Wan Mei looked at this dim and silent underground maze, without showing any shocked or fearful expression. The place he stood seemed to be a junction in the underground maze, with dimly lit torches on the stone walls. Following the direction of the torches, he could see the roots of trees that intertwined in the walls and ground, occasionally wriggling like snakes, indicating they were on alert.
This was the kind of place that would make someone with weak mental endurance faint or feel nauseous. However, Dr. Wan Mei seemed to be remarkably accepting. He even took out a silver dissecting scalpel from his pocket while walking, and with a flash of light in the darkness, a small branch of a tree root appeared in his hand.
The tree root seemed to sense something and moved uneasily. But perhaps its root system was so developed that it suffered damage to its roots every day, so even though Dr. Wan Mei used the scalpel to scrape experimental materials all the way, the tree roots didn’t collectively attack him or anything. It could be said that Dr. Wan Mei had reached the pinnacle of his technique of extracting experimental materials.
As he continued walking forward, the light from the torches became brighter. Along the way, Wan Mei also saw many circular passages that allowed these tree roots to enter. Just a little thought made it clear that these must be similar to the well in Feng Mengmeng’s house.
On the surface, they appeared as water wells, but in reality, they were just passages for these tree roots to easily reach any house in the village.
Coupled with the fragrance that could make people feel drowsy just by smelling it, it directly explained why Mr. Li and Mrs. Liu disappeared inexplicably.
However, Xu Shuai was probably not the one manipulating these tree roots. Perhaps he was directly knocked unconscious by Feng Jiao and the others because he was too ugly and then thrown into the captive area. Wan Mei thought this way, and suddenly, the path ahead opened up—
This should be the central hall of this underground maze. Dark blue bricks were neatly laid on the ground, surrounded by nine burning giant oil lamps. The roots of all the trees followed a regulated path, bypassing from both sides, just as they did in the previous maze passages. In the center, there were two giant tree trunks resembling cocoons, and in front of them was a phoenix-shaped pool.
At this moment, Mo Yang, who had been dragged all the way, lay in the phoenix-shaped pool, looking just like a sleeping beauty.
Wan Mei clicked his tongue.
He took steps and approached the phoenix-shaped pool, looking down at the feigning sleeper. “Do you need me to lean down and wake you up with a kiss?”
Then, the person who was supposedly drugged, suddenly opened his upturned phoenix eyes, filled with disdain.
“Stop teasing me. I’ve been dragged here all the way, covered in dirt. Can’t you let me clean up?”
As he spoke, he agilely jumped out of the beautiful pool. He casually took off his sleeping gown and turned his head to see someone scrutinizing him with narrowed eyes. He raised an eyebrow and said, “How about it? Am I more well-endowed than you in terms of physique?”
Then, he snatched the mocking pink pig-head backpack and took out another set of clothing from inside. He slapped it onto himself, transforming into a well-dressed CEO once again.
Wan Mei smiled and said, “Not bad.” However, flexibility could use some improvement.
“Alright, this should be the forbidden area of Phoenix Village, the place where their darkest secrets lie. Liu Meiren and Uncle Li must have been brought here. Let’s search around and hopefully, we can find them before… hiss!”
While Mo Yang was talking, he surveyed the vast underground palace. When his gaze fell upon the massive roots of the phoenix trees behind him, his face suddenly changed.
When he was brought here, he had his back turned to the roots, so he hadn’t seen the cocoons hanging from them. Ordinary cocoons wouldn’t have shocked him, but these are root cocoons enveloping two people he met just three days ago.
“Oh my… What happened to them? Have they been eaten? Are they still alive?”
The two people trapped within the enormous cocoons were none other than the missing Liu Meiren and Uncle Li. However, their conditions were different. Uncle Li’s entire body had already been embedded in the tree trunk, with only his face remaining outside, soon to be engulfed completely.
As for Liu Meiren, her lower body had completely disappeared into the trunk, while her upper body remained, her expression filled with pain and terror, her eyes unable to open.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Don’t tell me I’ll end up like them too.” Mo Yang felt nauseated.
Qjc Zfl gfqilfv, “Pa’r mifjg atja bcmf Fcmif Ol vlrjqqfjgfv, la kbeiv yf sbeg aegc. Pa rffwr atja yflcu atgbkc lcab atf mjqalnf jgfj yfmjerf bo sbeg euilcfrr lrc’a jr yjv jr atf ojaf bo atbrf ktb jgf gfijalnfis yfaafg-ibbxlcu.”
Tjcu Lflube, atf fqlabwf bo j oibeglrtlcu yfjeas, tjv j vjgx fzqgfrrlbc bc tlr ojmf.
