畅想听

Its disposition could change at any moment... what it liked and disliked would also change frequently. Moreover, it could assume many different appearances—did it mean that its personality would change according to each transformation?

The confused Song Shuhang stepped on the dock and followed Nine Lanterns, setting out on a big road. After traveling on this road, they arrived in front of a huge palace.

The palace was extremely luxurious and resembled the residence of an immortal. It wasn’t something that belonged to the world of mortals.

There were no guards at the entrance.

Therefore, Song Shuhang and Nine Lanterns directly barged in.

After entering the palace, Song Shuhang saw a row of musical instruments on both sides of the hall. There were zithers, pipas, bells... in short, all kinds of ancient musical instruments.

No one was playing these instruments, but their strings were automatically moving and bells were emitting sounds on their own, creating an extremely pleasant music. It was truly a marvelous scene.

In front, there was a big platform, and above this platform were ten layers of thick animal furs; they looked very soft and comfortable.

On top of these furs was lying a shining ball of lightning, perfectly still.

If one were to look carefully, they would notice that the ball of lightning was actually a pig that had curled up into a ball. This one was even rounder and smoother than the one they saw on the parasol tree at the entrance to the valley.

"Tsk. Today, it has the appearance of a pig?" Nine Lanterns muttered.

This form was one of the thirty-six forms that this spirit beast senior could turn into. Moreover, this form was rather troublesome to deal with.

On the platform, the huge pig surround by lightning slowly opened its eyes. After shooting a look at Nine Lanterns and Song Shuhang... it closed its eyes again.

"Senior, I’ve come to see you!" Nine Lanterns loudly shouted at the spirit beast lying on the platform.

The pig opened its eyes once more. Then, it opened its mouth, but no words came out of it.

Blue veins started to bulge faintly on Nine Lanterns’ forehead. She took a deep breath and said, "Senior Lightning Pig, Nine Lanterns has come to see you!"

The huge pig opened its eyes again and looked at Nine Lanterns with great difficulty, uttering a single word, "Oh."

After a while, it moved its body and said, "It’s you, Nine Lanterns."

And again after a while, the pig gasped for breath and said, "Nine Lanterns! Don’t casually come here to disturb me, alright? You know that I’m very ill..."

The bulging blue veins on Nine Lanterns’ forehead doubled in size. "Senior, what illness do you have?"

"I have an incurable illness." The pig gasped for breath. It seemed as though it was about to die after saying just a few sentences.

What kind of disease reduced this powerful spirit beast to this state? Song Shuhang thought to himself.

"What incurable illness is it?" The bulging veins on Nine Lanterns’ forehead seemed to have subsided a bit.

"It’s cancer." The huge pig bitterly smiled and said, "This disease is really too fearful."

"What nonsense are you babbling about?!" Nine Lanterns howled. "You’re a powerful spirit beast that has reached the Seventh Stage Venerable Realm! How can you even get cancer?!"

The plump pig was unexpectedly a Seventh Stage Venerable, an existence on the same level as Venerable White.

"I’m not lying." The huge pig had a sad expression on its face and seemed on the verge of death.

Song Shuhang asked out of curiosity, "What kind of cancer is it?"

Nine Lanterns rubbed her forehead and joined her palms together, starting to chant buddhist scriptures to calm herself.

The huge pig sighed deeply and said, "It’s the sloth cancer, and it’s already in the terminal stage, no medicine can help me."

"..." Song Shuhang.

"Sloth cancer your a*ss! Moreover, didn’t you say the last time that your anus had problems and that you wanted to change your name to Anus Pig—" Nine Lanterns had yet to finish her sentence when a huge hole suddenly appeared beneath her feet, making her fall down.

"Aaaaaaah!" Nine Lanterns screamed in fear, and her voice was getting more and more distant as time passed by.

The hole seemed quite deep. Moreover, it surely had a formation to impede flight as to avoid Nine Lanterns directly flying out of it.

After Nine Lanterns fell inside the pit, one of the slates moved with a clang and covered the hole once more.

"Cough. She never learns, does she? Last time, I clearly told her that I wanted this place to be calm and peaceful, with no yelling. But why does she forget it every time?" the sloth-cancer-ridden Senior Lightning Pig muttered while putting down the remote control in its hoofed toes.

"..." Song Shuhang.

After dealing with Nine Lanterns, the Lightning Pig turned its small eyes around and looked at Song Shuhang. "Little kid, who are you?"

"My name is Song Shuhang. Nice to meet you, Senior." Song Shuhang earnestly greeted the pig.

The Lightning Pig used its leg to knock on its head.

After a while, it said curiously, "Do we know each other?"

Song Shuhang shook his head. "Miss Nine Lanterns brought me here, it’s my first time meeting you."

"Oh." The Lightning Pig nodded silently and closed its eyes; it was preparing to sleep again.

"..." Song Shuhang.

Luckily, it opened its eyes again and asked, "Speaking of which, why did that little girl bring you here? What do you need from me?"

"She brought me here because she was hoping to obtain the skeletal dragon’s withered vine from you," Song Shuhang replied honestly.

Since he didn’t know what kind of disposition this senior had, it was better to tell the truth.

