Hungry Ghost Black Goat

After a moment of thought, Yu Ziqing immediately ended his mental rabbit hole.

He had once imagined this place as a sweatshop mine, with fat, big-eared overseers wielding whips with barbs, forcing the trafficked population to work in dangerous and arduous mining conditions without enough food, leading to a high mortality rate, which necessitated the constant purchase of new people from human traffickers.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be completely different from what he had imagined, and the situation here was much more complicated than he thought.

These villagers were clearly not ordinary.

Yet, they possessed a rare resource, and its proportion was outrageously high.

And no one had come to conquer this place and seize the mine.

Forget it, it's better to honestly follow Old Yang's advice, not to meddle in other people's business, and ideally, not to be too curious. Once his body has recovered, he'll get some more supplies and leave before spring.

Following Er Han, they entered one of the earthen kiln caves he had seen earlier. The space inside was much larger and emptier than he had expected.

A faint reddish-orange glow emanated from the depths, and the heat seemed to be controlled by an invisible force. After a few steps forward, the temperature would rise sharply. Yu Ziqing followed Er Han for only about ten steps before he started to sweat.

"Er Han, you go ahead, I'll wait here…"

He promptly admitted defeat.

"Ah…" Er Han looked confused, pointing inside, "Aren't you coming with me to take a look?"

"Never mind, you go put the things away first, I'll wait for you here."

Er Han seemed a bit puzzled. He continued to walk further in with the tray. After about ten steps, the heat distorted the air, making his figure appear somewhat twisted. After a few more steps, only a blurry silhouette of him could be seen.

Yu Ziqing smacked his lips. Hah, are these ordinary people?

Ridiculous.

Have they really not undergone any so-called cultivation?

A moment later, Er Han emerged from the depths of the scorching cave, his face not flushed and his heart not pounding. However, judging by his expression, he looked like he regretted not secretly eating some of the fresh, lava-like yellow rice cakes…

"That thing must be very precious, right?" Yu Ziqing couldn't help but ask.

"It's more than just precious," Er Han's interest immediately piqued, and he licked his lips. "Everyone only gets a tiny bit each year when we trade the ore with outsiders."

"Then before…" Yu Ziqing asked, but immediately felt unsure if he should ask this question. However, without understanding more and gathering more intelligence, he felt very uneasy.

"Oh, they are the exceptions. Grandpa said that starving to death is the most tragic way to die. Although they secretly ate the white meat and made a big mistake, it was because they were too hungry. Even if they die, we'll let them die as well-fed ghosts. Those who starve to death will turn into starving ghosts.

Although they will never starve again, they can never eat anything again and can only endure hunger forever. They can't die even if they go mad from hunger."

Er Han paused for a moment, a hint of terror about "living but wishing to die" appearing on his face.

"Grandpa is kind-hearted, so he let them die as well-fed ghosts. At least they are done for once they die."

Speaking of this, Er Han seemed to remember something. He quickly walked out of the earthen kiln and pointed to a large cave entrance on the northwest hillside. The entrance was surrounded by a fence, and a large net woven from vines was covering the opening.

"You can't go there. There are quite a few starving ghosts inside, and those starving ghosts are different from the ones we've encountered before; they are particularly fierce.

There used to be a river inside where we could catch a lot of fish, and we could also dig up many grubs by the river. Unfortunately, we can't go there anymore. I haven't eaten grubs in a long time."

Er Han licked his lips, his eyes lighting up at the mention of food.

"Starving ghosts…" Yu Ziqing's expression was a bit subtle, as if he had thought of something.

He walked around the village and came to the entrance of a cave that was about three zhang high. He saw a short but sturdy woman carrying a wooden stake, three feet thick and twenty feet long, out of the cave.

After the woman emerged from the cave, Yu Ziqing saw that the other end of the wooden stake was covered with large clusters of mushroom-like things.

Yu Ziqing estimated that this should be the main food source for the village, as he hadn't seen any staple crops being cultivated, nor had he seen anyone growing vegetables.

Moreover, the thick brown wooden stakes were something he had seen before; they were likely what they chopped for firewood.

Er Han led Yu Ziqing into the cave. They walked downwards for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, arriving at a vast underground space. Inside, they could see numerous wooden stakes standing on the ground, with large mushroom caps clustered at the top, spreading out like canopies and emitting the unique fragrance of fungi.

These are the things Yu Ziqing would be working on from now on.

Collecting ingredients and cooking them back at the dwelling. If everything goes as expected, this job will last at least three months, or even longer. This winter will be long.

Yu Ziqing also hoped that everything would be stable, at least allowing him to recover his health. Ideally, he might even gain twenty to thirty pounds.

Er Han was chopping mushrooms nearby with his axe. The thick wooden stakes had roots that were more like soft wood, with very low hardness. This relieved Yu Ziqing, as he was genuinely afraid he wouldn't be able to do the work.

Just as he finished demonstrating, Er Han suddenly stood up and looked warily into the depths of the mushroom forest.

Two breaths later, a wooden stake in the forest suddenly collapsed, and a writhing, dark red beast fell to the ground from the umbrella-like cap above. This beast was thicker than a person's waist, at least six or seven zhang long, shaped like a giant python with interlocking rings, but its head clearly had insectoid mouthparts.

