.，！

After confirming that the "five-color rice" contained no human flesh, fingernails, hair, toxins, or anything of the sort, Fang Senyan began to eat. Then, a black woman used a large reed-woven dustpan to bring up a plate of steamed cakes.

These cakes were quite unique. Local sorghum flour was poured into a calabash gourd filled with tiny holes. The gourd was then placed on top of an iron pot filled with water and heated over a fire, resulting in delicious steamed cakes. Finally, they were sprinkled with a mixture of bananas, peanuts, cassava flour, palm oil, chili, and salt.

In their local language, it was called "Injera."

The surface of the cakes was gray and soft with a slightly sour taste. Fang Senyan even saw some tribesmen adding some gray powder to their wine glasses. He tried it and discovered that the powder wasn't pepper or salt, but ground minerals. It crunched unpleasantly between his teeth. However, the natives who consumed it shook their heads and swayed contentedly, eventually lifting their grass skirts and dancing back and forth.

Seeing their actions, Fang Senyan suddenly remembered that in ancient China during the Jin Dynasty, consuming mineral powder was also popular. It was called Wushisan (Five Stone Powder), and the famous Wang Xizhi died because of it. He didn't expect to find fellow enthusiasts in Africa, thousands of miles away. It was just a pity that these tribesmen didn't seem capable of producing a timeless masterpiece like the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion.

Next, many tribesmen began to offer Fang Senyan the food they had brought: insect eggs, grasshoppers, worms… This behavior was somewhat similar to a group of young girls with red dots between their eyebrows and red scarves offering flowers to uncles and aunts getting off a plane in the real world.

Of course, only the symbolic meaning was the same. The feeling it gave Fang Senyan was completely different.

Faced with these special African foods, the black guy ate his fill. Fang Senyan saw that he particularly liked something wrapped in blackened leaves, which he ate with relish, so Fang Senyan couldn't help but try it as well.

The first time he ate it, it tasted a little sour, with a flavor similar to salted duck egg yolk. The second time, the person who grilled it probably had a heavier palate, like those who like to cook soft-boiled eggs.

Fang Senyan immediately felt an indescribable fishy taste. He pulled the black guy aside and quietly asked, and his eyes widened and his stomach churned. It turned out that the area was rich in palm-sized giant spiders that could even hunt small birds. The barbecue was made by tearing off the giant spider's plump abdomen and grilling it in the fire…

Fang Senyan had previously inquired about some things in a roundabout way, but he didn't know if these natives were playing dumb or were tight-lipped. He hadn't received any useful information. Fang Senyan didn't dare to eat any more of the strange foods offered by the people. After about half an hour, the rum began to take effect, gradually breaking down the locals' defenses. As the saying goes, drunkards speak the truth, and Fang Senyan began chatting with the chief next to him again.

"Don't you have any special products here?"

"No, no more, only these…"

"Come, try our specialty, golden rum (gulp)."

"Good taste, oh, good, right."

"Chief, are the warriors of your tribe not brave enough?"

"You're talking nonsense (roar)! The warriors of our tribe are as cunning as wolves and as fierce as lions!"

"Then why are you so afraid of those enemies from the Dibaya tribe?"

"You, what do you know! The Dibaya tribe are not people, they are devils! They are the descendants of evil gods. Anyone who enters that damn swamp will be dragged into their ruins and become terrifying death slaves!"

"That's just a legend, legends always have a lot of exaggeration."

"This, this is not a legend!! Twenty years ago, I followed my father into the Great Swamp. The terror and weirdness inside is definitely beyond your imagination. Those powerful and ferocious Dibaya people, they have been constantly chasing us! It's like a nightmare. Not only that, but even nature has become our enemy. Maharu (the God of Nature) has completely gone mad! Danger is everywhere in the air, in the soil, under the water, and even the people who were killed have climbed up again to attack us…"

Hearing what the old chief said, Fang Senyan and the other two's eyes lit up. Yes, although this old man seemed tight-lipped, he was speaking the truth after drinking rum. It could be seen from Lord Fogg that the place called Dibaya Great Swamp must be dark, rotten, and full of disease, plague, and danger.

In this case, if they could obtain a guide who had been there before, it would definitely be twice the result with half the effort and extremely efficient.

