Chapter 91: The Strange Fish Purchase

How could it be a sixth-rank light swordfish...?!

Qing Jin turned on his heel at once, strode forward with heavy steps, and sat down at the chair in a blaze of fury. "Shen Qinghu, you come here."

Qing Zhen and Qing Hu, who had still been roughhousing, froze in place.

Then they both let go and looked at Shen Qing Jin.

This was bad. Big Brother’s expression had changed.

"Little Hu, could it be that you’ve done something wrong again?" Qing Zhen asked in a low voice.

"No, I haven’t made any mistakes lately," Qing Hu said.

The two pressed their heads together and muttered in whispers.

"Shen Qinghu, I’m talking to you," Qing Jin said sternly.

Qing Hu hurried over.

Then she raised both hands in a surrendering gesture.

"Big Brother, I was wrong."

Qing Jin’s face was gloomy. "Then tell me, what exactly did you do wrong?"

"Hm?" Qing Hu looked at him in confusion, her eyes fixed on his face. She had no idea what she had done wrong. Why wouldn’t Big Brother at least give her a hint?

"Cough, cough, the fish," Ning Qi offered helpfully.

"What about the fish?" Qing Hu was still baffled.

"You told Father that the fish you were raising was an eighth-rank ferocious beast, the White Swordfish. In truth, it was a sixth-rank ferocious beast, the Light Swordfish!" Qing Jin scolded her irritably. "Something this important, and you hid it from us? When a sixth-rank ferocious beast grows to a certain stage and its talents awaken, it can fly. Were you planning to wait until those fish had gnawed our entire Shen family down to a pile of bones before telling us the truth?"

By then, what truth would there even be left to tell?

"Heh, heh..." Qing Hu gave an awkward grin. How, how had she been found out?

"Today, you must explain clearly where those little fish came from," Qing Jin said.

"Big Brother, didn’t I already tell you? I really bought them on the street. An old woman was selling them, and Xiao Bai and I bought them together. The big fish was a gravid female; I even thought I’d get to eat some fresh fish roe. Who knew that before it even hit the pot, it would give birth early? What was I supposed to do?" Qing Hu said with a wounded, mournful look.

A delicious feast had turned into a pile of eggs, and she didn’t even know who she could blame.

"An old woman? A sixth-rank ferocious beast? How did that appear in the market of Yinzheng City?" Qing Jin asked in confusion.

Qing Hu looked at him with an innocent, pitiful expression.

"How could Little Hu possibly know? She only bought a fish," Qing Zhen hastily explained for his younger sister. "Big Brother, instead of asking Little Sister such a question, why not investigate who that old woman really was and where she came from? You ask Little Hu, and she wouldn’t be able to answer either."

Qing Jin felt a headache coming on again.

"Wait, no—that’s not right. If it truly was a sixth-rank Light Swordfish, then an adult fish should be at least a dozen zhang long. How did you bring it home?" Ning Qi asked in puzzlement.

How could two little girls, one of them only a child, bring such a thing home?

"No, no, it really wasn’t that big. It was only about ten jin, a little over half a meter long. I even carried it home myself. Steward Peng from the great kitchen personally had it dressed and placed into the largest long fish dish in the house," Xiao Bai said, speaking up bravely on her behalf. "If it had really been a huge fish, how could the family’s fish platters have held it?"

Qing Hu nodded immediately. "Exactly."

"How strange. What is going on here?" Ning Qi frowned deeply. "The old woman’s appearance was strange, and that fish was strange as well. But the strangest thing is you—you actually managed to hatch so many sixth-rank ferocious beast eggs."

Qing Hu lifted a brow and snorted at Ning Qi in annoyance. What? Hatching a few little fish fry hadn’t eaten your family’s grain; why call me strange?

That’s slander. That’s a personal attack!

"How many eggs did that fish lay in all?" Qing Jin asked after hearing Ning Qi’s words.

"Probably more than forty thousand," Qing Hu said with a miserable face.

"As far as I know, in the Eastern Wastelands, the offspring of sixth-rank ferocious beasts are extremely difficult to hatch. Even if tens of thousands of eggs are laid at once, the number that successfully hatch into fry is usually fewer than a hundred. And whether those fry can actually grow into mature fish is another matter entirely.

"Little Hu, how did you hatch more than ten thousand eggs?" Qing Jin asked.

"Didn’t I already say it? I just touched them, and they hatched," Qing Hu said solemnly, making nonsense with a straight face.

In truth, she had discovered that the great fish had already suffered a severe injury and was doomed. In order to produce offspring, it had directly poured all of its remaining life force into the eggs, accelerating their development and causing them to ripen prematurely.

