Chapter 27: The Rescue

Oh my god, had he transmigrated into some trashy male-pregnancy cultivation novel? Surely not, right? What happened to cultivators being detached from desire and romance? A pregnant man, seriously?!

For the record, he didn’t discriminate against male pregnancy. Reproductive freedom and all that, right? But… fine, saving the person came first, or it really would be two lives lost.

Chen Zui blinked, flipped open the booklet in his hand, and pointed to the third rule. “So, shouldn’t I step in and do a good deed here?”

Rule Three for Cultivators Traveling Abroad: If you encounter evildoers harming the innocent, you may intervene to rescue them, provided your own safety is guaranteed.

Wen Xu considered himself someone who remained calm under pressure. He had quickly accepted reality when he was suddenly dropped into the cultivation world. But… a man giving birth? To put it in Bian Chunzhou’s words: did the cultivation world really play this wild?

“Let’s subdue those two first.”

Out of the three of them, Chen Zui was the strongest in both cultivation and combat power. Hearing this, he immediately sprinted over with his saber. Following two sharp screams and two heavy thuds of bodies hitting the ground, Wen Xu knew the two had been subdued.

Bian Chunzhou and Wen Xu arrived shortly after. The pit dug for burying the victim was already quite large.

“Look at you two, thinking you’re so tough! Do you think Yueyu Forest is a mass grave? Don’t you know Moonlight Grass grows here? Murder and body disposal? Tomorrow, we’re sending you both to prison!”

The two thugs immediately began to tremble in fear. Chen Zui had sharp brows and bright eyes, making him quite a handsome man by traditional standards, but he didn’t care for his appearance. Right now, his eyebrows and beard were overgrown, giving him the terrifying look of a death god. With Bian Chunzhou adding to the intimidation, the more cowardly of the two rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot.

Bian Chunzhou thought: How pathetic. No wonder he can only be a lackey. Truly useless.

“You! Speak! Where did you kidnap this person from?”

The thug boss thought: I hate that I’m so brave. I want to faint too!

“Spare my life, Immortals! I just… picked him up off the road. He was dressed as a woman, so I thought he was a pretty young girl! Who knew he was a fraud? The guy is a grown-ass man, and he’s pregnant!” Talk about rotten luck.

Wen Xu had already freed the man tied up inside the sack. Fortunately, he was still breathing. “How do you know he’s pregnant?”

The boss, a burly man, was now shivering on the ground as he spoke. “Well, when a woman is pregnant, she has a slippery pulse^[1]. It feels like pearls rolling on a plate. It’s very easy to recognize.”

What the boss didn’t say was that he and his men were employed by Biyu Tower to force decent people into prostitution. If they found a beautiful, solitary woman on the road, they would usually sell her to a brothel for money. Of course, men worked too, but absolutely not a pregnant man. That would just be bringing trouble to Biyu Tower.

But Wen Xu was mature for his age. Back when he was a beggar, he had seen all kinds of street filth. In fact, there were very few female beggars, because the moment people from the red-light districts saw a girl, they would take her back immediately. Even the uglier ones could be used as maidservants.

“You two work for a brothel, don’t you?”

The boss buried his head against the ground, wishing he could find a crack to crawl into.

“Judging by your appearance, you’re no doctor, yet you’re familiar with a pregnant woman’s pulse. It’s hard for me not to make that connection.”

The boss had no choice but to confess. He explained that they had spotted this beautiful woman in disguise at a roadside tea stall today. Spurred by malicious intent, they knocked the person out and kidnapped them, planning to sell them to a brothel. They never expected it to be a man. A man would have been one thing, but he was carrying a child. Since the man had already seen their faces, they were afraid he would report them to the authorities if they let him go. Thus, they decided to finish the job and bury him.

“Treating human life like grass, how impressive. You must have done this plenty of times before, haven’t you?”

“Spare me, Immortal! I wouldn’t dare! I was just possessed by a moment of madness. I’ve never taken a life before!”

Bian Chunzhou thought, Even a fool wouldn’t believe that! Look, even Chen Zui doesn’t believe you!

“Knock him out, tie them up, and we’ll send them to the government office tomorrow.”

Although there was no imperial rule in the cultivation world, each city was governed by a City Lord. Langyuan City’s administration was relatively well-developed. Even though the City Lord rarely interfered in mundane affairs, the law enforcement and administrative bodies under the City Lord’s Mansion could quickly render judgments. Criminals involved in forced prostitution and human trafficking generally faced a minimum of fifteen years of hard labor.

Chen Zui didn’t participate in the interrogation, but he was good at hitting people. With a single punch, the man was knocked out cold. He tied the two thugs together as well. “So, what do we do with this guy?”

A pregnant man… Chen Zui scratched his head. It was incredibly bizarre.

“Should we hand him over to the government office too?”

“No, don’t hand me over to the City Lord’s Mansion, I…” The man in the sack finally couldn’t help but speak up.

Wen Xu thought, So he was faking it. He took two steps back and spoke slowly. “Why not? They harmed you, and you are the victim. If you don’t show up, they might…”

“I won’t go! I’m a man, yet I carry this vile spawn in my womb. I don’t want this child! I ran away, I clearly escaped! Why is it still here? Why is it still here?!”

The man was highly agitated, seemingly remembering something unbearable. He suddenly scrambled up and ran, but after only a few steps, he collapsed from exhaustion.

