Chapter 3289 — The Flaw in the Jade Pendant Space
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"That works too. Then be careful, Brother Wei Zhao," Yang Qiqi urged. She was, after all, the mistress of X Island, and so she naturally could not slight her guests merely for the sake of going fishing with Wei Zhao.
Wei Zhao nodded and sped off toward the jungle at the back of the island. Along the way, a thousand feelings surged in him—the familiar path, the familiar surroundings—only, he had not returned here for more than ten years, and yet now, walking this road, he found it as familiar as in his childhood.
Following the way as easily as an old hand, Wei Zhao reached the riverbank and plunged headfirst into the little river to catch fish. But after he had caught one, it suddenly struck him that he had forgotten to bring a bucket. One or two fish he could simply carry back in his hand, but with so many people, all with good appetites, he would have to catch a dozen or twenty fish at least—and the fish were not large. How was he to carry them back?
He did not much relish the idea of trekking back for a bucket. Suddenly a flash of inspiration came to him—he had a plan! Did he not have the Jade Pendant Space? Why not put the fish straight in there?
Wei Zhao had once put food into the Jade Pendant Space, and the food had remained motionless within it—that is, its state had frozen at the very moment it was freshly cooked, so that when taken out it was still steaming hot and perfectly fresh. So Wei Zhao intended to put the live fish he caught into the Jade Pendant Space; that way, if they were still alive when he brought them back, they would be all the fresher.
At that thought, Wei Zhao willed it, intending to put the fish in his hand into the Jade Pendant Space. But to his surprise, the fish remained right there in his hand and did not enter the Jade Pendant Space. Such a thing had never happened before!
Could it be... that the Jade Pendant Space had stopped working? Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback. Once more he instinctively tried to put the fish in his hand into the Jade Pendant Space, but again he failed. No extra fish appeared in the Jade Pendant Space, and the fish in his hand had not vanished either!
"How very strange!" Wei Zhao frowned, and tried willing out a spirit-beast essence core from the Jade Pendant Space. The essence core came smoothly into his hand from the Jade Pendant Space, and with another act of will on Wei Zhao's part, the essence core returned once more to the Jade Pendant Space!
That settled it: the Jade Pendant Space had not malfunctioned—something else had gone wrong somewhere! Could it be that it depended on what was being put in?
"Old Jiao, why can't this fish of mine be put into the Jade Pendant Space?" Wei Zhao asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Living things, of course not," Old Jiao said, quite straight-faced.
"Living things? Then aren't you and I alive?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback and asked in return.
"You and I are both in abnormal states. You enter the Jade Pendant Space as a primordial spirit, and I am much the same—neither of us is a real body," Old Jiao said. "There is no oxygen here. How could a living creature survive once it came in?"
"So that's how it is. Then only after this fish is dead can it be put into the Jade Pendant Space?" Wei Zhao thought for a moment and asked.
"For the time being, yes," Old Jiao said with a nod. (I stayed up late writing this chapter for nearly six hours—first, because I was so sleepy and muddled that I wrote slowly; second, because the Jade Pendant Space has to lay groundwork for some later plot, so I spent some time thinking it over! All right, the Fishman is off to bed!) RS