XH 289 – The favour of sharing food
 
Heng Xin would have immediately run to where Heise was if he knew where Qiang Laohu had taken him. So he can only look at Long Zhu with red eyes, resembling one that was slowly losing his rationality.
 
Only Long Zhu knew where his master would be at.
 
Long Zhu sighed, releasing his anger and keeping his cool as what he does not want had already happened. "The quicker we finish the business here, the quicker we will get to the nameless village."
 
Fortunately, he vaguely knew the direction of the nameless village, which was quite near to Gu Dan country. Both of them were located at the center of the Four Kingdoms. 
 
None of the Four Kingdoms decided to extend their influence to that area because of its great disadvantage. Due to the gate and work of the celestial beasts, no plants could grow in that land. 
 
It was a difficult land to survive in. 
 
"As for the bombing, we will leave it to Tian Liang."
 
He had fought with Tian Liang twice in the battle field and knew the young king had a talent in creating explosions with his inner energy and fire element manipulation. Long Zhu would be missing some meat in his body if he had not protected himself in time. 
 
"Are you crazy!" Heise roared when he appeared at the nameless village with Qiang Laohu. "I said I will come once I'm done there!"
 
"We don't have much time," Mingzhi Wugui cut in and pointed at the deteriorating seal that was almost at the end of its usage. 
 
As the seal quickly crumbled, the clearer the Gate could be seen, just like the fog covering it from sight was blown away. 
 
The High monk and few travelling monks started reciting sutras, to guide the ancestral monk away from the seal and send him to reincarnation after purification of the lingering demonic aura from the tainted soul. 
 
"Only the demoness and the bald demon are in full strength. The rest should only be left with only half of their strength at most," the 19th Emperor estimated. "Long Ming, is the situation at the enemy's base dire?"
 
If it was, Long Yuen will head there to help out his favourite grandson and granddaughter. He does not need to play an active role here.
 
"It's manageable." Heise waved his grandfather's worries away. "Will we be starting the attack now?"
 
"Until the monks’ finish ferrying the monk's soul away from the Gate," Feng Jiu said.
 
"It will be only a moment," Liang Shan said. "Thank you for your patience."
 
"We can wait. It is not a bother at all." Feng Jiu smiled. "We do wish for the great monk to find his next reincarnation.”
 
"Where is Doctor Bai and Yu Zheng?" Heise asked when he did not see the two walking cheats that would be helpful in defeating the demons. 
 
Away from the Gate, right at the middle of the nameless village were Doctor Bai and Yu Zheng. They planned to evacuate the villagers before the war started, only to find they were too late. 
 
How the first person ever stepped onto the nameless, barren land was a coincidence. They were actually a group of wanted convicts that got kicked out of their village. 
 
It could be seen that the nameless land was not a good place to stay, but with no place willing to accept criminals, they stayed at the barren land and built a small village. As for food, they had to get them from the next village while hiding their identity.

The information board has their drawings to identify them, which implied just how serious their crimes were.
 
It was a hassle, but at least the nameless land offered them a safe place to stay without fearing for their lives. 
 
They stayed there without knowing anything about the Gate's existence. 
 
Soon after, Gu Dan found out about their existence and came over to offer their help because they sympathized with the runaways. As a group of people that was ostracized because of their demonic green eyes, they wanted people to accept them, and the nameless village did.
 
The crimes that they had committed and their choice in running away instead of facing their crimes was far greater than meeting green eyed people with poison running in their blood. They were not very scary in their eyes. 
 
That was why when the nameless villagers faced the choice of helping the Four Kingdoms or Gu Dan, they did not hesitate to choose the latter. They believe their lives will be better after Gu Dan won and once again able to walk in their birthplace without fear.
 
The nameless villagers had prepared their weapons and got ready to join the fight, when Gu Ming Tian said he had a way to make them become stronger than humans.
 
