This Damned Thirst for Survival

The brim of his hat fell, covering his brow, and finally the corner of his lips, which were raised.

*

Half an hour has passed.

The Beaver was still sniffing the air.

It was logical that humans would have a smell that was peculiar to them that belonged to the scent of the living, but for the past half hour his sensitive nose had smelled patchy.

The scent of the two humans faded, as if they had been covered up, had they died, or had left the cave?

The beaver walked slowly through the hole in the ground, becoming increasingly irritable.

There was another possibility, but he put it out of his mind without even thinking about it.

The blood of the female is so full of Yin that it can temporarily mask the scent of the living from the human body.

But all the female scorpions in the cave were used to keep their master’s soul intact, so that the master’s broken soul could become more solid and fit more closely with the body of the idol.

Where can a human go to get the blood and water of a female venomous-tailed scorpion?

No sooner had Beaver finished thinking this than he became aware of someone approaching behind him, and turned back in an instant to see the owner, dressed in black robes and holding a walking stick.

The master still smelled like a female poison tail scorpion, and the flower beaver immediately said respectfully, “Master.”

“Well,” the master’s tone was the usual careless one, a gut-wrenching sense of danger hidden in the plaintive words, “Beaver, you haven’t found the idol yet.”

The master’s voice was slightly lowered, a detail the beaver should have noticed, but he was stiffened by the content of his master’s words at that moment, and he clenched his hands and whispered, “Yes.”

The master seemed to laugh a little and said slowly again, “Nor did you find the human you were looking for.”

Flower Beaver: “…… is.”

Beneath his black robe Jiang Luo mimics Chi You’s tone as he gently grips his walking stick, his long, black cloth-covered fingers rubbing the tip with a deep meaning that dares not be seen in his every movement. He said, slightly bemused, “And I have to clean up your mess.”

“I’m sorry, Master,” the Beaver said eagerly, “I don’t know how that human can hide so well, her scent is all but gone -”

Before he could finish, Jiang Luo held out a finger through his hat and put it in front of his lips, “Shhh.”

The beaver shut up, beads of sweat already sliding down his temples.

“Come, I will take you to the idol,” Jiang Luo said with increasing diffidence, “and after seeing the idol, Flower Beaver, I hope you will show me how far you have come in the intervening years.”

The beaver’s brow jumped and she stepped forward to follow Jiang Luo , “I will, Master.”

He had secretly decided that whether the idol was successfully sacrificed or not, he would not let his master do it and restrain the idol himself.

Jiang Luo led the civet in the direction of the idol in a half-hearted manner.

When he was drawing away the idol, he used a golden talisman from the Yin-Yang ring to make a rat. The rat had never been retrieved by him and was now coming in their direction with the idol.

Jiang Luo’s footsteps are unhurried, even a little condescending.

No one knows Chi You better than he does, and no one knows Chi You’s character better than he does. By keeping his voice low, his posture casual and his attitude cold and worldly, no one will ever notice their differences from the outside.

Take for example the Flower Beaver.

It had been years since Hua Beaver had seen Chi You, and as he walked beside Jiang Luo, he felt nothing but a cold sweat, but could never have imagined that what lay beneath the black robe was in fact a bold human being.

The Beaver was nervous and his voice tightened as he interrupted the silence, “Master, there are many more ghosts in the cave of the earth and they want to be your men.”

Jiang Luo raised his eyebrows, “Oh?”

“They’re not very good, but they’re better in numbers,” said the Beaver, “and this has been a veritable den of ghosts.”

Jiang Luo gave the cane in his hand a beat and said again without moving, “Hmm.”

The beaver conversely spoke more and more, “Master, do you want to take them?”

The Flower Beaver described several of these powerful ghosts one by one.

Jiang Luo took it to heart and said slowly, “There is no rush.”

Soon the rumbling of the idol’s footsteps came ahead of them.

The Beaver sighed in admiration, “Not bad for a master.”

He intended to show his strength in front of his master who had been separated for several years. Therefore, before the Buddha statue could run in front of them, the Flower Beaver flew to meet him.

The sound of a violent scuffle soon came from ahead.

