coobybook Ch. 214 - Like a Seaweed Swaying in the Wind
Ch. 214 - Like a Seaweed Swaying in the Wind
"I think I know who did it!"Wang Xuanyang's face was deep in thought as he spoke.
The mountain peaks below hadn't collapsed -- they'd straight-up vanished. Exactly like Taiping Mountain back then.
At the time, there'd been rumors about some "Nanjiang Bandit." And now Chen Shu was at the scene again. That couldn't be a coincidence... right?
"Wang-ge, I want to file a complaint!"
Xue Ziming rode in on his Black Giant Eagle, eyes still wide with lingering terror.
"A complaint? Against what?"
A voice rang out as Fang Si and Chen Shu arrived, riding the Thunderbird back.
Chen Shu twitched his nose, eyes practically glowing.
"Your contract spirit... smells amazing."
Everyone froze for a second, then slowly turned their gazes toward the giant eagle beneath Xue Ziming's feet.
The shockwave from the Alternate Dimension had scorched the eagle, and sure enough, there was a distinct aroma of cooked meat wafting off it.
"You--?!"
Xue Ziming's expression shifted to alarm. Looking at the way Chen Shu was staring at his eagle, he actually felt a twinge of fear.
This guy wouldn't actually try to eat someone's contract spirit... would he?
"Alright, enough!"
Wang Xuanyang swallowed involuntarily. He hadn't thought much of it at first, but once Chen Shu said it out loud, even he was a little tempted.
"Fang Si, tell me what happened!"
Xue Ziming noticed the looks on everyone's faces had turned strange. He immediately recalled the Black Giant Eagle back into his Beast Space and planted himself firmly on the ground.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
"Let me do the talking."
Chen Shu patted Fang Si on the shoulder, stepped forward, and said:
"It's a long story, but I'll keep it short..."
"..."
Wang Xuanyang's mouth twitched. Chen Shu hadn't even started talking yet, and he already didn't want to listen.
"We were fighting the Beast Tide with everything we had, and under my strong intervention, we finally resolved the first wave of beasts!"
Uh...
Qin Chuan and Xue Ziming both turned to look at him. Did this guy actually do anything when that was happening?
"Then we suddenly heard the roar of Silver Lords. After conducting reconnaissance, we confirmed it was coming from inside the Alternate Dimension!"
Chen Shu's face was the picture of gravity as he continued:
"According to my analysis, there were at least eighteen Silver Lords roaring in unison at the time..."
"Stop! Stop!"
Wang Xuanyang cut him off first. The moment Chen Shu had opened his mouth, he'd known it was bullshit.
You could count the number of Lords through a sealed dimensional wall?
Eighteen? What, were the Silver Lords lining up to give you roll call?
"Fang Si, you talk."
Xu Yi turned to Chen Shu. "You -- stop talking."
Even Fang Si hadn't expected Chen Shu to spew bullshit this thick.
She stepped forward and began:
"The aura was indeed that of a Silver Lord. If it had crossed over to Blue Star, it would've caused a major incident."
Fang Si spoke with genuine seriousness:
"To prevent the crisis from escalating, Chen Shu and I entered the Alternate Dimension directly, hoping to buy time."
The moment she said this, everyone was stunned speechless.
An uncharted Alternate Dimension -- even Dragon Guards wouldn't dare enter one. Because you could never predict what was waiting for you on the other side.
If it happened to be a Gold Lord, even a Dragon Guard would die without a whole corpse to bury.
"Are the kids these days all this bold?"
The three Dragon Guards stared. The real kicker was that both of them had come back alive. That alone qualified as a piece of legend.
"What about the explosion? A Space Corridor doesn't just collapse that easily!"
Wang Xuanyang's eyes still held doubt. Even they couldn't pull that off -- otherwise they would've destroyed the corridor first thing.
His mind drifted to the Frost Canyon incident.
An explosion on that scale could definitely do the job.
Does he really have access to dimensional-scale weaponry?
He wasn't trying to arrest Chen Shu. He wanted the truth.
If Chen Shu really did possess some kind of black technology, and Huaxia could get its hands on it, opening new Alternate Dimensions would cost far fewer casualties.
