Chapter 491 461: Bronze Fragment, Miracle of Life

In just a few minutes, the green caterpillar had spun enough silk to completely envelop itself.

Time seemed to accelerate for the caterpillar.

Of course, time hadn't actually accelerated. Song Ciwan knew this better than anyone. She was a master of manipulating time; if it had truly sped up, she would have sensed it.

The caterpillar's rapid silk-spinning and cocoon formation was entirely due to the strange thread she had just plucked.

She had only given it a gentle flick, not even providing it with any Energy, yet a powerful life force had suddenly erupted from within the caterpillar.

It was this life force that had jolted the caterpillar from the brink of death, causing it to rapidly spin its cocoon.

Another few minutes passed, and the cocoon in Song Ciwan's palm twitched.

CRACK!

First, a slender antenna poked through.

Then, a section of a grayish-green wing emerged. A moment later, the entire cocoon split open, and a green butterfly flew out.

The dying caterpillar had undergone its Breaking the Cocoon and emerged as a butterfly. It was alive again!

And throughout the entire process, Song Ciwan had only provided a small push at the very beginning.

That single flick was like flipping the switch of life itself!

The butterfly beat its wings and took flight, circling around Song Ciwan in a graceful dance.

A wave of emotion washed over Song Ciwan, and she became even more certain that what she had seen before was no illusion.

Not only were those scenes real, but she had actually comprehended the existence of a certain Dao from them.

Although she seemed to have grasped at nothing at the time, even in that moment of grasping at emptiness, as she passed through those principles of the Dao, she had understood a sliver of the divine essence of the world's infinite Daos.

'What was that divine essence?'

'It wasn't time, which I already had some understanding of, nor was it space. It must have been... life!'

'The mystery of life, the miracle of life.'

The green butterfly danced around Song Ciwan for several laps, as if expressing its reluctance to leave.

Song Ciwan extended her hand, and the butterfly paused for a moment on her fingertip.

A moment later, it took flight once more, heading toward the dense branches of the old willow tree and the world where it belonged.

As the butterfly flew away, Song Ciwan looked up. She saw the bright sun filtering through the leaves, casting dappled spots of light where several other butterflies danced.

A faint smile appeared on Song Ciwan's face. The caterpillar's transformation seemed to be entirely thanks to her touch, but in truth, it wasn't just because of that.

'I think I'm starting to understand the Dao of life within the Bronze Fragment,' she thought.

'Before, I named the technique of time annihilation I comprehended "Morning Dew." So today, I'll name this technique of quickening life "Breaking the Cocoon."'

'Breaking the Cocoon. That's perfect.'

Song Ciwan smiled, an indescribable emotion stirring slowly in her chest.

A few breaths later, she calmed herself. But when she looked back at the ancestral hall, she saw the situation had changed once again.

The villagers who had been tied up to one side were now, somehow, free!

Not only were they free, but they had surrounded the six-armed Huai Sheng.

Although Huai Sheng had six arms, Infinite Power, and even seemed to have learned some bizarre Divine Techniques, slitting his wrists to feed his grandmother his blood had clearly damaged his body and drained his Vitality.

And so, Huai Sheng, now surrounded by the villagers, was anxious, bewildered, and even helpless.

One villager grabbed one of Huai Sheng's arms, another villager grabbed a second, and yet another grabbed a third...

Even with six arms, Huai Sheng didn't have enough for all the villagers to pull.

The villagers crowded around him, all talking at once, one after another.

"Huai Sheng, I used to hold you when you were little! It's me, your Second Auntie..."

"Huai Sheng, back when your father couldn't stand you and your stepmother was cruel to you, your grandma couldn't always watch over you. It was me! When I was nursing my own son, I would bring you along and give you milk too. That's the only reason you survived and grew up so strong!"

"Huai Sheng, your Fifth Uncle here never mistreated you! Remember when you were little, beaten black and blue by your stepmother, hiding and shivering in a ditch? I was the one who pulled you out and took you home! It was the dead of winter, with three feet of snow on the ground! If I hadn't taken you home and had your auntie give you ginger soup, you would have died right then and there..."