Jiang Luo walks up slowly, pausing in the darkness, and watches slowly and deliberately as the beaver and the idol fight.

The idol is an evil god who has not been resurrected, but whose strength is not to be underestimated. If Hua Beaver and Teng Bi had faced the idol together, they would have won easily. However, if he had to deal with the idol alone, he would have to struggle.

But even with this strain, he did not dare to show a single moment of retreat, for fear of completely disappointing his master.

The two inhuman things battled back and forth. Jiang Luo stands in the darkness for a moment, watching with a big, silent smile.

He left the place quietly and silently and took the opportunity to meet the ghosts who wanted to become Chi You’s henchmen.

Chi You had only been in the cave for a short time, and had only been there for a few moments. Jiang Luo is clad in a black robe, with a walking stick and a faintly glowing yin-yang ring, and there are many evil creatures who retreat the moment they see him.

He walked to the familiar fork in the four-way road.

According to the Flower Beaver, except for the first one, the other three caves were filled with fierce and vicious evil spirits.

Jiang Luo flicks his robe and walks in slowly.

*

Chi You is still soaking in the pool water.

Time passed and the corners of his mouth grew higher and higher, and it was at this point that he read Liao Si’s thoughts.

Liao Si said, “Master, are you there?”

Normally, Chi You would not have responded to such a question, but he was in such a good mood today that he made a rare reply, “What?”

Liao Si quickly replied, “I have chosen one of the twenty-two contestants to be my new body.”

Chi You said languidly, “Who.”

” Jiang Luo ,” Liao Si said gleefully, “Master, he is perfect to be my next body!”

In an unoccupied room in Shen Tucun, Liao Si looks eagerly at the gossip meter on the table.

Inside the gossip instrument, twenty-two hairs are infused with air and are tearing each other apart, with only two hairs left at this point still fighting violently against each other.

One is the hair of Qi Ye and one is the hair of Jiang Luo.

“Of course, I have found a new body for you, or a new puppet,” Liao Si smiled as he casually fiddled with Qi Ye’s hair, “this one has a nice spirit body, you will like it very much.”

But Chi You said, “No.”

Liao Si froze and then faked crying, “Master, why?”

“Everyone except Jiang Luo,” Chi You said slowly, “and everyone else.”

Liao Si said unfortunately, “Well, I know.”

After a short conversation, Chi You’s fingertips continue to tap slowly against the stone wall.

Why not Jiang Luo?

For he could not imagine what the dark-haired youth’s eyes, bright with fire, would have been like if he had been a different person.

Angry, unyielding, provocative, with the tail of his eyes sweeping over Chi You, a look that easily arouses his interest.

The evil spirit laughed.

Ah, the time is almost up too.

He’ll be ready to go to his little prey in no time.

*

Satisfied, Jiang Luo rejoined the spot where the beaver and the idol had fought.

The battle was over by the time he arrived. The Flower Beaver was a little reluctant, but in the end, he managed to fight to a lose-lose end and restrain the idol.

He paid a heavy price for this, breaking several bones, soaking the soil with blood, and lying on the ground unable to move a finger, not far from Teng Bi’s previous condition.

The beaver was truly relieved to see his master’s black robe as he approached, “Master.”

He coughed and said with difficulty, “I suppressed the idol.”

The master looked towards the idol.

The idol lay on the ground, without the slightest movement. There were several spider-like cracks on the stone-like body, one of the largest being on the idol’s head, almost piercing it.

The flower beaver spat out a mouthful of blood, “Master ……”

“I see,” said his master, low and slow, “that you are doing well.”

The laughter in his voice deepens, and Jiang Luo’s original tone grows stronger, and he says, in an uncharacteristic Chi You voice, “You’re really great.”

The beaver’s eyes snapped open.

The man clad in black robes walked up to him, the hand wrapped in black cloth clutching a walking stick, while the other hand was wrapped around a whip made of runes. The black robed man crouched down on one knee and wrapped the whip gently around the neck of the flower beaver.

The human’s face emerged from the black robe, the human with stern but not overly flamboyant features smiled and said, “Didn’t you say it would be easy to kill me?”

