Chapter 193
Chapter 193
After Jiang Yunsui had bathed, changed clothes, and washed her hair, Fat Chef excitedly climbed the tree. He sprawled beside the opening and inhaled with a blissful expression.
“It really is Monkey Wine! This is precious stuff!”
Song Jin folded his arms. “It’s not merely Monkey Wine. It’s also the wine that little creature bathed in.”
Fat Chef smacked his lips.
“Once we get it out, it’s still drinkable. I’ll simply pretend I don’t know.”
Song Jin rolled his eyes. The man had no standards at all.
“There is more than one tree like this,” Shen Qingzhu said. “Perhaps some of the others contain Monkey Wine as well.”
Fat Chef slapped his forehead. “I’ll take a look.”
They ultimately found Monkey Wine inside five trees, though the batches in two had failed and could not be drunk.
Together with the tree Jiang Yunsui had discovered, that left four trees of good Monkey Wine.
Fat Chef was so delighted that his eyes nearly disappeared when he smiled.
By then, Jiang Yunsui had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor.
The party decided to build a temporary shelter and rest there for the night.
After sleeping deeply, Jiang Yunsui awoke the next morning feeling wonderfully refreshed.
The first thing she saw was Ji Si watching her.
Little Mushroom happily threw herself at him.
“Si Si! I knew you’d find me!”
“Huh? Where are the monkeys?”
“Song Jin, you’re here too? When did all of you arrive?”
Little Mushroom had clearly blacked out. She remembered nothing of what she had done while drunk.
Song Jin “kindly” helped her remember, lingering in particular over the part where she put a rope around her neck as if planning to hang herself.
Little Mushroom’s face turned scarlet.
Then she flatly denied everything.
“That was drunk Jiang Yunsui. What does she have to do with the Jiang Yunsui here now?”
Nothing had happened! Besides, she could not remember it!
Fat Chef was still thinking about how to extract the Monkey Wine. He hugged one of the wine-filled trees and giggled foolishly.
“Monkey Wine. Hehehe. It smells wonderful.”
One sniff told him it was excellent wine.
“We should leave,” Song Jin said. “Forget about the Monkey Wine for now.”
Fat Chef knew that, so in the end he could only regretfully…
Fill one waterskin.
Just wait. Once they found the King Serpent and obtained the Young Master’s antidote, he would come back for the rest.
The party continued. As they traveled deeper into the forest, the centipedes, spiders, and scorpions grew larger and larger.
They even discovered several wild Red-Eyed Centipedes, the same enormous species used by the Wushan Cavern fighters.
Against these giant venomous insects, the two Nuqing Roosters were like war machines, suppressing everything in their path.
“Holy mother…”
Fat Chef gripped his cleaver and stared at the centipede coiled around the trees ahead. Its body was as tall as the trees and partly hidden by fog.
“Maybe we’ve killed so many centipedes that we summoned their mother.”
Song Jin elbowed him. “This is no time for jokes.”
Jiang Yunsui hid behind the others and secretly peered at the giant centipede.
“Kiddo,” Song Jin called, “have Qianqian and Houhou recovered?”
The two roosters were not injured, only exhausted.
Jiang Yunsui was feeding them Imperial Flowing Essence Balls while watching the giant centipede.
“All better! All better!”
“Fat Grandpa, can this centipede be soaked in wine?”
She had heard Fat Grandpa say that medicinal centipede wine was valuable.
This one was so large. Surely it would be even better.
Fat Chef stroked her head on the verge of tears. “Little cub, your heart is even bigger than your Fat Grandpa’s.”
Ji Yi and the others had already attacked.
But their weapons did little damage to the giant centipede.
The armor-like shell covering its body was simply too hard.
Ji Er’s sword snapped, leaving only a shallow mark.
The giant centipede’s antennae lashed like two whips. One strike split a tree in half.
“Fat Grandpa, look out!”
An antenna whipped toward Fat Chef. His lightness skills were inferior to the others’, and he could not dodge in time.
The blow hurled him through the air and into a tree. He groaned in pain.
Jiang Yunsui immediately ran over to heal him.
Fat Chef spat out a mouthful of blood and swallowed the Verdant Jade Mushroom she pushed between his lips.
“Damn it. Good thing I wore armor. Otherwise that blow would have torn me open.”
His internal organs ached, but between Jiang Yunsui’s healing and the Verdant Jade Mushroom, he quickly improved.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
The two Nuqing Roosters spread their wings and joined the fight.
The giant centipede dwarfed them, but they showed no fear and charged straight in.
They targeted weak points such as its eyes and the joints between the armored plates along its belly.
Every strike wounded the beast.
Jiang Yunsui served as the entire party’s little healer. Whenever someone was hurt, she ran over and stuffed them with a Verdant Jade Mushroom and an Imperial Flowing Essence Ball.
With that double protection, everyone suffered injuries, but none were fatal.
The Red-Eyed Centipede had eight pairs of eyes. Jiang Yunsui’s Nuqing Roosters had already pecked four pairs blind.
They had also torn into its head, spilling green blood.
Fat Chef sacrificed the wine in his waterskin.
“Quickly! Whoever has the best aim, splash this over it and set it on fire. I refuse to believe the damned thing won’t burn!”
With everyone working together, the Nuqing Roosters pecked through the centipede’s skull while flames engulfed its body.
When it realized it could not win and tried to flee, Ji Yi drove his sword into the hole in its head.
The enormous body crashed to the ground.
“Quickly, dig up soil and smother the fire!”
They could not let the forest burn. If a wildfire started, all of them would suffer.
“We finally killed it.”
Their relief quickly gave way to worry.
This was only a centipede, yet it had been so difficult to defeat. How powerful would the legendary King Serpent be?
Clang, clang, clang…
Jiang Yunsui crouched beside the corpse and tapped its shell with a small stone. It rang like iron.
“This is much harder than armor. Natural armor!”
As a military man, Fat Chef found the material irresistible.
“And look at its legs. They’re many times sharper than the sabers issued by the Imperial Court.”
He rubbed his hands and sighed. “This giant centipede is treasure from head to tail.”
“So what?” Song Jin asked. “Can you carry it away?”
Fat Chef’s face immediately fell.
Such wonderful treasure, and he could not take it with him. Merely looking at it made his heart ache.
Shen Qingzhu was already dissecting the giant centipede nearby.
“According to what that young man told us, anyone entering the forest where their Serpent God lives must first pass through a giant centipede’s territory. We should be close to the King Serpent.”
“Everyone should rest and recover. From now on, be prepared to encounter the King Serpent and fight at any moment.”
After surviving so much together, the party had developed remarkable teamwork.
Jiang Yunsui was the youngest, but she was also the person they protected most carefully.
Partly because of the Nuqing Roosters, and partly because her own abilities kept everyone alive.
Simply put, Jiang Yunsui was the party’s super healer.