Chapter 101 Famine and Starvation

"Thump!" A heavy object bound with white cloth strips crashed onto the deck. Guan Wangzhen wiped his shoulders and sleeves in disgust. "If I hadn't not yet showered, I wouldn't be carrying this damn thing."

The demon was subdued by Ji Mingran, and Zhu Shibai and Shen Qingluo packed it up together. Shao Qingshang slipped away faster than anyone else at the door, and Fu Daolan was too afraid to touch it. In the end, the task of carrying this thing fell to Guan Wangzhen.

"Is this the demon or ghost?" Ji Xingyang reached out and poked the twenty-foot-tall strip of cloth with his finger. As soon as he poked it, the thing inside suddenly stirred. Ji Xingyang felt a chill and took a few steps back.

“Brother, this is a den of demons, don’t touch it.” Shi Jinle stood with her arms crossed. She had been chased by demons before and knew how terrifying they were: “If the strip of cloth falls and you face it, you’ll have nightmares for at least a month.”

Ji Xingyang muttered, "Who are you underestimating?" Even as he said that, he obediently put his hand down.

Ji Mingran took out a rope and tied the strip of cloth tighter: "Aren't we going to ask them questions? How are we going to ask them questions?"

“That’s easy.” Guan Wangzhen shouted from the white cloth-bound area, “Hey, answer our questions, understand? If you don’t answer honestly,” pointing his thumb at Ji Mingran, “she won’t be polite to you!”

"What? Is that how you ask? Are you treating them like kids, playing with them?" Shi Jinle said skeptically. "You think you can blackmail them?"

As a result, the bundle of cloth began to move rapidly, and the shape of a head slowly appeared at the highest point of the white cloth strip, nodding vigorously.

"..." Shi Jinle turned to look at Ji Mingran, who was standing obediently to the side, "What did you do to them?"

Ji Mingran honestly replied, "I performed with them."

"A performance?" Shi Jinle asked in surprise, but her attention was immediately diverted by the questions asked by the others.

Shao Qing asked first, "Are you able to speak?"

The demons and ghosts hissed...

Ji Mingran: "Besides making this sound, can't you make any other sounds?"

The demons froze, whimpering.

The deck was filled with mournful and shrill sounds of ghosts wailing and wolves howling.

Guan Wangzhen covered his ears: "Hey, hey, stop, stop, I know."

“They only possess the ability to express consciousness, but they cannot yet speak human language,” Shen Qingluo assessed.

Zhu Shibai pondered for a moment and said, "But it doesn't matter, we can still ask questions." He turned his gaze to the head and asked, "Did you have consciousness from the moment you were born and have existed in this world?"

The head nods.

Mustering his courage, Fu Daolan asked in a loud voice, "So, you're extremely familiar with this area of ​​the sea?"

The head nods.

The cultivators exchanged glances, and Guan Wangzhen eagerly asked the question they most wanted to confirm:

Is this the Demon Sacrifice Abyss? Or is it near the Demon Sacrifice Abyss?

Everyone's hearts were in their throats.

The head shook.

Everyone visibly breathed a sigh of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders.

Although they did not have any magical artifacts to verify the truthfulness of their words, the group had previously deduced that this place was most likely not the abyss, but at most another ocean near the abyss.

The denial by the demons now serves as supporting evidence for the inference, making everyone feel more at ease.

To resolve the question of whether the area was dangerous, everyone began asking various questions.

Guan Wangzhen: "Do you know where there is treasure?"

The strips of cloth darted around wildly, forming a dense, chaotic array of semi-circular protrusions.

“They’re everywhere,” Ji Mingran explained.

Fu Daolan: "Do you know where I can find good spiritual artifacts?"

The fabric strips protruded less, but still pointed haphazardly in various directions.

Shao Qingshang shook his head: "The Prize Pool Secret Realm has plenty of good stuff. Your questions are too broad."

"Then," Shen Qingluo tentatively asked, "do you know where the best treasure is?"

The strip of cloth revealed a head again, shaking its head.

"No?" Ji Xingyang scratched his head. "How could there be no one?"

Qin Danniang, who had remained silent until now, said, "Perhaps you mean you don't know?"

Shao Qingshang chimed in, "That's possible. Given their level of awareness, they might not be able to determine which is the best. It seems we need to clarify the questions we're asking."

Ji Mingran leaned closer and whispered, "Do you know where the Spirit Stone is?"

His head stiffened noticeably as Ji Mingran approached, and he shook his head sluggishly.

Ji Mingran shrugged: "I asked very clearly, but they couldn't answer."

Zhu Shibai pondered for a moment, then slowly asked, "Do you know the place in this world where the spiritual energy is most concentrated, and which you least want to approach?"

Shao Qingshang's eyes lit up, and he praised, "Indeed."

The jackpot must contain abundant spiritual power, and as a treasure offered by a powerful cultivator, it must have the effect of exorcising evil spirits and demons, making all demons fear it and unwilling to approach it.

The rest of the Dingsheng Sect members nodded in agreement: their sect's spirit stones naturally contained the purest spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Such treasures were coveted by all the demons and monsters, and correspondingly, that place would become the fiercest battleground for them, occupied by the victors, while ordinary demons and monsters would naturally avoid it.

The head nods.

“You can lead the way,” Zhu Shibai said to the others. “Tie them to the bow of the boat. We can use the luminous pearl to determine if we are heading in the right direction.”

