escape speed instantly increased tenfold.
"Hahaha, old peach, you have this day too!"
Back in the water, the crayfish spirit immediately regained its confidence. No longer showing that earlier desperate fleeing appearance, it spat out the wood in its mouth and taunted madly.
"Made you hoard! Made you hoard! Hoarding your coffin money for a lifetime and you end up directly in the coffin! In this life of yours..."
Before it finished speaking, a tremendous rumbling sound came from overhead.
The mountain collapsed.
It might be hard for ordinary people to imagine how serious the psychological damage of losing wealth would be to an old miser and iron rooster.
The old peach tree had gone mad with rage.
Its roots pierced straight down through the rocks overhead. Countless broken stones came tumbling down.
The crayfish spirit's joy turned to sorrow. It was struck on the head by a huge boulder, and its water escape technique immediately dissolved.
Ice-cold river water poured in from all directions. The rapid current instantly tore apart the three people behind it.
"Xiao Chen!"
Hong Yang reached out trying to grab Li Qiuchen, but in this pitch-black underwater, in the river where mud and sand tumbled together, he couldn't see each other at all.
Li Qiuchen held his breath and drifted along the underground river's current for who knows how far. Finally unable to hold on any longer, his vision went dark and he lost consciousness.