Chapter 73

With Jitang's cultivation level, it was difficult for the tribesmen on duty to discover her, but just in case, she still opened the Wanyin Shield so that she could move more conveniently.

She searched all the way, and before she saw the mass grave, she faintly smelled an indescribable stench. She immediately realized that it was the smell of corpses.

She quickly found the mass grave following the stench of corpses, but was immediately horrified by the scene before her and was unable to move, finding it difficult to move forward.

The sky was clear and the sun was almost overhead. Mid-April was gradually warming up, and she could already feel her skin warming slightly from the blazing sun.

Unlike the clear blue sky above, the twenty acres of flat land behind the mountain were filled with countless corpses of their own people.

The stench was overwhelming, and countless flies were flying up and down on the corpses. It seemed that many fly eggs were left on the rotten corpses.

Ji Tang was in charge of the executions, and she was well aware of the abuse these corpses had endured. The twenty-two caves represented twenty-two different types of punishment, and also represented the twenty-two different ways these countless corpses died.

Jitang didn't know how to take the first step. His legs became more and more stiff and he moved forward mechanically.

She hadn't taken a few steps when she began to retreat. She had the illusion that she had been walking for a long time, but the body in front of her was still far away.

She clutched the flagpole, deeply embedded in the ground, and doubled over, retching. Her upper body arched like a shrimp, her stomach churning uncomfortably, yet she couldn't vomit anything. She had only eaten a quick bite last night and nothing this morning, and hadn't even had time to drink water all morning, so there was no way she could vomit anything.

After retching for a while, she tried to hold onto the flagpole and straighten her back, but she couldn't muster any strength. She looked at her hands, which were shaking so much that she could barely hold onto the flagpole.

She raised her other hand and wiped her face, which was covered with tears and snot.

Ji Tang felt weak all over and didn't dare to look at the corpses of her fellow tribesmen anymore. However, the hatred that kept rising in her heart was not extinguished by her fear. She wanted to bring Xue Mei over right now to question him and ask him why he did this!

The peaceful tribe's land became increasingly cold and harsh, creating a rift between the tribe members. The fairyland-like Fantasy Valley became a living hell. They even went to great lengths to torture their own people, trampling them into the dust, discarding them like rags and worn-out shoes, letting their undignified deaths become a breeding ground for flies.

Ji Tang's eyes were red. She let go of the flagpole, clenched her fists, and hit the flagpole hard.

"Xue Mei!"

"Xue Mei!"

The flagpole trembled again and again, causing the flag of the Nightmare Clan at the top to flutter slightly.

She looked up and saw the wind rising. The drooping clan flag suddenly stretched out its body, and the nightmare totem rippled, injecting vitality into Jitang's eyes.

Ji Tang's eyes filled with tears, he punched the flagpole with his fist, and asked with a choked sob: "Are you sad too..."

Tears blurred his eyes, and suddenly a glimpse of moonlight appeared before his eyes. Then his swung fist was wrapped by a bigger palm.

Ji Tang blinked, tears falling. Her vision cleared up a bit. She looked at the hand that was holding her fist. The other person seemed afraid to touch her, holding her fist in his palm. She followed the veins on her palm to the white sleeve of Yue Bai's clothes, then looked up and saw the person in front of her.

Jitang pouted and started crying before he could even say anything.

Su Jinzhou was obviously panicked for a moment. He gently held Ji Tang's injured hand and took him into his arms.

Ji Tang kept burrowing into his arms, sobbing aggrievedly. He felt so distressed that he raised his right hand and placed it behind Ji Tang's head, slightly closing his fingers, silently comforting her.

The hair instantly passed through his fingers, as soft as she was. The long hair hooked around his fingers, so fragile and slender that he suddenly dared not move.

The sobs in his arms turned into uncontrollable crying. Su Jinzhou used his spiritual power to protect the two of them inside, isolating the strong stench of the corpse outside and wrapping the crying within the spiritual shield.

The stench of the corpse disappeared immediately. Ji Tang took a deep breath with sobs, and all he could smell was the light woody fragrance from Su Jinzhou's body.

She reached out and grasped the front of the boat, then raised her head.

Su Jinzhou was looking down at her, his eyes deep and forbearing.

"Master, Senior Brother." Ji Tang barely managed to say this before she felt like crying again. She was clearly not a delicate person, but she felt aggrieved when she saw Su Jinzhou.

"Um."

She heard her senior brother respond, and then saw Su Jinzhou perform the Water Purification Technique and start to wash the tears and snot from her face.

This was not the first time that Su Jinzhou had wiped her tears and nose. She used to feel embarrassed, but now she lets him wipe it obediently and even cooperates by tilting her head to the side.

After Su Jinzhou finished wiping Jitang, he bent down and asked her in a gentle voice.

"Let's go to the tree house first?"

Ji Tang nodded. She felt weak only after she finished crying. After standing on the flying sword, she hugged her senior brother from behind, putting all her weight on him.

"Brother, why are you here?"

Su Jinzhou grabbed her arm to prevent her from falling and steered the flying sword into the forest.

After Jitang returned to the Nightmare Clan, he hadn't left. He had already thoroughly understood the terrain around the Nightmare Clan. He flew his sword to avoid the patrol points set up by the Nightmare Clan on the outer edge and took her to the tree house.

He patted Jitang's arm and said, "I came to see you."

Ji Tang's eyes were red again. She squeezed them shut to suppress the heat in them. She said in a nasal voice, "You're really capable of making trouble. This place is so far away from Su Xuanzong!"

