The more he tried to coax them, the more dangerous Xie Lian felt. He said, "Everyone, step away. Don't get close to it, and don't pay attention to what it says."
The crowd hurriedly dispersed, unable to listen to him. The face buried in the dirt chuckled and said, "Alas, why are you doing this? I'm a human being too. I won't harm you."
Unexpectedly, at this moment, something strange happened. A businessman probably thought that he had to take some herbs back to save people. He secretly walked forward a few steps and bent down to pick up the Shanyue grass that he had just thrown away in fear. The man with the face buried in the dirt rolled his eyes and a gleam of light flashed in his eyes.
Xie Lian thought to himself, "Oh no!" He rushed over and shouted, "Don't pick it up! Come back!" However, it was too late. The man with the mound suddenly opened his mouth, and a bright red thing slid out of his mouth.
What a long tongue!
Xie Lian grabbed the merchant by the back of the collar and backed away repeatedly, but the object that flew out of the mouth of the buried face was extremely long. With a whoosh, it flew into one of the merchant's ears!
Xie Lian felt the body beneath his hand tremble violently. The merchant's limbs twitched uncontrollably, and he let out a short, painful cry, falling to his knees. The long tongue quickly pulled a large, bloody mass from his ear and retracted it into the mound's mouth. The mound chewed and laughed, his mouth full of blood, his laughter nearly tearing the roof off the shabby palace as he screamed, "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Delicious, delicious, delicious, delicious! Delicious, delicious! I'm starving, I'm starving!"
The voice was sharp and shrill, and the eyes were bloodshot, so disgusting, really disgusting!
This man had been buried here for over fifty years, completely assimilated by this demonic nation, transformed into something completely different. Xie Lian released his right hand from the merchant's collar, his entire arm trembling. He was about to chop the disgusting creature down with a palm strike when he heard the buried man scream again, "General! General! They're here! They're here!"
With a howl more ferocious than that of a wild beast, a dark shadow descended from the sky and landed heavily in front of Xie Lian.
The moment the shadow landed, the entire ground shook. When he slowly stood up, everyone was enveloped in the massive shadow he cast.
This "person" is really too tall.
His face was as dark as iron, his features fierce and rugged, like the face of an animal. Armor draped across his chest and shoulders, he stood over nine feet tall, more like a giant wolf walking upright than a human. Behind him, one, two, three... over a dozen "people" continuously leaped from the roof of the palace.
Each of these "people" was tall and strong, of similar build, carrying a mace covered in densely packed teeth on their shoulders, creating the illusion of a pack of wolves transformed into humans. As they descended, they surrounded the people in the garden like a giant iron tower.
Half Moon Soldier!
These soldiers were emitting waves of black energy; they were no longer alive. Xie Lian tensed, and Ruo Xie was ready to attack.
However, upon seeing them, the Half Moon soldiers did not immediately charge in to fight. Instead, they erupted in wild laughter and began shouting at each other in a foreign language. The language was strange, with tricky pronunciations and heavily curled tongues – it was the Half Moon language.
Although Xie Lian had forgotten most of his Banyue language after two hundred years, he had reviewed it with Sanlang at the General's Tomb. Furthermore, these soldiers spoke with booming voices, a gruff, simple vocabulary, and so on, making it easy to understand. He heard all the Banyue soldiers call the first Banyue man "General," their conversation peppered with phrases like "take away" and "hold them for now." He took a deep breath and whispered, "Everyone, don't panic. These Banyue men won't kill for now. They seem to be taking us to another place. Don't act rashly. I can't guarantee I can defeat them. Act according to the situation."
These soldiers looked incredibly difficult to deal with, each one thick-skinned and tough. Even with Ruo Xie at his disposal, strangling one would have taken considerable effort, let alone dozens of them. There were also a few ordinary people present. Since these Ban Yue soldiers had said they wouldn't kill them all for now, and Xie Lian wasn't sure he could subdue them all at once, while also having to protect the others, he could only wait and see.
