Free Web NovelHua City, near University City, inside Wenxuan Bookstore, in front of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Book Section.
The bookstore guide responsible for this section of books secretly observed the girl who had been lingering in front of the book shelf for a long time.
She was a girl with chestnut-colored long hair. Her delicate features, still bearing traces of childishness, made her look somewhat like a middle school student, but her overly well-developed figure caused even her loose woolen small cloak to bulge slightly.
After observing for a moment, the guide finally couldn't help but walk up and ask the girl, whose exact age was unclear, "Miss, I've seen you looking here for a long time. Are you looking for a book you haven't found?"
Gu Qianqian looked up, glanced timidly at the guide beside her, and said seriously, "Hello, yes, that's right. I want to buy '*Postpartum Care*', '*How to Raise Pigs Scientifically*', and '*Guide to Selecting Domestic Pig Breeds*'. Can you help me find them?"
The guide's eye twitched. Driven by professionalism, she suppressed the urge to complain and smiled, "Little Girl, we don't have the kind of books you mentioned here at the moment!"
"If you really want them, I suggest you search online to see if any Taobao bookstore is selling them."
"Oh..." Gu Qianqian responded, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes. She didn't pester the guide further and walked out of the bookstore dejectedly.
Leaving the bookstore, the streets at night were gradually becoming sparse with pedestrians.
Only after there was no one around did Gu Qianqian discuss angrily with the system.
"System, why are people like this now? The people at the Taobao bookstore told me to look in a physical bookstore, and the people at the physical bookstore told me to search online. Are they just messing with me?"
The system, "..."
Isn't it obvious? Of course they are!
During the brief silence, Gu Qianqian seemed to think of something, lightly stomped her foot, and complained, "System, this is all your fault!"
"Ah? Gu Qianqian, aren't you being unreasonable now?" the system said. "How can it be my fault that those villagers' pigs died?"
"Of course it's your fault! It's your fault for not having pig-raising skills! If you can't even keep pigs alive, what kind of system are you?" freeweɓnovel.cѳm
The system, "..."
I shouldn't have tried to reason with a woman who is angry, even if the target is Gu Qianqian.
I should have understood this matter back when dealing with Disaster.
Moreover, on this matter, she is clearly more reasonable.
Last time, she racked her brains and didn't sleep well for half a month straight, managing to grow potatoes in a godforsaken place like the Bamboo Scroll Illusion. This instantly earned her the admiration of many villagers, directly perfecting her Spirit Mark to an almost flawless state. Now, the only thing missing for advancement is materials.
This time, it's equivalent to half a year of her effort when she previously relied on hunting urban legend to improve her strength. If she could successfully raise pigs, wouldn't that be amazing?
This is the advantage of taking ignorant people from long-isolated areas as dependents. Just introducing them to something they've never seen before can earn a large wave of prestige.
However...
Which direction Gu Qianqian's Spirit Mark should advance is also a matter worth discussing.
The Righteous God of Fortune, and even the Lord of Mount Tai, can be considered. As for Houtu and Shennong, although there is a chance, the materials for advancement are probably unobtainable, the system thought.
While contemplating, the system suddenly felt that in the unseen, a Spiritual Energy fluctuation tugged at its thoughts. It focused its senses and said joyfully, "Gu Qianqian, there's a surprise!"
"What surprise? Did you suddenly master pig-raising skills?"
The system, "..."
I'm defeated! Why is this girl's mind filled with that annoying pig-raising business now?
"It's not me, it's Disaster! She..."
Gu Qianqian froze for a moment and exclaimed, "Ah? She, she actually knows how to raise pigs?"
"How could she... wait, if it's her, maybe she really could learn..."
Midway through speaking, the system fell silent for two seconds, then realized something was wrong.
"Damn it! Why am I thinking about this kind of question? I meant to say, the Poison I planted on her before has taken effect."
"Huh?" Gu Qianqian frowned. "But didn't she discover we poisoned her? It's made me afraid to set up my stall in the Ghost Market recently."
