Chapter 328: I'll Serve Lady Two Like a Dog or Horse

“Being able to see you in person today, this must be a blessing earned over three lifetimes!”

“You’re an interesting little boy, and you speak so sweetly. Fine, then, you stay with me. Keep me company and help pass the time.” After all, days in the swamp were the same thing over and over. Having someone to chat with, to relieve the boredom, was not a bad change of pace. She crawled over a broken log as though it were flat ground. Then her tone shifted, and she turned toward the other man. “As for you...”

Her immense pressure rolled forward, landing squarely on Dong Rui.

Dong Rui saw the “this is getting good” look on He Lingchuan’s face and hurriedly leaned close, whispering through clenched teeth, “Hey! Think of something! Save me!”

“Aren’t you a monster puppet master who specializes in dealing with monsters?” He Lingchuan raised an eyebrow. “There are plenty of monsters here. Are you seriously telling me you’re helpless in this situation?”

Dong Rui cursed him in his heart.

You little bastard, always poking right where it hurts. Are you trying to use them to kill me?

Zhu Erniang’s hearing was terrifying. She caught the words “monster puppet master” perfectly. In an instant, all eight legs spread, her body swelling a full size larger, her voice shooting up several notes, “You’re a monster puppet master? The kind who captures monsters and turns them into puppets?”

“He’s lying! He’s slandering me!” Dong Rui said righteously, almost indignant. “I’ve never even heard that title in my life, and I certainly haven’t done anything so vile that heaven and man would condemn it!”

This old monster lives in a swamp that people never visit. How is she so well-informed? She’s even heard of monster puppet masters?

“You’re not?”

“I really am not!” Dong Rui pointed a finger at He Lingchuan, cursing him. “We have a grudge! This bastard wants me dead!”

“What a pity.” Zhu Erniang let out a long sigh. “Then you’re useless. Children, eat him.”

“Huh?!”

He Lingchuan nearly laughed himself off his feet. “I’ve been trying to save you this whole time, you know?”

The little spiders at the side were already trembling with anticipation.

There were only so many things to eat in a swamp. They typically only got to eat frogs, mice, snakes, turtles, cicadas, and fish, and maybe a wild boar or rabbit once in a while if they were lucky. However, there were too many spiders and too few prey; there was simply never enough to go around.

Humans were their favorite thing to eat because they were tender, springy, and flavorful. One bite and they would remember it for years.

Seeing the spider swarm surge toward him like a mountain collapsing, Dong Rui went blank with panic. He changed his tune instantly. He hurriedly shouted, “I am! I am! I’m the monster puppet master Dong Rui! I’m willing to serve the Lady Two[1] like a dog or horse!”

Zhu Erniang lifted a front leg and wiped her watery, gleaming eyes.

The spider swarm stopped. The two in front were only half an arm’s length from Dong Rui.

He Lingchuan folded his arms and voiced what every spider was thinking, “Didn’t you just deny it with your whole chest?”

He’s getting back at me!

Dong Rui forced down his rage and said, “I thought you were trying to set me up! The monster clans have been hunting me nonstop. They even issued several bounties for me.”

A wise man does not fight when the odds are against him; one must know when to take a step back. Dong Rui immediately turned to Zhu Erniang, his tone shifting into respectful obedience as he said, “I will definitely do my best to fulfill any order or request that you have for me.”

He was careful not to say anything like he would die for the other party. He still had standards.

Zhu Erniang crept forward another two slow steps. “I’ve heard that the monster puppets you make can resist origin energy.”

The moment those words left her mouth, both men understood what she was after.

So this is what Zhu Erniang’s been after all along.

It made sense. After all, which monster would not want to have a way to deal with or resist origin energy?

If they could stand up to origin energy, what human army was there to fear?

He Lingchuan, more than anyone, understood Zhu Erniang’s past glory. She was a monster immortal who had survived from the Ancient Era into the present, only to be forced to hide in a remote swamp. How much bitterness and unwillingness must she have swallowed?

This was Dong Rui’s value, revealed at last.

With his life balanced on one answer, Dong Rui responded decisively, “That’s right. The monsters I modify are able to deal with origin energy to a certain extent!”

