"We’re staying in this hall, sit wherever you like."
Chan Zi steered the boat to Lake Heart Island in the Yunng Swamp, carrying Ah Gou into the shack.
"We?"
Chen Xuantian put his hands in his sleeves and followed inside, looking around at the little shack that resembled a duck pen.
Well, it’s just a duck pen, where fishern co to release ducks into the lake, occasionally using it for shelter from the wind and rain.
"Didn’t you see just now? If you want to survive here, you can only work for the Nangong family.
Those heartless, rotten guys give you little work for much, can’t even fill your belly, and still beat people.
If there’s no one to lend a hand, many can’t make it through winter..."
Chen Xuantian calculated with his fingers,
"So you pick them up to feed them, and even eat the ducks they keep here?"
Chan Zi turned to look at him,
"Am I supposed to watch them starve to death? Besides, I already settled the bill for the ducks. What’s wrong with your hand? Do you need it bandaged?"
Chen Xuantian was speechless, had to put his hands back, glanced at Ah Gou sleeping soundly on the straw,
"How many people under you?"
"They’re not under , they call boss because I’m the oldest. Plus, they don’t recognize the word Chan... Thirty-three."
Chen Xuantian looked at him,
"Only thirty-three? This place slls like it’s been ho to at least a hundred, no?"
Chan Zi looked expressionless at Ah Gou,
"They co and go. Those who can earn a living on their own, I send away, a few lashes won’t kill anyone.
I don’t have great skills, just take care of the young, the injured, the hurt, bringing them back for a bite to eat."
Chen Xuantian wandered around the room, glancing here and there,
"Heh, at least you have so self-awareness, those thirty-three people then."
"They’re over by the Beast Cage. When the Hunting Team goes into the mountains, there’s work, then there’s food. This place can sotis be a hideout but can’t co often, there’s a monster in the lake."
So Chen Xuantian noticed too, in the back room of the shack, several wooden planks set up to block a huge gap, apparently sothing from the lake crashed in, nearly tearing the whole shack apart.
"How did you guys survive?"
Chan Zi’s voice paused for a mont,
"It was Master who fought it off..."
Chen Xuantian sighed,
"Is that so, my condolences."
"Condolences for what? My Master ain’t dead! He’s taken the Hunting Team to the Southern Border."
Then Chan Zi ca out of the basent, holding a burlap sack,
"Here, didn’t you want to see the goods? This is it. It’s not stolen, it’s found."
Chen Xuantian was also speechless, had to look at the stuff inside the burlap sack.
Dirty, stinky things that looked like the remains of skin and fat from a demon beast, seed quite dead for a while, all the at had been gnawed clean, only a disfigured skeleton remained, but from the extraordinarily intense aura and very sturdy bones of the remains, it must’ve been a high-level carnivorous predator.
"Where’d you find it, any more?"
Chen Xuantian picked up a bone from the sack, examining it closely, almost wanting to lick it.
Chan Zi frowned, squinting at him,
"Dug it out from a dragon fish’s belly. That fish was terrifyingly large, not found in Yunng Swamp, probably rushed in from the Li River, stranded by the lake shore.
We saw it first, but the Nangong family snatched it, still made us transport it to the Beast Cage for cleaning...
When I was gutting the fish, I saw this bone was also thick, didn’t know how long it had been inside and wouldn’t digest, might be sothing good, so I dumped it out to sell.
Who knew that unscrupulous trader would renege on the deal, only willing to pay cow bone prices, even threatened to harm and snatch my goods... If you’re really hungry, I’ve got so biscuits here."
Chen Xuantian wasn’t bothered by the dirt, arranged the bones on the ground into a skeleton, marveling at it,
"The shape is like a bull, with the body of a sheep, a human face, eyes beneath the armpits, tiger teeth, human claws... Tsk tsk, this place actually has a roe owl. And there’s sothing stronger that could eat it, the Southern Border must have a company’s ard wetware production base..."
Although Chan Zi couldn’t understand what this chubby fellow was saying, this look of seeing an old friend clearly ant he had a plan, so he tentatively asked,
"How much is this thing worth?"
"How much is it worth?"
Chen Xuantian chuckled, slapped the bone in his hand,
"This is a Divinity Transformation Level Heavenly Materials Treasure, probably just a step away from becoming an Evil Devourer, unfortunately, it failed in crossing the tribulation and fell here.
If there weren’t any middlen making money, and it went directly to the Mountain Man, it would be of imnse cause and effect. Not to ntion feeding thirty-four of you, directly taking you in at the Mountain Gate and sheltering Core Formation would be deserved.
But if you take it out to sell, not a penny would it fetch, instead, it’s a huge trouble, once recognized for what it is, it’d bring a fatal disaster.
It wouldn’t just be seized by force, but they’d need to destroy the corpse and erase all traces of this Immortal Fate, then only would they be at ease to swallow it whole."
Chan Zi squinted at him,
"According to you, you’re going to take this hot potato to swallow yourself?"
Chen Xuantian chuckled,
"I can’t swallow it. You’ve seen what happened to that dragon fish, unless it’s one of those rare, once-in-a-millennium, cherished anomalies by heaven and earth, favored by the Great Dao.
Otherwise, a Divinity Transformation Level Heavenly Materials Treasure can only be enjoyed by an old monster at the Divinity Transformation Realm, slowly simred in an Alchemy Furnace, secluded for painstaking refining.
Cultivation, Immortal Fate, luck, any slight lacking can’t enjoy such blessings, greedily swallowing and forcing it down would rather choke you than nourish, endangering itself.
Otherwise, how could there still be hundreds or thousands of Heavenly Materials Treasures left in the world, they would have all been eaten up at the sight, wouldn’t they?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers