Stranger Danger

He wasn’t out for long. Just a single breath later, Ye Qing opened his eyes again and saw an orange flame flickering in front of him. It looked fairly similar to a candle flame.

Surprised but still keeping his wits about him, Ye Qing immediately pulled back from the flame. He couldn’t feel any danger from it, but why risk being wrong when he could be safe instead?

Too bad for him, the game was rigged from the start.

Bang!

The second he made a move, the flame exploded and filled his vision with bright orange. It hit him squarely in the face before he could even shut his eyes and yell, “Shit!” But to his surprise, he didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. In fact, the flame’s temperature was lukewarm at best despite its deadly appearance.

When Ye Qing calmed down and looked back at the bush, he saw a pair of oddly-shaped grasses creeping deeper into the bushes as if they had legs. One of them had a stem covered in bell-shaped flowers that chimed melodiously with every movement. The other one carried lantern-shaped fruits with orange-colored flames. The way the lights partially passed through the fruits’ flesh made them look just like lit lanterns.

“That’s the Chime Blossom and Lantern Grass…”

The two Strangers were already gone by the time he finally understood what happened.

“Unlucky. They pranked me!”

The grass with the bell-like flowers was called the Chime Blossom. Its flowers weren’t just shaped like bells, they also rang like one. Anyone who listened to its chime would lose their consciousness for an extremely short period of time. The other grass was called the Lantern Grass. Its fruits were shaped like lanterns, and each fruit carried a flickering flame that shone brighter during the night. It could be used as a means of illumination.

Both the Chime Blossom and the Lantern Grass were Mundane-class Strangers. They were generally harmless save for their prankster tendencies. The Chime Blossom would stun their victim for a short period of time, and the Lantern Grass would seize the opportunity to spit fire on their face. While the flame was perfectly harmless, it contained a kind of black powder that dyed the victim’s face pitch black. It also gave off a burnt, sooty smell that made it seem as if the victim really had been scorched by fire.

Ye Qing could see from the reflection of his blade that his face was, as expected, as black as the bottom of a frying pan. His bangs were dried, curled up, and giving off a burnt smell as well.

“Hmph! One day, I’ll catch you both and pluck all your bells and lanterns,” Ye Qing swore in the direction of the escaped Strangers, but he was really more amused than he was angry. He would take a pair of pranksters over a group of bloodthirsty human skins any day.

Ye Qing immediately took a detour to the nearest creek after the encounter. It was to wash off the powder, of course. Although the Lantern Grass’ powder was just as harmless as its flame, it was sticky, smelly, and more importantly, an absolute blight against his handsome appearance. The last thing he wanted to happen was for someone to see him like this.

After arriving at the creek, Ye Qing stood there and observed his surroundings for a moment just in case there were any hidden danger. When he could find any, he relaxed and started washing his face by the creekside.

However, danger often showed up when one least expected it. A ripple broke out as what looked like a human face suddenly appeared at the bottom of the creek. As it slowly rose to the surface, its features wriggled until it had transformed into a massive, pitch black maw. It then attempted to take a bite out of Ye Qing’s head.

Swoosh!

Ye Qing immediately swung his saber and was able to cut the massive maw in half. He then took two steps away from the creek and glared daggers at the thing that just tried to eat him.

As it turned out, the massive maw he just split in half wasn’t a maw at all. In fact, it wasn’t even flesh and blood. It was an incredible amount of water grass joining together and forming the shape of a giant maw.

“Humanface Grass, a Red-class Stranger!” Ye Qing recognized the Stranger right away.

Whistle whistle whistle!

It was at this moment the Humanface Grass abruptly burst out of the water and launched its blade-like grass at Ye Qing like spears. However, Ye Qing remained calm and cut them all with a long, powerful sweep. He then rushed forward and attempted to sever all the grass on the surface of the creek.

The Humanface Grass wriggled and knitted themselves into a shield just in time before Ye Qing’s saber landed. When it hit, he frowned because he felt like he was cutting into a massive ball of cotton. Forget splitting it in half like he did earlier, he only managed to cut a few blades of grass before the attack was completely spent.

It’s tough. As expected of a Red-class Stranger! Ye Qing hadn’t used his full strength during the attack, but he was still far stronger than most newbie Qi Invokers. Despite this, his attack had barely done any damage to it.

Not daring to treat the Humanface Grass lightly, Ye Qing tried to pull back only to find more grass shooting out of the water and catching his blade in a firm bind. Not only that, they quickly slithered up his arm and pulled him toward the creek before he could react.

The Stranger was stronger than Ye Qing expected, but he quickly caught himself and just allowed the Humanface Grass to pull him for a good couple seconds. No matter how hard it tried, Ye Qing remained rooted in place as if he was a mountain and not a man.

“You want to play tug of war? I love playing tug of war!”

Ye Qing wore an evil smile on his face as he abruptly unleashed all the power that was stored within his blood. There was a series of pops and cracks that sounded like a full muscular breakdown before Ye Qing grabbed the grass entangled around his right arm, and pulled.

A gigantic ball of water grass burst out of the creek just like that.

The water grasses writhed, squirmed and swung all over the place like green snakes. At first glance, it looked absolutely terrifying. However, a closer look would reveal that every blade of grass was connected to a clump of roots located at the center of its mass. There was also a human face on the roots that looked like it was looking down on all living beings with utter apathy and cruelty.

