Chapter 8: Three sets of chopsticks
Inside the scavenger camp, the Lei team was in the front, Xu Qing was in the back, and the sunlight was pouring down thickly on the earth, falling on them.
Looking from afar a tall and a short, an old and a young, there was actually some vague sense of togetherness.
It seems that in this cruel world, such togetherness is rare.
Or perhaps it was the python corpse in the hands of the Lei Team that possessed a deterrent, so much so that most of the passersby around who did not go to the coliseum did not bother after seeing it.
Xu Qing enjoyed this feeling, whether it was the snake eating that followed, or the brushing of the sunlight at the moment, it made him feel warm and cozy.
It was very comfortable, very much anticipated.
And every time his eyes landed on the python corpse that Team Lei was grasping, he had more saliva secreting from his mouth.
He liked snakes, too.
Team Thunder's home was in the center ring part of this camp.
Compared to the brick houses in the inner ring area and the simple tents in the outer ring area, most of the dwellings in the middle ring area were stone and wooden structures, and were arranged in three huts.
Although each one of them was not very large, it was far better than Xu Qing's time in the slums.
Especially since the Lei Team's residence had a small courtyard, this was even more rare.
At this moment, pushing open the door of the bamboo courtyard, under Xu Qing's observation and sizing up, Lei Team carried the python corpse towards the tail room, and casually pointed down to the second hut.
"Kid, you'll be living there from now on, familiarize yourself with it first, I'll call out to you when the meal is ready in a while."
With that, Team Lei went into the side room, and not long after, the sound of chopping meat came out.
Xu Qing swallowed his saliva, first scrutinizing the small courtyard, then walked into the second hut, which had a bed, a set of bedding, a table and chairs, and nothing else.
The ground was neat, the table and chairs were not dusty, obviously often wiped down, and the bedding was also obviously washed clean, with a smell of being exposed to the sun on it.
All of this made Xu Qing very satisfied.
He didn't like big premises, he liked the kind of small house where he could see everything at a glance, as if he could refract everything in his mind.
This made him feel more secure.
So after carefully inspecting it, Xu Qing looked at the clean bed and thought about not going over there, but instead sat directly on the floor.
Crossing his knees and closing his eyes, he began today's cultivation.
During this cultivation, with the influx of spiritual energy, the sound of boiling oil crackling in the next door's tail room also came to his ears.
Soon gusts of fragrance drifted in along the stone and wood cracks in the walls, filling the hut while also evoking gusts of dryness in Xu Qing's stomach.
It was fragrant.
Xu Qing's throat involuntarily moved, opening his eyes to look in the direction of the tail room.
After years of living in the slums, he couldn't remember the last time he had smelled such an aroma.
So he forced himself to hold back the sound of longing coming from his stomach and closed his eyes, calming himself down and continuing his cultivation.
In this way time slowly passed, and soon dusk arrived.
When the sound of Team Lei calling for dinner to begin came from outside the house, Xu Qing, who had just finished his day's cultivation, his eyes flew open.
He stood up and quickly stepped out of the hut and saw the Lei Team standing at the entrance of the side room, waving at him.
Following the openness on Lei Team's side, Xu Qing had already seen that on the dining table inside the house, seven or eight different kinds of snake feasts had already been placed, including fried, braised, steamed, and snake soup.
Apparently the Lei team possessed an excellent hand of cooking skills, with a full range of colors and flavors.
Xu Qing looked at it and his gaze went a little straight, Lei Team smiled and turned to go inside to pick up the bowls and chopsticks and set them up.
Xu Qing also immediately approached, and as he walked into this end room, the aroma became even stronger, but he didn't sit down immediately, instead waiting for Team Lei to set up the bowls and chopsticks, and then his eyes suddenly stared.
The chopsticks and bowls, they were three pairs.
"There are others?" Even if the scent possessed more allure, at this moment, with the appearance of the three pairs of chopsticks, they were all isolated from Xu Qingsha's body.
