Forge a path to success

The foreman finally understood: there had never been any wild beasts; it was the people who had entered the fog and transformed into their animal forms. He grabbed his wife and daughter and fled out the door, running for their lives, with the wild beasts chasing after them.

Lost in the fog, the foreman was disoriented, and the wild beasts behind him drew ever closer. As he fled, he wondered, in the eyes of the wild animals, did it appear as if a man was chasing a mad beast?

"—The first story is over. I am Wolfka."

The story abruptly ended, pulling everyone's thoughts back to reality. The man, torn apart by the wild beast, lowered his head, silent. Chu Hengkong silently moved the black wooden plank forward; the cave was dark, and he couldn't see the comments given by the others.

Then, the area where everyone was sitting began to rotate, and the dark moonlight swept across the strange outlines one by one. Suddenly, the rotation stopped, and the moonlight shone on a man with tentacles.

The second person is Chu Hengkong.

Chapter 161 A Hundred Tales of Fog and Moonlight (2)

The moonlight shone on Chu Hengkong's head, giving him a slight chill. Outside the moonlight, all was darkness, but he could feel the gazes of the audience casting upon him.

In such an environment, storytellers always feel some pressure, because there is no light in the desolate wilderness, and speaking into the darkness is like talking to ghosts.

He was an assassin, not a storyteller, and didn't have any particularly interesting ideas. So, mimicking the casual conversation of customers in a teahouse, he spoke unhurriedly: "I'll offer a little joke, just to pass the time..."

—After meals and drinks, young and old alike would pick their teeth and chat. The people around them and those in the newspapers were uninteresting; the truly interesting ones were found in the long streets and alleys, in the nooks and crannies of the marketplace. There was Yang, the tea seller; Li, the whitewasher; and Zhang, the clay sculptor. Having a unique skill or a distinctive personality made them a "rare" in the eyes of the people; being different from others was something to be talked about with relish.

The extraordinary person we're talking about today isn't from Tianjin, but rather travels across the ocean to New York City in America. He's known as "the courier," a professional deliveryman.

In big cities, people are busy with work and can't even spare the time to eat out. Taking thirty seconds to call a restaurant and have a delivery person pack food is a rare luxury. But regardless of nationality, people ultimately prefer hot food. Waiting half a day for the food to arrive only to find it cold is incredibly disappointing. Forget about getting a tip from the delivery person; if they have a bad temper, they might waste another precious minute and call the restaurant to unleash a torrent of abuse.

Whether you're cooking, delivering, or eating the food, everyone who encounters this will curse their bad luck. Those who know more will also sigh: "I should have just hired a delivery service!"

The deliveryman originally delivered pizzas, but after gaining fame, other restaurants started asking him for help. He was a young man from Asia who delivered food quickly and efficiently, ensuring that the food arrived at the customer's table almost exactly as it was delivered from the restaurant. He always managed to ensure that customers received their meals hot, but his most impressive feat wasn't delivering hot food, but rather delivering food that was perfectly cold.

That time, the 75th Precinct in Brooklyn experienced a power outage. The 34-degree Celsius heat made the officers feel like they were being steamed alive. The newly promoted precinct chief, with a wave of his hand, treated everyone in the precinct to ice cream to cool them down. The huge order of over three hundred ice creams left the staff sweating profusely. Not only was the quantity too much to deliver, but the main road was completely jammed that day. Even if they packed in plenty of ice packs, by the time they arrived, they would have melted into syrup.

Making money is a minor issue; getting into trouble with the police is a major one. This area has a bad reputation for security, the cops are short-tempered, and the delivery guys are shrewd—nobody wants to take this unfortunate job. With time running out, the police order is about to be cancelled. The shop manager, at his wit's end, calls a courier company for help. He asks, "Can you deliver it within half an hour?"

"Okay," the young man said.

Not long after, the delivery person arrived at the door. He wasn't riding a bike, but wearing a baseball cap. The shop manager was explaining to the officer, "You ordered too much, we'll make and deliver batches at a time." After finishing the call, he looked up and the person and the huge box of ice cream were gone. The manager ran outside; the streets were still jammed with traffic, and the alley was deserted. That box was huge—it could fill the back of a bus! How could something like that just vanish into thin air?

The store manager ran inside and out, but couldn't find a trace of them, thinking it was all over. But when he returned to the store, the courier and the empty box were back inside, and the staff were already packing the second batch. The young man silently took out his phone, showing a photo he'd taken five minutes earlier: the cops wiping sweat while grabbing ice cream. This was to tell him not to worry, the package had been delivered clearly, it hadn't been lost or melted.

