Chapter 353: Woodpecker Goose (Requesting Monthly Tickets)

By the riverside shack, two mountain runners huddled together, silently awaiting word from Master Xu.

The two were close friends, chatting idly in fits and starts.

After a while, they both felt something was off—as if they’d forgotten something…

They frowned in thought, then almost simultaneously slapped their foreheads: “Where’s the Master’s goose?”

Bai Lao’s eyes grew even more troubled: “The Master entrusted Da Fu to us, yet why do we always unconsciously overlook it?”

“It was the same back at the Woman Cook’s place…”

Xu Yuan walked ahead, following the bumping ghost; Da Fu followed behind Xu Yuan.

Before moving, Xu Yuan had instructed Da Fu to stay with the two mountain runners. Da Fu stared with its dull goose eyes, offering no response—that way, it was ready for either attack or retreat.

If it’s a mealtime remark, I’ll hear it if I want to, ignore it if I don’t.

After all, in Xu Yuan’s eyes, every time he spoke to Da Fu, it always looked like this stupid goose.

“Tap tap tap…”

That flat beak truly resembled a chisel.

But there was no scene of flying wood shavings as expected.

The tree tumor twisted in agony, like a viscous pool of black oil, even trying to stick to Da Fu’s beak.

Yet Da Fu’s neck was powerfully strong, constantly shaking—each strike delivered a heavy blow to the tumor.

After some seventy or eighty strikes, the tumor finally cracked under the pressure.

Plop! Like a pus-filled boil bursting.

Foul-smelling tree sap and tiny, nearly invisible strange insects sprayed out.

Da Fu’s target remained those insects.

Gui Xu Mu was furious.

Even a stupid goose dares to provoke Laozi!

But before it could react, a rope snaked up from the fallen leaves, wrapping around its main trunk.

A sheet of skin rapidly spread upward, engulfing its entire canopy.

Both the rope and the skin were remarkably skilled.

The rope coiled tightly, each strand binding every eye on the trunk.

The skin did the same.

Gui Xu Mu could fully transform into “grass,” even changing its scent to that of grass.

But it could not alter its own “fate.”

When the bumping ghost stopped in this grove, Xu Yuan suspected Gui Xu Mu was nearby.

Then, when the bumping ghost mindlessly targeted those three, Xu Yuan’s suspicion solidified.

Because Gui Xu Mu was hidden nearby, those three had already drawn close to it.

That’s why the bumping ghost had been ordered to strike out.

It diverted their attention and disrupted their search rhythm.

When those three mentioned capturing a mountain runner as bait to lure Gui Xu Mu, Xu Yuan hesitated whether to follow—because he had already used “Wang Ming” to locate Gui Xu Mu.

Xu Yuan ultimately decided to follow, not to keep eavesdropping on their conversation.

But to make Gui Xu Mu lower its guard.

Xu Yuan left, but left behind Jin Dan and Pi Dan.

Da Fu was an accident…

Yet Da Fu arrived at the perfect moment.

When Da Fu hugged the tree, Jin Dan and Pi Dan appeared together.

Gui Xu Mu prepared to unleash “Golden Cicada Shedding Its Shell.”

But just as it was about to activate, Da Fu’s relentless pecking interrupted the spell with unceasing agony…

After Da Fu shattered the tumor, Gui Xu Mu grew even more enraged—its fourteenth eye was now out of reach for the foreseeable future.

All the “afflictions” it had stolen at great risk from the Ju Ya and the cultivator were gone.

It furiously tore its roots from the earth.

The grove, already thick with yin energy, became shrouded in mist; the temperature plummeted.

Da Fu shivered from the cold.

Then stared in shock at its own wings.

Da Fu thought: I must be seeing things—why are there two pale, human hands growing beneath my wings?!

Those hands were wrinkled, swollen with distorted joints, hideously ugly!

Dozens of roots, like ghostly claws, seized the sinew rope and Pi Dan, yanking hard.

A few others slipped soundlessly behind Da Fu, raised high, ready to stab down into its skull.

Suddenly, from beyond the mist, a clatter rang out as a handful of counting rods were thrown in.

This artifact was of fifth-rank craftsmanship; even if Xu Yuan didn’t understand “calculation,” it could automatically perform some computations.

The counting rods shot forth, each piercing one of the eyes.

Gui Xu Mu trembled in agony.

Thus, it failed to notice that among the rods, a blob of something had plopped onto its trunk.

Immediately after, Xu Yuan arrived on fire wheels, spewing a mouthful of abdominal fire that made the Gui Xu twitches shriek.

But the next instant—CRASH!—Gui Xu Mu vanished!

Da Fu still hugged the tree. The sinew rope and Pi Dan still wrapped it. The counting rods still pierced it.

Only now, their target had become another ordinary tree.

Xu Yuan instantly understood: Gui Xu Mu’s technique was not “Golden Cicada Shedding Its Shell,” but something similar to Chang Xunbei’s “Fa.”

It swapped its position with another tree elsewhere!

This technique must have been prearranged.

The maximum number of such “swaps” was equal to the number of eyes.

Xu Yuan carefully sensed, but did not rush to pursue.

Just now, Master Xu had thrown a blob onto the trunk.

Gui Xu Mu possessed both yin and yang.

Roots were yin; trunk was yang.

Let that substance erode further—then it could no longer use this deceptive trick, and I’d save myself some effort.

…

The three men left the woods and found a gorge thick with yin energy.

The Master stripped off his clothes—his entire upper body was covered in tattoos!

They looked especially sinister and terrifying.

He muttered incantations, and from one tattoo on his back emerged a strange insect with three pairs of wings.

The insect was ferocious, screeching shrilly.

His two subordinates retreated thirty zhang, covering their ears.

The Master extended a finger, feeding his own blood to the insect.

After the insect drank its fill, the tattoo burst open—dozens of such insects flew out in a rush.

They circled above the Master’s head briefly, then flew off into the surrounding hills.

The Master closed his eyes, standing motionless.

Soon, he suddenly opened his eyes, sneering: “Found them—and two at once. More than enough!”

He ran toward the riverbank, guided by the insects.

His two subordinates hurried after him.

…

Half an hour later, Xu Yuan strolled slowly up a hillside.

The tree that had once grown on the north-facing slope was now Gui Xu Mu.

“Evil Filaments” had crawled all over the trunk, like silk, layer upon layer, wrapping the tree.

All the tree eyes were now covered.

Deng Linyue claimed he obtained a spiderweb to suppress Gui Xu Mu’s “Golden Cicada Shedding Its Shell”—so Xu Yuan secretly refined the Evil Filaments into a sinister elixir.

Within ten li, he could sense the location of his sinister elixir.

Even beyond ten li, there was a faint spiritual resonance, guiding Master Xu toward its general direction.

Xu Yuan flicked his hand—three hairpins shot out, forming a “pin” shape around a tree eye, then spun and gouged it out.

Gui Xu Mu was indeed powerless to use that deceptive technique.

(End of Chapter)