Chapter 003: Remnant Ancient Beast, Secret Ledgers of the Dried Spring

Kneeling in the mud, Gu Qingwei regulated his breathing, suppressing the dizziness in his mind until his vision cleared.

He lifted his chin, meeting the pair of massive, deep azure pupils before him.

The ancient ox's world-weary sigh still lingered in the air, carrying the desolation of two centuries. In this desolate wasteland regarded as a graveyard by the entire sect, man and beast were separated by less than three feet—yet bound together by an inexplicable spiritual resonance forged by the bronze seal.

"Even a dying body is a living soul," Gu Qingwei said, his voice raspy yet unwavering. "If you had accepted death, you wouldn't have clung to that last breath in your chest. And if I had accepted my fate, I would already be a corpse with a burnt heart."

He reached out, picked up the large piece of moldy grain biscuit from the edge of the puddle, brushed off the outer layer of black grit, and held it in his palm toward the ox’s muzzle.

"Thirty acres of barren land, where not a blade of grass grows. The road ahead is bitter and long. If our bellies are empty, how are we to wrest our lives back from this man-eating world?"

The old ox gazed deeply into the youth's eyes.

A soft rumble vibrated in its chest. Its coarse, warm tongue rasped across Gu Qingwei's palm, sweeping the dry biscuit into its mouth.

The sound of slow, heavy chewing rang clearly in the quiet night.

As the grain entered its stomach, the beast’s stagnant blood and qi surged with steady, rhythmic strength. The jade-like slate luster upon its mended horn gleamed beneath the moonlight.

With a slight shift of its massive hooves, its newly healed left hind leg produced a dull, heavy pop of realigning bone. Its colossal frame swayed slightly, but then, like a slate mountain rising from the mire, it stood firm, crushing the calcified clay beneath its weight!

The ox shook the muck from its back. Lowering its massive head, its broken horn grazed the freezing sand, and its throat ground with ancient resonance:

"Two hundred years ago, when the Qingling Sect first carved out this mountain range of eight hundred li, this old one was among the first batch of mountain-clearing divine beasts in the Spirit Beast Division. Within my veins flows a trace of the primordial Kui-ox true blood."

The beast paused, a profound, biting coldness surfacing in its eyes.

"In those days, I marched alongside the founding patriarch through poisonous miasma and sundered boulders, clearing a thousand acres of fertile spirit fields and seventy-two subterranean alchemy wells for the sect."

It looked toward the cold moon hanging in the night sky.

"I watched them when they were young, full of vows to protect the common folk. But once they sat upon their gilded thrones, their hands reached only into the depths of the earth veins to drink blood. As the immortal sect flourished, they grew wary of wild divine beasts that refused to kneel. And because I refused to aid their greedy clans in draining the spiritual springs dry for their private estates, they snapped my horn, shattered my leg, and discarded me into these poisonous wastes to rot."

The old ox gave a low, sorrowful chuckle.

“Disdain not the ox’s rasping breath;
These eyes once beheld twilight clouds fall across the azure sky.
No living thing under frost-clad heaven is mere weed;
Where the voice communes with the profound, there lies one's true home.”

The ox looked back down at Gu Qingwei. "Who would have thought that two hundred years later, the one to pull this old ox back from the brink would be an outer sect farm drudge, whom they also treat like weeds..."

Gu Qingwei remained crouched beside the furrow, his fingers digging deep into the crust. Sharp mineral fragments cut into his palm, bringing a cool, grounding sting.

"The immortal road is long, paved always with the flesh and blood of common weeds," Gu Qingwei said, a frigid anger gleaming beneath his calm exterior. "Manager Zhao framed me for the theft of three thousand bushels of Scarlet Cloud Rice and forced my bloody handprint to exile me here. He didn't just ruin three thousand bushels of grain; he severed a farmer's lifeline! Old Ox, what really happened with those books?"

A vicious sneer appeared in the ox's ancient eyes. It lowered its head, its hot breath rolling over Gu Qingwei’s ear like muffled thunder:

"The ledgers are not in the accounting room."

The ox closed its eyes, its voice dropping to a gravelly whisper:

"They lie deep within the dried-up spring behind the mountain."

"The dried spring cellar?" Gu Qingwei’s eyes narrowed.

"Indeed. That is no treasure vault—it is a grave pit that has swallowed the lives of countless laborers who knew too much!"

The ox parted its jaws. With the clear chime of metal striking stone, a bone shard the size of a finger joint—glowing with a dark bronze patina—was spit out, landing lightly in Gu Qingwei's open palm.

