Chapter 146 - 145: A Startled Little Heart

"Lou Sang, I’ll give you two seconds to think about it."

Lou Sang heard the ominous tone in her voice and couldn’t help but gulp. He didn’t even wait for the two seconds to be up before blurting out, "Fine, fine! I’ll talk, alright?"

He had every reason to believe that if he had dared to say no just now, Chu Liangyu would have somehow reached through the void and slapped him across the face.

"Good, you know what’s good for you. Now, answer my first question: where are you right now?"

The Trading System was unusable on Void Island, which was why Chu Liangyu asked.

"Where I am isn’t important. Shouldn’t the priority be the exact locations of those people from the Otherworld?"

"Of course. It’s just that I have something I need to tell the old man. If you’re not too far away, I need you to go find him again."

Lou Sang nodded casually, then tapped the panel a few times. "I just got back from Void Island. If I hadn’t made the trip, I’d have never known our world was infested with so many fleas."

"The locations of those people are all marked on this map. There are about fifty of them. Only two are relatively close to you; the others are scattered all over the Beast World."

Chu Liangyu opened it and took a look. Sure enough, two of the locations were extremely close to her.

She didn’t even have to think about it; those two had to be the guys she’d imprisoned in the tribe.

"If you’re really going to collect all these souls by yourself, that’s no small amount of work."

He had a point. It was a time-consuming and laborious task, but it had to be done.

Her double needed to remain in the tribe to handle other matters, and she desperately needed to focus on increasing her own strength. Chu Liangyu mulled it over, wishing she could create ten more doubles.

But that wasn’t realistic. Creating too many doubles was mentally taxing, not to mention she was running out of hair. If she kept cutting it, she worried she might go bald.

She really couldn’t do everything by herself. After all, there were so many people in the tribe; she had to put them to work.

A moment later, Chu Liangyu had an idea. "Those Beast Husbands in the tribe aren’t being fed for nothing. I’ll arrange for them to go capture those people and bring them back."

"That’s not a bad idea. And from what I can see, they look pretty idle. It’ll be good for them to help you out."

"By the way, you just asked me to go back and find the Beast God. Is there something else?"

Chu Liangyu’s expression turned serious. "Those two who deployed the souls said that even if these souls are tortured and killed, it won’t have any effect on their world."

"I’ve considered it, and I see two possibilities. First, they might have used some special technique to sever the connection between these souls and their original worlds. Second, these souls were smuggled here from other Little Worlds."

Pausing for a moment, Chu Liangyu continued, "Right now, we don’t know which it is, which means we have to find out. If it’s the first scenario, we can just torture and kill them. But if it’s the second, doing so could implicate innocent Little Worlds."

The karma generated by the destruction of all life in a Little World was far more than Chu Liangyu could ever hope to bear. She couldn’t take such a risk over an uncertainty.

"So, I need you to ask the old man for a treasure that can temporarily contain souls. Once I’ve collected all of them, I’ll take them to the Sumeru Realm and have the Guardians identify them."

"Of course, ransoming them back will require Origin Pearls."

What do Guardians fear the most?

Why, to find themselves still existing while the Little World they were meant to protect is gone.

On that point alone, Chu Liangyu was certain they would take back these souls—souls that would generate endless resentment if tortured and killed.

"Alright, I’ll go find the Beast God for you. As soon as I get my hands on the item, I’ll send it to you through the Trading System."

"Good. The sooner, the better."

With their business concluded, Chu Liangyu ended the call and went straight to the study on the third floor. She walked over to the desk, recalled the coordinates of the Otherworldly Souls, and with a sweep of her brush, began to draw.

Chu Liangyu didn’t draw much, stopping after only two maps. She compared both sheets with the map on the Trading System several times. Once she confirmed their accuracy, she rolled them up, intending to have her double deliver them after her rest period was over.

She had spent the entire morning cultivating and was now starting to feel a bit hungry.

She got up and headed toward the kitchen, planning to make herself a meal. Just then, a sudden scream startled Chu Liangyu so much that her foot, halfway across the kitchen threshold, faltered, and she nearly stumbled into the wall.

The voice was extremely familiar; it was unmistakably Xiong Jiaojiao, her neighbor.

Chu Liangyu calmed her own startled heart. After a moment’s thought, she had a good guess as to why Xiong Jiaojiao was reacting that way.

’The number of rare and exotic herbs I packed into that storage bag must have been a bit much,’ she thought. ’She’s probably just overjoyed.’

The truth was close to what Chu Liangyu had guessed, only far more dramatic than she had imagined.

_____

"You’re saying... the leader... gave this to you?"

Putting aside how stunned Cheng Miao was, these rare and exotic herbs alone were enough for all five members of the Wood Spirit Clan to advance to the next level.

The three of them—Xiong Jiaojiao, Cheng Miao, and the Elder—already possessed a pair of wings, the symbol of an Elf King. If they advanced again, they would become Double-winged Elf Kings.

The other two clan members, who did not yet have wings, would ascend directly to the rank of Elf King after this.

The Wood Spirit Clan had never before produced a Double-winged Elf King; such a thing only happened in legends. Now that it was becoming a reality, how could the three of them not be ecstatic?

Of course, this happiness was also mixed with some shock.

"Where on earth did the leader get all this? It’s unbelievable!"

Even the old Elder was getting emotional. He, a man with one foot already in the grave, never imagined he would have the chance to become a Double-winged Elf King.

For this reason alone, he felt he could die without any regrets.

"Sister Liangyu didn’t say. But that’s not important. We can’t let her kindness go to waste."

Xiong Jiaojiao forced her gaze away from the mountain of rare herbs and said to the others, "We can’t just let these medicinal herbs sit here. Let’s divide them up and then clear a space to plant them."

As had been mentioned before, planting medicinal herbs would feed energy back to them, and it was this very energy that they relied on to advance.

This method was more stable than consuming Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures directly, and also more sustainable. At this rate, all five of them could successfully advance within a month.

"Jiaojiao’s right," the Elder said. "Come on, all of you, come and divide these up."

Though the Elder said this, he himself didn’t move. He waited until the others had more or less chosen their share before taking what was left.

Even the finest rare herbs varied in quality. The Elder did want to become a Double-winged Elf King, but he knew he was old; it was better to leave the best opportunities to the younger generation.

This was especially true for the other two, whose aptitude wasn’t as high. If they could just manage to keep up three-quarters of the pace set by Xiong Jiaojiao and Cheng Miao, that would be for the best.