Lord Rat's heart skipped a beat, a sudden tightening in his chest. Cursing under his breath, he rushed forward to pick up the curled-up Jiu'er.
The boy felt light in his arms, almost weightless.
"Damn it..." Lord Rat cursed again.
"He was fine last night. Why did he fall back asleep as soon as dawn broke? Didn't the master slaughter all those bastards from Sukhavati?"
He urgently sent his fiendish energy into Jiu'er's body.
The energy circulated once, but he found no traces of plague or curses, nor any signs of dream erosion.
Aside from extreme weakness, Jiu'er's body showed no other ailments.
However, his internal organs, his meridians, and his bones were all aging rapidly.
This wasn't a disease at all.
Sensing something was wrong, Jiu'er slowly woke up.
The eyes that had been so bright in Lord Rat's dreams were now murky and dim, blurrily reflecting Lord Rat's anxious face.
"Uh..."
Jiu'er was startled by the mask right in front of him, but he soon recognized Lord Rat and let out a sigh of relief.
"Lord Rat..." Jiu'er said hoarsely. "Did you finish your revenge?"
Lord Rat ground his teeth and grunted, "I did. That plague-eating piece of trash was turned into a puddle of corpse water by yours truly. Not even a speck remains."
He then glared at Jiu'er and muttered, "What the hell is wrong with you? I told you to stay with the bald guy at Heart's Desire Hall and not to run around. Are you deaf? Did you not hear me?"
He was furious, yet even he couldn't distinguish the reason for his anger.
A childish smile slowly spread across Jiu'er's aged face.
"Cough, cough... Then... did I help you?"
Lord Rat's voice tightened as details of the previous battle flashed through his mind.
The way he had repeatedly dodged fatal blows, the lethal attacks that had inexplicably veered off at the last moment, and those bright eyes in his dream...
His crimson eyes stared fixedly at Jiu'er. "So, was it some trick of yours?"
Jiu'er nodded, looking a bit sheepish. He grinned, revealing a few loose teeth.
He lowered his voice and whispered, "Lord Rat, I'll tell you a secret.
'I seem to have always been very lucky.
'I can also lend my luck to others, though it requires a small price.'"
"A price?" Lord Rat's brow furrowed into a knot. He couldn't help but curse again. "You call this a 'small price'?"
"I didn't know it would be so serious this time." Jiu'er felt a bit wronged.
His small face wrinkled. "Before, when I lent luck to Erya and the others so they could beg for half a steamed bun, I'd only be hungry for a day at most.
'This time, Lord Rat must have been in a very, very dangerous situation, right?'"
Jiu'er ended up comforting Lord Rat instead. "Still, the result isn't bad.
'At least I have a bit of life left; I didn't die on the spot.
'Besides, you got your revenge and became stronger. That's a good thing.'"
"..."
Lord Rat fell silent.
But hearing that the price was only lifespan, the tension in his heart relaxed slightly.
That was manageable.
"Fine."
Lord Rat roughly interrupted Jiu'er's chatter.
He hoisted Jiu'er onto his back and secured him with strips of tattered cloth.
"Don't sleep on the streets here. I'm taking you back to the City of the Wrongfully Dead."
Jiu'er was stunned for a moment. "The City of the Wrongfully Dead?
'Isn't that the holy city where the Bone God lives?'"
He had heard Ku Chan say that it was a holy city built by the Bone God himself, a celestial realm unreachable by mortals.
He was just a mortal beggar without even a spiritual root, and now his lifespan was nearly exhausted; he didn't even have the strength to sweep the floors...
"Shut up!"
Lord Rat saw his nervous expression and, in a rare moment of gentleness, managed to squeeze out a word of comfort: "Don't overthink it.
'You're only seventy or eighty years old. You're still a child.'"
Jiu'er: "..."
He was so choked by those words that he didn't know how to respond.
Lord Rat said no more. With Jiu'er on his back, his figure blurred, merging into the shadows beneath his feet as he sped toward the City of the Wrongfully Dead.
Traveling through the shadows, the surrounding scenery retreated at high speed.
Lying on Lord Rat's back, Jiu'er felt drowsy again, likely because the brief burst of energy from earlier was fading.
Lord Rat could feel the weak breathing on his back. Fearing the boy would fall asleep and never wake up, he had to keep talking.
"Kid."
"Yes, Lord Rat..."
"I'm really curious," Lord Rat's voice sounded distorted in the shadows. "I only gave you half a roasted duck back then. Was it worth risking your life for me?"
He couldn't understand it.
Lord Rat was a fiend. Among the fiends of Tianchi Province, there was only the fate of devouring or being devoured. Where was the room for human sentiment?
Trading a life for half a roasted duck?
People would laugh if they heard it.
Jiu'er's voice was very soft as he lay on Lord Rat's back. "A single meal's kindness is a great favor."
"..."
Lord Rat's eyes flickered, but he remained silent.
He thought of himself.
He remembered when he was first summoned, still wary of this world, and how the master had casually stuffed a piece of jerky into his mouth.
He remembered sharing the salt and pepper crispy snake ribs with Shitou and Hong Ling after returning from Fengdao County.
He remembered the roasted duck Widow Li always set aside for him in the City of the Wrongfully Dead's canteen.
Without realizing it, those with whom he had shared food had become comrades to whom he could trust his back.
A hundred flavors carry the weight of human bonds; sharing stories while enjoying peaceful years.
Lord Rat was suddenly struck by an epiphany.
He had thought he followed the master because of the unbreakable contract of the General-Summoning Platform.
But at some point, these mundane foods had already planted a seed called "belonging" in his heart.
Within the small space of a dining table lay the most magnificent essence of the mortal world.
For those who had nothing, the kindness of a full meal was worth more than a thousand pieces of gold... or even more than life itself.
"Yeah."
Lord Rat agreed in a low voice, audible only to himself.
"A single meal's kindness is a great favor."
...
City of the Wrongfully Dead, Bone Altar.
Chen Zhou had his consciousness submerged in the Living Dead Secret Realm. After this period of exploration, the outlines of this secret realm had been basically mapped out.
Its size was roughly equivalent to a province from his previous life.
The ordinary zombies within the secret realm held little value for him now. Since he had the Flesh-and-Blood Pasture and the Soul-Draining Well, the materials these low-level zombies provided were no longer worth his attention.
On the other hand, the elders of the Corpse Soul Sect were quite interested in these zombies. Chen Zhou had casually ordered the skeletons to capture a batch for them to play with.
The elders treated them like treasures and were delighted, spending every day in seclusion to research new ways of refining corpses.
The only disappointment was that the exploration of the secret realm had been stuck at 20% with no further progress.
Since he had slain a swarm of mutant insects in the park last time, not a single one had appeared in the secret realm for many days.
Chen Zhou could only sigh. "If the opportunity hasn't arrived, there's no point in forcing it."
Just then, he sensed Lord Rat's aura rapidly approaching.
"Master!"
Lord Rat's figure rolled out of the shadows and knelt on one knee.
Chen Zhou looked at Lord Rat and nodded slightly.
Lord Rat's aura was solid; he had successfully advanced to the first transformation of eerification.
It seemed the little rat had indeed found his own opportunity in Lantao City.
"Master, could you grant me some of that stuff you gave to Lu Cheng during the last God's Grace Festival?"
Only then did Chen Zhou notice the person Lord Rat was carrying on his back.
Wrapped in cloth, the figure was as small and withered as a seven- or eight-year-old child.
Yet, the skin and hair peeking out from the fabric clearly belonged to an old man on the verge of death.
Rate on N.U.