"Huai Sheng..."

"Huai Sheng..."

Every call of his name was a memory, a debt of gratitude.

Some weren't just single acts of kindness, but continuous debts so entangled they could never be fully recounted or settled!

One voice after another, one sentence after another, the villagers spoke as they pulled, tugged, crowded, and pushed. Eventually, Huai Sheng was so restrained he couldn't make a sound or speak a word.

Then, it's unclear who started it, but a mouth suddenly lunged forward and bit down hard on Huai Sheng's arm!

RIP!

The villager's sharp teeth tore open his strong arm.

Blood gushed out, and the villager immediately began to gulp it down, overjoyed.

GULP GULP—

But the gulping sound stopped abruptly.

The villager who had broken the skin and tasted blood didn't get to enjoy it for long before being violently yanked away by the scruff of his neck by someone behind him.

"Hey! Who the hell was that?"

The villager who was pulled away shouted in fury, unwilling to give up his spot.

But his replacement was no pushover. After shoving the man aside, he immediately lunged at the wound on Huai Sheng's arm.

GULP GULP—

The replacement villager got his taste of blood.

But another villager immediately tore this one away...

And so it went, one person would drink, only to be replaced by another.

People came and went. There were only about thirty villagers, but as they swarmed over Huai Sheng, they seemed like an endless tide.

Huai Sheng had been standing, but now he was pushed to the ground by the crush of bodies.

One after another, they all pushed forward while simultaneously shoving aside everyone around them.

Before, they had shown some restraint. Although there was some shouting and squabbling, they were all fellow villagers, many even related. Their conflict had been contained.

But at some point, that changed.

Perhaps it was when the Fifth Uncle said, "Hey, you Luo woman, you've pushed in to drink five times now, haven't you? You can't just act like he belongs to you alone because you nursed him as a baby! What about the rest of us?"

The Luo woman spat and cursed back, "Pah! Bullshit! You're the one who's had five turns, I've been counting! I've only had three! I'm the one getting shorted!"

Then the villagers started calling out how many turns everyone had taken, and all hell broke loose.

Some had had five or six turns, while others had only had one or two. How could that be fair?

It's not about scarcity, it's about inequality!

As the villagers argued, their fight suddenly shifted from the present to all sorts of old grievances.

The family from the east stealing a chicken from the family in the west, the family from the north seizing a foot of land from the family in the south, or who had mocked whom, who had been cruel to whom...

Once they started, it was a deluge. There were too many grudges, too many to count or ever hope to settle.

This was unacceptable!

There was no other way. Only one thing to do: fight!

And so, the villagers started fighting.

It started with one person throwing a punch, then another grabbing a fistful of hair...

And then it was kicks to the chest and fingers in the eyes. Low blows and pokes to the nose...

There's no technique to a village brawl. It was just a chaotic melee!

And the more chaotic it got, the more vicious it became.

What's more, nearly all the villagers had drunk Huai Sheng's blood, and without realizing it, they had all grown stronger.

So blood flew and screams echoed through the fight.

Someone's arms, legs, and ribs were broken. They collapsed...

The remaining villagers only grew more excited.

One of them shouted, "Jing the Fifth, you bastard, go to hell! You were the one who pushed Huai Sheng's mother, causing her to go into labor early! And now you have the nerve to act like a good person in front of him? How dare you? Why don't you just die?"

BANG!

Jing the Fifth was knocked to the ground, a mouthful of teeth flying from his mouth.

Another roared, "That Luo woman, you bitch! You have the gall to say you nursed Huai Sheng? Who was it that tricked his mother into coming to this village? It was you!"

BANG!

The Luo woman fell to the ground too.

In the ancestral hall, beneath the eerie glow of white candles, Huai Sheng lay in a pool of blood, his face flickering between light and shadow.

But his heart was pounding, the sound growing louder and louder.

Amidst the sound, the Bronze Fragment seemed to come alive.