NEBM Chapter 38.2: Fishbone

This was the spirit jade he’d been looking for!!!

He’d been wanting to refine his bamboo sticks for a long time, and yaoshan jade was the ideal material. Unfortunately, the material was too precious, too scarce, and too rare. Even after searching for several years, he still hadn’t found it. At present, Yan Jin held such a large piece, enough for him to finish refining a set of bamboo sticks!

He stared anxiously at Shen Zhixian, “Where did you find this?”

Shen Zhixian leaned slightly and pointed in the direction they came from. “There. But, there’s probably no more.”

He also naturally knew that yaoshan jade was a very rare spirit jade, and they were quite lucky to have found this piece of jade in this secret realm.

The middle-aged man looked with disappointment in the direction he was pointing at. “That way…”

He hesitated, unwilling to give up. He clenched his teeth and pulled out two spirit fruits from his storage bag. Feeling a little embarrassed, he said, “I’d been wanting to use yaoshan jade to refine weapons for a long time, but I had a hard time trying to find it. These two spiritual fruits are not bad. I wonder if I can ask these two honorable sirs to part with your cherished item and trade with me…?”

Shen Zhixian glanced at the two fruits in his hand, which were also very precious. Of course, they weren’t as rare as yaoshan jade. However, he also had no use for the jade. Wouldn’t it be better for him to cultivate good karma with people in the Jianghu?

He glanced at Yan Jin and saw that the other party also had no intention of refusing, so he completed the exchange with the middle-aged man.

The Xuanji Tower disciple trembled with joy, turning over and looking at the spirit jade with great joy. He found that the quality was better than he’d imagined. He exchanged the two spirit fruits, both of which were Shen Zhixian’s loss.

But, since he’d handed over a mere two fruits, he thought about it, thanked them with great courtesy, and promised, “I, Xuanji Tower’s 13th disciple named Su Cheng, owe you two honorable sirs.”

He proudly puffed up his chest. “In my sect, I can be considered as someone reputable with top level skills. If you both have any need, I will certainly help to the best of my ability.”

Shen Zhixian smiled modestly at having gained this kind of favor. Su Cheng looked like an open and honest person. Not allowing him to repay this favor would probably make him feel guilty and distressed, which might prove harmful to his spiritual development.

Su Cheng, who also wanted to double-check the area they’d found the jade, thanked them and left. As he was leaving, he thought of something and hurriedly turned back to say, “The divination hexagram that I recently calculated for you is true. Don’t give up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised during this trip!”

“Thank you for your good words.” Shen Zhixian smiled and watched him hurried away. He withdrew his gaze, not taking the sentence to heart. The biggest protagonist was standing beside him. Believing in Yan Jin was better than believing in a hexagram.

Due to the disruption, Shen Zhixian also forgot about Yan Jin’s previous question about Duan Yuan, and Yan Jin also did not mention it again. The two walked along with each other and intermittently saw several people.

They were familiar with these people, most of whom they’d seen hanging around Xin City. One of people had even stayed in the same inn as them.

Shen Zhixian used this opportunity to inquire about news of Duan Yuan. Some people shook their heads, and some people had seen him, but…why was it a young man again?!!

Shen Zhixian frowned, and then asked another individual. This time, he got more accurate news.

“The young lady you mentioned, I haven’t seen her. But I just saw a young man who looked like what you’d described, just over there.” The monk pointed them in a direction. “He was still there two minutes ago. You can check it out.”

Shen Zhixian thanked the monk, who said “you’re welcome” with a smile and left.

They walked in the direction of the monk’s finger and sure enough, they eventually came across a young man dressed in blue, squatting on the side of the road and digging and digging with great enthusiasm. Next to him was a small pile of dirt.

This back view looked really similar to Duan Yuan…

Shen Zhixian hesitated for a while, then heard the man in blue gave a joyful “Ha!” as he pulled out a spirit grass with long roots.

There were many glossy red fruits on the root of the spirit grass. The young man in blue seemed to be afraid of shaking the fruit. While carefully holding on to the spirit grass, he turned around, and his countenance fell into Shen Zhixian and Yan Jin’s line of sight.

At that moment, Shen Zhixian realized what Su Cheng meant by “very similar”— It was too similar!

It was just that he’d changed into man’s attire and there were no chin scar. The whole face looked a little younger overall. Looking at the facial features, he looked 90% like Duan Yuan!

As Shen Zhixian was still thinking, “This couldn’t be Duan Yuan’s brother, could it?”, the young man turned around and saw them. His eyes lit up, and he quickly ran over. “Big Brother Sui! Big Brother Yan!”

The sound of his voice was very clear. Even though it was also similar to Duan Yuan’s voice, Shen Zhixian didn’t want to assume.

Shen Zhixian blinked awkwardly and asked cautiously, “You are…?”

Duan Yuan realized that he was looking at her strangely and stiffened. Her voice weakened. “Big Brother Sui, I am….Duan Yuan.”

Shen Zhixian breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled. “I thought I saw your brother.”

Duan Yuan quietly looked at him and said, “I thought that…here, wearing men’s clothing would be more convenient…”

“Oh. It is. You look good in these clothes.” Shen Zhixian nodded in understanding. Since Duan Yuan was separated from them, she was alone, and as she thought, it was indeed more convenient to pretend to be a man.

