Jiu Feng descended to the edge of the roof and his head bent down toward the house. He saw little two-legs still standing on the entrance, shouting and jumping. Jiu Feng dropped again from the roof and pushed him inside the cave with his beak.
Yan Mo couldn’t see anything even with open eyes. His hands bumbled for Jiu Feng until he found Jiu Feng’s beak. He immediately hugged the bird’s head and blindly felt for his forehead and urgently said, “Can you understand me? Come inside, come into the house. I have a plan to handle those man-eater bees!”
Jiu Feng understood him this time. He was curious how little two-legs can fight off with those annoying bugs, but quickly saw the answer with his own eyes. Those bigger two-legs were waving torches and driving away those little bugs.
Jiu Feng cheerfully charged into the house, but halfway through, his body got stuck.
“Chieerk—!” Jiu Feng cried out painfully. He couldn’t fold down his wing!
“What’s wrong? Why can’t Jiu Feng come inside?” Yan Mo yelled hurriedly to Yuan Zhan and Meng.
Yuan Zhan replied while keeping his hand moving, “Should have gotten his wings stuck, let me see if I can help him fold it.”
Yuan Zhan went over while still carrying a torch. Jiu Feng immediately turned and spewed out a wind blade at him.
Yuan Zhan ducked away in time but still got slashed on his arm, he snapped, “Make mountain god-daren calm down, tell him to not attack me!”
Yan Mo hurriedly fumbled for Jiu Feng’s head, “Don’t attack them, they’re trying to help.”
Yuan Zhan couldn’t fold Jiu Feng’s wing with one arm. He had no choice but to stick the torch in the ground and try again with both hands.
Jiu Feng squawked out in pain.
“The man-eater bees are coming back!” Meng shouted.
“Hurry up!” Yuan Zhan shoved Jiu Feng’s wings in.
Jiu Feng screeched painfully. Yan Mo never stopped soothing him and hugging his head as he led Jiu Feng into the house.
Meng waved the torch around so the bees wouldn’t come close. But there were too many of them, the man-eater bees flew around Meng, and straight Jiu Feng’s butt.
Even Yuan Zhan who stood there to help out Jiu Feng got pricked twice.
Yuan Zhan howled. He fell down on one leg to the ground and numbness slowly spread from his lower leg to his entire body. While his upper body hadn’t lost all sensation, he gathered a burst of brute strength and forced Jiu Feng’s wings in.
*Ker-ckh*
“Keeeeeih—!” Jiu Feng’s injured wing was snapped off. This was even more painful than being pricked by the bee’s tails. Jiu Feng had a natural immunity towards the bee’s venom, as long as he’s not pricked too much, he would only feel the pricked parts feel more numb than the other parts.
Yuan Zhan finally got Jiu Feng’s wings to lay flat on his body. Jiu Feng finally entered the house with that last push.
Yuan Zhan was unwilling to give up fighting and become man-eater bees’ winter ration like this. He crawled slowly to his torch.
Meng ran over to protect Yuan Zhan. After a while, Yuan Zhan got his torch back, but his entire body was now affected by the paralysis.
His torch in his hand felt like a huge rock. He strenuously yelled to Meng, “Run to the house!”
“Kiieeh—!” There’s fire here!
Jiu Feng’s immediate response when seeing fire in the house was to put it out.
Yan Mo’s hands were always roaming around his head and beak. Yan Mo felt him opening his mouth and immediately clasped his head, “That fire will protect us. Bear with it!”
Yan Mo pushed Jiu Feng to another direction so he wouldn’t see the fire in front of him.
As soon as he was turned, Jiu Feng came face to face with the human who broke his wing.
One of Meng’s hands held onto a torch, the other pulled on Yuan Zhan, they were retreating to the stone house.
Yuan Zhan tried his best to drive off the man-eater bees with his own torch. His movements had become slower and it was harder and harder to hold onto it, sweat fell down from his forehead.
As Jiu Feng stared at Yuan Zhan, his hatred bubbled up, he opened his beak to spew out winds.
Right at that moment, Meng happened to turn around and saw this scene. “Yanmo!” He fearfully shouted.
“Don’t! Don’t hurt them!” Yan Mo’s head was dripping with sweat. Nothing went like he imagined, why? For ease of communication, his hands never left Jiu Feng’s head. Thanks to that, Yuan Zhan could escape from this danger.
