Chapter 166

The barrier hadn’t moved while they caught their breath. It didn’t take a genius to realize the Golden Child was hiding and waiting for them somewhere within it. After steeling their nerves they crept into the ruins of the camp, crossing under a gate of grey wood that was still standing despite the disrepair of the rest of the camp. Chen Haoran noted the smashed hinges and the wood splinters spread out into the camp.

“Wait,” Xie Jin suddenly said. He crouched down and pinched the dirt between his fingers. His Gu hovered by his ear, leaning in as if whispering to him. “Figures. There’s an echo of qi here. Probably from whatever formation this camp used to filter the air.”

Chen Haoran whistled. Impressed. “I knew Gu were good at sensing but that’s impressive.”

He could barely sense anything in the ground. What little range his sense had in the Green Hell felt as if it were hitting a wall as soon as he directed it to the earth.

Xie Jin shook his head. “Formations tend to leave a deep impression on their environment. Plus the aura cleared out all the extra poison energy covering it up. It helps it wasn’t that deep to begin with either.” He looked into the camp. “It was a portable formation. Something that could be quickly set up and taken down. Kinda like what we saw the rebels using in the Trial Pyramid.”

They shared a look and stepped across the shattered gate. Phelps leapt off Chen Haoran’s shoulder and used his qi to glide across the ground as if he were swimming. Noise pointed down and snuffling the dirt. Chen Haoran stared at the bald spot in his fur and could only assume that Phelps was furious. He couldn’t blame him. He was too.

The camp had the look of a semi-permanent affair about it. Fabric tents surrounded sturdier structures of stone and that same grey wood they’d seen before. The scavenging flora of the Green Hell had already crawled their way back into claiming the outpost but time and nature couldn’t scrub away the original order of the camp. Ruins it may be but Chen Haoran took note of the neat rows the tents would have been in. Their uniformity and even spacing between tents and the larger presumably more important buildings in the center they were arrayed around. How distinct the dirt path that crossed the camp still was. How large it was that the lotus aura couldn’t entirely cover it.

This was no slapdash expedition. It was a highly organized affair, one that spoke to him of being military though it was just a guess on his part. He’d yet to see any insignia or flags of any kind. He did find rotted wood though. Beds and tentpoles and stools. Different from the grey wood that still stood strong. The air of the Green Hell had clearly eaten away at them.

He looked between the woods. Then he looked at that jungle.

“They used the Devil Trees,” he murmured.

It was an efficient use of available materials. Yet Chen Haoran couldn’t help the nagging feeling it was a bold move.

“You recognize any of this?” Chen Haoran asked Xie Jin.

Xie Jin rolled his eyes. “Just because I like history doesn’t mean I can identify kingdoms based on how they built their camps.”

“So you also think it’s military?”

“That much is obvious. Zumulu is rife with idiot River Kings who thought it’d be grand to send an expedition into the Green Hell for glory.” He waved his hand across the camp. “You can see how those usually ended.”

Phelps grunted and a flick of his liquid qi picked up a fallen tent and flung it away, investigating the dirt it covered before moving on. Chen Haoran winced but didn’t reprimand him. He’d like to treat the ruins with respect but they weren’t really in a position to care with their lives being on the line. The only reason Chen Haoran hadn’t started blasting the camp to pieces himself was because he was worried the Golden Child would react adversely. It reminded him of some petty people in his old life. People who liked playing games but didn’t enjoy having those same games ruined no matter how unfun they were for the victim. The kind who would get nasty real quick if their whims weren’t followed. Like children. Or managers.

“Damnit,” Xie Jin cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Haoran asked.

“I’m too weak,” Xie Jin said, frowning at his hand. “Almost all my means have been limited by the Stainless Lotus. I never thought I could be made irrelevant like this before.”

“That’s just being too specialized. Not weakness.” Chen Haoran pointed out.

“We can’t survive if I have to rely on you to do all the fighting for me,” Xie Jin said. “You’ll die of exhaustion.”

Chen Haoran raised an eyebrow.

“Theoretically you’ll die of exhaustion,” Xie Jin amended. “In reality, it will probably be some other vicious death.”

“I’m no stranger to vicious deaths,” Chen Haoran said lightly. Both borderline and actual, though he kept that thought to himself.

“I don’t want to be responsible for it,” Xie Jin said. His expression firmed. “I would rather die than let that happen.”

Chen Haoran frowned. “Don’t talk about those kinds of things now. Focus on the issue at hand.”

Phelps’s investigations hadn’t born fruit yet. Xie Jin and Chen Haoran were content to just follow the sloth. Xie Jin’s Gu was kept close at hand. Sending it out with a Super Gu around would be the height of folly. The camp was barren. There were some miscellaneous items, furniture, and such, but little else. He couldn’t tell what had brought the downfall of the camp in the end. That there were no corpses wasn’t surprising, but the camp was in remarkably good condition for a place that presumably would have had many Liquid Meridians. He couldn’t see any evidence of a Final Flood wrecking the camp.

