Chapter 146: Smug and Regal
The eagle on the opposite side struck first. It left the trestle and dove straight toward Wu Heng at the front.
“Holy crap, it’s huge!”
“Perspective trick—things look bigger up close. Wu Heng, looks like your little guy isn’t ready yet.”
The mutant eagle’s wings swept in with a gale. Wu Heng watched it calmly, showing no intention of striking back.
At the rear, Jiang Xun frowned slightly. She couldn’t tell where this boy’s composed, almost self-destructive calm came from.
As it closed in on Wu Heng, the mutant eagle thrust both talons forward, clawing straight for his face.
At his side, a massive shadow shot out even faster. The parrot—already evolved with a pair of hook-shaped talons—kicked off the mutant eagle and yanked it away at high speed. As it moved, its body swelled to an enormous size; its soft feathers transformed into cold-glinting armor plates that clattered sharply.
The mutant eagle was slammed onto the bridge. It snapped its head up and lunged to bite at X’s neck, its left talon stabbing straight for X’s chest.
X spun to evade, circled behind the eagle, and stomped down hard on its back again and again.
The trestle began to rock violently. People on the bridge staggered, while below, countless dark shapes stirred at the noise and surged toward their feet.
“If you’ve all got wings, why not fight in the air?!” Xue Qi yelled, gripping Shen Ping’an tightly by the neck.
At that moment, the mutant eagle pulled away from the bridge. It didn’t fly far—several feathers drifted down as it circled the trees over the water, then charged toward the center of the team at an unnatural speed.
X thundered over on thick legs, panic-stricken, also running toward the group.
“Waaah waah waah waah!”
“Who’s talking?”
“Question: just how many people’s verbal tics did it pick up while it had the chance?”
It collided with the mutant eagle again, shredding the bushes on both sides into uneven lengths. Broken stubs rained down into the water.
Both pairs of talons—of different species—clawed desperately to tear through the other, and the two axe-like beaks slammed together again and again with dull thuds.
Entangled for too long, the two birds plunged downward together. Beneath the surface, several horseshoe bugs were clustered there.
X was pinned underneath the mutant eagle. One of the eagle’s talons pressed down on its wing, the other clamped around its throat, clearly preparing to force it straight into the water.
“Oh my god, oh my god!”
Thinking fast, X pecked viciously at the mutant eagle’s eye. Startled, the eagle dodged in a panic, its grip loosening. X immediately surged forward, planting its feet on the eagle’s back.
Bang!
A massive splash erupted, the ripples spreading so far their end couldn’t be seen at a glance.
Everyone lay prone on the trestle, staring tensely at the water below.
Before the waves had even settled, the long-waiting dark shapes began to dart about. They flipped and leapt, their backs occasionally slicing through the surface, slick with dark, sticky water sheen.
A sharp bird shriek rang out. X came scrambling out of the water in a tumble, a swarm of horseshoe bugs chasing it so closely that it seemed to be running right on the surface.
At the spot where the two birds had fallen, dark green water bloomed with red liquid and bubbles.
X’s wings were soaked; several attempts to take off ended in failure.
It kept stumbling and falling on the water, while the horseshoe bugs pursued relentlessly, leaping out now and then to bite at it. Thanks to this, the people on the bridge were finally able to see the creatures clearly.
Each of them was nearly as large as X, and their appearance was strikingly bizarre.
Their tails were worm-like, segmented and black, ending in a soft, long fork like a catfish’s whiskers. Their heads and bodies were oval-shaped, with pairs of chest appendages on either side that resembled human hands. A pair of compound eyes, pitch-black and eerily bright, stayed locked on the large bird fleeing across the water.
Seeing X about to be dragged back under, Xue Qi grew anxious. “They’re trying to wear our Forky to death!”
X panted heavily, the speed of its wingbeats slowing. Several times, half its body sank beneath the surface before it startled itself and sprang back up.
After being toyed with again and again, X seemed to finally snap. It craned its neck, flapping its wings furiously, both talons plunging into the water.
