Chapter 454: Chapter 390: Immortal Chu Xi, Conquering the Central Plains
Pushing open the door and returning once again to the old house of the Ginseng Leader, everyone gazed at the familiar scene before them and couldn’t help but feel as if they had been transported to another era.
Tong Han brought up her previous experience again, where the Ginseng Essence had transformed into a building. Moreover, the Resentful Infants had easily pinpointed her location.
"You mean the Resentful Infants will prioritize attacking the person closest to the Ginseng Essence," Yang Xiao concluded after some thought.
"I agree with Tong Han’s guess," Mi Shu stepped forward to explain, "It was very strange during my encounter. The Resentful Infants were just loitering around me. I could feel that they had discovered me long ago, definitely led by the Ginseng Essence."
Now that both Mi Shu and Tong Han had lost their Red Strings, the forthcoming task would rely solely on Yang Xiao and the other two. Soon, after brief preparations, the task began once again.
With the opening of their eyes, Mi Shu and Tong Han disappeared, and Sui Chengguo continued to patrol his area, while Yang Xiao took over the area previously handled by Tong Han.
The three exchanged glances, wished each other to take care, and then departed in different directions.
This time Yang Xiao was even more meticulous. The Ginseng Essence first disguised itself as a tree, and then as a building, making it uncertain what it would transform into this third time. The difficulty of the task was visibly escalating, and they weren’t left with many chances.
Although the Ginseng Essence had not shown aggressiveness so far, this was only for now. Once all the Red Strings were used up, their good days would also come to an end; they might end up like those townspeople with only clothing left, devoured by the Ginseng Essence.
Meanwhile, Yang Xiao was constantly troubled by Cheng Cha. According to what he said, the method of escaping last time had been figured out by the owner of the cloth store. So why had the owner died, and he survived?
Furthermore, the previous team was full of experts, and some even entered with clues, but ended up completely annihilated. The only survivor claimed to be an insignificant participant, Cheng Cha, which made Yang Xiao more suspicious and ponder whether this guy was telling the whole truth.
But with the situation gradually turning perilous, every individual was hanging by a thread. Moreover, this wasn’t the last hurdle. Even if he could betray all his teammates and survive alone, he still had to face the Ghost Monk and those from the Du Family Village alone, which was impossible for him. Yang Xiao couldn’t fathom what he was planning.
He had no reason to kill everyone, yet he had indeed concealed something, which made Yang Xiao increasingly puzzled.
As usual, after checking his own area and finding no problems, Yang Xiao focused on the area Tong Han was supposed to handle, suspecting that the Ginseng Essence would play tricks under his nose during this third task.
Last time the Ginseng Essence was discovered in the main building, so this was the first place Yang Xiao checked this time. The cunning of the Ginseng Essence was much greater than that of the Resentful Infants, and he had to be guarded.
After examining the main building thoroughly, he found no issues. Then, he moved to a few nearby brick houses. However, shortly after he entered, he heard a rustling sound from outside the courtyard, not like footsteps, but more like some small animals moving through the underbrush in large numbers.
Yang Xiao immediately became alert, turned around, and hurriedly closed the slightly ajar door, simultaneously blowing out the candle in his hands. The room plunged into complete darkness.
He held his breath, hiding beside a large wardrobe. Soon, the sounds moved to the outside of the door. Yang Xiao’s heart raced, not only because of the presence of the Resentful Infants but also because he suspected the Ginseng Essence to be hiding nearby.
It was indeed tricks under the light; the Ginseng Essence was cunning enough to hide nearby again, exactly where Tong Han had found it last time.
The noise outside soon seemed to be attracted by a new target and quickly moved away. Ignoring his urge to open the door for fear of encountering a decoy attack, Yang Xiao tiptoed toward the rear window. First, he slightly pushed open the wooden window to peek through the crack. Everything outside was calm and quiet, not at all like there was an ambush.
Yang Xiao took a deep breath, suspecting that he had been targeted, for it was never so quiet nearby in his memory.
However, since it was so, there was no need to hide. He fully opened the window, and sure enough, several heads dangled down from the roof, looking down, men and women, young and old, their faces sinister, eyes filled with resentment.
"Play the game! Play the game! Play the game!!" The men and women, old and young, gaped at him, each shout louder than the last.
"Shut up, you’re annoying!" Yang Xiao flipped out of the window with a flair, completely unafraid, showcasing his maturity and steadiness.
"What are the rules of the game?" Yang Xiao rolled up his sleeves, asking as a matter of routine.
"We see who can jump the farthest, the shortest loses!" shouted a woman with a blue headscarf wrapped around her head, her mouth continuously dripping saliva.
The woman was quite old, her hair a disheveled white, looking to be over 70, her gaze blank and goofy, yet her expression was fiercely grim. Most crucially, the woman was bound in foot-binding cloths, wearing a pair of white and blue satin embroidered shoes.
