Chapter 15: Choosing Woods

The boy faints again, unsure if it’s from pain or anger. Yan Jin Chang finishes treating his wounds, then reaches out to check for breath at the boy’s nose, confirms that he is still alive. He then stops paying attention to him.

The previous actions have consumed a lot of Yan Jin Chang’s spiritual power. He sits cross-legged and takes out a piece of Yin Yu Grass from his qiankun bag, stuffing it into his mouth.

The fresh aroma spreads across his mouth again. Unlike the first time, the second time he can feel much more natural energy and he can absorb more spiritual energy into his body, merging it within his dantian. This state of meditation lasts for an entire night. 

Morning, light shines through the gaps in the leaves, casting specks of light and dappled shadows across his face. This is the unique, cool sunlight of the morning.

Yan Jin Chang slowly opens his eyes, feeling extraordinarily refreshed. The impurities in his body have been expelled during his meditation, making him feel even lighter.

He performs a cleansing spell to eliminate the remaining impurities and then glances at the boy next to him. The injured boy is currently hugging the tree trunk and sleeping soundly.

He takes out the piece of ebony wood from his sleeve, touches it gently with his fingers a few times before pulling out a small knife and begin to carve. The ebony wood is smooth and suitable for making the moving joints of a puppet.

In his previous life, Yan Jin Chang crafted countless puppets. It’s like he already has the blueprints in his mind, and he can measure the wood with his own eyes.

He doesn’t need specialized tools to gauge the size, easily carving out several puppet joints. Of course, relying solely on these won’t allow him to make a puppet. He also needs to select woods in the forest.

The quality of wood in this forest isn’t very good. And he initially doesn’t plan to make puppets here. However, what happened yesterday makes him realize that even if the wood quality is poor, he still needs a puppet at this moment.

Without one on hand, if unexpected danger arises, he will find it hard to even escape in his current state.

[Ding! Detected protagonist… Yan Jin Chang… nearby… Please proceed to the coordinates immediately… Obtain trust point, when the trust point reaches 10 points, you can obtain… special items… as rewards.]

While Yan Jin Chang wanders through the forest, selecting suitable woods for puppet-making, the black fragment in his pocket suddenly emits a white light! At the same time, he also hears a series of broken sounds.

A map quickly appears within the light. He hasn’t closely examined this before. Now upon looking again, he sees two markers: One is a flashing red, and the other is green.

It is obvious that the green marker is moving towards the location of the red marker. He tries to move a bit and then stands still, only to see that the flashing red dot on the map also moves and stops. 

Now, there’s no way Yan Jin Chang doesn’t understand this. The red marker on the map represents his position, while the green marker indicates the position of another person.

As the green marker gets closer, he instinctively runs a few steps in the opposite direction. But he quickly realizes that continuing this way will only lead to a chase. 

He swiftly wraps a white cloth around his face, runs a circle in the forest, and heads towards the village. There are many people in the village, making it easier to confuse and mislead.

Now that he has drawn energy into his body and expelled a significant amount of impurities, he feels very light. His speed has also increased significantly, allowing him to quickly create distance from the green marker on the map.

Upon entering the village, Yan Jin Chang jumps onto a rooftop, just like he did yesterday. At that moment, a few people pass below, complaining endlessly.

“That ugly creature is really a bad omen! Yesterday my husband fell from a tree and got injured all over. I have to go to the mountains to find medicine.”

“I think he did it on purpose, placing so many stones under the tree. My husband hurt his leg, and I don’t know when it will heal. It’s so infuriating.”

“I heard the Wang family’s kid was vomiting and having diarrhea last night. He didn’t stop all night. This morning, I passed by his house and could still hear the curses.”

“Old Wang seems to have gone to look for that ugly creature too, but he couldn’t find him. I really don’t know where that ugly creature has hidden.”

“Anything associated with him surely won’t end well. Last night, there was almost a fire. Fortunately, those nobles were still around and extinguished it in time…”

Watching the group of people curse as they walk away, Yan Jin Chang jumps over from the house and makes his way to the place where the village children love to play.

