Chapter 34: An Unexpected Meeting (Third Shift)
Inside the temple complex, corpses littered the ground.
There were guards, attendants, and a few corpses of teenagers whose knowledge of the forbidden zone's ferociousness was stuck in books, retaining the same horror they had felt in life as they stared lifelessly at the sky.
Beyond that, there were dead jellyfish.
Unlike the human race, the jellyfish would turn into a grey slime after death, permeated with a foul stench, and was very different from the gorgeous colorfulness of its pre-birth life.
It also exudes a strong and extremely alien quality that invades the surroundings and erodes everything.
And this sudden scourge continued.
As the teenage boys and girls retreated in fear, and the swarm of jellyfish whistled in pursuit, killing and death, in the outskirts of this forbidden area of the jungle, continued to be staged.
When Xu Qing arrived at the temple complex, it was already an hour later.
Walking within the temple complex, Xu Qing looked at the corpses all over the place without much change in his complexion.
He had seen too many corpses.
Passing by the corpses of the guards and attendants at one place, Xu Qing collected some of the dead jellyfish, preparing to go back and study them.
As for the items on these corpses, almost all of them were infested with the dense heterogeneous quality formed after the jellyfish's death, and were unusable.
Until, Xu Qing came to a corpse, and his footsteps paused.
It was the corpse of an old man, with a large hole in his chest, the blood that flowed out had already dried up, and within the dull eyes that were open, it seemed that the regrets of his life were still lingering.
Looking at this corpse, Xu Qing let out a light sigh.
He wasn't a deity, so even if the other party had bought his own insurance, he couldn't completely guarantee its safety, especially when the mists didn't appear.
After the silence, Xu Qing squatted down, covered the old stone's open eyes, and buried it again.
There was no monument, as Team Lei had said that most of the scavengers had no relatives during their lifetime, and there was no need to pay tribute.
Dust to dust, earth to earth.
This is the life of the scavengers, struggling in the world in life, after death ...... quiet can be.
This kind of sadness, in fact, is the vast majority of scavengers homecoming.
Standing in front of the old stone's grave, Xu Qing looked in the direction of the camp outside the forbidden zone in the distance, reminiscing about these months of life.
It had already been four months since he came to this scavenger camp.
Captain Blood Shadow had died, Fire Crow had died, Fat Mountain Ma Si had died, Barbarian Ghost had died, Old Stone had died, Thunder Team had retreated, Bone Knife had fled, and many more scavengers had silently died as well.
Cruel chaotic world, human life is like grass.
"The only way to survive is to become stronger yourself." Xu Qing muttered, his complexion slowly turning cold as he turned to leave.
At this moment, between the afterglow of the setting sun, there was a wind that blew, rattling the clothes of the faraway teenager.
The sound seemed to carry some coldness, gradually weakening until it disappeared into the jungle along with his silhouette.
Afterglow sprinkled down, the light has gradually weak, but still hard through the dense foliage, want to sparse light, reflecting on the jungle running in the body of the teenager.
But the speed of the teenager is too fast, the light seems to be somewhat unable to catch up.
Until shortly, Xu Qing's footsteps suddenly gave way, and after stopping, he looked down at the ground, his eyes revealing doubts.
Soon, Xu Qing squatted down and sniffed carefully, eventually his eyes landed on a blade of grass that had a touch of powder that was hard to detect.
If it wasn't for Xu Qing's more solid grasp of poisonous herbs, as well as the fact that he knew the scent of this forbidden area very well, he was afraid that it would be difficult to detect the abnormality.
At this moment, he also discerned it for a long time before he picked up the leaf that was coated with a layer of powder, and murmured in a low voice after gazing at it for a moment.
"The exact composition is unknown, but there must be Yearning Centipede blood inside!"
Xu Qing's eyes had a brilliant flash of light, in Master Park's course, there was an introduction to the Age Centipede blood.
This kind of blood had some medicinal properties, but it was more of a catalyst, so in conjunction with other medicines, it could be concocted to attract specific beasts, and was often needed during hunts.
"The arrival of those jellyfish has something to do with this?" Xu Qing's eyes narrowed as he put down this leaf that carried a deadly crisis and took out a packet of poisonous powder to sprinkle on his body.
After using it to wash away the scent of the aged centipede's blood that he had been tainted by just now, he shifted his body and changed directions to move forward.
Xu Qing did not intend to head to the place where those teenage girls brought by Old Stone had withdrawn, this matter had nothing to do with him and he was unwilling to get involved in it.
Even if there were Chen Feiyuan's friends amongst these people, he was not obligated to help, and with these people surrounded by strong men who could engage the great jellyfish, it was just as dangerous for Xu Qing.
Most importantly, among these teenage boys and girls, there was a high probability that someone had intentionally lured the jellyfish for an unknown purpose.
So after sensing their direction, Xu Qing changed direction, circled around, and returned to the pharmacy within the canyon when it was getting dark.
After putting away the herbs he had picked, he continued to study the White Dan.
It was just that although Xu Qing didn't go to where those teenage boys and girls had retreated, when the late night came, Xu Qing, who was mixing herbs inside the pharmacy, still heard the distant roar and sounds of killing, and it was getting closer and closer, which made his brows furrow.
Until the sound of footsteps came as well, Xu Qing let out a dark sigh.
He stood up and walked out of the pharmacy, and through the moonlight, he saw the direction of the canyon's entrance, where the sound of surprise was coming from.
"There's a path here!!!"
"Everyone, come in."
