Chapter 217: Chapter 19: You Must Have A Protagonist Spirit
Liu Changsheng is the High Priest of the Great Han.
At the age of five, he entered the Divine Dragon Hall to serve the Ancestral Fire, as well as the three hundred military prefectures and two hundred protectorate prefectures of the Great Han, totaling five hundred Shehuo, and to this day, it has already been a hundred years.
In the Great Han, he is akin to a god-like existence. People in the world all say that the Great Han can exist without an Emperor, but cannot exist without the High Priest.
Nowadays, the High Priest is no longer persevering in exterminating the Gui Fang people. Once this news spreads out, it will be a tremendous blow to the Han people.
It is very likely that because of this statement, those who were originally prepared to fight the Gui Fang people head-on might develop the idea of negotiating with the Gui Fang people. After all, the Gui Fang people are truly very powerful now.
Then, the old events of the Southern Song period might occur: some fight the war, some negotiate, some surrender, and finally everyone joyfully becomes slaves of a fallen country, happily treated as beasts by others.
After Yun Ce finished reading all the documents provided by Shen Lexi, he looked in surprise at that guy whose face had been smashed into a mess by his punch and said: “Eh, he actually didn’t die? There will be plenty to boast about after going back.”
Alright, the dead are dead. Hurry and treat those who aren’t dead, then take me down to see the devil you mentioned. If there is no devil, I can continue killing you.
Shen Lexi glared angrily at Yun Ce and said: “You’re nothing but a beast wearing a good person’s skin.”
Yun Ce burst into loud laughter: “Curses from the enemy are the greatest compliment to me.”
1 “Do you hate us Gui Fang people this much?”
1 “No choice, ever since I was young, my family elder taught me with a famous saying: When you encounter an enemy, kill them on the street if you meet on the street, kill them in the eatery if you meet in the eatery, drown them in the latrine if you meet in the latrine. Now, we’ve met you in the inn, so of course I have to kill you here.”
1 “Our two races have been entangled for thousands of years and have killed each other for thousands of years. Countless Gui Fang people have died in between, and countless Han people have died too. Do you hope that your descendants will also fall into this endless mutual slaughter?”
1 Yun Ce shook his head: “Of course not.”
1 “Since that’s the case, can’t we find a way to live peacefully together? As High Priest Liu Changsheng said, the world is vast and can fully accommodate our two races coexisting.”
1 Yun Ce frowned: “What I mean is, in my generation, I’ll kill all of you off, so there’s no need to leave this troublesome matter to my children and grandchildren.”
1 Shen Lexi sneered: “Do you have the ability? Relying on the martial art you just used to kill my eight brothers? Even if you could kill all the Gui Fang people, now I’ll take you to see the devil and see if you can kill off the devils too.”
1 Yun Ce laughed: “I’m the type who rejoices at the prospect of battle. The stronger the enemy, the more I like it. My family elder said, ‘Struggle against heaven is endless joy, struggle against earth is endless joy, struggle against men is endless joy.’ To be honest, I love this saying to death. Even if I die on the way to the fighting arena, I’ll go smiling to the nine springs, with no regrets.”
1 Shen Lexi properly placed Ninth Brother’s body, sprinkled some glowing blue powder on that face which was no longer recognizable. The powder fell on the rotten face and quickly merged into the flesh. At the same time, the blood that was still oozing out immediately stopped.
1 Seeing Shen Lexi turn her gaze to other corpses again, Yun Ce hurriedly said: “I guarantee those eight are done for; no need to treat them.”
2 While speaking, he tucked Liu Ruyan, who was lying on the ground spitting blood from time to time, under his arm and urged Shen Lexi: “Hurry up.”
2 Shen Lexi saw Liu Ruyan spit out another mouthful of blood, and her voice couldn’t help becoming sharp.
2 “Damn it, her ribs are broken. Carrying her like this will kill her.”
2 Yun Ce angrily retorted: “If there’s no devil below as you said, and this Ghost Woman takes the chance to run away, wouldn’t I lose big? I have to bring her along. If you deceive me, it’ll be convenient to kill her too.”
2 Shen Lexi suddenly quieted down, glanced at the frail Liu Ruyan who was heartbreakingly weak, then at Yun Ce, and said: “Liu Chang’an, you don’t like women, do you?”
2 Yun Ce shook his head: “I just don’t like Gui Fang women. My own wife and concubine, once I get my hands on them, I can’t bear to let go. Hurry up. I don’t like you, so don’t bother. I already beat up your Imperial Concubine Yu Heng in Chang’an.”
2 “You’re younger than her, but you don’t have that seductive charm she has. In seducing men, you’re not as good as her.”
2 Shen Lexi let out a stifled hum of anger, went to the wall, pulled a rope, and with a clank, a floor panel fell down, folding into a staircase. At the end of the staircase was an iron gate.
2 Shen Lexi opened the iron gate, and waves of high-pitched roars shook Yun Ce’s ears until they went numb.
2 Shen Lexi snorted, and those roars immediately stopped.
3 The basement was indeed very large. Now, it was filled with iron cages, each containing something resembling a human shape.
3 Yun Ce looked toward the iron cage closest to the door; inside was something at least two meters tall, bald-headed, hairless all over with only wrinkled pale skin.
