Chapter 2104: Wang Shu

The tri-horned creatures were tall, bulky, and radiated a thick scent of blood and pungent flesh. Plainly, they’d ended the lives of countless beings.

Lu Yun would’ve had to run with his tail between his legs if he’d met them earlier, but after he found the tiny blade of wild grass, he’d located the remaining energy of heaven and earth in this world and absorbed it as nourishment.

Even though it was the tiniest trickle, he was now far greater than who he’d been before.

“The civilization of this world has declined. They…” Lu Yun sighed as he looked at the three in front of him. “Their enlightenment is gone and only savagery remains.”

“What did you say?” Three pairs of emerald eyes narrowed at him.

“Big bro, let’s eat him since this kid doesn’t know what’s good for him. We three brothers run through the wilderness like it’s our own, we don’t need a sidekick!” the smallest of them sneered. “Since the kid’s out here, that means the city is close by. We just need to put our backs into looking for it!”

“Alright!” agreed the biggest of the three. He leered and pounced on Lu Yun.

The young man raised his head and silently watched the beast approach, then swung his fist.

Bam!

The beast’s head exploded and his headless corpse swayed a bit before plopping to the ground. The other two stared dumbly at what’d happened, their brains freezing.

Lu Yun smiled faintly at them. He jumped into the air and kicked their heads off their bodies with a precise motion from each foot. When he landed on the ground, he closed his eyes to carefully assess what would happen next.

Nothing did.

“Ai… I thought I’d be able to pick up a few Infernum if I killed some people. Where the hell did the Tome of Life and Death go to? I got nothing for my troubles,” he grumbled with resignation. Other than three corpses, he gained nothing after killing the three creatures.

“Forget it, they’re meat and can supplement blood and qi. Yuan Yi needs these things since she’s started practicing the method of heaven and earth.”

With one final glance at the blade of grass growing more vibrant, Lu Yun dragged the three bodies back to Jingzhou City.

……

“What are you doing at my house?” Lu Yun raised his eyes to see Yuan Yi sitting cross-legged on the roof when he returned to the stone house he’d built by the city gates. A few pieces of dried black meat could be found next to her—reserves from time past.

Yuan Yi blushed when she opened her eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Eh? What’s that?” she commented blankly when she saw the three corpses looming like hills behind Lu Yun. “Did you go out and kill people?!”

Every life was extraordinarily precious in a world ravaged by ghost zombies. Other than those who died to the ghost zombies or died natural deaths, no other kind of killing was allowed.

It was an unspoken, ironclad law that could not be violated.

“They look to be hunters,” Lu Yun shook his head. “They were looking for living beings and cities. I think they wanted to turn the city into their farm, so I took them out when I happened to bump into them.”

Yuan Yi’s expression shifted rapidly; she didn’t doubt Lu Yun’s words. She wouldn’t have been able to hold off the three beasts if they’d come to the city.

“You can have one for your cultivation needs. I’m going to skin and clean up the other two so I can make a pot of soup for the citizens.”

The three beasts were enormous, particularly after they returned to their original forms in death.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“For the citizens?” Yuan Yi blinked. “You should save the meat for times of need, or slowly dole it out as rations…”

Plainly, she wasn’t against eating the beasts.

“My passionate speech and demonstration of slaughter did absolutely nothing in terms of tangible change,” Lu Yun shook his head. “We need to give them some actual benefits if we want to awaken hope.”

He tossed one of the beasts to Yuan Yi and walked into town with the other two.

Jingzhou City did not lack water. Its denizens normally ate a very fine dirt that was just sufficient to prevent starvation. Yuan Yi occasionally took out some dried meat or withered grass to supplement their diet. Thus, Lu Yun instantly drew a great deal of attention when he set up an enormous stone pot in the city center and began cooking a meat stew.

There were roughly one million people in the city, the sum of this area’s general population. While that seemed like a lot of people, it was but a drop of water in the ocean compared to the vastness of its surrounding territory and the endless ghost zombies.

As enormous as the two beasts might be, they could not satisfy one million stomachs. Lu Yun had his own thoughts in that regard.

A delicious fragrance drifted through the air, prompting hard swallows in the crowd. The people stared blankly at the bubbling pot and didn’t know what to make of it. They’d never encountered anything like it before.

A meat stew? Putting fresh meat into a pot to cook it? Weren’t pots used to cook mud and grass? Could meat be cooked like this too?

“Bring out the tools that you usually eat with and come get your share of soup. Each person gets one bowl.” Lu Yun shook his head at the crowd’s reaction. He couldn’t feed them all meat, but there was more than enough soup to go around.

However, the people continued to remain unmoving. Their simple minds couldn’t comprehend why this scene was happening. No one dared move a muscle.

It was a kind of numbness so chronic that they’d lost the ability to think. If hope arrived in front of them on a silver platter one day, all they would know to do would be to stare at it blankly.

Lu Yun looked down and rubbed his forehead.

“I want to eat…” a hesitant voice rang out.

He lifted his eyes to see a little boy roughly eight years old approach hesitantly. Skinny and frail, his eyes were bright and alive—a marked difference to those around him.

“What is your name?” Lu Yun asked.

The little boy shook his head to indicate that he had no name.

“Then from now on, your name is Wang Shu. You will train with me starting today.” Lu Yun waved a large piece of meat out of the pot and directed it to Wang Shu.

“Wang Shu…” the little boy nodded gently. “Alright then, I’m called Wang Shu from now on.” He gulped and grabbed the meat, running away. “I’m going to share this with my dad…”

He didn’t look back at all, but his voice drifted back on the wind. His actions prompted the others to come forward, but Lu Yun didn’t give them any meat. Just soup was enough for them. He wanted to select cultivators; only cultivators had the right to eat meat.

Wang Shu was the first, and his name was another term for the moon on Earth. There was a famous poem on Earth that one would raise their head to gaze upon the bright moon, then look back down to pine for home.