Water sprayed everywhere as a massive shape thrashed violently beneath the surface. X’s body wobbled; it held its beak open, blood seeping from the corners, its eyes shifting from anger to hatred—then to naked killing intent.
It hauled a horseshoe bug nearly its own size straight out of the water.
“Damn it, it mutated again.” Xue Qi had Shen Ping’an in a chokehold. “Will it start attacking friend and foe alike? Not even recognizing its dad or mom?!”
The gray parrot’s feathers clattered loudly as they collided against one another, water droplets streaming off it in thin lines. As the horseshoe bug was gradually hauled up above the trestle, its back had already been pierced through. The bird’s talons, hooked like grappling claws, held its body fast—no matter how wildly it twisted and struggled, it couldn’t tear itself free.
Viewed from below, the horseshoe bug’s underside was even more bizarre. Its chest limbs looked like pairs of tiny human hands. The center of its body was a deep brown, while the edges of its carapace were paler, translucent and jelly-like.
X went all out. In midair, it tore the horseshoe bug beneath its claws clean in half!
The ripped creature was still twitching as it fell back into the water. X paused on a nearby thick branch, soaked through, panting heavily. It kept turning its head, eyes fixed on the water below.
During its watch, it met Wu Heng’s gaze—and there was unmistakable displeasure in its eyes.
Its talons flexed. Then it dove headfirst toward the water’s surface.
A horseshoe bug burst out of the water, opening its broad mouth to try to bite down on the big bird that looked both delicious and filling. X seized the moment, twisting in midair above the water. Its sharp talons plunged straight into the creature’s already open mouth, precisely piercing the upper palate. Before the horseshoe bug could react, X had already dragged the massive thing out of the water.
X tore apart a second horseshoe bug.
A third. A fourth. Four… five more…
The more it killed, the more practiced it became, its movements faster and faster. Each time, it would dive into the water, circle once, then burst back out clutching a horseshoe bug. Its feathers no longer seemed to cling with water; instead, its body looked as though it were covered in a layer of cold, gleaming armor.
The pond became littered with shredded horseshoe bugs. The swarm even began feeding on the remains themselves, but they no longer clustered together as before to hunt creatures on the surface.
When the gray parrot finally returned to the trestle, even from one or two kilometers away, the team could clearly hear its heavy, ragged panting.
It didn’t fly. Instead, it strode toward them with menacing momentum.
More precisely, it was heading straight for Wu Heng.
Emerging from the fog, its eyes were blood-red. It walked faster and faster, the trestle swaying left and right again under its steps.
“Careful, it looks like it’s enraged,” Shen Ping’an warned in a low voice from behind Wu Heng.
Yet before X even reached him, Wu Heng shifted into a crouch—the most inconvenient posture for facing an enemy.
Chest out, head high—who could say a bird wasn’t wild?
X was radiating killing intent; the closer it got, the more overwhelming that aura became.
Only, its body was shrinking as it approached. By the end, it was no taller than the crouching Wu Heng. It pattered forward—tap tap tap, thud thud thud—until there was only a single step between them.
The people behind bared their teeth, certain that the next second would see blood splatter everywhere.
Wu Heng, however, calmly opened his arms.
X dove straight into his embrace, letting out, for the first time, the chirpy, twittering sounds unique to a small bird.
Shen Ping’an was closest—just a step or two away. Looking down from above, he saw Wu Heng holding the parrot as it shamelessly cuddled up to him. Wu Heng’s long, slender fingers smoothed through the wet feathers on its back. He pinched the bird’s beak open, fed it a piece of meat, and even carefully wiped away the blood at the corner of its mouth.
Watching the scene, Shen Ping’an suddenly felt confused. Was Wu Heng’s true nature really unrelated to gloom and damp shadows? Was his underlying color, in fact, gentleness and kindness?
It was just that almost no one could reach Wu Heng’s truest, deepest core. He was like the Earth millions of years in the future, after the rainy season—approaching him was as difficult as finding a patch of blazing, dry land on a planet left with nothing but rainwater and ponds.
