Chapter 34: The Vampiric Vine Blooms!
Translator: AstralGhost Editor: Kurisu
“Although my strength can be considered as being pretty good right now, it’s still useless if there aren’t any good methods to make the most of this strength…hopefully, I will get a Martial Technique the next time,” Bei Feng muttered to himself.
A person’s cultivation was their foundation, but a Martial Technique was like an insurance, removing any external factors which might hinder the cultivator from moving forward.
“Boss!” Bai Xiang called out jovially in a greeting as he saw Bei Feng.
“Oh, Bai Xiang, go and bring a tub of pig’s blood back from the village first. I will start cooking right away,” Bei Feng instructed.
“Ok!”
Bai Xiang’s eyes lit up at the mention of food. He carried the empty tub and tore out of the mansion like a fierce tornado.
Bei Feng looked at the departing figure of Bai Xiang and shook his head as he laughed helplessly. That massive body of his was definitely built on a solid foundation of mountains of rice.
***
“Ol’ Black, the boss wants you to take care of a certain individual.”
A skinny man stepped into Wei Hui’s office and said to the savage-looking man seated inside.
“No problem. Heh, I like such tasks the most…” a perverse smile appeared on the savage-looking man’s face as he ran his tongue over his thick lips.
“It’ll be a bit more troublesome this time. Boss wants you to make it look like an accident. Furthermore, you can’t do it in his home. Here, this is the information on the target,” the skinny man said blandly as he pulled out a stack of documents and put it on the desk.
“Got it. Tsk, this is so troublesome. It’s so much better if we can just knife the kid straight up,” Ol’ Black grumbled in dissatisfaction as he glanced at Bei Feng’s picture.
“These are the Boss’s orders,” the skinny man repeated in a heavy tone.
“Alright, alright… we’ll definitely do it cleanly and properly. Now, f*ck off,” Ol’ Black snapped in annoyance.
‘F*cking lunatic. Just wait, I’ll sooner or later kill this dumb*ss with my own hands!’
The skinny man cursed in his heart as he turned around and left.
***
When Bai Xiang returned carrying the tub of fresh pig’s blood, Bei Feng was already done with preparing the meal. The pair promptly sat down and swept through the dishes like a fierce hurricane. In no time, the amount of food enough to fill the stomachs of seven, eight people had been wolfed down by those two alone.
Along with the gradual strengthening of his body, Bei Feng’s appetite was growing bigger everyday. Although it wasn’t an obvious increase, the amount of food he could eat in one meal had noticeably improved.
“Strange, the chirping of the cicadas are getting softer these days.” Bei Feng thought aloud in wonder as he carried the tub of fresh blood and set it down beside the Vampiric Vine.
Usually, the sound of cicadas chirping was the loudest at this time of the day, almost to the point of being deafening. This caused Bei Feng to feel incomparably annoyed most of the time. However, he felt a little unused to the quiet now that the noise was gone. In fact, he found that he actually missed the noisy little fellows to a certain degree! [1]
That aside, the Vampiric Vine was growing at a healthy rate. Its stem was already roughly the thickness of a grown man’s arm, and it had reached a height of over two meters.
However, Bei Feng was unable to feel any joy in the face of such progress. How much longer did this Vampiric Vine need before flower buds appeared on it?!
“Eh?”
Bei Feng turned his head as he saw a blur flying through the air. It was actually a cicada. As it neared, the cicada slowly landed on the Vampiric Vine’s branch and looked around with a stupid look on its face. As though a much higher-quality food had been presented to it, the Vampiric Vine immediately ignored the tub of pig’s blood as countless hollow root hairs rose into the air and surrounded the cicada! [2]
In the blink of an eye, the cicada had been bound by the root hairs and, like a mummy, it was quickly pulled underground toward the main root.
‘Don’t tell me… the Vampiric Vine actually likes the taste of cicadas the most?’
Bei Feng stared blankly at the Vampiric Vine. The cicada population had indeed diminished significantly in the recent period of time. Most likely, they had all been caught by the Vampiric Vine!
Bei Feng thought seriously for a moment. Finally, he decided to use cicadas as the Vampiric Vine’s staple food. Perhaps it might be possible to accelerate the speed at which the Vampiric Vine produced flowers if it had a large supply of cicadas?
The main issue he needed to figure out now was whether the Vampiric Vine merely enjoyed the taste of cicadas, or if there were some nutritious qualities within cicadas that might help it grow faster.
“But… this investment is a little big…” Bei Feng rubbed his chin and murmured.
Cicadas could indeed be found for sale, but usually only in their pupae form. People rarely traded in adult form cicadas since they don’t taste as good. Even so, the pricetag for pupae cicadas was a little frightening.
Bei Feng had actually arrived at a conjecture long ago. The Blood Origin Fruit could not possibly have such strong medicinal essence for no good reason. It must have been the result of a long period of accumulation. He just didn’t know how long that was!
Even though he knew that it might take an extremely long time for it to bear fruit, Bei Feng still wanted to try to raise the Vampiric Vine. The appearance of even a single Blood Origin Fruit would make all his investments thus far and even those in the future completely worth it!
The current season was actually the time when cicadas were the most abundant. Farmers would often wrap some duct tape sticky side out around the lower trunk of their fruit trees and, in just a few hours, there would be many golden cicada pupae caught on the duct tape.
Still, the selling price was not low at all. On average, these cicada pupae were sold for a dollar each!