By the time Qing Hu realized what was happening, it was already too late to stop it.

It was a pity. A fine delicacy had become a far lesser thing before she had even put it in her mouth.

However, because the fish had so little life force left, only a little over ten thousand of the hastened eggs developed properly.

As for the defective ones, Qing Hu would never bother hatching them.

So she simply transferred the life essence of those flawed fresh eggs into the properly developed ones.

That was why the newborn little fry were each full of vigor, lively to an excessive degree. Otherwise, there would never have been the later tragedy of them gnawing on her future cousin-in-law.

"I say, Little Hu, if you had such a tremendous ability, why didn’t you say so earlier? Our Ancient Sage Sect collects many living ferocious beast eggs every year. If you just touched them casually, maybe our Ancient Sage Sect could produce a huge batch of beast tamers," Ning Qi said in shock.

"Why should I touch something that belongs to your Ancient Sage Sect? Is there a labor fee?" Qing Hu rolled her eyes.

"There is, there is. If you’re willing to help hatch them, you can have red-gold coins or purple-gold coins, whichever you want," Ning Qi said, beating his chest.

"Even so, I’m not doing it," Qing Hu refused flatly.

Hatching things at home was a pleasure; hatching them for the Ancient Sage Sect would be pointless. She had no intention of becoming a hatchling tool.

Qing Jin frowned, looking from Qing Hu to Ning Qi before saying, "Little Hu’s talent is too terrifying."

Ning Qi immediately agreed. "It’s simply heaven-defying! Just a casual touch and they hatch. In an instant, one could assemble an army of beast tamers. That is absolutely an extraordinary power capable of changing the standing and influence of the human race."

"It’s not as exaggerated as you make it sound. A beast still needs training even if it has a beast tamer," Qing Jin said helplessly.

"Then there are plenty of beast tamers around; I can be one myself," Ning Qi volunteered eagerly.

"So you mean anyone can moonlight as a beast tamer?" Qing Jin asked suddenly.

Ning Qi’s fur practically stood on end. "What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is... this beast-tamer business seems like something anyone can do?" Qing Jin said delicately.

Ning Qi was furious. "I am also someone who has undergone beast-taming training. If I hadn’t found a beast that suited me, I’d already be a beast tamer. At the very least, I’ve got more experience raising young beasts than your Qing Hu and Qing Zhen, don’t I?"

"Experience in theory?" Qing Jin said in surprise.

"I say, Qing Jin, are you looking for a fight?" Ning Qi snapped.

Qing Jin smiled faintly. "Just teasing you. Ning Qi, I need your help with something. I’m asking you now not to tell anyone about her ability, and not to send word back to your Ancient Sage Sect either. Who knows whether there are spies planted in your sect by others? We’re worried that if certain powers hear of this, they’ll start plotting to kidnap my sister, lock her up, and make her hatch ferocious beast eggs or eggs every single day."

Ning Qi nodded seriously. "I understand. That sort of shameless thing is exactly what the Dao Court loves to do.

"Don’t worry, I won’t say anything casually. I also won’t report Qing Hu’s matter back to the Ancient Sage Sect.

"However, have you thought about this? If she goes wandering around with a whole flock of sixth-rank Light Swordfish, under the identity of a beast tamer, then the matter of her miraculous hatching talent probably won’t stay hidden for long. Can hatching a few eighth-rank ferocious fish compare with hatching fifth-rank Radiant Birds and sixth-rank Light Swordfish?"

The first is merely astonishing; the second is enough to shock and awe.

By then, not only humans, but perhaps even other races would shamelessly move to seize her.

Qing Jin rubbed at his brow again, his headache worsening.

It felt as though a giant mountain had crashed down on his back with a boom, and yet he had no choice but to carry it and keep moving. The pressure was immense.

"Let’s take it one step at a time. Little Hu, you’re raising so many sixth-rank Light Swordfish—why didn’t you report it to Father and Mother?"

At those words, Qing Hu immediately put on a pitiful expression. "If I told Father and Mother that I was raising sixth-rank Light Swordfish, and that I had so many of them, would they let me keep them?"

Would they?

Of course not!

Qing Jin could already imagine the look on his father’s face changing dramatically.

This was practically courting disaster!

If not for the Everlasting Life Dao Field, even he would have been ready to ignore his younger sister’s feelings and simply wipe out that troublesome school of fish. Better to end it all at once.

Fortunately, he too now had support behind him.

"Only problem is, I wonder how solid that support really is," Qing Jin murmured to himself.

"What’s solid? Qing Jin, what are you saying?" Ning Qi asked.