After some explanation and gestures by the old woman, Yang Xiao roughly understood. The so-called jumping contest was similar to a long jump, the winner being the one who jumped the farthest. As for the method of judging, it was simple: regardless of the position of the person, the farthest shoe print on the ground counted.
The prints of the two shoes took the farther one of the two.
The group came to a moist mud area and the foot-binding old woman went first. With a slight storage of energy, she sprang like a kangaroo, jumping four meters away, leaving two clear prints of her embroidered shoes in the mud. Before the old woman had a chance to turn back in excitement, a shoe was thrown over, landing just in front of her, creating a shallow pit in the ground.
The scene went silent for a moment, then the old woman suddenly turned furiously, her whole head twisting backward completely, "That doesn’t count, it doesn’t!"
Since Yang Xiao had lost a shoe and didn’t want to dirty his foot, he had to lift one leg, maintaining a golden rooster’s independence stance, "Why doesn’t it count? Didn’t you say that regardless of the person’s position, we only count the farthest shoe print?"
The old woman choked, her eyes darting around. She quickly justified herself, "Alright, even if it’s the farthest one, let’s compete again. Just now we used the left foot, this time let’s use the right foot—one round determines the winner."
"Fine, but if I win, you’ll have to agree to a request of mine," Yang Xiao said calmly and seriously.
"Agreed," the old woman decisively answered.
"Your agreement alone isn’t enough. What if you run away? I need a promise from all of you," Yang Xiao repeated.
"Agreed, we all agree," the others added, nodding their heads in a manner that suggested they loved a good spectacle.
At that moment, the old woman displayed a sinister look, evidently seeing through Yang Xiao, and said coldly, "However, there’s one thing I need to clarify first, we won’t help you find anything, heh heh, absolutely nothing."
"No problem," Yang Xiao agreed.
The bet began again. This time, the old woman stood beside Yang Xiao and, imitating his earlier action, took off her embroidered shoe from her right foot, exerted all her strength, and hurled it. The shoe flew about ten meters—not the limit of the old woman’s strength, but the shoe was simply too light to throw forcefully.
The old woman turned back confidently, her eyes reddening as she stared at Yang Xiao, "Your turn!"
Yang Xiao, cool and composed, in full view of everyone, stuffed a stone he had just picked up into his shoe. Then he threw it forcefully. The shoe described an arc and flew a great distance, and, even so, it only landed a few meters beyond the old woman’s shoe, barely securing a win.
"Lost again, useless thing!" Several people came up angrily, hitting and scolding the old woman as they vented their frustration.
Knowing she was at fault, the old woman dared not fight back, but these Resentful Infants still honored their promise and asked Yang Xiao what he wanted them to do.
Yang Xiao smiled and pointed at his bare feet, "I have no shoes now. I need someone to carry me. The direction doesn’t matter; you choose where to go. There’s just one thing—you must not leave this mansion."
At this, everyone’s eyes lit up. "You want to ride piggyback?"
"Kind of," he replied.
The next second, nearly half of them instantly lay down, buttocks up, backs arched, mimicking the posture of a horse, scrambling on the ground and shouting at Yang Xiao, "Ride me, ride me, I love acting as the horse!"
"Ride me!"
"Ride me, I am the best ride!"
Yang Xiao hadn’t expected that they would nearly fight over who would act as the horse, but this was only the first part of his plan.
...
Moments later, in a run-down brick house in the backyard, Cheng Cha was half-squatting on the ground, peeping through the door crack. His expression was beyond shocked. He slapped himself twice to ensure that it wasn’t an illusion.
Outside, a procession was making its way ostentatiously through the streets, involving more than twenty people. Someone at the front was clanging a wooden block, and someone at the back was banging a gong—for such a liveliness, one might have mistaken it for a parade of some notable figure if not for the location.
In the middle of the procession, Yang Xiao was riding on a robust man who was crawling hard on all fours, occasionally throwing his head back and bellowing like cattle, at which point Yang Xiao would raise his whip and lash the man’s buttocks heavily.
As they moved, they sang along to the rhythm of the wooden block and gong, "Immortal Chu Xi, his mana boundless, mortals step aside, his life as long as the skies!"
"Bang! Bang! Clang—"
"Immortal Chu Xi, ruling the Central Plains, his fortune eternal, with drums and gongs resonating!"
"Bang! Bang! Clang—"
Shocked by the chant, Cheng Cha finally realized the terrifying nature of this man called Chu Xi, utterly unfathomable.
While everyone else was trying to avoid the Resentful Infants, he was riding them through the streets. Just in terms of courage, he was indeed extraordinary.
Yet, from the chanting, Cheng Cha also deduced something, especially from the line "mortals step aside," which was clearly intended for them to hear.
Yang Xiao must have had his reasons for this act—to keep the Resentful Infants in check and buy time for the other two. As they continued shouting, these beings would be exposed over dozens of meters, providing a warning for him and Sui Chengguo.
