It only took another month.
I sobbed over my father’s body with my other siblings, who were also getting on in years, before it was dragged away from the troop.
Zhi let me grieve for another few weeks before saying it was time to move on.
I said goodbye to the rest of my troop.
They didn’t understand why I was leaving.
I just did my best to explain I no longer belonged here.
That the path I was on had separated myself from the rest of them.
That… if I stayed, I was probably only putting them in more danger.
I was a cultivator.
Strength drew strength.
And they would be safe enough with a powerful immortal nearby, guarding the lands from disaster.
Zhi and I headed east.
According to him, that was where the closest human settlement was, but it was three months away.
And while both of us could survive just fine in the wild, there was a problem.
“Zhi, I’m bored.
Talk to me!” I swung up onto the branch he was on and poked his cheek.
“Gah!
You’re driving me insane!
Why are you bugging me all the time now?!” He swatted my hand away, quickly jumping to the next branch.
“I told you.
I’m bored.
And I’m lonely.
I used to play with my troop all the time and talk to them, but there’s only you out here.” I followed him.
“Then go find some more monkeys and talk to them!” He jumped to the next branch to get away from me.
I jumped after him to annoy him some more.
“What, do humans just walk up to complete strangers in the middle of nowhere and say, ‘Hey buddy, what’s up?
I’m kind of bored right now so can you entertain me?'”
He growled again, shooting me a dirty look.
“I swear, you’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
“Oh, thank you.
It’s all in the attitude.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“Too bad for you, I took it like one.
So, talk to me.
Tell me about humans.”
He rolled his eyes, and we kept traveling through the trees as he spoke.
“Fine.
Humans are a lot smarter than monkeys.
They wear clothes, use tools, and create grand cities the likes of which you can’t even dream of.”
Jokes on him.
I lived in a modern city in my past life.
“Sounds like you’re kind of a fanboy.
What’s so great about clothes anyway?
We have fur.
My fur is way better than any human clothes.”
I was speaking from experience, but Zhi rebuked me.
“Clothes is what separates beasts from men.
All civilized people wear clothes.
Once we get to Hongtai, I’m getting clothes for both of us.
And you better wear them.”
“Whatever human fanboy.
I’ll wear your stupid clothes.
I’m just saying that fur is better.
You know, for a monkey, you sure don’t act like a monkey.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” He came to an abrupt stop a moment later.
I almost crashed into him but managed to stop in time.
He swiveled his head.
“I can feel a demon off to our left.
Not a strong one.
But still…”
He thought for a moment before switching directions.
“Let’s go kill this demon.
Then we can move on.”
“Whoa!
Hold on!
We’re just going to kill this guy?!
He hasn’t done anything to us!” I stayed right on the tree branch.
He paused on the tree branch to my left, looking back at me.
“Look, demons aren’t beings of this world.
They belong in the underworld.
A demon only comes up to this world to cause trouble and kill everything.
We’re not really killing this demon.
We’re sending it back to where it belongs.
Are you coming or not?”
Ugh.
I reluctantly jumped after him.
“Fine.
But just so you know, I don’t approve of senseless violence.
If the demon isn’t causing any trouble, let’s just move on.”
“Hah!
A demon who doesn’t cause trouble.
Fine.
You can see for yourself what demons are like.”
I followed him as we moved through the branches.
He soon slowed down, and began moving much stealthier, silently climbing from branch to branch.
As we did, the smell of blood and rot strengthened until it drowned out everything else.
I froze, holding still as a clearing came into view.
It was littered with animal corpses of all kinds, in various states of decay.
A large black boar was tearing into a fresh corpse, heedless of when it ate the organs and bones.
It was a boar, but much larger than an average boar, more like the size of a horse.
Its tusks were dyed red, razor sharp at the tips.
Zhi turned back to me, triumphant.
“Hah, see?
This is a newly born demon, and it’s already killed most of the game in this area.
If left unchecked it could devastate this whole forest.” He spoke in low tones, so the demon wouldn’t hear us.
I nodded, feeling nauseous at all the carnage.
I mirrored his soft voice, not wanting that thing’s attention to turn to us.
“You’re… you’re right.
It needs to be stopped.
What are we going to do?”
“We are going to do nothing.
I’m going down there to kill it.
You are going to stay up here in the tree where it’s safe.”
I threw a worried glance at the boar as he started climbing down.
“Are you sure about this?
I know you said it’s weak, but it seems pretty strong.”
“Oh, it’s at the beginning of Foundation Establishment like me.
When demons manifest into the world, that’s where they start.
But I have plenty of techniques up my sleeve, so don’t worry.”
“What?!” I whisper-shouted at him as he scampered down the rest of the tree.
That boar was as strong as he was?!
And he was just going to walk up to it with no plan and no weapon!?
Yep, he was doing that right now.
I cursed silently as I watched him walk right up to the boar and chucked a fireball at it.
The boar squealed in pain, and whirled on Zhi, who smirked at it.
It roared and charged with its bloody tusks.
Zhi seemed to dance away, easily sidestepping the boar, his feet flowing like water.
The boar kept going.
Directly towards my tree.
Shit!
I struggled to hold onto my branch as the boar struck.
I heard the crunch of wood, and I felt the inexorable force of gravity take hold.
Fucking Zhi!
I gave up holding on, and instead ran to the end of the branch and made a wild jump for the next tree.
I nabbed a lower branch, but it snapped from my momentum, sending me hurtling to the forest floor.
I landed with a crash, My head spinning.
I distantly heard Zhi call out.
“Fuck!
Ming, run!”
I was dazed for a moment, but one look at the titanic boar barrelling down on me snapped me out of it real fast.
