Chapter Thirty-Six: The Primeval Land Beneath the Veil of Night

Can you imagine the end of a vine as thick as a human arm, bearing a mouth, and from that mouth, spitting out an expressionless pig’s head?

The current Bloodsucking Purple Vine is exactly that—one might as well rename it the Pig-faced Bloodsucking Purple Vine. If it ever grows a cow’s hoof as well, perhaps it can be called the Cow-hoofed Pig-faced Bloodsucking Purple Vine...

Yet, for all its grotesque appearance, it is perfectly ordinary in this primordial land.

This is the Wilderness—here, the creatures are even stranger than the monstrous beasts and divine animals recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. That ancient text mentions only several hundred odd creatures, but in this boundless wilderness, the number of strange beasts is far beyond trillions.

So Luo Zu was not surprised by the mutation of the Bloodsucking Purple Vine.

What did surprise him was its tenacity—despite being dug up and destroyed down to the roots, it could still grow back.

But surprise is one thing; it did not stop Luo Zu from eradicating them and burning them to ash.

The hunting party had long prepared ointment for this purpose. At midday, when the sun was at its fiercest, they hurled the burning ointment into the mass of Pig-faced Bloodsucking Purple Vines. Under the merciless sunlight, the vines were already withered and feeble. Now, with the fuel of the oily salve and Luo Zu’s control over fire, not to mention the efforts of the many “Cave People” who could either directly or indirectly manipulate the flames, the blaze in the valley grew ever higher under Luo Zu’s command.

The fire began at noon, and so did the pig-faced vines’ howling, which lasted for three full hours. Only as dusk approached did the wailing finally cease, though the flames still burned on. The endurance of that ointment was astonishing; after such a thorough burning, those vines would all become “roast suckling pig.”

By dusk, the inferno in the river valley finally began to subside, while Luo Zu and his tribesmen kindled another bonfire nearby, roasting their freshly hunted game and feasting noisily on the spot.

After eating their fill, Luo Zu glanced up—the sky was already half-dark, the sun’s face sinking behind the endless western mountains, while the moon had already begun its ascent in the east, reflecting the brightening stars above.

“Chieftain, shall we...?”

“We return. We’ll come back tomorrow,” Luo Zu waved his hand.

With that, the group began packing away their utensils and leftover provisions, hurrying homeward at a brisk pace.

Though the “Cave People” now ruled these hundred square miles, the wilderness at night was a different world, far more dangerous than the day.

Many monsters that lay dormant by day would roam at night, drawn by the scent of battle lingering in this place. And the dangers of the nocturnal wilderness were not limited to the living; the dead posed an equal threat.

Consider the colossal beasts—when they died, if their consciousness did not fully perish, they became wraiths, dragging their decaying carcasses across the land. By day, under the sun’s scorching gaze, such entities hid in shadowy caves, dense forests, or deep beneath the soil, sometimes exhaling deathly miasma to create poisonous fogs in the valleys, sheltering from direct sunlight.

With no underworld or realm of the dead in existence yet, these spirits had nowhere to go. After untold millions of years, the dead in this land surely outnumbered the living.

But in the territory of the “Cave People,” thanks to their cleanliness and the watchfulness of their eternal bonfires, these dead rarely approached—a tradition passed down by the elders for the tribe’s protection.

Now, with the refinement of the ointment, the bonfires could burn all night. As long as two or three people took turns on watch, keeping the fire alive, the night could be safely guarded.

Tonight, Luo Zu planned to make use of these wandering dead. He measured the amount of ointment carefully, ensuring it would burn out after dusk. Before leaving, he ordered his people to throw a hundred clay jars into the scorched valley—each filled with rotting offal and fresh blood from their hunts, enough to lure every wraith in the region to the river valley.

That night, Luo Zu did not sleep. His spirit separated from his body, floating a hundred feet above the earth, as he used his divine sight to observe the valley.

Here and there, tiny sparks flickered in the black forest—perhaps nocturnal beasts, or perhaps some vicious monster, or even a herbivorous brute.

As for the burned valley, under the silvery glow of the moon and stars, Luo Zu could clearly see its state: the Bloodsucking Purple Vines were nothing but heaps of charcoal, and the offal scattered there released a stench so foul it drifted for miles—Luo Zu could smell its faint odor even from afar.

This was good; Luo Zu’s plan was off to a fine start.

As he observed, the sky suddenly darkened.

He did not need to look up; in his spirit form, he was all-seeing, with vision in every direction. He immediately noticed what hovered above.

A dense fog drifted across the sky, shrouding the heights above with a heavy gloom. Through his spirit’s perception, Luo Zu saw indistinct shapes within the mist—none remotely human.

The strange, oppressive fog glided overhead, ignoring the bonfire-lit “Cave People” settlement and heading deeper into the mountains. When it passed over the river valley, it paused briefly, but did not linger, continuing on its way.

Though Luo Zu was somewhat disappointed, the night was still young.

His spirit could only roam for about an hour before needing to return to his body for nourishment.

Nonetheless, such excursions benefited his spirit, deepening his attunement to the natural world. Though it did not amount to “enlightenment,” his mastery over his arts improved with each journey—a reason why, in three years, he had advanced all his techniques to the eighth tier.

He exhaled softly, warming his body, then set aside his surveillance of the valley and focused his mind within the World-in-a-Jar, continuing his research into the art of Refining Spirit and Returning to the Void.

This was no easy feat. Luo Zu’s original plan was to ignite the spirit in each of his five viscera, ascend the spirit into the Purple Mansion, illuminate the Spiritual Platform, thereby perceiving his own spirit, developing his brain to the utmost, and constructing a nascent soul more stable than the spirit—granting him faster “computation,” sharper memory, and greater intellect.

But after observing the exploratory spirit of the creatures within the World-in-a-Jar, Luo Zu abandoned this plan. He began planning for the Yang Spirit: from the extreme of Yin comes Yang, and the Yang spirit could merge more deeply with the flesh, enabling it to separate at will and travel freely even in daylight.

This also allowed him to unlock further potential in his body—after all, this was a body crafted by the Lady Nuwa herself, modeled after the primeval bodies of the great gods. How could its potential be limited to what it currently displayed?

He experimented for another three years, which, in the World-in-a-Jar, amounted to thirty years. During this time, Luo Zu adjusted the flow of time within, slowing its acceleration to reduce the disorientation caused each time his spirit returned to his body. Otherwise, he would suffer dizziness every day—a most unpleasant fate.