Eaten Ch.149.2

Chapter 149.2: Monkeys

Underwater, within Wu Heng’s field of vision, Cao Xian was moving so fast that Wu Heng couldn’t clearly track his path at all—only scattered, intermittent afterimages. Then swaths of aquatic plants collapsed, floating up to the surface.

Cao Xian sheathed the extra blade into the scabbard on his back. To him, the attacking speed of the water plants was practically slow motion. Catching up to Xue Qi took no more than a blink. He severed the plants binding Xue Qi’s body, tucked the man under his arm, and surfaced.

Xue Qi was tossed onto the boat. Along with him came a half-dead monkey.

Wu Heng looked at Cao Xian. “Its energy core is under that big rock about a hundred meters west.”

Cao Xian gave a slight nod and slipped back into the water.

The aquatic plants’ assault grew frenzied—some tangled with Cao Xian, others surged toward the surface. But the waters beneath the boat had already been sealed tight by overlapping elephant-ear leaves. They couldn’t burrow through, nor could they pierce them.

Wu Heng had grown tired of lying prone; the edge of the boat pressed painfully into his stomach. He rolled over and lay back inside the cabin, leaving only one hand hanging outside the gunwale. From his palm, vines draped down softly—gentle on the surface, yet beneath the water they fought with savage brutality.

Cao Xian reached the spot Wu Heng had indicated. The water plants there were far thicker than he had imagined, resembling a colossal coral tower. They were neither soft nor swaying, but stood rigid and unyielding in the water.

There was no stone beside it as Wu Heng had described. He must have mistaken it—the cluster of root pillars looked like rock from a distance.

Nourished by Shenjian, it was extraordinarily powerful.

The moment it sensed an intruder drawing near, the inner root pillars tightened further inward, while the outer ring suddenly lashed outward, merging with the surrounding underwater forest. In an instant, it became a black sea beneath the surface.

Like layer upon layer of airtight iron plating, it enclosed the tiny human within. Cao Xian gripped his blade and stabbed at a random point, only to discover that the surface of the water plants had already become incredibly hard.

Their rotation accelerated. Cao Xian frowned, quickly realizing that the water plants were not trying to attack him directly with their bodies. Instead, they were churning the current at the highest possible frequency, attempting to grind his body to pieces within the flow.

Wu Heng’s single eye calmly watched the distant scene underwater. Of course, he did not want Cao Xian to die here. He wanted everyone to stay alive—so they could continue working for him in the future.

Seeing the man completely isolated as the water plants surged forward like collapsing mountains, Wu Heng could only roll over and lean against the boat’s edge again. But before he could act, Cao Xian’s figure vanished in an instant, swallowed by the vortex created at the center of the water plants.

For a speed-type ability user, instant movement was not difficult—but only in open space without any obstruction. Even passing through walls was nearly impossible, let alone escaping directly from the core energy field of a mutated creature.

The vortex gradually calmed. The fully merged water plants split apart in an instant and shot toward the surface.

Wu Heng lifted his gaze in response.

It turned out that Cao Xian had already reached the surface of the water. He was unbelievably fast—faster than any speed-type ability user Wu Heng had ever seen.

Then again, it wasn’t as if Wu Heng had seen many speed-types to begin with. Too many abilities were downright useless, or even harmful—like Teacher Ying’s.

Cao Xian hovered above the water, standing atop one of his blades. The blade itself was not motionless; it was simply spinning so fast that to the naked eye it appeared perfectly still.

He flung the other blade outward. It traced a circle across the water’s surface, marking the area, and then instantly “disappeared” from everyone’s sight.

Before long, fine rippling lines began to tremble across the once-calm surface. Within a certain height, the ripples shook violently, as if they were being struck and suppressed by immense forces at the same time.

Wu Heng slowly narrowed his eye.

Soaking wet, Xue Qi lay beside him. “Why aren’t the water plants chasing him?”

No sooner had he spoken than bundles of water plants burst out of the marked area like a frenzy of black serpents dancing wildly. They surged upward, rising to the height of half a mountain, and lashed toward Cao Xian.

Cao Xian remained perfectly composed. In front of him, that stretch of water suddenly shuddered—every ripple vanished in the same instant. Then a column of water reared up like the head of a dragon, swallowing the mass of water plants whole. A deafening explosion followed, sending sprays of water and shredded vegetation raining down from the sky.

A dark green energy core appeared in Cao Xian’s palm. He flashed back onto the boat and tossed it to Wu Heng.

Wu Heng slipped the core into his pocket. “You don’t want it?”

“You need it more.” Cao Xian wiped the water from his face and sat down calmly.

Wu Heng thanked him.

Xue Qi was still frozen in his previous position. He twisted his head around in disbelief and stared at Cao Xian. “No wonder Jiang Xun sent you to keep an eye on us.”

Yue Shanqing made no comment for the moment. Cao Xian was the sort who didn’t draw attention to himself—quiet and taciturn like Shen Ping’an, yet tougher, even more withdrawn. And unexpectedly so: powerful and composed.

“Anyone else could’ve done it,” Cao Xian said.

“But you’re a speed-type. Your starting point was never as high as metal, wood, water, fire, or earth—being able to reach this level is already incredible! Do you think you might surpass the speed of light someday? If that happens, time reversal wouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“…I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

They rowed the boat and brought the monkey to the shore. After Wu Heng channeled energy into it, the monkey hopped off the boat, still a little dazed, wobbling as it walked.

A gray blur with its fur standing on end shot out of the jungle, clawing at the monkey and battering it with its wings.

Right after that, a large monkey leapt down from the canopy above the parrot’s head. In just a few bounds it landed behind the parrot, grabbed its tail, and started tearing, biting, and striking.

