Chapter 174
Chapter 174
With a wet splat, the Di Shang that had nearly drowned Qin Ying shattered beneath her slipper.
Di Shang closely resembled mercury in both form and properties.
One smack from the sole of her plastic slipper broke it into countless silver beads that rolled in every direction.
After scattering the Di Shang, Qin Ying snatched up the stone slab along with the doll and Bone Staff resting on it.
The scattered silver beads immediately converged, clustering into a single mass that wriggled and transformed into a lance.
Before it could shoot toward her, however, it was smacked by the slipper again.
Qin Ying stood with one bare foot planted on the floor, slamming the sole of the slipper against the desktop with deafening bangs.
Dusk was approaching outside, and a cartoon was playing downstairs. The commotion startled the group of little critters watching TV on the first floor.
Wangcai, who was hugging a mother-dog plushie, perked up and planted a paw on the remote. Only after pausing the cartoon did Wangcai race upstairs.
In the meantime, the Thunderbird abandoned the sunflower seeds it had been cracking open and flapped its wings, flying to the second floor like a tiny blue parrot.
The Hou curled up among the cushions all howled in unison, each displaying their own abilities.
Led by Little Sha, some thirty pack guards sprang up and landed on Wangcai’s back to hitch a ride.
The rest stood at the edge of the sofa, which was as sheer as a cliff to them, and howled… in encouragement, just to show they were participating.
When the Thunderbird charged onto the second floor, it found Qin Ying with one foot bare, smacking the floor all around her with the slipper.
Small silver beads were scattered across the floor, darting about with a slick, oily gleam.
The Thunderbird chirped. A thread of violet-blue lightning curled around its wingtips as it launched the first attack.
An ultra-miniature bolt of lightning, no thicker than a toothpick, struck the floor and left several pinprick-sized scorch marks behind.
The Di Shang struck by the lightning trembled.
Then nothing happened.
Unwilling to give up, the Thunderbird prepared to attack again.
Qin Ying hurriedly stopped it. “Stop! My floor!”
The Thunderbird halted mid-charge, kicked its stubby legs twice in the air, and banked sharply away.
Wangcai, arriving from behind, failed to notice one tiny bead of scattered Di Shang and stepped on it.
The Di Shang transformed into a tiny spike and stabbed Wangcai’s paw pad, making Wangcai yelp in pain.
The much smaller Hou, on the other hand, could maneuver among the scattered Di Shang and fight them on even terms.
Beads of Di Shang rolled all over Qin Ying’s bedroom.
Having thoroughly vented her fury, Qin Ying rotated her right wrist against the phantom pain.
While the little creatures battled, she made a quick trip downstairs and soon returned.
This time, she was carrying the jar of loose change kept on top of the shoe cabinet downstairs.
After rummaging through it with a series of clinks and clatters, she dug out a solid-gold earring.
It was the one that had gotten stuck to her slipper and followed her home the day she went out to buy medicine.
The moment she pinched the gold earring between her fingertips, every bead of Di Shang rolling across the floor slowed for an instant.
She let go, and the earring landed on the lightning-scorched floor with a crisp clink.
One after another, the mercury-like beads of Di Shang scattered across the room rolled together and merged.
They surged toward the gold earring.
In the blink of an eye, the Di Shang enveloped the earring, a substantial lump of gold compared to its own size, and went completely still.
It did not react at all even when Qin Ying used a small card to sweep it into a plastic container.
Only after finishing all this did Qin Ying collapse into her chair.
Who would have guessed one trip into the cistern could turn into such an ordeal?
She had no idea whether Chen Zhao and Liang Pu had escaped danger yet.
Perhaps sensing that she was in poor spirits, the Thunderbird landed worriedly on her shoulder and gently pecked her earlobe.
Qin Ying stroked it, then patted Wangcai on the head. “You two go play. Once I’ve taken care of this, I’ll feed you.”
Noticing that she was feeling unwell, Wangcai, normally the greediest of them all, let out a soft whimper.
It padded over to the mat outside the bedroom door and lay down. The Thunderbird folded its wings and landed on its head.
Qin Ying forced herself to focus.
There was nothing rusty in her home that she could use to confine Di Shang, so she had to resolve the issue with the mark as soon as possible.
Otherwise, before Di Shang completely devoured that piece of gold, she would have to toss the thing back into the Box.
If it escaped into a modern city of steel, Qin Ying didn’t dare imagine how much destruction it could cause.
Ignoring the pain in her eyes and the throbbing at her temples, she first put away the damaged Soul-Container Puppet and the Bone Staff.
Then she brought the stone tablet closer to examine it.
The front bore a silver ring-shaped mark that seemed entirely unremarkable.
The back, however, felt coarse and uneven beneath her fingers.
When Qin Ying ran her hand over it, she discovered rows of incredibly tiny writing.
She went to her grandmother’s room, retrieved the old woman’s magnifying glass, and held the tablet beneath a lamp.
Only then could she make out the words.
It was yet another bombastic poetic narrative in the style of the Sand People. It sang the praises of the Giant God, who had weighed out gold to secure the submission of Di Shang, the devourer of city-states.
It hailed the Giant God as the Lord of the Furnace and the Embodiment of Golden Wealth.
It also called the spreading Rust Tide the Tears of Corrosion.
The inscription seemed useless, but Qin Ying still took out a pen and wrote down several key points.
In the divine hymn on the back of the tablet, the Giant God was depicted holding a golden scale beam, with the weapon-transforming Di Shang Silver Ring wrapped around his wrist.
Qin Ying’s pen stopped abruptly. She tore off the page, set it alight, and dropped it into a glass ashtray.
As the paper burned to ash, she opened a small jewelry box.
It was packed with miniature ornaments the Sand People had offered in sacrifice.
Each piece was tiny, but together they formed a heavy lump roughly the size of two thumbs put together.
Qin Ying’s gaze shifted to the plastic container holding Di Shang.
Sensing something, the writhing Di Shang instantly bristled with spikes and clamped itself tightly around the gold earring whose surface it had already licked away, refusing to let go.
Expressionless, Qin Ying picked up a tiny gold chain with the Cell Clamp.
As though feeding some small creature, she tossed the chain beside Di Shang.
The spikes covering Di Shang immediately wilted.
Its utter lack of principles was plain to see.
A tiny tendril crept out and furtively dragged the gold ornament beneath its body, where Di Shang brooded over it like a hen.
The instant it finished hiding the piece, Qin Ying tossed in another.
This time, she threw it farther away.
Like a dog being led around by the nose, Di Shang dragged its weighty stash all over the container, collecting the scattered gold.
Before long, it had curled itself into the shape of a bloated bun inside the plastic container.
Once Qin Ying had emptied the jewelry box, she leaned closer and asked softly, “How about we make a deal?”
“I’ll give you ten times as much gold.”
Di Shang’s flared spikes all bent in unison. After a very, very long time, a single slender tendril slowly reached toward Qin Ying.
Cool against her skin, it wound around her index finger with surprising caution.
At that moment, the small stone tablet beside her collapsed into powder.
The silver ring-shaped mark rose from the remains and obediently settled into Qin Ying’s palm.