“This isn’t right. Shouldn’t they give me more special treatment? I look so good.”
Mo Yang’s tone was assertive.
Wan Mei remained silent, but suddenly, a hoarse voice spoke up, “Of course, you’re different.”
Mo Yang and Wan Mei instantly turned around, seeing a hunched man standing beside a familiar beauty.
“Feng Bing,” Mo Yang called out the beauty’s name.
Feng Bing nodded indifferently. “I didn’t expect you two to find this place so soon. It seems you have some skills, but you’re also too impulsive. If it weren’t for the fact that the demon trees are currently in a semi-dormant state while digesting their food, the countless roots would have entangled and strangled you the moment you entered this hall. The tree is close to completing its digestion, so it’s best for you to leave this place quickly.”
Mo Yang looked at Feng Bing but showed no intention of moving his feet. “What are you two doing here? Are you waiting here while we leave and the tree awakens?” He looked at the hunched, ugly, and elderly man.
“And by the way, were you the one throwing stones at me twice? What were you trying to accomplish with those warnings?”
The man remained silent for a moment and then said, “I simply felt that with your face, you would undoubtedly be treated as a sacrifice for these two trees. I didn’t want these trees and Feng Zhao to become even stronger.”
“Furthermore, my intuition tells me that perhaps you can help us destroy these two demon trees.”
Mo Yang responded, “Demon trees? But aren’t they the sacred trees symbolizing the eternal love between the general and the beauty?”
Feng Bing immediately laughed coldly. The man patted Feng Bing’s hand reassuringly, and he shook his head. “In this world, what remains unchanged for a thousand years? Even the sea can turn into mulberry fields, let alone just two trees.”
“And, the unchanging love for a thousand years? It’s nothing but a series of betrayals.”
Mo Yang detected a melodramatic tone in the man’s words. “Oh? Could it be that my guess was right? The younger sister of that beauty truly plotted against her sister and took her place as the queen. And then the priests and villagers in your village, afraid that the emperor and queen would blame them if the phoenix trees withered and died, used this method of feeding people to the trees?”
“Tsk, in that case, how many people have these two trees consumed over a thousand years?”
The ugly man coughed a few times and looked at Mo Yang with an odd gaze. “Your speculations, though not entirely correct, are not far off.”
“Actually… the first one to betray was not the younger sister of the beauty, but the beauty herself.”
Mo Yang: “???” This twist I didn’t see coming. Wait, let me think. Then his expression became strange.
“Don’t tell me that beauty was chosen as the village’s holy handmaiden or something and was supposed to marry the priest?”
Feng Bing’s eyes flickered, and the man coughed a few more times. “Yes, that beauty’s name was Huang Huang. She was a handmaiden in the village and had an engagement with the priest, Zhao. But that woman, for the sake of wealth and status, disregarded her engagement with the priest and fled to the general. Did you think she fell in love with the general at first sight? No, she only saw in the general the potential to become the emperor who would rule the world, so she wanted to be the mother of that world.”
“If she had openly expressed her desire for wealth and status, Zhao wouldn’t have stopped her from leaving. At most, he would have taken back her handmaiden powers. But she wanted to have it all and instigated the general to plant two phoenix trees at the village entrance, forbidding the villagers from leaving under the threat of death.”
The man sneered, “That woman… deserved to be killed by her own younger sister in the end.”
Mo Yang: “…” So the epic love story I thought of, it turned out to be a deceitful conspiracy for wealth and status?
“In that case, how did these two trees end up like this? It can’t be that the resentment of the beauty caused them to turn into demons, right? Since the villagers dislike the trees planted by the beauty and the general, why didn’t they just cut them down or burn them? And what about that captive area of yours? It doesn’t seem like a good place. Can you explain?”
The man opened his mouth, about to speak, when suddenly a soft laughter echoed. Then, a person slowly emerged from behind the two giant trees.
It was Feng Zhao.
The man and Feng Bing’s faces turned pale upon seeing Feng Zhao, clearly not expecting the village’s priest to appear here. Feng Bing instinctively turned her head to look back, only to despairingly find that all the paths were blocked by the dense tangle of tree roots.
“Ling Shu, though knowledgeable, is old and in poor health. I’ll be the one to explain the details since you’re interested in listening,” said Feng Zhao, sitting down on a seat formed by the entwined roots at his command.
Feng Zhao rested his chin on his hand, seemingly reminiscing about events long ago.
“Huang Huang was a lovely girl. Because she was the most beautiful in the village, she was chosen as my wife from an early age.”
“Naturally, I also quite liked her. After all, she was innocent and romantic.”
