Chapter 579: The Wind Picks Up In Moonrite; Sparks Seek to Start a Wildfire (part 2)

Chapter 579: The Wind Picks Up In Moonrite; Sparks Seek to Start a Wildfire (part 2)

Before departing, the Captain had Wu Jianwu give a seed to Xu Qing.

“Little Junior Brother, if you get to the Bitter Life Mountains before me, plant this seed somewhere. That way, if I need to find you urgently, I can have Big Jianjian send his children to find you by tracking down the scent of the seed. Either way, after my current task, I can use the seed to find you.”

Xu Qing accepted the seed curiously. He knew that Wu Jianwu’s children were very special. In fact, it made him think back to years ago when Wu Jianwu opened that wish box. [1]

Wu Jianwu looked just as despondent as before. He just lay there listlessly, occasionally sighing.

“Don’t worry about him,” the Captain said. “This is just what happens with a bad breakup. He’ll be fine in a few days.” He took a deep breath and looked at Xu Qing with encouragement in his eyes. “Well, little Junior Brother, time to see what fate has in store. You take care of yourself, and I’ll do the same.”

Xu Qing nodded.

Off to the side, Ning Yan’s ears perked up as he eavesdropped, especially when he heard the word ‘breakup.’ That was when everything clicked, and he realized why Wu Jianwu was acting unusual. Feeling more than a little disdainful, he thought, That’s it?

Seeing that Xu Qing was about to leave, Ning Yan got to his feet and hurried over with a hopeful look on his face. He obviously wanted Xu Qing to take him along....

Xu Qing ignored him. He left the artificial sun, then flew up into the sky and disappeared.

“He’s so grown up he doesn’t want to hang out with his Elder Brother anymore.” The Captain sighed as he watched Xu Qing leave. Then he performed an incantation gesture, and the artificial sun rumbled to life and continued on its way. nove(l)bi(n.)com

Half a month flew by.

The bounty from the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect was still active, but no one had dug up any traces of the people on the wanted posters. They had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. And then something happened that caused most people to forget all about the bounty. In fact, it was such a momentous and astonishing development that it shook all of the Moonrite Region!

The godchild of the Red Moon Cathedral had been grievously injured!

At first, the details were kept under wraps. Only the high-ranking members of the Red Moon Cathedral had any idea what happened. But stories spread about some sort of dramatic event in the northern ice plains, as well as supernatural phenomena at the Heavenfire Sea. For more than a month, lingering fluctuations had continued to spread out through heaven and earth. There was a lot of speculation about what happened, but no solid facts emerged.

After a few months passed, the truth about the event started to spread. Of course, the word was spread, not by the Red Moon Cathedral, but rather, by members of the Moonrebel Congregation. According to the stories being spread, the supernatural phenomena at the Heavenfire Sea were the result of the Heir Apparent of the Imperial Sovereign being freed from captivity.

The dramatic events in the northern ice plains resulted when the Heir Apparent rescued Princess Brightblossom, who was the daughter of that same Imperial Sovereign. When those two shocking individuals were freed, the first thing they did was attack the headquarters of the Red Moon Cathedral.

What played out was an incredibly shocking battle. In fact, that battle was the source of the lingering fluctuations that had been present for a whole month.

The battle ended with the Heir Apparent and Princess Brightblossom going missing, and the Red Moon Cathedral’s godchild seriously injured. Most relevant of all was the fact that... Crimson Mother of the red moon never showed up. It didn’t make sense. If the godchild ended up injured, he would surely have unleashed some powerful god magic during the fighting. But based on the fluctuations, it didn’t seem that happened!

Before long, two rumors were spreading.

“It’s just up ahead,” Xu Qing murmured. After parting ways with the Captain, he had thought for a time about how exactly he wanted to proceed. Eventually, he decided to fix his sights on the Bitter Life Mountains. He was planning to try to make contact with the Moonrebel Congregation, and hopefully identify a good path to follow in his curse research.

This was his third day in the Greenhair Badlands.

He no longer wore a daoist robe. Instead, he wore local attire. He had a cloth scarf wrapping up his head and face, leaving only his eyes visible, as well as wide-legged trousers, knee-length animal hide boots, and a voluminous gray cloak that he could wrap around his entire body. The cloak also served to keep Ling’er safe. The wind here could be painful even to cultivators, and it had to be defended against using one’s cultivation base. For short periods of time, it wasn’t anything worth worrying about. But if you were exposed for long periods, you could easily exhaust yourself.

Thanks to the endless wind, the spirit power in this desert was scattered and weak. There was also something desolate in the wind, something that would slowly eat away at life force, until the victim was left as nothing but a skeleton pulsing with death energy.

Of course, there were some unique life forms who, like fish in water, thrived in this environment.

At the moment, Xu Qing was eyeing a green scorpion that was about as big as a child. The scorpion had just burst out of the sand behind him, and was racing toward him at top speed. As it neared, its tail glittered with cold light. Just when it seemed like it was about to stab Xu Qing, his shadow swept out.

The scorpion vanished. The shadow returned.

Xu Qing didn’t bother checking into what happened. After arriving here, he had run into quite a few beasts like this. All of them had a lot of curse power in them, so he welcomed them. He had already told the shadow to capture them alive and keep them around for later study.

After confirming his current position, he put away the jade slip with the map in it and proceeded on his way. The intelligence reports the Captain had given him about the Moonrite Region weren’t very detailed. Therefore, he had spent some of his own money to buy some more information about Greensand County.

That was how he knew some of the local legends, as well as the general location of the Bitter Life Mountains. He continued traveling for seven days, getting deeper and deeper into the desert. During his travels, he saw all sorts of gruish beings in the green sand.

For instance, he noticed some roughly 30-meter-tall mushrooms. They looked almost like huge houses standing in the middle of the desert. They were very colorful, and would be very attractive to anyone who spotted them from a distance. Xu Qing didn’t get close to them. After scanning them briefly, he decided to avoid the area. He didn’t want to get involved in any unnecessary trouble.

He would occasionally run into mirages in the desert. The sandstorms would create images of men and women, laughing with each other as they walked along. Their voices contained alluring power, and wherever they passed, they left behind long streaks in the sand. The streaks looked like evidence of the passage of huge worms, crawling beneath the surface of the desert.

Xu Qing also spotted pillars. Corpses were strapped to the pillars like warning messages.

He took note of them and kept traveling. A few days later, he saw a group of huge animals with bells hanging around their necks. They vaguely resembled rhinoceroses. Wherever they went, the sound of tinkling bells followed them. Mounted on the backs of the huge beasts were wizened nonhumans who were wrapped up in so much cloth all you could see were their pure white eyes surveying their surroundings.

Upon noticing Xu Qing, the huge beasts stopped short, and the nonhumans atop them looked at him vigilantly. Xu Qing clasped hands respectfully and backed up a bit. They nodded at him and continued on their way without causing any trouble.

In that manner, days passed. Eventually a month had gone by.

The Bitter Life Mountains were now visible in the distance.

The sky was dusky, and in the haze, the Bitter Life Mountains looked like a dragon sleeping in the desert. One mountain after another stretched up, going from west to east, spanning more than 4,500 kilometers.

1. How could we forget the amazing chapter when Wu Jianwu opened the wish box? It was in chapter 147. I didn’t mention it at the time, but the message in the wish box was extremely difficult to translate, and I’m quite proud of how it turned out. ☜

2. Quick heads up that the author actually refers to this place with a few different names, and goes back and forth between them. For the sake of continuity, I’m going to generally standardize the name to Greenhair Badlands. ☜