Owing to the limitations of the ground, and with White Lotus present, it was not convenient to practice the Four-Spirit Body Refining Art.
And so, once the meridian-nourishing cultivation was done, Jiang Chen took up the Essence Control Art. Within the Celestial Palace he shifted his Dao essence about, first arranging it into the character for peace, then into the character for his own name, taking endless amusement in it.
He did not know how long he did this before faint voices reached his ears.
Jiang Chen withdrew from his state of cultivation and turned his head toward White Lotus.
White Lotus gave him a silent look.
The voices drew nearer.
"Damn it! Doing this dull work day after day. I didn't join the Justice Enforcement Bureau to be a hunter." one voice said.
Another voice urged: "Say a little less."
The first voice said: "He's not here. What's there to fear?"
That was how he spoke, but his voice had clearly lowered.
Jiang Chen's mind stirred. What did "hunter" mean? Were they hunting fierce beasts here? But he had not heard the sound of battle. He remembered Zhao Yan saying that on Jade Balance Peak someone had stopped Dou Yuemei from pulling the mountain. So that person was not here at present? The Justice Enforcement Bureau... the people on Jade Balance Peak, sure enough, belonged to Zhuang Ting. The fierce beasts that ravaged Three Mountain City domain were, sure enough, connected to Zhuang Ting!
As his thoughts churned, the two voices drew nearer still — or rather, they should have been heading up toward the summit.
Jiang Chen, dutifully obedient, stayed stock-still and silent, trying to divine White Lotus's intent. Even now he did not yet know what he was meant to do. But because the matter touched on the secret of Jade Balance Peak and on Zhuang Ting, he could not help thinking all the more.
The footsteps stopped outside the cave, and two weary-faced cultivators appeared in his field of view.
One was extraordinarily tall, the other covered in a thick beard.
They each carried a birdcage-like object, and they both stared at Jiang Chen and the other person.
They froze. So did Jiang Chen.
"They saw us!" Jiang Chen said.
"Isn't that blindingly obvious?" said White Lotus.
"Didn't we set up the array plate?"
"Oh. That array plate. It was simply too heavy to carry in my bosom, so I set it down there casually."
"..."
Jiang Chen fought back his feelings and had just gripped his sword when White Lotus had already drifted out of the cave.
Once she left the animal skin wrapping, her supple figure could no longer be concealed. Suspended in the air, she was a sight in herself.
She reached out both hands and pressed them lightly upon the brows of those two cultivators.
In truth, the two cultivators had reacted at the very first moment, but their Dao arts had collapsed before they could take shape.
They seemed to cry out something, yet their voices were snuffed out by some power.
The two cultivators crumpled softly to the ground. White Lotus bent down and picked up the two cages.
"You killed them?" Jiang Chen asked.
If his ears had not deceived him, these two cultivators came from the Justice Enforcement Bureau. In a sense, they were one of the extraordinary forces that kept the State of Zhuang stable. To kill them was by no means something Jiang Chen wished to see.
"Only knocked them out. How could I be so foolish?" White Lotus giggled: "What if it made you hate me?"
Jiang Chen truly had no way to deal with these faint, teasing advances, and said only: "What do we do next?"
White Lotus carried the cages in both hands and walked back lightly.
She held one cage out before Jiang Chen: "Take a look — what is this?"
Inside that cage were countless miniature beasts. Look closely, and each one was moving; they were no dead things.
"This is?" Jiang Chen made no attempt to hide the narrowness of a small-town youth's experience.
It was not that he had not tried hard, only that he was not like those born into plenty, who had lived within scenery all their lives.
And there was nothing here to pity or lament; he had already set out upon the road of seeing scenery.
"A beast cage!" White Lotus shook the cage, and the beasts inside panicked, darting this way and that.
"It's like a storage casket, only these hold living beasts instead?"
A storage casket was such a rare thing, as good as legend. Jiang Chen had never owned one, but he had heard of it countless times. The marvel of gathering all things into a single casket had once filled him with longing.
White Lotus nodded, and raising her hand, said: "Carry them."
Jiang Chen took the two beast cages and examined them closely, asking: "Why would people of the Justice Enforcement Bureau be here? And why catch so many beasts?"
White Lotus did not answer, but walked on toward the depths of the cave.
"Wait — isn't the mountain spider sleeping in there?" Jiang Chen asked.
White Lotus turned back and tilted her head to look at him: "Why would a mountain spider be sleeping in there?"
"Didn't you say... this was a mountain spider's nest?"
"Whatever I say is whatever I say?" White Lotus gave a light snort and turned away: "So easily fooled — you'd better be careful that one day an enchantress swallows you whole, skin and bone."
Jiang Chen: "..."
He was not stupid, only that White Lotus had saved his life and had always shown him kindness, so he had no reason to suspect her. Especially over such a minor matter.
And so, even as he watched two cultivators of the Justice Enforcement Bureau heading toward this cave, he had not thought anything of it.
As they walked deeper, White Lotus took out a Bright Suspended Lantern and, with a little manipulation, made it float along after the two of them.
The immensely cavernous interior of the cave unfolded before Jiang Chen's eyes.
There was not much trace of human work here, only a tangle of many caverns that branched in all directions and reached into depths unknown — like a maze.
White Lotus, however, moved with the ease of long acquaintance, choosing a cavern without hesitation and going straight in.
The two of them wound back and forth for a very long time before the view suddenly opened up before them!
This was a vast valley, with no end in sight. It had trees and rocks, flowers and grass, yet it did not give one a feeling of beauty and serenity — rather, it oppressed the heart and stirred a restless irritation.
On both sides, the mountain walls too were dotted with countless caverns, and Jiang Chen and the others stood in one of them.
Jiang Chen thought that many of those caverns behind might well all lead into this valley.
"Open the beast cages and dump them down." said White Lotus.
"Oh."
Jiang Chen had already been studying them, and so he set down the cage in his right hand, lifted the one in his left, aimed its mouth at the valley below, and pulled open the cage door.
"Roar! Hiss! Screech! Squeak!"
Countless beast cries wove together at his ears. The beasts surged out of the cage like a tide. In the very instant they rushed free, they returned to their normal size, then fell one after another, dropping down into the valley.
These were all ordinary beasts — lions, tigers, bears, leopards, and also birds, foxes, and rabbits. Some were gentle in temper, some savage, but all were within the normal range.
When they fell into the valley, something terrible happened.
First it was their eyes: nearly in an instant they turned crimson.
Rabbits sprouted savage fangs, little birds' claws grew keen as knives... some bodies swelled enormously, some suddenly grew sharp horns.
Jiang Chen witnessed it with his own eyes.
These beasts... were turning into fierce beasts!
Those mindless fierce beasts, those cruel, savage, nightmare things.
Those fierce beasts that had nearly dragged down Three Mountain City domain and ravaged the various counties of the State of Zhuang.
They... had been transformed from ordinary beasts!
Captured by the people of the Justice Enforcement Bureau, and made over within this valley.
It was a great hidden secret — and, all the more, a cruel truth.