Chapter 826: The Perching Bird
"This is more complicated to explain than I thought..." The Earth Snake rubbed his pristine white head after hearing this. "Where should I even begin?"
Qixia paused for a moment, then replied, "Start with yourself."
The Earth Snake nodded. "That makes sense... If I'm to start with myself, then what I'm about to tell you is the initial question, and also the second direction my teacher researched—how to make a person acquire multiple 'Immortal Techniques' at once."
Qixia gave a slight nod.
"If I have to explain..." The Earth Snake's eyes flickered. "It's because I was born with a body already bearing an 'Immortal Technique,' making it very difficult to accommodate another. But some people here are different. They became 'Zodiacs' as 'ordinary people.' To use an analogy, they are a blank sheet of paper—my teacher can paint any color on them. But I am a sheet of deep blue paper; many colors simply won't show on me."
Aside from Qixia, the others began to ponder.
Qixia sighed and said, "Since you're planning to be open and honest... there's no need to lie now, is there?"
"I... lied?"
"According to what you said, 'Heavenly Snake' discovered that the survival rate of the eyeballs transplanted onto you was very low, so he tried many times and eventually found your 'leverage point.'" Qixia stated. "The logic goes like that, right?"
"Yes." The Earth Snake nodded. "Is there something wrong?"
Qixia sighed again after hearing this, simply staring at the Earth Snake in silence.
"Holy shit!" Qiao Jiajin suddenly seemed to recall something. "That really doesn't add up. Did that Heavenly Snake guy really need to go through all that trouble just to find out your 'weakness'?"
"I see—you're thinking about that. You think he could have just read my mind directly." The Earth Snake nodded. "Qixia, the 'logical relationship' is correct, but the 'temporal relationship' is wrong."
"Oh?"
"If my teacher couldn't find a perfect solution in me, how could he have gained 'mind reading'?"
"So their abilities came later..."
Qixia narrowed his eyes at that moment, feeling as though there was some crucial condition that hadn't been met.
"Exactly. It was precisely because of the contributions of monsters like us... that my teacher was able to acquire the abilities he wanted." After saying this, the Earth Snake shook his head again. "No, not just my teacher—all the upper echelons here are like that."
"Then theoretically..." Qixia thought for a moment before continuing, "You also possess two abilities?"
"This was an incredibly coincidental occurrence, too." The Earth Snake said. "Originally, my 'Mourning' wasn't that powerful. I needed to touch someone for a long time before they began to feel sorrow. But my teacher somehow found the previous generation's owner of 'Mourning,' who had already become an 'Original Resident.' When he was experimenting on me, he happened to transplant that person's eyes to me. And this eye also put an end to my inhuman suffering."
Upon hearing this, Qixia let out a cold laugh, having nearly stripped away the truth.
"Previous generation?" Qiaojin frowned beside him. "Is this thing hereditary?"
"'Hereditary' isn't quite accurate." The Earth Snake shook his head. "Even though 'Wish Fulfillment' was split into tens of thousands of fragments, my teacher also conducted statistics. The maximum number of 'Immortal Techniques' that can appear in the same period is no more than three thousand or so."
"Immortal Techniques... over three thousand kinds..." Qixia murmured the words.
"Yes. And the acquisition of 'Immortal Techniques' is different from what everyone imagines."
"How is it different?" Chen Junnan asked.
"You think that 'Immortal Techniques' are something hidden inside your body, needing some kind of 'trigger' to manifest them, right?" The Earth Snake asked.
Qixia moved his gaze aside without speaking, while Chen Junnan nodded beside him. "That's what everyone always thought. Is there something wrong with that?"
"It looks like the same effect, but there's actually a difference." The Earth Snake said. "All 'Immortal Techniques' are not hidden within people waiting to be discovered. Instead, they are like birds in the sky."
Chen Junnan clearly didn't understand the metaphor. "Birds in the sky? What does that mean?"
"Let me give an example. Suppose your 'Immortal Technique trigger' is 'despair,' but at the same time, many people here are also in 'despair.' The 'Immortal Technique' at that moment is like a bird circling in the air. It will choose and fly to its favorite master, and from then on, that master possesses the 'Immortal Technique' born from despair. Do you understand now? It takes residence inside you, and 'despair' is its food. It activates by collecting your 'despair.'"
The Earth Snake's explanation clearly surprised the group, but upon reflection, it didn't seem unreasonable.
"As for the remaining 'despairing ones,' they are the 'candidates' for this bird." The Earth Snake continued. "When the chosen master becomes an 'Original Resident,' or abandons it to become a 'Zodiac,' or disappears here for various reasons, the bird will fly to the 'candidate,' making them the new 'inheritor of the Immortal Technique.' But note that everyone's understanding of the 'Immortal Technique' is different, so the 'candidate' is not necessarily weak."
After hearing this, Qixia nodded slightly. "Did your teacher figure all this out?"
"Yes, and I helped quite a bit." The Earth Snake nodded. "After all, I run the largest bookstore here, making it easier to consult documents and acquire knowledge."
"So..." Qixia glanced at the Earth Snake's body and said, "You said that this eye happened to survive in you precisely because your constitution is 'Mourning,' and the only eye that survived on you happened to come from the previous owner of 'Mourning.' Thus, you simultaneously gained an even stronger 'Mourning.' Now, anyone only needs a slight touch from you to become extremely sorrowful."
"Oh! You're sharper than me." The Earth Snake nodded. "But I don't quite understand what you mean. Those people's sorrow comes from how heart-wrenching the stories they tell are."
"Alright, I'll accept that you admit it." Qixia said. "Let's just say it was a very coincidental situation. After all, your teacher isn't exactly normal either. We'll consider it a natural occurrence."
"It was naturally occurring." The Earth Snake said somewhat irritably. "If he had known this eye could survive in me, he wouldn't have implanted it at all. He wanted to try more possibilities."
"That makes sense too." Qixia nodded. "Now for the crucial question."
"What? After all this... there's still a crucial question?"
"Of course." Qixia nodded. "Tell me—where are their 'eyes' located?"