Situation

Xu Ya truly hadn’t thought that far ahead.

It was just that a sudden burst of flames flared in the distance, seemingly in the direction of the fried chicken shop.

The explosion was massive. She could feel the mountain beneath her feet trembling slightly. Xu Ya had only ever seen blasts of this magnitude in the modern world—like those gas explosion reports on the news, where the live footage showed utter devastation, too tragic to look at.

Panic surged through her at the sight. All she could think about was rushing to the fried chicken shop. The two shop assistants were just ordinary mortals. But even as she ran, she hadn’t considered what real help she could offer in a situation like this.

Shi Yuzhen, whose heartache had finally eased, quickly regained his composure. He rode his Ink Sword down the mountain after her, catching up to the stumbling and injured Xu Ya.

He reached out and pulled the girl into his arms. After just a moment apart, Shi Yuzhen was like a starving beast, eyes bloodshot. He held Xu Ya tightly, frowning at the scratches all over her clothes. In a rare tone of reprimand, he said, “Why were you so reckless?”

Xu Ya knew she’d been rash. Of course! How could a mortal’s legs compare to sword flight? She said nothing.

After speaking, Shi Yuzhen held her even tighter. Only then did he feel a sliver of real relief.

She hadn’t left. She had just wanted to check on the shop…

As Xu Ya had feared, the center of the explosion was indeed A-Ya Fried Chicken.

Before the sword had even touched the ground, Xu Ya was already leaping off, hurrying toward the shop to assess the damage.

But thick smoke billowed everywhere. In her panic, she inhaled a lungful of it and immediately burst into a fit of violent coughing. Shi Yuzhen quickly formed a barrier seal and enclosed them both in a protective shield.

Inside the shield, the smoke couldn’t penetrate, and Xu Ya’s breathing eased.

The blast had affected over a dozen shops. Broken wooden posts and debris filled the air. With every few steps, they could hear the wails and sobs of villagers buried in the dust.

Xu Ya squinted through the haze, scanning the soot-covered villagers, trying to identify them. A few low-level cultivators were already helping, doing their best to repair the ruined street.

Relying on her memory, Xu Ya found the spot where her shop had stood. Now it was nothing but wreckage. She could just make out the handwritten shop sign buried beneath the churned-up earth.

She sprinted over, yanking the cloth sign free, then began heaving aside shattered beams with her bare hands, trying to find a path through the smoke.

Everything had happened far too suddenly. Xu Ya had gone to Shi Yuzhen’s place after selling out the day’s stock. By then, most cultivators had already left the area, and the villagers were busy preparing dinner. No one had expected such a disaster.

One of the aunties was buried under rubble, groaning in pain. Upon hearing her, Xu Ya immediately cast a spell to clear the debris from her body. She didn’t dare touch the bloodied and dazed woman, afraid of worsening her injuries, so she cast a pain-relief spell to ease her suffering.

The auntie slowly regained consciousness. Her face was bruised and swollen, but the moment she saw Xu Ya, tears of blood welled in her eyes. “Boss Xiaoya… thank goodness you’re safe…”

Xu Ya burst into tears. “Auntie, are you still in pain? What happened? Where’s A Xi?”

The pain-relief spell had helped. Though her face was still a mess of red and green bruises, she no longer felt it. She said, “Xiaoya, things aren’t safe anymore. You must stay close to the Immortal. A Xi… he was taken by those people… They saw I was just an old woman and useless, so they grabbed A Xi. It was… it was a monster shaped like a chicken, but huge…!”

Xu Ya tried to imagine it based on her description. “Deformed? Huge? What did it look like?”

The auntie coughed, choking on blood. “It was a chicken… a big, big rooster… From far away it looked like a regular rooster, but everyone thought their eyes were playing tricks on them…”

“A big rooster?”

“Huge… absolutely huge,” she confirmed. “As tall as the shop. Its beak was razor sharp. It charged in and started pecking wildly. It had a clear target—it was coming straight for our shop.”

The auntie’s eyes filled with fear at the memory. “Later, a few cultivators who’d bought fried chicken before came to help. It couldn’t beat them, so it tried to grab me and A Xi… Yes, yes! It could talk! Right before it left, it spat out some kind of firebomb from its beak… and then everything exploded…”

When Shi Yuzhen arrived, he channeled his spiritual energy to help the other cultivators clear the ash and debris from the street. Then he captured a few cultivators to question them about what had happened.

The cultivators, like frightened chicks, had the hems of their robes gripped in Shi Yuzhen’s hand. Ever since he’d publicly killed his master, Shi Yuzhen had become infamous among cultivators—lawless and terrifying. Not to mention, he was at the Spirit Transformation stage. The cultivators obeyed him immediately, spilling everything they knew.

Shi Yuzhen heard the same strange tale Xu Ya had: a monstrous Giant Rooster had descended from the sky, charging straight for A-Ya Fried Chicken. It had destroyed the shop’s interior, tried to abduct the staff, and when it couldn’t overcome the cultivators, it fled with the smaller one.

That smaller one was A Xi.

Xu Ya stood up, her eyes meeting Shi Yuzhen’s.

“I’m going to find him,” she said. Find who? Find A Xi. Rescue A Xi.

Normally, if Shi Yuzhen saw Xu Ya thinking about someone else, he’d get sulky and jealous. But now, seeing this fragile girl clearly state her determination, he felt like he was finally seeing her true self.

He had always hated that brat who worked in Xu Ya’s shop.

But now, he nodded. He heard himself say, “I’ll go with you.”

The chaos at A-Ya Fried Chicken had shaken all of Yunmeng Immortal Marsh. Xu Ya’s fried chicken had become an essential part of many cultivators’ daily routines.