Sanlang remained silent. The others, who had no idea what to do, nodded with tears in their eyes. Only the man with the buried face screamed, "General! General! Let me go! I've helped you keep the enemy, so please let me go home! I want to go back!"
Upon seeing the group of Half-Moon soldiers, he was utterly agitated, screaming and sobbing, his words interspersed with half-baked Half-Moon vocabulary, likely picked up haphazardly during his fifty or sixty years working as fertilizer here. The nine-foot-tall Half-Moon man, known as "General," saw something writhing and screaming in the dirt, and seemed to find it disgusting as well. He struck down with his mace, and several sharp spikes pierced the buried creature's head. With another thrust, the spikes lodged in the creature's face, uprooting it and carrying it out of the soil, fulfilling his wish to "let me out."
However, what emerged from the ground below the neck of the buried face was not a human body at all, but a pile of white bones!
Several merchants screamed in fear at the horrific sight. The head of the man buried in the dirt fell off the spikes of the mace, his face covered in blood. Seeing his body, he seemed frightened and asked, "What is this? What is this?"
Seeing that he genuinely seemed unable to comprehend what this was like, Xie Lian reminded him, “This is your body.”
Just think about it. This person had been buried in the desert for fifty or sixty years, and his flesh and blood had long since been transformed into nutrients for the Good Moon Grass, leaving only a skeleton.
Tumaimian said: "How is this possible?? My body is not like this, this is not my body!!!"
His voice was shrill, and Xie Lian found the scene pathetic and terrifying. He shook his head and looked away. Sanlang scoffed, saying, "Are you tired of this body now? What was that thing that just came out of your mouth? Do you think it's okay?"
Tumaimian immediately retorted, "What's the problem? It's just...it's just a little longer than an ordinary person's tongue!"
Sanlang's eyes and eyebrows were full of sneers, as if he was disdainful to talk to him any more, and said: "Well, not bad, a little longer, haha."
Tumaimian said, "Yes! It's just a little longer. It's all because I've been eating flies and reptiles for so many years, and it's slowly getting longer and longer, and that's why it's become like this!"
When he was first buried in the soil, he was probably still alive, and in order to survive, he tried hard to stretch out his tongue to eat those flying insects and reptiles. Gradually, he was no longer a human being, and his tongue became longer and longer, and the food he ate changed from flying insects and reptiles to more terrifying things.
But because he had been buried in the earth and had not seen his own body for so many years, he simply could not accept it and was unwilling to believe that he was no longer a human being. He tried to defend himself by saying, "Some people have longer tongues!"
San Lang smiled. Looking at his smile, Xie Lian felt an inexplicable chill in his heart.
I have to say, sometimes, this boy's smile really makes people feel as if their face has been peeled off.
Sanlang asked, "Do you think you are still a human being?"
After being asked this question, the man with the buried face seemed to have a sense of crisis and suddenly became irritated. He said, "Of course I am a human. I am a human!"
He shouted, trying to move his skeletal limbs, trying to crawl on the ground. Perhaps because he had finally emerged from the earth, he felt genuine joy and laughed wildly, "I'm going back! I can go back! Hahahahahahaha..."
“Ka!”
His laughter was so piercing that it finally annoyed General Banyue. With one kick, the skull buried in the dirt shattered instantly. His scream of "I am a human!" was silenced.
After the "general" crushed the annoying earthen surface, he shouted loudly to the soldiers. A group of Half Moon soldiers waved their maces, yelled at the group of people, and began to drive them out of the palace.
Xie Lian walked in front, San Lang still trailing behind him. Even while being escorted by a group of ferocious Ban Yue soldiers, the young man's steps remained unhurried, as if he were taking a leisurely stroll. Since then, Xie Lian had been looking for an opportunity to talk to him. After walking for a while, he saw that the Ban Yue soldiers had resumed chatting with each other and were paying less attention to them. He whispered, "They call this leader of the Ban Yue people 'General.' I wonder what kind of general they are."
Sure enough, as soon as he asked the question, Sanlang answered. He said, "When the Banyue Kingdom fell, there was only one general. His name, translated into Chinese, is 'Ke Mo'."
Xie Lian asked, “Grading?”
