Free Web NovelChapter 129: Chapter 129: Why Undercut Yourself!
"Shu... fu jia?" Hua’s voice jumped in pitch, full of emphasis; she struggled to grasp what the other person meant, but still ended up not understanding, with a tinge of regret.
"What I mean is, you look delicious!" Hua waved her brambles, and huge vines instantly bound Zhou Ang up.
Tuantuan didn’t pay any attention to Hua’s actions, simply jumped down from Jiang Che’s arms, and headed toward the bus.
She fished three slightly translucent beads out of her pocket and handed them to a ticket checker at the bus door.
Even though this bus ride wasn’t exactly aboveboard and tickets weren’t technically needed for this trip, Ding Ning said there was no need to make things harder for the people below.
There was a post standing still by the bus exit. Back when Jiang Che and the others got off, it was about to make a move on the three of them.
But after seeing Hua and Tuantuan come over, it stopped itself.
The bus doesn’t usually carry humans, but this time it was a special order from above; they deliberately left ten seats for them on every bus.
"Thank you, sir." Taking the tickets, the post shoved them into its huge mouth.
"If anyone asks, we’ll say this trip didn’t take any humans." The post kept shrugging, looking quite eager to please.
By the time Tuantuan came back, Hua already had her massive mouth open and had lifted Zhou Ang high in the air, looking about ready to drop him right in.
"You really do look delicious!" Hua hissed and laughed, staring dead at Zhou Ang and Jiang Che. She wanted to see what the two of them would do!
Beg me! Beg me, and I’ll let you go.
Hua whipped her brambles around, slicing through the air.
Zhou Ang felt a bit lost for words when she said he looked tasty, but when he glanced over at Jiang Che and Xiong Jie, neither of them did anything to stop it.
Xiong Jie didn’t even bother to lift an eyelid.
He didn’t feel afraid, just let out a sigh.
He knew he might die, but he hadn’t expected his life to end this way.
"Brother Che, afterwards, could you help take care of my mom?" He looked at Jiang Che. Right now, the only thing he couldn’t let go of was his mom.
Even though he trusted the Flying Tiger Organization’s reputation—since the family area had been established, they wouldn’t be thrown out.
He still felt a bit uneasy.
"Isn’t your mom your own responsibility?" Jiang Che looked at him, puzzled.
Zhou Ang was at a loss. He was totally tied up by brambles, couldn’t move a muscle apart from talking.
"Oh, Hua." Jiang Che instantly got it.
"We’ve all been eaten by Hua before. It’s fine." Jiang Che waved a hand, then picked up Tuantuan and walked inside.
Coming back to this area, he felt a sense of familiarity again.
Even though the sky was murky and bloody, the air was thick with dark red particles, and the howling wind stung his skin, he still felt a different kind of sensation.
A feeling of home.
"Hey!" Hua stamped angrily, whipping her brambles at Jiang Che.
She was furious. Why was this guy ruining her act!
Zhou Ang blinked in confusion. They’ve all been eaten?
No wonder Jiang Che and Xiong Jie didn’t react.
"Well, go ahead and eat me, then." Zhou Ang said, seriously looking at Hua.
He didn’t know why he trusted Jiang Che so much; maybe because Jiang Che had led him into the dungeon, told him not to buy a ticket, then brought him to get off halfway.
Now he heard that Jiang Che had also been eaten by Hua, so he believed it too.
"You’re so annoying!"
Hua let go of the brambles and tossed Zhou Ang straight down to the ground.
She felt like ever since meeting Jiang Che, everything had been a pain—this human was so odd, not scared of her at all.
Seeing himself released, Zhou Ang froze for a second, then smiled.
Because Jiang Che really never meant to harm him.
"I have a question." He got up from the ground and raised his hand.
"Are you done yet?!" Hua hoisted her bramble high. Zhou Ang looked at her savage expression, and somehow, he always felt this flower was glaring at him fiercely.
"Aren’t we supposed to be live streaming?" He pointed at the three of them, speaking cautiously, afraid the stream would catch something wrong.
"Can we not worry about that?" Hua put two branches on her hips. "Ever since you got off the bus, the stream’s been cut off."
"What the viewers are seeing now is you guys walking into the Dark Forest after getting off, and from then until you leave, the camera just keeps showing aimless exploration in the forest."
Hearing this, Zhou Ang breathed a sigh of relief.
"Where did Ning go?" Jiang Che asked, a bit confused.
"It’s a recent thing—the portals between the Human Realm and the Evil Spirit Realm have been getting bigger and bigger." Hua’s voice was heavy. "It’s complicated, but Ning suspects that this time, both the human side and the evil spirit side have had a hand in making things worse."
"Ning and another SSS-level dungeon leader are planning to do their best to shut down the portal between the Human Realm and Evil Spirit Realm." As she said this, Hua’s mood was extremely mixed.
"If it’s shut... I won’t be able to come back, right?" Jiang Che froze; he never thought Ding Ning would go and close off the portal.
Tuantuan just held his hand and didn’t say a word. It seemed like she already knew about this for a while.
"Why? Isn’t it great to have it open? That way, we can meet anytime, be together all the time." He remembered what the Flying Tiger folks said—as time passed, from ten days to nine, then eight, then two, one, and finally, not even a day.
He really could see Ning every day.
"Because merging would be way too disastrous for humans."
"You saw the Dark Forest outside on your ride here." Hua pointed at the area out there.
"Have you been to the edge of a dungeon? Do you know what’s beyond the edge?"
Only now did Jiang Che realize—he had indeed never gone to the dungeon’s edge, nor did he know what was out there.
"Almost all dungeons are wrapped up by that forest. Except for those with a bit more power... in your human terms, only S-class evil spirits and above can move through the Dark Forest freely. All the little evil spirits who want to travel have to take the bus."
"If we want to expand our territory, we need to push out into the Dark Forest."
"Those buses were first made by a few Lords using Dark Trees. As soon as they discovered they could avoid attacks from the Dark Forest that way, they turned them into transport buses."
Jiang Che instantly understood: "You mean, those other Lords have their eyes on human territory?"
"Even though the human land is pretty low-grade, compared to expanding into the Dark Forest, invading the Human Realm is a lot easier." Hua didn’t even bother to hide her scorn toward the Human Realm.
"The downside is that you’ll have to keep spending your territory’s essence to slowly nourish that wasteland, just to barely make it habitable for us."