Bei Feng considered his options for a moment. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
“Is this kid some bloody stay-at-home nerd? How come he doesn’t come out all day?!” Ol’ Black cursed aloud. There was no chance for him to do anything until Bei Feng left the mansion!
As for the person in question, Bei Feng himself was naturally unaware of the dangerous man lying in wait for him outside. As soon as the idea crossed his mind, he grabbed his wallet and left.
After entrusting Bai Xiang with the mansion, he soon boarded a bus to the county.
Golden cicadas were not available for sale in the village. All of the golden cicadas harvested in the village were usually sold in bulk to the merchants, and then to the restaurants and hotels.
Bei Feng was only intending to try his luck and see if he could find some leftover, unsold cicadas.
‘He’s out!’
Ol’ Black’s eyes lit up in excitement when he saw Bei Feng finally leaving the mansion. Licking his lips in delight, he quickened his steps and hurried to catch up.
Bei Feng walked towards the farm produce market as soon as he got off the bus.
Ol’ Black followed stealthily behind, keeping to the shadows and not making even a single sound.
After walking around for half a day, Bei Feng finally found a store which still had golden cicadas in stock. However, the price was a staggering 2 dollars each!
It was with much effort that Bei Feng managed to bargain the price down to 1.40 each! The only reason he got the discount was because he was buying in bulk.
Bei Feng directly purchased a thousand cicadas. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was unsure whether the Vampiric Vine could digest this many, he would have bought even more!
In that moment, Ol’ Black was hiding in the shadows, thinking of the best way to kill Bei Feng. ‘Should I just go up and stab the kid directly? No, I need to make it look like an accident… run him over with a car?’ Hmm, that seems doable,’ Ol’ Black smacked his lips as though he was savoring something delicious.
Sniggering darkly, he raised his head and looked up.
‘Wait, where did he go?!’
Ol’ Black was dumbfounded. He had merely looked away for a slight moment and Bei Feng was already nowhere in sight!
From this point alone, it was obvious that Ol’ Black was only a novice assassin. He probably did it only for extra income, and was far from being a professional. He was the type to use force to complete his missions, and seldom needed to sneak around like that. Due to his lack of skill, he had ended up losing his target.
While Ol’ Black was still panicking, Bei Feng had already returned to the old mansion, and was feeding the Vampiric Vine with the golden cicadas.
As soon as it discovered the cicadas, the Vampiric Vine looked like it had been injected with chicken blood as it waved its branches energetically in the air!
Countless root hairs danced eerily in the air, as though they were possessed by ghosts or demons.
The Vampiric Vine’s root hairs were literally elbowing their way through and pushing each other aside as they shot towards the golden cicadas madly. In a short moment, the golden cicadas were all wrapped tightly in a cocoon and pulled underground!
Immediately thereafter, to Bei Feng’s amazement, the Vampiric Vine grew visibly in size at a rapid pace! In the blink of an eye, its trunk had almost reached the thickness of a regular person’s thigh and some of the branches had also become as thick as a person’s arm!
Its height remained relatively unchanged, but the most amazing thing was that atop its main branch, a beautiful and devilish blood-red flower had bloomed!
Its petals were dazzlingly resplendent and as red as fresh blood. It was so elegant and delicate, it almost looked like it had been sculpted from top quality jadeite! A light and refreshing smell emanated from the flower, rousing the spirits of any who smelt it.
“YES! Jackpot! The golden cicadas do have an irresistible allure for the Vampiric Vine! They can also shorten the time required for it to produce a flower and even reach full bloom!
Bei Feng was elated. The Vampiric Vine had grown so much in just a short time… if he had enough golden cicadas, wouldn’t he be able to easily get some Blood Origin Fruits?
Calming his heart, Bei Feng walked away from the Vampiric Vine and began his daily practice of the Minor Illumination Breathing Technique’s movement sets. As his body became stronger, its flexibility increased as well. As such, the movement sets felt easier during every following practice.
Just like that, Bei Feng spent the entire day drenched in sweat as he practiced until nightfall.
By now, Ol’ Black had returned to pacing about outside Bei Feng’s old mansion. He seemed to be very conflicted about something.
‘Although I’m not allowed to take action within the mansion, if I can make it look like he died accidentally at home, it should be fine, right? Hmm… how do I make it look like an accident at home? Fire is out of the question, I can’t destroy Boss’s mansion. How about electricity? That’s it! Accidental electrocution!’
Ol’ Black’s eyes lit up in delight. Discarding his remaining hesitation, he climbed over the wall and flipped into the mansion like a shadow.
“Suo, suo!”
Sensing the arrival of a tasty prey, the Vampiric Vine shook slightly before it immediately resumed its quiet facade.
Ol’ Black had come prepared. At the very least, he knew which room Bei Feng was sleeping in. He made his way to the yard near Bei Feng’s room immediately after successfully infiltrating the mansion.
It was a cloudy night, and the moon was nowhere in sight. Even the cicadas had ceased their noisy performance.
“Such a night is truly perfect to shed some blood and reap some lives!”
Ol’ Black lifted his eyes and looked in melancholy at the moonless sky as he thought aloud.
[1] ED/N: Now we know why cicadas are the #1 choice for fishing bait. Also, Bei Feng, don’t try to fool us, we know why you’re missing them!
[2] ED/N: It’s official now: the hate of cicadas is contagious! We advise not approaching Bei Feng or Vampiric Vine without protective suits and masks!