This name is really strange. Sanlang said, "That's right. It's said that he was weak as a child and often bullied. He vowed to become stronger, so he used a stone millstone to train his strength, and thus got this name."
Xie Lian rubbed his brows and couldn’t help but think, “Well, I could actually call you Dali…”
Sanlang continued, "It is rumored that Ke Mo is the most valiant general in the history of Ban Yue Kingdom. He is nine feet tall and has immense strength. He is a loyal supporter of Ban Yue's Imperial Preceptor."
Xie Lian asked, “Even if Imperial Master Ban Yue opened the gates and led his troops to slaughter the city, would he still be a loyal supporter of the Imperial Master?”
Sanlang said, "That's hard to say."
If Ke Mo still obeyed Ban Yue Imperial Preceptor's orders after his death, then he would most likely be sending them to the Imperial Preceptor. What if there were more Ban Yue soldiers there? How would they escape? And what about Nan Feng, who had distracted the two? Now that he had the Good Moon Grass, how could he deliver it to the poisoned person within twelve hours?
For now, all they could do was take it one step at a time. Xie Lian pondered as he walked, realizing that General Ke Mo was leading them further and further out, finally stopping at a place on the edge of Banyue Country. Xie Lian paused, looking up. Before him stood an immense, loess wall, like a giant.
Their destination turned out to be the Sinner's Pit.
Although he had lived near the Half Moon Kingdom for a period of time, Xie Lian seldom entered Half Moon City, and certainly never approached the Sinner's Pit. Gazing at it up close, he felt an inexplicable pang of anxiety.
There was a staircase on the outside of the loess wall. As Xie Lian slowly climbed this simple staircase, he looked down and observed with his naked eyes. Finally, he understood the reason for his palpitations.
It was not because he thought that this place was used for torture that he felt a chill, nor was it because he was worried that this group of people would be pushed into the bottom of the pit, but it was purely a palpitation caused by sensing the existence of the magic field.
The terrain and layout around this sinner's pit were deliberately designed to form an extremely powerful formation.
This formation has only one function - to make it so that anyone who falls into this pit will never be able to climb out!
The so-called "unable to climb up" meant that even if someone lowered a rope or set up a ladder, the person below would seize this glimmer of hope and climb up. Halfway up, the formation would activate, and the person would be knocked back down. Xie Lian calmly supported himself on the wall and walked along a section, roughly gauging the wall's material. He discovered that while it looked like earth from a distance, it was actually incredibly hard stone, and perhaps also under some kind of spell, making it extremely difficult to break.
When they climbed the stairs and reached the top of the pit of sinners, standing on the eaves of the loess wall, the scene they saw at first sight could only be described as "shocking".
The entire Sinner's Pit was surrounded by four towering walls. Each wall was over thirty feet long and twenty feet high, and each was approximately four feet thick, towering majestically. In the center, the four walls enclosed a vast, square space, devoid of any platform or crossbars. It was late afternoon, and the pitch blackness was indeterminate. Only gusts of cold and the stench of blood drifted up from the bottomless darkness.
The crowd walked along the eaves of a high wall, without any guardrails, dozens of feet above the ground. Few dared to look down. After walking for a while, they came across a long pole. Hanging from it was a corpse, the same one they had seen below. The body was tiny, that of a young girl in tattered black clothes, her head bowed.
Xie Lian knew that this pole was used to hang criminals whom the jailers maliciously intended to humiliate. Usually, the jailers would strip the criminals naked and hang them there, leaving them to starve to death or dehydration. After death, their bodies would sway in the wind, exposed to the sun, rain, and air, while their limbs would rot and fall downwards, creating a horrible scene. The girl's body hadn't yet decomposed, so she must have died not long ago. Perhaps she was a resident nearby. These Ban Yue soldiers would actually hang a young girl's body in such a place; they were truly cruel and vicious. Seeing this, Ah Zhao, Tiansheng, and the others paled and stopped, not daring to move forward. Fortunately, Ke Mo didn't rush them any further. He turned around and let out a long, loud shout towards the bottom of the prison pit.
