Stranger Danger

What did “Untouchable” mean in this context? It meant that the performer was going to dodge a flurry of weapons without moving their limbs. They would be dodging purely with their body.

It sounded like a common trick, and it was a common trick that was often seen in mundane circus performances. When the performance actually began though, everyone was flabbergasted by what they saw.

First, the performers were a human and a Stranger.

The human was no ordinary human. He was a merman from the Southern Sea.

Legend had it that a human with a human’s upper body but a fish’s lower body lived in the depths of the Southern Sea. They were known as merfolks.

In the sea, a merfolk was as nimble as any fish. On land, they could function like any other human as well. It was also said that a merfolk could fight the waves, and that their tears could transform into pearls.

The Stranger was no ordinary Stranger either. He was a Hundred Hands.

The Hundred Hands was a Phenomenon-class Stranger. Around ten meters tall, he had a tiger’s head, a human’s body, and exactly a hundred arms growing out of his torso. That was why he was named Hundred Hands.

At the beginning, Hundred Hands was only throwing throwing weapons at the Southern Sea merman with two hands. The merman was able to dodge all the projectiles with ease.

Slowly, Hundred Hands began to up both the number of hands he was using and the speed of his attacks. His one hundred hands kept swinging like a fan, and the innumerable projectiles blended together to the point where it looked like he was firing a giant column of steel at the merman. It seemed impossible that the merman would be able to dodge such a ferocious assault.

In reality, that was exactly what the merman did. Perfectly calm, the merman dodged the storm of projectiles like a fish navigating through treacherous water, or a swallow flying through the forest without ruffling a single feather. He could always find a weak point in the storm; a gap between the raindrops and avoid getting hit by a literal hair’s breadth. Maybe not even that. Hundred Hands was unable to put even a scratch on his person.

After Hundred Hands finally ran out of projectiles, he began wielding all sorts of weapons—sabers, spears, swords, halberds, you name it—and renewed his assault against the merman. Once again, the merman was able to navigate through the storm of steel as if they didn’t even exist.

That was why this performance was named Untouchable.

Objectively speaking, this performance wasn’t as stunning and beautiful as the Dance of Ice and Fire. However, it certainly got everyone’s heart racing with excitement and nervousness.

The next two performances after Untouchable were Blade Swallowing and Guillotine. Of course, they were a lot more exciting than their mundane counterparts.

The guy performing Blade Swallowing wasn’t swallowing your usual dagger or swords or whatever. No, he was swallowing spiked cudgels, long spears, great axes and other ridiculously large weapons—as a pint-sized midget who wasn’t even taller than an adult’s knees.

It should not need to be said how stunning it was to watch a midget swallowing a massive spiked cudgel that was several times longer than he was.

Guillotine was yet another common circus trick. In a mundane circus, the performer would pretend to be decapitated and survive to astound the audience. Here, the performer wasn’t just decapitated for real, he was torn apart by five horses. For a moment, everything was still. Then, the head and the four limbs writhed and transformed into smaller versions of the performer. The small performers then killed each other and multiplied in number yet again.

As a result, the number of performers on the stage kept increasing until the entire platform was covered in mushroom-sized people. They were all the same person, and they were so noisy that they were a market in their own right.

In the end, the little men held hands with each other, formed a circle, and danced a strange dance. They eventually transformed into a pool of water that merged back into the original performer.

For many others, this was just an entertaining performance. However, Ye Qing knew that the performer was really a Stranger named Spring Soul.

Spring Soul was a person who accidentally drowned in a stream or a spring and somehow transformed into a vengeful spirit. As a Spring Soul’s body was made of water, they were naturally unkillable via conventional means. Not only that, a Spring Soul was an exceptionally vengeful spirit because of their unfortunate death, so it would drag anyone who was walking past a spring, resting their legs beside a river etc into the body of water and drown them.

Strangely, he could not sense any resentment from the performing Spring Soul. On the contrary, it was overflowing with kindness and happiness.

After Guillotine was over, the stage suddenly became as dark as the night. Fog rolled in from the surroundings and turned what was a lively atmosphere into something eerie and disturbing. There was no one who was immune to the sudden change in atmosphere.

Boom!

A column of smoke rose into the sky, and the audience saw the blurry silhouettes of a man and a woman behind the smoke. The man reached out and drew a crescent in the air, and the woman carried it between her arms and blew gently.

Slowly, the crescent began rising upward. The higher it climbed, the brighter and rounder it grew.

When the crescent had turned into a full moon and reached peak luminosity, beams of moonlight descended toward the earth, scattered the fog, and filled the world with light. The darkness and oppressiveness everyone was feeling was wiped clean just like that.

The moon in the sky looked real and close enough to touch. Everyone was astonished by its presence.

It was at this moment a flute blew, and a bay tree slowly grew out of the moon’s surface. It grew bigger and taller until it looked like it held up the sky itself.

The woman jumped and landed inside the moon. Finally, they had an unobstructed view of her appearance. She had milky white skin, black hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall, a clear and beautiful countenance, and a single red dot on her forehead.

What was strange was that the woman had a pair of rabbit ears. It had snow white fur that glowed softly in the moonlight, mysterious and fantastical.

Everyone’s expression melted into adoration as they stared unblinkingly at the rabbit ears. It was as if it was the most wonderful thing in the entire world.

It was at this moment the man on the stage summoned a bead of water on his fingertip and flicked it away. Splitting into two as soon as it left his fingertip, one half of the water bead floated into the air and turned into clouds, whereas the other half sank to the bottom and turned into a lake.

A phoenix cry broke out from the clouds, and a penta-colored phoenix burst out into the open. Sporting five vibrant colors and glowing radiantly, the phoenix looked both handsome and divine.

On the ground, a gorgeous rainbow hovered above the lake, and a blue dragon leaped out of the water surface. It had a long, slender body, and its scales glinted brightly under the light. It looked both strong and formidable.

While the audience was absorbed in the handsomeness of the phoenix and the powerful appearance of the dragon, countless birds suddenly flew in from outside the Eight Directions Inn and circled around the phoenix.

When the phoenix takes flight, all birds arrive to pay homage to the phoenix.

At the same time, penta-colored kois leaped out of the water and flew over the rainbow.

When a koi leaps over the dragon gate, it shall soar into the heavens.

The phoenix cried, the dragon roared, the birds chirped, and the fish flapped. The combination of natural sounds came together into a melody like nothing they had ever heard.

While the heavenly music was tugging at everyone’s senses, the woman inside the moon summoned a sword into her hand and began dancing. It was a sword dance. Unlike the Snow Girl’s loftiness or the Fire Fairy’s passion, the sword dance was pure, graceful, but also valiant and formidable-looking. The combination of visual and aural aesthetics was extremely pleasing to say the least.

As the woman danced, bay flowers suddenly bloomed all over the bay tree like spring had come. A floral scent filled the air, and the world grew even more dreamlike than it already was.

The song of dragon and phoenix were climbing to a crescendo, and the woman’s sword dance was reaching a climax. All the while, the bay tree swayed, and its falling petals circled around the woman.

The wonderful music, the beautiful dance, the floral scent. They blended together harmoniously to push the performance to its absolute climax.

When the performance finally reached the end, the moon slowly dimmed, and both the sky of birds and the lake of fishes and dragons slowly rolled up like a painting. The audience could not help but feel a sense of loss and emptiness.

What came after that was an explosive round of applause that seemed like it would never end.

There were no cheers. There were claps and only claps.

It was as if this was the only way they could express their awe and wonderment[1].

1. It also doesn’t feel like a 2k word chapter. I think I shaved a few years off my life translating it. ☜

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