Chapter 602: A Pair of Embroidered Shoes (First Update!)
"They are the same as me, already doomed to die. We should have fallen on the battlefield twenty thousand years ago, but were forced by circumstances to cling to life."
The Woodcutter Sage set his axe aside and sighed. "Fu Ri Luo, do you know? In the era of the Kaihuang Court, a minor demon god like you, jumping around, would have long been sent to the God-Beheading Platform. But times are not what they were. I admire you, and I know your abilities and methods. You never invited the Heavenly Court's people here, attacking the Grand Emperor Heaven with your own strength. I know you don't want to live under someone else's roof. You have your own ambitions and aspirations, wanting to use the Grand Emperor Heaven as a springboard to leap into the Kaihuang Heavenly Court. Your ambition is great."
Fu Ri Luo smiled faintly. "If a man in this world has no ideals, what difference is there between him and a dried-up fish?"
The Woodcutter Sage shook his head. "Have you considered that if you occupy the Kaihuang Heavenly Court, will you be destroyed? When the birds are gone, the good bow is put away; when the cunning rabbits are dead, the running dog is cooked. You can't be unaware of that, can you? The moment you attack the Great Ruins and destroy Yankang will be the moment of death for you and your people. The calamity of extinction is right before your eyes. You call yourself Fu Ri Luo, the great wise one of the demon race—surely you can see this?"
Fu Ri Luo turned his neck, switching to his right-side face, and said leisurely, "The Sage is skilled at attacking the heart. You seem to be thinking of me, but it's actually a tactic of psychological warfare. I understand the reasoning you speak of, but I also know that I must find a path of survival for my people. As for whether the Heavenly Court will destroy me or not, that's still uncertain. At worst, I'll bow down and play the dog. Surely the Heavenly Court wouldn't kill a dog, would it?"
His left-side face laughed. "A man in this world should be able to bend and stretch. Brother Dao, if you insist on threatening me with Luofu Heaven, I don't need to kill you—someone else will naturally do it. Brother Dao, what harm is there in bending a little?"
The Woodcutter Sage shook his head. "If I wanted to be a dog, I could have done so twenty thousand years ago. If I can live standing, I'd rather stand."
Fu Ri Luo's eyes flickered. "But after death, more people still lie prone, like dead dogs."
The Woodcutter Sage smiled. "I fear not being shattered into pieces; I'd rather die in fragments. Rest assured, I won't die lying down. Before Qin Mu and the others arrived, you made your conditions, asking me to cede part of Yankang's territory to your demon race. Now that Qin Mu is here, I can give you my answer."
His face suddenly turned cold. "As long as we live, not an inch of Kaihuang's land will be surrendered!"
"If your leg reaches in, I'll cut off your leg; if your head reaches in, I'll cut off your head! If your demon race dares to enter Yankang, I'll annihilate your demon race!"
He said coldly, "Don't even think about Kaihuang's land!"
Upon hearing his words, Fu Ri Luo's three faces instantly darkened as well, and he said icily, "So there's nothing to discuss. In that case, let's sign the Tu Bo Covenant!"
He picked up a brush, swiftly wrote the oath, and lightly raised his hand, sending the paper flying toward the Woodcutter Sage opposite him. The Woodcutter Sage also wrote his oath and exchanged papers with him.
Each pondered the other's oath, checking for loopholes, then made revisions with the brush before swapping the oaths back. They examined them again carefully, amending anything they found unacceptable.
After several rounds of this, they finally finalized each other's oaths.
The two stood up and each took their vow. Fu Ri Luo used the demon language, while the Woodcutter Sage used the divine language. The divine and demon tongues sounded simultaneously, each carrying different mysteries and subtleties, even clashing against one another!
Qin Mu was proficient in both languages; he understood both divine and demon speech and found himself listening intently.
Suddenly, space trembled. The altar beneath their feet, as towering as a mountain, shook unsteadily, and everyone on it quickly steadied themselves. Below the altar, Granny Si and the Black Tiger God were confronting two other demon gods. The ground under their feet also undulated as the four deities and demons quickly stabilized themselves to avoid being caught off guard.
Granny Si swayed back and forth, seemingly lacking sufficient cultivation realm, and retreated several steps. One of her embroidered shoes inadvertently slipped off, leaving her to steady herself on one bare foot.
The demon god facing her brightened at the sight. Before she could react, he reached out and picked up the embroidered shoe. With the shoe in hand, the demon god stared at Granny Si's delicate, fair foot, chuckled lewdly, and brought the shoe under his nose to sniff.
Granny Si feigned anger, reached out her hand, and said with a half-smile, "Give me back my shoe!"
The demon god laughed heartily and tucked the shoe into his bosom. "Little beauty, you're so lovely I can't help but pity you. I'll keep your shoe."
Granny Si feigned fury, took off her other shoe, and hurled it at him. "You're a demon god, an exalted being—how can you be so frivolous?"
The demon god caught the other embroidered shoe with a raised hand, stared at her pair of fair, delicate feet, and chuckled. "Good! I've got a pair! Little beauty, you have such fair, dainty feet. I have some human concubines at home. If you submit to me, I'll make you the head wife. If you agree, I'll go back and eat my ugly wife!"
Granny Si giggled. "If you eat your ugly wife, I'd worry that one day when I become an ugly wife, you'd eat me too! My little shoes won't fit you anyway, so I'll give them to you."
The Black Tiger God frowned deeply, thinking to himself, "What kind of woman is this? She talks nonsense and even flirts with this demon god. She's as unreliable as Junior Brother Qin!"
Thick darkness enveloped the surroundings. Suddenly, a flicker of firelight emerged from the darkness, and a pair of enormous horns slowly rose from beneath the altar.
The area around the altar was pitch-black. The horns twisted and turned, soaring into the clouds, far surpassing the altar in height.