Xie Lian was just beginning to wonder, “Why did you shout like that?” The next moment, his question was answered.
As if in response to his roar, waves of roaring erupted from the pitch-black pit. Like tigers, wolves, monsters, a tsunami, hundreds and thousands of them, deafening. Several people on the eaves were nearly knocked off their feet by the roar. Xie Lian could also hear the clear rustling of dust and gravel falling. He wondered, "Only criminals would be thrown into the Sinners' Pit. Could it be that the souls of the sinners at the bottom of the pit are responding to the engraving?"
At this moment, Ke Mo roared again from the crowd. Xie Lian listened carefully. This time, it wasn't a meaningless roar, nor was it a curse. Instead, it was an encouragement. Xie Lian was absolutely certain he heard one word: "Brothers."
After Ke Mo finished his roar, he shouted something to the Ban Yue soldiers holding Xie Lian and the others. Xie Lian heard this sentence clearly. He was saying, "Only throw two down, take the others and keep an eye on them."
While the others didn't understand what he was saying, they could probably guess what he was planning, and their faces all turned pale. Seeing that they were so frightened they could barely stand, Xie Lian stepped forward and whispered, "Don't be nervous. I'll be there if anything else happens later."
He was thinking, if he had to go down later, he'd just bite the bullet and take a look. It would be nothing more than the same old venomous snakes, ferocious beasts, and evil spirits. Since he couldn't be killed by the fall, the beating, the bite, or the poison, then as long as there wasn't lava, flames, or poisonous water below, his jump shouldn't be too embarrassing. Besides, he still had Ruo Xie. Even if he couldn't use it to climb up due to the formation, he could still take over if the Ban Yue soldiers lost someone else. When Ke Mo said, "Take the others and keep an eye on them," he meant that the others would be safer for the time being. After all, it was not easy to capture a living person in the Gobi Desert. He couldn't eat them all at once. Perhaps he wanted to stockpile them and eat them slowly over time. He had his thoughts clearly, but who knew that someone beside him was not so patient.
Since reaching the top of the pit of sinners, except for Xie Lian and Sanlang who looked calm, everyone else was trembling, especially Ah Zhao, who was trembling particularly violently. Perhaps he felt that he was doomed to die and might as well fight to the death. Ah Zhao clenched his fists and suddenly attacked, rushing towards Ke Mo.
He charged forward with the determination to die together, aiming to knock Ke Mo down with him. Even though Ke Mo was tall and built like an iron tower, he was knocked back three steps by this determined attack, nearly falling. Furious, he roared and tossed Ah Zhao down. As they watched the young man plummet into the dark pit, everyone screamed in agony, and Xie Lian shouted, "Ah Zhao!"
At this moment, from the bottomless pit below came cheers and the sounds of extremely cruel biting, like evil spirits fighting for food. Just by listening, it was clear that there was no chance of survival for this young man named Ah Zhao.
Xie Lian hadn't anticipated this development and was stunned. He had initially suspected Ah Zhao was a subordinate of the Ban Yue Imperial Preceptor, specifically luring those who had escaped into the Ban Yue Ancient Kingdom. He also suspected that the man Tumaimian had mentioned "having seen him fifty or sixty years ago" was also him. He hadn't expected this young man to be the first to be killed.
Could this be a fake death? It wasn't impossible. However, they were already captives of Ban Yue's soldiers. If Ah Zhao truly was a subordinate of Ban Yue's Imperial Master, and now held the upper hand, he could have simply dropped his disguise and revealed his true self, swaggering and arrogant. Why would he have gone to the trouble of faking his own death in front of them? It would have been completely pointless. But why did Ah Zhao rush towards Ke Mo? Wasn't that also a completely pointless act of suicide?
Xie Lian's mind was still swirling with thoughts, while the Ban Yue soldiers over there began to search for the next person to push down. Ke Mo thought for a moment, then raised his hand and pointed at Tiansheng. A Ban Yue soldier stretched out his hand, moving to grab the person. Tiansheng was so frightened that he almost fell to his knees and cried, "Help!"
