Free Web NovelChapter 92: Chapter 91: The Young Master’s Bride-Snatching
"So that’s how it is..."
Fu Juemin touched his chest. "But I can’t blame Uncle Tong for it," he said softly.
The matter of his predecessor being shot had been a dark cloud hanging over his heart ever since he’d transmigrated. Now that a corner of that cloud had been lifted, he felt a sense of relief, even though he still didn’t know the full story.
Fu Juemin thought for a moment, then added, "Now that the Fire Cloud Army has broken through the Luan River, you’ve left with us, Uncle Tong. I’m afraid it’ll be even harder to find those old enemies in the future..."
Li Tong said nothing, just silently refilled his bowl with yellow wine.
Just then, a SPLASH echoed from the direction of the distant pier, as if something was walking out of the river.
Fu Juemin’s heart leaped, and he snapped his head up.
Almost simultaneously, he smelled that familiar, intense, fishy stench—a foul odor that even the cold wind couldn’t disperse.
Fu Juemin shot to his feet and glanced at Li Tong.
Li Tong slowly set down his wine bowl and rose as well, turning to face the direction of the sound.
Fu Juemin had already instructed Cao Tian and the others to plant torches on the mudflats.
By the light of the torches, they could faintly make out a dark figure treading water, walking step by step from the river toward the shore.
As the shadow drew closer, the cold wind that had been blowing out from the wild poplar forest behind them seemed to suddenly change direction, starting to blow back into the woods.
Fu Juemin’s face tensed. The foul stench carried on the wind was so overwhelming it almost forced his eyes shut.
Soon, the blurry black shadow from the river came ashore, its full form slowly revealed. It was a withered, ghostly figure covered in wet, black fur. Beneath the fur were fine, fish-like, dark-green scales. It was only the size of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old child, but it possessed a pair of disproportionately long arms that nearly reached its knees.
It stared intently at Fu Juemin, its solid black eyes, devoid of whites, glimmering with a cold, eerie light under the moon, like will-o’-the-wisps drifting in a graveyard.
The briefest contact with that gaze made Fu Juemin once again feel that thick miasma of resentment, one that seemed to have accumulated for hundreds of years.
’Did I owe you money in a past life or something?’
Fu Juemin couldn’t help but complain inwardly.
He once again saw the long, black object covered in mud and weeds on the Water Monkey’s back.
It had to be a corpse, though its specific features were unrecognizable.
The Water Monkey walked to the entrance of the abandoned pier’s boardwalk and carefully placed the corpse, caked in riverbed sludge, on the ground. Fu Juemin noticed that its gaze seemed to soften when it fell upon the body.
It treated the corpse like a precious treasure.
It had wrapped the corpse’s head in dark green algae, pale fishing line, and shimmering shards of glass and shell.
Around its neck was a "pearl" necklace strung together from pebbles. Its entire body was adorned with snail shells and the carcasses of fish, shrimp, and water snakes.
It was like... a bride-to-be, meticulously dressed in her wedding gown, her face covered by a veil!
Of course, on a deserted mudflat at four in the morning, the sight was nothing but bizarre and terrifying to any onlooker, sending shivers down the spine.
"GURGLE... CROAK—"
After carefully arranging its "bride," the Water Monkey stood up and faced Fu Juemin and Li Tong again. A strange sound emerged from its mouth, like a frog’s call mixed with the gurgle of thick, immovable phlegm lodged deep in a throat.
Fu Juemin took a deep breath and slowly shrugged off his Cyan Fox Fur Cloak.
The cloak fell to the ground, revealing the Silver Revolver tucked into his waistband.
"Uncle Tong."
He looked at Li Tong and called out in a low voice.
Fu Juemin had seen the Water Monkey in action. He knew that with his current strength, he stood no chance of fighting it.
Tonight, he could only rely on Li Tong. freewebnovёl.ƈom
And from the moment the Water Monkey appeared, out of everyone present and lying in ambush, only Li Tong had remained calm under the creature’s immense, oppressive presence.
"..In a moment, I’ll need you to lure it into the woods, Uncle Tong. Once I get to the boat, then..."
Fu Juemin quickly relayed his plan to Li Tong, but before he could finish, Li Tong gently cut him off.
