I Am Your Natural Enemy

Chapter 519: Chapter 209: Eating from the inside out, pretending to be dirty to open one’s eyes (5k)_2

Before your mother passed away two years ago, I even let you go back to see her one last time.

I think I’ve treated you pretty well.

What were you thinking? Don’t you know the thing I hate most here is someone betraying their own people?”

Liu Qiang was so terrified his whole body went limp, kneeling on the ground trembling.

He just started to say something, but Lord Zhu sighed and held up his hand to stop him.

”Actually, I didn’t really want to ask you anything. I just wanted to look at you one last time, let everyone else get a good look at you too.

I know you used a living person to pass a message, and that person is a player who went to the Netherworld.

The message was sent from inside the Netherworld, but who it was sent to—I really don’t know.

Still, luckily he’s alive. Makes it a bit easier to track down.”

Lord Zhu sighed and waved his hand.

”Take him away.”

Liu Qiang struggled, wanting to say something, but it was already pointless.

Lord Zhu let out a long sigh—this time, he was truly angry.

”If it was anyone else, it might be whatever. But he knows exactly how much I hate traitors, and he still passes information to outsiders, sells out his own kind—whether he’s stupid or malicious, or just greedy, I don’t care anymore. I never want to see this kind of trash again.”

Lord Zhu got up to leave. Everyone in the courtyard bowed their heads in silence, fearful, faces ashen.

No matter what their strength, status, or what they knew—even if someone was only a runner, knew nothing at all—Lord Zhu had always helped whenever he could.

Countless Ghosts had been helped by Lord Zhu over the years.

Everyone here, honestly, if they ran into the Scorching Sun Department, and had bad luck, got one of those guys who seriously hated Ghosts—at least a third of them would get beaten to death.

It was only because Lord Zhu took them in, gave them legitimate work, that they survived.

Some even offended the wrong people, which is actually worse than running afoul of the Scorching Sun Department—because if you piss off the wrong person, they’ll always go for the kill with Ghosts.

It was always Lord Zhu who protected them.

Lord Zhu hates traitors most, hates sellouts, and so do all of them.

By the city walls of the Ghost Market, Liu Qiang’s mouth was sealed, he was force-fed some drug, then hung up and publicly skinned alive.

The watching Ghosts, having only heard he was a traitor, selling out his own, immediately went into popcorn mode, just watching the show.

An Old Ghost even stood nearby, passing judgment.

”Your craft is weak. Back in the day, I saw a real live skinning—the guy lasted three days without dying. That was skill. Yours, he won’t last a day before he’s dead.”

Elsewhere, high up in a building, next to Lord Zhu, a Ghost with his eyes closed still stood silently there.

Lord Zhu stared coldly down at the scene below.

”Nicely done. Keep investigating. No way it’s just him.”

Among the Ghosts gathered below, Mai Conggui was there too, sipping his liquor, clicking his tongue.

”Tsk, what an idiot. Got a job here in the Ghost Market but still does this shit. Deserves to die.”

Ghosts don’t get any rights. Not just this way of dying—even if someone gets killed in the street during some spat, everyone just stands far away watching the mess.

As he watched, Mai Conggui instinctively got back to his real job, scoping out whether any Ghosts here might offer up new leads.

As he listened, his gaze swept over a Ghost that looked really familiar—a face he saw often.

All right, guess that one goes on the priority list.

...

Inside the Netherworld, Wen Yan galloped wildly on horseback, following the guide in his heart, pressing forward. If he got tired, he’d slow the horse, rest laying prone on its back, then wake, feed the Blue Mane Horse, bless it with Yang Energy, and ride on.

He didn’t want to spend another damn day in the rotten Netherworld. After running wild for more than a day, he still hadn’t seen a single living thing.

On the road, he suddenly noticed a locator he’d dropped earlier, lying in the dirt.

Surprised, he reset his bearings and followed the new direction for half a day, and somehow ended up back at the manor.

The manor’s big door was locked tight, with faint burn marks on it, and incense ashes on the ground out front.

Wen Yan looked closer and instantly understood: The thing about funeral goods being made into Incense Candle Crossbows had clearly spread.

Someone had tried attacking the manor—and it definitely had to be a player.

Wen Yan knocked on the door. A paper effigy immediately poked its head over the wall, took one look, and quickly opened up when it recognized Wen Yan.

”Anyone tried attacking these days?”

”Yeah, there were people with crossbows, but they just couldn’t break the door, so they left.”

”No one climbed the walls?”

”A few did, but we drove them off.”

Wen Yan looked at incense sticks scattered in the yard. Some were actually made with crossbow bolts, each with an incense stick wedged in the middle. People were getting way more creative now.

He took a lap around the manor—there really wasn’t anything of much value left inside.

Just the buildings themselves, all kinds of furniture, plus leftover food and water and stuff like that.

Heading to the back greenhouse, he found a lot of medicinal herbs had ripened.

There were seeds all over the ground too, some just starting to sprout.

Wen Yan picked up a few, feeling how absurd it was. He’d grown stuff before—just getting seeds to sprout was tricky enough.

But here, they were just tossed on the dirt, no water at all, and yet they sprouted just fine.

He gathered up all the seeds, and harvested every mature herb as well.

At the very end, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a little seedling flash by. He turned and just saw a small bump on the ground left behind.

Wen Yan remembered some old bragging stories—about digging for Wild Ginseng in snowy mountains, sometimes the ginseng would pull itself back into the soil and escape.