Brahma Udumbara Lotus

The only settlement of the Xiong State that Zhang Xuezhou had ever seen was Dragon City, where the Xiong State's royal family resided. However, the scale of Dragon City's architecture left Zhang Xuezhou speechless, feeling that it was even inferior to the city defenses of Hibiscus City.

This is true even for the royal family; the whereabouts of many tribes in the Xiong State are extremely unpredictable.

The Xiong State prefer nomadic life to settling down, and they migrate every year, every month, and even every day.

If Zhang Xuezhou hadn't been flying high in the sky, he would have had a hard time spotting these temporary tents hidden behind the mountains.

Zhang Xuezhou wasn't hungry, but if he wanted to quickly restore his Law Power and Demon Power, proper food would help his body recover.

He had previously considered testing the limits of his Grain Avoidance Instruction when he went to Western Kunlun, but now that he had traveled thousands of miles by air, Zhang Xuezhou felt that there was no need to test it anymore.

He may not starve, but he doesn't have Infinite stamina.

He can go hungry for a long time now, but his body needs to eat and rest to regain its strength, not rely on the Grain Avoidance Instruction.

After taking a deep breath of the cold air, Zhang Xuezhou slipped into the small tribe of only a few hundred people under the cover of dusk.

After using intimidation to scare away the two guard dogs, Zhang Xuezhou successfully sneaked into a tent.

"You cheap slut, you filthy thing!"

The woman's panting and cursing could be heard from inside the tent. Zhang Xuezhou could only see a man and two women rolling around on the carpet in the dim light.

A burly, fierce woman from the Xiong State was naked and constantly cursing, occasionally lashing out with a small whip. A strong man with half a small tail growing from his buttocks was panting. A woman lay motionless on the ground, letting the strong man torment her back and forth.

Zhang Xuezhou had no interest in this kind of occasion. He cursed inwardly and quickly searched the tent for any edible food, deciding to grab it and leave as soon as possible.

"Who are you, you blind fool, daring to trespass into the residence of the Hundred-Year-Old of Nanshan!"

When the Xiong State woman wielding the whip glanced over unintentionally, she saw a figure moving back and forth in the shadows of the tent. This made her shout loudly, throw away the small whip in her hand, and grab a long whip next to her. The long whip lashed out like a python.

"Break!"

For Zhang Xuezhou, who was fluent in the Sacred Land Language, he could barely understand some of the language of the small Xiong State.

He broke into the residence of the Hundred-Chief of Nanshan, a position that commanded one hundred soldiers.

This small tribe has a population of only four or five hundred. Even though the entire population of the Xiong State is a soldier, the enemy's military power in this small tribe is extremely high. If they are not the tribal chief, they must be a person of extremely high status.

The Xiong State woman who slept with the hundred leaders of Nanshan was not highly skilled, only at the Body Control Realm level, but her strong physique made up for some of her disadvantages.

The whip lashed out, the sound of it tearing through the air almost like an explosion.

Even cattle and horses would be knocked to the ground by this whip, and it wouldn't be surprising if an ordinary person were killed by it.

Zhang Xuezhou clearly had no interest in fighting back and forth. He quickly dodged, then pointed at the woman, who was already kneeling down trembling, and began kowtowing repeatedly.

Before Nanshan Baizhang could react, Zhang Xuezhou delivered another blow, and the man, who had been standing up in a state of excitement and rage, immediately collapsed to the ground, clutching his genitals and beginning to convulse.

"Cut!"

Just as Zhang Xuezhou was about to deliver another blow to subdue everyone in the tent, he realized that his third attack had lost its target.

He went over and turned the woman over. He saw that her back and genitals were covered in blood, and she was no longer breathing.

By the light from inside the tent, Zhang Xuezhou could see that the dead woman's hands were rough, her feet were cracked and white, and her face was covered in the frost of overwork, except for her fair skin.

"Wealthy captives?"

Zunlu is another name for captives and slaves.

In a sense, a captive is no longer a human being, but merely a commodity. Its status is even less important than that of a hunting dog, and its life and death depend solely on the master's mood.

Although there were servants in the Great Han Dynasty who lacked status, it was rare to see someone beat and desecrate a corpse in this way.

Zhang Xuezhou looked at the woman's still relatively young face and couldn't help but sigh.

Everyone in the world is trying to survive. Some hold high positions and enjoy wealth and honor, some struggle like Zhang Xuezhou, and others meet a tragic end like this young woman.

Zhang Xuezhou couldn't even save himself, let alone save others.

However, he was also unable to calm down for a moment, and couldn't help but strike Nanshan Centurion and the burly woman again, doubling the mental pain they were in under the threat of suppression.

"Why is there so little food even in the hundred-foot-long tent?"

After taking down the two men, Zhang Xuezhou intensified his looting.

However, the tent contained mostly furs and clothing, but no food was found.

"Freeze this rich man overnight, and we'll cut him up tomorrow!"

Just as Zhang Xuezhou lifted the tent flap to search other areas, he heard a low, cursing voice giving orders.

He then heard a 'thump' sound, a dull thud outside the tent.

As he got closer, Zhang Xuezhou saw another dead, naked woman.

Two more thin men dragged the corpse toward a certain spot.

Zhang Xuezhou looked up and saw that there was dry grass laid out and a pile of wood stacked there, with some naked corpses lying haphazardly on the ground.

"Winter is here, and they've started purging the population that's consuming food!"

"Those convicts who cannot have children will be killed by them!"

"I wonder how many more years we have left to live!"

"It would be better if we died!"

"I don't want to be eaten after I die. If possible, I hope my body can be buried intact so I can be reborn into a better life."

"I'm also a little unwilling to be eaten like this!"

"If only our Great Han Dynasty could send troops here, perhaps we could be rescued!"

"Our border is guarded by General Cheng, who is known for only defending and never attacking. There's no way he could send troops here. Besides, they've been constantly migrating around, and nobody knows where they've gone. Even if they wanted to escape, they couldn't!"

The two gaunt men dragging the corpse muttered to themselves, staring blankly at the dead woman like two walking corpses, clearly used to this situation.

"Wu Chao needs to take care of these tribes. They've had too many children and can't support them, so they've actually resorted to cannibalism!"

Zhang Xuezhou felt he no longer needed to search for food in the tents; there was no way this small tribe would have any leftover food.

"This time, we must demand another feather from the Golden Crow Great Emperor!"

Looking at the sounds of sheep and horses coming from the livestock pen in the distance, Zhang Xuezhou couldn't help but take another deep breath, using his breathing to slowly restore his physical strength through the Grain Avoidance Technique.

The difficulty for him in catching livestock was not high; the difficulty lay in the lack of fire to roast them.

Zhang Xuezhou had been dominating the world for a long time thanks to his Grain Avoidance Technique, and he never expected that he would have a time when he could eat a lot and quickly recover his body.

"If only we could find the Bodhi Lotus! I've heard that eating it keeps you full for three days and also helps you resist the cold. If we could just eat one Bodhi Lotus, we could definitely ride away from here. Even dying on the grasslands would be better than being eaten!"

"The lotus of the Brahmaputra grows in the snowy mountains. We'll probably freeze to death on the way before we even find it, and they'll just use their hunting dogs to search us, drag our bodies back, and chop them up!"

When the two gaunt men dragging the corpse whispered their escape plan, Zhang Xuezhou had an idea.