Chapter 329: Zhu Erniang's Neighbors

As expected of a Puppet Master, the experimental process was filled with strangeness and distortion. He Lingchuan quietly turned his head away.

Once fully engrossed in his work, the Puppet Master seemed to pay little attention to his own circumstances. The five spider-demons lasted only three days before Dong Rui made a request to the guards: "The next batch!"

Fifteen days passed in the blink of an eye. He Lingchuan either assisted Dong Rui or answered the Spider Queen's summons to chat with her. This giant demon had lived in the Demon Nest Swamp for a century, only leaving twice in that time, yet she seemed to know a great deal about the outside world. This suggested she had channels for external communication.

He Lingchuan had envisioned countless times how he might deliver a 'gentle' blow when the giant demon wasn't paying attention. However, no plan seemed foolproof. Zhu Erniang's twelve eyes were distributed on either side of her head, giving her a virtually 360-degree field of vision with no blind spots. Furthermore, an ancient great demon like her would project spiritual awareness even when sleeping, making it extremely difficult for He Lingchuan to launch a sneak attack. Spiders have no eyelids; if she remained still, who could tell if she was asleep or awake? What's more, this type of demon possessed many incredible abilities. He Lingchuan had even seen her pluck out her own eye, only for the eyeball to grow legs upon hitting the ground and transform into a small spider. He didn't know where this creature's vital points were. Not to mention, Zhu Erniang also commanded a legion of spider-demons. While their numbers were far fewer than a century ago, He Lingchuan alone certainly couldn't handle them. She had even dealt with General Nanke; incapacitating both He Lingchuan and Dong Rui would be a trivial matter for her.

He Lingchuan also secretly took out his Kite Coin several times, only to find that the attached *yuanli* was barely perceptible, so weak as to be negligible. Simply put, the source of *yuanli* was "united will." Now that he was far from his homeland, with no soldiers by his side and only an empty token in hand, how could there be *yuanli* without a "united will"? Without *yuanli*, he would have to rely entirely on his own strength. He had even less confidence in facing Zhu Erniang.

These past few days, when He Lingchuan had nothing else to do, he would wander around the swamp, partly to familiarize himself with the terrain as quickly as possible, and partly to find opportunities and devise a plan. The Demon Nest Swamp was so vast that he hadn't fully explored it after several days. The giant spider also allowed him to roam freely, seemingly unconcerned that he might try to escape.

He Lingchuan simply asked her directly, and Zhu Erniang burst out laughing: "There's a mirage fog surrounding the Demon Nest Swamp. You can't get out, so what do I have to worry about?" She chuckled, "Your paltry amount of *yuanli* is not enough to break through the mirage fog." Although she hadn't personally seen He Lingchuan's Imperial Seal, her spiritual perception was astonishing. Besides, He Lingchuan hadn't hidden his family background; she knew he was the son of the Governor of Xiazhou in Yuan Kingdom, and thus held some nominal military rank. "Where did this mirage fog come from?" Well, the difficulty of escaping had just increased further. Even if he could deal with Zhu Erniang, how would he escape the surrounding mirage fog?

"Eighty years ago, a mirage demon moved to the Demon Nest Swamp," she explained. "To gain our permission to reside here, it laid down the mirage fog around the swamp's periphery to prevent human intrusion. Since then, the swamp has been much quieter." The Demon Nest Swamp was rich in resources, and humans often entered to gather materials or even secretly hunt Zhu Erniang's offspring. Cave spiders, for instance, could provide several medicinal ingredients. After the mirage fog spread, almost no one could enter except for armies endowed with *yuanli*.

Although the giant spider couldn't blink, her words implied, "I know you want to escape." He Lingchuan rubbed the back of his head, "What does 'we' mean? Are there other demons in the swamp?" Zhu Erniang's voice immediately turned cold: "Who doesn't have annoying neighbors? If you run off into someone else's territory and get eaten, don't blame me for not saving you." With that, she walked away on her eight long legs.

That day, He Lingchuan walked east and saw a massive stone abruptly standing in a small gully. It was over ten feet tall, flat like a monument, covered with a thick layer of spider silk that shimmered under the sunlight. He recognized at a glance that it was produced by Zhu Erniang. Curious, he walked closer and discovered that on the other side of the monument was a shed skin, with scale marks, each larger than his palm. Was it snake skin, or lizard skin? The original owner must have been quite large. He Lingchuan had a rough idea of what the huge stone was for. Suddenly, two long snakes, one green and one red, shot out from the grass, lunging at his ankles, jaws open to bite.

Snakes in the grass were nothing unusual; when He Lingchuan served as a patrolman, he was adept at "beating the grass to startle the snake" in the wilderness. He instinctively took two steps back, his hand already on the hilt of his Fusheng Blade. With a flash of light, the two snakes were severed into four pieces. Although he had killed them with a single strike, he didn't go forward to examine them. Sure enough, the small snakes twisted into a knot on the ground, seemingly dead, but the moment He Lingchuan shifted his foot, they lunged again! Of course, they couldn't reach their target. At this moment, a spider guard rushed over from behind, shouting: "Stay away from the boundary stone!"