"I think she might be using the toxic agents we gave her to poison others!"
"You don't understand. One of Disaster's best skills is bluffing. With just one person and one mouth, she can make it sound like she has three thousand elites behind her," the system explained.
"I suspect she wasn't absolutely sure which of those agents were poisoned with Poison, which is why she threatened you in that way."
"Otherwise, given her nature of 'I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me,' you and your stall would have disappeared from this world long ago."
Pausing, the system added, "Besides, with Disaster's strength, she even devoured the Jumang Power Inheritor. Does she need to use poison against ordinary enemies?"
"And enemies who are too strong certainly won't give her a chance to poison them. So I conclude that she must have drunk it herself, or given it to her dependents!"
Gu Qianqian squeezed her eyebrows and scratched the back of her head, thinking for a moment before saying, "Then should we activate the Gu now and trigger the toxicity?"
"No rush, let's play with her!" the system responded darkly. "If my judgment is correct, she must be fighting a strong enemy right now."
"We'll activate a small portion of the toxicity first. Once the agent takes effect, she relaxes her guard and fights with all her might, then we'll suddenly detonate all the toxicity and catch her off guard! Woohoo!"
"..."
Gu Qianqian remained silent, thinking seriously about the system's words. She felt that something wasn't quite right, but for the sake of Lu Yibei's pig trotters and the promised roasted pig trotters, she still silently activated the Gu.
Anyway, poisoning Disaster is a huge profit. If I help her poison her enemy, maybe she'll even treat me to roasted pig trotters. No matter how I think about it, I don't lose out, Gu Qianqian thought.
————
Happiness Community, Life Activity Center. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
The moment the lights went out, the entire bar was instantly swallowed by profound darkness. Even the light from the streetlights outside the window seemed to be blocked by some force, unable to shine in.
By the ear, the intermittent sound of the Jews Harp came, like pervasive insects. They crawled quickly, rushing directly towards the fallen people, swiftly drilling into their ears.
It was unknown where they went after entering the ear canals, but they didn't come out. They kept drilling inwards one by one, as if they wanted to hollow out the person's shell and make it their home.
Those insects rolled, stretched, scratched, and jumped in a bizarre and comical manner inside, driving people mad.
In the darkness.
Lu Yibei whispered in Jiang Li's ear, "We now..."
Before Lu Yibei finished speaking, Jiang Li seemed to have guessed her thoughts and whispered, "Fall with them?"
It's comfortable working with someone on the same wavelength... Lu Yibei muttered to herself and responded with a nasal sound, "Mm."
Immediately after, she released her arm from around Jiang Li and tilted her body backward.
"Thump, thump!" Two dull thuds of bodies hitting the ground sounded almost simultaneously in the darkness.
Lu Yibei, "..." This idiot actually fell so realistically? Doesn't she hurt?
Jiang Li, "..." Tsk! Idiot!
Not long after the two pretended to be poisoned and fell to the ground, someone lit candles in the darkness, one, two, three...
The scattered candlelight was like pairs of eyes opening in the darkness, casting flickering shadows on the dance floor.
The dim, swaying firelight shone on the people whose smiles were eerily identical, making them look like wax figures molded from the same cast, all wearing the same smile.
They tilted their heads at the same angle, their bodies slightly leaning forward as if about to float, half their faces obscured by shadow, their pairs of eyes, with only the whites visible, staring fixedly at a pair of men and women huddled in the corner.
Immediately after, hundreds of people simultaneously spoke the same words in the same tone, entering the ears with a buzzing sound as if echoing.
"Why didn't you two eat the dishes I carefully prepared? Is it not to your taste?"
As they spoke, they made no physical movements, but their bodies seemed to be pushed by some invisible force, slowly moving towards the man and woman in the corner.
The woman in the corner saw the scene before her and didn't dare to move. The chill on her back had already surged up her spine to her brain, while the man beside her was slightly better off, but could only stammer out some unthreatening words.
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"You, who exactly are you? Don't, don't come over! If you come any closer, I'm calling the police!"
