9: Chapter 9 Cultivators?

Realizing someone was watching him, Hu Ba reined in his greedy gaze, lowered his head sheepishly, and muttered vaguely,

"I was just looking."

"Looking at what?"

Qin Mo pressed on.

Hu Ba knew his look just now had given him away, so he needed to come up with an excuse.

He suddenly recalled a saying he had heard in his early years traveling north and south.

People in some places believed that boy-egg could nourish the body.

"I just have a fondness for these boy-eggs, you know, eggs boiled in boy urine."

"I've loved eating this since I was a kid, so when I saw that kid relieving himself just now, I couldn't help taking a couple of extra glances."

Hu Ba made it up on the spot.

After listening, Qin Mo fell silent for a second, then without another word, pulled an egg from his bosom and walked toward the corner.

By this time, the boy had finished relieving himself and was bending over to pull up his pants.

Without a word, Qin Mo aimed the egg at the steaming puddle of urine on the ground.

"Brother Qin Mo, what are you doing?"

The boy holding up his pants widened his eyes.

Qin Mo ignored him.

He rolled the egg around in the urine, then took the egg and strode back in front of Hu Ba.

"Here."

Qin Mo shoved the egg, covered in boy urine, right in front of Hu Ba's eyes.

Hu Ba's mouth twitched.

"Eat up."

Qin Mo squinted and grinned widely.

"Don't you have a fondness for this? It's fresh."

Hu Ba's face turned from green to white.

He noticed that several villagers around had already cast their gazes over.

He had no choice but to take a deep breath, take the egg, and shove it into his mouth.

"Crunch."

A strange odor exploded inside his mouth.

Hu Ba's face turned completely green.

Seeing that Hu Ba actually ate the egg, Qin Mo left with satisfaction.

But the departing Qin Mo did not notice that Hu Ba was staring at his back with eyes full of resentment.

The setting sun sank inch by inch into the sea, burning the horizon into a dark red.

Beside the mule cart at the entrance of the village, Hu Fu was busy boiling soup.

A large iron pot was set over the firewood, and a thick, milky meat soup was rolling inside the pot.

The aroma of the meat wafted out, practically able to hook a person's soul right out.

"Come, come, come, folks, it's fate that we are passing through your esteemed place, today we invite everyone to a bowl of meat soup!"

He stirred the soup in the pot with a ladle, his voice loud and clear.

The villagers who hadn't dispersed yet gathered around again, swallowing their saliva as they looked at the meat soup.

Soon, the villagers held their bowls, slurping the distributed meat soup, their faces flushed red from the steam.

Qin Mo did not drink that meat soup.

He squatted under the Old Locust Tree, watching from afar the villagers gathered around the mule cart drinking soup.

A villager walked past him holding a bowl, and seeing his appearance, asked,

"Qin Mo, why aren't you going to drink? That soup smells so good."

"I'm not thirsty."

Qin Mo shook his head.

The last trace of daylight was swallowed by the night.

The villagers at the entrance of the village who had drunk their fill of meat soup yawned and dispersed in twos and threes.

The doors of every household closed one after another, and the oil lamps went out one by one.

Qin Family Village finally grew completely quiet.

Beside the mule cart, that pot was still steaming with a final bit of heat.

Hu Fu stood by the pot, the smile on his face fading bit by bit.

Those eyes that had always been squinted into slits slowly opened at this moment, revealing the pupils inside.

"Big Brother, the medicinal effects in the candy and soup should be kicking in now."

Hu Gu raised her head, her once docile eyes now turning profound and dark.

"That's right."

Hu Fu looked at the sleeping village, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up.

"Big Brother."

Hu Ba sidled over, the resentment on his face finally unable to be suppressed anymore.

"I just don't understand, why bother with all this effort? Boiling soup, distributing candy, and even making me eat that thing—"

When he mentioned "that thing", his face turned green once more.

"Just these few fishing households, at most a hundred or so people. With our skills, wiping them out would only take the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, is all this trouble really necessary?"

Hu Fu didn't look at him.

He simply gazed at the sleeping village, saying in a bland tone,

"If we kill them all, who will keep giving birth to pups?"

Hu Ba opened his mouth and didn't reply.

"Lord Huang Zu wants young boys and girls,"

Hu Fu said leisurely.

"If we slaughter them all at once, where will we look next time? Do you think in a poor and remote place like this, another batch of people can just grow out casually?"

He withdrew his gaze and looked toward the low roofs in the village.

"Keeping them, letting them live, letting them give birth, letting them raise them, and coming back to harvest a crop every few years—that is the long-term business."

Hu Gu stood up and patted the dust off her hands.

"The hour is almost here."

Hu Fu nodded and said in a low voice,

"Do it."

The figures of the three flickered and plunged into the night.

In the village, inside those houses with extinguished lamps, snores rose one after another.

No one knew that three shadows were traveling through the darkness.

Step by step, they approached those sleeping children.

...

In the center of Qin Family Village, inside the shrine, the oil lamp flickered dimly.

Qin Ling coiled inside the shrine niche, calmly counting the incense accumulated today.

Everything was as usual.

Until Qin Ling, coming back to his senses, glanced at a bowl on the offering table.

Inside the bowl was half a bowl of cold meat soup, with a layer of white, greasy oil floating on top.

He remembered this was offered to him by a villager when coming to burn incense.

He also remembered the villager saying that this bowl of meat soup was cooked for free and distributed to everyone by the wandering merchants who came to the village today.

Looking at the meat soup, Qin Ling slowly frowned; with his cultivation level elevated, his perception had also become much stronger now.

There was something in the soup!

It wasn't poison.

It felt like a kind of sleeping potion that could make people drowsy.

Naturally, the villagers couldn't possibly put a sleeping potion specifically in the meat soup offered to him.

Then...

It must have been put there by the wandering merchants when they boiled the soup!

What did they want to do?

Qin Ling suddenly darted out from the shrine niche, taking a step out of the temple door.

Moonlight like water spilled over the entire fishing village.

He stood in front of the temple door, looking toward the village.

Then he saw, by the courtyard wall of the third house at the east end of the village.

A slender dark shadow was squeezing out from a narrow crack in the wooden door.

That crack clearly shouldn't be the size an adult could pass through.

The one squeezing out of the crack was precisely the woman called Hu Gu.

At this moment, her posture was very bizarre, her body twisting at a counter-intuitive angle.

In her arms, she was holding a child.

The child hung limply in her arms just like that, motionless.

Qin Ling's gaze locked onto Hu Gu.

Ever since he elevated his cultivation to [Incense Realm 30%], he could clearly feel that his perception had become much stronger.

He could sense blood Qi from Hu Gu!

It wasn't the weak vitality of ordinary people, but a vigorous blood Qi like a raging fire furnace.

The strength of that blood Qi was completely on a different order of magnitude compared to all the villagers he had seen these past few days.

Could Hu Gu be a cultivator in this world?

Qin Ling's eyes grew grave.

He was in a remote fishing village with limited information.

But since he was able to cultivate in this world, he had to be prepared for the existence of other cultivators as well!

And aside from this startlingly vigorous blood Qi, Qin Ling also sensed an aura on Hu Gu.

An aura that did not belong to a human!