The shard was bone-chillingly cold, its surface etched with archaic azure runes that emanated a faint, forbidding aura of an ancient seal.

"When that spring was excavated centuries ago, this old one helped set the sealing formation. This is a fragment of the ancient restriction that lodged inside my horn when the array cracked."

The ox rumbled:

"Those record scrolls in the outer sect accounting office are all fabricated rubbish used to fool the sect inspectors. All of Manager Zhao’s genuine ledgers—the grain he smuggled, the private fields he embezzled, and the blood-debt contracts of the laborers he bled dry—are locked inside a refined iron chest at the bottom of the dried spring! Those three thousand bushels of missing rice are merely a drop of grease leaking from that blood-sucking network. This bone shard is the key; aligned with the subterranean qi tides, I can tear open a seamless rift through the Kan-Water restriction of that cellar."

Gu Qingwei tightened his grip around the heavy, frost-cold bone shard.

Within his mind, the Myriad Transformations Seal resonated slightly, etching the pathway of the restriction into his memory.

The blade to strike the serpent's neck was now firmly in his hand.

Yet the fury in Gu Qingwei's chest swiftly settled into the cold, deep stillness of a mountain well.

"The ledgers are hidden, but we are out in the open," Gu Qingwei said, brushing the dirt from his robes with absolute composure. "If we rush to unearth that iron chest now, we are merely walking into a snare."

He stowed the bone shard and looked out over the vast, dark wasteland.

"Manager Zhao forced me into this dead ground, so here we shall take root. These thirty acres of waste have gathered ten thousand years of alchemy slag and fire fiend; to others, it is lethal poison, but to me, it is condensed earth-marrow. First, we use the sacred microbes to heal the soil. Then, we tap the ancient spring to grow spirit rice. Once these fields turn green, we shall tame the birds and mice across the plains to serve as our eyes and ears. As long as our roots plunge deep, no storm the sect conjures can tear up our stalks."

Hearing the young farmer speak with such earthy resolve and craftsman-like calm, the azure light in the ox’s eyes deepened with immense respect. It bowed its head solemnly:

"Well spoken—nourish the earth first, then sow the grain. Boy, this scarred body of mine shall be the plow that shatters stone for your fields!"

In the eastern sky, dawn broke with a pale, cold frost.

Yet the lingering silence of early morning was violently torn apart by the thunderous roar of galloping iron hooves!

CLATTER! CLATTER! CLATTER!

Heavy iron horseshoes crushed the gravel at the edge of the wasteland, accompanied by coarse, arrogant shouts and cruel laughter:

"Move faster! Manager Zhao gave strict orders at first light—we must see that wretch Gu melted into foul water with our own eyes! He must not be allowed to leave behind a single dying word!"

CRACK!

A soaked whip cracked like thunder in the mist. Wang Heng’s stallion burst through the fog, but the cruel sneer on his face froze the instant his eyes fell upon the scene before the crumbling shack.

He did not see Gu Qingwei’s rotting corpse in a mud puddle.

Instead, he saw a slender youth in hemp robes standing tall against the morning wind, flanked by a slate-blue, mountain-like ox standing proudly upon all four hooves!

"Not dead?!"

Wang Heng yanked his reins, his horse rearing with a frantic whinny.

After the initial shock, no fear rose in his chest—only a blinding surge of greed and vicious savagery:

"He took the manager's Crimson Fire strike and didn't rot into pus? And that ruined ox not only kept breathing, but the rotting meat on its leg even scabbed over? Marvelous! A living ox's hide, bones, and sinew are worth ten times more than a rotting corpse! Skinning this beast and selling it to the market will fetch at least three bottles of Yellow Sprout Pills!"

Wang Heng drew a gleaming, razor-sharp butchering knife from his belt and snarled to the two henchmen beside him:

"Brothers, draw your steel! Shatter the boy's limbs first, then flay this old ox alive right where it stands!"

Wind howled across the plain as three warhorses charged through the mud, cold blades glinting through the frost, bearing down upon the lonely shack!

Gu Qingwei’s gaze turned colder than winter ice, his hand tightening around the worn, notched cleaver at his belt.

The old ox arched its massive spine like a drawn siege bow, its massive hoof slamming down into the scorched mire, sending a shockwave of dust rippling through the air!

The inspection of a corpse had turned into an execution—and the hounds had arrived at the gate!

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Gu Qingwei and the old Kui-ox's journey to turn toxic wasteland into an immortal harvest, please consider hitting that Follow button and leaving a Rating/Review. Every favorite and rating helps this humble barren ridge grow more than you know!