3 Yun Ce tossed Liu Ruyan aside, poked the hairless monster with his finger, and saw it open its eyes. Its eyes were very large, sky blue with radiating black lines. Its features were barely there, just very large eyes, a very large nose, while the ears and mouth seemed small.
3 The arms and legs were distinct; the hands had five fingers with two-inch long non-retractable nails, which should be its main weapon. The legs were reverse-jointed like a goat’s, with knotted muscles and tendons, certainly excellent jumping ability.
3 Just as Yun Ce wanted to get closer for a better look, the hairless monster suddenly opened its mouth, and a dark green meat spike shot straight at Yun Ce’s face.
3 Yun Ce reached out and grabbed the spike or tongue, turned to glance at the calm-faced Shen Lexi, and said: “Don’t use this kind of trick again.”
3 Shen Lexi gave a cold hum and continued tending to Liu Ruyan. Seeing that Liu Ruyan’s chest wrap had come loose at some point, exposing a pair of snow-white peaks, Shen Lexi wanted to cover her up, but Liu Ruyan stopped her with a look.
3 Yun Ce naturally saw Liu Ruyan’s beautiful chest too, but he didn’t look more than once. To him, Zhang Min’s chest was the one that made his blood surge; Liu Ruyan’s was just so-so, not even as good as a silicone doll.
3 Focusing his gaze on the dark green spike in his hand, this thing really couldn’t be called a tongue—who’s tongue grows a three-inch black spike? Moreover, just looking at the glistening liquid oozing from the tip of the spike, it was clear that being pierced by it would likely result in poisoning.
3 Avoiding the gazes of Shen Lexi and Liu Ruyan, several of Doggy’s tentacles silently emerged from the wristband, slid along Yun Ce’s wrist, and plunged into the so-called devil’s mouth.
4 The hairless monster began to struggle violently; clearly, Doggy’s entry made it very uncomfortable. It wanted to break free from Yun Ce’s hand, but that hand was steady as a rock, unmoving no matter how it struggled.
4 When Doggy’s tentacles came out of the hairless monster’s body, Yun Ce pulled out a knife, stabbed it into the meat spike, and immediately, a large amount of colorless liquid oozed from the tip. Yun Ce took out a bottle and collected the liquid bit by bit; if the spraying slowed, he stabbed again.
4 Until Yun Ce severed the mouthpart, no poison came out from the spike tip. Only then did he release the hairless monster. Watching its body crash to the ground, Shen Lexi looked at the bottle in Yun Ce’s hand and said: “You killed the Jumping Demon.”
4 “This thing loves to move at night, can leap ten zhang in one jump, lands silently, feeds on Gui Fang people, especially fond of children and young girls. Liu Chang’an, hearing this, do you like it a bit?”
4 Yun Ce’s eyes lit up. He dragged a leg of the hairless monster through the cage bars, swung his knife to cut open the tough cowhide-like outer skin, carefully enlarged the wound, parted the strong tendon, revealing a leg tendon as thick as a baby’s arm. He tried cutting it with the knife but couldn’t; delighted, Yun Ce took out his saber, continued enlarging the wound until a complete leg tendon appeared, then used the razor-sharp saber to sever it, carefully rolled it up, and put it in his waist pouch.
4 Yun Ce turned back to glance at Liu Ruyan, whose chest was still exposed, and said to Shen Lexi: “Catch more of these monsters in the future. Their skin is very tough yet soft, perfect for making good leather goods. Their meat probably doesn’t taste great, mainly because the muscle fibers are too coarse.”
4 “If you’re willing to spend time stewing it longer, there’s a lot of collagen in the meat; it might yield some surprises.”
4 “However, this thing’s leg tendon is absolutely a high-value byproduct. Used to make bow and arrow weapons, the performance should improve by more than twofold.”
4 Shen Lexi’s eyes widened almost as big as this Jumping Demon’s, and after a long while, she looked at Yun Ce, who was busy extracting the tendon again, and said: “You see devils this way?”
4 While extracting the tendon, Yun Ce said: “All things in nature are meant to nourish humans.”
5 “The devils in your mouth are no exception.”
5 “They’re just a bit stronger, a bit more venomous, a bit more ferocious in temperament.”
5 “Find their weakness, capture them, develop their economic value. If the economic value is high enough, we might even actively breed them in the future.”
5 Shen Lexi yanked up Liu Ruyan’s collar, fully covering that pair of snow peaks, then screamed at Yun Ce: “You’re the devil, aren’t you?”
5 “Do you know how much of a nightmare the Jumping Demon is for Gui Fang children and girls, and you’re actually thinking about how to make money off it?”
5 Yun Ce coldly coiled the newly obtained leg tendon and looked at the frenzied Shen Lexi: “This is why I despise you Gui Fang people.”
5 “Born as humans, we are here to rule the world. The world exists for us. The sky here, the ground, every blade of grass and tree, even the insects, all belong to us.”
5 “Fear should not arise in beings like humans. Humans only make them fear. Shen Lexi, you Gui Fang people lack even this sense of being the masters, so what talk of unifying the ground?”
5 I’ll accompany everyone all day today; I continue.
