Chapter 270 : Blood Scent
A youth suddenly disappeared from the tribe, and it happened during his watch. Would the tribe strengthen its defenses at night?
Actually, no.
Although the natives were formidable and seemingly coexisted with the island's spirit beasts, those outside one's tribe would always harbor different intentions. Neither the natives nor the beasts had truly lowered their guard against each other or achieved genuine peace. Occasionally, a tribe member wandering alone would be snatched away by a spirit beast, never to return—this wasn't particularly rare.
Indeed, there was now an additional group of outsiders on Merperson Island, but those cultivators had become terrifyingly weak after losing their spiritual energy. Not to mention they couldn't possibly abduct someone near the tribe without making a sound, and given their pace, they couldn't have reached the tribe's vicinity so early.
Thus, the youth captured by Zhong Heng and the others was simply presumed taken by a spirit beast, and his death was already accepted. While spirit beasts might snatch an individual native, they wouldn't easily attack the entire tribe. Not only would they gain nothing good from it, but the current timing was also delicate, unsuitable for internal conflict.
For these various reasons, after observing the tribe from outside for a long while, Jiang Mo and her companions finally confirmed that the tribe's defenses remained unchanged. With the belief that matters should be handled sooner rather than later, they decided to act tonight.
The sunset quickly faded in the west, and twilight began to envelop the land. Before they knew it, night had deepened.
Once night fell on the island, it seemed to become the domain of spirit beasts again. Though few beasts dared approach the native tribe, various sounds from the distance continuously reached the ears of Jiang Mo's group. However, tonight the cultivators on the island had clearly made preparations, so apart from the disturbances caused by spirit beasts, there were few human voices.
After confirming no spirit beasts were nearby, the three didn't dwell on this matter. They focused on the distant tribe, silently lurking until midnight, then finally began to slowly approach.
The island's natives possessed great strength, but their power stemmed from their physical bodies, not from absorbing spiritual energy like cultivators. Because of this, the two groups differed greatly in both cultivation methods and lifestyle.
For instance, cultivators could abstain from food, but these natives needed more flesh and blood to provide energy and temper their bodies. Similarly, as cultivators' realms increased, their lifespans grew tremendously, yet natives lived little longer than ordinary people—two hundred years at most. Additionally, cultivators could seclude themselves for years or even decades without issue, while natives followed the rhythm of rising with the sun and resting at sunset.
It was because of these habits that, as night deepened, the natives patrolling around the tribe gradually relaxed their vigilance due to fatigue.
The White Tiger was originally a feline, and after transforming into human form, Jiang Mo's movements were more nimble than her two companions. The three had agreed to avoid disturbing the tribe's inhabitants if possible, so she took the lead, advancing at the forefront.
In her mind, the system's voice came through: "Host, wait, wait two more seconds, go..."
Although the system had little use since they arrived on the island, when it came to calculations and predictions, no plugin was better than the system. Following its instructions, she leaped over the fence surrounding the tribe with a single bound, then crouched down to hide. Just a second after she hid, the nearest patrolling native happened to look in her direction but saw nothing.
Jiang Mo breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't attack the native, though she was confident she could kill him with a single strike if caught off guard. But killing someone now would only alert others. So she waited until the timing was right and the system confirmed it was safe, then waved to her two companions.
Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue slipped in one after another. None of them spoke, and after a gesture, they split up.
They had come to rescue people today, but besides that, they also wanted to investigate the tribe's secrets. Therefore, before entering the tribe, they had already planned that after getting in, they would separate—Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue would rescue the people, while Jiang Mo would explore the tribe. Yun Qingyue initially disagreed with this arrangement, but since Jiang Mo was stronger than the two of them, it was reasonable.
The three went their separate ways, instantly disappearing into the night.
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
After parting with the two, Jiang Mo was on her own.
With the continuous changes these past days, she had been focused on surviving with her Senior Sister, leaving many matters uninvestigated and unaddressed. Now, as she moved lightly toward the depths of the tribe, she asked the system in her mind: "System, regarding that previous task of finding the merperson—so far, apart from hearing singing, we haven't seen even a shadow of a merperson. Where should we look now?"
The system had no answer for this and could only comfort its host: "The sinking of the ghost ship is related to the merperson. He was the one who had the big fish bring you to this island. He definitely won't ignore the situation; he'll show himself sooner or later."
Jiang Mo thought this made sense. She wasn't worried about completing system tasks like finding someone.
