Chapter 298: When Want Exceeds Supply
“... I was a free soul who toured every walk of life, followed my heart, and changed the world as I pleased...”
“Ugh... my head hurts!”
At an unfamiliar pace, Ye Qing mumbled in his dreams before a spike of pain jolted him awake. His head felt full and painful like someone had shoved a pail of shit into his brain.
“Where am I? I was...” Ye Qing shook his head left and right when his last memory hit him like a train. He immediately jumped to his feet and examined his surroundings warily.
“I’m... at the foot of the Mountain of Demons?!” Ye Qing watched his environment carefully. He vaguely recognized it, but a certain floating mountain was conspicuously missing.
“Where is... oh. It’s daytime already.”
Ye Qing was still feeling a little slow and dizzy. It took him a while before he finally recalled Hong Jianglong mentioning that the Mountain of Demons only appeared during nighttime. That was why it was missing right now.
“But I was inside the Guixu, wasn’t I? How did I get here?” Ye Qing muttered with a frown. When he looked around and found no danger, he sat back down on the ground and slowly sorted out his discombobulated memories.
“Was it him...?”
Ye Qing eventually recalled his final memory; a devilishly handsome man touching him on the forehead and knocking him out as a result. As soon as he did this, an indescribable melody of Dao began playing in his head, and a black lotus descended from above.
The black lotus had nine petals. As it bloomed, a sense of sublime profoundness enveloped Ye Qing, and the air of Dao was everywhere. It was like the black lotus was the culmination of all arts and Daos there were.
Ye Qing blanked out, and a pair of black lotuses appeared in his eyes. As the melody of Dao continued to play not just in his head, but also the outside world, the images of countless gods and demons appeared one after another.
......
“Deaf! Deaf! I think I heard something from over there!”
Not far away from Ye Qing, an old, decrepit woman slowly brought a hand to her ear and kicked an equally old man beside her. “What a beautiful melody it is! It’s like the sound of Dao itself!”
The old man next to her was currently crouching next to a body and clutching a human heart. He was taking bites out of it with an intoxicated expression like it was the most delicious thing in the world.
When he felt the old woman’s kick, he turned around to face her, grinned, and handed the heart over, asking, “What’s wrong, Blind? Do you want to have a taste?”
“No I don’t, you glutton! Look over there!” The old woman kicked him again before pointing at the distance.
The guy looked at the direction she was pointing, and a second set of pupils abruptly appeared inside his pupils. “Oh, so that’s what you mean.”
Suddenly, he grew excited. “What a marvelous phenomenon! Is it the birth of a treasure? Let’s head over and take a look, Blind!”
“Let’s. It would be terrible if someone gets ahead of us!” The old woman chirped just as excitedly before bounding in Ye Qing’s direction.
......
“Must you press me so over a Nature’s Shell?”
At a forest, a blood-soaked man was shooting a rather weak threat at his three pursuers.
“Excuse me? You just happened to be the one we ran into while we’re cleaning out this place, Black Fox! Do you really think that someone like you deserves our attention?” The thin man among the trio retorted.
The thin man barely counted as a human, really. In fact, all three of them were like this. It was because their eyes were completely red, the ears were sharp and pointy, their face was covered in yellow fur, and their nails were far longer than what you might see on an average human. Frankly, they looked more like a dog than a human.
The guy called Black Fox argued, “We’re all scavengers here, and I’m the one who came first. Going by jianghu rules, the items on these bodies should go to me.”
Black Fox really, really didn’t want to fight against the Three Lunatics of Mo Bei if he could. It wasn’t because he wouldn’t be a match for them—he was a Half-Step Spirit Purifier, while the trio were only middle-stage Astral Refiners—but because he most likely would walk away in poor shape.
As their moniker might suggest, the Three Lunatics of Mo Bei were complete lunatics. They fought with complete disregard of their own lives or injuries. The meek was afraid of the assertive, and the assertive was afraid of the suicidal. It was that simple.
It was said that the three brothers possessed the bloodline of a Scarlet Wolf. As the blood of a Scarlet Wolf was stronger than most, they were unable to properly control their bloodline after they awoke to it. As the Scarlet Wolf was violent and bloodthirsty by nature, they lost control of their aggression and literally bit their own parents to death. Since then, their personality became twisted and vicious like a beast’s.
The trio enjoyed eating raw meat, drinking raw blood, and fought without any regard for their own lives whatsoever. They were also mentally unstable in the best of circumstances. To put it simply, they were insane. That was why they came to be known as the Three Lunatics of Mo Bei or the Mad Hounds of Mo Bei.
“What the hell are you on about? In the jianghu, the strong take all. That is the one and only rule in the jianghu. Now cut the bullshit, or I’ll kill you!” The trio bared their teeth at the same time, and they were covered in bits of flesh and blood.
Dammit! Of all the people I could’ve run into! Black Fox cursed inside his head.
When morning came, and the Mountain of Demons disappeared, nearly everyone who left the mountain was attacked. The attackers were people who wanted the valuables inside the Mountain of Demons, but weren’t willing to risk their lives venturing into the place themselves. So, they lay in wait outside and ambushed anyone who left the mountain, forcing them to give up their treasures, inheritances or whatever.
