The thought had barely formed when the words vanished.
Huff... Jiang Chan let out a long breath; the cold sweat on her back had soaked through her inner shirt.
No, absolutely not! This task sounds too bizarre. It's not worth risking your life for a mere stutter!
After leaving the teahouse, the four continued on their journey.
The atmosphere was even more somber than before.
Chen Yan seemed to still be pondering Black Wind Ridge and those legends of gods and immortals.
Zhou hurried on his way silently.
Xiao Tao sensed that Jiang Chan was in a bad mood, so she obediently remained silent.
Jiang Chan was also preoccupied with her own worries.
For the next three days, they traveled northwest along the official road. These three days were simply torture for Jiang Chan!
Unable to ride a bicycle, they could only walk, moving at a snail's pace, and had to be constantly alert to their surroundings!
There was fresh meat in the space, but I could only glance at it occasionally and didn't even dare to taste it. Looking at that hundred pounds of fresh meat in the space was like guarding a mountain of gold but being a poor ghost. It was so frustrating!
And the root of all this is Chen Yan, the "task trigger" right next to me!
If you follow him, you might trigger a deadly ghost mission at any time; if you don't follow him, you'll lose your stable source of "salary"!
On the evening of the third day, the four of them found a sheltered earthen slope to spend the night.
Jiang Chan and Xiao Tao nibbled on their steamed buns, then looked at the mountain of pork piled up in their space, along with the steamed buns and scallion pancakes they had saved up before... If they ate these things sparingly, they would be enough to sustain them for a while.
But if a stable source of water and food cannot be found, the resources will eventually run out!
What will we do then? Gnaw on tree bark? Or... like those people in the teahouse, gamble on some ethereal deity?
no!
Post-apocalyptic survival rule number N: Opportunity always comes with risk!
The greater the risk, the higher the potential reward!
Cultivating immortality... Could there be even more incredible rewards in such a world, enough to completely free her and Xiao Tao from this precarious situation?
Jiang Chan's eyes flickered uncertainly in the dim light.
She took a deep breath, the cold air filling her chest and suppressing the turmoil in her heart.
One last time!
I'll bet on this last time!
After this job, whether it succeeds or not, I'll take the stuff and leave!
I have to get away from this "source of trouble," hop on my bicycle, take Xiao Tao with me, and find a secluded place with a water source to hide in! I'm never taking any more of this damn system's missions!
The moment she made up her mind, Jiang Chan's will was like a knife...
Buzz—!
A more intense, earth-shattering spin than the previous two! It felt as if an invisible giant hand was tearing my soul out of my body!
Endless darkness and chaos instantly engulfed her!
In her final moments of consciousness, only one thought remained: Please, let it not be underground again...
...
pain!
The feeling was like countless invisible tubes shoving into the body, brutally extracting something flowing deep within the marrow.
Cold, empty, and excruciating pain that felt like my bones were being ripped apart.
Jiang Chan gasped for breath, but instead of inhaling much air, she felt a sticky, suffocating sensation choking her throat. She struggled to open her eyes a crack, her vision blurred and dizzy.
Several faces.
Five faces sat cross-legged around her.
Three men and two women, all with their eyes closed, their faces relaxed, even exuding a rosy and peaceful glow after a good meal.
The face closest to her was dark and rough, and with each long breath, two streams of stale air carrying a faint white smoke billowed from its nostrils.
A fragment of memory that didn't belong to her crashed into her chaotic consciousness:
This place is called Qingyun Sect.
She is Ning Dan, the junior sister of the Qingyun Sect.
She was born with something called a "pure spirit body"... but this constitution is a curse—like a locked treasure bowl, full of treasures, but she can't open it or use them.
Worse still, this spirit is like a top-grade spirit stone mine, attracting all the jackals who can cultivate.
These people in front of her are her dear senior brothers and sisters—eldest senior brother Qi Yue, second senior sister Liu Mei, third senior brother Zhao Mang, fourth senior brother Chen Ping, and fifth senior sister Wu Yue.
They are treating her like a living "spiritual energy recharger," extracting the pure spiritual energy from her body to nourish their own cultivation.
This scene repeats itself every day.
A deeper chill seeped from the very bones: the original owner's body would one day be completely drained, its spiritual power depleted, its meridians severed, and it would die silently like a rag. In the end, even its corpse would be thrown into the alchemy furnace to be refined into pills to prolong their cultivation!
The excruciating pain continued to intensify, especially in the direction of that dark-faced, rough-looking man—Zhao Mang.
He sucked her the hardest, like a starving ghost reincarnated, the suction force making half of her body tremble with pain.
hatred?
Jiang Chan instantly wanted to jump up and tear those blood-sucking maggots to shreds!
But the last vestiges of reason fiercely suppressed this impulse.
A direct confrontation? She's just a useless jar full of spiritual energy right now.
Forget about resisting, even breathing heavily is a struggle! Run? With this broken body, it'll probably be dragged back before it even gets out of the yard, and the consequences will be even worse.
A crazy plan began to take shape in Jiang Chan's mind.
No resistance? No escape?
Fragments of the original owner's submissive memories were still flashing in her mind. Jiang Chan suddenly shivered, her breathing became rapid, and her face turned as white as paper.
She tried to mimic the deep-seated fear and weakness from her memory, her body trembling uncontrollably, her neck drooping limply to one side, her eyes unfocused, as if they might go out completely at any moment.
"Useless!" A rough, harsh curse rang out, filled with deep dissatisfaction.
It was Zhao Mang.
He opened his eyes and glared at Jiang Chan with displeasure.
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