As soon as word spread that the shop had been attacked, cultivators descended from the mountains to investigate. Even An Jiaze, who had been in seclusion for a long time, appeared, standing quietly at the back of the crowd, watching the commotion unfold.

Zhan Zhengzhen and a few others stood in the center of the gathering. After hearing the full story, they frowned, concern written all over their faces as they looked at the pair preparing to set out. “How could something so strange happen? A Giant Rooster? Why would it take A Xi?”

Zhan Zhengzhen was worried about Xu Ya and gently reminded Shi Yuzhen, “Could this be aimed at you again? Are you sure you don’t want us to come along?”

Shi Yuzhen had considered that possibility. After a moment of silence, he said, “If it’s targeting me, then I have even more reason to confront it. If you come, it’ll only give our enemies more chances to act in the shadows. There’s another suspicious matter—the so-called ‘A Ya Jia’ Fried Chicken Shop. We’ll investigate that as well.”

Zhan Zhengzhen hesitated, wanting to say more.

Cai Wenle voiced what they were all thinking. “What about Junior Sister? Is it safe for her to go with you alone?”

Xu Ya, rarely this serious, said, “Thank you, Senior Brother Cai, Senior Brother Zhan. A Xi is my employee. I’m responsible for his safety. I must go in person. Besides, this strange incident was clearly directed at my shop.”

Zhan Zhengzhen and the others didn’t quite understand her logic—why did being A Xi’s employer mean she had to take responsibility for his safety?

As they listened, something about it just felt… off. They couldn’t help but glance at Shi Yuzhen standing behind Xu Ya, his expression unreadable.

Zhan Zhengzhen had already played the role of a relationship counselor once before, when Shi Yuzhen came to him with her emotional troubles. He was well aware of Shi Yuzhen’s straightforward nature and had long since moved past the shock of her and Xu Ya revealing their relationship. He had once held a good impression of the young Xu Ya, but…

Xu Ya was clearly so concerned about that shop assistant, A Xi, yet Shi Yuzhen could still keep her composure. That was some ruthless resolve.

Everyone questioned the two thoroughly about their plans. Once they confirmed there was at least a rough outline, no one insisted on following them. They simply reminded them to be careful.

Xu Ya still didn’t bring much luggage, only keeping her spirit pouch at the ready. Then she set off with Shi Yuzhen.

Shi Yuzhen had gone out more than once before, and each time she’d wanted to bring Xu Ya along. But Xu Ya always dodged the invitation with vague excuses. Now, finally, there was no one else interfering, and she was able to travel with Xu Ya—only to find themselves in this kind of situation.

A Xi had gone missing. Xu Ya was panicked deep down, and her mood sank uncontrollably.

Shi Yuzhen, for once, showed concern for A Xi—or perhaps more accurately, for Xu Ya. “She’ll be fine.”

According to the villagers and cultivators, the Giant Rooster had fled eastward at an astonishing speed.

Shi Yuzhen had heard enough to make a preliminary judgment: it was likely some kind of monster deliberately raised by someone.

But why a giant chicken? That, in connection with Xu Ya’s fried chicken shop, gave rise to a strange and inexplicable feeling.

Shi Yuzhen immediately linked it to what the cultivators had mentioned before: the “Aya Jia Fried Chicken Shop.”

Before leaving, Shi Yuzhen had made sure to ask for the exact locations of those shops.

Since they couldn’t catch up with the bizarre Giant Rooster that had taken someone, she figured they might as well head to that so-called fried chicken shop first and investigate.

But the farther east they went, the stranger things became.

Outside the Immortal Village, there was a stretch of mountain road where they could still travel by sword. But once they reached the county town area, the current regime’s law enforcement cultivators patrolled openly in their vehicles before the public. So the two had no choice but to dismount and enter the town on foot.

Shi Yuzhen had visited this place many times before, but it was Xu Ya’s first time here.

As soon as they arrived, Shi Yuzhen sensed something was off.

It wasn’t even late at night, yet the fog was so thick it felt like they were standing atop a mountain peak.

Shi Yuzhen immediately felt uneasy. He had planned to lift Xu Ya’s spirits by taking her through the livelier streets, but now the atmosphere felt completely wrong.

He still remembered vividly the experience of that reinforcement mission years ago. He hated the feeling of being watched from the shadows by unseen eyes.

Xu Ya also felt something was wrong. Though she had never been to a county town outside the Immortal Village, she had often heard cultivators who came to buy fried chicken talk about it. Many of the visiting cultivators would describe it in vivid detail.

What she saw now was nothing like what they had described.

Suddenly, the Giant Rooster returned without warning, descending from the sky. One of its claws, grotesquely large and twisted, looked nothing like a normal chicken’s foot. It was more like a human arm, bulging with veins and tipped with razor-sharp talons. Clutched in its grip was a limp, bloodied, and unconscious figure.

It was A Xi!

Xu Ya clenched her fists, not daring to act rashly.

A Xi was covered in blood and unconscious, her body hanging limply from the Giant Rooster’s terrifying claw. Her face had been scraped raw, as if she’d been dragged across the ground for a long distance.

The Giant Rooster seemed to possess intelligence. It even made a disturbingly human-like expression as it craned its neck to peer at Xu Ya. Once it recognized her, it launched into an all-out attack without hesitation.

Xu Ya knew she couldn’t become a burden to Shi Yuzhen. She quickly cast an invisibility spell and hid in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to assist in rescuing A Xi.

With its vision blocked, the Giant Rooster could only vaguely make out the silhouette of a cultivator with an air of immortal grace.

Man and bird clashed in a fierce battle.

The rooster’s beak was like a sharpened blade, slicing through the air with deadly force. But every strike was deftly deflected by Shi Yuzhen!