"I don't think that kid looks like a Shepherd either. He's skinny as a rake. We can't accommodate a Shepherd here." The man holding the bowl let out a foolish chuckle.
Or rather, this place had no room for man-eating monsters.
If they determined that Yu Ziqing was a man-eating Shepherd, they would dig a pit and bury him.
Because before this, no Shepherd had ever dared to truly set foot in the village.
"The moment I saw him, I knew he wasn't a Shepherd. No Shepherd could be this weak, and besides..." The old man paused, baring his gap-toothed grin.
"He's been protecting that Old Yang the whole time. That told me he and the Shepherds weren't cut from the same cloth. He was probably brought here by a Shepherd to stay and work for him. That Old Yang was most likely someone from his household. He said he was a cook who'd been kidnapped, and it should be true."
"Speaking of which, why are there so many old people this time? I heard something big happened outside. How big was it?" The man with the bowl scratched his head.
"Mind your own business. Don't meddle in anything else." The old man lightly tapped the man with his cane, and the smile on his face faded. "The Shepherd died, and something major happened besides. None of that concerns you. You only need to manage the mine. The work can't stop, and the quota can't drop. The people coming to collect the goods next time should be arriving soon."
"Got it."
Yu Ziqing was sleepy and exhausted. On top of that, the air in the den was stale, while the temperature was not low. Before long, he sank into a hazy state between sleep and wakefulness.
After more than an hour, footsteps sounded outside the door. Yu Ziqing suddenly woke, one hand touching Old Yang and the other gripping the short sword at his waist.
"Little brother, the hot water's ready. Do you want some?"
"All right, thank you." Yu Ziqing walked out of the den, took the hot water in the wooden bowl, and thanked the short man. "Thank you, old brother. My name is Yu Ziqing. What should I call you?"
"Everyone calls me Er Han. My grandpa is the Village Chief here. Rest for one day first. After that, you'll have to start working. We don't support idlers here. What can you do?"
Yu Ziqing found it strange. He seemed to have answered this question before.
"I used to be a cook."
"A cook? That'll do. Looking at your arms and legs, you probably can't work in the mine anyway. Starting the day after tomorrow, you'll work with those old ladies." Er Han chuckled and turned to leave.
Yu Ziqing took the hot water and smelled it. Then he pulled out a dry cake as hard as a stone from his knapsack. He slowly soaked the edge, nibbled at it once it softened a little, and then continued soaking it.
When he no longer felt very hungry and sensed nothing wrong, he soaked some more and got Old Yang up to eat.
"Old sir, eat something before you sleep."
After eating a little, Old Yang pointed a hoof at his own throat and scratched several characters into the ground.
"Cut it open with one stroke. Two inches across the skin, half an inch beneath it. Not a fraction off."
After saying this, he feared Yu Ziqing had not understood and spent a long while indicating the exact spot beneath his throat with his hoof.
Yu Ziqing pondered for a moment.
"Old sir, are you trying to break the evil spell? If you can't break it open in one go, can you do it in stages? That works too?"
Old Yang nodded. He even rummaged through the knapsack for the little knife he had used to cut meat before, then bit it and handed it to Yu Ziqing.
"Will this work?"
Old Yang did not waste words. He simply lay down on the ground, tilted his head back, and pointed one hoof at the spot that needed to be cut open.
"Are you in such a hurry? Why not recuperate for a while first?"
Old Yang kicked Yu Ziqing, then continued lying with his head tilted back, waiting for his throat to be cut open.
Yu Ziqing reversed his grip on the little knife and gauged the depth and position. With his knife skills, it should be nearly exact.
The blade fell. A bloody cut two inches long suddenly appeared on Old Yang's throat, penetrating half an inch beneath the skin. The measurements were perfect.
Old Yang grunted, stiffening himself and remaining motionless as blood gushed out. But after only two or three breaths, black light surged across the wound. It healed again, leaving only a thin scar. Old Yang climbed to his feet, and his hoarse, aged voice followed.
"The pain of being skinned—I might indeed be unable to endure it now. But splitting the transverse bone is still something I can withstand."
"Old sir, you never told me about this method before."
"Why would I tell you? With those Shepherds around, opening my mouth would have meant certain death. Even those Shepherds don't know this method. I hadn't planned to speak at all. This time, two inches through the skin. Next time, if skinning is used to break the evil spell, it will have to penetrate a fraction into the flesh. But I can't keep silent anymore."
"Old sir..."
"Just call me Old Yang. That's fine." Old Yang walked to the den's entrance and glanced outside.
"Anyway, remember two things.
"You've been asking about cultivation methods, haven't you? If you find a cultivation method here, aside from body-nourishing methods, don't cultivate anything else. Eat more and build up your health first, or you'll just be courting death.
"I'm afraid you'll lose control, fail to understand the danger, ruin your future, and seek your own death.
"Second, don't meddle in the affairs here. Once you've recovered, stock up on supplies and leave quickly. Don't wait until spring. By spring, it'll be too late."
After giving Yu Ziqing these instructions, Old Yang collapsed onto the pile of dry grass. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, and he slowly closed them.
"Old Yang? Old Yang?" Yu Ziqing was startled and hurriedly called out twice.
"What are you yelling for? If you took a cut, you'd be the same." Old Yang lifted one eyelid and grumbled irritably. Then he turned over and fell into a deep sleep.
"..."
Yu Ziqing did not keep disturbing Old Yang. That cut had probably not been as simple as it appeared.