“You figure out a way to get the Lotus back?” Chen Haoran asked.

“Yeah,” Xie Jin said. “How fast can you swing your sword?”

Chen Haoran sighed. “I was kinda hoping we wouldn’t have the same idea.”

“Well, what else can we do?” Xie Jin griped. “It’s not like you have something more valuable than a 10 thousand-year-old Stainless Purity Lotus to exchange with.”

Chen Haoran considered the question. Did he have something more valuable than the Lotus? Maybe the Liquid Crystal Fruit but if worked at all like the Liquid Core Fruit it stemmed from, then Chen Haoran wanted to save it to give to the Yellow Dragon in case he needed a burst of qi in a pinch. The Star Core Dragon Keel Bone? That would probably definitely be worth it. Chen Haoran didn’t have a use for it anyway so even if it far exceeded the value it was worth trading their lives for.

Xie Jin blanched. “I was joking. You don’t actually have something, do you?”. “Obviously I’ll pull a Star Core Realm Dragon Bone out of my pocket and hand it over,” Chen Haoran faintly said.

Xie Jin snorted, and a soft, exasperated chuckle escaped him. “I suppose burning to death would be a better way to go out than whatever the Golden Child has in store.”

Chen Haoran missed a step. Burning to death? Was that what Dragon Bones did? Or was it because of the Realm? He knew the Star Core Realm was strong but was it that powerful? No. What was he saying? Was it really that outlandish an idea? When he himself was an example of just how powerful the scraps of a higher Realm cultivator could be?

No taking out the dragon bone then. Not until he needed a nuclear option at least.

“The most valuable things are probably the Metal Lotus and my armor,” Chen Haoran finally said.

“I don’t think handing over our most important defensive items is a wise move,” Xie Jin replied. He sighed. “Honestly nothing we could give it would be enough. It knows how important the flower is for us.”

“Does it?”

“Don’t underestimate its intelligence, Brother Chen. It’s the worst combination of Gu Greed and Human Reasoning.” Xie Jin shuddered. “Damn Green Hell.”

Phelps did his best to sniff out the Golden Child. Turning over every nook and cranny he thought suspicious and leading them on a path deeper and deeper into the camp. Gradually too did the Stainless Purity Aura shift as the Golden Child moved positions, slow enough that it couldn’t have been going far but still extremely noticeable.

“You think it’s time to put an end to this farce?” Chen Haoran asked.

Xie Jin nodded. “Any longer and it’d probably get bored.”

Chen Haoran whistled at Phelps to follow and together they all made a beeline toward the largest structure in the center of the camp. It was square with a flat roof and made entirely out of stone, though not of bricks. The walls were smooth and seamless as if a hand had reached down and pulled the building up from the earth, only broken up by the occasional window or thin arrowslit.

Ever since they entered the camp they hadn’t been seriously looking for the Golden Child. Well, Xie Jin and Chen Haoran hadn’t. Phelps was and they were content to see if he could actually track the Golden Child or not while waiting to gauge its intentions. In actuality, they knew where the Golden Child was the entire time. The aura barrier was centered on the Stainless Purity Lotus after all. It was just a simple calculation to determine where that center was.

The door was a heavy thing, made of slabs of grey Devil wood and banded with iron. It was unlocked though Chen Haoran was being generous with the term. It wasn’t connected to the wall at all, its hinges long ripped out. It was leaning against the door frame instead and fell with an echoing crash when Chen Haoran pushed it over with a finger. He shared a look with Xie Jin. Rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, and stepped in.

It was a mess inside. Light was faint, the only sources being small windows and a few yellow and green pearls that glowed softly. It was enough to reveal all the clutter. It was a hoarders paradise. If Chen Haoran had wondered where all the knickknacks and sundries of the camp went he had to look no further. Rusted pots and pans were piled haphazardly or stacked into pyramids. Bent cutlery, chipped cups, and cracked bowls littered the floor with along with clothes and uniforms. In the center of the large room was a stone table, atop which was a large cooking pot and inside of which was a suit of armor carelessly thrown. Plates and cups and a candelabra were set on it as if a meal was about to be taken. A horse saddle was lain across a bench with a riding crop dropped beneath it. Bits of colored glass were scattered beside the table, clumsily arranged such that it was clear they’d form some kind of picture were they just correctly fitted.

Chen Haoran and Xie Jin swept the room. The garbage strewn across the ground making it impossible to do so quietly. Xie Jin went and rooted through piles of pants and animal hide jerkins. Chen Haoran went over to a cluster of chairs with threadbare blankets thrown over them. He yanked the blankets off, revealing a bed of flat pillows underneath it, another glowing pearl, and a single leather book with its pages broken from the bindings. The ones with words had been left in the book while the pages with pictures of monsters, people, and a stylized old woman were separated from it in their own pile.

Chen Haoran frowned.

