Chapter 15
Ling Cheng’en pinched the small stone in her hand and lowered her eyes as she listened to the system barking nonstop in her mind. In the end, she could not hold back anymore and used her mental power to flick it over onto its back.
“You done yet? You’ve been howling for half the day.”
The system went crazy.
“No, I’m not done! How could the young chief of Snake Mountain Tribe run away? This is escaping from marriage! Aren’t you going to chase after your runaway groom?”
Ling Cheng’en crushed the stone in her hand and rolled her eyes speechlessly.
“What is this? Some overbearing female CEO romance drama?”
“You’ve got way too much imagination.”
The system bounced around angrily on the spot for a while, still unwilling to let it go.
“No way, I can’t swallow this anger! The duck that was practically in my mouth just flew away like that! I absolutely cannot accept it.”
“I’m a Love Security System! Your target directly ran away, so what exactly am I supposed to protect now? No, I need to think of a solution…”
Ling Cheng’en could not be bothered with this crazy idiot system. Resting her right elbow on her knee, she began thinking about the relationship between Beast King City and the Northern Wilderness Beast Plains.
Unfortunately, she did not have a map of this world.
But…
Lowering her head, Ling Cheng’en asked Wu Zhuo, “Why is the relationship between the southern tribes and our Northern Wilderness Beast Plains so bad?”
Wu Zhuo flapped his wings once and thought for a moment before answering,
“I’m actually not too sure either. I only heard the old beastmen in the tribe talk about it. In the past, several people in our tribe were exiles sent from the south.”
“They said that between the Northern Wilderness Beast Plains and the southern beast plains, there’s a bottomless abyss like a heavenly chasm. Standing on our side, you can’t even see the other side of the abyss. Below it is a raging dark river.”
“No matter whether you travel from north to south or from south to the Northern Wilderness, you have to cross that abyss.”
“Flying beastmen can easily cross it, but land-dwelling beastmen like you can only use the Abyss Iron Chains.”
Ling Cheng’en was puzzled.
“The Abyss Iron Chains? Is that a bridge?”
Wu Zhuo shook his head.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen the kind of bridge you’re talking about. The old beastmen said the Abyss Iron Chains are like extremely thick ropes connected to the cliffs on both sides of the abyss. There are seventeen of them in total.”
“Many exiles sent to the Northern Wilderness died at the Abyss Iron Chains and never even made it here.”
“And because the abyss blocks the inferior beasts from heading south, those vicious creatures only exist in the northern beast plains.”
Just as Ling Cheng’en was about to ask what inferior beasts were, the system came back. She immediately tossed the question to the idle, sulking system.
“System, what are inferior beasts?”
The system paused, feeling that her question was strange, but it still searched through the information it had recently gathered and gave a fairly complete answer.
“Inferior beasts are basically the same as the zombified humans and beasts you encountered in the apocalypse before. They have no intelligence whatsoever. All they know is attacking living creatures, and they possess an intense craving for flesh and blood.”
“But unlike the zombie beasts from the apocalypse, inferior beasts are not infectious.”
In other words, beastmen bitten by inferior beasts would not turn into mindless monsters.
Ling Cheng’en knew the root cause behind the zombie apocalypse.
It had mainly been caused by meteorites containing strange radioactive substances crashing onto the surface of the planet, causing the genetic chains of living organisms to mutate within a short period of time.
More than half the population had become zombies. Fewer than twenty percent evolved into ability users. As for the remaining people, although they did not turn into zombies, their physical abilities improved drastically.
Even so, at the beginning of the apocalypse, the zombie hordes still held the advantage.
There were obviously no zombies in the beast world, so where exactly had these inferior beasts come from?
The system said, “The information I currently have is limited. Since you haven’t met many people, all I know is that inferior beasts come from farther north.”
“At the northernmost edge of the Northern Wilderness Plains are endless stone mountains and dense forests. Beyond the stone mountains lies a place called Lock Abyss.”
“Lock Abyss is what the beastmen call the Forsaken Land of the Gods, and it’s also the origin of the inferior beasts.”
“Are there many inferior beasts on the Northern Wilderness Plains?” Ling Cheng’en asked Wu Zhuo beneath her.
Wu Zhuo hurriedly shook his head.
“There actually aren’t many. Whenever hunting warriors from the tribes encounter inferior beasts outside, they try their best to kill them to prevent them from finding the tribe and attacking beastmen who can’t fight.”
“But inferior beasts are extremely difficult to deal with. They usually appear in groups. Seriously injuring them is useless. As long as they can still stand up, they’ll continue attacking and biting without caring about anything else, as if they can’t feel pain at all.”
At present, they had not encountered any inferior beasts yet. Usually, it was the hunting teams outside who ran into them. On average, they encountered them once every half month, and every encounter was a brutal battle.
Wu Zhuo descended from the air and returned to human form. After wrapping his beast-hide skirt properly, he turned and looked at Ling Cheng’en cautiously.
“En-jie, actually… I think the reason you got injured and fell unconscious on the road after returning from Cold Mountain Tribe that night was probably because of inferior beasts.”
Ling Cheng’en raised an eyebrow slightly.
“I didn’t even know that myself, so how do you know it was inferior beasts? If it really were true, shouldn’t I have been torn to pieces already?”
Tilting his head, Wu Zhuo replied,
“The night we found you, the people from Cold Mountain Tribe had actually killed several inferior beasts. Although they told everyone the inferior beasts had attacked Cold Mountain Tribe, I always felt something was strange.”
Stone Forest Tribe and Cold Mountain Tribe were not far apart. Cold Mountain Tribe was located on the mountain, while Stone Forest Tribe was below it. If inferior beasts wanted to attack, they should logically attack Stone Forest Tribe first, not climb up the mountain toward Cold Mountain Tribe.
Hearing Wu Zhuo’s detailed analysis, Ling Cheng’en fell into thought.
Could it really be that the original owner had been ambushed by inferior beasts and fallen from the mountain path?
“And when the chief and I found you, there were actually lots of messy tracks and a lot of blood nearby. But your injuries… well, they were pretty minor. So the blood probably wasn’t yours.”
Ling Cheng’en remembered Wu Zhuo’s words. If Cold Mountain Tribe really had killed the inferior beasts that attacked her, then the original owner’s feelings had not been completely one-sided after all.
However, Wu Zhuo’s next words left Ling Cheng’en utterly speechless.
“En-jie, honestly, your taste is really good. Even though the young chief of Cold Mountain Tribe doesn’t like you, his character is genuinely excellent.”
“Sure, he looks cold and distant, but he’s never harsh toward anyone. Even when you kept clinging to him, all he did was avoid seeing you and return your gifts through other people. He never did anything excessive.”
Ling Cheng’en smacked the back of Wu Zhuo’s head and gritted her teeth.
“Shut up already!”
Wu Zhuo covered his head.
“En-jie, I get hit even for telling the truth?”
“Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is a virtue.”
Ling Cheng’en looked at the brat and lectured him earnestly.
“Lead the way. Hurry up and take me to Wuyang Tribe.”
She quickly changed the subject, afraid Wu Zhuo would continue bringing up all the ridiculous things the original owner had done in the name of love.
Even though she was not the original owner, they still shared the same body.
It was embarrassing, okay?!
