Who Is More Bizarre?

Overcast, light rain, drifting mist. Listening to the pitter-patter of rain outside, Xu Yuan sat in the covered pavilion with lowered eyes, browsing through the ancient tome in his hand. The pages had yellowed with age, and the ink on the title page was somewhat faded, yet the title remained faintly legible: *Thousand Thorns Chronicles*. The author was lost to time, but the book recorded what they had seen and heard while journeying through the Thousand Thorns Gorge. As a lawless borderland, the Thousand Thorns Gorge had spawned many uncivilized, savage tribes. They clung to the most primitive customs and beliefs, and they practiced the bloodiest sacrificial rites. Compared to these tribes, Xiao Bai's underground palace remnants seemed positively civilized. At most, the underground palace remnants believed in natural selection, casting useless individuals into aberrant ghost nests to fend for themselves. But most tribes in the Thousand Thorns Gorge actively conducted blood sacrifices reminiscent of sinister cults. They would sever people's limbs, arranging the dismembered arms and legs into specific patterns across open ground. Then, slitting open the bellies of the sacrificial victims—now reduced to human pigs—they would set them in the center, letting their blood trickle along excavated trenches to form an eerie crimson glyph. The author had described this part with meticulous detail, so much so that the bloody stench practically rose off the page. Yet owing to the passage of time, portions of this section were damaged or missing. Such as the crude sketches the author had made of the patterns, or the names of the ghosts and gods worshipped by those tribes! Truly, each land nurtures its own people. Closing the ancient tome, Xu Yuan gently shook his head. From what he understood so far, such blood sacrifices in the Thousand Thorns Gorge were merely primitive, degenerate customs. After all, no such thing as the power of faith existed in this world. Within the Fourteen Central Provinces, many peoples had once practiced similar primitive rites and worship, but by the era of the Great Yan dynasty, they had essentially all vanished. The reason was simple. They refused to be tamed, and they defied imperial decrees. The court and the sects expended great effort to help you develop and build, yet you didn't fucking thank the authorities, didn't thank the court, didn't even thank the sects—instead, you went and thanked some nonexistent deity of yours? Isn't that... just a bit too tactless? And so, such practices gradually died out within Great Yan's borders, rooted out by the combined might of the sects and successive imperial reigns. Some were dismantled culturally, while those that persistently resisted met with physical force, tens or even hundreds of thousands of clansmen vanishing overnight. Born on imperial soil and revering a deity instead of the Divine Emperor? Then they would send you straight to meet it. In a feudal dynasty, there were no human rights, to say nothing of the divide between immortals and mortals. To return to the point, however, these blood sacrifices were not entirely "feudal superstition." Because there truly were powerful creatures that enjoyed such offerings, forging pacts with tribes through sacrificial rites. Like the Linlang of the Great Desert. Exhaling a long breath of turbid air, Xu Yuan let his gaze drift toward the curtain of rain outside the pavilion. Rain swept over the mountains, cloaking the valley in hazy mist. Whenever it rained, the entire gorge became veiled in an ethereal white fog, hiding this estate within the boundless abyss. According to the common sense Xu Yuan had gathered in his past life, an inland region like the Thousand Thorns Gorge ought to receive very little rainfall. Yet it managed to rain twice a month here... That Madame Wan truly had some tricks up her sleeve. Pushing up his sleeve, Xu Yuan extended his arm into the fine drizzle. Feeling the cool, pattering droplets against his skin, the corners of his lips curved unconsciously. Over the past two days, through his spiritual vision, Xu Yuan had gained an initial grasp of Madame Wan's method of controlling minds. This rain and mist were Madame Wan casting a spell. Her method of controlling minds relied on the bizarre substance drifting through the air, and this rain and mist were merely that strange matter condensed into physical form. If the concentration of that bizarre substance in the air on a clear day was one, then in the mist it was five, and in the rainwater it reached twenty. Moistening everything as silently as this drizzle, ordinary methods had no way of detecting it at all. Bai Muxi had fallen victim because she holed up in her room cultivating all day, while Ran Qingmo had escaped unharmed by leaving early and returning late every day. As for Xu Yuan himself... Withdrawing his hand, Xu Yuan looked down at the glistening raindrops on his palm, his expression calm and profound. This stuff was completely useless against him. With that thought, Xu Yuan clenched his fist. When he opened it again, the water droplets had already vanished. The night before last, after purging the impurities from Xiao Bai's body, Xu Yuan had taken the initiative to absorb it into himself, only to discover that the substance actually aided his cultivation. Though it was merely a minuscule wisp, his cultivation had unmistakably grown. This Madame Wan doesn't seem to be human either. Thinking this, Xu Yuan extended his hand into the curtain of rain once more. The instant the water droplets touched his palm, they disappeared without a trace... *** Inside the inner hall. The slender, faceless young woman continued gently caressing her lower abdomen, though her unblinking gaze remained fixed on the covered pavilion. Whenever rain fell, everything beneath the sky lay within her sensory domain. And right now, she acutely sensed that a portion of her spell had abruptly vanished. It was minuscule, but at her realm of cultivation, she could detect even the slightest fluctuation with minute precision. Pouring her focus and consciousness into the curtain of rain, she surged toward the pavilion where the anomaly had occurred, only to find a single rocking chair. No one was seated in it, yet it rocked gently back and forth. *Creak...* *Creak...* Concealed beneath the dim sky and watery mist, the empty rocking chair at the edge of the pavilion swayed rhythmically, its creaking sounding exceptionally eerie amidst the pitter-patter of the rain. "Mama, what's wrong?" A childish voice seemed to notice something amiss with its mother, ringing out crisply from the young woman's lower abdomen. Concealed in the shadows, the young woman fell silent for a moment before speaking gently: "That gentleman doesn't seem to like you, Nuonuo. He's warning Mama not to act recklessly." "Huh? How could he?" The childish voice was puzzled upon hearing this. "If he gets happily eaten by me, everyone gets to be happy. Isn't that wonderful?" The young woman gently soothed the boy in her womb. "Probably... because that gentleman is of the same kind as you, Nuonuo." "If he's the same kind, he should be even happier to be eaten by me." As it spoke, the childish voice took it as a given: "Mama, aren't you like that too?" "Mama is willing to be eaten by you because Mama loves you." A tender glimmer showed in the woman's eyes within the gloom. "But that gentleman doesn't know you, Nuonuo. Why doesn't Mama ask him to leave?" "No!" "Nuonuo, be good. If that gentleman leaves, you can eat your favorite Sister Su..." *Squelch!* Before she could finish speaking, an underdeveloped little hand punched straight through the young woman's slightly swollen lower abdomen, splattering blood over the twisted crimson glyphs carved into the floor. Laced with madness, the childish voice cried out as the twisted, blood-drenched little hand seemed to try to crawl out: "I don't care! Mama, you promised you'd let me eat that gentleman! If you break your promise, Nuonuo will go find him myself!"