Chapter 20
Inside the tavern, the atmosphere was as usual.
Warm, lively, filled with laughter.
Huan Zheng sat in his favorite corner, surrounded by familiar faces he had come to know over the past three weeks—the Old Fisherman with a thick mustache who always spoke of his beautiful daughter, the Shell Merchant whose booming laughter echoed like thunder beneath the sea, the Coral Girl whose eyes sparkled every time Huan Zheng opened his mouth to joke.
"Drink, Master Lazy!" the Old Fisherman shouted as he raised his glass, the pale blue liquor spilling slightly at the corner of his dry lips.
"Today our city survived the southern sea storm. It's worth celebrating!"
Huan Zheng laughed—a warm laugh, a genuine laugh, a laugh he never showed in front of Ling Xu—then raised his glass high.
"To the storm that never came!" he declared, and everyone at the table cheered, glasses clinking like tiny bells celebrating something that never truly existed.
But amidst the clinking glasses and deafening laughter, Huan Zheng heard something else.
Not a sound, but the absence of it.
A silence that suddenly slipped through the cracks of the crowd, like a snake slithering through tall grass without making a sound.
He turned toward the tavern door, and there, under the flickering glow of jellyfish lamps, dozens of shadows began to appear—one by one, then two by two, until every entrance and window was filled with black-robed cultivators bearing pearl-dragon emblems on their chests, their Qi so dense that the air around them felt like water beginning to freeze.
"What—"
Huan Zheng hadn't finished speaking when the Old Fisherman beside him stood, pushed back his chair, and walked to the other side of the room—joining the black-robed cultivators, followed by the Shell Merchant, followed by the Coral Girl, followed by every face he had considered a friend for the past three weeks.
"Sorry, Master Lazy," the Old Fisherman said, his voice no longer warm, no longer friendly, but flat like coral untouched by waves.
"We are only carrying out orders."
Huan Zheng fell silent.
He looked at the glass of liquor in his hand—the pale blue liquid now resembling poison—then smiled, a bitter, hollow smile, a smile that acknowledged Ling Xu had been right, that he had been foolish, that he had allowed false warmth to blind him.
"So," he said quietly, his voice still sounding lazy but carrying a tremor that had never been there before, the tremor of a man who had just realized he had been stabbed by the same hands that once patted his back kindly, "for these past three weeks… you were all just pretending?"
The cultivators did not answer with words.
They answered with swords, with spears, with Qi-laced chains that shot from all directions like rain suddenly turning into blades.
Huan Zheng moved—swift, agile, as he always did—dodging the first attack, the second, the third, flipping a wooden table as a temporary shield, his leg sweeping low to knock down two cultivators beside him, his fist striking another's chest until ribs cracked like dry wood snapping.
"You think you can capture me?" he shouted, his voice half laughter, half fury, and for a moment, he truly believed he could leave the tavern unscathed—that he, Huan Zheng, one of the three Wheels of Cultivation, would never fall to wolves like these.
But then, something changed.
The cultivator whose chest he had shattered stood up again, his Qi aura—just moments ago fading—now blazing stronger than before, rising from Bright Sky First Stage to Second, then to Third, like fire doused in gasoline.
"What—"
Huan Zheng stepped back, his eyes widening at the impossible phenomenon.
Each time he injured them, each time he brought them closer to death, their cultivation realm surged, their bodies recovered, and their eyes grew emptier, more savage, like beasts that had lost the instinct to survive and retained only the instinct to attack.
"A neutralizing device!" he whispered suddenly, as a sphere of golden light shot from behind the enemy ranks and exploded above him, scattering shimmering dust that clung to his skin like pollen from a hellish flower—and at that instant, he felt something he had not experienced in decades.
His body became heavy.
Not heavy from fatigue, not heavy from injury, but heavy as if swimming in a sea of thick honey, where every movement required ten times the effort, every breath felt like inhaling sand, every passing second felt like a year.
"The neutralizer… my adaptation is blocked..." he murmured, and the next attack could not be avoided—a trident pierced his left shoulder, followed by chains wrapping around his legs, followed by a fist slamming into his abdomen until he collapsed onto the wooden floor soaked with liquor and blood.
Huan Zheng fell to his knees among shattered glass and broken tables, his breath ragged, blood flowing from the corner of his lips.
Not from fatal wounds—because no wound could be fatal given his cultivation foundation that had surpassed 10 Vast Cosmos Falling Crystals—but because his body felt filled with molten lead, every muscle screaming in protest, every joint creaking like a rusted door forced open.
Amid the encircling cultivators who began binding his hands with golden chains, a commander in a blue brocade robe stepped into the tavern.
He smiled widely, his golden teeth gleaming under the desperate flicker of jellyfish lamps, rubbing his fat fingers together as if counting coins not yet in his palm.
"At last… at last we have captured one of the three Wheels of Cultivation," he said, his voice like drool dripping onto wet stone.
"Just imagine how much reward we will receive from the Supreme Court of Humanity. Not to mention the bounty from the nobles who have long hunted your identity, Master Lazy."
He approached the kneeling Huan Zheng, lowered his head, then pinched the man's chin with trembling fingers of barely contained excitement.
"You know, Huan Zheng, you are very valuable. More valuable than a thousand Goddess slaves. More valuable than ten thousand Star shards."
Huan Zheng did not respond.
He simply closed his eyes, letting shame burn his throat hotter than the liquor he had drunk the night before, when suddenly, from outside the tavern, a familiar sound reached his ears: light but rapid footsteps, followed by the hiss of air being split, followed by the sound of something piercing flesh.
Not Huan Zheng's flesh, but that of a black-robed cultivator standing closest to the door.
"Release him," the voice said, cold like frozen water at the bottom of an abyss—and when Huan Zheng opened his eyes, he saw Ling Xu standing at the shattered doorway, her robe torn in seventeen places, her white hair streaked with veins of color fluttering despite the stillness of the sea, and at her fingertips, grayish-green threads extended like roots hungry for blood.
"Or you will experience what is called the Cancer Plague—not as a rumor, not as a bedtime story, but as a reality that will rot your flesh from within while you are still breathing and feeling everything."
To be continued…