Cultivation: Starting from a Fighting Cock

Chapter 51 The Blind Old Taoist
The Azure Flame Rabbit has been completely won over by the delicious food prepared by Ji Cheng.

After tasting the roast chicken and roast fish, it was like opening up a new world for me. Suddenly, the carrots and green vegetables that I used to love tasted bland.

At the same time, it felt strange. It hadn't seen Ji Cheng do anything; he had just roasted it with fire. Why was it so delicious?
It imitated Ji Cheng's movements and shot a blue flame at a chicken.

The imagined delicacy did not appear; the chicken was burned to ashes in the blink of an eye.

"Squeak!"

The Azure Flame Rabbit, fuming, tried again with another chicken, which was also reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye.

Ji Cheng told it to stop playing, otherwise what would we eat?
"Squeak!"

The clever rabbit hopped and skipped behind Ji Cheng, as if asking him to teach it how to roast such delicious chicken and fish.

"You can't learn it, our flames are different."

Ji Cheng said, "My flames come with their own seasoning. How can I teach you?"

Upon hearing this, the Azure Flame Rabbit felt discouraged and slumped to the ground, feeling that its rabbit life was meaningless.

Before long, they had eaten and drunk their fill.

Ji Cheng led a dog and a rabbit out of Wuzhen and headed towards the forest where the python demon was located.

After arriving, they waited for a full half hour before Zhou Mu's men came to deliver the fat sheep.

The process was the same as last night: the two burly men put down the fat sheep, loudly announced Zhou Mu's name, and then turned around and ran away as fast as they could.

The difference is that this time, the fat sheep's four legs don't seem to be tied tightly.

After the two burly men put it down, it broke free and fled eastward, bleating as it went.

The python demon opened its vertical pupils and shot forward instantly, biting the fat sheep in one gulp.

"Let's go."

Having failed to absorb any demonic energy, Ji Cheng led a dog and a rabbit out of the forest.

Once they were far away from the python demon, the Azure Flame Rabbit squeaked at Ji Cheng, as if asking him, "You came all this way just to watch the python demon eat sheep?"

It thought the chicken demon had some scheme against that spirit fruit, but it turned out to be nothing.

"I'm just concerned about Brother Python's appetite, so what? Do you have a problem with that?"

Ji Cheng snorted.

He thought that next time he should bring some food to feed the python demon, so that the python demon could also taste the delicacies that this world does not have.

Feed the python demon to increase its favorability; you might just become friends.

Zhou Mu fed the python demon in order to build up his favor with it and eventually tame it.

On the way back, Ji Cheng asked Da Huang to catch a few more wild rabbits, as there seemed to be quite a few in this area.

The Azure Flame Rabbit ate two more large ones with tears in its eyes.

Back in Wuzhen.

Ji Cheng said to the little rabbit, "Don't worry about that spiritual fruit. We're not without a chance."

Upon hearing this, Ling Tu's eyes lit up immediately, and she urged Ji Cheng to continue.

"Zhou Mu's intention is obviously to subdue this python demon, but how could the python demon submit so easily? Let's wait and see if Zhou Mu's forces clash with the python demon, and then we can take advantage of the chaos to steal that spiritual fruit."

Ji Cheng didn't think that a second-tier demon beast could be so easily subdued by Zhou Mu; a major battle between the two sides was inevitable.

The Azure Flame Rabbit squealed excitedly, jumping and leaping, shouting, "Let's fight! Let's fight! Let's fight!"
"Alright, go back now. Remember, bring two spellbooks next time, or you won't get to eat delicious roast chicken and fish."

"squeak!"

The Azure Flame Rabbit's excitement immediately turned into terror. What a joke! How could I dare to steal magic spells for you?

……

For the next three days, the Azure Flame Rabbit did not reappear.

At night, Ji Cheng and Da Huang fed the python for three consecutive days and found that the python was surprisingly gentle and did not show much aggression towards the chicken and the dog.

However, Ji Cheng and Da Huang still didn't dare to get too close, but just fed it from a distance and chatted for a few minutes.

Ji Cheng told him that Zhou Mu wanted to subdue the python demon, and the python demon nodded at him, indicating that it knew.

In the past few days, Ji Cheng has been unable to extract even a wisp of demonic energy from the python demon.

