Chapter 5: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

As the sun sank in the west, the valley was awash in golden light. Water flowed gently, and a white stag wandered leisurely, occasionally lowering its head to nibble at the tenderest tips of grass, utterly at ease and content.

Downwind, shrouded in shadow, Jiang Chen stood with his bow, quietly sensing the scene. From start to finish, his gaze never directly landed upon the white stag.

“With the stag’s alertness and speed, I have but one chance to strike. If I miss, even if I’ve mastered the Willow Down technique, I would never catch it in these woods.”

“More importantly, once startled, this stag will leave for good, and finding it again would be nearly impossible.”

His thoughts churned, heavy as stone, and the killing intent within Jiang Chen’s heart grew ever more restrained, void of any outward ripple.

Time slipped by, and slowly, the stag wandered into the stream at the heart of the valley. It sipped delicately at the water, spitting out bits of grass as though washing itself. As the grass mixed with the stream, a peculiar, fishy scent began to spread.

Drawn by this scent, soon fish of all sizes and kinds revealed themselves in the water, frantically chasing the grass as though it were some rare delicacy.

The white stag paid them no mind, continuing to play in the stream as before.

After a while, a flash of silver split the water—right then, a sly gleam flickered in the stag’s seemingly innocent eyes. The fish had taken the bait.

It darted forward, opened its mouth, and bit down—the entire process was swift as lightning. Seizing that fleeting moment, the stag caught a palm-sized, silvery fish in its jaws.

Scarlet blood dripped from its mouth, staining its snowy fur. The once gentle face turned fierce; the stag was certainly no herbivore.

But in that instant, death struck—a feathered arrow whistled through the air, piercing its eye and passing clean through.

A guttural, unconscious cry escaped its throat, breath ceased, and the stag collapsed into the stream. It died at the height of its triumph, the pride on its face not yet faded.

The mantis stalks the cicada, while the sparrow looms behind. The stag saw itself as the hunter, using grass as bait for the silver fish, unaware someone else used the fish to lure it. In that moment of successful capture, it was indeed a skilled hunter, but simultaneously, it revealed its greatest flaw and became prey in another’s eyes.

In the next moment, Jiang Chen’s figure floated swiftly to the scene.

“The archery honed in the apocalypse has not been wasted. It’s only a pity that this body’s muscle memory falls short; otherwise, I could have done better.”

Looking at the fallen white stag, Jiang Chen’s mind flickered with thoughts.

The archery skills of his predecessor, Jiang Wang, were merely average—a common hunter’s level. But Jiang Chen was different. In the early days of the apocalypse, his soul abilities had not yet been developed, offering little power. Forced to survive, he practiced archery relentlessly.

Pressed between life and death, aided by soul abilities, his progress in archery was meteoric, becoming his most formidable attack. Only when his soul powers advanced further did this change.

“If before I could only guess, now I can be fairly certain.”

His gaze settled on a claw mark across the stag’s back—left by some bird, likely an eagle.

“Ordinary beasts lack intelligence; their souls are muddled, yielding little useful information. But this stag had developed some spirit, remarkable indeed. It’s worth a try.”

“Soul Illumination.”

Activating his ability, Jiang Chen saw a sphere of light slowly drifting from the stag’s body.

In the next instant, he reached out and grasped the ethereal glow—the stag’s soul. At the same time, vague, chaotic images began to blend into Jiang Chen’s mind.

The flood of information made him frown, but as his ability persisted, he sifted through the chaos to find what he sought—and even stumbled upon a surprise.

Perhaps because the gray-feathered eagle had just wounded it, the stag’s memory of the bird was especially clear, saving Jiang Chen much effort.

“It is just as I thought—one of the six leaders of the Jiang River Bandits, the Old Hound.”

Seeing the gray-feathered eagle in the stag’s memories, Jiang Chen’s suspicions were confirmed. The stag’s presence here was no accident; it had been deliberately driven into this area, and that eagle was the mark of the Old Hound.

A true hunter by birth, with three generations of hunting in his family, the Old Hound excelled at tracking prey and possessed a singular mastery of eagle training. Thanks to such skills, he distinguished himself among the six leaders of the Jiang River Bandits and won the favor of the second-in-command, Sky Talon Zhou Quan, becoming his trusted lieutenant.

“The pressing task is to extract the heart’s blood of the stag, lest trouble arise. I suspect the Old Hound is near. I must also check the stag’s nest; if my guess is right, there’s a spirit creature there, which may accelerate my cultivation.”

With a clear plan in mind, Jiang Chen immediately crouched and began to process the stag’s corpse, carefully extracting its heart’s blood and sealing it in a porcelain vial prepared in advance.

With that done, he relaxed—a successful outing, so long as he’d secured the heart’s blood.

“With this heart’s blood, my cultivation of the Blood Flame technique can truly begin. The comprehension isn’t difficult; the real challenge lies in obtaining the stag’s heart’s blood.”

“As for the remains, I’ll have to hide them for now and have Skinny Monkey retrieve them later. It’s a shame I haven’t mastered Qi Refining yet and can’t use a storage pouch.”

His gaze lingered on the stag’s remains, and Jiang Chen shook his head. In these deep forests, hiding and carrying out a stag’s corpse was no easy matter.

The storage pouch was a cultivator’s treasure, crafted from the hide of a rare beast and imbued with spatial mysteries—quite wondrous, but requiring true Qi to activate. Only those at Qi Refining or above could use it.

Jiang Wang had possessed one such pouch, a legacy from his teacher, containing Qi Refining techniques and a few treasures. Yet his cultivation was insufficient to open it.

After hiding the stag’s corpse, Jiang Chen suddenly sensed something and looked skyward. A dark shadow flashed across the heavens—an eagle.

“So it’s come at last? Faster than I expected; seems impatience got the better of him.”

Watching the shadow vanish into the distance, Jiang Chen’s eyes sharpened, a hint of steel in his gaze.