"Thank you for the wine tonight, Young Master."
Fu Juemin froze for a second, then saw Li Tong slowly walk toward the Water Monkey.
As he walked, he spoke to Fu Juemin without looking back. "Young Master, haven’t you always been curious about what style of Martial Arts I specialize in?"
"Tonight..."
"...you will see."
As soon as he finished speaking, a series of dense, sharp cracks, like bones snapping—CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—rang out. Then, under Fu Juemin’s disbelieving gaze, Li Tong’s thin, stooped frame rapidly grew taller and stronger, inch by inch...
In the span of a few breaths, he transformed from a small old man who looked to be in his sixties into a towering, mighty warrior nearly two meters tall, his body a mass of knotted muscle.
In that instant, Fu Juemin felt as if a colossal, invisible bubble of air had violently burst forth from Li Tong’s body, instantly dispersing the murky aura the Water Monkey had brought with it.
Fu Juemin stood frozen in place, stunned for a full two seconds before he could process what had happened.
A strange cry from the Water Monkey snapped him out of it.
It seemed Li Tong’s "transformation" and the powerful aura it unleashed had provoked the creature.
The ground beneath the Water Monkey’s feet exploded. Its withered figure blurred into a gray streak, tearing through the air with an intense, rotten stench as it lunged straight for the two of them.
Fu Juemin had seen a Tongxuan Realm Martial Artist in action before, but this Water Monkey’s speed was countless times faster than the scar-faced brute who had died at his hands.
It was so fast it exceeded the limits of what his eyes could track.
He only caught a flash of a gray shadow before his eyes. Then Li Tong raised a hand, followed by a tremendous BOOM that made his scalp tingle.
The man and the Demon were now locked in a fierce battle.
Fu Juemin had almost completely lost sight of the Water Monkey. He could only barely make out Li Tong’s movements.
Every move, every form, produced strange sounds—like the trumpeting of an Elephant, the roar of a Dragon, or the tolling of a great temple bell. The sheer power was immense, as if it gathered all the air and light in this small area by the pier, kneaded it into a giant Grinding Disc, and then pushed it, grinding everything in its path.
The space around Li Tong seemed to distort slightly. Even with its terrifying speed, the Water Monkey couldn’t land a single blow on him. He was simply toying with it...
Fu Juemin watched for a while, his body constantly being pushed back by the shockwaves of Vitality from the clash between man and Demon.
At that moment, a thought suddenly struck him—before, when the Water Monkey was about to board the boat, it had abruptly retreated in fright. It probably wasn’t just scared off by the sound of the diesel engine. The fact that Li Tong was standing right beside him must have been part of it!
*HISS—*
Fu Juemin took a sharp breath and, without further hesitation, began sprinting toward the pier.
As he neared the cargo ship moored at the pier, Fu Juemin’s gaze fell upon the "corpse bride" that the Water Monkey had placed on the ground. His expression flickered, and he quickly drew his gun and fired a shot at the body!
BANG!
The bullet sank into the mud on the corpse’s chest. The body didn’t move, but it was as if the shot had struck the distant Water Monkey itself.
With a strange cry of "GUGWAA," Fu Juemin’s Perception picked up a gaze filled with hatred and fury locking onto him from afar. freewebnøvel.com
The Water Monkey immediately tried to charge him but was tied down by Li Tong. It could only vent its rage by issuing "verbal" warnings to Fu Juemin from a distance.
Fu Juemin’s eyes lit up. Instead of retreating, he advanced, turning and running straight for the corpse.
He ignored the rotten, stinking weeds and sludge covering the sunken corpse, scooped it up directly in his arms, and then sprinted toward the boat at the pier.
In an instant, the anger in the Water Monkey, already agitated and resentful of Fu Juemin’s actions, exploded.
A piercing shriek of "GUGWAA" tore through the clear night sky over the pier, followed by a series of sonic booms as shockwaves erupted...
At this very moment, as he sprinted for his life while carrying the heavy, stinking corpse, Fu Juemin felt a chill run down his back, but his heart was pounding wildly—THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
He was overcome by a strange sensation—the feeling of recklessly tempting fate, a mix of excitement and fear, tension and thrill.
’To think that I, your Young Master... would get to steal a Water Demon’s bride in this lifetime!’
