The pill was pitch-black and unremarkable, but Dong Rui swallowed it in one gulp. Soon, warmth bloomed in his stomach, and some strength returned to his limbs. Otherwise, after struggling for so long, wounded and bleeding, he would have collapsed from exhaustion.
"Your medicine isn't half bad," he admitted honestly.
"How do we get out of this jellyfish?"
Dong Rui was not about to tell him. "Once we're out of danger, you'll find out."
"Do you really know?" He Lingchuan sounded deeply skeptical. "You nearly drowned yourself."
Drowning inside a monster he had concocted himself was absurd beyond belief. Dong Rui's expression soured. "This is just a prototype; it still needs improvement! It's the first time I've ever... field-tested it like this."
The prototype had not even reached the testing phase yet; many details had never been finalized.
In the end, it had nearly suffocated its own master.
"How much longer do we have to drift?" They were currently riding an express train of river water rushing downstream.
Looking around, the current had not slowed at all; instead, it had accelerated. They seemed to have entered a narrower, more winding stretch of river where torrents surged and the roar of water sounded like thunder.
"At least until the current calms down. Going out right now would be suicide!"
The giant jellyfish was frequently pressed under the surface into another bizarre world, where all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable debris drifted and swirled. He Lingchuan even saw animal carcasses sucked into underwater undercurrents and whirlpools—surreal and brutal.
Without the protection of this giant jellyfish, even the strongest swimmer could never have survived this.
Even a giant whale caught in such a flood would have had no chance of survival.
Twice they were jammed against mid-river reefs, but fortunately, the violent torrents ultimately shoved and squeezed the slippery giant jellyfish through.
He Lingchuan poked the sticky substance beside him. "How long did it take you to make it this big?"
"Three to five months, I suppose. It and its kind were originally only the size of a hat."
He Lingchuan did not bother asking why he had done it; this fellow's brain worked differently from normal people. Still, he asked, "What did 'Thirty-Four' mean? Is this jellyfish Number Thirty-Five?"
"...Yes."
So the guy had modified at least thirty-five creatures, numbering every single one.
"What number was that ghost ape?" Having nothing better to do, only his mouth was free.
"Seventeen."
"Yet I've only ever seen you deploy four demon puppets." That was counting this jellyfish.
Dong Rui grumbled morosely, "Most of them didn't turn out well, so I destroyed them." His shoulder still hurt like hell, all thanks to this kid. Why did he have to chat with his enemy?
"So there are only four in total?" He Lingchuan chuckled. "Your success rate is pretty low, isn't it?"
Dong Rui glared at him. "What exactly are you getting at?"
"What is that red medicine actually for?" The mutated parasol tree had left a deep impression on the Yuan people, and even now, the medicine apes had not been able to crack the bizarre liquid's formula.
He Lingchuan knew it would not be easy.
"None of your business." So this kid had picked up the lost medicine. "You people can't use it anyway."
He Lingchuan caught the arrogance in his tone. "It only works on demon puppets?"
Dong Rui cut him a sideways glance, not bothering to answer. *If you know, why ask?*
"It seems to be some kind of blood." He Lingchuan did not mind his dismissive attitude. "Does it have something to do with the ji beasts of the Middle Ancient Era?"
Dong Rui rolled his eyes and scoffed. "What do you know?"
"Am I wrong?"
Dong Rui said proudly, "Ji beasts are crude, mindless brutes that turn on their own kin! How could they possibly compare to my demon puppets?"
He trained his demon puppets to be obedient tools that responded to his every whim.
"Sounds like you researched ji beasts long ago."
Dong Rui sneered. "A layman like you learns two terms and immediately starts snooping."
Time to change the subject. "What happened to your face?"
"None of your damn business," Dong Rui snapped.
"Curse, or poison?"
"Poison," Dong Rui said coldly. "Testing medicine on myself. Went wrong."
This man was an expert at pharmacology, yet managed to botch an experiment on himself? Seeing that he did not want to elaborate, He Lingchuan shifted his question: "Then have you ever researched the Ghost Mother of the Ferry?"
"The Ghost Mother of the Ferry?" Dong Rui finally looked surprised. "Where did you hear that name?"
"I've seen it with my own eyes."
"Where?" Dong Rui tensed, growing eager. "Where, exactly?"
"You talk first."
Dong Rui stared at him for a long moment, seemingly judging whether he was bluffing.
He Lingchuan said unhurriedly, "All I know is that it borrows bellies to bear young, quite a few per litter." It had caused plenty of trouble for Panlong City too.
"I have only ever heard of the Holy Mother of the Ferry." Dong Rui stressed the word "Holy." "Who replaced 'Holy' with 'Ghost' for you?"
He Lingchuan shrugged.
"Still, you got one thing right: it can induce pregnancy in human mothers, having humans bear its whelps."
"That impressive? Does it require physical contact?" What kind of implantation technique was that?
"Of course not!" Dong Rui shook his head. "Otherwise, why would it be called a Holy Mother?"
"Conception from afar?" He Lingchuan marveled. "Why don't we have that kind of ability?"
"You're not a deity."
