“You little bastard, if you keep plucking the feathers of me—your grandpa—then I’m going to fight you to the death….”

　　“F*ck you! Don’t push your luck. Even I am scared of myself when I become angry….”

　　“Stop plucking them, they’re your grandpa’s life and blood! Every single one of them will need days to grow back and mend….

　　“Mother of lord, did I not tell you to stop? Why can’t we sit down and talk it through like civilized people?” The pain was too much and the golden crow erupted into a frenzy of words. At first it threatened, then begged, followed shortly by loud curses before it returned to more begging. Whenever the crow cursed, Fang Xing would respond with his own obscenities while continuing to pluck the feathers a handful at a time. It didn’t take long before the ground around them was scattered with golden feathers, and the shimmering was a rather pleasant sight.

　　“Please…. Stop it. If you continue, I’ll really become a featherless chicken….” The golden crow finally yielded completely.

　　Fang Xing paused his hands. “Give up?”

　　The golden crow cried out, “Yes, yes. All of the Illusory Soulgrass in this valley is yours. I—your grandpa—am not going to fight over it with you….”

　　Pluck….

　　Fang Xing removed another handful of feathers as the golden crow let out another cry. “Why are you still plucking my feathers?”

　　Fang Xing grinned while keeping his foot on its neck. “When you’re with me, only I get to call myself ‘grandpa’. Understand?”

　　“Yes, I—your ancestor—have understood!”

　　“Still trying to take advantage of your grandpa? I’ll pluck, pluck, and pluck some more….”

　　“Fine, fine…. I’m the one at fault. From now on, you’ll be my grandpa and I’ll be… I’ll just be an uncle. Your uncle knows that he’s wrong….”

　　Fang Xing finally stopped plucking feathers. He had the [Immortal’s Snare] tighten around the crow and—with both of his hands resting on his back—he began his interrogation, “Good. Now tell me everything truthfully. Where did you come from? And why are you able to speak human with such a low level of cultivation?”

　　A few shrieks and cries later, the feathers on the crow’s neck decreased even further. As it so happened, every time Fang Xing heard something that didn’t sound right, he plucked out another handful regardless of whether it was true or false. This did not stop until a full circle around the crow’s neck had been plucked clean; when viewed from afar, it looked as though the crow was wearing a scarf. It was around this point that Fang Xing had pretty much heard everything there was to hear about this crow.

　　“You’re a descendant of the legendary Three-Legged Golden Crow Clan? From the Northern Kuru Continent[1]?” Fang Xing curiously looked at the crow from head to toe without missing a single detail.

　　“That’s right, the genius from the Three-Legged Golden Crow Clan, the most adventurous talent of the demonic realm’s next generation,” the crow cried out.

　　“Do you think I’m blind? Don’t you only have two legs?”

　　“There’s a long and thick one in the middle. You can’t see it?”

　　Fang Xing was left dumbstruck. “Birds can grow things like that too?”

　　The golden crow answered with pride, “This is the proof of our ancestry from the ancient Golden Crow Clan. Half human, half crow—oww….” The golden crow let out a loud cry of pain before he had finished speaking, tears filling his eyes after Fang Xing had suddenly kicked him.

　　“It’s not even sturdy. Doesn’t look like a leg to me.”

　　The golden crow endured the pain and began to curse, “You want to turn your uncle into a eunuch?” Yet Fang Xing ignored him and went for another kick, which was followed up by the crow’s angry cry, “Why are you doing this?”

　　“I just realized that this is much more effective than plucking your feathers!”

　　“You little bastard, I’ll only need to send a single cloud-piercing arrow and I’ll have ten thousand beast soldiers coming—ouch….”

　　“Coming to do what?”

　　“… Fine, I give up. As long as you don’t kick my third leg again, we can talk everything out.”

　　Fang Xing looked around. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here?”

　　The golden crow rolled his eyes. “I passed by here incidentally and saw that there was an overwhelming amount of Qi, so there must be—aaaagh…”

　　“What exactly are you doing here?”

　　The golden crow began to cry. “If you keep doing this, I’ll really be crippled. I’m here for all of the Illusory Sou—aghhh….” Before the crow had finished, he’d received yet another kick.

　　Fang Xing did not believe any of the crow’s supposed reasons. Beasts did not need the help of Nirvana Pellets in order to achieve breakthroughs, as they did not typically have as many bottlenecks as human cultivators. In order to break through their bottlenecks, the beast tribes would usually choose to go with a more direct path of taking a thunder tribulation. If they passed, their cultivation level would greatly increase; if they didn’t, they would end up burned to ashes by the storm. This was also the reason why there were so many mythical stories in the mortal realm involving beasts being struck dead by lightning. This Illusory Soulgrass might be worth quite a fortune to human cultivators, but to spirit beasts, the allure wouldn’t even come close.