Hearing him praise her, Duan Yuan felt a little shy and said hesitantly, “Actually, I…”

She trailed off into a long pause. Shen Zhixian’s eyes suddenly focused on the spirit grass root in her hand. “What’s that?”

“Ah?” Duan Yuan was interrupted, and the little courage she’d mustered up dissipated immediately. She looked down at what Shen Zhixian was pointing at, thinking he was asking about the little fruits, but Shen Zhixuan was pointing at a small piece of gray something hanging on the root.

Duan Yuan carefully hooked out the thing, only to find that it turned out to be a small… fish skull?

She handed the fish skull to Shen Zhixian, wondering out loud, “Spirit grass in this soil can still grow fishbones?”

Shen Zhixian didn’t say anything. He carefully looked at the fish skull and wiped off the little bit of dirt that still clung to it. The appearance, the color, the texture, the fracture…

Shen Zhixian realized that it looked more and more familiar, and suddenly, realization flashed. He took out the fishbone skeleton that he’d picked up earlier, put the two pieces together and they melded together into a single unit—He was right!

When he raised his eyes to look at Yan Jin, there was a touch of contemplation in his eyes.

Duan Yuan didn’t understand so Shen Zhixuan held the complete fish skeleton in his hands and explained what had happened to him and Yan Jin. As Duan Yuan listened to his story, she looked increasingly more frightened.

Shen Zhixian said, “This place is very strange. Have you noticed anything wrong?”

Duan Yuan carefully pondered all the things that she’d seen during these past few days, and said, “No. The only major oddity here is there are very few monsters. I’ve only occasionally seen one or two, and they weren’t cruel. This secret realm was very friendly to us.”

She hesitated for a moment, and asked, “Do you want to leave? But this secret realm might not open again for a long time and we don’t know what’s here… Maybe we should take a few days and look around? If we discover anything wrong, we can still get out in time.”

Yan Jin had said that he would stay to find the scale for Shen Zhixian, and Duan Yuan also said that she wanted to stay and take a look. Alright, both protagonists had said so. He was just a small cannon fodder supporting role. It was still better to follow the big and small protagonists.

In the end, Shen Zhixian also didn’t want to give up on this secret realm, since it seemed more likely that the scale would be here. He nodded.

This secret realm was indeed what Duan Yuan said. The biggest abnormality was that there were too many good things and too few dangers.

The three traveled together for a few days. They found a lot of spirit grass, spirit fruits, and spirit jades, and they also had to drive away several monsters. But, there were no big dangers.

In his spare time, Shen Zhixian often rubbed the fish bones as he pondered. After pondering and pondering, he suddenly found that some fine cracks had unexpectedly appeared on the originally smooth and round bone surface.

It seemed to be cracking.

Shen Zhixian’s eyes narrowed slightly. Noticing that there was a pond just a short distance away, he pulled Yan Jin’s sleeve. “Let’s go and get some water there.”

Duan Yuan was obsessed with digging pits to look for spiritual fruits. Feeling cheerful, she looked up when she heard Shen Zhixian’s words. Her gaze swung over to the pond nearby and she lowered her head again. As she continued to dig, she said, “You go. I’ll wait for you here.”

Shen Zhixian said “mmn”, thinking that it was just a few steps anyway.

The two walked to the pond, and Shen Zhixian pulled the fishbone skeleton out again to take a look. The cracks were becoming more and more obvious.

He took a leaf and tried to provide two drops of water onto the fishbone. The fishbone seemed to be conscious and immediately absorbed the drops of water. But the cracks remained visible to the naked eye.

Still useful?

Shen Zhixian raised an eyebrow. This time he simply pinched the tail of the fish and immersed the upper half of the fishbone skeleton in the water. He was not afraid that the fish head would fall off. In fact, the day when the fish head and the fish body spliced together, they were completely merged together. There weren’t even any broken marks, as if they’d always been in one piece.

After submerging the upper half in water, he immediately tried to pull it back out. But something unexpected happened. The fishbone suddenly became very hot, so hot that Shen Zhixian couldn’t hold on to it and dropped it into the water by accident.

Within a split second, the pond’s clear and magnificent bottom rose up and, with it, came the sound of crashing waves. A strong gale swept over, tossing the pond’s originally calm surface into turbulence. The water surged, quickly turning into large, rolling waves.

A very high and violent wave rose up from the pond and rushed over them.

Yan Jin responded very quickly and immediately took Shen Zhixian into his arms to protect him, using spiritual forces to set up a barrier to block the tide.

There was a bang, followed by deep silence. Shen Zhixian quietly poked his head out of Yan Jin’s arms and looked around, finding that they seemed to have been instantly transported into an underwater realm.

There were corals, swimming fishes, large shells, seaweeds, turtles, and small shrimps.

A small crab found them, quietly crawled over to take a closer look at them, then poked Yan Jin’s barrier with his small claws. The crab was immediately bounced back by the barrier, causing it to turn over on its back. Eight legs kicked and struggled for a long time before it managed to successfully flip over.

Then it fluttered its small eyes angrily, glared at them, and quickly crawled away.

Shen Zhixian and Yan Jin looked at each other, their eyes displaying a strange look.

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