This was why it was called the “Humanface Grass”. It was also its biggest weakness. Destroy the roots, and the Stranger would die immediately. To try anything else would just be a waste of time and energy.

The roots were completely exposed after it was dragged to the surface, and the Humanface Grass seemed to be aware of that fact. For a second, the skyful of grass writhed madly before shooting toward Ye Qing and entangling him into a mummy in just the blink of an eye. Once done, they started pulling him toward the human face. As they did so, the face on the roots slowly morphed into a big maw with rows and rows of sharp teeth in it.

“Croak—”

Just when Ye Qing was less than a meter away from the maw, a loud croak abruptly sounded from within the tangle of water grass. It visibly swelled up for a second, shrank, then straight up exploded into a million pieces. As soon as Ye Qing was free, one last croak sounded from his abdomen before he slashed at the human-faced roots right in front of him. At the same time, a tiger’s roar filled with brutality and bloodthirst resounded across the creek.

The attack was as fast as a phantom and as poignant as frost. The Humanface Grass never even reacted until it was too late.

Slowly, the human-faced roots that had transformed into a giant maw split in half from the center. The flailing water grasses had also frozen like someone had paused their very existence.

Bang!

The next moment, the human-faced roots exploded into smithereens. The water grasses also fell to the ground and started withering at an unbelievable rate. As the grasses were completely reliant on the human-faced roots for sustenance and vitality, they were unable to continue existing without it.

“I knew that combining the Toad Force and the Five Tigers Door Breaking Saber would result in something explosive!” Ye Qing stared at the floor of Stranger remains with a wide grin on his face.

The saber style he just used was none other than the “Five Tigers Door Breaking Saber”, but the force behind the attack was a combination of his natural strength and the Toad Force. Not only did it completely sever the human-faced roots in half, the energy of the Toad Force had seeped into its core and overwhelmed it. That was why it had exploded into smithereens. It showed just how powerful the Toad Force was.

Moreover, his Toad Force was only in the initiate level right now. It could be even more powerful when the size of his true qi was bigger.

On a side note, he knew how to use the “Five Tigers Door Breaking Saber” because he had spent some time learning it yesterday. The saber art was neither difficult nor complex. All it asked was that its practitioner execute its techniques with ferocity and brutality. There was literally nothing else about it that was worth mentioning besides that.

“Since I’m strong enough to take out a Humanface Grass alone, I should be on the same level as the average Qi Invoker now!”

The Humanface Grass was classified as a Red-class Stranger, meaning that it was on the same power level as a Qi Invoker. Although it was among the weakest Red-class Strangers out there, the fact that he could kill it with ease should mean that an average Qi Invoker was no longer a match for him.

“Heh. If this is the result after just one night of cultivation, it’s just a matter of time before I catch up to Chen Zheng!”

Ring ring ring…

Suddenly, Ye Qing heard a familiar chime. When he looked, he saw none other than the Chime Blossom and Lantern Grass who had pranked him earlier peeping out from behind some trees. When they saw that he was looking at him, they immediately escaped into the woods as if startled.

“Am I really that scary?” Ye Qing asked no one in particular while rubbing his nose. It was then he realized something and exclaimed in shock, “No way… could it be?”

It just occurred to Ye Qing that perhaps the Chime Blossom and Lantern Grass had run away not just because he had just annihilated the Humanface Grass, but also because they were in cahoots with it!

The plan was very simple. First, the Chime Blossom and Lantern Grass pranked him so he would be forced to wash his face at a nearby stream. Then, the Humanface Grass lay in wait at the bottom of the stream and ambushed him as soon as he began washing his face.

The Humanface Grass was a plant Stranger who devoured flesh-and-blood beings to become stronger and evolve. That was why the Chime Blossom and the Lantern Grass had sought out its protection. The two Mundane-class Strangers were almost useless in combat, so the only way they might survive in this harsh world was to seek out the protection of a powerful Stranger.

The more Ye Qing thought about it, the more he was sure he was right. Fang Nianshui had mentioned that there were intelligent Strangers out there who were no different from humans in terms of their ability to think, perceive gains and losses, and weigh pros and cons. Some of them could even assume a human form, slip into a human city, and live among the humans.

Ye Qing had taken Fang Nianshui’s words with a grain of salt at the time, but now, he knew that the hunter was right.

I’ll have to be much more careful in the future. This battle would’ve killed me if I hadn't entered the Qi Invocation stage and learned the Toad Force yesterday.

Suddenly, Ye Qing spat on the ground and chuckled bitterly to himself. “Motherfucker, I almost got played by a bunch of grasses, haven’t I? How embarrassing…”

With that harrowing but ultimately harmless interlude behind him, Ye Qing took a short break before resuming his patrol once more. The next couple hours passed quickly in idyllic peace and boredom. This actually disappointed Ye Qing as he had been looking forward to killing some Strangers and accumulating more dragon-serpent runes. At this rate, his battle against the Humanface Grass was going to be the one and only highlight of the day.

Bang!

It was around evening time, and Ye Qing was ready to head back to the village when suddenly, he heard and saw a red firework erupting in the sky.

“Someone used their contact talisman! What happened?”

Due to how precious talismans were, most watchmen refrained from using them unless absolutely necessary. For someone to use a contact talisman could only mean that their lives were in grave danger, and they needed help as soon as possible. Ye Qing did not hesitate to sprint in the direction of the fireworks.