Even birds found it easier to get close to him than people did.
—
On the other side, the group there was also preparing to cross a pond.
Lin Mengzhi: “Stop, stop—listen to me. We’ll row across.”
Xue Shen: “Row? With a boat?”
Lin Mengzhi: “We can make one. There’s bamboo nearby—one bamboo pole per person. We’ll paddle our way over.”
Ruan Silian: “That sounds like it’ll take some skill, doesn’t it?”
Wang Meixia: “If someone slips and falls in, they’ll drown, right? Better not take the risk. What Mengzhi suggested sounds like acrobatics.”
Ying Liuquan: “I can’t do it. I can’t swim.”
Lin Mengzhi: “When have you ever been capable? You’re incapable at everything.”
Wen Yuan stood by the water’s edge. Only a few scattered leaves floated on the surface, stretching endlessly, like a boundless black lake.
“Xue Shen, let’s work together.”
When Lin Mengzhi heard that Wen Yuan had chosen only Xue Shen, he gave a cold snort and stepped aside—he simply couldn’t imagine how the others could possibly cooperate without him.
Wen Yuan crouched down and reached a hand into the water. Ripples spread out from the surface, layer after layer, wave after wave, the area they reached unknown. He lifted his gaze and gave Xue Shen a look.
Xue Shen understood instantly. “Wind can freeze the water’s surface. In theory, it’s feasible. But this pond is unfathomably deep—we’ll have to do it in segments.”
As he spoke, blue points of light gathered in his palm, forming a beam of energy. A clear waterway split open across the surface, and in the blink of an eye, ice formed over that path, created by Wen Yuan.
“Wow!” Lin Mengzhi hugged Ruan Silian sincerely. “That’s amazing!”
—
Meanwhile, on the other side, dark shapes were gathering in groups beneath the bridge.
“Those don’t look like horseshoe bugs?”
“They’re fish.”
“This place has fish?”
“Catch one and let me analyze it.”
Xue Qi lay flat on the bridge and lowered spider silk into the water. The snow-white threads silently followed the school of fish, then struck one in a flash. The fish was sizable—easily twenty or thirty jin. It suddenly whipped its tail and dove toward the depths.
In that split second, Shen Ping’an and Jiang Xun both reached out to grab Xue Qi, but it was too late—Xue Qi was dragged straight into the water by the fish.
“…Damn.” Yang Xiaoyun stared at the duckweed that had been pushed aside. “He just went down like that?”
“Lin Jie.”
“I’m only responsible for cooking.”
“Lin Jie?” Jiang Xun’s tone had already begun to change.
“Alright, alright, kids are such a hassle.” Lin Jie took off his gear. Bringing his index finger and thumb together in front of him, he said, “Transform.”
The words hadn’t even faded when he vanished from where he stood. A column of water arced down from above and plunged into the pond.
The water column Lin Jie transformed into was a translucent blue, clearly distinct from the surrounding water below the surface. With no effort at all, it wrapped around Xue Qi, who had already been dragged toward the depths.
Back on the trestle, Lin Jie dropped Xue Qi off, completely dry. He bent down, picked up his equipment, and put it on piece by piece. “Stop causing trouble for us. That’s not how you fish. With a fish this big, you’re supposed to tire it out first, let it wear itself down before reeling it in. Otherwise, something this size dragging a grown adult into the water is way too easy.”
The big fish beside Xue Qi flopped around wildly. Xue Qi rolled over and pinned it down. “Alright, I’ll be more careful next time.”
Up ahead, Wu Heng was walking on, still unaware of what had happened behind him. He was holding X like a baby and looking down at the fish swimming below their feet.
It felt like they hadn’t eaten fish in a very long time.
In his hand, vines rapidly twisted together into a slender, flexible long rod. At the tip, soft vine fibers—finer than fishing line—spread out. There wasn’t just one strand; on closer inspection, it had split into dozens.
