Chapter Eighty-Three: Who Eats Whom? (Seeking First-Order Subscriptions)

The vast county of East Fence lay before him, every corner hiding bones.

After crossing most of the county town, Qi Xiu’s brow knit tighter and tighter.

Its area was more than a third larger than that of Treasure River County.

Yet on this journey, he had found almost every house empty.

Not a single young or strong person, not one child, could be seen; it seemed they had all been taken by demons and offered up in slaughter.

Only the aged remained—old men and old women in their later years, all missing arms or legs, their bodies covered in ulcers, living in misery worse than death.

When they saw that Qi Xiu did not look especially vicious, several old people crawled and rolled to the threshold, waving their hands and begging him to grant them a swift end.

It felt as though a lump of iron had been stuffed into his chest, cold and heavy.

Looking at those ashen, vacant eyes that longed for release, Qi Xiu let out a long breath and murmured softly, “How sinful.”

A strand of medicinal force dispersed.

The intense numbing effect brought smiles of relief to these elders, who had long suffered the grief of bereavement and the torment of the flesh.

At last, they could go and keep the children company.

As though sensing that all this was the work of the scholar before them, whose appearance was so eerily grim, the old folks pressed their palms together and, with their last shred of strength, prayed for him.

After seeing off those wretched elders, Qi Xiu continued wandering aimlessly through this hellish county town.

Only every so often, he would crouch down and dig open the ground, uncovering something hidden beneath it.

Then he would restore the earth as it had been, as if nothing at all had happened.

...

“Great King, the invited guests have mostly arrived.”

The former county yamen had now become a foul reeking pool of flesh and mire, where mountains of bones piled high and countless flies and maggots swarmed.

At the center of this stinking, roiling bog, a huge, bloated figure layered thick with fat was embracing two other equally corpulent bodies, groping at them all over in great delight.

Hearing his subordinate’s report, King Golden Wealth turned his head and rose, wading through the flesh-mud as he came over.

His pockmarked, pustule-ridden face was fitted with a pair of copper-coin eyes that gleamed with wicked light.

“Have they all come?”

“Yes, Great King. A total of three hundred and seventy-six have arrived. Twenty-four are still missing,” said the half-demon, head bowed.

“Mm. If they are unwilling to come, then so be it.

Inform the kitchen to cook every one of those martial artists and spirit adepts.

Tomorrow is my birthday banquet, and I intend to eat well.

And make sure there is plenty of Blood-Saliva Intoxicant. If it is not enough, I will take the shortfall out of all of you.

Enough. Go and handle it.”

Licking his lips with a bright red tongue, King Golden Wealth impatiently waved the half-demon away.

Then, with a vile grin, he rubbed his hands together, twisted his backside, and walked toward those two mountain-like, round figures.

...

The next day.

Dongli County suddenly burst into noise at the tolling of a heavy, grating bell.

After a night of silence, the entire county came alive.

Demons, monsters, and sinister cultivators of every size and sort laughed uproariously as they swaggered out of their dwellings.

The streets and alleys stank to the heavens.

Demonic aura and sinister mist intermingled and surged upward in a towering plume.

A nest of demons and a den of fiends.

This was the true calamity of the demonic horde.

Hundreds of demons and evil cultivators poured into the streets, their greedy, savage eyes brimming with hunger.

Yesterday’s morning banquet had whetted their appetites beyond measure.

After barely enduring the night, they had reached the hour for the main feast today, and many were already walking along while saliva streamed from their mouths.

They imagined themselves gorging at the banquet until they were completely satisfied.

The raucous procession made its way all the way to the south market of Dongli County.

There had once been a large market district there, but now it had all been torn down and replaced with a strange, grim, and terrifying great hall built from bones, rotten mud, wooden stakes, and bricks.

At the entrance, a group of half-demons had long been waiting.

Seat assignments were handed out to the assembled demons and cultivators.

“What is the meaning of this? Coming to a banquet, and they still divide people by rank and status?” grumbled a sinister cultivator with a rotten face, whose practice of ghost arts had backfired and been turned against him by a vengeful spirit, as he pinched a seat slip placed far toward the back.

“Please pardon us, honored lords. These seats are arranged according to the birthday gifts each of you presented. Those who gave heavier gifts naturally sit closer to the front. This is the rule set by my Great King, and I hope the lords will forgive us,” explained a female toad with a wide grin and cheeks painted red like a monkey’s backside.

“Tch, looking down on people because of your own dog eyes,” the rotten-faced cultivator muttered in dissatisfaction, but lacking the strength to make trouble, he said no more.

Standing toward the rear, Qi Xiu looked down at his seat slip.

Heavenly Stem Fifteen.

Fine. At this rate, he’d practically be sitting outside the door.

Qi Xiu smiled and shook his head.

Still, being seated farther away was ideal; if he were right in front of King Golden Wealth, it would be harder to act.

After a while of noisy chatter among the crowd, the female toad shouted at the top of her lungs:

“Please, honored lords, take your seats~”

The demons and sinister cultivators, unable to wait any longer, surged and jostled their way into the hall of bones.

The moment they entered, the smells of meat, alcohol, demonic filth, and a strange fishy tang all mingled together.

In that instant, they somehow gave rise to a bizarre, ravenous appetite.

It made one feel starving.

So hungry one could hardly resist wanting to tear off a piece of one’s own thigh and take a bite to relieve the craving.

Qi Xiu found his way to his seat.

Upon the stained table lay several rather exquisite dishes of meat and roast fare, along with an opened wine jar releasing a rich, mellow fragrance.

To his left, a half-human, half-goat demon was already devouring the roasted dishes on the table with impatient gulps.