“Yanmo, come here and check on Zhan. He got pricked by man-eater bees!” Meng called Yan Mo to hurry over while his hands kept waving the torch around.
Yan Mo felt like crying. He can’t see anything ah! “Are you guys inside? Close the door!”
Meng roared snappily, “Zhan can’t move his upper body! No way to close the hole!”
Yuan Zhan leaned on the door frame. His torch had fallen to the ground, he no longer had the strength to pick it up.
Shit! Yan Mo inwardly let out a string of curses. “Jiu Feng! Attack! Blow away those bees out of here!” They need some time to block the door.
Jiu Feng did exactly as he was told to do, but when he opened his wings, the stone house that was only as big as 20m² was filled out. Don’t even mention flapping his wings, it’s difficult to even open his wings more than halfway.
The panicked Meng can only think of taking Yuan Zhan to the safest place, behind the fire. Yanmo shouted to him to close the door and Meng had heard it, but he had no hand to spare.
The worst thing was, Jiu Feng’s huge body was blocking the way to the fire. Meng who was carrying a torch and Jiu Feng won’t allow him to come closer. Whenever Meng looked like he’s going to walk up, Jiu Feng would spit out a wind blade at him, not differentiating enemy or ally.
“What’s mountain god-daren doing! Zhan is going to die ah!” Meng can’t handle it anymore, he shouted, “Why do we have to put mountain god in the house? We obviously can hide from the bees if it were just us, nothing like this would happen!”
Yan Mo wanted to cry, but no tears came out. Not only did the danger not get resolved, it developed to the worst possible situation! Everyone was harmed by his ‘good idea’!
What should he do now?
“They’re inside! The man-eater bees got in!” Now, Meng can’t think about Zhan, he waved the torch at the bees with his all, trying to drive out the bees that have flown in.
The house was filled with the smell of burnt black wild bees.
Meng was on the bees’ hate list number one. Aside from Jiu Feng, their fellow bees have died the most under Meng’s hands. Their hatred made their attacks even more fierce.
Meng was driven back by their attacks and screamed like a child.
Yan Mo tried his best to give a calm order, “Meng, shut the door first, then restack the stones that got taken down, no matter how little you restacked, at least you get some blocked!”
Meng’s hands and feet scrambled around with everything he had to do. He had to: 1) drive away the bees with the torch, not letting them get close to him or Zhan, 2) close the door, 3) carry the stones to block the opening on the wall. He only had one left hand and one right hand, there’s no way he can do everything well. He had closed the door, but the wall hole only had two stones restacked.
“Yanmo, come help me ah!” Meng burst out angrily. Why is he the only one doing everything?
Yan Mo gritted his teeth and blindly felt to the door. “Sorry, my eyes can’t see right now, where are the stones, I’ll do the wall!”
“What?!” Meng turned to him and saw Yan Mo in the middle of frantically feeling his surroundings, and wailed miserably, “Aah!!!!! Why is it like this? Don’t come over and make things worse here! Be careful of the bees!”
Meng leapt up and grabbed an animal skin over to block the wall opening. Before he could approach the wall, those man-eater bees charged over without caring about life and death and shot out multiple big tail stingers at him.
And worse, not just the bees at the door and outside, the bees inside the house also attacked him at the same time.
Meng covered his front and avoided some of the stings, but his back was open. He shrieked, then his hand felt the back of his legs that weren’t covered by fur armour. He found a lot of bee stings there, as the numbness was spreading around his body with his leg as centre.
It’s over! This was Meng’s last thought when his torch fell to the ground.
“Yanmo… be careful, only you… left.”
Yan Mo paused before calling out, “Er Meng? What happened to you? Answer me!”
Meng was too flustered that his words were just puffs of breath.
Yan Mo couldn’t hear him, he could only hear the kid’s awful screams.
The little A’wu crouched behind the fire, where it should be the safest, seeing as not one of the man-eater bees ever attacked him, but he was very afraid and always screamed from before.
Yan Mo tried everything he could in this desperate situation, calling out randomly, “Ah Zhan, can you hear me? Can you still move? Please work hard this one time, see if you can directly change the shapes… I mean, make the earth rise up and become a wall, or make the rocks become thinner and wider, block off the hole at the door! You can do it! Try doing it!”