A box of over a hundred ice creams took ten minutes round trip. Exactly three hundred in half an hour, all delivered precisely on time. When it came time to deliver the last batch, the store manager abandoned all his work, hanging a pair of binoculars at the door to watch intently. He finally saw what was happening: the deliveryman effortlessly lifted the large box with one hand, scurried up the walls and onto the roof like a monkey, and ran straight there!

The group was completely convinced. After the delivery, the store manager handed over a $100 tip without a word, and even his notoriously stingy wife didn't complain, thinking it was deserved! But the courier never accepted tips; he earned his money honestly and had his own rules. He charged the full amount for each delivery, and charging even a penny more was unacceptable.

The courier refused to accept more money, but if calculated by distance, a single delivery would only earn ten dollars. The store manager felt that operating this way was even more inappropriate. He looked around and saw that there was still some ice cream left in the counter.

A while later, the courier, holding a four-scoop ice cream cone and ten dollars in his pocket, strode away.

"...A few years later, the courier had another experience and went to work for a big company. The ice cream shop, however, remained open, and occasionally he would stop by in Brooklyn to buy an ice cream cone." Chu Hengkong clasped his hands together. "The second story is finished. I am Chu Hengkong."

A soft clattering sound came from the shadows as a wooden stick moved across the ground. The next story hadn't even begun yet; it wasn't proper to speak now. The monsters whispered amongst themselves.

"Haven't heard anything like this in ages." "That's interesting..." "Pretty fresh, huh?"

Some monsters were dissatisfied: "Any Ascended could do this job."

"What are you saying? Back when you were a skilled craftsman, you were happy to run errands?" Wofka retorted sarcastically.

“You’re mistaken, I used to be a cornerstone.”

"Well, you're even more useless."

"Screw you!"

The gloomy and oppressive atmosphere dissipated considerably as they chatted and joked. Ji Huaisu nudged his partner with his elbow, laughing mischievously, "You used to deliver food, huh?"

"That job actually paid quite a lot," Chu Hengkong said. "I had almost saved enough money to buy a house when I switched careers."

The arena began to rotate again, and the participants fell silent. The next one to be illuminated by the moonlight was the fleshy monster, whose somber tone led him to tell a humorous story about a fat man's various amusing mishaps in a circus.

The flesh-and-slaughter monster told the story poorly, turning a cheerful tale into a lifeless, mournful tale. Few accepted it, and the moonlight shone again on the one merged with the tree, as it began to recount the eerie tales of the cannibalistic forest…

Time ticked by, and few stories were truly joyful; most carried a strange undertone. Under the shifting moonlight, the atmosphere returned to its initial, almost suffocating state. Then, as the moonlight shone on the Eye Demon, Vande rose excitedly, slapping his straw mat: "Heh, finally my turn! I won't let you down!"

·

Meanwhile, above the desert.

Two dark figures, one thin and one fat, walked across the vast, boundless white sea of ​​sand.

The thinner one wore a hooded black coat, his face hidden behind a metal mask. He wasn't actually thin; his build was quite robust, but standing next to his companion, he appeared rather frail. His companion was 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters tall, his entire body as square as his face.

The square-faced man, named Luohun, held a small book in his hand. He turned the pages with his thick fingers and sighed, "Mr. Night Walker, with your great skills, why bother with this kind of work? I'm more than enough."

"There is no distinction between noble and lowly jobs," Ye Xing said.

"People have it."

"We are all losers, there is no difference between us."

“Yes, yes…” Luo Hun said listlessly, “You’re moving too fast… The Hundred Tales isn’t over yet. Let’s slow down.”

The two men slowed their pace, making their way towards the sand vortex leading to the valley. They were carrying out a routine task, commissioned by the Nightmare King.

·

The underwater valley, the venue for a hundred stories.

As the moonlight shimmered, stories flowed on like a stream. Chu Heng listened attentively, having already grasped the significance of this event.

The monsters tell two kinds of stories: one is the "new stories" they themselves come up with. Regardless of the subject matter, these stories are deeply imbued with negativity and despair, as if the creators themselves were about to burst into tears while writing them. Such forced cheerfulness is naturally far from interesting, and listens to it with a dull, lifeless quality.

The second type consists of stories deeply connected to their appearance, such as Wofka's tale of the beast in the mist and the tree people's description of the cannibalistic forest. These stories are emotionally rich and vividly told, but few, except for newcomers, give them positive reviews. This is because they are the content of nightmares; the monsters see these nightmares recurring every night, so who would want to hear them again?

