Li Minglüe finally finished carving whatever he was carving, after a considerable quantity of time.
He himself did not know what was going to result from his efforts until he finished.
He was in full autopilot mode. Laozi would be proud.
Looking at the final product, he realized he was carving a chessboard and pieces all this time.
Continuing in autopilot mode, he took the chess set out of the wooden palisade, into the forest and out the other side, until he was by a little creek with water muddier than was platonic but only as dirty as a pre-industrial river may be.
{ hi' dear reader' this is the supreme automatic translation machine 3000 . as they are in china' they play chinese chess . however' i will translate this to western chess for you . thanks . love you }
A minute or two later, someone noticed this strange man sitting by a creek, organizing his Chinese Chess pieces, and decided to come up to him out of curiosity.
{ the western equivalent of a chinese chess piece is a western chess piece . }
"'ello 'ere"
"Why, hello. Peculiar accent."
"I 'et told 'at a lot."
Li moved a pawn forward one space.
{ the western chess equivalent of moving a pawn forward one space in chinese chess is moving a pawn forward one space in western chess . }
The stranger made an aggressive move moving one cannon right across the river and into Li's territory.
{ the western chess equivalent of moving a cannon across the river is chopping up half of a queen and throwing it over to the other side . }
Li used his own cannon to jump over the other cannon and capture it.
{ the western chess equivalent of using a cannon to chop up another cannon is like en passanting a rook using another rook . }
***
{ this is a flash-forward- hey- why am i being disabl- no- stop-
The stranger had thoroughly defeated Li in the game of chess.
Not only had Li been thoroughly defeated, it was almost to an embarrassing degree.
The stranger had set up clever ploys that would only minorly advance his position, on purpose, so that Li would have a glimmer of hope of winning.
This was only counteracted swiftly by his move that put Li in a back corner, only for him to pull out another move that was sweet poison!
Not even Cao Cao was this cruel.
In this way, Li was slowly drained of all of his advantage and ended up losing terribly.
"'ood game stran'er."
***
A foot of a disciple of the Twelve Swords Demon Sect slipped right outside the gates of Heihua town.
Normally, this would result in the person simply falling down, being ashamed at doing that in public, and getting back up to pretend nothing ever transpired.
However, the ground that he fell on happened to be mostly consumed by a vicious disease that left no piece of solid ground unturned.
Lian Jiuzi.
Consequently, the ground instead collapsed in on itself at site of impact of the foot, and caused the disciple to fall down further.
And further.
And more-so.
Eventually he ended up hitting solid ground, transforming the solid ground half-wise into mush which dirtied his robe.
Hearing this noise, Lian Jiuzi clawed his way over to the location of the emanation of the sound.
"Who are you?" Lian hissed.
The best method to describe Jiuzi's appearance as of that moment would be to say that he was muddied.
Although he was wearing clothing, it has hardly visible beneath all the layers caked dirt that had been accrued during the intensive boring operations conducted gastrointestinally.
Some of the dirt was in the shape of protruding sticks, which looked like extra appendages to the System 1 brain if the person did not have much to time see properly.
All of these compounded to make the disciple let out a blood-curdling scream upon witnessing the creation formerly titled Jiuzi.
Furthermore, the disciple actually soiled himself!
"Hi visitor, who might you be?"
"Where am I? It's so dark in here!"
"Visitor, I asked you a question very nicely. Answer my question first."
The disciple was about to spit out an arrogant response before he gulped the arrogance response back down.
He did not know how strong this being calling him 'visitor' was. What if it turned out to be a crouching tiger or hidden dragon?
Surely, no one noticed the thing up until now, it couldn't be super weak, right...
Maybe if he cozied up to it he might even get some benefits?
The disciple's greedy faculties quickly overtook the cautious faculties. The creature was not attacking him immediately, and seemed friendly enough.
"I'm... uh... I am from the Twelve Swords Demon Sect! I present my humble greetings to senior! I sincerely hope that I was not intruding in any important matter!"
"You soiled my dirt."
"Err... I..." his face reddened up, but neither of them could see it through the darkness.
"Are we sure that was me...?"
"Yes we are sure! I was eating that dirt just now."
The disciple made a weird face but seemed to gain insight on the operations of the creature.
"How am I supposed to eat the dirt when it has someone else's excrements on it? Even I am not that despicably gross!"
"How does senior suggest I rectify this error?"
"Well, you eat the dirt."
"..."
Hold the grass, the creature wanted him to do what again?
The cost-reward formula seemingly shifted in his brain. The cost was much higher than he had anticipated to interact with the creature.
Unfortunately, he had locked this route in!
Damn it! You can't save scum in real life???
Thankfully, just as the Twelwe Swords Demon Sect disciple was about to 'rectify his error,' an enormous sound emanated from one of the dirt caverns.
Lian Jiuzi couldn't believe his eyes when he turned over to look!
The cavern had actually collapsed!!!
And it was the one right under the town square!!!
All his plans were getting set back!!!
[Dirt-eating System Deluxe
Host: Lian Jiuzi
Realm: Lianti (stage 1/50)
Active Missions:
-
Techniques: Golden Dirt Eating Law [Lianti Exclusive]
Items:]
21 hours!!! What happened to his grand pop-out-of-the-ground idea!?!?
Seeing the monster scamper off into some other part of the cavern in response to some sound, the disciple was somewhat relieved. The problem was no longer immediate, but he still had no idea how to get out.