Meng felt there’s no way he can do it even as a listener. He thought that the young man’s brain turned silly from panic.
Yuan Zhan was shaken to the core, he had never thought that his ability could be used in this way. But can he do that? How would he do that?
Yuan Zhan put his hands on the stone knife on his waist, but a while later he still couldn’t muster up the energy to take it out. Though Meng tried his hardest to protect him, there were still openings left, Jiu Feng had thrown away his clothes at the cliff, his bare skin had obviously big and red swellings.
Yan Mo stepped forward again while trying to find out about the situation, “Er Meng? Ah Zhan? Are you guys still alive?”
Just at that moment, Jiu Feng saw the small man-eater bees behind Yan Mo, his head heated up and he spewed out wind blades in the house. These wind blades, some hit the big man-eater bees entering the house, some hit the smaller man-eater bees on Yan Mo’s back.
Yan Mo screamed, a good number of those wind attacks slashed his back.
His blood flew out the wounds, which then closed up with speed visible to the naked eye.
If Yan Mo saw this, he would’ve been amazed at his own healing speed. His body now didn’t have any sign of feeling unwell, seems like that thing Jiu Feng fed him not only made up for the nutrition he lacked from birth till now, but also provided him with a large energy backup.
More and more man-eater bees noticed Yan Mo. A lot of them stopped attacking, and instead circled around Yan Mo.
There were also more and more small man-eater bees perching on Yan Mo’s back. It seemed like when he healed up, he exuded a certain substance that drew the man-eater bees to him.
The small man-eater bees were rather confused, why is their future king smelling like this now? But this weird body really did emit the scent of their king, at first it wasn’t that obvious, but the smell is getting more and more clear now.
Too bad that Yan Mo didn’t know there were man-eater bees on his back, and didn’t know what they’re thinking, or he’d already reached a conclusion.
In the midst of the kid’s screams, he thought of something, though it’s not a solution to their problem.
“I’ll try to move the fire to the entrance!” He shouted, “Jiu Feng, scoot inside, don’t block the way!”
Hearing this idea, Meng’s eyes shone at first, but then he looked at the door and his brows knit making vertical creases, he forced out his voice, “Fire… burn… door, bee… shoot… thorn!”
Yan Mo rejoiced when he heard Meng’s voice.
He didn’t die! That’s good!
He also knew that this wasn’t the best solution, not only can it burn the wooden door, when the bees get agitated, they may use their stingers to shoot at them a distance away from the fire. But then he thought, how big can the man-eater bees be? Even if they shoot out their stingers regardless of life and death, they won’t be able to shoot it that far, at most it’ll be one or two meters tops.
“We can’t afford to think about that much, we have to block the man-eater bees at the door from coming in first!” Yan Mo can’t help answering Er Meng’s concerns. He didn’t want to admit that when he couldn’t hear the two’s voices, he felt nervous and sad, just for a brief second. Right, was that little kid Yuan Zhan still alive? Why couldn’t he hear him talking?
“Your… eyes…”
“I’ll get the kid to help.” Yan Mo coldly said, “He won’t be able to survive on his own if we all die.”
Meng was so worried when he heard it, his head was fuming with smoke. He thought, that little cub can only scream, he can’t even understand our language. You try making him do something else, if you can. You helping yourself is still better than asking that little kid.
Yan Mo had considered the communication problem. He thought, if it had to be revealed now, so be it. It’s better than getting all these useful people dying here.
He was thinking of saving as many people as he can, one more alive is one less dead helper. He thought self-mockingly: he’s really unfit to be leader material. Aside from the operating table, he’s horrible in the face of a life or death situation. He makes awful plans, he also fails to consider a lot of things.
Though feeling upset inside, Yan Mo soothed Jiu Feng then made the bird retreat to a corner of the house.
Jiu Feng was also exhausted. After Yuan Zhan and Meng fell, the annoying man-eater bees’ attacks all turned to him. If not because most of them were weirdly following behind little two-legs, his body would have already been stabbed full of stingers.
He could hardly spew out another wind blade. One of his wings that was still alright could only slightly wave from time to time to fan down the stingers those annoying little bugs shot over. But he was still trying hard to protect his little two-legs, even if the wind blade he spewed using his all no longer had any power in them.