After a few exchanges, with no one around, the system transformed into a ball of light and emerged. Though it wasn't very useful now, and its basic scanning function had become unreliable due to the absence of the merperson and ghost ship, it fortunately emitted light. In the deep night, it provided illumination for its host without worry of being seen.
Thus, person and system began exploring the tribe. Excluding some simple huts, she would peek into any structure that looked special. However, this tribe was truly primitive—even the occasional special-looking houses, upon inspection, simply housed slightly wealthier families.
Soon, Jiang Mo had explored the entire simple tribe but found nothing. She had no choice but to rejoin the others.
Earlier, while observing from the tree, the three had noticed an especially large house at the center of the native tribe. At first, they thought it belonged to some important figure, but after seeing Tan Xin and others being escorted inside, they realized it was actually a prison.
Later, they confirmed this with the captured native youth—the large building was indeed a detention facility.
The three's main purpose tonight was to rescue people, so after splitting up, Jiang Mo went exploring while Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue headed directly to the central building. Either the natives were careless or overconfident, as the two found no guards outside. They easily slipped in and prepared to wait for Jiang Mo to join them as planned.
Of course, after learning the status of the captives, how bewildered they became is another matter. At least when entering the tribe and making plans, none of the three had anticipated such a predicament.
Jiang Mo's movements weren't slow, and she didn't arrive late. After pushing open the door, she said to everyone: "Let's go."
However, no one responded, including Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue, who didn't join the action.
Jiang Mo immediately sensed something was wrong and asked: "What's the matter?"
Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue both looked displeased. Before coming to rescue the captives, they had anticipated that the natives would have special methods to contain a group of cultivators, rather than simply throwing them into a house. They might have used chains to imprison them or fed them drugs to prevent escape.
They had guessed correctly, but only partly—these natives had unusual methods. They had drugged the captives, but the result was a state of idiocy. Most people were in this condition. They couldn't even communicate with them, let alone lead them away!
Zhong Heng and Yun Qingyue were worried about this. The impatient Zhong Heng had even slapped a few people, but failed to wake them up.
Now that Jiang Mo had arrived, the two didn't delay and quickly explained the situation. After hearing this, Jiang Mo felt overwhelmed. She could use her innate space to carry all these people, but how could a divine beast's innate space be entered casually? Not to mention she was still wearing a flimsy vest. Even without that issue, she wouldn't easily agree.
"What do we do now? We don't have much time, we must leave," Zhong Heng said anxiously.
Jiang Mo asked: "How did they become like this?"
Tan Xin joined his palms and explained: "I heard it was from drinking water provided by the tribe."
Hearing this, Jiang Mo inwardly grumbled about such bizarre water. She walked to the wall and brought over a bucket of clear water. In the darkness of night, thankfully the system's light was enough for her to see the condition of the water bucket.
The bucket was still quite full, evidently prepared for Tan Xin and the others. The natives probably never expected that Tan Xin would have methods to wake someone, revealing the truth—naturally, no one dared touch the water after that... Under the system's light, the water in the bucket was crystal clear, showing no signs of tampering or the murkiness of drugged water.
She dipped her finger in the water, first bringing it to her nose to smell, then frowned and was about to taste it. However, before she could, a pale hand grabbed her, and her Senior Sister's questioning voice sounded beside her ear: "What are you doing?!"
Jiang Mo paused, and meeting her Senior Sister's disapproving gaze, she instantly became sheepish. She weakly said: "I noticed this water has a peculiar smell, somewhat like blood but not entirely, so I wanted to try..."
Hearing the explanation, Yun Qingyue's expression didn't soften. Instead, she pulled Jiang Mo's hand and brought it near her own nose. She sniffed carefully and indeed detected a faint, almost imperceptible blood scent—so faint that it would be impossible to notice unless this close. Zhong Heng, seeing their actions, also joined in, though he dipped his own finger in the water to smell, saying: "I don't smell anything special."
With this statement, many others agreed, all saying they had checked but found nothing unusual—if there had been something wrong, the cultivators captured earlier wouldn't have dared drink this water. It was precisely because they found nothing that they eventually fell victim.
Yun Qingyue and Jiang Mo paused at these words, but seeing everyone's sincerity, they exchanged glances, finding the situation quite peculiar.
Among the captured cultivators were those with relatively high cultivation, yet they had detected nothing. Why were only the two of them different?