The moment the vine threads touched the water’s surface, they fanned out like hair and lunged toward the school of fish without any restraint.
One line, one fish. The thin vine rod went taut in an instant.
Behind him, Shukui tugged hard at Wu Heng’s clothes with its teeth, pulling backward with all its strength.
X was also yanking at the fishing rod with its beak.
Veins bulged across Wu Heng’s back as he looked down at the water paths carved by dozens of fish fleeing at once, the vine threads tangling together and then separating again.
In less than a few minutes, Wu Heng had put them all into his spatial storage.
Before the rest of the team caught up, he harvested several more batches. In the end, just for appearances’ sake, he reeled in a small fish only a few inches long.
“What kind of fish is that?”
Xue Qi hugged the big fish. “Crucian carp.”
“Crucian carp can get that big?” Yang Xiaoyun asked.
“Mutation,” Chen Qiong said.
“But how would crucian carp even exist in a place like this?”
“Generally speaking,” Xue Qi thought for a moment and said, “it’s probably because some birds ate crucian carp elsewhere, then came to this body of water and took a dump. The poop had fish eggs in it, and boom—fish. Some plants work the same way: birds eat grass, birds poop, the poop has seeds in it, and then the poop sprouts.”
Seeing everyone’s complicated expressions, Xue Qi pondered again. “Would ‘feces’ sound more civilized? Or… ‘excrement’?”
Wu Heng carried his little fish and continued walking forward.
Shukui walked beside him with the same arm-and-leg gait, starting from the tail of the small fish and taking bite after bite upward.
The human holding the fish hadn’t noticed yet.
For the rest of the journey, both teams picked up the pace—especially Wu Heng’s side. The trestle was being maintained almost entirely by his own energy. Even with Jiang Xun constantly reinforcing it, it was still an enormous drain on him.
By the next afternoon, the sky had subtly changed. The fog was thicker, and almost nothing could be seen in the forest. It was at this point that they finally reached solid ground.
“Let’s eat first. I’m seriously starving to death,” Lin Jie said impatiently again.
“You cook.”
“Let’s just keep moving—this is driving me crazy.”
Wu Heng casually took a folding stool out of his bag and sat down. He also took out a dry towel. While the others were dividing up tasks, he focused solely on getting himself cleaned up.
With the dry towel, he first wiped his face, then his hair. Finally, between Shukui and X in front of him, he chose to wipe X’s feathers first.
X spread its wings wide, looking every bit like it was about to ascend the throne, smug and regal.
Shukui let out a disgruntled huff and flopped down on the ground.
As Wu Heng wiped X’s feathers, he glanced sideways at the protesting Shukui. “Wipe your mouth clean before complaining.” The fish had ultimately been stolen and eaten by Shukui until only the head remained.
Wu Heng hadn’t eaten the fish—it had been eaten by the dog. When it died, it died with grievances unresolved.
Shukui rolled over on the ground, ingratiatingly exposing its belly to Wu Heng.
Wu Heng didn’t rub it. Instead, he said softly, “The bird came to me before you did, so a lot of the time, I probably treat the two of you according to who came first.”
“And besides, I told you a long time ago—I’m not your owner. You should know very well yourself that you only have one true master.”
Shukui quieted down, lifting its eyes to look up at the human who had taken it in.
Wu Heng quickly finished drying X’s feathers. X shook itself, ruffled its plumage, flicked its head, and fixed Wu Heng with a bright, intent stare. A low cooing sound rose from its chest, and suddenly it opened its beak.
“Wu Heng, kiss me.”
“…”
Wu Heng’s hand paused midair, towel still in it.
It was Xie Chongyi’s voice. Not an exact match, but easily six or seven parts similar.
Wu Heng looked at the parrot coolly for a long while. Then, before it could react, he put the towel down and gave the parrot a light—but not gentle—slap on the head.
“Don’t imitate him.”
—————————————————————————
Author’s Note:
X: What crime has this emperor committed, huh?