Black Fox was only a Half-Step Spirit Purifier, and he knew full well he didn’t possess the strength or skill to play the oriole. So, he settled for looting corpses and picking up the leftovers of those battles.
He might not be able to get the best valuables this way, but at least he wouldn’t be leaving empty-handed.
Unfortunately, he had just gotten his first valuable loot when he ran into the three lunatics. To say that his luck was shit would be an understatement.
“Huh? What’s that?” Suddenly, Black Fox glanced behind the trio with a stunned expression on his face.
The trio subconsciously looked in that direction and immediately saw images of gods and demons and heard the profound melody of Dao. It was definitely not your usual phenomenon.
“Is that the birth of a treasure, big brother?” The third brother asked.
“I think so. Let’s check it out,” the first brother answered.
It was at this moment the second brother turned around and discovered that Black Fox was nowhere to be seen. “Big brother, Black Fox ran away while we weren’t looking.”
Obviously, the Half-Step Spirit Purifier had run off while they were distracted by the unusual phenomenon.
“It’s fine. I already memorized his scent. We can track him down after we obtain the treasure.” The first brother sneered.
“Hehe. I’ve memorized his scent as well.”
“He won’t escape.”
......
“Sigh. Not only did I fail to catch the big fish, my gorgeous face was ruined! Ruined!”
A woman was sighing loudly under a big tree. She had an hourglass figure and was wearing a palace dress. Looking at her figure and aura, she was absolutely a beauty that could topple countries. But if you looked at her face, then you would probably throw up last night’s dinner.
Not only was her face covered in wounds, there were some spots that were completely devoid of flesh. It was like someone had dug them out with a spoon and exposed the horrifying red and white within. Right now, the woman was holding a mirror and complaining non-stop while examining her pitted, scarred face.
When she was finally done, she finally put away the mirror and looked at the tree behind her. Rows and rows of faces were hung on its branches; women faces to be exact. Some of them looked freshly stripped as they were covered in bright red blood.
The woman grabbed one of the faces and wore it on her face like a mask. It covered up her wounds and made her look normal for a bit.
“Eh, this one’s ugly!” The woman moaned in dissatisfaction after examining herself in the mirror for a bit. She stripped off the face and tossed it away. Then, she grabbed another face.
“This one’s lips are too thin...”
“This one’s face is too round...”
“This one’s nose is too flat...”
“Heavens, why are there so many wrinkles!?”
“This one doesn’t have double eyelids...”
“This one’s eyebrows are too short...”
It was like she was the most nitpicky woman in the entire world. Objectively speaking, none of the faces she wore was ugly, but there was always something that she was dissatisfied about.
A long time later, the woman finally found a face that she was okay with, but even then she couldn’t stop complaining, “Sigh. A dead person’s face just isn't as lively as a living person’s face. I should pick my faces from living people only from now on!”
Suddenly, the woman looked in a certain direction and exclaimed in surprise and excitement, “What is that? I see gods and demons, and hear the melody of Dao. It must be the birth of a treasure!”
“I was so sad I couldn’t get anything last night, but it looks like my fortune is turning around!”
“Wait for me, dearie!”
......
“The heck? It’s not a treasure.”
When Deaf arrived at the scene, he was both surprised and disappointed to find that the so-called treasure was really a man.
“You said it was a treasure!” Blind kicked him in the leg when she heard this.
“The illusions and Dao melody are definitely coming from him though,” Deaf replied.
“Wait...” The old woman suddenly recalled something and exclaimed in pleasant surprise, “Maybe he’s one of the people who entered the Mountain of Demons, and he’s currently absorbing the inheritance of a martial champion!”
“It’s very possible!” The man was also brimming with delight. “Hahaha! Our fortune has turned around, Blind! Once we steal his inheritance, we’ll become famous warriors of the jianghu! Hahahaha!”
“Blind, Deaf, you were nearby?”
It was at this moment a beautiful woman entered the scene. She was sashaying, but that didn’t stop her from reaching Deaf and Blind in the blink of an eye.
‘“Skin Painter’ Chen Xiaojiao? Why are you here?” Deaf immediately eyed her warily.
“The better question is, why not?” Chen Xiaojiao giggled. “Don’t you know that sharing is caring?”
“Well said!” Chen Xiaojiao had just finished when the Three Lunatics of Mo Bei showed up. “We want a cut of the pie as well.”
The Three Lunatics of Mo Bei were insane, but they weren’t stupid. If Chen Xiaojiao, Deaf and Blind were weaker than them, they would’ve just killed them all and claimed the inheritance for themselves.
“Hmph! I don’t remember leaving three mad hounds to call the shots!”
The Three Lunatics of Mo Bei had just finished talking when a man wielding a bloody spear and overflowing with bloodthirst stepped in.
“‘Blood Spear’ Mu Zheng!?”
Everyone grew nervous when the man entered the fray. There was a cute little proverb that went something like this: One monk would shoulder two buckets of water, two monks would share the load, but add a third and no one would want to fetch water. The moral of the story was very simple: when the want exceeded the supply, problems were bound to happen, not to mention that there were more than three people present at the scene right now.
At this point, the question became: was there even enough water for everyone?
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