Facing the man's threat, the people who had already been influenced by the Strange Tale simply repeated the same words.
"Why didn't you eat the dishes I carefully prepared?"
"..."
Just as the residents and property management staff of Happiness Community were slowly closing in on the pair of man and woman, Jiang Li, who was lying on the ground pretending to be unconscious, was almost unable to hold back.
She nudged Lu Yibei with her elbow, then turned her head slightly and winked at her repeatedly, conveying her anxious thoughts.
【What's going on? Didn't you say you had already taken care of it? What's the situation now?】
Lu Yibei turned her face away, "..."
Damn it, Gu Qianqian, that Little Liar!
It's one thing to fake the potion, but why fake the poison too? Where is the trust between people?
If this gets messed up, I'm definitely going to smash her fake medicine stall later!
After cursing fiercely in her heart, Lu Yibei turned her head to look at Jiang Li, forcing herself to act calm and responded to her with her eyes.
【More haste, less speed. Let the poison brew for a while!】
Jiang Li, "..." Brew for a while? Is it slow-acting poison? Shouldn't this situation call for a trigger-activated poison?
As Jiang Li thought, she glanced at Lu Yibei out of the corner of her eye, just about to continue communicating with her through her eyes, when she heard two thuds from the direction of the man and woman.
Following the sound, she saw that the two people were already pale, convulsing as if they had been electrocuted, and then their bodies suddenly stiffened and they fainted.
Jiang Li withdrew her gaze from the two people, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lu Yibei raise her eyebrows triumphantly.
【What did I say? Young people shouldn't be too impatient.】
【It's alright... 【Heart emoji】】
Jiang Li gave Lu Yibei a perfunctory look in response, and was about to close her eyes and continue pretending to be unconscious, but just before closing her eyes, she saw Lu Yibei suddenly frown.
【Something is coming.】
Something? Is it a Strange Tale? Jiang Li was stunned.
The moment she fell to the ground, she had silently expanded her Spiritual Sense detection to the maximum range, but aside from the strange and faint Jews Harp sound that seemed to flow in the air, she had not captured any Spiritual Energy fluctuations.
After a brief moment of daze, she remembered that before Lu Yibei became like this, when she was still just a Spiritual Energy potential user, she already possessed a high level of Spiritual Sense, and she felt relieved.
Immediately after, she looked at Lu Yibei again and was stunned once more.
Lu Yibei lay there quietly, her eyes slightly opened into a slit, and in the darkness, her pupils flickered with a faint reddish light.
Although the light was very weak, it emitted an extremely dangerous aura, like a surging sea of blood, carrying a monstrous fire as it swept in.
Just being swept by those eyes, Jiang Li already felt her whole body's muscles involuntarily tense, and driven by instinct, she entered a state of readiness.
She... is she that dangerous? Jiang Li thought.
As she pondered, a strange music suddenly echoed through the ballroom, very light, very slow, like the air vibrating, or like an animal growling, slowly approaching.
At this moment, Jiang Li finally detected that a terrifying, foul, and chaotic Spiritual Energy fluctuation was approaching.
And when the sound of the Jews Harp became clearer, Lu Yibei's eyes were already burning intensely, and premonitions kept flashing, warning her.
【It's approaching】、【It's approaching】、【It's approaching】...
Then.
A massive, indescribably shaped behemoth suddenly crawled up from the ground, its enormous body, like pale mist with no physical form, instantly filled the bar, the activity center, and even the entire Happiness Community!
In the ballroom, those illuminated by candlelight suddenly swayed gently, humming a strange opera tune, the syllables unclear, making it impossible to understand their meaning, or perhaps there was no meaning at all, just like a dreamlike murmur.
As if calling for a certain existence to arrive.
Along with their murmuring, something in Lu Yibei's sight, who was secretly observing the pitch-black window, began to become clearer.
Suddenly.
As if lightning had exploded in front of her, her eyes were temporarily blinded, leaving only a dazzling pale white, and then as her vision recovered, a strange and terrifying figure appeared out of thin air in her sight.