The luminous pearl provided by Shi Jinle could sense the purest spiritual energy. If the direction of travel was correct, the pearl would emit a faint glow; if the direction was wrong, it would dim. The boat only needed to adjust its direction based on the pearl's light to determine if the journey was correct. Now, with demons and ghosts present, there was no need to spend time adjusting the direction; one only needed to watch whether the pearl remained constantly lit.

Everyone agreed and immediately took out the demon-binding rope, tied up the demons tightly, and then threw them into the sea.

Ji Mingran set up a soul-binding array at the bow of the ship. If any demons or ghosts cause trouble, he can immediately activate the array to subdue them.

With everything arranged, everyone set off with peace of mind.

......

The weather was fine and sunny.

Ji Mingran lay lazily on the deck, slowly exhaling.

Hungry. Sunburnt. Tired.

I haven't felt that hunger pang in so long—a hunger that's so intense, so weak in the limbs, and so dizzy in the head.

"What day is it today?" she asked weakly.

With her red skirt fluttering to the side, Shen Qingluo sat down, placing her hands together to shield Ji Mingran's face from the glaring sunlight, saying, "Today is exactly January."

"Little sister Mingran, you have to hold on!" Fu Daolan and Shao Qingshang flipped over from the adjacent spirit boat and were startled to see the figure lying on the deck, barely breathing.

"Sigh, it's all my fault." Qin Danniang squatted down next to Ji Mingran, blaming herself with a worried look on her face. "We don't have enough ingredients, so we can't make the Bigu Pill."

"There's no other way." Ji Mingran placed his hands on his abdomen and said weakly, "Between the Bigu Pill and the Chuling Pill, I must choose the latter."

The two types of pills contained one ingredient that was incompatible with each other. Qin Danniang's storage bag, which contained the most ingredients, had already been taken by other disciples of Liuhuan Valley. She didn't have many ingredients left and couldn't make more Bigu pills.

Everyone had been fasting for a long time, and since they were all Foundation Establishment cultivators, their need for food wasn't that great; they weren't worried about not eating for three months. No one expected Ji Mingran to need so much food, including herself.

The demons and monsters at the bow of the ship had been sailing for a full month. During that month, they encountered demons and monsters one after another, and everyone had to fight against them. After killing the fourth group of demons and monsters, she began to feel hungry and then had to eat every day.

However, although there were many rare treasures on everyone's ships and spirit boats, there was not much food, and it was all gone in a few days.

Fortunately, Yu Tianxing had brought food with him, but he didn't know when they would be able to leave the prize pool secret realm. To be on the safe side, he strictly divided the daily portion, which was only enough to meet her basic daily needs.

Ji Mingran knew that Yu Tianxing's food reserves were also running low, as the daily portion sizes were decreasing.

As his hunger grew day by day, Ji Mingran did consider exploring the seabed.

After all, there's plenty of food to eat on the seabed. The four large fish that the Void Sect brought with them were caught while they were fishing for floating debris when they first entered the sea.

However, in recent days, the color of the sea has gradually become eerie and strange, changing from azure blue to bright pink, fluorescent orange, and then deep red.

Everyone was worried that the creatures inside had been contaminated and wanted to avoid taking anything edible from them. It was clear that Ji Mingran was really hungry, and finally decided to try to catch food from the seabed.

What can be taken from the sea and called "flesh" is twisted and disgusting.

Suspicious, the crowd fed it to a demon to test. After swallowing it, the demon closed its eyes and burst into a ball of black, viscous ink.

Everyone was shocked, and when they turned around, they saw that Ji Mingran had already opened his mouth wide, ready to swallow it whole.

A group of people moved with lightning speed, rushing up to grab her hand, snatching the octopus with maggots instead of legs from her grasp, and throwing it back into the sea.

"Hey! Why can't it be eaten? It'll be fine if it's cooked through." Ji Mingran shouted anxiously, trying to rush off the deck and snatch back her mutated octopus.

Then he was pounced on and grabbed by the crowd.

Ji Mingran struggled desperately, using both her hands and feet. The others then concluded that this person, whose eyes were practically glazed with hunger, needed to be closely watched, lest she accidentally run off to the seabed to eat the mutated creatures.

Upon learning this, the taciturn, nameless cultivator in black robes immediately sent Ji Xingyang to inform him that he was willing to take on this responsibility, guarding the area day and night to share the burden for everyone.

Shi Jinle, however, strongly objected, saying that she should come instead.

The other three members of Dingsheng Sect, as fellow disciples and friends, felt it was their duty to take care of their grandmother and stepped forward to declare that they would protect her.

Neither side would back down.

That's why we have this system where everyone takes turns guarding the area.

The people looking at her now are Qin Danniang and Shen Qingluo.

Qin Danniang was still dejected.

Ji Mingran slowly said, "Actually, even the Bigu Pill cannot solve this problem."

After entering the sea, she defended against demonic beasts day and night, which greatly depleted her spiritual and physical strength. Although she could replenish her spiritual power through the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and the magical artifacts in her pouch, she always felt it wasn't enough, even after taking spirit-storing pills. Gradually, this insufficiency manifested as a feeling of hunger.

This feeling of hunger would not cause any real harm to her body, nor would it affect her ability to use formations.

But I'm so hungry, so incredibly hungry.

Therefore, even with the fasting pill, her problem could not be solved.

She could only stay still as much as possible to reduce her energy expenditure, and wait anxiously until evening, hoping to have a meal in Yu Tianxing's room.

Eat whatever you can get.

Thinking about the delicious food at night, Ji Mingran swallowed and counted the time on his fingers.

I'll have to see if I can find a way to eat one more steamed bun tonight.