There were many storytellers, but few stories worth listening to. So later on, few monsters were interested in telling stories, and the moonlight repeatedly lingered on the three newcomers. Captain Ji ran out of ink after five installments of his investigation into Huilong City, and later started making up "Treasure Dream Adventure." Chu Hengkong himself wasn't much better, picking classic stories and telling the Romance of the Three Kingdoms about ten times.

Fortunately, there was Vande. The chatterbox finally came in handy here, pouring out his bellyful of stories like he was having a fire sale, from ancient scrolls and classics to local customs, from heroic legends to strange tales. Vande alone contributed more than 30 stories, which the group of monsters listened to with utter fascination.

The event was nearing its end, and the 99th story had reached Vande's head. A monster quietly brought him a bowl of water to soothe his throat. The Eye Demon slurped, then began to tell a strange tale about demons: "This time, let's not talk about anything else, just the intricacies of the Sea of ​​Illusions. Everyone knows that demons only exert their power through their contractors. But legend has it that there's a terrifying great demon who treats contractors as food, and none of those who have made a contract with it have met a good end..."

In just a few words, the Eye Demon painted a terrifying image of a demon. It dwells in the deepest, most profound eye of the ocean, at the very bottom of the turbulent realm. It wears the most majestic royal robe in the world, a robe sewn together from countless faces—the very end of the fools who once swore a pact with it. It is said to be the ruler of all things in the sea, the king of the chaotic land. Though it resides on the seabed, it controls everything in the world…

"...When it leaves the ocean, the entire world of sinking and undulating will be turned upside down!"

Vande spoke with a swaying head, finishing his water. He slapped his tentacles haphazardly, his voice rising and falling as if he were drunk.

“This story is… the king… is this something I can tell?” Van der muttered to himself. “It seems not… I’ve said too much… I need to clear it up, delete some memories… delete…”

“What did I just say… Anyway, it’s over,” Vande said. “The 99th story is finished! I am Vande.”

Dusk flickered in its eyes for a moment, and Vande lay on the clump of grass, once again looking listless and confused. Ji Huaisu, in the dark, picked it up and tossed it to his partner.

“Something’s not right with Vande,” she whispered.

"It hasn't been doing well these past couple of days... We need to think of something."

Chu Hengkong took off his earplugs. Neither of them listened closely to Vande's last story, because tales of the ocean, whether true or false, were not information that people of their level should be exposed to. Vande was starting to talk too much, which was definitely not a good sign.

Fortunately, the Hundred Tales had finally come to an end. After the final rotation, the moonlight shone on Wolfka's right, where the last person in the previous queue stood—the large fellow who had silently slipped in. He was so big that even sitting in the moonlight, he was difficult to see clearly. He chuckled softly and began his final story. For some reason, Chu Hengkong felt that his voice sounded familiar.

"A long, long time ago, there was a lonely star."

The star wanted to talk to others, but no one could understand its language.

It called out for a long time in the deep darkness, yearning for companionship in its life.

Long, long ago, there lived a stingy old man.

The old man possessed immense wealth, yet he refused to share even a fraction of it with others.

It searched for a long time in the silent depths of the sky, looking for a secret treasure trove.

One day, the old man met a lonely star.

The star was very happy because it had finally encountered another.

As it watched the old man bury the treasure, it grew increasingly puzzled and bewildered.

Old man! You have many treasures, but only one person enjoys them all.

How can you find happiness without the company of others?

The old man tried to take out his treasures and give them to the poor and weak who were yearning for them.

People were grateful for his generosity and climbed the stars to live with him.

The storyteller clapped his hands gently, and different voices appeared at once, in an orderly fashion, like a choir of children singing in unison.

"The stingy old man found happiness."

The lonely star found happiness.

Without sharing, all wealth will ultimately turn to dust.

Without friendship, even the strongest will be lonely.

Many lives ascend to the stars because of love.

Love makes a lonely star become a beautiful moon!

A chorus of clapping hands erupted, filled with laughter. The soft, dark moonlight bathed the narrator in its entirety. He was a portly old man dressed as a country gentleman, so large that it would take ten people holding hands to encircle him. His head was pressed against the cave ceiling, and his back against half of the sand cave. An average person standing next to this behemoth would only be about the size of the sole of his shoe.

The old man looked down at Chu Hengkong with a kind and gentle smile.

"The hundredth story is over," he said. "I am the benevolent old man."

Chapter 162 A Hundred Tales of Fog and Moonlight (3)

The full moon trembled as if breathing, its dark light spilling across the entire cave. By the light of the moon, the group finally saw the appearance of the newcomers. Their bodies were composed of black blood like petroleum, and their organs and tissues, such as eyes, mouths, and hands, proliferated haphazardly within the blood, arranging themselves into a hideous form.