Shen Ping’an hurriedly jumped off the boat to pull them apart. The small monkey, its head scratched and battered, leapt into the big monkey’s arms, wrapping both arms around its neck. The larger monkey held it close and ran off into the jungle.

X tried to give chase, but Wu Heng beckoned to it. “Come back.”

The wooden boat resumed its slow glide across the river. After Shen Ping’an pointed it out, Xue Qi finally realized what had happened. “So… they were good monkeys?”

“They may have been fed by humans before, or there used to be someone managing the troop,” Yue Shanqing analyzed. “That’s probably why they’re on good terms with people—and why they were trying to warn us earlier.”

Xue Qi said, “Then why were they smashing things while laughing their heads off?”

“Isn’t it possible they were just expressing how nervous they were?”

“Alright, then we misunderstood them.” Xue Qi looked at X, who was curled up in Wu Heng’s arms. “Old Fork, go apologize to the monkeys.”

X stared at Xue Qi like he was a complete stranger.

Seeing the string of unspoken curses in X’s eyes, Xue Qi laughed so hard he doubled over.

After fighting a grueling battle only to realize it had been pointless—and that it had even fought the wrong side—X was so furious that it pecked Wu Heng’s clothes hard several times.

Wu Heng had just obtained an S-rank wood-type energy core and was in a good mood, so he didn’t hold it against X.

At the same time, in Wu Heng’s eyes, Cao Xian now stood just slightly apart from people like Yang Xiaoyun and the others. Wu Heng didn’t like explanations—he preferred the other party to show it through their actions.

…

After nightfall, the three boats converged at a riverside sandbank near a broad, tranquil bend in the river.

Shen Ping’an tied the boats together and drove stakes into the ground to secure them in place.

Xue Qi told Jiang Xun about the encounter with the monkey troop and the water plants. The people on the other two boats were quite surprised when they heard it.

“How come we didn’t run into any of that? Picking targets based on who they see?”

“That is strange. If it were about eating people, the folks on our two boats would be far more filling than those little monkeys.”

“Could it be about energy? Wu Heng’s energy is way stronger than ours.”

“Very likely.”

Not far away, Wu Heng lay wrapped in a sleeping bag on a sloped bank, looking like a conspicuously misplaced caterpillar.

He had absorbed and digested a large number of energy cores, including the one Cao Xian had given him. With so much energy fed into his body, he felt no noticeable change—like pouring a cup of water into the ocean. It was nowhere near as comfortable as lying quietly on the ground and absorbing energy from the soil and plants themselves.

From his exposed skin, vine filaments finer than hair quietly seeped out, layer upon layer, dense and overlapping. Without looking closely, it seemed as though a thick coat of green fuzz had grown across his skin. He closed his eyes.

Moonlight, air, rainwater, the moss on the ground and the ferns behind it—even the soil beneath the earth—were all being tapped by those vine threads, drawing in nourishment and energy together.

In the distance, Jiang Xun set up her drying rack and, as usual, reminded everyone to dry their wet clothes so they wouldn’t get sick—because if they got sick, there’d be no medicine, and getting sick meant dying.

“What are we eating tonight? Captain Jiang, I’m starving!”

“Marsh frogs.”

“Anything vegetarian? I’ve eaten meat nonstop for ages. I think I’m kind of constipated—I haven’t gone in two days.”

“Go find something yourself. There’s plenty on this mountain.”

“Yue Shanqing, you’re a bird—you know which plants are edible. Come on, come with me. Xiao Hong, you too—you’re big, you can carry stuff!”

A whole group of people swept noisily past Wu Heng. Seeing him completely covered in green, looking like a mummy wrapped in vegetation, they shrieked and yelled in shock as they ran by.

“I’m not afraid of zombies, but I really am scared of ghosts.” Mo Zhaohong, nearly two hundred jin in weight, instantly leapt onto Yang Xiaoyun’s back.

Even after everyone had stomped past him, Wu Heng showed no reaction. His eyes remained closed; he didn’t want to disturb the replenishment and circulation of energy.

Yet the ear piercing with the insect-eye suddenly began to heat up on its own. The blood inside seemed to boil for no reason, scorching hot and making half his face flush with heat.

The finger wearing the ring refused to be outdone—it grew alarmingly hot as well, hot enough to twitch uncontrollably.

Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and back, and even his flat chest and abdomen felt faintly scorched.

The youth opened his eyes and shook the vine threads off that hand. He raised the back of his hand before his eyes. The ring had come apart—its band unfurled and transformed into the shape of a black insect. Its form was distinctly mechanical, with irregular armor plates gleaming coldly. Beneath them were a pair of crimson eyes and sharp, saw-like mandibles—it was nibbling at his finger in tiny, rapid bites. It tickled, and it hurt a little too.

For no apparent reason, Wu Heng’s face and ears flushed red. He leaned in and examined the insect carefully, reaching out to try and remove it, only to find it seemed to have grown into his finger, stuck fast.

He could only pull his hand back, then suddenly realized that the fingers that had touched the insect were damp and sticky.

His ear was so hot it had begun to ache.

His eyesight wasn’t much affected by the darkness, but to make sure the sensation on his finger wasn’t an illusion, he lifted the back of his hand right up to his pupils.

This was Xie Chongyi’s insect.

At that moment, tiny, crystalline droplets were being secreted from the insect’s body. The tail end couldn’t hold them all—they fell, slid along the back of his hand, sticky and cool.

The insect’s tail was still trembling, brushing against his skin from time to time. After rubbing the same spot several times in a row, a red whirl the size of a grain of rice appeared on that patch of skin.

Wu Heng paused slightly, his brows knitting.

He thought of a certain possibility—but for now, he had no way to confirm it, and could only grit his teeth in frustration.

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