I leapt up with a yelp and began hauling ass for the nearest tree trunk.
“Gah!
Look at me you shitty boar!
I’m the one pelting you with rocks!”
I scrambled up the tree just before the boar rammed it.
Sure enough, with that much force it began to topple over too, directly into the deathly clearing.
This time I held onto the log as it came down with a thud.
I looked back to see Zhi engaging the boar again.
He threw another fireball, and a barrage of rocks, but the boar shook them off with a stamp of its hooves.
It charged again, but Zhi sidestepped as easily as last time, and the boar toppled another tree.
I called out.
“Zhi, this isn’t working!
You need a weapon!”
“Well, I don’t see any swords lying around do you!?” He dodged the boar again.
Another tree down.
I looked around at the scattered bones in the clearing.
There had to be something.
Oh!
I saw the corpse the boar had been eating.
It was another boar, a young one, with sharp, pointy tusks.
That would do.
I ran to it as the boar came charging back into the clearing, and Zhi sidestepped and shot it with fire and more rocks.
I grabbed the tusk and snapped it off with a twist.
“I got something!
Catch!”
I threw it to Zhi as the boar charged again.
This time he held his ground, making my heart leap into my throat.
At the very last moment, he sidestepped, and gouged the boar along its side.
The boar roared and staggered, trying to turn around.
Zhi took advantage of its stunned state to deal the finishing blow, firmly stabbing its neck.
With a few more shuddery steps and a gurgle, it collapsed, finished.
Dead.
I finally could breathe again.
Zhi whooped and pushed it over.
He started gutting the boar, and I had gritted teeth as I trotted up to him.
“Oh, we aren’t doing anything are we?
You’ll take care of it!
I just have to stay in the tree.”
He grunted, pushing through the boar’s innards.
“Look, I didn’t know it would charge straight at your tree.”
“It didn’t.
He charged for you.
And you walked directly from the tree to it.
Then sidestepped when it charged.”
“It all worked out fine in the end.”
“Yeah, because I saved your ass!
If I didn’t, you’d still be throwing fucking rocks at it!”
He growled.
“Fine.
You can have half.”
“Half?
Half of what?
The boar?
What were you expecting to eat it all by yourself?”
“Ah!
Found it!” He pulled his arm out of the bloody carcass and pulled out a small core.
It was a reddish black.
Huh.
Wait, that looked familiar.
Oh.
The snake core I got all those years ago.
“What’s that?”
“Demon core.
It’s a valuable ingredient.
Once we get to the city, I can sell it and we’ll split the money in half.”
Wait.
“Are you telling me, you risked both our lives for money?!”
“Well, we’re dead broke right now and to get to where I want to go, we need some funds and—Hey!”
I shoved him in anger.
He glared at me, and I glared right back.
“The next time you want to take on a demon, you’re doing it alone.
And I won’t bail your ass out.”
He growled.
“I didn’t need your help in that fight.
I could have figured it out on my own.
So, thanks, but I’d prefer to keep all the spoils for myself next time.”
Grrrr.
I crossed my arms and turned away from him.
“Just hurry up and finish dressing it so we can take the meat and leave.”
“You’re such a…” He wisely didn’t finish that sentence.
Instead, we set up camp nearby.
We would eat as much of the boar as we could, then save the rest of it.
The hide was ruined, so we couldn’t take it with us and sell it, but he did rip out the tusks to sell.
I poked at the fire, stirring the coals.
He was such a bastard.
Acting like he had everything under control when I almost died during that battle.
I had genuinely been afraid, not just for me, but for him.
Going in with nothing but swagger and unshakable confidence against a monster just as powerful as him.
He was a moron.
The meat sizzled, fat dripping into the fire when he finally spoke up.
“So, um… maybe you did help a lot in that fight.
And… I’m sorry you ended up in danger.
But I really did have it all under control.”
“What about when it was charging straight for me?”
“Okay, maybe not completely under my control.
Mostly under my control.
I didn’t expect it to shake off my fire like it did.
It had a lot more resistance than I was expecting.
But we still won without any problems.”
“Do you always just assume you’ll win?”
“Look, it was a baby demon.
It didn’t have intelligence, or strategy.”
“Neither did you.”
He was quiet for a moment before sighing.
“Okay.
Maybe I made a bad choice.
I should have tried to think it through a little more.
I’m just not…” He sighed and looked down at his hands.
“I’m not used to being this weak.
Gah!
A stupid baby demon and my attacks barely scratched it.
I hate being so weak!”
Welp, that’s definitely confirmation he was reborn.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“Look, I promise I’ll be more careful not to involve you in any fights in the future.
I mean, you’re basically a mortal since you cultivate blank chi.”
“Wow.
Thanks.
And please don’t.
I don’t like fighting.
But I hate demons even more.”
“What, was that your first fight?
Probably, right?”
I shook my head.
“No.
Before I met you, a demon attacked the troop when I was year old.
It ate my baby brother, broke my mother’s arm, and almost killed my father.”
“Oh… Did the immortal stop it?”
I shook my head.
“No.
I killed it.
It wasn’t as strong as the boar.
It had some kind of hypnotizing power.
Its core was smaller too.”
“It must have been a nascent demon.
Just on the verge of becoming a full demon.
Did you…”
“If you ask if I kept the core, I will shove that core down your throat.”
He blissfully shut the fuck up and we ate in silence.
Since it was still winter, I regrettably did have to cozy up to him for warmth.
Our chi only made us resistant to the cold right now, not impervious to it.
Zhihao… that name…
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it.
That would be crazy.
Who would reincarnate into a novel you read in a past life?