262: Chapter 60: The Lowliest Desire is to Live 262: Chapter 60: The Lowliest Desire is to Live When Li Mumu arrived in the small town, all the townspeople were kneeling on the ground, obediently.
A very few who were not, had their heads planted into the ground by the Patriarch, and they too looked very obedient.
Earlier, as Li Mumu overlooked the town from the mountain, it felt to her like a cluster of shacks forming a slum.
In reality, it was even worse than she had imagined.
There wasn’t a single proper building here, at most, stones piled up to form a nest with a piece of torn cloth covering it—the cloth looked like it had been stripped from a dead person.
It was only then that Li Mumu noticed a detail she had previously overlooked.
There were no trees on the mountain.
Not just on the mountain, as far as the eye could see, there wasn’t a single withered plant on the entire stretch of land.
No wonder it was called the Great Wilderness, this place had nothing but barren land and the undead.
“What do you usually eat?”
Li Mumu asked the Patriarch softly.
Sun Da hesitated for a moment, then whispered, “We didn’t used to need to eat, but now that we know hunger, we eat soil.”
He picked up a clod of soil, formed into a lump, from the hands of a kneeling woman and handed it to Li Mumu.
“Guanyin Soil?”
“It was found by Master Maitreya, so we call it Maitreya Soil.”
Li Mumu lifted her gaze to one of the few sources of light in the town.
It was a brazier, with pale flames flickering inside.
Without trees, naturally, what burned in the brazier was not charcoal.
But rather, chunks of dry, shriveled flesh and bone.
The townspeople, men and women, old and young, shared only one trait in common—they were as gaunt as dead wood, their clothing insufficient to cover their bodies.
“Lift your heads!”
Li Mumu approached a woman with a child, speaking softly.
The woman and child timidly lifted their heads and, upon seeing Li Mumu’s supple and tender skin, their vacant gazes involuntarily flickered with confusion.
Their expressions stiffened and grew fierce, as if the next moment they might lunge forward to gnaw at Li Mumu’s flesh, yet they ultimately controlled their primitive impulse.
The woman forcefully held her child still, trembling as she bowed again and again towards Li Mumu.
Was it the firelight that birthed Spirit Intelligence?
Considering how the Patriarch’s words never strayed far from Master Maitreya, that plump monk seemed to have also put in a lot of effort.
This world is truly wonderful.
“Let her go,” Li Mumu said softly.
The woman shook her head while holding her child tightly in her arms.
“I won’t harm her,” Li Mumu assured.
Only upon hearing this promise did the woman hesitantly release her grip.
The child, like a rabid dog, burst forth from her hold and bit down on the sleeve of Li Mumu’s arm, which was intentionally extended.
The red jacket trembled slightly, and a Red String quietly coiled around the child’s neck.
Her murky eyes gradually grew clearer, and realizing what she had done, she became teary.
I’m done for, I’m going to die.
This was the only thought that surfaced in her mind at that moment.
“My flesh and blood, I’m afraid you can’t enjoy it.”
Li Mumu lifted her finger that she had just bitten and gently tapped it on the child’s forehead.
Just a smudge of blood made the child let out a piercing scream, her shrunken body inflated at a visible rate, looking like it was about to explode on the spot.
But with the restraint of the Red String, she ultimately did not lose control completely.
After swelling into a ball of flesh, she slowly contracted back, returning to a normal human form.
A normal person with flesh and blood, no longer shrunken.
The little girl, still in disbelief, pinched her chubby palm, then looked up again at the pretty sister in red and found her handing over a pitch-black object.
It was not Maitreya Soil, but something sweeter, more delicious…
“What’s your name?”
“I…”
What’s a name?
Watching the little girl gobbling the dark chocolate like a hamster, her face still wore a blank expression.
Li Mumu smiled and said, “Your family name is Sun, and you like chocolate, so let’s call you Sun Qiao’er.”
“Mm, my name is Sun Qiao’er.”
Her mother, desperately tugging at her torn trousers, said, “Quickly kneel and thank her!
Kowtow to the lady!”
“No need to kneel!”
Li Mumu patted Sun Qiao’er on the head and looked up into the darkening sky, “Looks like we really do have visitors.”
In this West Spring Mountain, obviously there was more than just Maitreya Monk and his led family.
The commotion caused by Maitreya Monk’s escape had inevitably attracted the attention of unfriendly eyes lurking around.
The Patriarchs suppressed the restlessness of their clan members, not giving Li Mumu a chance to lash out and slap faces, which she had somewhat regretted.
Unexpectedly, someone delivered themselves right to her door.
How embarrassing…
Looking at the huge Corpse appearing slowly in the distance, Li Mumu’s eyes shone brightly.
“Detecting Level II Undead: Rebel Leader.”
“They are slaves subdued by war, wild beasts tormented by war into losing their sanity.
They do not know why they fight; they just continue the war on instinct until their bodies and spirits completely fall and are destroyed.”
The Corpse, towering over twenty meters high, still donned tattered armor, holding a broken weapon, its level of Spirit Intelligence unknown.
As it approached the outskirts of the town, it bent down, and with one hand, grabbed four or five townspeople, about to stuff them into its mouth.
When it realized that it couldn’t lift its arm no matter how it tried, only then did it see the Red String wound tightly around its arm.
“Who allowed you to dine here?”
Li Mumu raised her head, her ink-black right eye met the cloudy eyeball of the huge Corpse.
The giant Corpse merely paused for a moment, then carried on regardless, lowering its head to gnaw at the townspeople in its hand.
It seemed to have only the instinct to eat.
The next moment, all the Red Strings suddenly tensed up.
Under the strong pulling force, the giant Corpse couldn’t maintain its balance and crashed to the ground with a thunderous sound.
Only then did it seem to realize the threat of the little red-clad girl, as it raised its broken weapon overhead, aiming to squash this insignificant ant.
One third of the buildings in the town, if those shacks could be called buildings, turned to ash under its full-blown strike, countless townspeople were tossed into the air, and the previously solid ground was left with a gash ten meters long.
Yet, it was the gigantic Corpse wielding the weapon that let out the gruesome roar.
Using the reverse pulling force of the Red String, Li Mumu leaped onto the back of its head; her right hand formed into a claw and reached for its temple.
After days of Cultivation, her strength had significantly improved; her sharp nails effortlessly tore through the rotting, stiff flesh of the Corpse, her entire arm buried up to the shoulder.
Red String burst from her sleeves and blossomed from the Corpse’s every orifice.
The giant Corpse struggled in vain and collapsed with a boom.