Well, he was actually unconscious now.

Bian Chunzhou hurried forward to help him up, only to find the man… was incredibly light. Had his own strength increased recently, or was this person just too thin?

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, just fainted from fright.” Bian Chunzhou looked up at the sky. “It’s almost midnight. Is the Moonlight Grass about to mature?”

Wen Xu nodded. “Soon. I can feel them maturing.”

Moonlight Grass only matured when the moonlight was at its peak. If not harvested in time, it would wither within a very short period. The quest required them to gather ten Jin [approx. 5 kg]. Since they had to ensure the quality of the herbs, it would take the three of them at least three days to gather enough.

“Now.”

The moment Wen Xu’s voice fell, Bian Chunzhou and Chen Zui immediately set to work. All three were cultivators, so the simple task of harvesting Moonlight Grass was naturally a breeze.

It was just that this Moonlight Grass wilted incredibly fast. Even a night-blooming cereus would have to bow down to it as the master of wilting. In the blink of an eye, the three of them had filled their baskets, but all together, it only amounted to a little over three Jin [approx. 1.5 kg].

Sure enough, gathering missions were just a matter of trading time for sect contribution points.

“They wilt way too fast. Are they rushing to be reincarnated?”

Wen Xu chuckled. “Exactly. Rushing to be reincarnated.”

Bian Chunzhou: …

“Let’s go. We’ll come back tomorrow. First, let’s take those two to the government office. As for this one, let’s bring him along for now. His condition doesn’t look good. I’m worried that if he gets shocked again, it really will be two lives lost at once.”

Chen Zui had no objections, and Wen Xu didn’t refuse either, so Bian Chunzhou brought the man along.

The next day, the weather suddenly turned overcast. The originally bright and sunny sky became covered in dark clouds before noon, and by evening, it was pouring rain.

“We’re screwed. Moonlight Grass only matures in sunny weather. Looks like we won’t be able to harvest tonight.” How did the weather change so suddenly? It was clearly winter, so why was it playing summer tricks?

Fortunately, the investigation mission for Wushan Village had a very long time limit, otherwise they would have been out of luck.

“Is that man still not awake?”

Wen Xu and Chen Zui were cultivation maniacs. Even though the spiritual Qi in the air down the mountain was inferior to that on the mountain, they both substituted sleep with meditation and Qi circulation. Bian Chunzhou wanted to sleep, but… they were friends, so he could only risk his life to keep up with their grueling pace.

Thus, the only bed in the room was occupied by the pregnant man they had rescued. Whether it was an illusion or not, the man’s belly hadn’t been very noticeable last night, but today it was slightly bulging.

“Wen Xuxu, why do I feel like his belly is growing so fast?” Even blowing up a balloon wasn’t this rapid.

Wen Xu couldn’t help but frown. He realized they might have brought back a troublemaker. If he had been alone in the past, he would never have helped. At most, he would have waited for those two to leave before digging the man out, counting it as his good deed for the day. But this was the cultivation world, and he had joined a sect. Yonglu Mountain was an orthodox, righteous sect. As a Disciple of the Divine Venerable, he didn’t have to be a saint, but it was best not to stand by and watch someone die.

“His belly is very strange.” With his vision obscured, even though Wen Xu was pretending to be blind, his senses of hearing and smell were heightened to some extent. Coupled with the perception of his Wind Spiritual Root, he could actually sense far more than what met the eye.

“Strange in what way?”

Wen Xu couldn’t quite explain it. “They say a pregnancy lasts ten months, and whatever the woman eats, the child in her belly eats. That’s why pregnant women get hungry so quickly. Some with good appetites can even eat ten meals a day. But haven’t you noticed? It’s been a day and a night. A normal person would be starving by now. He isn’t injured, so he should have been famished long ago.” How could he still be lying there so peacefully?

Bian Chunzhou couldn’t help but hold his breath, because just now, he had seen with his own eyes-

“Ahhh! His belly really grew bigger again! Is he going to be okay?”

Although this was the cultivation world, it couldn’t be this unscientific! It was challenging his understanding of biology!

“Should we get a doctor to take a look?”

Wen Xu thought, How should I know? But since they had saved the man, they couldn’t just leave him be. “Let’s call a spiritual doctor. A normal doctor probably won’t know what to do with a pregnant man.”

Chen Zui quickly brought back a spiritual doctor. Surprisingly, he was a very young, gentle-looking man carrying a small wooden chest. Wen Xu sniffed lightly but didn’t catch the slightest scent of medicine or pills.

Do spiritual doctors not write prescriptions? A question slowly rose in Wen Xu’s mind.

“Physician Ming, how is he?”

Upon seeing the man on the bed, Physician Ming’s face also filled with astonishment. “Are you sure you didn’t call the wrong person? I think you should have gone for a midwife.”

Good grief. Who was so capable that they actually got a man pregnant? Truly remarkable.

Physician Ming checked the pulse with a subtle look in his eyes, and then his brow furrowed. “Huh? It feels like a slippery pulse, yet it’s somewhat different. There is indeed a child in his belly, but this child…”

“What’s wrong with the child?”

“It…” Physician Ming looked at the three of them. “Which of you three is the biological father?”

The three of them: Huh? Is there something wrong with this spiritual doctor’s head? What biological father?!