If what the black fragment said is true, then the person chasing him wants to obtain something through his “trust”.

Previously, he saw that person, who clearly knew he was a child. That’s why he mistook Da Lu, who was present at the time, for him. 

So, as long as he hides near these children now, he should be able to create some confusion. If this tactic doesn’t work, he can always negotiate with that person later on.

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Chapter 16: The Cottage

At this moment, the children are playing beside a ruined house. Since Yan Jin Chang could remember, this cottage had been uninhabited. It was filled with clutter, dust, and cobwebs, and various insects crawling everywhere.

The adults didn’t allow the children to play here, saying there were “unclean things” inside. However, there were still some disobedient children. When the adults went to work in the fields, they sneaked over.

Of course, they were also scared, so they generally didn’t come alone. Instead, they called their friends, coming in groups to compare courage. Most importantly, if they were caught by the adults, at least they had company in their punishment.

Yan Jin Chang used to curl up inside this cottage to sleep. To others, it looked shabby and old, prone to collapse at any moment. But for him, it served as a good shelter for the night.

Later, as the children came here more, their courage grew. They even encouraged each other to push open the door and enter. At that time, Yan Jin Chang was suffering from a cold due to rain leaking into the cottage, feeling groggy and disoriented.

As the children came in to “adventure”, he was feeling unwell, couldn’t escape in time and got caught. He was then being forced to play games that felt entirely unfair to him.

Yan Jin Chang still remembers that at that time, due to his illness, he felt weak and unable to run or even escape. All he could hear were the crisp sounds of laughter and clapping, like an unshakeable nightmare.

The children had so much fun that they forgot to go home on time. So their parents needed to search for them, and upon discovering they were playing here, they got so furious that they came over with whips.

The children didn’t dare say who was the first to suggest coming to this place, so all the blame fell on Yan Jin Chang.

Later, when the villagers mentioned this incident, they all said that Yan Jin Chang led the children to this “unclean” place.

Since then, he rarely comes here anymore and instead, he chooses to stay in the trees. Only when it’s windy or rainy at night does he reluctantly come to the cottage to hide for a while, then leave as soon as the rain stops.

He stops coming, but those children still frequently sneak over to play. Treating this place as a shared secret that no one can tell. Right now, the children are throwing stones, competing to see who can knock the wobbly window frame off the cottage first.

Yan Jin Chang finds a hidden spot to hide himself, he then looks at the map displayed on the screen. He sees that the green dot is getting closer to the red dot, which has already stopped moving in place.

Before long, he spots a person in brown cloth running over from a distance. However, unlike before, this person appears to be quite haggard, with stubble and dirt on his face and body.

As the man in brown cloth jogs closer, he looks down at the black bracelet on his wrist. Yan Jin Chang’s eyesight is better than before, so from his angle, he can see the words appearing on the bracelet. [Arrived near the target, navigation complete.]

Yan Jin Chang looks at the content displayed on the black fragment he holds. It turns out to be exactly the same as what appears on the man’s bracelet!

However, this one of his is just a fragment, not a bracelet. Even the displayed content on the fragment is slightly blurry. The voice coming from the it is also broken and unclear.

“So, what exactly is this?”

He doesn’t have time to think more because that person in brown cloth is already walking this way, addressing the children who are still throwing stones: “Hey! Who among you is Yan Jin Chang?”

Upon hearing the voice, the children stop their activities. They Look at the man in confusion, glancing at each other: “Who is he calling?”

“Yan what?”

The man in brown cloth forces a smile, pulling out a small sugar cube wrapped in paper from his sleeve, “Who can tell me who among you is Yan Jin Chang? I’ll give the candy to him as reward, I just bought it from the town, it’s really tasty.”

Yan Jin Chang: “……”

Sure enough, the next moment, except for a few more cautious children, the rest of the children throw down their stones. They rush towards the man, eager to speak: “I know!”

“I know too!”

“I was the first to know!”

The man quickly responds: “Who is it? You all say it first, and then I’ll give you the candy.”

“It’s him!” One child hesitates briefly before pointing at a chubby boy.

“Yes, yes! It’s him!” The other children quickly follow.