Chapter 13

When Qi Tiezui saw that the soldiers weren’t making any moves, he muttered something under his breath and started crawling towards the banyan forest.

The soldiers immediately followed him, and that was when Qi Tiezui realized that these soldiers wouldn’t act of their own accord unless they received precise orders.

Fo Ye had given him the right to command, so he had to command them by himself.

Although Qi Tiezui was a civilian assistant, he also knew that human lives were essentially pawns on a chessboard when it came to fighting in wars. Some people had it in them to pave the way with human lives and destroy others for the greater good. There were few people who could play the game without making mistakes when human lives at stake.

He thought about it carefully and knew that he couldn’t really do much if he commanded them. After all, if something happened and people died because of him, not only would he feel guilty for the rest of his life, but he would also carry a lot of bad karma.

It would be better if he treated everyone like how he treated himself, so he waved at the people behind him and instructed everyone to climb like caterpillars. After that, they moved towards the banyan forest bit by bit.

After climbing for several hours, a soldier behind Qi Tiezui said, “Ba Ye, it will be dawn by the time we get there. Do you still want to save Fo Ye?”

“I’m saving you.” Qi Tiezui’s head was covered in a cold sweat. “With Fo Ye’s abilities, he can definitely make it if he escapes. It’s just a question of whether he’s willing to run for his life or not.”

“Why wouldn’t Fo Ye be willing to run for his life?”

“When has he ever run for his life?” Zhang Qishan was the kind of person who flexibly changed strategies, but he would definitely attack without hesitation as long as there was a chance of succeeding.

Inside the banyan forest, Zhang Qishan did exactly what Qi Tiezui had thought he would do. The thought of leaving here had never even crossed his mind. He stared at the baby in the dark, not moving his eyes away as the baby stared back at him.

“What are you exactly?” Zhang Qishan asked.

The baby giggled and then stopped when he was thirty steps away from Zhang Qishan. Zhang Qishan pointed his gun at him, which stunned the baby for a moment. Then, the baby’s expression turned ferocious.

During this period of time, the baby’s expression sometimes looked ferocious, sometimes adorable, and sometimes cunning. It was as if he hadn’t completely forgotten the memories of his past life and they were still influencing him to some extent.

Almost at the same time, Zhang Qishan saw a pattern start to appear on the baby’s body.

Only part of it could be seen through the waning moonlight but it was obviously an unfinished tattoo.

A small portion of the Zhang family’s tattoos would first appear during infancy, but they could already tell by the scales whether it was going to be a Qilin or a Qiongqi.

“A Zhang?” Zhang Qishan was surprised. Did the old man in the village take a child from the Zhang family and give it to the mountain god in exchange for a longer lifespan?

Did he do this for ultimate longevity?

Where did this child come from?

The baby was extremely vigilant. Zhang Qishan put his gun away, snapped off a banyan branch from the side, and made a toy similar to a cat toy.

This was one of the few toys that his father had made for him when he was little, and one that he still remembered how to make. 

He teased the baby with it. The little baby’s motion capture ability was very strong and he was quickly attracted by the toy. He gradually relaxed and began to laugh.

Zhang Qishan went over and picked the baby up again.

At this time, the little baby’s face suddenly turned ferocious again, but he wasn’t looking at Zhang Qishan. Instead, he was looking at something behind Zhang Qishan.

Zhang Qishan turned his head and saw the mountain god crawling over with its head drooping down. It instantly flung its arm out and knocked Zhang Qishan off the branch.

Zhang Qishan changed his movements in the air, fell into the water, and immediately lifted the child out of the water.

As the huge mountain god jumped down from the tree canopy above, Zhang Qishan saw that there was a human head under its armpit.

Conjoined twins!

<Chapter 12><Table of Contents><Chapter 14>

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10 thoughts on “Chapter 13

  1. Ermahwerd!!! So depending on the tattoo this might be baby Poker Face or Little Brother Zhang! Is just my guess, but as calm and silent as this baby has been, I really think it could be baby Poker Face. Or neither. I just wish we had more stories about them when they were little.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Isn’t Poker-Face older than Fo Ye? Same with Little Brother Zhang. I don’t think the baby can be either of them due to that.

    Also, that’s really interesting that here it seems like the Zhangs are born with their tattoos! I thought they were given the tattoos later on in life as a way of marking them as part of the main branch (qilin = inner family; qiongqi = outer family) or one of the side branches? For example, Poker-Face is actually only half Zhang (his mother just happened to be from another clan that also had the “qilin blood” effect), but he was adopted into the inner main branch and so that’s why he was given the qilin tattoo. If I recall correctly, book 8 or one of the earlier books also mentioned that the qilin tattoo is actually a map of the Zhang family building, which is why only the inner family members are allowed to get the qilin tattoo (it’s the key to where their family’s deepest secrets are hidden). I also remember that in Tibetan Sea Flower and its associated extras, Zhang Haike mentioned that his overseas branch of the Zhang family were allowed to choose a “non-traditional” tattoo to help them blend in better, so in his case he ended up picking a Sanskrit verse as his “Zhang family tattoo”. Based on that, those tattoos are definitely not supposed to be genetic. Did NPSS forget his own canon again? Wouldn’t be the first time I guess, haha

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I think tatoo is still mystry,maybe only Zhang children born with tatoos,not hai family like Zhang haike,zhang haiqi.also little brother zhang is adopted from street by Zhang haiqi and she’s the one who gave him qionqi

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      1. Hmm, the tattoos are definitely external and given to the Zhangs (i.e. they’re not born with it). The dramas and novels have even described what the tattoos are made of to make them heat-activated (cinnabar, pigeon blood, and some other ingredients). Maybe what this chapter implies is that the Zhangs are given their tattoos at or near the moment of their birth based on who their parents are (i.e. if they fall into the inner or outer main branch, or one of the side branches), but when they’re still babies they’re not able to generate enough body heat to get the entire tattoo to appear. So Fo Ye is saying he can’t see the full tattoo on the baby for this reason, but he’s still able to tell if it’s a qilin or qiongqi tattoo based on if there are scales or not in the tattoo (the qilin has scales, the qionqi has feathers).

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        1. When I read that part about the tattoo on the baby, I was just like, “The author is doing this on purpose! He throws some minor details here and there. He wants to keep us guessing. Can he just give us a full explanation of the tattoos? Is this another pit we’ll never get to know?😭”

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          1. In search for the corpse in sea of lights xiaoge touches a zhang body whose qilin tatoo is visible and it disappears. Its like after xiaoge’s touch the tatoo automatically disappears. Even in restart wuxie wonders tge tatoos true purpose. It’s still a pit

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  3. After reading all of the comments, I agree that this is not poker face. He is most definitely much older than the time of Fo Ye and the gang.
    Conjoined twins, seriously?!

    Thank you

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