While eating, it kept tipping back the jar and guzzling the red, bloodlike wine.

“Tasty, tasty! Damn, this is tasty!”

A goat should be eating grass, should it not?

Looking at the goat demon, whose mouth shone with grease and whose eyes were bloodshot, Qi Xiu frowned and shifted a little farther away.

“Daoist friend, you are not eating?” came a voice from the right.

Qi Xiu turned his head.

A ragged man, with black teeth, skin and bones for a body, and a belly as swollen as that of a pregnant woman, had sidled over and was reaching for the meat on the table.

With a flick of his finger, Qi Xiu sent a streak of icy power that made the black-toothed man cry out in pain.

Qi Xiu’s expression remained blank as he said in a low voice, “None of your damn business. Get lost.”

Demons and evil cultivators were all twisted, perverse creatures by nature.

The more wild and irritable you were, the more normal they thought you seemed.

If you acted all gentle and courteous, it would only arouse suspicion.

Sensing the cold, bone-deep aura on Qi Xiu, the black-toothed man shrank back and, knowing he was no easy target, dared not say more.

As the demons and sinister cultivators successively took their seats, the entire hall was filled with the creak and grind of chewing and biting, creating an atmosphere so eerie it made one’s scalp tingle.

At the main seat of the hall sat King Golden Wealth, draped in a mantle stitched from human skin and holding a wine cup made from a skull, watching with satisfaction as the demons and cultivators below feasted heartily.

“Today, all of you have come to attend my birthday banquet, and I am greatly pleased.

Eat as much as you like, drink as much as you like.

Bring in the wine!”

At his loud command, rows of toad half-demons carried into the hall wine jars as tall as a man.

Scarlet liquor splashed over the rims.

Its rich, mellow fragrance spread with a strange allure, drawing even those demons and cultivators already lost in the meat to raise their heads and shout for another jar.

The gluttonous devouring and drunken gorging went on for several hours.

Qi Xiu quietly poured all the meat and wine into the flood-dragon pond, then glanced sideways at the goat demon, whose belly had swollen to several times its size and whose mouth had even split at the corners, yet who still kept chewing with big gulps.

Frowning slightly, he looked again at the other demons in the hall.

They, too, were all in a dazed frenzy.

As if possessed, they shoved the blood, flesh, and wine from the tables into their mouths.

Even with their bellies swelling until they split open, even as they coughed up blood while eating, they still did not stop.

Qi Xiu’s heart tightened.

He glanced, in a barely noticeable way, at King Golden Wealth on the main seat, who had never stopped idly swirling his cup while observing the scene below.

He understood at once: a banquet with hidden knives.

Seeing through this old demon’s little scheme, Qi Xiu said nothing, quietly stood up, and leapt out through the window near the hall entrance.

Just as Qi Xiu left, and after the blood-soaked wine and flesh had all but been stuffed into the demons’ bellies, King Golden Wealth, who had been watching everything all along, let out a series of chuckles.

“Hahaha, how is it, everyone? Did you eat well?”

Yet by then the demons and sinister cultivators in the hall were all dumbstruck.

Only a few with deeper cultivation managed to struggle free and, swaying unsteadily, cursed King Golden Wealth furiously.

“Golden Wealth, you bastard!

You actually drugged us!

We’re all demons and monsters—why would you do this?”

“Hahaha! You yourself said it: we are all demons and monsters. The weak are prey to the strong, survival of the fittest—that is the way of heaven.

If you want to blame someone, blame yourselves for being fools.

You actually believed I would give you meat for free.

Enough, enough, calm down.

What meaning is there in you little demons and small fry living on in such mediocrity? In the end, you’ll die anyway.

Since you’re going to die sooner or later, it may as well be at my hands.

At the very least, before you die, I’ve given you a full meal. Wouldn’t you say that’s right?

Hahaha!”

Laughing wildly, King Golden Wealth flipped his palm, and a sack the size of a hand appeared, dark green all over and faintly glowing with precious light.

“You’ve filled yourselves with meat. Now it’s my turn to eat you.

Relax. This Treasure-Gathering Sack has plenty of room inside.”

Murmuring a string of incantations under his breath, King Golden Wealth flung the sack high into the air and roared with laughter:

“Take in!”

The floating sack turned lively with circulating light; precious radiance blossomed as a tremendous sucking force suddenly burst forth from within.

Violent winds swept through the entire hall.

Those demons and sinister cultivators, whose bodies had been paralyzed by the intoxicating wine, could only struggle in fury and resentment before being sucked in all at once like rolling gourds.

“Hahaha! With so many demons and evil cultivators, I can refine plenty of Treasure-Gathering Pills.

Once this is done, I’ll move to a farther county and stage the same performance again.

Wouldn’t reaching the Bone-Taint Stage be just around the corner?”

As he watched the demons throughout the hall be gathered up completely by the sack, King Golden Wealth laughed nonstop, as though he could already see himself becoming a mighty demon lord who ruled a realm.

But just as he was happily taking back the sack, intending to return and refine Treasure-Gathering Pills to improve his cultivation, a sharp cry pierced his ears like a needle.

“Old toad! Your grandma is here again. Come out and die!”

“Hmph! Stinking woman, since you are so set on death, I will fulfill your wish today!”

Infuriated by the disturbance from Jia Yufei, King Golden Wealth snorted and leapt into the air on a mass of demonic wind, wrapped in thick stench and poisonous mist as he shot skyward.

Outside the hall, watching King Golden Wealth depart riding the demonic wind, Qi Xiu folded his sleeves and revealed a sinister smile.

Leaving so readily?

If that was the case, then he would not be polite.

...