Chapter 491: A Family of Performing Arts
“Uh... that doesn’t quite work...” Jiang Shi said. “Is there anything else? Something that can help me stand up on my own?”
Cui Shisi, in the next room, stepped forward and leaned closer to Chen Junnan. “Captain, Big Ten needs something to support himself? We have a treasured sword here.”
“Hurry up and bring it...” Jiang Shi called out casually, unconcerned by the distance. “I don’t have a head or legs right now, so fighting the Di Tu is going to be awkward...”
He paused, then adjusted his phrasing: “I mean... getting beaten up by the Di Tu is a bit awkward.”
Cui Shisi shook her head, then pulled a longsword off her back. This was a magic treasure belonging to one of the Eight Immortals, Lü Dongbin.
“Captain...” Cui Shisi turned her head, her pale, glowing face looking at Chen Junnan. “Should I give this to Big Ten?”
Wu Shisan, a middle-aged man standing nearby, furrowed his brow. “Hold on... it’s fine if we let Big Ten stand up, but what if that Di Tu destroys the sword? Then we’d never get out...”
“No way,” Chen Junnan said. “The ‘Zodiacs’ can’t cut off all escape routes in this game... If the tool for leaving gets destroyed, they’d be breaking the rules themselves.”
“I see...” Cui Shisi nodded. “Then this sword...”
“Throw it to me,” Chen Junnan said with a smile. “It might even work wonders...”
“Wonders?” Cui Shisi didn’t know what Chen Junnan meant, but she tossed the seemingly sturdy iron sword to him through the door. He then turned and threw it to Jiang Shi.
When the Di Tu saw this, he felt something was off and tried to grab it, but Jiang Shi’s body suddenly flipped over. Amidst the screams of his head on the ground, he lunged straight for the sword.
“Hell yeah!” Jiang Shi’s head yelled. “Your grandpa here now has a proper weapon! All you demons, why don’t you...”
Jiang Shi reached for the sword, but accidentally grabbed the blade. He yelped in pain, then quickly grabbed the hilt.
“Aaaah! Surrender now!!!”
Chen Junnan covered his forehead. “I really don’t want to deal with this kid anymore... He doesn’t seem bothered at all—he’s having a blast.”
Jiang Shi used the sword to prop himself up off the ground, took a few shaky steps forward, then grabbed his hair and tucked his head under his arm.
“I feel like I look really cool right now...” Jiang Shi muttered. “One hand holding a sword, the other holding my head... I’m like some mythical figure... Who was it again?”
Chen Junnan let out a deep sigh. “There shouldn’t be a mythical figure like that... The closest to you would be Xing Tian, but he wasn’t holding his head, and his weapon wasn’t a sword.”
“Doesn’t matter!” Jiang Shi’s head shouted from his arms. “As long as I’m here, nobody’s getting past!”
“You’ve got some real spirit...” Chen Junnan shook his head. “Kid, if you can use that sword well, you might not get hurt anymore.”
“Oh?” Jiang Shi turned his upper body around, and the head in his hand asked seriously, “What do you mean? Got a plan?”
Seeing a bare torso turned toward him, Chen Junnan was a bit dumbfounded.
“Turn your damn head around!” Chen Junnan yelled. “Why are you only twisting your torso?! Can you even see me?!”
“Oh, sorry.” Jiang Shi felt weird too, so he used his hand to turn the head he was holding as well. “If you have a plan, tell me. I’ll definitely do my part for everyone.”
“Sigh... you’ve done plenty... but I get the feeling you’re just like me—never letting anyone worry-free...” Chen Junnan shook his head again. “Anyway, like I said, the ‘Zodiac’ can’t destroy game props... so the ‘sword’ in your hand is now your ‘shield’...”
“Huh?” Jiang Shi blinked. “That makes some sense... He can’t break this sword...”
“But how badly you get beaten still depends on you...”
Jiang Shi nodded his head a few times with his hand. “Got it. Thanks for the advice.”
“Stop nodding! It’s too much trouble!” Chen Junnan shouted. “Get ready for battle!”
Jiang Shi turned back to face the Di Tu. The Di Tu, meanwhile, scratched his head hesitantly.
“If I want to kill you... do I have to pummel you into a pulp?”
“That won’t work either,” Jiang Shi laughed. “Even if you pound me into mush, I’ll probably keep wriggling on the ground. ‘Indestructible’ is ‘Indestructible.’ You can’t destroy me.”
“Monster... Is there really such an ‘Echo’...” The Di Tu squinted and muttered. “What’s the difference between you and the four of them...?”
“The four of them? Your grandpa here is as good as the Four Heavenly Kings of the Southern Heavenly Gate, right? Hah! Li’l Jiang Shi grabbed his head and shouted, then raised his sword. “Demon! Prepare to die!”
Chen Junnan looked at the kid’s demeanor and found it really strange.
A twelve- or thirteen-year-old kid, who should be at the age of playfulness and energy, yet he acted not only old and seasoned, but also spouted all sorts of incomprehensible nonsense.
“Fourteen,” Chen Junnan called over to the next room, “what did your Big Ten do for a living before this?”
“He was an apprentice pingshu storyteller,” Cui Shisi replied. “If it got boring at night... Big Ten would tell us stories from his performances.”
“Pinging...” Chen Junnan nodded. “Alright, alright. A family of performing arts, huh?”
The moment they finished speaking, the Di Tu once again swung his fist at Jiang Shi. At the critical moment, Jiang Shi swung Lü Dongbin’s sword to meet the fist.
The Di Tu’s fist, whistling through the air, stopped just before hitting the sword.
Both of them stood frozen, like statues.
“Whoa!” Jiang Shi, seeing his plan work, yelled, “See that, demon! My ‘magic treasure’ will suppress you!”
“You...” The Di Tu frowned and slowly withdrew his fist. After thinking for several seconds, a strange smile crept onto his face. “I get it.”
“You get it?” Jiang Shi, about to lose his balance, used the sword to prop himself up. “What do you, a rabbit demon, get?”
“I get what you’re doing...” The Di Tu stretched out his white-furred hands, rubbed his fist, then put both hands back in his pockets. “‘Indestructible,’ if I just ignore you, what can you do?”
“Ignore me...?” Jiang Shi blinked, sensing something was wrong.