Monolith Luck
Western desert is a vast desert where humans live by relying on oases like Sha Jing oasis. Huang clan, an upper tier force with centuries of history, holds the oasis’s center, with smaller forces submitting at its edges. Mortal villages, including Han village, sit at the fringe; these villagers live a tough life in huge numbers, under the control of Huang clan and other Gu Master forces. Near Han village, a small natural grassland is more desolate than northern plains, its red dagger grass sharp enough to stab deep for meager water. Children under ten cut the grass there with sickles for family pay, all in leather gloves but one bare-handed boy whose hands show no injuries. The setting sun is still very hot, and the children sweat as they work. That boy is Han Li. ch. 674
Villagers already praise how much grass Han Li cuts. He returns home to find his parents still out, and grinds the day’s grass at a quern-stone into paste for the family’s three fat sand scorpions, their main asset. Selling grown scorpion meat later brings the family a huge sum. He feeds them before eating, then cooks the family’s sand rice, coarse and hard to swallow, for dinner. ch. 674
That night, Fang Yuan sits in a graveyard several li from Han village and activates up to a thousand investigative Gu, putting the whole village under his watch. His rank five luck inspection Gu shows a grey-white luck cloud above the village, very thin, formed from the villagers’ collective sense of belonging. Beneath it floats a cracked, huge stone-like mass of luck above Han Li’s family, leaking golden luck upward into the cloud; Fang Yuan names this unfamiliar shape monolith luck. He confirms Han Li is the future rank seven Gu Immortal. As a zombie he can no longer sense his own luck without a rank six luck inspection Gu, and wonders, with the curiosity luck always stirs in him, whether it is still black coffin luck. He is reaching for connect luck Gu when a shout interrupts him. ch. 674
Intense winds suddenly tear across the northeast as yellow sand flies into tidal waves. A moving sand figure shouts that Plump Lady is chasing thief Ling Hu for stolen immortal essence stones, shocking the whole oasis with her furious roar. Fang Yuan denies being the thief, but Plump Lady, an extremely fat female Gu Immortal, refuses to believe him and keeps attacking with waves of yellow sand. Fang Yuan shouts heavenly zombie transformation, drops his disguise, and charges her as a six meter, eight armed immortal zombie. His charge cracks the ground. He shatters three huge sand waves she raises and appears in front of her. ch. 674
Realizing her mistake but too hot-tempered to stop, Plump Lady activates martial sand armor: yellow sand gushes from her ears and envelops her into a thick sand giant near his size. Their fists collide; the sand giant’s hands scatter to sand and reform, while Fang Yuan’s fracture and heal within moments. He takes a huge step forward, fractured fists recovering rapidly, as the fight turns fierce with bones breaking and sand flying. Plump Lady is shocked at how ruthless and fearless he fights. ch. 674