Xie Lian had no time to think about it. He stood up and said in Banyue language, "General, wait a minute."
As he spoke, a look of surprise crossed his dark face. He waved his hand, stopping the soldiers and saying, "You can speak our language? Where are you from?"
Xie Lian said, “From the Central Plains.”
He wouldn't mind lying and claiming to be from Ban Yue, but that wasn't an option. He didn't know how much of the Ban Yue language he'd picked up, and if he continued talking to Ke Mo, it would eventually be revealed. Furthermore, his appearance clearly showed he was from the Central Plains. Ke Mo's questioning might simply be uncertainty. The Ban Yue people deeply disliked lying and deception, and being caught would have far worse consequences.
However, telling the truth has its drawbacks. The Ban Yue Kingdom was destroyed by an army from the Central Plains. When Ke Mo heard that he was from the Central Plains, a rage flashed across his dark face. The Ban Yue soldiers also started shouting and roaring, shouting curses and derogatory words. Xie Lian listened, and it was nothing more than "despicable Central Plains people" and "throw him down", which was not a big deal. Unexpectedly, he suddenly heard a few vague words like "bitch" and was stunned. The soldiers cursed too fast and he couldn't hear the specific words, but he couldn't help but feel a little depressed. He thought to himself: "I can understand the first few words being used on me, but why the last one? Are you sure you didn't curse the wrong person?"
Although Ke Mo was a general, he was not as easily agitated as the soldiers. He said, "Our country has been lost in the Gobi Desert for over two hundred years. You are not from our country, but you speak our language. Who are you?"
If he wanted to play along with these Banyue soldiers, he'd have to make up a story. Xie Lian couldn't help but glance at the calm and composed young man beside him, hoping that if his story didn't work out later, he could just bite the bullet and call for Sanlang to save him. With that thought, he coughed lightly and was about to start spouting nonsense when, at that moment, a deafening roar erupted from the pitch-black pit.
The creatures below seemed to have finished devouring Ah Zhao's corpse. Yet, they were still hungry, and their cries conveyed their thirst for fresh flesh and blood. Ke Mo waved his hand, as if to grab Tiansheng again. Xie Lian said, "General, let me go first."
Ke Mo had definitely never heard of anyone asking to come first. His eyes widened like bells as he asked in surprise, "You come first? Why?"
Xie Lian couldn't honestly answer, "Because I'm not afraid." After a moment's thought, he chose a rather conventional and uninteresting response, saying, "General, these are merely innocent merchants passing through, and there are children among them."
After hearing this, Ke Mo sneered, "When your army massacred our country, did you not consider that there were many innocent merchants and children here?"
The fall of the Banyue Kingdom occurred two hundred years ago, and by now the Central Plains has seen a change of dynasties. However, hatred does not fade with the change of dynasties. Ke Mo continued, "You are suspicious. I need to ask you a question. You can't go down. You will leave others behind!"
There was nothing else to do. Xie Lian was just about to go all out and jump as a gesture of respect when he saw San Lang take a step forward.
Xie Lian’s heart skipped a beat and he turned around.
The young man folded his arms, gazing absentmindedly at the bottomless pit of sinners. Xie Lian felt a bad premonition and asked, "Sanlang?"
Hearing him calling out, Sanlang turned around, smiled slightly, and said, "It's okay."
He took another step forward, now standing in an extremely dangerous position. Xie Lian's heart and eyelids were pounding. He said, "Wait, Sanlang, don't move."
High in the sky, the hem of the young man's red robe fluttered fiercely in the night wind. Sanlang glanced at him, smiled, and said, "Don't be afraid."
Xie Lian said, “If you retreat first, I won’t be afraid anymore.”
Sanlang said, "Don't worry. I'll be gone for a while."
Xie Lian said, “Don’t…”
Before he finished speaking, the young man, keeping his arms crossed, took another step forward, leaped lightly, and instantly disappeared into the unfathomable darkness.
The moment he leaped, Ruo Xie flew out from Xie Lian's wrist, transforming into a white rainbow, attempting to engulf the young man. However, the speed of his fall was too great, and the white silk was withdrawn dimly before it could even catch a corner of his clothes. Xie Lian suddenly knelt on the high wall and shouted to those below, "San Lang!!!"