　　“Fine. It’s fine that you don’t tell me the truth. I—your grandpa—still have plenty of ways to make you talk. I’ll make sure to try all of them on you one day!” Fang Xing decided that he wasn’t going to waste any more time with the crow. The most important thing now was to collect all of the Illusory Soulgrass from the valley, and now that he was the only disciple here, collecting these plants would be much easier.

　　With a release of his Qi, all Fang Xing needed to do was a quick movement using [Gravitational Force] to draw in large swathes of the plants into his storage sack at once. It was fortunate that he’d managed to obtain so many storage sacks through various methods and had them on hand; with the help of the five extras, he had just enough to contain the thousand or so Illusory Soulgrasses.

　　While Fang Xing was collecting the Illusory Soulgrass, the golden crow was tied up to the side like a rice dumpling. The crow’s eyes shifted sneakily back and forth as though working on a plan to escape, although whether or not he had managed to come up with anything was unknown.

　　After a good four hours, Fang Xing had finally managed to collect all of the Illusory Soulgrass, and he was exhausted even after a few drinks of his spirit wine to recover his Qi. He sat down next to the golden crow and let out a satisfied sigh as he drank more wine, his hands occasionally plucking a feather or two from the crow while looking towards the sky, his thoughts indecipherable.

　　“Don’t… don’t pluck—not the feathers…. I didn’t even say anything…. Please, not the feathers….”

　　Observing the surrounding landscape, Fang Xing’s gaze went from left to right, south to north. Then, all of a sudden, he thought of something and jumped up with a laugh. “Come here. Take your grandpa for a ride.”

　　The golden crow jumped up at this as well. He had already been tortured so much by the boy, and in fear of having his “third leg” kicked again, he had unwillingly agreed while internally cursing. As the crow carried Fang Xing into the air, the latter didn’t let go of the [Immortal’s Snare] wrapped around the crow’s neck.

　　Amidst the clouds, Fang Xing looked at the details of the land below. The winding of the river streams and mountain ranges, the movement of the demonic clouds and mists; they were now all clearly within his view. His brows were tense as he looked down, as he suddenly realized that there had to be something else causing the crow to not tell him the truth about his true purpose. The fact that the crow had stayed inside the valley to scare off any intruders only meant that whatever the crow was trying to protect or gets its hand on had to be close by as well. Fang Xing didn’t know what it was exactly, but he might be able to find small clues by looking down from above.

　　After a few circles in the sky, Fang Xing couldn’t find anything suspicious. The golden crow felt a sense of relief and yelled, “See? Does your uncle ever lie to you? I’ve already told you, I’m here for the Illusory Soulgrass. How can someone so honest like your uncle ever lie to you?”

　　Fang Xing tightened his grip on the [Immortal’s Snare], causing the crow to let out a muffled growl before becoming quiet.

　　After a few more circles, Fang Xing had seen everything there was to see and was still unable to find anything suspicious. Finally—reluctantly—Fang Xing made to have the crow land, but just as he had given the order, an ever-so-faint hint of purple mist flashed in the corner of his vision. Astonished, he looked up again towards the same direction, only to see that the purple mist was now gone. Holding onto the [Immortal’s Snare], Fang Xing pulled the crow back up to the same height once again and—at the same angle as before—he could see the same faint purple mist once again.

　　Intuition told Fang Xing that this purple mist was not ordinary. He fixed his gaze upon it while activating the [Book of Revelation], and was startled at what he found. Such purple mists would only appear around mystical spirit herbs that existed only in legends; some manner of mystical herb had to be close by. Fang Xing tugged on the [Immortal’s Snare] with a sudden surge of excitement and asked, “What’s over there? Quick, take me there.”

　　“Uhh, that’s where I usually piss and sh*t, what is there to see?” The golden crow seemed surprised, speaking with an abnormal tone followed by an unnatural cough. He flapped his wings in an attempt to guide Fang Xing away from that direction.

　　Fang Xing burst out into laughter at the crow’s reaction and began to pluck the remaining feathers on his neck. “Bastard! Still lying to me? Let me pluck a few more feathers in celebration while you just keep on lying….”

　　The golden feathers scattered everywhere in the air, as though golden rain. With the sun in the background, it was a beautiful sight.

　　“Ahh…. Help, help me…. I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I’m sorry….” Loud cries echoed into the valley and forest, sending a tremor among the beasts within, all of which retreated a good hundred miles away from the two.

　　—

　　[1] Northern Kuru Continent: Similar to the southern continent of Jambu/Zhanbu, it is also one of the four continents in Buddhism. Its name in Sanskrit is ‘Uttarakuru’, with ‘uttara’ meaning ‘north’ and ‘kuru’ being the name of the continent.