Chapter 555: A Foot Too Hot to Handle

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Wisps of black mist seeped from the severed end of the sinister, pale-skinned, and thoroughly horrifying Broken Foot. After being ensnared by the Prisoner’s Chains, it began to “desperately” slam its sole against the wall. It seemed to possess a consciousness of its own, to know it could not escape, as it repeatedly smashed itself against a pillar of the ruined temple.

First it was the Painter, then the Orchid, and now this “foot” before him. At this moment, Zheng Xiu had no doubt about the Prisoner Path’s dominance over the others. Temporarily ignoring the Deceitful Object that had appeared out of thin air, Zheng Xiu asked the Monk in puzzlement:

“This thing… how did you acquire it?”

He used the word “acquire.”

The Monk gave a simple, honest smile, rubbed his bald head, and told a sad story.

During his travels, the Monk passed through a village. The kind-hearted village chief warmly welcomed him, as the Monk looked to be on the verge of starving to death. Afterward, the Monk noticed a vibrant red “double happiness” character pasted on the dilapidated door of a house. A handsome groom and a beautiful bride, who had been engaged for ten years, were about to be wed. It should have been a joyous occasion, but the Monk noticed that the faces of the betrothed couple were etched with sorrow. The bride-to-be looked less like she was getting married and more like she was attending a funeral, and a gloomy pall hung over the entire village.

The Monk was no fool and sensed something was amiss. To repay the kindness of a meal, he stayed in the village to investigate. By the third day, he had learned the reason for their sorrow. There was a notorious lecher in the area who preyed on a very specific type of woman: virgins who were just about to be married. His depraved acts had enraged both Heaven and the people. Seeing such injustice, the Monk naturally decided to step in. On the wedding night, the vile man did indeed attack. He moved like the wind, a veritable phantom. The Monk fought him for a few rounds before being knocked to the ground and falling unconscious.

Hearing this, Zheng Xiu’s face filled with astonishment. He couldn’t help but ask, “This fiend… he wasn’t named Xiao Buping, was he?”

“I don’t know.” The Monk, missing the teasing and nostalgic tone in Zheng Xiu’s question, shook his head earnestly. “It’s shameful, but my training is shallow, and I was no match for the villain. I never even got a clear look at his face before he died.”

“Then how was the fiend brought to justice?”

Zheng Xiu was puzzled.

The Monk gave a bitter smile. “When I woke up, I found the fiend had already breathed his last, with only one of his feet still kicking around by itself. In the darkness, the foot suddenly broke clean off. I reacted quickly. ‘There’s a vile presence here! This is bizarre,’ I thought. ‘I can’t let it get away and harm any more good women!’ So I dove on top of it and held it down with all my strength.” The Monk seemed to be recalling his perilous battle of wits and courage against the Broken Foot. He rubbed his bald head, a lingering fear in his voice. “Afterward, I fulfilled my duty and finally captured it. I tried to destroy it with fire, but this Broken Foot was immune to both blades and flames. It was utterly strange. In the end, I had no choice but to tie it up, travel north on deserted paths to avoid being seen, and wait to meet with Brother Zheng to decide what to do.”

The Monk clearly didn’t realize that the Broken Foot, immune to blade and fire, was what Mystic legends called a “Deceitful Object”—a source and amplifier of Miracle Techniques. His only thought regarding such a demonic object was to keep the wretched thing from harming anyone else, so he had tied it to his own body and carried it all this way.

Zheng Xiu listened to the Monk’s entire story, but it told him nothing of what he truly wanted to know. He thought for a moment, then asked cautiously, “Could it have been your… Heart Demons… who did it?”

The Monk shook his head at the suggestion. “Not so. I asked ‘them,’ and ‘they’ vehemently denied it. I don’t believe ‘they’ would lie to me about something like this.”

Looking at the Monk, Zheng Xiu knew he wouldn’t get any more information out of him. He turned his attention back to the “Broken Foot.” Suddenly, Zheng Xiu recalled something the cat had casually said back in Lu Town, right before he was ambushed by the four Orchids: “Have you ever considered that the ‘Deceitful Objects’ you speak of… might once have been Human?”

After the initial joy faded and his emotions calmed, he thought of the cat’s words, and an inexplicable, faint chill rose in Zheng Xiu’s heart.

‘Were these strangely shaped Deceitful Objects… really once Human?’

Zheng Xiu closed his eyes, once again recalling those hundred years in the World in the Painting, which had passed day after day, year after year.

During those hundred years, the more Gongsun Mo painted, the thinner and more stooped his body became. He looked more and more… like a paintbrush.

At the time, Zheng Xiu had only thought of it as “role-playing.” But now, combining the cat’s words with the true forms of the few Deceitful Objects he had seen, he found it difficult to refute the idea, even if he couldn’t bring himself to accept it.

‘Even so…’ Zheng Xiu’s thoughts raced. The “Broken Foot,” bound by the chains, was still mutilating itself against the pillar. No matter how that flower-picking Mystic had died, dying in front of the Monk seemed a truly pathetic end. If the Broken Foot was conscious, Zheng Xiu could vaguely understand its despair.

CRACK!

With a crisp sound, the bone-like chains dragged the Broken Foot forcefully before Zheng Xiu. The void in front of his palm twisted and rippled. Without even a moment to struggle, the Broken Foot was sucked into the Heart Prison, locked away in a sunless corner right alongside the Painter.

Seeing Zheng Xiu “take away” the Deceitful Object, the Monk let out a huge sigh of relief. He patted his chest and chuckled, “You’re amazing, Brother Zheng.”

“I owe you one.”

“Brother Zheng, you’re carrying out Heaven’s will.”

The Monk waved his hands repeatedly, not daring to take credit. In his eyes, Zheng Xiu had simply taken a hot potato off his hands. After cutting the hemp rope from the Broken Foot’s ankle with a small knife, the Monk swiftly drank the rest of his wild vegetable soup.

While the Monk was drinking his soup, Zheng Xiu opened a Rift again.

This time, Zheng Xiu didn’t dare enter the Feng Bei Post Station. Instead, he chose the “Time Demon Post Station.”