Along with the voices appeared a few teenagers whose clothes were tattered and very wretched.
They had panic on their faces, and behind them were more than a dozen people, mostly their peers of similar age, as well as seven or eight guards covered in injuries.
There were more than twenty people in total, and after running into the canyon one after another, as those few guards guarded the entrance in a deadly manner, these teenage boys and girls, who had survived the robbery, also breathed a sigh of relief, while noticing the surroundings within the canyon.
They quickly saw Xu Qing's pharmacy, as well as Xu Qing standing there.
"Someone!"
The moment they saw Xu Qing, these teenage boys and girls were like startled birds, immediately falling back in alarm, and three of the guards behind them arrived at a rapid pace, looking at Xu Qing with vigilance and killing intent.
This killing chance, made Xu Qing's gaze a bit icy cold, he coldly swept over these few guards before looking at the group of teenage boys and girls, there were two people inside that made him focus his attention.
One of them was a little bit older than him, about sixteen or seventeen years old, although his body was also in a sorry state, but unlike the others, there was very little panic on his face, instead, he was mostly alert.
The other is a young girl, the appearance is very sweet, although the clothes are dirty and with panic, but Xu Qing, who is used to seeing all kinds of life, can see at a glance that this person's panic false composition is very large.
Especially ...... this woman's right hand with a glove, it seems to be for cleanliness, but for Xu Qing who uses poison, the glove has many roles.
For example, sprinkling medicinal powder.
"The eight guards, with cultivation levels between six and seven of Qi Condensation, and the others with cultivation levels below the fifth layer, are divided into three small teams."
"The only two people, the man's cultivation is at the seventh layer, and the woman ...... should be the one who attracted the jellyfish. As for those few strong people who fought with the big jellyfish, they are also not among them, the probability is that they lured the big jellyfish away."
This was Xu Qing's habit, and those teenage boys and girls simply couldn't think that Xu Qing had seen so many detailed points with just a single sweep.
However, these guards were obviously different from those teenage boys and girls, as they sensed the ice coldness in Xu Qing's eyes and looked at the pharmacy again, their hearts were all on alert intensely.
To be able to find such a canyon within the forbidden zone, and to have built a house in it, all of this meant that this teenager in front of them was not only familiar with the forbidden zone, but also resided here.
Such a person was extremely dangerous.
"Fellow Daoist, is your lord present? We don't have any malicious intent, we're just being pursued by the foreign beasts outside, so we're borrowing this place to hide."
"As soon as the sky is bright, we will leave, please forgive us for the disturbance."
These few guards instinctively spoke politely.
Their words also caused the stunned teenage boys and girls behind them to sense that something was wrong, and they all looked at Xu Qing.
The oldest of them, the teenager, looked at Xu Qing a few more times, his expression revealing gravity, and as for the young girl with the gloves, she narrowed her eyes.
She swept the apothecary and also smelled the faint odor of herbs around her, and was cognizant of the teenager in front of her.
Xu Qing furrowed his brows and looked at them, then at the entrance, and after a long while, he didn't say anything, acquiescing to their presence and turning around to walk towards the apothecary.
His acquiescence caused those guards to breathe a sigh of relief, while those teenage boys and girls behind them were mostly apprehensive.
Only the young girl with the gloves, after a strange aura flashed in her eyes, in a careful and aggrieved voice, she spoke in a low voice.
"You ...... you are so rude, we just want to hide here, there are all foreign beasts outside, we will definitely die if we go out."
Her voice carried a heartbreaking and compassionate feeling, causing the few teenagers around her who were in love with her to also gather courage and open their mouths one after another towards Xu Qing.
"Yeah, why are you so cold-blooded."
"We don't mean any harm either, we're just taking a break here."
"The forbidden zone isn't his home, why should we ask him!"
A lighthearted sentence caused some people to be hostile towards Xu Qing, which wasn't much, but still made the young girl a bit pleased.
She wanted to use others to test the bottom of this teenager in front of her.
But the next instant, a flash of cold from Xu Qing there suddenly flashed, whistling sound suddenly came out, a dagger as if lightning flash close to the complacent girl.
Her face changed just to dodge, the dagger had already flown from its ear, cutting off some of her hair, bang, deeply stabbed in the stone wall behind her, bursting out some sparks.
The young girl was shaken inwardly, her right hand instinctively raised during her shortness of breath, and when she looked at Xu Qing, what she saw was the young man in front of her, as cold as a wolf's eyes with killing intent.
These eyes, made her heart tremble, the surrounding guards and other teenage boys and girls, were appalled, the former were alert to the extreme, and many of the latter let out exclamations of shock.
"A casual encounter, don't come to test me." Xu Qing gave the young girl a deep look, suppressing the killing intent in his heart, slowly speaking, turning around and walking towards the pharmacy.
Under the moonlight, his silhouette seemed to merge with the color of the moon, transmitting the coldness of the night, flowing through the hearts and minds of everyone within the canyon, causing all of these people to slowly fall silent.
In many people's feelings, the canyon seemed, for a moment, to be just as dangerous as the swarm of jellyfish outside.
In this silence, the moment Xu Qing walked to the entrance of the pharmacy, suddenly a mournful scream came from the entrance.
A small jellyfish found its way to the entrance and pierced through the body of a guard, devouring his internal organs before rushing into the canyon.
Behind it, a swarm of jellyfish, whistled.
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Is it unexpected, is it a surprise, brothers and sisters, do you want a fourth shift?
If you want to, tell the little munchkin, the little munchkin drink a bottle of wine to go and make an effort!