She put her ear to Su Jinzhou's back and felt a slight vibration. "Not far. Zhou Zhou is flying very fast."

Ji Tang looked down at the flying sword under his feet, tapped the sword with his toes, and Su Zhouzhou immediately became much faster.

Only when Jitang saw his senior brother did he finally relax.

They returned to the tree house. Su Jinzhou took out a lot of food from his storage bag, each wrapped in oil paper. He opened them one by one and asked Ji Tang to choose. "Eat something. What do you want?"

He saw Jitang retching and knew that she must not have eaten. It was already noon and she couldn't go hungry for a day.

Jitang had no appetite, but he didn't want to worry his senior brother, so he took a piece of walnut cake and stuffed it into his mouth.

Su Jinzhou used the Fiery Fire Technique to warm the water for her.

Jitang said vaguely: "It's hot."

Su Jinzhou: "You just cried, don't drink cold drinks."

Jitang ate a few pieces of walnut cake with water and said, "I'm full, brother."

Su Jinzhou didn't try to persuade him and put all the pastries into the storage bag.

Ji Tang felt more energetic and asked, "Brother, how did you find this path into the Nightmare Clan?"

Su Jinzhou sat down next to Jitang, leaning against the tree trunk like her. "It's not hard to find." He didn't say much and asked Jitang, "Want to sleep for a while?"

Ji Tang was stunned. "Now?"

Before she could react, Su Jinzhou's fingertips slid across her eyes, "Have you not slept well these days?"

Ji Tang scratched his cheek, "Is it obvious? I've been with A Qian all night these past few days and haven't had time to sleep."

After a night of rest, I raised my eyebrows.

Ji Tang realized later that there was something ambiguous in what he said, and she suddenly leaned closer to him: "Brother, what's with that expression?"

Su Jinzhou suddenly saw Ji Tang's enlarged face in front of him. His heart beat faster uncontrollably. He turned his eyes away, stretched out his finger, pointed at Ji Tang's forehead, and pushed him back.

"What can I think? I know you discuss the Nightmare Clan's affairs every night."

Ji Tang stepped back, his expression becoming more serious. "Xue Mei is determined to make the Nightmare Clan the dominant power. His methods are too radical and cruel. He wants a group of elite soldiers and generals who obey his orders. To achieve this, he is willing to break the clan rules and torture the members despite their opposition. Those who refuse to surrender will be killed after a few punishments."

"Now the tribe is divided into two groups. One group follows his orders, preying on the people as if they were their own food, and wantonly harming their own people. The other group follows the tribe's rules, yet they are targeted at every turn. Everyone is terrified and anxious, thinking that anyone could be the next person to be tied to the rack. Even more terrifying than losing one's life is dying without dignity. Those members of the tribe who died in the mass grave..."

Jitang became more and more excited as he spoke, and finally he couldn't continue.

Su Jinzhou patted the back of Ji Tang's hand comfortingly. He only moved around the periphery of the Nightmare Clan and didn't know the situation inside the clan. He asked her, "Is there anyone else being tortured now?"

Ji Tang nodded silently, and after a moment he said, "I am currently on duty in Huanguang Valley, and I have to execute the tribesmen imprisoned in the cave every day."

Su Jinzhou frowned.

She couldn't bear to see her tribesmen being tortured to death, let alone being asked to become the executioner?

Jitang grabbed Zhu Jinzhou's hand with his backhand.

Her hands had grown cold, and only by holding Su Jinzhou's hand could she feel warmer.

Ji Tang: "They are seriously injured. In order to prevent the other two on duty from noticing, I have to treat their injuries very slowly. We can't rescue them now. I'm worried that they won't be able to hold on if we delay for too long."

Su Jinzhou: "How did you and A Qian discuss this?"

Jitang: "A Qian will convey my intentions to the tribe members, first unite those who still follow the tribe rules, and then try to slowly infiltrate the rest of the tribe."

Su Jinzhou: "It's a bit dangerous. You told them, and if they don't want to, given your style of doing things, you definitely won't kill them to silence them. If you let them go back, it will be easy for the news to leak out."

Ji Tang: "I know that infiltrating other tribesmen is the last step. I don't expect this method to be very effective. It would be better if one more person came to our camp, but if the news really leaked out, we would tear our faces off with Xue Mei and fight head-on."

Su Jinzhou saw the determination in Jitang's eyes and immediately understood what she meant, "You want to—"

Ji Tang grabbed Su Jinzhou's hand and whispered, "Well, I'm going to kill him."

Xue Mei is at the peak of the Spirit Severing Stage, and is only one step away from the Fusion Stage.

To be able to become the head of a clan, in addition to his profound cultivation, he also practiced many techniques and various methods.

Ji Tang is now in the middle stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, which is more than two major levels behind Xue Mei. She stands out among her peers, and even ranks among the best among her senior brothers and sisters in the sect, but she is still far behind Xue Mei. That is a gap of thousands of years, a chasm that is difficult to cross.

Xue Mei is definitely not a mediocre person. The fact that he was able to become an elder of the clan before shows that he has extraordinary talent. Ji Tang would not have any chance of winning against him, and he would not even be able to save his life.

Su Jinzhou's breathing stagnated, and he managed to hold it back with great difficulty, not just carrying the person on his shoulders and taking him away.

He held Jitang's hand tightly, calming his mind for a long time. He wanted to say "We will work it out in the long run", but after seeing Jitang's determined eyes, he swallowed it back with difficulty and changed it to "I will accompany you."