護花近衛 - 第3672章 靈獸長老 - 翰墨軒

But before any of that, the most pressing business at hand was obviously to pocket the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass that lay within arm's reach.

Honestly, after the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle's ferocious gale of flying sand and shattered stone, the fact that the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass still sat here intact left Wei Zhao genuinely astonished—and profoundly grateful. Had the grass been torn away along with the rock just now, he truly would have had nowhere left to weep.

With one hand gripping the trunk to steady himself and the other moving deftly, Wei Zhao stowed every last stalk of the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass in his storage pouch. What remained, then, was the task of getting back down to the ground.

The vine rope had been snapped by the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle, but that hardly stopped Wei Zhao from climbing up. Once driven to desperation, humans as a species will do just about anything—and Wei Zhao was, after all, a cultivator of the early Foundation Establishment stage.

The cliff face was steep—no matter. The cliff face was smooth—likewise no matter.

Channeling what true qi remained in his body, he drove his fist into the precipice and smashed out a deep crater, and just like that Wei Zhao found himself an easy foothold. One step up, one punch; another step up, another punch. Leaving behind a trail of terrifying fist-sized pits, Wei Zhao climbed back to the surface just that simply.

Once inside the jade pendant's space, healing his wounds and recovering his true qi all the while, Wei Zhao said to Ghost Thing, "Senior Ghost, will you tell me now?"

Ghost Thing answered with a question of his own. "You've surely speculated about this old man's origins, haven't you, boy? Let's hear it first."

Wei Zhao was briefly taken aback, then replied, "By my guess, Senior Ghost, you must be a native of Cloud Terrace Island—and a personage of no small consequence at that. I wonder whether that guess holds up?"

Ghost Thing smiled noncommittally. "Half right, half wrong. This old man was indeed born here on Cloud Terrace Island—that much is true. But when did I ever say I was human?"

"Huh?" Wei Zhao was struck dumb. After a long dazed pause, he finally managed, eyes wide, "You—you were never human to begin with?"

"Look at me in my present state, boy—what about me looks human?" Ghost Thing said with a faint laugh.

"Well, true enough—but aren't you in a primordial spirit state? It's only natural you wouldn't look like a human being." Wei Zhao pursed his lips, speechless.

The first time he met Ghost Thing, he truly had not taken him for a man, but for a ghost. Yet even a ghost—he had assumed, on first instinct—was a ghost born of a dead human. How was he to imagine that this thing had not been human even in life?

"Then your true form must be a spirit beast?" Wei Zhao asked cautiously. Since the other was not human, he must be a spirit beast; other than that, Wei Zhao had never heard of any creature whose intelligence could match a human's.

"Quite so. This old man is indeed of the spirit beast clan. But as for what my true form is, don't go prying, boy—when the time comes for you to know, you will know." Ghost Thing paused, then shifted course. "You've been at the Welcome Pavilion a good while now. You must have heard people speak of the spirit beast clan?"

So it really was a spirit beast! Wei Zhao suddenly recalled that back in the mortal world, the puppet clone Little One that Ghost Thing had released could not activate martial techniques. At the time Ghost Thing said Little One's constitution was unsuited to it, and Wei Zhao had found that rather strange. But now that he thought about it—Ghost Thing was a spirit beast, like the Wind-Thunder Violet Lightning Beast of old; perhaps he excelled in lightning arts or in broad, sweeping external martial techniques. A mere puppet like Little One could never have pulled that off!