The child being held by Yang Cheng appeared to be around thirteen or fourteen years old, but was less than a meter tall, thin and emaciated, clearly malnourished, and it was even impossible to tell whether he was a boy or a girl.
The other person was disheveled and his clothes were filthy, making him look like a tattered sack.
Holding Yang Cheng in his hand, the child trembled, his eyes filled with fear: "Don't offer me to the Kitchen God! Don't offer me to the Kitchen God!"
Yang Cheng frowned slightly: "What Kitchen God? I just want to ask you some questions."
As he spoke, Yang Cheng took out a bag of compressed biscuits from his storage space and handed it to the child.
Judging from the voice just now, it should be a boy.
The little boy held the compressed biscuits, a look of confusion in his eyes.
Yang Cheng then realized what was happening and opened the packaging bag.
The smell of the food made the boy's eyes red. He quickly picked up the compressed biscuits and wolfed them down, but he choked so badly that his eyes rolled back, yet he couldn't bear to spit them out.
Yang Cheng handed the boy a bottle of water, which he quickly drank down, a satisfied expression on his face.
Just as Yang Cheng was about to ask when, a series of huge tremors suddenly came from inside the city, as if some giant object was moving.
The boy's face showed fear, and he quickly said, "The Kitchen God has woken up! Hide! My house is just ahead, hurry home!"
As the boy spoke, he struggled frantically, his whole body trembling with extreme terror.
Yang Cheng frowned, exchanged a glance with Li Yuanchao, and quickly headed in the direction the boy pointed.
"This is it!"
The boy moved layers of wooden planks through the ruins, revealing a basement underneath.
Once inside, it was extremely dark, with only a few small holes for ventilation and light to pass through.
There was also an old man in the basement, who was also emaciated and looked like a skeleton.
"grandfather!"
The boy quickly ran over and opened his hand; inside was half a compressed biscuit.
The old man was looking at the compressed biscuits when he saw that his grandson had brought in two strangers. He immediately knelt down and begged, "Please, spare this child! He's not much meat on his body and can't be eaten. Even if we offer him to those kings and monsters, they wouldn't want him."
Li Yuanchao looked somewhat fierce, after all, his big bald head was too eye-catching, so he stood obediently at the back.
Yang Cheng was handsome, and his amiable demeanor was quite deceptive.
“Old man, don’t be alarmed. We are not man-eating demons. We just want to ask what’s going on here. We are outsiders. We have traveled a long way to find this city. But there are not many living people in the city. To be precise, you two are the only two living people I have ever seen.”
Seeing that Yang Cheng and Li Yuanchao were strong and healthy, but did not show any ill intentions, the old man breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked with a little curiosity, "Are there still places outside that haven't been occupied by demons and monsters?"
Before Yang Cheng could answer, the old man sighed and said, "Alas, I have lived here for decades. I have been like this since I was a child. I have almost forgotten the name of this city. I can't even remember my own age. Living in a place like this is just about living. Time has no meaning."
I remember when I was a child, my family was quite well-off. We had meat at every meal, and my father was a clerk in the government. We lived a pretty good life.
But I don't know when it started, rumors of demons killing people kept coming from the city, and my father told me not to leave home unless necessary.
Later, these rumors spread, to the point that monsters were even eating people in broad daylight.
In the end, there were even rumors that the emperor's heart and liver were eaten by demons in the Golden Palace, and his ministers also became food.
Everyone was in a state of extreme panic, and the city was on the verge of being paralyzed.
At this time, the Kitchen God arrived, and almost 90% of the people were offered sacrifices to him. From then on, the Kitchen God occupied this place.
Aside from having to worship the Kitchen God every so often, the city is generally safe, because with the Kitchen God around, no demons or monsters dare to enter.
Once the Kitchen God has eaten his fill, he goes to sleep, and that's when everyone comes out looking for food. I even planted some sorghum, but some damned brat stole it.
The reason you can't find anyone in the city is because the Kitchen God might wake up in the next few days, so everyone is hiding.
Otherwise, there are still some people in this city, though not many, but there should be several thousand to tens of thousands.
This once bustling city with a population of over a million now has only a few thousand or tens of thousands left, with virtually no bank accounts. One can only imagine what they have gone through over the years.
"You always talk about the Kitchen God, but what exactly is the Kitchen God?"
Then the huge tremor came again, and fear appeared on the faces of both the old man and the boy.
The old man pointed to the highest point in the cellar, where there was a ventilation hole and a view of the outside world.
"The Kitchen God has awakened. You can see for yourselves, but please don't make a sound and disturb him."
Yang Cheng and Li Yuanchao walked up to the ventilation hole and looked at it. They saw a terrifying monster, tens of feet tall, striding towards them from the end of the street.
The monster had three faces. The first face had three eyes and one mouth, the second face had three eyes and two mouths, and the third face had no eyes, only a gaping maw revealing a ring of sharp fangs covered in bits of flesh.
It wore a black robe, revealing a body full of bulging muscles, but its sides were covered with arms, roughly a dozen arms, densely packed like centipedes.
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