His eyes shone as he looked over Zhu Erniang’s massive, powerful body and said, “The better the foundation, specifically the stronger the vitality or life force, the higher the success rate.”

To be able to modify a monster this strong? That would be the pinnacle of his career. Just imagining it made his blood race.

He Lingchuan added dryly from the side, pouring cold water on the moment, “Lady Two might not be aware, but he’s run experiments on over thirty subjects. Out of those thirty, only four succeeded. His failure rate is over ninety percent.”

“Oh?” Zhu Erniang’s voice turned icy again. “So you want to kill me.”

When someone spoke only about success and never about probability, they were either cheating someone out of their life or cheating them out of their money.

Dong Rui glared at He Lingchuan so hard it felt like he wanted to glare holes into him.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

This bastard really has no shame. Back when we were inside the jellyfish, we were talking like brothers, but the moment we stepped onto land, he’s treating me as if we’ve never met.

“Lady Two, you misunderstand. We can carry out tests until we’re absolutely certain of success.” Dong Rui forced himself to speak carefully. He swallowed and continued, as tactfully as he could manage, “However, I must say that your advantages are incomparable to those of other monsters. For example, compared to these—”

Offspring? Disposable materials?

The spider swarm around them watched like wolves. Who knew how many could understand human speech? Thinking of that, Dong Rui did not dare finish his sentence.

Zhu Erniang did not dwell on it. She casually flicked a foreleg.

This was her territory. She could change her mind at any moment. There was nothing for her to agonize over.

Once the leader made a decision, the spiders had no choice but to disperse, grumbling in their own way.

Great, another day without improving the menu.

Zhu Erniang pointed a foreleg at Dong Rui. “Didn’t you say you needed experiments? Go. Start now.”

It looks like she’s quite impatient herself.

Dong Rui gave a strained smile. “It doesn’t work that fast. There’s testing, mixing, and observation. At the very least, it’ll take two months—”

“Hm?” Zhu Erniang’s foreleg touched the ground lightly. As soon as it did, a pit more than a meter deep punched itself into the earth.

“...Uh, if you cooperate with me, I might be able to shorten it to around forty days.”

“What do you need?”

“A clean room for a lab. I’ll write you a list. I’ll need you to gather the herbs from that list. For the first batch, bring me seven spider monsters, strength from weak to strong.” Dong Rui slipped into professional mode without missing a beat. “Also, I need food. I need meat, fish, and shrimp, though I’d most prefer to get fish roe. Those are good for the brain. Oh, and sweet berries.”

A man could not do good work on an empty stomach.

Zhu Erniang stared at him for a long while, then asked a brightly colored spider nearby, “Did you remember all that?”

“I did.”

“Go.” She waved it off. Her children were loyal, but unfortunately, they were naturally slow-witted. At the very least, they were not as capable as humans in the mental department.

With the immediate danger resolved, Dong Rui suddenly realized his bladder was about to burst. He hurried into deep grass and relieved himself.

He was halfway through when someone came whistling over and lined up beside him, watering the plants too.

Who else could it be?

Dong Rui said coldly, “You damn bastard. You tried to steal a chicken and ended up losing your rice. Just wait, this lord will make you beg for death and never get it!”

He believed that with the drugs he had, he could kill the brat beside him a hundred times over.

He Lingchuan reminded him calmly, “You just swore an oath. Until we leave this swamp, you can’t strike at me.”

Dong Rui let out a nasty little laugh. “I don’t need to do it myself. I just have to tell Zhu Erniang that the experiment requires human hearts, livers, spleens, stomachs, and kidneys. At that time, I can just sit back and watch you get carved open alive.”

He Lingchuan glanced behind them.

He noticed that three spiders were trailing them as guards. Thirty-six eyes were watching them at once. Zhu Erniang’s “trust” in them was on full display.

“And you think that means you can sleep easily?” He Lingchuan said with a smile. “If you fail, how do you plan to escape alone?”

“...” Dong Rui went silent. “What, am I supposed to count on you?”

