Qing Bazhi held a human head aloft in his left hand and pulled a vine along with his right.
The head was pressed against his chest.
The vine was extremely long, hanging all the way down below the fruit house.
His eight braids were neatly parted to two sides.
Qing Qishu did not seem to get along with him; stern-faced, he went forward to meet him.
But Qing Bazhi shifted lightly aside, slipped around him, and said, his face full of delight, "Qing Hua, did you come to welcome me?"
"Bazhi!" Before the Holy Maiden of Qing could speak, Qing Qishu had already turned back, stern-faced, and blocked his way. "This Dragon God Envoy you spoke of—what is the meaning of this?"
Qing Bazhi craned his neck to stare at Qing Hua. Qishu was not as tall as he was, but on tiptoe, moving left and right to follow him, he stubbornly held his line of sight.
"Qishu, I truly underestimated you." Qing Bazhi could no longer ignore him. "You and Jiuye went into the hunt—and you're the one who came back alive?"
Qing Qishu, naturally, was in no position to dwell on that topic.
"Spare me the useless talk. You said you found the Dragon God Envoy?"
"How could that be false? After finishing the hunt, I thought I'd do some hunting while I was at it... Tch!" He stopped abruptly, giving Qing Qishu a contemptuous glance. "Why am I even telling you this!"
With a quick step he sidled past Qishu, flashed Qing Hua a brilliant smile, and said, "Lady Priestess is still waiting for me. I'll go in first."
Qing Hua nodded, and at once he strutted like a man returned from total victory, chest out and head high, striding in great steps toward the inner room.
From beginning to end, Jiang Chen had been treated as a transparent man; he could even hear the sound of Qing Qishu grinding his teeth in fury.
In truth, in Bazhi's eyes there was only the Holy Maiden Qing Hua; had Qing Qishu not kept shoving himself into his view, Bazhi likely would not have seen him at all.
"In, in, let's go in too!" Qing Qishu cried.
Qing Hua likewise moved toward the inner room.
Jiang Chen deliberately quickened his pace, entered the room where the priestess sat in meditation, and used his body to block the little girl with the upturned pigtail's line of sight, so she would not see the head in Bazhi's hand.
He had no other intention; it was only that if An'an were here, he would have covered An'an's eyes all the same, not letting a child see this world's bloody side too soon.
Children do not yet know the world; seeing such things too early easily leaves shadows that last a lifetime, and can even warp their character.
"Lady Priestess!" The moment Qing Bazhi entered the room, he walked before the white-haired old woman, knelt, and with one hand raised the head from his chest up before her.
"The hunt... Bazhi has completed it!"
The white-haired old woman's expression was sacred. She took the head in both hands and prayed, "May the divine favor never fade."
In the room, Qing Qishu, Qing Jiuye, and even the round-faced little girl hidden behind Jiang Chen all prayed at once: "May the divine favor never fade."
The priestess folded her arms around the head, cradling it, and only then said, "Young man from a foreign land, I know you meant well. But to the Holy Clan, the heads severed in the hunt are nothing bloody or grisly—they are our beauty and our honor. Guo'er may look upon such things; indeed, she ought to."
From these words one could judge that the old priestess had some understanding of the world outside. Otherwise she would never have said anything like "I know you meant well." If she had lived all her life in the God-Shaded Land, never in contact with the world beyond, the morals of the Holy Clan should have filled her completely, and she would not have thought Jiang Chen's intent a kindness.
Jiang Chen did not agree in his heart, but he still shifted slightly aside. Customs differ from place to place; he could not measure everything by his own standard. It was a lesson his father had taught him when he was very young.
All the more so in a Senhai Source Realm so unfamiliar to him.
But before he knew it, a small hand seized the hem of his robe.
The little girl with the upturned pigtail stayed hidden behind him, unwilling to come out.
She had joined the prayer for the gods' favor too, but at the word "head" she was plainly frightened.
It seemed that whatever environment a person was born into, human beings always had things in common, Jiang Chen thought.
The white-haired old woman paused briefly, but in the end said nothing about it.
Only now, rising to his feet, did Bazhi notice Qing Jiuye standing in the room.
His face darkened. "Why did you and Qishu both come back? I want an explanation!"
Qing Jiuye clearly felt himself in the wrong; his voice was soft, without much force. "Before we could decide a winner, we found the Dragon God Envoy... so we decided to suspend the hunt for now."
Even Qing Qishu said nothing now. At bottom, they truly had betrayed tradition—because of his fear of pain and Qing Jiuye's soft heart.
They had the Dragon God Envoy as a reason, but the Dragon God Envoy was, after all, an unconfirmed thing. Especially now that there were three Dragon God Envoys, it grew even more nebulous.
They had suspended the hunt, putting off the settling of life and death.
To Qing Bazhi, who had carried out the tradition, was that fair?
Qing Bazhi's teeth shifted and ground. "Is that so?"
Rather than let the standoff continue, the priestess said at this point, "Bazhi, where are the Dragon God Envoys you went to invite?"
Qing Bazhi yanked hard with his right hand, and the vine in his grip retracted at speed.
The vine was far too long; one end was held in his hand, the other had been trailing all the way outside the fruit house.
Qing Bazhi pulled for a good while...
Thud! Thud!
Two figures tumbled into the inner room.
One was of middling build, lying faceup to the sky, hair disheveled, eyes blank, expression faintly weathered.
The other was thin and spare, slamming down face-first; his topknot, pinned with a single hairpin, had still kept its neatness, but sprawled on the ground his features could not be made out.
Both were bound tight in the vine, unable to move.
Evidently these two "Dragon God Envoys" had been captured by Qing Bazhi, bound with the vine, and dragged all the way back to the God-Shaded Land. No wonder the one lying faceup looked so utterly done with life...
Compared with the treatment Jiang Chen had received, the difference was heaven from earth.
But what made Jiang Chen's eyes brighten was this: those two men—he had seen both before!
The clothes they wore were the typical attire of the people of Qi.
The one lying faceup, though his name and origins were unknown, he should have seen in the Seven Stars Valley.
Before the Seven Stars Tower secret realm opened, Jiang Chen had observed all the participants, and he had some impression of this man.
Which was to say, he had not come to the Senhai Source Realm alone.
Though a competitor, at this moment he could not help feeling a touch of kinship.
The priestess was silent a moment. "Bazhi, this is how you invited the Dragon God Envoys?"
Qing Bazhi's face remained stern. "They ran the moment they saw me. There was nothing I could do."
What the years had brought the priestess, besides wrinkles, was patience. "Then how did you judge them to be Dragon God Envoys?"
"I was hiding to one side in a concealment cloak, and happened upon them locked in a death struggle with a forest bear. I heard them saying things like 'this world' and 'guiding the starlight,' and connecting it with the clan's records, I understood they might be Dragon God Envoys."
"Then why did they run at the sight of you?"
"I don't know either." Qing Bazhi was somewhat helpless. "I even rushed out to save them! I was just about to speak—I turned my head, and they had all bolted!"
"So you bound them and dragged them back?"
"And when I told them to come with me, would they listen? They would not!"
At this moment, Wu Quji, bound fast from head to foot, was collapsing inside.
A bear that savage, one the two of us together had fought for ages—and you leap out of who knows where and finish it off with a single javelin throw, dressed so bizarrely, like some wildman!
How could we not be afraid? How could we not run?