Chapter 371: Crossing

The three-legged giant frog's body was covered with the half-melted remains of over a hundred members of the Tu family.

Upon closer inspection, these people were in a state between life and death; Tu Qiaoru of the second branch, his face—including his eyelids—melted away, revealing pale bones and dull eyeballs fused into the giant frog's forelimbs.

Tu Wangmo of the fourth branch was melted into the giant frog's left eye; his daughter Tu Wangjuan was melted into its right eye.

The members of the Tu family's first branch, who had never been seen before, were indeed as imagined—most of their bodies deformed and melted into the giant frog's neck, exhibiting a texture like divine molted scales.

Zhang Fuluang's heart lurched; instinctively, he felt this scene followed some pattern, yet he could not recall it.

"Do you remember the murals in the stone chamber?"

Li Cheng said calmly: "The murals depict how the king of the ancient Cangze Kingdom once fell into the sea and pleaded his grievances to a strange rock.

The rock's eyes bled blood, granting the prince fish gills, whale tendons, seahorse belly, pearl eyes, and a frog's tongue, allowing him to be reborn and return to land.

The prince became king, and his five sons each inherited one non-human organ from their father—such as fish gills and a frog's tongue.

At first, I thought these murals were obscure religious allegories.

A propaganda tool by the ruling class of ancient Cangze to legitimize their rule—that great men are born with strange physiognomies, that kings and princes are descendants of gods, and so on.

But those murals did not exaggerate; every event depicted actually occurred."

Cold rain drifted down; Lu Hu's excessive use of the Great Ox Demon Technique caused pain throughout his limbs and bones, forcing him to grit his teeth and remain silent as he waited for Li Cheng to explain.

"At the end of the stone chamber's corridor, a prophetic mural was painted, clearly depicting Brother Sikong and Zhang Fuluang.

That means the king of ancient Cangze gained the ability of prophecy from the strange rock—three thousand years ago, he foresaw that one day Brother Sikong and Zhang Fuluang would appear within the corridor."

Li Cheng said: "Meanwhile, Commander Lu arrived on the island because someone sent a letter to the Beijing Jin Yi Wei; Zhang Daochang came because someone sent a letter to Longhu Mountain. Both letters, one from the south and one from the north, contained drawings."

Brother Sikong's pupils dilated in shock, blurted out: "The ancestors of the Tu family were the king of ancient Cangze; the Tu people inherited the ability of speech."

"More precisely, one branch among the five Tu branches."

Li Cheng snapped his fingers: "The five princes of ancient Cangze each inherited from their father: fish gills, whale tendons, seahorse belly, pearl eyes, and a frog's tongue.

The first branch of the Tu family, with ugly, deformed appearances and heads resembling fish heads, corresponds to fish gills.

The second branch—the Tu Qiaohua who went mad in the courtyard the day before the banquet—possesses immense strength, comparable to a martial artist even without training in Wu Gong; this corresponds to whale tendons and power.

The third branch, Tu Dongcong, a dissolute nobleman, has the most concubines' quarters, corresponding to the seahorse belly and reproductive capacity.

The fourth branch, Tu Wangmo and Tu Wangjuan, wear sunglasses, corresponding to pearl eyes and prophetic ability.

The fifth branch has not appeared, but surely corresponds to the frog's tongue and the ability to create illusions."

Everyone looked down; as Li Cheng said, the positions where the over a hundred Tu family members had melted matched their respective family branches.

The heavy mist had been partially lifted; Su Konghu drew a deep breath: "Namo Amitabha Buddha, Master Pi Fu, I still have two questions.

First, why did the Tu family go to such great lengths to transform themselves into this inhuman form?

Second, if those two letters were indeed sent by the fourth branch, what was their purpose?"

"The Tu family went to such great lengths to complete the 【Return Home】; the fourth branch sent the letters for the same 【Return Home】."

Li Cheng said calmly: "Three thousand years ago, in the ancient era, south of the Central Plains lay the Hundred Yue states, among them the ancient Cangze Kingdom.

Cangze worshipped the stone frog, built a massive bronze ship, exhausted its national strength, and ultimately vanished from history.

Consider this: if the king of ancient Cangze possessed prophetic ability spanning three thousand years, how could he have ruined his own kingdom?

He could have foreseen climate shifts, natural disasters, agricultural advancements; as king, he had a thousand ways to make his nation prosperous.

It's like a shooter game with wallhack and aimbot, a strategy game with unlimited tech, a galgame with smart save points, a Tencent game with endless microtransactions—so you can't lose even if you try."

Lu Hu and the others didn't understand what "Tencent" or "galgame" meant, but they grasped Li Cheng's general point.

"Unless… the king didn't care about the rise or fall of Cangze. In fact, Cangze's collapse was part of his plan."

Li Cheng said: "He foresaw his own death, and how Cangze would gradually decline;

He foresaw some of his people migrating to the coast, living by the sea, becoming the Dan people;

He foresaw two thousand eight hundred and fifty years later—fifteen decades ago, in our time—

A common, desperately impoverished Dan man, six generations before the current Tu family, would rediscover Cangze's legacy beneath the sea.

He amassed vast wealth, rose to prosperity, his descendants multiplied, eventually becoming today's Tu family.

The king of ancient Cangze and these six generations of Tu people shared the same goal: to fuse completely with the Frog God.

As for the benefits of fusion, it was merely the usual religious rhetoric—eternal youth, longevity equal to heaven, entry into paradise, and so on."

"."

Everyone stood in the rain, digesting Li Cheng's words.

A scheme spanning three thousand years surpassed their cognitive limits; three thousand years ago, King Wu had not yet overthrown Zhou, and Qin Shi Huang hadn't even been born.

"The first question is answered, but I still don't understand why the fourth branch of the Tu family, with prophetic ability, sent the letters."

Su Konghu asked hesitantly: "Why summon the Jin Yi Wei and Longhu Mountain? Doesn't that jeopardize the Tu family's plan? Such conspiracies should be kept secret."

"Because without sending the letters, the prophecy cannot be completed."

Zhang Fuluang understood; he slowly exhaled a long breath, solemnly said: "At the end of the stone chamber corridor, I used Longhu Mountain's Zhou Tian Yi Shu method to assemble the complete star chart of 【Seven Days Yi Yi Xi Xin Da Xing Bing Huo】, and immediately the corridor trembled, rocks collapsed.

We three were then transported out of the divine molted scales.

Now I realize—the moment the corridor collapsed was precisely when the banquet massacre began.

In other words, someone must complete the star chart for the Tu family's Return Home ritual to commence.

I myself am part of the prophecy."

Su Konghu hesitated: "Then what is Brother Sikong's role?"

"Without Brother Sikong, when I entered the Tu family's storage, I would not have found the divine molted scales, and thus could not have entered the corridor."

Zhang Fuluang shook his head, then suddenly realized something, turning to Li Cheng with startled suspicion: "Master Pi Fu, the murals inside the corridor only show me and Brother Sikong. But the prophetic drawing sent by the fourth branch to Longhu Mountain included you, me, and Brother Sikong?"

(End of Chapter)