Chapter 99
Changes, Seen and Unseen
Lei Feng watched with a faint sneer on his lips as two men tumbled over the dirt-laden ground, grappling with bare fists while blood flew from both like rapids. There was a cheering audience abound in the surrounding seats, and there were seven women fanning him while three fed him, and extra two massaged him.
One of the men finally got the upper hand and managed to down the other, kneeing him in the jaw several times in a row before dealing the finishing blow to the temple. He stood up from his knees, breathing heavily, and raised his arms toward the sky as the world cheered. The corpse beneath him twitched a few times, the last vestiges of life leaving the skeletal form.
Surrounding him, though scurried in the corners, were the nominal leaders of the Lingshan Kingdom, the King and the Queen, the Crown Prince, the Chancellor, the Treasurer, even the Marshal as well as the Steward. All men and women who held the threads puppeteering the entire Kingdom were silently shaking in their boots.
Such was the fate of the weak, after all. All they could do was lord over those even weaker than them, but as soon as somebody stronger showed up, they bent their knees and pressed their lips against the dirt, servicing him with words and actions. And all he had to do was wave his finger around a few times, and he was no living like a true Immortal.
Instead of mindlessly draining himself in service of others, working tirelessly like a mutt just for the smallest of chances that he might be rewarded, there was something strikingly beautiful about being able to not care for anything.
However, he knew that this luxury wouldn't be eternal, nor did he want it to be. While it was nice, ultimately, this was merely a Kingdom--the strongest person in it, Marshal Hou, was merely at the peak of Avatar Realm. Back home, he would barely qualify as a servant, let alone as someone in a leading position. Because of that, the sort of things that the Kingdom could offer him were quite limited--though they had Spiritual Alcohol, it was the weakest sort, made of the dregs that the Sects didn't want to use, diluted with mostly ordinary water. There were no treasured fruits or herbs to speak of, and most all meals were simply of mortal animals rather than Demonic Beasts.
Even women, despite supposedly being 'the most beautiful in all the land', were hardly so; for Lei Feng, who'd truly seen what 'the most beautiful' meant when he caught glimpses of women like Fairy Zauxan, or Fairy Quixe, he barely held himself back from sewing their lips shut when they proclaimed these women the most beautiful.
It was all a fleeting, temporary pleasure in the end. He'd spent quite a lot of time in the Kingdom already, and though he wanted to fan the flames of civil conflict, he instead used the underlying currents to simply entrench himself as the crown jewel of the royal family. By now, though, he wished he hadn't; in some ways, he imagined he would have had far more fun simply watching the entire Kingdom devolve into chaos and decay.
He'd heard interesting rumors from the south recently, how one of the Tier IV Sects that had been a 'force to be reckoned with' (a saying he was certain needed to be a joke) underwent a catastrophic failure, with most of their strongest cultivators perishing. The strange part was that the neighboring Sect that they had practically been at war with for all of their existence publicly proclaimed protection, rather than being the head of the force meant to ransack the fallen Sect's treasury.
Of all the stories he heard, that one piqued his interest the most. Then again, it wasn't as though the Kingdom had a spectacular funnel for interesting things happening. Thus, he could only make plans to move southward--but not before kindling a tiny little fire on his way out.
**
Sun shone rather brilliantly, golden light streaking across the blanket of the azure sky. Beneath it, Leo stretched lazily and yawned, rubbing his eyes as he stepped onto the balcony. There was a yearning inside of him, that for coffee--despite having learned that he could just use Qi to easily dispel any drowsiness and such, he seldom did. There were parts of him, perhaps the naive ones, that feared letting go of certain aspects of humanity. Somehow, he feared that if he started relying on Qi for everything, he'd begin forgetting 'his ways'.
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He'd never mention this aloud, of course, as he would immediately die of embarrassment, but such were the thoughts of a nearly-forty-year-old. He wondered, too, at times, whether his mental age had reset somewhat upon coming to this world, as he oft caught himself thinking things that seemed too childish, even for him.
Nonetheless, he still yearned for a nice, steaming cup of coffee in the morning. Instead, he settled for fruit juice that he'd recently concocted--it was a bit more bitter than the rest, but it was still juice, though. He sat down on the chair of his own making, set the cup on the table he made, too, and looked over the streaming canopy of the trees (one thing he did not make). There was a gap above the longhouse that allowed him to stare directly into the sky, and, thankfully, he'd angled the place as such that the balcony was inside the shade early in the morning.
It was a perfect little ritual, where he'd empty his head of everything and simply let his body naturally wake up. Despite his stubbornness over keeping these unnecessary rituals, he started noticing the vast changes that his body had undergone far more. He'd never gotten sick, not once since coming here. No matter what he ate, he felt, his body would digest it just fine. Though there was that business of him having Poison Physique or such, that wasn't the end of it, either. Never getting truly exhausted, or bitten by insects, or even needing to do something so simple like peeing... bit by bit, he felt his humanity slipping in such little ways.
Even the things he considered annoying back on Earth, he was beginning to miss them.
Not all changes, though, came naturally... but they were morphing that way, it felt. In the beginning, his kindness stemmed largely from fear--it was the only weapon he had in an otherwise seemingly ruthless world. All he could do was help others and hope they would leave him be. Bit by bit, it became a selfish desire after a while--the only reason he helped was because it was diametrically opposed to who he was back on Earth. He forced himself to be that way, simply because it was different from how he used to be.
Now... he wasn't certain.
Many, many, many times he seldom felt like an almost middle-aged man; rather, it felt like he was given a new license on life, so he had to restart from an earlier point in it.
Chuckling at the strange thoughts, he stood up after finishing the juice and stretched once again. By now, beams of sunlight had nearly begun reaching the chair, signaling that it was time for him to prepare breakfast. Though he didn't know precisely what hour it was, he'd slowly moved the breakfast time incrementally toward what he felt was around at least 9 in the morning rather than at the crack of dawn.
There were already quite a few animals gathered around, though he knew many more would come soon enough.
"Mornin' everyone!" he greeted cheerfully, going around and petting those who let themselves be pet. "Hm? Is your fur shinier than usual? Ah, it's so soft, too! Woah, your scales are really pretty today! Eh?! This is your kid?! Oh my God, sooooo cute! That's it! We're holding a celebratory feast tonight! I'll give you guys some of my newest concoctions that I've been working at in secret, so make sure to spread the word, okay?!"
Hoots, wails, growls, purrs... whatever little ways these beautiful creatures had to communicate, they used them. It quickly turned into a song, a beautiful melody stirring the strings of his heart. This was the echo of his kindness, the mountains shouting back at him. He didn't know what the world was like beyond the border of these trees (or, at least, whether it was as rife with conflict as every bit of news that he got of it suggested), but the world within... was beautiful.
"Ha ha ha, stop, you guys! It tickles!" he was hounded all the way through making the breakfast, climbed, playfully bitten, jumped on, and all so by animals that would have rendered him catatonic just a few months ago. He's changed, both in ways he recognized and those he didn't.
More so than anything else in the world, however, for the first time in what felt like forever... he liked himself. Liked who he was. Liked that there were so many souls relying on him for at least little something.
"Okay, okay, here it is," the entire forest, it felt, descended upon his little abode. He selfishly wondered how the world beyond the trees would react if they were to bear witness to this scene. Would they find it funny? Weird? Horrifying? Or would they simply shrug their shoulders and look elsewhere, where the glitter and the shine of the treasures could be beheld?