July 15th arrived, and Dahuang, gazing at the moon, cultivated. Ji Cheng extracted another wisp of demonic energy from it. Ji Cheng's "injuries" had healed, and Second Master Zhao and Zhao Yan took him to cockfighting again.

Zhou Mu and the Snake Gang are on this side.

Since even the Chicken King and the Exploding Body Pill couldn't defeat Master Zhao's fighting rooster, Zhou Mu temporarily abandoned the path of fighting roosters and focused on subduing the python demon.

This python demon was discovered when the Xiangshe Gang and the Wang Family Martial Arts School went into the mountains to search for traces of the wolf demon.

At the time, Zhou Mu felt that the second-tier demon beast, the python demon, was too powerful and might be difficult to subdue, so he temporarily put aside any other thoughts.

But now, having no other choice, he can only risk trying to subdue the python demon.

If successful, the Zhou family will gain a second-tier demonic beast, making it easy to eliminate the Su family's influence in Wuzhen.

……

The setting sun is like blood.

On the winding, potholed road, an oxcart carrying a blind old Taoist priest entered Wuzhen.

"Cuck!"

The old blind man had a crow perched on his shoulder. He cawed once and flew away, circling the sky above Wuzhen.

This oxcart had carried several bags of distiller's grains to a chicken farm in the next town that morning, driven by a hunched-over old man in his sixties.

It was already noon when they arrived, and the old man ate a bowl of plain noodles and a flatbread there.

To avoid the scorching sun, he didn't return immediately. Instead, he watched others cockfighting for a while, then lay down under a big tree and dozed off for half an hour, letting the cow graze by itself.

He didn't drive the oxcart back to Wuzhen until the sun began to set in the afternoon.

On the way back, he met a blind old Taoist priest who was heading to Wuzhen, and kindly gave him a ride.

Along the way, he complained to the blind old Taoist priest several times that the plain noodles he ate for lunch today lacked garlic and were not fragrant at all, as if he hadn't eaten anything at all.

The old blind man was dressed in rags, holding a broken bowl in one hand and a bamboo stick in the other, with a gourd tucked into his waistband.

If he doesn't open his eyes, he looks like a beggar begging for a living, the kind of beggar that the village children would throw stones at.

But when he opened his eyes, they were cloudy and white, quite frightening, and anyone who saw him would instinctively keep their distance from him.

The old man driving the carriage wasn't afraid. In his youth, he had traveled all over the country and seen all kinds of people and situations.

"Uncle, you are a good person, you will surely be rewarded."

"Forget it, I'm already one foot in the grave, I don't believe in that stuff!"

"Haha, old man, you're so generous. By the way, old man, may I ask your surname?"

"My surname is Zhao."

"It's good to have the surname Zhao. Zhao is a very common surname in Ji Kingdom. That Nascent Soul True Monarch named Zhao Chen has dominated the cultivation world of Ji Kingdom for over a thousand years, leaving behind countless legends. He really brings honor to the Zhao surname."

"Hey, we're just ordinary folks, how would we know anything about Nascent Soul True Monarchs? No matter how powerful he is, what does he have to do with an old man like me who drives an oxcart? He's not even as good as me having a bowl of noodles with a few cloves of garlic for lunch!"

“Uncle, you can’t say that. That Nascent Soul True Monarch had many children and his family prospered. There are as many as one or two thousand branches of his descendants. You, with the surname Zhao, might be a descendant of the Nascent Soul True Monarch.”

"Huh, this old man is actually a descendant of a Nascent Soul True Monarch?"

"Haha, it's not impossible, it's not impossible."

"Master Daoist, judging from your words, do you perhaps understand the methods of cultivation? May I ask your honorable surname?"

"Haha, what a coincidence, I also have the surname Zhao."

The gentle breeze suddenly stopped, the shrill cicada chirping fell silent instantly, and everything around seemed to freeze.

The setting sun, like blood, dyed the entire sky red.

Old Zhao, oblivious to the situation, burst into laughter and said, "So we're from the same clan! What a coincidence! Come on, let's go to my house for a couple of drinks!"

"It's fate, but a tragic one," the old blind man said. "Old man, you're going to die here."

"Master, why...why?"

"Because your surname is Zhao."

As soon as he finished speaking, the old blind man raised his bamboo cane and stabbed it, piercing through the back of his head and into his forehead.

Old Zhao's eyes widened, and his last thought before dying was that he regretted not eating the bowl of plain noodles with garlic at noon.

(End of this chapter)