“But the compliments from others gradually made her believe that her beautiful appearance was everything, that she could be forgiven for anything she did.”
“It also made her increasingly dissatisfied with this small village, and she wanted to see the bustling world outside. So she followed the general, and I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I was willing to let her go because, in a way, she belonged to me.”
Mo Yang looked at Feng Zhao, and a mythical beast roared within his heart. So this guy is a thousand-year-old cunning fox?
“Why did you still plot against her? She was a handmaiden, so she should have possessed special powers, right? Ordinary people shouldn’t be able to easily kill her unless it was someone she trusted.”
Feng Zhao chuckled lightly, “Ah Yang is indeed clever.”
“I said I was willing to let her leave. As long as she passed on the bloodline power of the handmaiden to her sister or any other eligible girl in the village, she could leave.”
“But human hearts are always insatiable. If she lost the power of the handmaiden, how could she help the general ascend to the throne and prove her indispensability? So she ordered the general to surround the entire village, and anyone who stepped out of the village would be ruthlessly killed by the soldiers.”
Feng Zhao’s voice gradually turned cold. “Furthermore, she feared that I would seek revenge after she left, so she poisoned me and stole the village’s precious treasure, the Phoenix Ring. That was her mistake.”
“So you had her sister kill her?”
Feng Zhao smiled. “Betrayal always deserves punishment.” He then turned to Feng Bing and Ling Shu. “Don’t you agree?”
Feng Bing couldn’t hold back her anger any longer and angrily confronted Feng Zhao. “Huang Huang betrayed you and the village. Her punishment was deserved! But you turned the Phoenix Trees into demonic trees for the sake of prolonging your life, continuously killing people to sustain yourself. You even control the entire village. Aren’t you afraid of divine retribution?!”
Feng Zhao seemed to find it amusing like he had heard a good joke.
“Ling Shu, it seems you didn’t tell Feng Bing the whole truth.”
Ling Shu’s face stiffened, and then Feng Zhao spoke to Feng Bing, “Bing’er, listen carefully. It wasn’t my desire to turn the Phoenix Trees into demonic trees for the sake of prolonging my life. It was the villagers who pleaded with me to do so.”
Feng Bing’s face instantly turned pale. “That’s impossible! You’re spouting nonsense!”
Feng Zhao, unperturbed, continued, “In reality, life doesn’t hold much meaning, especially when faced with foolish and ugly people. I can die, and there will always be a next high priest, but your ancestors, the former village chief, and the villagers believed that no one was more powerful than me. Only I could ensure the eternal prosperity of the village. So it was they who knelt and begged me to fulfill their desires.”
“During those turbulent times of war, considering that this place nurtured me, they sacrificed the soldiers guarding the village one after another as offerings and nourishment. I simply indulged them.”
“It’s just that human hearts are insatiable, you see.”
Feng Zhao caressed the two giant trees beside him. “Having peace, they longed for sustenance. Having sustenance, they aspired for wealth and glory. The Golden Phoenix flew out of Phoenix Village, bringing it a hundred years of prosperity and glory. After experiencing such wealth and glory, how could they willingly let it go?”
“So, Phoenix Village produces an exceptional beauty almost every hundred years, shining upon the entire clan.”
Feng Zhao seemed to mock Feng Bing, who couldn’t fully accept it, and asked with a smile, “So, do you think that the mesmerizing beauty, capable of enchanting emperors, can appear in Phoenix Village generation after generation?”
“This is a bloody glory built upon bloodshed and loss of lives.”
“No!”
“You’re lying!! The village chief, and my grandparents, weren’t like that!”
“Our village, our village produces beauties because of its pristine natural surroundings. It’s not… not…”
Feng Zhao scoffed lightly. “Then why did you act in secret?”
“Because you know very well that the villagers would never agree to destroy these two demonic trees and stop the killings.”
“Without these Phoenix Flowers nourished by lives and the Phoenix Flower sap created from life force, take a look at what this village would become.”
Feng Bing closed her eyes in immense pain, but Feng Zhao’s contemptuous smile grew even more pronounced. “Give up. You can’t change anything. It’s their own choice.”
As his words fell, the roots blocking the exit quietly dispersed. Unbeknownst to Feng Bing, the villagers of Phoenix Village had already gathered there. They approached silently, their eyes filled with manic, unabashed malice.
Mo Yang furrowed his brows, about to speak, when a thunderous roar resounded through the massive underground palace.
In an instant, the earth trembled.
Mo Yang: “???”
??!
Thank you for the chapter 💐
Changing clothes in front of your husband? Brave guy (gay)
Thank you for your translation 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
+1 lmao, Mo Yang is unbothered
The plot thickens…
I’m here for the drama~