Chapter Fifteen: Laid Bare (Comments Welcome!)

“Earthworm?”
The once plump, vermilion earthworm lay stretched out before his eyes. It had shriveled and dried up, yet Chen Yu couldn’t fathom how this earthworm king, dead for so long, had managed to pry open the bamboo tube and escape.
If it had escaped, why was it lying so stiffly at the base of the wall, unmoving?
Judging by its appearance, it seemed truly dead this time.
Could it be that it hadn’t died before?
He prodded it with a wooden stick, confirming it no longer moved, then brought it close for a careful inspection. Soon, he noticed that this worm seemed somewhat different from the beginning.
The same color, the same fleshy crown, yet now there were two rows of tiny claws under its belly.
They were densely packed, clinging close to the segments along its sides—if he hadn’t looked so closely, he would never have noticed.
“What is this…”
What had this ordinary earthworm become?
Once again amazed by the effects of the spiritual machine, Chen Yu found himself at a loss for how to deal with this thing.
If it could come back to life after death, he certainly couldn’t just bury it.
Or perhaps, it wasn’t truly dead before? Maybe it was still transforming, only appearing rigid?
Uncertain and vaguely uneasy, he wondered if the spiritual machine could turn corpses into something akin to zombies.
After much deliberation, he finally went to the kitchen for a bundle of dry straw.
Might as well burn it all.
Though this was his first animal test subject, it was too unsafe to keep around—he still had more spiritual machines and plenty of opportunities for future experiments.
As for using it as bait for fishing…
That was out of the question. Before, he’d thought he could use a dead worm for bait, but now, if it could twitch even after death, who knew if it would simply escape once in the water.
He glanced a final time at the sun-dried earthworm, just as he was about to strike a flame, when he noticed something clinging to its tail end.
White, like tangled threads.
Leaning in cautiously, his expression grew tense as he recognized those threads as some kind of fungal hyphae.
Could it be that the earthworm was able to move and escape the bamboo tube because of these hyphae within its body?
Like a parasite?
Chen Yu vaguely recalled reading about certain parasites in the wild in his past life, able to animate their hosts even after death.
But glancing at the split bamboo tube, he couldn’t imagine what kind of parasitic fungus could exert such force.
Still, if so, this explanation seemed far more reasonable—and less terrifying—than the notion of a zombie earthworm.
“Whether it’s a zombie worm or a parasitic fungus, I’ll know once I cut it open.”
Wrapping his hand in coarse linen as a precaution, he gripped the knife and pressed down on one end of the earthworm.
Beneath his fingers, it felt hard as a stick—nothing like a living thing.

The dagger descended, its sharp tip gently slicing open the cuticle. Even then, the earthworm did not move—it truly seemed dead.
As he pondered this, the knife hesitated; the skin had been fully split. Chen Yu peered inside and, in the next instant, his pupils contracted sharply:
Countless white threads wound within, clustering into one mass after another. Each filament was anchored to the skin, spreading from top to bottom, filling the entire cavity.
“…,” he muttered, a little disgusted.
Chen Yu frowned, watching as sunlight pierced the torn skin, causing the hyphae filling the earthworm’s corpse to tremble ceaselessly, as if alive. The tangled balls of threads expanded and contracted, as though breathing.
So, it really was some kind of parasite?
He wasn’t sure whether these filaments were fungal hyphae or something else, but one thing was clear: the earthworm had been completely hollowed out by them.
Without further hesitation, he flicked his lighter—
Whoosh!
Flames flared, and all those threads, together with the earthworm’s remains, fell into the fire, swallowed and seared until, with a series of crackles, they were reduced to a heap of ash.
Shaking his head with a sigh, he lamented the waste of a spiritual machine.
He tossed the linen cloth and bamboo tube that had touched the earthworm into the fire as well. The dagger, too, he held over the flames for a while before plunging it into the large water vat by the gate, scrubbing it clean.
After cleaning up and airing out the lingering smoke and scorched smell, he made a final check to ensure nothing was missed.
“It’s safer to use the spiritual machine on plants,” he mused.
He had no desire to risk encountering whatever lurked inside the earthworm, so he burned it all.
“Those sheets of threads… they seem familiar.”
He wracked his brain, certain he’d seen something similar before.
Of course! The network formed by the spiritual machine in the soil!
Now he remembered—they were quite alike, though this time, it seemed more alive, with each node a physical cluster of threads rather than a mere point of light.
Could there be a connection? He couldn’t say for sure.
Vaguely, it felt as if some essential quality of the spiritual machine was at play.
Unable to figure it out for now, he set the matter aside for future investigation.