"What?" He Lingchuan was stunned. "The Ghost Mother of the Ferry is a deity?!" That was an answer he had never anticipated. "A deity's children look that hideous?"
"You think deities look handsome?" Dong Rui gave him a contemptuous look. "Have you ever seen one?"
The man had a sharp tongue. He Lingchuan did not stoop to his level. "I haven't, but the whelps it bears have absolutely nothing to do with being 'holy.'"
"Hideous?" Dong Rui's focus sharpened immediately. "How hideous?"
"Well, I saw them with my own eyes. They took all kinds of forms: some vicious, some agile, some scrawny and small, some barely bigger than a cat, others burly enough to dwarf you and me."
"Yes, yes, those are ferry whelps!" Dong Rui nodded repeatedly. "Legend has it that one brood can yield up to nine offspring, each entirely different from the rest."
"I thought only dragons were that prolific." Wasn't there a saying about dragons having nine sons?
"Where did you hear that nonsense?" Dong Rui retorted rudely. "If dragons could breed so freely, rivers, lakes, and seas would be teeming with them. Tell me, have you ever seen one?"
Turns out this fellow was a contrarian to the bone. He Lingchuan actually had seen a dragon—though in the Panlong illusion, after the black flood dragon absorbed the heroic souls of the Gale Army and ascended into a dragon.
Did that count? Of course, he could not mention that. So he had no choice but to concede. "You talk more, so you win. Let's get back to the Ghost... Holy Mother of the Ferry. Can't it bear young on its own? Why borrow human mothers?"
"Of course it can!" Dong Rui analyzed. "But by borrowing human mothers, it can control where its whelps are born."
"Control where they're born..." He Lingchuan shuddered. "Don't tell me it can impregnate a woman from a hundred and eight thousand li away?"
Naturally, he was not thinking anything inappropriate; his thought was that Panlong City likely would not be able to catch the culprit, as the Ghost Mother of the Ferry might not even be on the Panlong Wasteland.
"Oho, have you figured out the principle behind it?"
"Why stop at a hundred and eight thousand li?" Dong Rui chuckled. "The deities aren't even in this world!"
He Lingchuan blinked once, then twice. Not even in the same world, and a deity could still knock a woman up?
Well, he should not make a fuss. Hadn't he heard of cases like that back before he transmigrated?
"How could you or I ever fathom the mighty power of deities?" Dong Rui sighed. "The more you learn, the more unfathomable you realize they are. In the eyes of deities, we are less than ants.
"Don't let the word 'Holy' fool you. I hear the Holy Mother of the Ferry is only a low-ranking deity, subject to the orders of higher powers. And because its whelps rely on humans for birth, they suffer from what is called an 'innate deficiency.' Thus, they are far frailer than the whelps the Holy Mother bears on its own—and far better suited to our world."
"Better suited to our world?"
"Of course. From birth, they are half-human and half-divine, so they aren't entirely rejected by this world. But you were lucky—you probably never encountered the strongest of the ferry whelps."
He Lingchuan paused. "There's a strongest one?"
"Naturally. When tigers and wolves give birth to three or five cubs, there are always stronger and weaker ones from birth; the strong grow quickly, while the weak die young. With the Ferry Mother bearing up to nine whelps in a litter, this rule naturally applies even more. However—" he drawled, "the firstborn of tigers and wolves is usually the strongest, while the last is the weakest. With the Ferry Mother's offspring, it's the exact opposite."
"The earlier they're born, the weaker they are, and the last one is the strongest?" He Lingchuan thought to himself: *Does that mean the two I fought were among the weaker whelps?*
"The earlier ones aren't necessarily weaker, but the youngest born last is definitely the strongest. While still in the womb, it steals nourishment from its siblings, ultimately forcing them into the world as quickly as possible—otherwise, it would devour them. This youngest whelp also possesses certain extraordinary traits."
He Lingchuan asked humbly, "Such as?"
"Such as nothing!" Dong Rui glared. "How would I know down to such detail?"
He Lingchuan felt the man already knew quite enough. Lore concerning deities was exceedingly rare in this world; he had no idea where this fellow had gathered it all.
More importantly, why gather it in the first place? "How do you know so much about the Ferry Mother?"
"I've seen a ferry whelp too, which was why I went around gathering information about it." Dong Rui let out a long sigh. "It was far too difficult. The records of deities surviving to this day are pitifully scarce." He had expended immense effort just to learn this much.
He Lingchuan blurted out, "Where?"
"Inside an underground cavern," Dong Rui said smugly. "Though it was a corpse desiccated for who knows how many years—not like you, finding a fresh one."
Having reached this point, he felt he had done more than enough, and pressed He Lingchuan, "I've told you in plenty of detail. Where did you actually find the ferry whelps?"
"Where I came from."
Dong Rui paused. "That remote place of yours... what Qian-something Commandery was it?" Back when his employer handed him intelligence, he had not even bothered remembering the name; it was simply too backwater.
"Qiansong Commandery." He Lingchuan kept a straight face. "I saw them in Panlong City."
"Panlong City?" Dong Rui reacted sharply to that name. "Zhong Shengguang's Panlong City? Isn't that place a ruin now?"
Chapter 304