Stranger Danger

“Sigh… I can already imagine the bloody storm that is about to ensue!”

Inside a room on the topmost floor of the Hill of Services, Xi Duoduo was standing by a window and watching a couple of butterflies flying toward somewhere.

“Hmph! You’re as pretentious as a cat crying over a dead mouse. If you really detest death, you should never have held a Treasure Appreciation Auction in the first place!”

A young girl scoffed disdainfully while sitting on a very, very tall chair and kicking her legs unconsciously.

“What does my Treasure Appreciation Auction have to do with them? I give them what they want, and they give me what I want. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, isn’t it? That they succumb to their greed and hunt down their fellow warriors is their sin, not mine,” Xi Duoduo argued with an innocent expression on his face.

“Mutually beneficial relationship my butt, just say you want their money, you hypocrite.” The girl scoffed harder. “Besides, I know you want them to fight each other to the death. After all, how can you loot their corpses if they don’t?”

“I’m wounded by your misunderstanding, Bunbun.” Xi Duoduo continued to feign innocence. “I’m just a businessman. What malice could I possibly harbor?”

“I offer medical care for the wounded, protection for those who are hunted, and even cemetery services for those who passed away. Everything I do, I did it for the good of the people.”

“I know you’re a businessman. Who else could dress up robbing and looting and profiteering off people’s misery in such high-sounding words?”

Xi Duoduo: “...” I admit that I’m a hypocrite, but scumbag again? Am I going to hear that insult for the rest of my life?

Xi Duoduo wanted to argue some more, but one look from the girl was enough to shut him up.

Fine! You’re strong, so everything you say is right! You happy?

“Humans are so hypocritical. If only everyone is a pure, cute and innocent artifact spirit like me!” The girl sighed.

Cute? Innocent? Pure?? That is easily the biggest lie I ever heard in my life! If you know better, you would stop shaming those words with your presence!

Xi Duoduo ranted inside his head but replied with a flattering smile on his face, “Yes, you’re right.”

“Alright, I’m going to get my beauty sleep now. You can earn all the money you like, but don’t you dare disturb my sleep again, get it? Otherwise, you will regret it.”

“Mm,” Xi Duoduo replied.

“And what the hell does ‘mm’ mean, huh? Speak properly!” The young girl glared at him.

“I heard you! I heard you, okay?” Xi Duoduo replied helplessly while massaging his head. Please just leave already, mistress.

After the girl was finally gone, the Hill Carrier clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the blue sky outside the window. His gaze was distant and deep.

“A sunny day too is a good day to kill. The sun is bright, and the blood is bright red.”

……

“A sunny day,

A beautiful day.

The flowers are red,

The grass is green.

A litter on my shoulder,

I run like the wind.

Never faltering,

Never slowing…”

Inside a forest, four men were carrying a high quality litter on their shoulder, singing a merry song and running like the wind.

They weren’t really men though. Their body was covered in green, moss-like grass, and their head was covered in purple red flowers.

Despite carrying a litter on their shoulder, the four men ran like they were traversing flat land—fast and perfectly steady.

Sitting inside the litter was none other than Ancestor Greenwood. Right now, the young-looking old man was half-lying on the litter floor, waving a fan with one hand and holding up the Wenliang Pearl with the other. He examined the pearl closely and carefully.

A moment later, he muttered to himself with a frown, “This pearl doesn’t really look all that extraordinary.”

Suddenly, Ancestor Greenwood’s expression changed. He sat up immediately and barked, “Stop!”

His men obeyed the order but exchanged confused glances with each other.

Ancestor Greenwood did not explain why he ordered them to stop. He simply scanned his surroundings with a deep frown on his face.

His main cultivation art was called “Plants Live Only One Autumn”. Most plants couldn’t live past autumn, and most humans only enjoyed one lifetime. In that sense, both humans and plants shared very, very short lives. “Plants Only Live One Autumn” could convert a plant’s essence into lifeforce. According to the manual, it could extend one’s lifespan infinitely and allow one to live for ten thousand years.

Of course, it was just an exaggeration, though its rejuvenating effects were definitely the real deal. Besides that, the practitioner could forge a communication with the surrounding plants after they reached a certain level.

That was why he ordered his men to stop. The surrounding plants had detected some form of danger.

Unfortunately, Ancestor Greenwood wasn’t able to find anything after a moment of observation.

“Strange?” He muttered under his breath before coming to a decision. “Speed up so we may return to Greenwood Abode as soon as possible.”

He received no response from his men, however. It was almost as if they hadn’t heard him.

“Are you deaf?!”

Ancestor Greenwood was about to rebuke his men when suddenly, the plants growing on their bodies slowly began to wither bit by bit. The flowers on their heads were dying as well. As for the men themselves…

They were long dead.

A cold chill gripped Ancestor’s Greenwood’s heart at that moment. The four men were his disciples, and he had refined them using a method called “Plant Puppet” since they were young. First, he planted flower and grass seeds inside their bodies. Their flesh and blood would provide nourishment to the seeds. Once the seeds had sprouted, the seeds would replace their original organs, and their roots would replace their blood vessels. They would essentially become one with the plants and transform into a Plant Puppet.

It should not need to be said, but the method was both cruel and painful. But in exchange, the Plant Puppets would become as strong and tenacious as plants. Not only were they resistant to conventional weapons, they were insanely strong and even more tenacious. Just like a normal plant, not even cutting off their heads would be enough to kill them.

If the four men came together to attack him, he wouldn’t die, but he wouldn’t be able to harm them either. The battle would have ended in a stalemate.

The reason he dared to leave the Hill of Services alone as soon as the Treasure Appreciation Auction was over was one, because he was confident in his own strength, and two, he had four Plant Puppets. They were his trump cards.

He was confident that he and his four Plant Puppets combined could survive any ambush attempt.

However, his four Plant Puppets had died without a sound. He never even felt their demise until after the fact. How could he not be scared by this?

The next moment, a green light wrapped around Ancestor Greenwood, and he disappeared into thin air just like that. He did not bring his litter or his four withered Plant Puppets with him as a matter of course.

“You think you can run?”

After Ancestor Greenwood was gone, a disdainful voice came from somewhere. The voice was quickly swept away by the wind.

……

Rustle rustle…

A cool breeze suddenly blew through a grove of trees. The leaves and branches shook like waves and rustled melodiously.

Suddenly, a green bamboo about the diameter of a bowl slowly cracked open. Then, a man tumbled out of the opening.

The bamboo was only as wide as a bowl, and the opening was only as long as a chopstick. However, the man was over 1.7 meters tall. It should be impossible for such a large man to appear from such a thin bamboo and tiny opening, and yet there was no denying that it had happened.

The man who fell out of the bamboo looked yellow in the face. Once he hit the ground, he abruptly bent down and began coughing violently. Every time he coughed, he would spit out a mouthful of withered yellow liquid.

Over time, the man’s complexion slowly turned from yellow to white. He was, of course, Ancestor Greenwood.

Ancestor Greenwood was looking much older than he was, however. His hair was turned a little white, and his face was covered in wrinkles. He looked like he had aged forty or fifty years.