He cautiously looked towards Team Lei and asked softly.
"No need to be nervous, this is my habit, that is a ...... person who will never come."
Team Lei spoke faintly, an aura of remembrance appearing in the depths of his eyes and quickly disappearing again as he sat down in his chair.
Xu Qing nodded, and as he sat down, he could no longer resist grabbing a piece of deep-fried snake meat and placing it in his mouth to tear into it.
It was hot, but he ate it with great pleasure, his mouth full of oil.
Just after finishing a piece, he licked the grease on his mouth and was about to grab the braised snake meat when Team Lei coughed lightly.
"Use chopsticks."
"Oh." Xu Qing clumsily picked up the chopsticks, and after getting used to them for a bit, he stuck in a piece of braised snake meat and swallowed it in one big gulp.
The two didn't speak throughout the entire meal, just eating in a very disharmonious manner.
Lei Team chewed slowly, not like a scavenger, eating just three or two bites of each dish, whereas Xu Qing wolfed down his food, his appetite exceeding Lei Team's by too much.
Watching Xu Qing go and eat like this, Lei Team couldn't help but open his mouth.
"Why don't you eat in small bites like when you were given steamed buns before?"
Xu Qing forcefully swallowed the snake meat in his mouth, looked up at Lei Team, and replied seriously.
"The steamed buns are yours, the snake meat is mine."
One was someone else's food treating himself, and the other was his own food treating someone else.
In the simple mind of a teenager, items that belonged to him or her were naturally more legitimate to eat.
Team Lei cried and laughed at his words, watching Xu Qing there as he kept poking at the snake meat with his chopsticks and drinking the snake soup, but also noticing that the teenager didn't bother to touch the parts of each snake feast that were close to his side of the snake, and that the snake soup was also drunk with some restraint.
He just took the portion that was his and ate it with a straight face.
"That python of yours, the portion is sufficient, it should be enough to eat for half a month, and the snake skin and snake bones also have a not insignificant value, so ......" said the Lei team casually.
"The rent I will give, no need to offset it in this way." Xu Qing suddenly opened his mouth.
The snake meat was a repayment for the steamed buns and sleeping bags along the way, and the value of the snake skin and bones was a repayment for the other party for helping him cover up the matter of the remnant cow tent.
As for the other party taking him out of the ruins and into the camp, it was a favor, a favor.
Xu Qing felt that it was a bit inappropriate to offset it with material things, so he kept it in his heart.
Team Lei gave Xu Qing a deep look, seeing the seriousness in his eyes as well as the idea of the favor, so he nodded, thinking, before transmitting his words once more.
"Kid, I'm sure that along the way, you've had a lot of speculations about me here as well."
Xu Qing didn't speak, but the act of eating and swallowing slowed slightly.
"Everyone else addresses me as Team Lei, as for the name, it doesn't matter, no one will use their real name within the scavenger camp."
Team Lei picked up a piece of steamed snake meat and placed it in his mouth to chew slowly.
"The reason why I have this name is because I have a few friends within this scavenger camp that I can trust with my life and death."
"We formed our own squad, which has a rather vulgar name called Thunder."
"On weekdays, we each take on jobs, if we encounter a difficult one, the whole team gathers to complete it, counting me, a total of four people, and now all three of them are out and haven't come back yet."
"When they come back, I'll introduce them to you one by one, from now on you will follow us as the squad's newest members, to take on jobs to earn resources for survival and cultivation."
Team Lei seemed to be somewhat full, putting down his chopsticks and looking at Xu Qing.
The last five words of his discourse did not surprise Xu Qing.
Xu Qing felt that he could detect that Team Lei was a casual cultivator, so after being in contact for so long, even if he himself was a body refining, the other party would naturally be able to detect him under observation.
"Good." Xu Qing didn't hesitate and nodded his head.
This also made him feel relieved in the bottom of his heart, having grown up in the slums, he profoundly knew that there was no dedication or help in this world without a reason, everything must have a reason.