"The skeletal dragon’s withered vine? Oh, so it was about the flood dragon skeleton in my possession." The Lightning Pig smiled. Soon after, it waved its leg and said, "Kid, I don’t mind giving you the skeletal dragon’s withered vine. However, my sloth cancer is flaring up and I need to rest. Can you return another time? The next time you come here, I’ll gift you that thing. It’s useless to me after all."

"..." Song Shuhang.

"Moreover, please stop staring at me like that. If you keep staring at me, I can’t fall asleep," the Lightning Pig said while waving its leg.

Song Shuhang thought a bit and asked, "Senior, you said ’next time’ earlier, but how long is that exactly?"

"Hm... around 300 years? This time, I want to slee- ugh! This time, I want to try to overcome this illness with all my strength; I’ll surely defeat this sloth cancer!" The Lightning Pig clenched its teeth.

"..." Song Shuhang.

This powerful senior was a rather mischievous creature, and it actually wanted to sleep for 300 years...

But after 300 years, Song Shuhang might be already dead, and Sixteen couldn’t wait for so long either!

Therefore, Song Shuhang asked cautiously, "How can I obtain the skeletal dragon’s withered vine a little earlier?"

The Lightning Pig opened its eyes faintly and sighed. "By leaving me alone."

Song Shuhang clenched his teeth and said, "I request Senior to instruct, what does that mean?"

"It means literally what it means!" The Lightning Pig sighed with emotion.

Song Shuhang obviously knew the meaning of the pig’s words, but he couldn’t afford to wait for 300 years. Therefore, he started to stare at it intensely, without even blinking.

"..." The Lightning Pig.

In the next instant, the pig stretched its leg and reached out to the remote control once more.

Song Shuhang’s scalp went numb, that was the same remote control that had created a huge hole beneath Nine Lanterns’ feet, making her fall down. Song Shuhang quickly jumped to a side as to avoid ending up like her!

"Naive." The Lightning Pig smiled coldly.

The floor of the entire hall disappeared, revealing a huge abyss beneath, too deep to see its bottom.

"Aaaaah..." Song Shuhang called out in alarm as he fell into the hole.

❄️❄️❄️

"Ah... now I can finally have a good sleep. This time, I’ll surely sleep for 300 years," the Lightning Pig muttered. Afterward, it pressed a few buttons of the on the remote control, restoring the floor of the hall to its previous condition.

Thereafter, it closed its eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Twinkling lightning was still crackling on its round body.

But as the lightning disappeared, the other side of its body became visible. There was deep wound there, so deep even its bone could be seen. Black smoke was coming out of the wound continuously, not allowing it to heal.

The lightning coiling around its body was so dazzling that even Nine Lanterns didn’t notice this wound.

❄️❄️❄️

Song Shuhang kept falling and falling, and he felt as though there was no bottom to this hole.

I won’t keep falling till I fall down from the Heavenly Island itself, right? Song Shuhang thought to himself.

Just as he was in deep thoughts, he felt his body get lighter and float upward.

After floating up for a few centimeters, he slowly fell downward.

Afterward, the sound of crushed stones transmitted from beneath his feet.

Have I reached the bottom?

At this time, Nine Lanterns dim voice reached him from a side. "You were also thrown here, huh?"

Song Shuhang turned his head in the direction of the voice; he could glimpse Nine Lanterns’ bare head amidst the darkness. At this time, she was sitting cross-legged on the ground with a depressed expression on her face.

"Miss Nine Lanterns." After seeing that she was also here, Song Shuhang relaxed a bit. "How do we get out of this place?"

"The fat pig will release us once it’s done taking a nap. It did the same thing the last time," Nine Lanterns muttered. She seemed rather experienced in this matter.

"..." Song Shuhang.

Song Shuhang said, "Speaking of which, Senior Lightning Pig said it wanted to sleep for 300 years to fight against the sloth cancer."

"300 years? What a joke!" Blue veins started to bulge on Nine Lanterns’ forehead. "What did you two talk about?"

Then, Song Shuhang told Nine Lanterns of the contents of the conversation between the Senior Lightning Pig and him.

"Dammit. Even if it wants to sleep for 300 years, it could put us out first! I won’t forget about this enmity. Wait till I reach the Seventh Stage Venerable Realm; at the time, I’ll put that pig to an eternal slumber so that it wouldn’t have to wake up anymore!" Nine Lanterns clenched her teeth in anger.

"Miss Nine Lanterns, can’t we climb out of this hole?" Song Shuhang asked, somewhat confused.

"The fat pig engraved restricting formations on all walls, we can’t climb our way out," Nine Lanterns said, somewhat depressed. "Moreover, the hole is covered by a powerful formation that forbids flight. Unless you’re a Seventh Stage Venerable, you can’t fly in this place. Even if you had ten pairs of wings, it would be still useless."

"Then, is there a secret passage somewhere?" Song Shuhang asked after pondering for a moment.

"The last time I fell here, I searched every nook and cranny and couldn’t find anything that resembled a secret passage," Nine Lanterns said depressedly as she rested her chin in her hand.

"Then, how do we get out? Do we really have to wait 300 years?"

"Don’t worry. Before coming here, I made some preparations," Nine Lanterns said as she pointed at her greenish-white robe. "Earlier, I changed my clothes precisely to deal with such a situation!"

Then, she started to take off her greenish-white robe.

The nearby Song Shuhang hurried to cover his eyes...