"Oh, nothing," Qing Jin quickly covered.

"Ah, no good. Shao Kaiyun knows we’ve just hatched four Radiant Birds, and they’re fifth-rank ones at that. He may not think of it immediately in the short term, but once time passes and he comes to his senses, he’s bound to notice that something is wrong.

"A normal Radiant Bird could never have four eggs in one nest all hatch, could it?

"It has to mean we have some method for rapidly hatching high-rank ferocious beast eggs. He might come back to steal it or demand it again," Ning Qi cried out.

"Then we’ll just say the Lord of Everlasting Life taught my brother and me a special secret method for hatching ferocious beasts," Qing Hu said, finding herself an excuse.

Qing Jin thought it over. That actually might work.

"This explanation is workable, but what if people come to you asking you to hatch ferocious beasts for them?" Ning Qi thought of another problem.

"Easy. Just say the Lord does not allow us to casually hatch ferocious beasts for outsiders. If anyone insists on forcing us to do it, then we’ll summon the Lord," Qing Hu said.

Qing Jin considered it. "The Lord cannot really be summoned, but I have the jade token my Senior Brother Jin gave me earlier for protection. If necessary, I can summon a clone of Senior Brother Jin to make a trip over. We’ll be treating a dead horse as if it were alive."

"It still feels a little dangerous," Ning Qi said.

These siblings were each bolder than the last, and their courage was enormous. Without the Lord of Everlasting Life’s consent, they were already borrowing his banner to cause trouble.

He truly did not know what to say.

"Fortune is fortune; calamity is calamity. If it can’t be avoided, it can’t be avoided," Qing Zhen comforted everyone at this point.

Qing Jin and the others: not comforted at all.

Qing Hu: At least she’d brought backup. If it really came to blows, it should be fine... probably?

Sigh, why could her dream of being a lazy fish never just lie flat?

"Then, Big Brother, if that’s the case, doesn’t that make us little prodigies of the Eastern Wastelands too? I have four fifth-rank Radiant Birds. My sister has ten thousand sixth-rank Light Swordfish," Qing Zhen suddenly said with a grin.

"Little prodigies? You’re both this," Ning Qi said, holding up his thumb. "Human race prodigies."

At their age, being able to command fifth-rank Radiant Birds and sixth-rank Light Swordfish placed them, if not among the very top of the human race in the Eastern Wastelands, then at least among those close to it in strength.

"Hahaha... huh? I hear birds calling. They’re awake again. I need to go feed them," Qing Zhen laughed a few times, then immediately transformed into a bird-nanny and hurried off.

The moment Qing Zhen left, Ning Qi perked up his ears.

Then he complained, "Qing Zhen’s ears are something else. We were this far away, and speaking so softly, and he still heard it."

"Qing Zhen has had unusually keen hearing since childhood," Qing Jin said naturally.

"What do you mean, unusually keen hearing since childhood?" Ning Qi asked in amazement.

"When my fourth brother was only a few years old, he could easily hear the sound of ants chewing leaves from a hundred zhang away. He could even tell which ones had bad teeth that day and weren’t putting much force into it," Qing Hu explained to him.

Ning Qi: "...Isn’t that just extraordinary hearing?"

"Even against the wind, my fourth brother can still hear it," Qing Hu said disdainfully.

"Then it’s heavenly hearing?"

"My fourth brother can hear sounds from underground too," Qing Hu countered.

"Can we please stop arguing?" Ning Qi immediately cupped his hands in surrender.

"Although Old Fourth’s hearing is indeed beyond the ordinary, when he was little he suffered a lot because of it. Every night before sleep, Mother had to seal his hearing before he could rest peacefully. Later, when he grew older, somehow he became able to control his ears at will, protecting them while only hearing the sounds he wished to hear," Qing Jin said.

Ning Qi’s eyes widened.

"So that’s basically like carrying a little secret technique that’s always active, with no real side effects or massive drain on the body."

"Father says it doesn’t quite count. Even after growing up, Old Fourth can only hear the smallest sounds within a hundred zhang. Beyond that, his miraculous hearing vanishes," Qing Jin said.

"A hundred zhang radius is already very good. Many secret techniques don’t have such broad effect," Ning Qi said helplessly.

Secret techniques, as everyone knew, generally came with powerful side effects and enormous physical strain.

Some secret techniques, once cultivated, caused one to lose the ability to bear children.

Some, once practiced, could alter a person’s voice—turning a man’s roughness into a woman’s shrillness.

Some, once unleashed, could even briefly turn men into women and women into men. Of course, their power was formidable, though after too many such transformations, one’s temperament might also be affected a little...?!

Literature Pavilion