Ling Hua set his feet loose to the wind, rushing toward the mountain like a leopard about to pounce on its prey, cutting his path toward the Farming Hall located at the center of the mountain alongside the other halls, slipping between the mountain's passages like a leaf on the wind, until he reached the deepest hall within it.
He raised his eyes toward the sky, his mouth falling open at the magnificence of what lay before him.
A great tower of four stories, painted emerald green, flowers everywhere around it, the chirping of cranes soaring above.
He slowed his hurried steps, straightening his gait into a respectful pace, advancing toward this grand edifice.
Until he crossed the threshold, and found before his eyes a magnificent hall filled with ornaments and statues of flowers and trees whose names he didn't know. He approached the desk at the center of the hall, where a middle-aged woman sat in her chair with great dignity, calmly turning the pages of a book full of spirit plants, without raising her eyes toward the new visitor. This calm continued until Ling Hua broke it:
"Excuse me, sorry to disturb you, Elder! But might I consult you about a problem this young one is facing?"
She finally raised her head, examining this boy who had broken the peace of her quiet solitude. "What is it? What brings you here today?"
He didn't say a word, and pulled from his clothes an entirely black insect, spiked thorns protruding from its shell.
"What!?"
The woman snapped the book shut with a force that produced a whistling sound throughout the spacious hall. Her expression froze completely, and the color of life vanished from her cheeks, replaced by a terrifying pallor. She gave him no chance to explain, her gaze rising like fiery daggers, and she snarled sharply: "The Spiked-Shell Beetle?!"
She took a step back, examining the insect in shock, then fixed her lethal gaze on him. "Where did you find this catastrophe? Speak now, before I act in a way you won't appreciate!"
Ling Hua's lips tightened, and his blood froze in his veins before this unexpected shock. He answered, panic tearing at his voice: "I swear, my lady, I found it in my field this morning! It's devoured a large portion of the rice leaves, and my harvest is now in danger... please, don't think ill of me, I just don't want a full year's effort to go to waste!"
The woman's sharp features didn't soften; her brow knit with deep suspicion. With a swift motion of her hand, a thick green vine erupted from beneath the emerald tiles, cutting through the air with a crackling sound.
Ling Hua surrendered to reality; the gap in power between them stripped any attempt at flight of all meaning, and would only deepen her suspicion and escalate the crisis. The vines wrapped tightly around his body and threw him to the ground, while she approached him with steady, heavy footsteps, her voice dropping to a coldness that froze the blood: "Tell me everything... every detail, without omission, or I swear I'll shatter your bones and throw them to the mountain beasts to gnaw on."
A cold sweat ran down Ling Hua's neck, and he closed his eyes, forcing himself to seek calm. He began recounting his farming journey in detail, from planting the seeds to the moment the flowers bloomed the day before.
As he spoke, the vines coiled around him gradually loosened; their energy sensors were reading his heartbeat and confirming the truth of his words. The woman's furious aura receded bit by bit, replaced by an expression of deep-seated worry. She pulled the vines back to the ground and regained her composure, saying in a low voice: "So... you're saying the rice flowers only bloomed yesterday?"
She took a deep breath, and added, gazing toward the horizon with clouded eyes: "The picture is clear now... the disaster is greater than you imagine."
Ling Hua rose slowly, wiping the dirt from his clothes as his heart pounded. The tense atmosphere settled for a moment, before the woman looked at him with a tone completely devoid of her earlier fierceness — though her words seemed heavier than everything that had happened: "Forgive me, little one... I was too hasty in suspecting you, and too harsh. But believe me, the presence of this insect at this particular time is a direct threat to the family's very existence."
His face paled and his whole body trembled at the horror of what he heard from the woman's tongue. He felt as though she were hurling spears, not words.
"M... my lady, what do you mean by this?!"
She walked with heavy steps toward the chair, the knuckles of her hand whitening from the force of her grip on its armrest, her brows knitting tightly as she forced out words she never wished to say:
"This insect is among the most dangerous pests that exist. The problem isn't the absence of a pesticide for it — the family already has one — but the problem is the speed of its fertility. Each insect leaves two thousand eggs, which hatch every two days, and the time it takes to reach maturity doesn't exceed a single week."
Ling Hua's hands trembled and his heartbeat raced, and before his eyes appeared a full year of effort going to waste in the wind — and worse still, he would lose the spiritual farming inheritance he'd longed for. His tongue shrank, and he could only get out a few words after all these events, a heavy lump obvious in his voice:
"A-and why exactly did it come to me specifically?"
Her stern features softened, and a light haze veiled her eyes as she studied his trembling body. She stepped toward him lightly, then extended her hand to help him rise slowly.
"This is because of the fragrant scent the rice released — it's a pheromone scent that attracts spirit insects to it. But don't worry, everything will be resolved!"
The clouds of worry cleared from his face, and his eyes lit up with a flickering glint of joy.
"Really! Can we save the rice? Are you truly being honest? Thank you so very much, Fifth Elder!"
She rested her hand on Ling Hua's shoulder, smiling.
"Yes, absolutely. No need to thank me — this is my duty. In fact, you should be rewarded for informing us before it turned into a disaster for the family!"
"Don't be sad, little one, everything will be made up for. I myself will take you as a disciple, and don't worry, there's still a chance for us to save the situation. But the dangerous part isn't here — it's in whoever is responsible for this."
A clear laugh escaped him, sweeping away the accumulated exhaustion of months — but everything stopped suddenly at the elder's final words. He couldn't help but clench his fingers at those last words.
"What do you mean, Elder? Isn't this natural? Didn't you say insects are naturally drawn to plants' fragrance? How could a third party be involved in this?"
Her angry tone slipped away, replaced by a cold voice as she explained to this newcomer:
"The reason is that these insects are in dormancy at this exact time of year, and cannot emerge from their dens except during the summer season suited to crop maturation, when they come out searching for a mate to reproduce. But now, this insect we have in front of us isn't just emerging from its den at the wrong time of year — it had even just laid its eggs."
The words froze in his throat, his tongue locking as though the shock had stripped him of the ability to speak.
"Are you certain of this, Elder? How did you learn all this from mere observation?"
She gestured with her hand toward the belly of the dead insect on the table.
"You can look at its soft belly — this is due to the empty space left where the eggs were, which had swollen and expanded that area. But the moment it laid its eggs, that area emptied, leaving behind a soft belly, whereas normally their bellies are hard."
He hesitated to look, then fixed his gaze on the insect's belly, and found it indeed soft, the skin there slack.
"Based on this, then, this insect's eggs are in my field?"
The elder let out a long breath and said calmly:
"And not only in your field, but in the other fields too, since there can't be just a single insect. But thank God you noticed and warned me now — we must take measures to combat this immediately."
Ling Hua swallowed, the dryness still lingering in his throat. "Then we must set out now, Elder — this matter mustn't be delayed."
Elsewhere, a slender, masked man climbed a desolate mountain with very light steps, as though flying, cutting his path toward the cave at the peak, and rushed toward it, crossing the threshold of its entrance into its depths, until he found a man with his back turned to him, hands clasped behind his back, his voice dropping to a stony coldness that made the air around him freeze harshly: "Is it done?"
The masked man didn't dare look at him, and knelt on his knees, answering with complete submission: "Yes, my lord. I've done everything you commanded me to do."
The man smiled an icy smile, raising his eyes upward, a contemptuous smile drawn on his lips.
"Good. Now let's see what Sui will do."