The Black Tiger God was terrified. The two hammers in his hands fell to the ground, and he hurriedly picked them up, staring at the horns that kept rising from the darkness.
After a moment, the phantom of Tu Bo revealed its head, its two pairs of horns already reaching the height of planets beyond the sky.
Tu Bo's tiger-like face was hidden in the darkness, its fiery eyes casting flickering light and shadow over its features. The towering altar also flickered under its gaze.
Tu Bo was silently waiting for their oaths.
This was only a phantom of Tu Bo, not the real one—a projection of its power into this world to witness the vows of these two powerful beings.
Tu Bo could not descend in person; its physical form was too vast. If it descended, this fragile world could not withstand it.
Qin Mu grew excited and waved vigorously at Tu Bo's phantom.
Tu Bo's face was solemn, ignoring him.
Qin Mu kept waving excitedly and called out, "It's me! Me! Tu Bo, we've met! I'm Qin Fengqing! You sealed me!"
Tu Bo continued to ignore him.
Qin Mu kept waving excitedly.
Tu Bo's eye twitched. "Be solemn! Don't talk to me; I'm handling official business."
Zhe Huali and Qi Jiuyi exchanged glances, their hearts filled with awe.
Fu Ri Luo and the Woodcutter Sage finished reciting their oaths and signed the Tu Bo Covenant. The majestic head of Tu Bo glanced at Qin Mu, who was eagerly waiting to speak with him.
Qi Jiuyi hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward to pay his respects to Tu Bo.
Tu Bo ignored him and said to Qin Mu, "Don't cause trouble."
With that, it slowly sank into the darkness, gradually disappearing, leaving Qin Mu and Qi Jiuyi standing on the altar.
When the horns had completely submerged into the ground, the darkness dissipated, and light returned to the surroundings.
The Woodcutter Sage stared at Qin Mu, as did Fu Ri Luo. Zhe Huali and Qi Jiuyi's gazes also fell on him. Tu Bo had always been the solemn, majestic image of death, never smiling or joking. Whenever powerful beings took vows, its power projected as a witness, exuding a dark and terrifying aura that oppressed everyone.
But this time, Tu Bo's phantom not only spoke but also seemed quite familiar with Qin Mu. This inevitably made people wonder whether Tu Bo would handle the vows impartially or harbor favoritism.
The reason Tu Bo was the object of vows was precisely because it had no personal bias. If Tu Bo developed bias, that would be terrifying.
"I didn't expect Young Friend Qin to have such a good relationship with Tu Bo," Fu Ri Luo said with a smile.
Qin Mu closed all three of his eyes, refusing to look at him, and snorted. "If the relationship were really good, it wouldn't have sealed me."
Fu Ri Luo felt relieved but then suddenly thought of Qin Mu's jade pendant and his heart tightened. "The jade pendant is Tu Bo's seal? That day, I suppressed the seal, which is why I released that demon king?"
His mind cleared, and a heavy weight lifted from his heart. "Tu Bo personally sealed him—it seems he'll never escape. That means I can deal with him without worry. But this kid won't look at me anymore."
Just then, a scream came from below the altar. Everyone on it was startled and hurried to the edge to look down.
Below the altar, a demon god who had come with Fu Ri Luo was writhing in pain, clutching his legs. The demon god wore a pair of tiny embroidered shoes, only three inches long, filled with needles that had pierced his large feet, leaving them bloody.
The demon god's body fluctuated between large and small as he tried to shake off the shoes, but the shoes only shrank with him without enlarging. By now, the bones of his two big toes were shattered, causing unbearable pain.
Beside him, the Black Tiger God and another demon god stared at Granny Si in terror, each stepping back, afraid to approach.
"The bones of both your feet are completely broken."
Granny Si spoke cheerfully, her voice soft and gentle, coaxing him. "You'd better cut them off. If those embroidery needles swim to your heart and lungs, or into your brain, it'll be too late."
The demon god trembled with pain, gritted his teeth, and hissed, "You tricked me into wearing those little shoes..."
Granny Si said in mock surprise, "You put them on yourself. When did I ever trick you?"
On the altar, Fu Ri Luo raised an eyebrow and sneered at the Woodcutter Sage. "Is this another one of your disciples? Same style as you, Brother Dao—stabbing in the back!"
The Woodcutter Sage was also somewhat surprised and shook his head. "Not exactly my disciple. But her cleverness is a match for mine."
Fu Ri Luo snorted coldly and sent his voice down to the altar. "Mu Tu Luo, your divine arts aren't refined enough to suppress her needles. The longer you delay, the more dangerous your life becomes. Cut off both feet."
That demon god was doing his utmost to suppress the embroidery needles flowing from the shoes into his bloodstream. The needles in the shoes were extremely fine, almost imperceptible, but they moved like flexible, agile swords, drilling into his blood vessels. He used his primordial energy to form various divine arts hidden in his blood vessels to block and suppress them, but since it was inside his own body, he couldn't unleash powerful techniques and couldn't stop these tiny needles.
Hearing Fu Ri Luo's words, he let out a sharp cry, tears streaming from his eyes, and with a swing, he cut off his own lower legs.
From the wounds on his severed legs, countless fine silver needles flowed out like water.
"The refining techniques of the Heavenly Artisan Divine Clan!"
Fu Ri Luo recognized the refining methods of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court's Heavenly Artisan Divine Clan from these silver needles and was startled. He suddenly remembered the blacksmith old man who had been with Qin Mu that day. Granny Si's silver needles must have been made by that blacksmith!
"A blacksmith, an embroiderer, a painter, a seller of fake medicine... What kind of people are around this Qin Mu?" Fu Ri Luo couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
—First update, second update coming soon! Don't go away, it'll be here shortly!