They overturned every nook and cranny in the room and sifted through every piece and pile of junk that had even the slightest chance of hiding the Golden Child.

Nothing.

They went to the next room. The building they were in seemed to have been part command center and part warehouse as the other three rooms they found were for storage or for meetings. Everywhere the presence of the Golden Child could be seen whether it be curious found in the camp cast aside like abandoned toys or broken Beasts Cores and half-finished fruits discarded without care. Signs that the Golden Child had lived here a long time, but no sign of the Gu monster itself. Soon enough there was only one room remaining. Another heavy set door guarded it, this time properly attached.

“The commander’s quarters,” Xie Jin whispered.

Chen Haoran carefully pushed the door open. His sword loosed of a serpent’s hiss as he pulled it from the scabbard. The room was a simple affair. A desk. A sturdy bed loaded up with yellowed pillows and thin blankets. A chest overflowing with worthless trinkets it had surely never contained before. A dusty bookcase whose contents had been thrown all across the floor. Drawings.

Lots of drawings.

The books had their pages ripped out and scribbled over in ink. Scratched into the walls were unintelligible lines and deformed shapes. As well as simple pictograms of insects, lizards, and birds. On the ceiling, Chen Haoran saw shapes made of two lines diagonally crossing a third, vertical line. All of them surrounding a circle with more lines extending from it. Some kind of fat, round insect with another circle drawn inside it was etched next to the big circle.

The Sun and stars, Chen Haoran thought.

Xie Jin made for the chest, Phelps made for the bookcase, and Chen Haoran crept toward the desk wincing over every sound of crinkling paper he made stepping on paper scraps. The desk was surprisingly tidy. There was a glowing pearl embedded into the wall in front of it illuminating a surface that was neither dusty nor cluttered. Just below the pearl were four stick figures and a drawing of a snake. Two of the figures were tall. One was short and stood between the tall. The last was set further away from the rest. With swords for arms and what might have been antenna on its head. Chen Haoran frowned again. He looked down at the desk and saw it covered in paintings made using old book pages as a canvas. The colors were simple, faded, and in many places flaky. Some were a nonsensical mess of riotous colors. Another was a green and red line crossing the length of the page. The one that caught his eye the most however was one of a short yellow figure surrounded by grey blocks with spikes blooming out their tops. Two red dots placed in their center.

Next to the painting was a clean paper with a golden sheen. It was untouched by any childish drawing or ink stain. Instead filled with a row of neat, pleasant-looking characters.

21st Year of King Tang, 100th Year of Bloomhaven

The search for the Water of Life remains fruitless and irony of ironies, casualties are mounting. Despite all our precautions the Green Hell seems to devise some new way to circumvent them and kill my soldiers. Already a new plague has somehow taken root, far deadlier than the last we sacrificed so much to be rid of. The number of lives spent to acquire the Water far outweighs the number it will potentially save.

Assuming it’s even real. We have yet to confirm its existence beyond the original rumor that it sprung from the same fountain as the Three Killers that originally had the king declare this disaster. I pity the soldiers forced to undertake this quest with me, a feeling I did not think I possessed. My grandfather used to tell me as a boy that the reason the warriors of Zumulu turned to foreign lands was because dying in Zumulu meant your soul being consigned to the Green Hell. I did not believe that trollop even then, but now that I write this in the middle of Hell I cannot help but wonder what will happen to my soul should I perish here.

I long for home I—

The entry cut off, as if the author had been interrupted writing it and was never able to continue. Chen Haoran looked from the golden paper back to the painting of the yellow figure. Underneath it was uneven, ugly handwriting.

homne-e

Chen Haoran’s bad feeling returned in full force. “Xie Jin,” he called. “Just how smart is a Golden Child?”

“Imagine a toddler with the power of a minor god,” Xie Jin replied as he dug through the chest. “That about sums up how terrible they are.”

“But it’s a child,” Chen Haoran pressed.

“Yes? It’s in the name.” Xie Jin pulled back from the chest, and with a single hand cleared the bed of its sheets. “Nothing,” he spat in disgust. “You find anything, Phelps?”

Phelps hissed in negative. Xie Jin hissed right with him.

“I don’t know where the hell it’s hiding then,” Xie Jin said. “The roof maybe?”

“It’s going to wait for us to find it before it does something,” Chen Haoran said.

Xie Jin nodded. “A Golden Child and its games. They’re infamous for it.”

“A game,” Chen Haoran slowly said. “Like Hide and Seek.”

Xie Jin finally looked his way. Worry on his face. “Brother Chen? Are you alright?”

He wasn’t. He felt like he was going to be sick. For many different reasons. He stepped away from the desk and stepped lightly over to the bed. His sword loose in his grip. They weren’t just looking for a Gu. They were looking for a child. Where would a child hide to avoid being found by adults?

Chen Haoran dropped to his knees and looked under the bed.

A Golden skull stared straight back at him.

He raised a hand. “Hello.”

The Golden Child screamed.