"You keep eating, I'm old, I can't digest too much food."
Team Lei coughed a few times, his face flushed a little, but quickly recovered, stood up and walked outside, words coming out of his mouth.
"The spiritual energy of this world is like poison, the kind of hard work you did along the way, it's likely that you haven't gone far yourself, you've already been alienated by the heterogeneity, cultivation should be steady and steady, not radical."
Xu Qing was silent and didn't say anything.
The old man who had walked to the door, turned to look at Xu Qing and shook his head.
"But it's right for you to cultivate like this."
"The scavenger's camp and the forbidden zone next to it are different from where you were before, due to the material goods within the forbidden zone, making this place more of a gathering place for low-ranked casual cultivators as well as outlaws."
"As you reside here, you must also go to the forbidden zone for a walk, it's good to cultivate more."
Team Lei left.
Xu Qing sat there alone until he had eaten all the snake meat, he didn't leave immediately. Instead, he tidied up the dishes and cleaned and put them away before returning to his hut.
Sitting down on his knees, he continued to cultivate.
Xu Qing knew very well that if he didn't want to live and die, to go bending over backwards to survive, to hold the right to live and die in the hands of others, then his own strength was the root of everything.
Especially within this scavenger camp, there were quite a few loose cultivators, more than what he had seen in the past six years combined, and every single one of them was not a good person .
If the slums were a dog's den, this place was a wolf's den.
If one didn't make an effort, then before they could be heterogeneous, they would die without a burial place due to a conflict or strife.
As for the heterogeneity, Xu Qing knew from the Hai Shan Secrets Bamboo Mountain that there were elixirs that could dissolve it.
Although it was a cure, it could be dealt with, and the name of this elixir, which he already knew from the scavengers' oral conversations on the way, was called White Dan.
What was abundant in the nearby forbidden zone was the important herbs needed to make the White Pill, so there must be White Pills for sale in this camp.
Thinking of this, Xu Qing touched the spot on his chest where he had buried the purple crystal.
He had already clearly sensed during this period of time that his own speed and strength, in addition to his recovery power, had increased by an extreme amount.
It was related to reaching the first layer of the Hai Shan Technique, but Xu Qing felt that this first layer of his own seemed to be a little different from the power of a tiger as described by the Hai Shan Technique.
"I can kill many tigers."
Xu Qing muttered, feeling the spiritual energy in his body, which seemed to be on the verge of reaching the second layer after his diligent cultivation along the way.
"Tonight, impact the second layer." Xu Qing's eyes revealed determination as he closed his eyes and began to exhale.
Soon spiritual energy came from all directions, the spiritual energy outside the forbidden zone was much less heterogeneous compared to inside the forbidden zone, which led to a relative increase in the speed of cultivation.
This was something Xu Qing had already noticed yesterday within the row room of the fighting arena.
At this moment, he let go of his body, and as he absorbed and exhaled with great force, the faint purple light that was also present in his chest covered by his fur coat flickered.
Time passes, gradually within Xu Qing's body, a slight thumping sound comes out, sweat pores, black impurities are also once again discharged.
The entire body's flesh and blood in the nourishment, as if it was getting tougher and tougher, vaguely there was a stronger power, gradually bursting out within it.
Meanwhile, outside in the night, the little girl who had been replaced by Xu Qing's bamboo stick during the day approached the courtyard of Xu Qing's residence.
She stood there hesitantly, as if she wanted to knock on the door, but was somewhat apprehensive.
It wasn't until a long time later that she seemed to gather her courage and gently knocked on the bamboo door of the courtyard, only that the sound was too weak to be transmitted inside.
And at the moment the little girl knocked on the bamboo door, the thumping sound within Xu Qing's body also reached its strongest point.
With a roar in his head, Xu Qing's eyes opened, a purple aura once again shining in his eyes, joy showing within his complexion, he looked down at his arm, where a second point of alienation appeared.
Qi Condensation, second layer.