"When we first entered the Alternate Dimension, Silver Lords immediately came after us..."
"Wait!"
Xu Yi interrupted. "How did you escape? Silver Lords aren't exactly slow."
"That's all thanks to this bird right here!"
Fang Si patted the Mutant Thunderbird beneath her. Without it, they might not have made it out in one piece.
"That thing? A Rank 8 contract spirit?"
The Dragon Guards raised their brows one after another. You're shitting me, right? Outrunning a threat two full major ranks above it?
The Mutant Thunderbird shot them a look of pure contempt, mocking the three for their ignorance. Then, slowly and deliberately, it turned its back to all three Dragon Guards and wagged its butt at them.
"..."
Watching this display, all three men's mouths twitched.
They didn't know if the bird was fast, but it sure as hell was shameless.
"What about the explosion?"
Wang Xuanyang zeroed in on the key question, his gaze locked on Chen Shu, watching for a reaction.
Even if Chen Shu had caused it, he hadn't broken any laws.
Sure, the blast had leveled Taiping Mountain on Blue Star, but the objective had been to eliminate the beast horde. Dragon Guards caused massive collateral damage all the time during Lord suppression operations. Beast Taming Law didn't penalize that.
Killing the beasts was the top priority.
He wasn't out to apprehend Chen Shu -- he wanted to get to the bottom of this.
If Chen Shu truly had some kind of black technology, and Huaxia could deploy it officially, opening new Alternate Dimensions would cost far fewer lives.
"When we got inside, the Dimension was full of medicinal herbs, so we started harvesting like crazy. But more and more Silver Lords kept coming after us..."
Chen Shu stepped forward, his expression dead serious:
"Maybe we pissed them all off, because we ran into a Silver King-rank beast!"
He didn't want to expose the Explosion Potion. If the government came asking, he'd have no way to explain it -- and there was even a risk of exposing the System.
As long as he didn't admit it, even if people had suspicions, they'd never find proof.
The moment those words left his mouth, everyone's pupils contracted. Their minds shook.
Wang Xuanyang's expression turned gravely serious. "You're certain it was a King-rank beast?!"
According to the Beast Blood Rank Tier System, fierce beasts were classified into four tiers: Ordinary, Variant, Lord, and King.
King-rank was only one tier above Lord, but the two weren't even in the same league.
Every Beast Tamer alive considered hunting a King-rank beast the supreme achievement.
But the difficulty of actually killing one was astronomical. Even just finding one was a pipe dream.
Legend had it that each Alternate Dimension contained only a single King-rank beast -- the sovereign that ruled over the entire Dimension.
And yet, intelligence on King-rank beasts was vanishingly scarce.
Since Huaxia had established the blood-rank tier system in the first place, they must have encountered -- or even killed -- King-rank beasts at some point.
But they'd never released any information. The topic was treated as strictly classified.
"It was shaped like a volcano!"
Chen Shu's eyes darted around as he recalled what he'd glimpsed right before escaping, and then the words started flowing like a river...
The funny thing was, he had no idea that the story he was making up was actually true.
"A volcano?"
Wang Xuanyang rubbed his forehead. "You're trolling me, right? How the hell is that a beast?"
Chen Shu said with perfect sincerity and a completely straight face:
"Its body looked like a volcano, and its head kept swaying back and forth -- like a seaweed swaying in the wind. You know that supple, flowing quality?" [1]
[1] Seaweed Dance (海草舞, Hǎicǎo Wǔ): A viral 2017 pop song by Xiao Quan (萧全) that sparked a nationwide Douyin (Chinese TikTok) dance trend, with performers swaying their arms gently like seaweed underwater. The chorus -- "像一棵海草海草 / 随波飘摇" ("like a seaweed, seaweed / swaying with the waves") -- became one of the defining earworms of 2017-2018 Chinese internet culture and is universally recognized in Huaxia. Chen Shu quotes it in slightly paraphrased form (swapping 随波 "with the waves" for 随风 "in the wind") while describing what is almost certainly a King-rank Fire Dragon whose volcanic body fills an entire Alternate Dimension.