Old Yang had taught him the official language, taught him writing, and taught him all sorts of miscellaneous knowledge. Yu Ziqing learned quickly, and Old Yang was happy to teach him. Yet he had never passed on any cultivation method to Yu Ziqing.
Old Yang said he did not know any. Otherwise, he would not have failed to achieve Qi Refining. He was merely an ordinary teacher.
Yu Ziqing took him at his word and never asked about it again.
With a warm Earth Den and Old Yang looking as he did, Yu Ziqing knew there was no immediate danger. At last, he could sleep soundly. He slept for seven or eight hours in one stretch, until hunger cramps twisted his stomach awake.
When he walked out of the Earth Den, a commotion sounded in the distance. Yu Ziqing grabbed a handful of dry-cake crumbs he had slowly collected. After drinking a few mouthfuls of water, he moistened the crumbs bit by bit in his mouth while walking toward the crowd.
At the edge of the crowd, he craned his neck to look. A thin man lay bound hand and foot in the middle. He was skin and bones, his eyes somewhat vacant, with saliva still dribbling from his mouth.
The crowd behind him opened a path, and Er Han supported the Village Chief as he walked over.
"Village Chief, this man went to the Back Mountain to steal White Meat."
The Village Chief sighed and nodded at Er Han. Er Han immediately turned and left. The Village Chief looked around, drew a breath, and spoke.
"If you refuse to work, you don't get to eat. If you don't get to eat, yet still go dig up White Meat, then you've violated the greatest taboo here. There's no helping it. We can only let him have one last meal. At least he won't starve to death."
The people around them fell silent. Yu Ziqing continued moistening the dry-cake crumbs bit by bit, letting his saliva soften them slowly. He remembered Old Yang's warning, that he had even endured a cut to give it to him, so he was purely here to watch the spectacle and, incidentally, learn about the people and affairs of this place.
Before long, Er Han came over carrying a steaming wooden tray. On it sat a bowl of ice water and a stone bowl covered with a stone lid.
The Village Chief lifted the lid. Inside was something yellow tinged with orange. At first glance, it looked like old tofu, yet also like yellow millet sticky cake. The Village Chief took a pair of iron chopsticks, pinched and rolled up a piece, and heat spread through the air along with the fragrance of grain and the rich scent of grease.
He picked up a piece half the size of a fist and gently rolled it through the ice water. The scalding steam dissipated at once. Holding the food in his chopsticks, he brought it to the thin man's mouth.
The man's mind was elsewhere. The moment he smelled the fragrance, his mouth swallowed the large piece before his thoughts could catch up.
With a gurgle, the food slid down his throat and into his stomach without any chewing.
Yet after only a few breaths, the man suddenly began struggling violently. A hoarse, inhuman wheeze came from his throat, and heat kept pouring from his mouth. After struggling for a short while, he went completely still.
Yu Ziqing silently moistened the crumbs, watching quietly along with everyone else.
The man had been burned to death by that mouthful of food, whatever it was.
Even from this distance, Yu Ziqing could feel the heat. That thing was absolutely hotter than boiling oil. If someone said it was a mouthful of freshly erupted magma, he would have found it perfectly believable.
The skin around the man's stomach was a noticeably different color from the rest. His internal organs had probably been cooked through...
And such a large piece had been swallowed in an instant. It was probably not merely because the man was crazed with hunger that he had not chewed it at all.
After dealing with the matter, the Village Chief turned and left.
Someone silently disposed of the corpse. Everyone else went about their own tasks, and everything proceeded in perfect order.
Seeing that Yu Ziqing had not left, Er Han carried the tray over.
"Young Master Yu, come on. I'll show you around while I'm at it."
"Mm, all right."
After walking a few steps, Er Han held the tray in one hand, lifted the bowl of water with the other, and casually splashed it to the side.
The ice water struck the ground and rapidly froze into a thin layer of ice. A bone-chilling cold rose up, transforming into clusters of frost branches that crawled outward along the ground. In the blink of an eye, frost covered an area seven or eight feet across.
Holding the tray, Er Han secretly lifted a crack in the lid of the food bowl. In an instant, it was as though a lump of charcoal burned white-hot had appeared. Heat burst out alongside a rich fragrance.
Er Han could not help swallowing.
"We can't even eat this Yellow Millet Cake yet. That bastard gets it for free."
Yu Ziqing stood nearby, feeling a burning pain across his cheeks. Just looking at it from close range made him feel scorched.
Could something like this really be eaten?
Yu Ziqing secretly glanced at Er Han. Er Han seemed completely unaffected by the heat. There were only two words written all over his face.
I want to eat it.
Remembering the Village Chief from earlier, who could barely stand and needed a cane and someone to support him, Yu Ziqing realized that the man had stood even closer and handled it himself, yet had seemed not to feel the heat either.
And then there were those people who had undone the evil spell by skinning themselves, treating something so heavy as light.
Yu Ziqing could not help asking himself in secret.
Were the people here really all ordinary people?
Since when had ordinary people become this outrageous? Could it be that all the ordinary people he had met in the past few months had been fake?
Thinking back again, there was the Cècè Abyss of Despair he had passed through before entering this place, and the uncompromising way this place dealt with those who ate White Meat.
After connecting the entire string of information and filling in some of the missing details in his imagination, Yu Ziqing suddenly formed a bold conjecture.
The only road in and out had the Abyss of Despair on the left and a forest on the right where entering meant certain death.
Cannibals definitely could not get out.
That Cècè Abyss of Despair had appeared far too conveniently, hadn't it?
Before you continue