Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 34: An Unexpected Encounter

Corpses littered the temple ruins.

Among them were guards, attendants, and several youths whose understanding of the Forbidden Zone’s perrils had been strictly theoretical. Their lifeless eyes stared blankly at the sky, frozen in the terror of their final moments.

Scattered among the human remains were the dead jellyfish.

Unlike humans, a dead jellyfish dissolved into a mound of gray, foul-smelling sludge—a stark contrast to their vibrant, iridescent beauty in life. As they melted, they released a suffocatingly dense wave of Mutagen that rapidly corroded everything it touched.

The sudden calamity was far from over.

As the surviving youths fled in blind panic, the jellyfish swarm shrieked in pursuit. Here, on the fringes of the jungle Forbidden Zone, the slaughter continued.

An hour passed before Xu Qing finally arrived at the temple ruins.

He walked among the scattered bodies, his expression completely impassive. He had seen far too many corpses in his life.

Stepping over the mangled remains of guards and attendants, Xu Qing scooped up samples of the dead jellyfish sludge, intending to study them later. He ignored the belongings on the corpses; the dense Mutagen released by the dying jellyfish had already contaminated everything, rendering the loot useless.

His footsteps only paused when he reached a specific body.

It was an old man. A massive, gaping hole had been punched through his chest, the blood pooling around him already dried to a dark crust. His dim, unblinking eyes seemed to harbor a lingering regret.

Staring down at Old Stone’s corpse, Xu Qing let out a soft sigh.

He was no god. Even though the old man had paid for his protection, Xu Qing couldn’t guarantee absolute safety—especially when the mist hadn’t even appeared.

After a brief silence, Xu Qing crouched down, gently brushed his hand over Old Stone’s face to close his eyes, and buried him.

He left no tombstone. Captain Lei had once told him that most Scavengers had no family to mourn them anyway.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

This was the reality of a Scavenger. A life spent clawing for survival in a ruined world, and in death… quiet oblivion was enough.

This desolate, unmarked grave was the inevitable destination for almost all of them.

Standing before the freshly turned earth, Xu Qing gazed toward the Scavenger Camp outside the Forbidden Zone.

He had been here for four months.

Captain Blood Shadow was dead. Fire Crow was dead. Fat Mountain Ma Si was dead. Barbarian Ghost was dead. Old Stone was dead. Captain Lei had retired. Gu Dao had fled. Countless other Scavengers had perished in silence.

In this brutal, chaotic era, human life was cheaper than dirt.

“Only by becoming stronger can I survive,” Xu Qing murmured. His features hardened into a mask of cold indifference as he turned away.

The dying rays of the setting sun bled across the horizon. A sudden gust of wind whipped through the trees, snapping the departing youth’s tattered clothes.

The rustling fabric carried a biting chill, fading away as his silhouette vanished into the dense jungle.

The fading sunlight struggled to pierce the thick canopy, desperately trying to cast its sparse beams onto the sprinting youth. But Xu Qing moved too fast; the light simply couldn’t catch him.

Suddenly, Xu Qing skidded to a halt. He stared at the forest floor, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

He crouched down and inhaled deeply, sifting through the myriad scents of the jungle. His gaze locked onto a single blade of grass. Clinging to its surface was a nearly imperceptible smear of powder.

Had it not been for his rigorous study of poisonous plants and his intimate familiarity with the Forbidden Zone’s natural odors, he would have missed it entirely.

Even so, it took him a long moment of careful scrutiny before he pinched the coated leaf between his fingers.

“The exact composition is unclear,” he muttered, “but it definitely contains Sui Wu blood.”

A sharp glint flashed in Xu Qing’s eyes. He remembered Master Bai’s lectures on the subject.

While Sui Wu blood possessed minor medicinal properties, its primary function was as a powerful catalyst. When mixed with specific herbs, it created a potent lure designed to attract targeted mutated beasts—a common tool for high-level hunts.

“Did this draw the jellyfish swarm?” Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He dropped the lethal leaf, immediately drew a packet of neutralizing poison powder from his leather pouch, and dusted it over his clothes.

Once the powder dissolved any lingering trace of the Sui Wu blood scent, he pivoted and sprinted in a completely different direction.

He had zero intention of tracking down the surviving city youths. This mess had nothing to do with him, and he refused to be dragged into it.

Even if Chen Feiyuan’s friends were among them, Xu Qing owed them nothing. Furthermore, the youths were escorted by powerful cultivators capable of fighting the massive jellyfish—individuals who posed just as much of a threat to Xu Qing as the monsters did.

Most importantly, the evidence suggested that someone within that very group had deliberately lured the swarm. Their motives were unknown, and Xu Qing didn’t care to find out.

After pinpointing their likely escape route, he took a wide detour, finally slipping back into his hidden canyon medicine hut just as dusk swallowed the sky.

He methodically sorted the herbs he had gathered before resuming his research on the White Pill.

Though he had actively avoided the fleeing youths, trouble had a way of finding him. Deep into the night, as he ground herbs in his mortar, the distant roars of beasts and the clash of battle drifted into the canyon. The sounds were growing steadily louder. Xu Qing frowned.

When the frantic crunch of approaching footsteps echoed through the gorge, he let out a silent sigh.

He stood, stepped out of the hut, and peered toward the canyon entrance under the pale moonlight. Voices rang out, thick with desperate relief.