However, these local natives probably had difficulty even eating their fill, so they definitely couldn't spare too much time and sugar to brew wine.

Therefore, they were addicted to alcohol and had extremely low resistance to it. When Fang Senyan wanted to continue asking the chief about the situation, he saw the old man fall asleep, unable to be woken up again.

Fortunately, now that they had grasped this piece of information, it was like finding the end of a thread in a tangled mess, and things would naturally become clear. Fang Senyan immediately called a few clever and heavy-drinking pirates and asked them to take good wine to inquire about information. Soon, various pieces of information quickly came back.

First of all, the old chief suffered from a strange disease in his early years. He tossed and turned in bed all day, groaning and wailing, wishing he were dead. Therefore, Aram, who was then the old chief's son, led the warriors of the tribe deep into the swamp, risking their lives to find the secret root of the Dibaya tribe: the Solar Ladder.

Rumor has it that this flower contains a terrifying and mysterious power that can allow people to master the source of immortality. As the primitive tribe closest to the Dibaya Swamp, they also grasped some of the Dibaya people's activity patterns. The time they entered the swamp happened to be the time of the Dibaya tribe's sacrificial ceremony.

A total of one hundred and forty-seven people followed the chief deep into the Great Swamp, but only thirteen were able to come out alive. Among these thirteen people, four turned into monsters within seven days of coming out, or were killed, or escaped into the primeval forest. There are currently five people remaining.

Another piece of information was that the local natives lived in extreme poverty, so they could gain their loyalty with very little cost.

After Fang Senyan received this information, he quickly began to take action. The first thing he had to find, of course, was the survivor who had once been deep into the Dibaya tribe. However, this process was not smooth. They found that the people they could find had all turned into unfortunate fools who could only drool and giggle foolishly. The only sober one was the current chief of the tribe.

But obviously this chief would never follow them. If they used force, it might backfire. With Fang Senyan's methods, he could naturally handle them with a combination of soft and hard tactics, but it would take some time. However, Fang Senyan only had a few small hours left at this time. While weighing the various options, Fang Senyan's pirates found another piece of information and came to report: "Boss, there is another person who went deep into the Dibaya Swamp in the past, named Mbenga."

Fang Senyan immediately felt that this name was quite familiar. After thinking carefully, when he was slaughtering zebras earlier, a native suddenly went mad. Wasn't that guy called Mbenga? Looking at his mind and consciousness, he definitely didn't look like a madman or a fool. With this thought in mind, Fang Senyan immediately called out this guy from Jin Mine and asked Mogansha and Jiao Shi to cooperate with him to recruit natives as the foundation for entering the Dibaya Swamp.

Fang Senyan then bribed a black girl with a beautiful mirror. He guessed that her boyfriend (or suitor) was responsible for guarding the prisoners, so although the guard's face showed embarrassment, his ear was violently tugged in the next second. The pain distorted the guy's features.

The black girl said a few more words, probably to prevent her ears from being tortured again (or to ensure smooth sexual life these days), the seemingly tall and mighty but actually very afraid of women guard stepped aside. Fang Senyan didn't waste much effort and saw Mbenga, who was imprisoned in a hastily built outer building.

Mbenga was a black man, a tall and sturdy black man with knotted muscles all over his body and triangular eyes.

He had a spider tattooed on his left cheek with striking paint.

When Fang Senyan saw him, this big guy was using his thumbs to press hard on his temples, frowning tightly, as if doing so could expel some distracting thoughts from his mind faster and more quickly.

There was a very obvious scar on his forehead. The scar was blood-red, winding across his forehead like a centipede. Perhaps because the bone density had been destroyed, the newly grown skin at the scar had a strange depression. It looked as if a piece of his head was missing. With Fang Senyan's shallow medical knowledge, he could see that Mbenga was very lucky to have survived such a brain injury, let alone maintain normal consciousness. After seeing Fang Senyan, Mbenga was surprised: "I know you. You are the leader of that group of people who came from across the sea. What are you doing here?"

Fang Senyan's answer was a "pop" sound, the sound of the waxed stopper of the rum being squeezed out forcefully, and then the aroma of the golden rum naturally floated into his nostrils through the medium of air. (To be continued!。.