Chapter 882: Electrified Moon Dancer
“Well…that throws plan B out the window.”
“What window?”
“It’s a turn of phrase, father. Read it in a book. it means an option has been rendered useless.”
“Ah.’
When the group consisting of Zhen Yue, Zhen Hou, Zhen Xi and Zhen Feng (and Hurricroak), decided to loop around in order to secure an [Eternal Spring Calabash Tree] away from the Drunken Frenzy Orangutan and his party, they discovered that it was essentially a fool’s errand.
Whether it was quirk of the surrounding ecosystem or a consequence of deliberate action done by the aether primates themselves, all of the [Eternal Spring Calabash] trees were concentrated in an area that was basically in running distance from the Drunken Frenzy Orangutan. This essentially meant that the only way for the group to secure one of these trees, was to get in fighting distance of the aforementioned ape. Granted, absolutely none of them wanted to do so due to the fact that they remembered what happened to that tiger aether beast that was still being eaten like a freshly roasted pig.
Needless to say, nobody in the group had any desire in become the next entree in this jungle feast of hedonism and debauchery.
…
Wait a minute.
…
“I think I have an idea on how to distract these guys long enough for us to get our hands on one of those trees,” Zhen Feng suddenly stated while looking over the gathering of drunken primates.
“Eh?”
A little after their failed attempt at scouting, the Zhen Clan warriors had returned to their original hiding spot of a cliff that hung over the heads of the drunken primates some several dozen feet away.
At this point in time, the two Zhen Clan elders, Zhen Hou and Zhen Xi, were thinking of just going down there fists flying and aether circulating, drunken battle apes be damned, but they were still open to any ideas that limited how much fighting they had to do. After all, there was still the matter in regards to the [Tempering Spirit Pool] and it’s guardian to deal with later. In other words, any plan that could help them achieve their goals without burning as much aether as possible until the very end was ideal.
“What do you have in mind?,” Zhen Xi asked his son.
“Well, we just witnessed a group of those primates eat that tiger in a matter of seconds…so why don’t we get them even more food as a means of distracting them?”
“You mean bait?”
“Sort of.”
Zhen Feng’s full plan involved preparing what was essentially a feast consisting of a variety of fruits and food that had a synergistically negative effect with all of the alcohol that was flowing in the veins of these primates. In other words, he was planning on giving all of these primates either a bad case of indigestion or knock them all out via bad food/alcohol interaction.
Technically speaking, this plan would work…there was just one problem, well, two.
“We don’t have enough time or resources to pull that off,” Zhen Yue pointed out as she did some quick calculations in her head.
“Damn. Really?”
“Well, if this was our plan from the get-go, we might’ve had time.”
“Damn.”
Some of the foods Zhen Feng had in mind required prep time because they were legitimate dishes that needed to be cooked. At the same time, the sheer amount, and sizes, of the primates present by the lake’s side necessitated significantly more food than what the four of them could muster from their supply packs alone.
Technically, they could go and gather a bunch of fruit from the surrounding trees, but that would take even more time.
Based on these current circumstances, their only viable plan of action was to rely on violence.
That said, they weren’t the only ones that were wrestling with a plan of action.
…
[Logos, Pathos, un momento. Can you guys prep for me an information packet based on the aether primates you can identify through my eyes?]
=Simple enough. Do you want us to focus on anything specific in this packet?=
[Hmmm. Ideally, something along the lines of a shared weakness between all of them. I know that, logically, it’s unlikely for them all to have a shared weakness but my instincts are telling me-]
<=They do have a shared weakness.=>
[Yahtzee! What is it?]
<=Well, this is either the world's greatest coincidence or completely planned, but the weakness shared by all of these primates is...=>
…
“Alright, since we can’t exactly come up with anything clever that can be done relatively quickly, now is the time for act-!”
“Hey ho! I have a plan~!”
“Huh?”