It was a gray-white swollen figure, a massive body seemingly piled up from hundreds of burnt skeletons stood quietly outside the activity center, and in the gaps between the skeletons, which seemed to be frozen in the last moment of their death throes, were stuck rotten and blackened wooden nameless tombstones.
Attached to the torso, which could barely be called an upper body, were grotesque and distorted masks, their mouths slightly open, and within them, metal could vaguely be heard constantly rubbing and colliding, accompanied by dizzying Jews Harp sounds.
Beneath the masks, pairs of alien eyes stared unblinkingly at every newcomer who attended the welcome dance tonight.
Behind it, a thick fog filled with the stench of burnt flesh and blood permeated, and in a trance, figures could be seen swimming in the fog, just like what the 'Water Ghost' who had burrowed into the hole had seen.
Pale limbs extended from the swirling fog, like tree roots, growing intricately intertwined in every corner of Happiness Community, and also like parasitic tentacles, connecting to the tops of the heads of every resident present.
That feeling was as if it was a hub, a hub that integrated the residents and the community.
Along with the increasingly strong Jews Harp sound,
The Happiness Community Strange Tale described in the bounty was particularly sinister, and before taking on this bounty, Lu Yibei had many hesitations.
If you were to ask who gave her the courage to venture into the tiger's den with Jiang Li, besides the urban legend she had dealt with before, another reason was Qingji's calm tone when mentioning the Strange Tale he had suppressed back then.
Qingji said, "That one? Just a not-so-bad little guy."
But...
After seeing the true face of the Strange Tale hidden in Happiness Community, Lu Yibei had an impulse to curse for a moment.
This ♦ is called a not-so-bad "little" guy?
My dear ancestor, you can't trick people like this!
This guy is at least five or six times as tall as the Pig-Headed Man in the South Suburb Slaughterhouse, and its Spiritual Energy fluctuation is 1.326 times as strong as the Great Serpent God. Fighting is definitely impossible, the only thing to try is whether we can escape. Lu Yibei thought.
This kind of thing should be reported to the Night Watch and let them directly level the Happiness Community.
Lu Yibei felt a bit like running away, if it weren't for Jiang Li firmly gripping her wrist with a grappling technique and giving her a smile...
【Come on, don't be afraid 【Heart emoji】】
That smile, seemingly full of infinite malice and gloom, coupled with the flickering candlelight and the pervasive thick fog, made Lu Yibei's heart tighten.
"..."
Sister, let's talk nicely, okay? Don't smile like that.
As Lu Yibei was thinking, the Strange Tale standing outside the activity center suddenly moved, its body tilted forward, piercing through the wall without any obstruction, and extended more than half of its body into the bar.
In an instant, the sound of the Jews Harp became intense, countless high-frequency vibrations of the strings converged, turning into piercing noise, and along with the suddenly rising sound waves, the tombstones on its body trembled, stirring up a dense smoke.
The smoke slowly condensed into shape, turning into swollen, wriggling gray-white limbs, extending towards the new residents who had fallen to ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the ground.
Seeing this, Jiang Li fiercely elbowed Lu Yibei and growled, "Cover me, I'll go get the suona and the zither!"
"Ah?" Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, and before she could recover, she saw Jiang Li spring up in a carp-like flip, and the moment she stood firm, silver-white armor enveloped her body.
The next moment, her figure shot out like an arrow piercing through the smoke and dim candlelight, straight towards the zither bag and guitar case three to four meters away.
That was a full-speed acceleration without any reservation, completely without any defensive preparation, as if she unconditionally trusted Lu Yibei.
And Lu Yibei responded to her trust with action.
"Water surges, fire burns, wind and rain follow, vast, scorching, form of the dragon beast, flowing bell devours fire!"
Along with a chant, two streams of light, one green and one red, instantly burst from Lu Yibei's fingertips, intertwining and competing, passing over Jiang Li's head, like two sharp fangs suddenly biting together, tearing apart the pale tentacles that were about to fall fiercely...