Indeed, Zhu Erniang's territory ended here; crossing the stone meant trespassing. He Lingchuan impaled the snake corpses on his blade tip and retreated back within the boundary: "Whose territory is on the other side?" "Lord Boshan," the spider-demon guard replied, seeing the snake corpses on his blade, "You killed the border guards." "Oh, is that a big deal?" It seemed Zhu Erniang's neighbor was a snake demon. He Lingchuan looked at the snake skin on the boundary stone. Hmm, it was also very large. The spider guard circled the boundary stone, found no other traces of snakes, and then asked He Lingchuan, "Do you want them?" "...You can have them." The spider guard dragged the snake corpses dozens of feet away, until the boundary stone was almost out of sight, before sinking its fangs into them. At this point, the green snake wasn't completely dead yet but was unable to resist. He Lingchuan: "..." So, they were just going to eat them? "You can just eat the other side's guards?" The spider-demon patiently waited for the snake meat to dissolve into liquid from the venom, replying as if it were the most natural thing: "They often sneak over and steal our food too." He Lingchuan looked at the boundary stone, both amused and exasperated. So this was indeed just a territorial marker, and the subordinates from both sides would frequently come and go, often stealing from each other. It made sense; Zhu Erniang and Lord Boshan were both demons of this swamp. How strict could they be with their subordinates? As long as they weren't fighting all the time, they'd just overlook minor infractions.

"That one on the other side, Lord Boshan, how many years has he cultivated?" "Four or five hundred years." "That's nothing compared to your Ancestor," He Lingchuan said. "Why doesn't Zhu Erniang destroy him and take over his territory?" Just looking at how large Zhu Erniang's former nest in the Ghost Needle Stone Forest was, one could tell she believed in having many offspring and good fortune. The more offspring she had to raise, the larger her territory naturally needed to be. The spider guard replied blankly, "I don't know." Its duty was simply to guard the boundary stone; why would it need to know so much? He Lingchuan thought for a moment: "Do your two sides fight often?" "Yes, we do," the spider guard replied casually, its mind on the prey. "Lord Boshan gangs up with other demons to fight us. They just want to steal our things." So Zhu Erniang's 'neighbors' were indeed a troublesome bunch; no wonder she spoke of them with such disdain. It seemed this female spider wasn't very popular throughout the Demon Nest Swamp. "Are there other great demons in this swamp?" He only knew that a mirage demon also resided here. "Yes, there are about seven or eight others. The Demon Nest Swamp is very large." He Lingchuan was slightly surprised. Great demons, rarely seen elsewhere, were here in numbers of seven or eight? Why were they all crowded into this one swamp? He knew very well that the more capable a person was, the worse their temper, and this was even more true for demons. "What do they want to steal?" "They steal everything!" The spider guard sounded a bit angry when this topic came up. "They even steal our webs, and they want to take back the Demon Nest!" "'Take back'?" He Lingchuan asked, surprised. "Was the Demon Nest originally Lord Boshan's?" "Yes, that's right. Our Ancestor came here and drove him out." So Zhu Erniang was the invading bandit after all. He Lingchuan scratched his head. No wonder she was so resented by the native demons.

Two more days passed. As He Lingchuan watched the spiders harvest their net traps from the water near the ruins of the Gana tribe, he surprisingly found two large snakes in one of the cages, each with a swollen belly from eating. Each snake was as thick as his thigh and nearly two *zhang* long. After being visited by these two gluttons, only two pitifully thin small fish remained in the cage. The enraged spiders furiously sprayed silk. One large snake was entangled and immobilized, while the other, swift as greased lightning, slipped away and vanished into the water, swimming into the distance. Most spiders couldn't dive, so they merely hissed in frustration from the shore.

He Lingchuan's eyes darted; a sleeve arrow shot out, accurately striking the snake's head, dragging it back with force. He didn't need to exert himself for the rest; the spiders pounced, vigorously jabbing both snakes. The snakes were not small, but they couldn't withstand the spiders' potent venom and were soon paralyzed. The spiders happily began sucking the congealed flesh; clearly, snake meat was far more delicious than fish. Because He Lingchuan had helped, when he approached now, they no longer showed aversion.

However, this time, killing snakes was not without consequences, unlike the incident at the boundary. Just about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, before the spiders had finished their snake meat feast, He Lingchuan noticed an uncanny silence in the jungle. Not a single bird chirped or insect hummed. The ten-foot-tall reeds opposite suddenly rustled, moving closer from a distance, as something glided through the water beneath them, swimming closer. The spiders suddenly abandoned the food they were eating and retreated en masse. The larger spider guards stepped forward, spraying layer after layer of white web onto the ground. They stood ready for battle.

In this situation, He Lingchuan naturally wouldn't stand still as a target. He quickly followed the smaller spiders to safer, higher ground, preparing to watch the 'dragon and tiger' fight unfold. However, at this moment, Zhu Erniang herself arrived from behind. She paused by the shore, her enormous body swelled another size, and then she moved across the water. He Lingchuan was impressed. A creature the size of a small mountain could also perform 'water-walking'? But it seemed she had just inflated her body with a large amount of air; floating was no problem. Then, Zhu Erniang also entered the reed thicket. Of course, she was too tall for the reeds to completely cover her. From He Lingchuan's vantage point, he could see her enter the reeds and then stop, as if confronting something. Suddenly, Zhu Erniang spread her eight legs, lifted her body, and appeared even larger overall, looking extremely formidable.