“There’s a path here!”

“Everyone, get inside, hurry!”

Several figures stumbled into view, their once-luxurious clothes torn and caked in grime.

Stark terror painted their faces. Behind them poured over a dozen more youths of similar age, escorted by seven or eight heavily wounded guards.

In total, over twenty people spilled into the canyon. As the bloodied guards formed a desperate defensive line at the choke point, the surviving youths collapsed, gasping for air. As their panic subsided, they finally took in their surroundings.

Their eyes landed on the medicine hut. Then, they saw Xu Qing standing in the shadows.

“Someone’s here!”

Like a flock of startled birds, the youths shrieked and scrambled backward. Three guards instantly broke from the rear, weapons drawn, locking onto Xu Qing with naked killing intent.

Xu Qing’s eyes turned to chips of ice. He swept a cold, dismissive glance over the guards before analyzing the huddled youths. Two individuals immediately stood out.

The first was a boy slightly older than him, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Though just as battered as the rest, his face showed calculation rather than panic. He was scanning the canyon, assessing threats.

The second was a girl with a sickeningly sweet appearance. Her clothes were soiled, and she trembled like a frightened rabbit. But to Xu Qing, who had survived the absolute dregs of human cruelty, her terror was glaringly artificial.

More importantly… she wore a single glove on her right hand. To a layman, it might seem like a quirk of hygiene. But to a poison master like Xu Qing, a single glove had a very specific utility.

It was perfect for concealing and dispersing lethal powders.

*Eight guards. Qi Condensation sixth or seventh level. The rest are below the fifth level, fractured into three distinct cliques.*

*Only those two stand out. The boy is around the seventh level. The girl… she’s the one who lured the swarm. The high-level cultivators who fought the massive jellyfish aren’t here. They must have drawn the alphas away.*

Xu Qing processed this information in a fraction of a second. The arrogant city youths couldn’t possibly fathom that a single glance from this ragged Scavenger had already dissected their entire group dynamic and combat strength.

The guards, however, were seasoned veterans. They felt the absolute zero of Xu Qing’s stare, noted the sturdy medicine hut, and felt a cold sweat prickle their spines.

To find a hidden canyon deep within the Forbidden Zone and construct a permanent dwelling here meant this lone youth didn’t just survive the jungle—he lived in it.

Such a person was exceptionally dangerous.

“Fellow Daoist, are your elders present?” one of the guards asked, his tone instinctively respectful. “We mean no harm. A beast swarm is hunting us, and we only seek temporary refuge.”

“We will leave at daybreak. We deeply apologize for the intrusion.”

The guards’ deference tipped off the sheltered youths that something was wrong. They all stared at Xu Qing.

The calculating older boy studied Xu Qing intently, his expression growing solemn. The gloved girl simply narrowed her eyes.

She took in the medicine hut and caught the faint, lingering scent of processed herbs in the air, quickly forming her own assessment of the boy standing in the shadows.

Xu Qing frowned. He looked at the bleeding group, then shifted his gaze to the dark canyon entrance. After a long, suffocating silence, he turned his back on them and walked toward his hut, offering a tacit, reluctant permission.

The guards exhaled sharply in relief. The youths, however, shifted uneasily.

Only the gloved girl reacted differently. A strange light flickered in her eyes before she spoke up, her voice trembling with cautious grievance.

“You… you’re so rude. We just want to hide here. There are monsters everywhere outside. If we leave, we’ll die.”

Her tone was perfectly pitched to evoke protective pity. Right on cue, several boys who harbored crushes on her puffed up their chests and aimed their bravado at Xu Qing.

“Yeah, how can you be so cold-blooded?”

“We’re just resting! We didn’t do anything to you.”

“He doesn’t own the Forbidden Zone! Why do we even need his permission?”

With a single, pathetic sentence, she had effortlessly weaponized the group’s anxiety into hostility against Xu Qing. It wasn’t much, but the subtle manipulation brought a flicker of smug satisfaction to her heart.

She wanted to use these idiots as stepping stones to probe the feral youth’s true strength.

But in the very next instant, a streak of silver flashed from Xu Qing’s hand. A dagger shot through the air like lightning, aimed directly at the smug girl.

Her face paled as she tried to dodge, but the blade whistled past her ear, severing a lock of her hair before embedding itself deep into the stone wall behind her with a sharp crack, sparks flying.

The girl’s heart hammered in her chest, her breath catching. Her gloved hand instinctively flew up. When she met Xu Qing’s gaze, she saw the cold, predatory eyes of a wolf, brimming with killing intent.

That look sent a chill straight to her core. The guards and the other youths were equally horrified—the former tensed to their limits, while several of the latter cried out in alarm.

“We are strangers who met by chance. Do not test me,” Xu Qing said, his voice low and dangerous as he suppressed the urge to kill. He gave the girl one last, penetrating look before turning and walking back toward his medicine hut.

Under the moonlight, his silhouette seemed to merge with the cold night, casting a palpable chill over everyone in the canyon. A heavy silence fell.

To many, the canyon now felt just as perilous as the jellyfish swarm outside.

In that tense quiet, just as Xu Qing reached the door of his hut, a blood-curdling scream erupted from the canyon entrance.

A small jellyfish had found the opening. It pierced through a guard’s body, devoured his organs, and surged into the canyon.

Behind it, a horde of jellyfish came shrieking in.