“What the…”
“Oh, did I forget to mention that I could modify how I talk with my puppets? Give me a second…”
Just as Zhen Hou and Zhen Xi were about to lead the charge agaisnt the Drunken Frenzy Orangutan, Zhen Liu’s puppets suddenly interjected in a surprisingly melodic voice. While they and the scions knew Zhen Liu could talk through his puppets, this was the first time they heard a voice that wasn’t his come out of them.
Granted, this was actually due to Hurricroak forgetting to modify her voice but they didn’t need to know any of that.
“And there we go,” Hurricroak said in a perfect recreation of Zhen Liu’s voice. “Now back to my original statement, I have a plan.”
“Mmmm.”
While the group was still open to the idea of figuring out a way of securing the tree without fighting, they had already built up some momentum and were looking forward to fighting.
Which is why they decided to preface the plan with some questions.
“Does it involve resources we don’t have?”
“No.”
“Will it take prep time?”
“If I am allowed to use a little party trick associated with my puppets, no.”
“Can it be summed up in a single sentence?”
“Turns out all those drunken primates have a weakness for music.”
“What?”
Hearing that last answer threw the group for a bit of a loop, so much so that they all stood down and allowed Zhen Liu(Hurricroak) to explain themselves further.
With a captive audience now standing before, she decided to explain all of the little details…and lie through her teeth.
“So, I’m going to be skipping over why I know this, but you guys should know that the Drunken Frenzy Ape down there has a this unusual habit of dancing along to whatever music it hears and whatever dancing it sees, same as all of those other aether primates down there,” Hurricroak explained while gesturing to the group. “So all we gotta do is have one of us sing and dance well enough to distract them while the others go and steal a tree. And before you ask, I’m going to be going into battle soon, so I won’t be able to sing and dance with my puppet. So, who wants to put on a show?”
“Uhhh…”
“What?”
Aside from having no instruments to play music, none of the warriors present could really carry a tune or dance all too well.
Well…all except for one.
All eyes were directed at Zhen Yue in this exact moment, since for the better of two decades, she was the only one of two among the Zhen Clan scions to regularly take singing and dancing lessons. The only other scion of the Zhen Clan that could fulfill this criteria was Zhen Guo, but he was elsewhere for the moment.
Zhen Yue gave her father, cousin and uncle a flat look before releasing a sigh. She knew where this was going, but it didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Alright, so I’m just gonna preface my volunteering with one main complaint: singing and dancing is incredibly hard to do and I can only do one or the other. So that means one of you will have to-”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Hurricroak interjected. “I actually know an aether art that can help you produce music without the need of singing.”
“Oh…okay, but I don’t think we have the time to use an untrained aether art.”
“I know,” Hurricroak replied while finishing up some stretches. “Okay, grit your teeth.”
“What are you-”
ZAP!
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
In a moment that cause Zhen Hou, Zhen Xi and Zhen Feng to simultaneously experience varying degrees of deja vu, Hurricroak had suddenly transformed herself into a bolt of lighting and zapped herself directly into Zhen Yue’s head.
While Zhen Feng knew exactly what had happened, Zhen Hou and Zhen Xi were left flabbergasted…but remembering a certain moment from not too long ago that felt rather similar.
“Wait a minute…”
As for Zhen Yue, she was having a moment.
________________________________________
‘WHAT IN THE-what the fuck…’
To say that Zhen Yue didn’t appreciate being electrocuted by a living bolt of lighting would be an understatement.
The next time she saw Zhen Liu, she was going to clock him straight in the gut, power level difference between damned.
However, that thought was buried in the back of her mind as she was busy being rendered speechless by the strange new landscape she found herself.
Namely, the fact that she appeared to be in some kind of moonlit statue garden, with the statues depicting the animal totems she channels with arts. Granted, she felt something was…off.
“Wait a minute…I don’t remember channeling the power of a frog…”
[That’d be my doing, seniorita. Nice to finally meet you~]
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
[Hah! Five for five.]