The greedy nameless villagers accepted the offer, thinking this was the chance to gain power and no longer fear anything. The thought of Gu Dan lying to them barely caused any waves, as they believe they were gullible.

Gu Dan had offered them help. It was not unthinkable they would offer even more help to the 'pitiful' refugees.

As promised, Gu Ming Tian fulfilled his promise to make them stronger, but to the nameless villagers' horror, they were all turned into green soldiers. Not even one managed to escape from the cruel fate of being Gu Dan's mindless soldier.
 
Gu Ming Tian believed that the favour of sharing food with them should be repaid in full. 
 
"They were fully turned with no way to reverse it." Yu Zheng pulled out his sword that was humming lightly in response to its master's touch. 

The villager's organs were completely eaten by the green bugs and no humans had ever survived without organs, unless they were modified with machines. 
 
Doctor Bai sighed and formed water blades around him. "I already received one OOC warning."
 
"I will waive it off for you," Yu Zheng said and started putting down the green soldiers.
 
"Don't abuse your authority, Lord System. The Head of the transmigration department will get angry until she faints again." Doctor Bai chastised lightly and joined the fight. 
 
Not long after Heise was kidnapped away, Duan XiYing finally finished clearing out the eggs from the pool and quickly jumped out of it. Fortunately, as a snake beast, she has a larger inner energy capacity than average humans and able to maintain her energy barrier, protecting her from the spring water.
 
An Jing and Da Bei sent over the last batch of eggs to be burned by Tian Liang and Long Lian.
 
The half demons had been wiped out by the others and they were now waiting for the eggs to be completely removed from the spring pool. Heng Xin was especially impatient and could only stand straight rigidly to control his impulse to find his master.

Heng Xin had not left his master's side this long before, and never without knowing where he was at. 
 
“Are those Gu bugs?” Da Bei suddenly asked, pointing at the moving line on the ground that was heading straight to the spring pool.
 
From afar, their movement was not noticeable, but now that Da Bei had pointed it out, the line of crawling bugs became very obvious!
 
“They are coming from the dead bodies.” An Jing commented. “They are trying to crawl to the spring pool to survive.”
 
Gu Ming Tian had left the half-demons behind their lair to act as security guards and also upgraded their lethality by letting Gu bugs treat their bodies as its nest to grow more eggs.
 
“They need to be stopped!” Long Lian started tossing small fireballs at the line of bugs and Tian Liang joined her with larger fireballs.
 
“XiYing will go back in~” Duan XiYing stretched her arms, which one of them suddenly grabbed. “Xiao Hua?”
 
Xiao Hua’s sudden move got most of their attention. “I…” Xiao Hua does not know how to voice out how she felt about the spring pool.
 
While it was true that the content of the pool was precious and could be experimented with, what if it could not co-exist with her tea?
 
What if it was not only the heroine who was allergic to her tea? 

What if this spring pool will react badly once it comes into contact with her tea? 

What if someone had tasted her tea before and would react like how her eyes had burned once they drank the spring water?
 
It would end up killing people.
 
Long Zhu smiled at the disheartened Xiao Hua. “Do whatever you feel is right.” He had already thought what was in Xiao Hua’s mind. Only, he has a more positive outlook about it than Xiao Hua.
 
Others may have forgotten, but his Imperial Father had drunk the spring water before. But he had not reacted badly when the tea was poured onto his wounds to erase the black mist. Long Zhu was not certain why that would be so and wanted to bring back the spring pool just to discover the truth.
 
Xiao Hua raised her trembling pupils to meet Long Zhu’s accepting eyes that were gentle yet encouraging. It was at times like this that made her wonder why would he be confident that she would not mess things up? If she messes it up, will he still continue looking at her like this?
 
Even if she was afraid to see his smile disappear, Xiao Hua still moved her hand and pulled out a small bucket of ready-made tea from her spatial bracelet.
 
With a strong fling, the small bucket soared across the air. It threw out the content and the tea smashed right into the spring pool crawling with Gu bugs.