There was no sound at all. After the young man jumped down, there was no sound at all!
Beside him, atop the high wall, numerous Banyue soldiers shouted to one another, all utterly stunned. What was going on today? They'd usually have to be caught and thrown, but now they were taking turns scrambling to jump down, and even if they weren't allowed to, they'd jump on their own. General Ke Mo shouted at them to calm down, but Xie Lian, seeing Ruo Xie hadn't caught San Lang, didn't have time to think, just collected him and leaped into the prisoner pit. Unexpectedly, just as he was mid-air, the back of his shirt suddenly tightened, leaving him dangling.
It turned out that General Ke Mo, seeing him jumping down, actually stretched out his long arm and grabbed him, preventing him from falling. Xie Lian thought to himself, "You can come if you want, it's even better if we go down together." With his mind urging, Ruo Xie, like a white snake, swiftly crawled up around Ke Mo's arm and instantly wrapped around him. Seeing the strange and unpredictable white silk, as if it had become a spirit, Ke Mo's face suddenly changed, black veins on his forehead bulged, and the lumpy muscles on his body suddenly expanded several times, as if trying to break Ruo Xie who was binding him. Xie Lian was in a stalemate with him when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something extremely strange.
The corpse hanging on the long pole suddenly moved and raised its head slightly.
The group of Half Moon soldiers also noticed the corpse moving, and they all shouted and swung their maces at it. The girl in black moved a little, and no one knew how she untied the rope hanging on her, but she suddenly jumped off the pole and rushed over.
She was like a black wind sweeping over the eaves of a high wall, swift and sinister. The soldiers were instantly blown to and fro by this evil wind, falling screaming and tumbling off the wall. Seeing his soldiers swept down into the pit of sinners, Ke Mo cursed furiously. His words were extremely vulgar, probably using a lot of street slang, so Xie Lian didn't quite understand. However, he understood the first sentence. Ke Mo was cursing: "That bitch again!"
The next moment, he could no longer curse, because Xie Lian suddenly exerted force and pulled him down into the sinner's pit.
A pit of sinners from which you can’t climb out once you fall in!
As they fell, Ke Mo's furious roar nearly pierced Xie Lian's eardrums. He had no choice but to retrieve Ruo Xie and, in passing, gave Ke Mo a kick to steer him away to protect his ears. Then, he propelled Ruo Xie upward, hoping to grab onto something to cushion his impact and at least avoid a catastrophic fall. However, the Sinner's Pit was meticulously constructed, and the formation was powerful. Ruo Xie was unable to climb higher, and within its walls, he had nowhere to rely on. Just as he thought he was about to fall like so many times before, a flattened human pancake embedded in the ground for days, unable to be dug out, a sudden, silvery light flashed in the darkness.
The next moment, a pair of hands caught him lightly.
The man caught the blow with incredible precision, as if he had been waiting for it. One arm went around his back, clasping his shoulders, the other grasping his knees, effortlessly neutralizing the ferocious force of Xie Lian's fall. Xie Lian had just fallen from a great height and suddenly paused, still feeling a little dizzy. Subconsciously, he raised his hand and tightly grasped the man's shoulders, saying, "Sanlang?"
It was pitch black all around, and he couldn't see anything clearly, let alone who this person was. However, he blurted out these two words. When the other person didn't answer, Xie Lian felt around his shoulders and chest a few times, trying to confirm, and said, "Sanlang, is that you?"
Perhaps it was because they had reached the bottom of the pit, but the stench of blood was so strong it nearly made them faint. Xie Lian, unsure of what was happening, groped his way up. When he felt the man's hard Adam's apple, he suddenly woke up, thinking, "Sin, sin, sin!" He immediately pulled his hand away and asked, "Is that Sanlang? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
After a while, he finally heard the young man's voice, coming from very close to him: "It's okay."
For some reason, Xie Lian felt that the tone of his voice when he said this seemed subtly different from usual.
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