He poured the rice into the vat; the once empty container was soon filled to the brim.
Compared to the last time he’d gone down the mountain, he’d bought more this time—five full sacks, about two hundred and fifty pounds. At his current appetite, it would last him roughly three months.
Three pounds of rice a day.
He really could eat.
In truth, Chen Yu’s appetite was modest compared to other martial artists. His cultivation was still low, and although he practiced diligently every day, his expenditure of vital energy was not especially high. Still, with daily training, his appetite had increased without him realizing, far more than before and vastly exceeding that of ordinary people.
A large appetite was no trouble—as long as there was enough meat.
Yet, even though the Taoist schools of this world placed few restrictions on eating meat for martial practice, Chen Yu rarely had the chance.
The reason was simple: there was hardly any meat at Yunhe Monastery. The only exception was half a dried, cured chicken hanging by the kitchen wall—enough for one meal and then gone.

The only reason he hadn’t eaten it yet was to have something to look forward to—just seeing it each day as he passed through the kitchen helped satisfy his cravings.
Thus, the only way to replenish his energy for martial practice was to rely on plain rice.
He’d thought about hunting in the mountains, but martial training required consistency, and a rabbit or two wouldn’t make a difference.
Besides, his predecessor had left no hunting skills worth mentioning—he’d probably just end up staring helplessly into the forest.
It seemed he’d have to start raising chickens and ducks.
He sighed. He’d asked around in villages at the foot of the mountain during his last two trips, but in these troubled times, ordinary farmers struggled just to survive—who had the leisure to raise poultry? As for the county town, there was plenty of braised chicken to eat, but forget about finding any live chicks.
Those little creatures were terribly fragile—a moment’s carelessness and they’d all be dead, a total loss.
Still, there might be a way.
He considered making a trip to Yungu Village next time. The elderly man he’d met by chance at the foot of the mountain seemed to have some resources—if he could keep cattle, perhaps he raised chickens, too.
For now, Chen Yu glanced at the half-dried chicken hanging nearby, a gift from a family during a ritual last year.
Only half remained—the other half had been devoured by his predecessor that very day.
He swallowed, but left it untouched.
“Fishing! Tomorrow, I’ll go fishing!”
Improving his diet had become urgent. He scooped a large bowl of rice—without meat, he’d have to fill up on this instead.
In truth, the life of Master Chen was far better than that of most people below the mountain. Guangyong Prefecture was peaceful for now, but the surrounding regions were in chaos, plagued by bandits and rebels.
He’d heard in the teahouse that even further north, the Zuo Feng Pass was struck by disaster, and the Eight Kings of Yunyun, recently suppressed, had risen again, pillaging without end. Refugees flooded the land.
Corpses littered the roads, the air full of wailing.
By comparison, his life on Qingtai Mountain—where rice was plentiful—was one of abundance. How could he not be grateful?

“The big white root is ripe?”
After lunch and a comfortable bath, Chen Yu strolled to the rear courtyard, stopping by the herb garden. At his feet, the white stalks were nearly all buried underground, the last leaf drooping downward.
His brows arched.
A stirring in his mind grew ever stronger, nearly as intense as the first time.
He shifted his gaze, feeling a presence beneath the soil, quivering with excitement, as if about to burst forth.
He crouched down, gently loosening the earth around the medicinal bed with his iron hoe.
Soon, he saw the leaves that had retreated underground were now withered and decayed, the surrounding soil reduced to a fine powder.
Deeper still, a smooth, snow-white tuber emerged.
Gripping the root, he pulled hard, like harvesting a radish. With a crisp snap, the stem broke free from the rootlets, and he lifted the entire thing out.
In the bulb’s center—a plump, round core—a shimmer gleamed beneath the thick skin.
He shook it gently; within, something moved like swirling mist, rolling and tumbling without pause.