Those monsters were all Fallen Ones, and more than 40 Fallen Ones were laughing and clapping. They were the most enthusiastic listeners of the Hundred Tales!

The old man's laughter echoed in the cave, and Chu Hengkong felt a headache coming on. This bizarre ritual was called "Tales of the Moonlit Night," and it involved telling stories under the moonlight, all on the night of a full moon…

He should have realized long ago that the Hundred Tales were the activities of the Fallen. The Despair Wilderness was directly illuminated by the First Abyss, and the old man could come here without even needing a summoning ritual.

Ji Huaisu immediately donned the ice armor and turned to look at the man who had led them here: "What's going on, Chongming!"

"Didn't I already tell you? It's just a newbie gift pack." Chongming leaned against the cave wall, impatiently picking his ear. "The Dark Moon faction is the most friendly force in the Dark Realm. Tell me a few stories here, and the old man will grant each of you one wish. Isn't that a good deal?"

Quickly think about what you want. Such a great opportunity won't come again if you miss it...

"Is this a question of whether it's worth it or not?!" Vande exclaimed, his anger rising. "The Dark Moon is a heretic!!"

"What's wrong with heretics?" Chongming said coldly.

He took off his sunglasses, his cold gaze sweeping over the three newcomers: "Do you think you're here for a picnic? Don't you understand your situation when you see the guys next to you?"

This is a desolate wasteland! To survive, we must even resort to unorthodox methods!

The researchers stood up in unison, silently tearing open their shirts to reveal arms covered with tiny eyes, torsos melting like mud, chests reduced to bare bones, and legs replaced by metal structures…

Everyone carried varying degrees of external pollution within them. They had been walking alongside these polluters!

"It's a last resort, otherwise we would have become Nightmare Amalgamations long ago," the frog-faced man said with a grin. "Besides..."

They all pointed at Chu Hengkong in unison: "You guys are covered in real weapons and demons, what right do you have to complain!"

—Damn it, I can't think of a reason to refute it for a moment!

Ji Huaisu and Fan De were visibly shaken, as if they'd swallowed a fly, while Chu Hengkong himself remained relatively calm. The Benevolent Elder here was no low-level spirit fragment; even a blind man could sense the immense presence emanating from him. With such a powerful being sitting beside them, the idea of ​​a few insignificant figures "resisting" was utterly laughable.

The old man paid no attention to the newlyweds' noise. He chuckled and pulled out a large cloth bag, calling out to the debauched, "Who wants tea and snacks?"

"I'll have one." "Please give me one." "Thank you, sir!"

The fallen echoed noisily, like a chorus of merrily decaying babies. The old man took out an exquisite white porcelain tea set, poured in tea that reeked of mud, and handed out pretty candies wrapped in colorful paper. He watched with a smile as his younger generation took the tea and snacks, then clapped his hands.

"Now that all one hundred stories have been told, let's announce the best performers of the night. Fifth place goes to Van der, fourth place to Lar 76, third place to Wofka, second place to Ji Huaisu, and the best storyteller is Chu Hengkong!"

The fallen ones pulled out party poppers, spraying out ribbons of skin and colorful bone fragments. Vande, upon hearing this, became furious: "Wait! No disrespect intended, but I've told dozens of stories, why am I only fifth!"

"Damn, it's even getting hung up on this," Ji Huaisu muttered.

Chu Hengkong replied quietly, "It specifically stated that it had no intention of offending and that it wasn't considered talking back."

"The value of a story lies in emotion. You've told so many strange tales, yet you haven't mentioned a word about your own past. Stories without emotion are unlikely to move an audience." The old man looked at Ral 76, the tree-man who told stories of the cannibalistic forest. "Ral, you've shared your past with everyone, pouring your true feelings into it. Tell me, what kind of gift do you want?"

The tree-man crawled forward with its root-like feet. It hesitated, even feared, but still bent down its trunk as much as possible and prostrated itself in front of the old man.

“Kind old man, compassionate old man,” it said, its voice sounding like weeping, “Last month, I was the one who was ‘taxed.’ I couldn’t bear it any longer; I simply couldn’t endure this suffering. I beg you, let me forget all the pain, preserve the beautiful memories, and let me live happily in my cradle!”

“That is only right, child.” The old man nodded. “I promise you.”

He tore a piece of flesh from his arm and placed it in the treant's woody palm. The treant put the flesh into its mouth, ate it, chewed it, swallowed it, and shed tears.