Jiu Feng let out sad and indignant low cries. His mom bird had also fetched that thing for him when he was a little chick, she didn’t run into any trouble. Why is it when he did it he got followed by the bugs?
Yan Mo couldn’t see all of this, but he knew that Jiu Feng was protecting him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to last this long. What he can’t be sure of was whether or not he had been pricked by the bees. Anyway, he can still move right now.
Yan Mo gathered the courage to get out of Jiu Feng’s protection range and felt his way to the corner with a fire pile using the wall.
Meng looked at him tensely, but then discovered, “Zhan…” What are you doing?!
No one noticed when but Yuan Zhan had fished out his stone knife and slashed his own thigh with it. Blood flew out of the cut along with some of the bee toxins. Following that, he also slashed his stomach. His brain didn’t feel the pain, but his upper half of body seemed to have gained some control, the numbness hitting his head also spread slower. With that little strength recovered, he used all of his strength to claw a hand into the soil under the door.
He needed to maintain a clear head to do what Yan Mo said. He wanted to try it, even if he failed in the end, he wanted to give his all this one last time.
He had never done something like this before. Control the soil on its own without using other tools, it sounded just like a god’s power.
But wasn’t this power he had, inherited from god? A part of the earth god’s own power?
Maybe… he can do much more… not just that stone masonry thing Yanmo said.
Meng took more glances at Yuan Zhan but didn’t think his companion could do anything now. He just thought that Zhan was putting up one last fight before death.
Every living thing in the house was now focused on Yan Mo.
Yuan Zhan concentrated his mind on controlling the soil. When he glanced at Yan Mo, he just confirmed that the younger man can still move, then stopped thinking much about anything else.
Meng kept his eyes on the younger man. As he kept watching, his expression became bewildered.
Yan Mo finally reached where the little kid A’wu was. He reached out a hand to touch the kid’s head while making his tone as kind as possible, “Child, I need your hel—”
“Ahh!!!” the little kid’s nerves were already about to snap. When Yan Mo reached out a hand to him he got so scared that he slapped away his hand. He kept screaming and avoiding him at the same time, not letting Yan Mo touch him.
Yan Mo felt his anger rising. He thought the kid was rejecting him, not knowing that the kid was actually scared of the man-eater bees crawling on his back.
Little white-eyed wolf! (ungrateful)
Yan Mo was fraught with anxiety himself, he wasn’t in the mood to coax a child now. He was about to press down the kid and make him quiet down and do as he said, when Meng let out a small shriek that sounded more like a gasp.
Yan Mo didn’t see, after the kid swung off his hand… or more correctly, right when his anger rose, every man-eater bees in the room stopped attacking Jiu Feng and gathered to where Yan Mo was!
Yan Mo reached out to the little kid again but two man-eater bees were faster, they flew around Yan Mo and suddenly aimed their stingers to the kid’s face.
The little kid shrieked out. His hand quickly felt his face but very quickly he couldn’t move anymore.
Meng excitedly shouted …but the sound he made was like panting. “Mo, the bees… obey… you…….”
Author’s note (translated):
A human faced-bird perched on Yan Mo’s left shoulder, a number of man-eater bees flew around his right shoulder…
Yan Mo crouched down in front of Yuan Zhan who was silently doing hard labour, lifted his fur skirt and glanced carelessly, then scornfully said, “Look at you. Aside from that xx, where can you compare with this great master? Did you know that your starting point was so low? You were just a small level 2 warrior when you appeared, you don’t look pretty or handsome, looking exactly like a wild primitive guy. Your only good feature might be this figure. On the whole, you are far far behind, at least ninety-eight thousand kilometres behind this cool, handsome tyrannical inheritor with many treasures. Knowing all that, you still don’t put in more work?”
Yuan Zhan puts his hands on clay and silently uses his power to make a wavy bowl.
Yan Mo, “Can you make it into a china?”
Yuan Zhan’s words were stuck in his tongue. “Can’t.”
Yan Mo, “…What use are you?”
That night, Yuan Zhan sat on top of a certain white round bread roof, his finger poking a hole into the roof, then poking again, then…
A certain white round bread cried out: “Darling, it’s raining outside ah!”
Yuan Zhan: “Darling, just try treating me like that again!”
Edited by Silversun
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