“At least right now we’re still thinking in the same direction,” He Lingchuan said with a sigh. “Zhu Erniang is one of the rare greater monsters from the Ancient Era. Her mind isn’t so simple to understand. Do you really think that you can just stroll away from her side?”

“What are you talking about?” Dong Rui looked shocked, so shocked that he nearly splashed himself. “There are still monsters from the Ancient Era?”

He forced himself to calm down. “That’s just rumor piled on rumor. Don’t tell me you really inherited some family chronicle from your ancestors. Ancient oddities passed down to this day are distorted beyond recognition.”

“Do you seriously think I’m just speaking out of my ass?” He Lingchuan’s face turned grave. “I truly know her, and I know exactly why she’s still alive, as well as why she didn’t disappear along with the immortals.”

“So she’s a survivor from the Ancient Era, a survivor from the Ancient Era!” Dong Rui repeated it several times under his breath, eyes blazing with feverish excitement.

He Lingchuan’s heart sank.

This is bad. I shouldn’t have sparked this lunatic’s obsession. If Dong Rui decides to settle in the swamp and devotes his life to Zhu Erniang, then I’ll be in real danger.

Dong Rui muttered to himself, half incoherent, “Maybe this is it... maybe this is what I needed, what was missing...” He said a few more words He Lingchuan could not quite catch. “...and it’s all right here! This is a dead end that’s transformed into a new path! A new path!”

He threw a punch in excitement. He Lingchuan quickly shifted away, afraid the idiot would splash him with his piss.

Ugh, disgusting.

“Stop fighting me, and I’ll spare your life,” Dong Rui said solemnly. “Once we’re out of here, we can each use our own divine techniques and settle things. But here, we cooperate fully. Blood oaths, both of us.”

“Fine.” He Lingchuan was nothing if not practical. He did not care about Dong Rui’s tone at all. He went first, swearing a sincere blood oath on his father’s life.

Seeing that He Lingchuan’s oath contained no tricks, Dong Rui made one as well.

Trapped deep inside foreign territory, the two humans had no choice but to form an alliance.

They exchanged smiles, each smile dripping with contempt.

After washing their hands in clean water, they demanded food from the spiders.

This was the territory of burrow spiders. What kind of guest went hunting personally?

Only then did He Lingchuan realize that the burrow spiders really were a hardworking, frugal monster clan. Back in the Guizhen Stone Forest, they had run an underground ranch, raising aphids like dairy cows. Now, living in a swamp, they had figured out how to build giant web-nets to farm fish.

Their webs were impervious to water and fire, as well as unbelievably tough. They claimed broad stretches of water by setting up webbing across them, creating caged aquaculture. They even specifically raised three or four kinds of fatty, delicious herbivorous fish.

They also stationed guards to watch the fish ponds in shifts, preventing birds from swooping in to steal fish.

But as the saying went, birds died for food; unlucky waterfowl often ended up becoming spider dinner as a result.

He Lingchuan also saw huge reed beds swaying across the swamp, bowing under the wind, airy and elegant. They were beautiful even though it was not autumn.

It was only then that he learned that the burrow spiders had planted those reeds as well. The shoots were edible, and whatever they did not eat could be fed to the fish.

It truly seemed that these burrow spiders had their farming talent maxed out, seeing as they were able to make the best of local conditions.

A spider guard trundled off to the fish pond. Before long, it returned with several large fish, plus crabs and shellfish.

There was even a big black fish over a meter long, lively as ever. Who knew how long it had been stealing fat carp in the cages?

He Lingchuan looked at it and missed the seasoning blends from his family’s big restaurant so badly it hurt. These kinds of black fish were the best ingredients for spicy poached fish fillets[2].

Unfortunately, conditions in the swamp were crude. He and Dong Rui could only start a fire and roast everything.

The one consolation was that his storage ring never lacked salt, cumin, and chili powder.

The fish smelled incredible. He Lingchuan tore off a chunk and ate in silence, deliberately turning his back to Dong Rui.

He really just could not swallow down any food when he could see the other party’s face.

1. See note. ☜

2. This is specifically referring to 沸腾鱼片, which you can probably see images of by searching up Sichuan Boiled Fish or Fei Teng Style Fish Fillets ☜