Startled and angry, the beaver braced its paws on the ground and forced itself to get up, “You-”

Jiang Luo tightened the rope, shushed, and whispered, “I really want to thank you, Hua Beaver, without you, I don’t know how I would have taken revenge on this idol.”

Hua Rui was yanked back down to the ground, his face blue and he looked at Jiang Luo with a look of hatred that could have pulled his bones out of his body.

As if Jiang Luo didn’t have enough, he laughed in a low voice, “You can’t even tell your master from someone else’s. I don’t think you have much loyalty to Chi You either. Why don’t you give up the dark side and become a scouting dog in my hands?”

The slightly sarcastic words are a return to the sarcastic remarks made by Beaver about Teng Bi.

Flower Beaver’s chest choked, his sharp nails dug into the flesh of his palm, and in his anger, he spat out another mouthful of blood.

Jiang Luo wrapped the snake around the civet, got up and walked over to the idol.

He took the dagger made of golden talisman and stabbed it into the left leg of the idol without hesitation, and as if five holes in a row were not enough, he stabbed five more without blinking.

The idol still seemed to feel the pain, the baby-like shrill echoing through the cave, but his mouth was in the shape of a smile tightly closed when he even screamed. Jiang Luo noticed and muttered, holding his dagger close to the idol’s mouth, “Is there something else hidden in your mouth?”

He pried open the mouth of the idol, which slowly opened to reveal an oval-shaped heart-like stone inside.

Jiang Luo carefully took the stone out and placed it under Jin Guang to examine it carefully.

The stone is covered with several thin protruding threads, like veins and veins twisted around the heart. Jiang Luo wondered, “Could this be the heart of the idol?

He put this away, pulled the whip that bound the flowered beaver, and dragged him to Chi You.

The mask on his face was falling off as the Beaver’s injuries were compounded by being upended by the rocks along the way, and the Beaver gasped and cursed weakly, “Vile humans!”

Jiang Luo smiled brightly at him sideways and dragged him harder across the ground.

*

Chi You was coming out of the water when they arrived.

The pale and elegant evil spirit is naked. Naked, the ghostly tattoo on his back was hideously vivid. He heard a voice and looked back languidly.

He saw his men in a state of distress, being dragged to him by Jiang Luo by the neck.

The evil spirit raised his eyebrows slightly and smothered a laugh, “Flower Beaver, I told you a long time ago that you would be bitten back if you underestimated him.”

With his words, a black mist wrapped around the evil spirit, and when it dispersed, the evil spirit was again wearing the familiar three-piece suit.

The Beaver said in humiliation, “Master, I know I was wrong.”

Leather shoes scuffed, the evil spirit took a step towards Jiang Luo, stopping five paces away, he asked with interest, “You want to trade the life of a flower beaver for yours?”

“No,” the dark-haired youth said coldly, “I’ll trade his life for Teng Bi’s.”

It was then that the evil spirit showed a few moments of surprise.

He reached out his hand and the black mist clutched Teng Bi’s neck and brought it to him. The unconscious Teng Bi barely opened his half-swollen eyes and looked at Jiang Luo from a bloodied blur.

“My friend, quick,” he said with force, but in an extraordinarily small voice, “run.”

The evil spirit sighed, “Seeing him like this, is Mr. Jiang sad?”

Jiang Luo said flatly, “It’s all right. But I want him to live, not half-dead like this.”

The evil spirit murmured, “You want to take him away?”

“Why,” Jiang Luo laughed, “he’s one of yours, why should I take him away? I’m just using the guy’s life.”

He tugged at the rope in his hand, and the strangled Beaver grunted as Jiang Luo looked straight at Chi You and sneered, “Bring him back to life in your place. As for where he goes, why should I care?”

Chi You’s palms tightened and he said, without skipping a beat, “Then I’m going to kill him.”

“Then let’s kill.” Jiang Luo said without hesitation.

The evil spirit gave a somewhat surprised “umph”.

The dark-haired youth revealed a smile as he stroked the flowering beaver’s hair like a puppy and said with a lively smile, “Unless, of course, you want to lose two right-hand men at the same time.”