"A grub!" Er Han cheered, his body enveloped in a gust of wind, like a swift arrow, he darted forward and immediately engaged in a struggle with the giant grub.

Yu Ziqing stood far away, his gaze following a sudden sensation in his heart, looking deeper into the cave.

On the distant stone wall, a creature with dry skin, sparse hair, a shriveled, sunken belly, as if its internal organs were gone, and a body as black as a dried corpse, lay quietly.

It seemed to blend in with the surrounding stone wall. Seeing Yu Ziqing's gaze, it slightly raised its head, slowly revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. Its body moved like a gecko, sticking to the stone wall, slowly crawling over.

In its dark eyes, Yu Ziqing's reflection began to appear. Its fixed, ferocious expression seemed to emanate infinite malice at this moment, driving its limbs to move faster and faster, approaching Yu Ziqing silently.

"A starving ghost?"

Yu Ziqing was startled. He had just heard from Er Han that there were starving ghosts nearby, and he hadn't expected to encounter one so soon.

He glanced again at Er Han, who was rolling around with the grub in the distance, his eyes only focused on the meat. Yu Ziqing immediately understood that the giant grub had discovered the starving ghost and had been disturbed, causing it to fall down suddenly.

But the moment the thought crossed his mind, Yu Ziqing looked again and immediately negated it.

No, not an ordinary starving ghost, but a hungry ghost.

Someone as ordinary as Er Han, who could laugh heartily even while wrestling giant insects, hadn't discovered the starving ghost. He had no reason or ability to find it.

Only a hungry ghost could sense him and react before Er Han noticed.

After confirming, Yu Ziqing slowly drew his rusted short sword, quietly watching the hungry ghost, and murmured.

"I don't want to kill you, don't court death."

He hadn't made any preparations, yet the rust binding the sword and scabbard fell away like dust, blown by a gentle breeze. A faint, almost imperceptible dark gleam, like overflowing water, slowly seeped from the gap.

Er Han, still locked in a battle that sent gravel flying and wooden stakes shattering against the giant insect, sensed nothing.

But the hungry ghost, which had been accelerating its approach, felt a fatal crisis. Its body, clinging to the stone wall as if flying, suddenly stopped. An invisible, terrifying pressure pinned its limbs and torso against the wall, forcefully imprinting a human shape into the stone. It was terrified, unable to flee, unable to cry out.

As the ghost's body grew thinner and the light in its eyes dimmed, Yu Ziqing looked at its abdomen, sighed softly, and sheathed his short sword. The terrifying killing intent, perceptible only to hungry ghosts, abruptly vanished.

"Seeing that your internal organs are gone and there's no trace of bloodlust on you, you must not have harmed anyone or shed blood.

If you had no reason, you wouldn't have held on until now. It's not easy. Why suddenly give up and turn to the evil path of harming others?

Take this step, and you'll have no way back, no path to liberation.

Do you truly wish for this?"

Yu Ziqing murmured, and the hungry ghost heard him clearly.

The hungry ghost stood stunned, frozen in place for several breaths before seeming to awaken. A flicker of complexity appeared in its dark eyes, and then it vanished back into the darkness.

Yu Ziqing tucked the short sword back into his embrace and shook his head.

If it had been something else appearing just now, Yu Ziqing wouldn't have even considered showing mercy. His first instinct would have been to... call Er Han to save his life.

Unfortunately, it was a pitiful hungry ghost. If it wasn't necessary, he truly didn't want to eliminate it. During his early days in this world, he had interacted with hungry ghosts, and surviving his first month here was largely due to them.

"It's one thing for others to bully me, but you, a hungry ghost, dare to come looking for trouble? Are you out of your mind?"

"It's one thing for people from Da Gan's Langya Academy to bully us, but now even any stray cat or dog dares to come find trouble with us?"

Not far from the mountain range where the Jinlan Mine was located, at the place where Yu Ziqing had once disposed of bodies.

The remains of the campfire had been scattered by the wind, and with the heavy snow in recent days, almost all traces of what had happened there were gone. Only a few bone fragments from the shepherds, which hadn't turned to ash, remained, buried beneath the thick snow.

A Black Goat, with muscles like steel cables in its limbs and standing as tall as a person, spoke human words as it cursed and chewed on the residual bone fragments of the shepherds.

A moment later, the Black Goat's face contorted, and with a disgusted expression as if it had eaten something foul, it spat out the chewed bone fragments onto the ground with a retch. Wisps of scorching heat flashed over the bones.

The Black Goat's mouth also showed signs of being burned black.

Beside it, a thin figure completely covered by a black robe let out a soft sound of surprise.

"Such intense and pure solar energy. It's definitely not someone from Da Gan's Langya Academy. They despise those brutes with blood and vitality like dragons and heat like the scorching sun. With the great changes in the Wasteland, the people here must be led by cultivators themselves; there wouldn't be any of those brute-like individuals.

Furthermore, if it were really people from Langya Academy, they wouldn't have handled it so... crudely."

Thanks to the alliance leader Wei Moumouren, thanks to Baishui Changqing, Yunyan2011, and DaocaoW for their 10,000-point coin rewards, and also thanks to the many new and old readers for their rewards. Thank you all for your kindness and support.