Otherworldly Desert Dust

Wu Hen also fell into deep thought.

He hadn’t realized the burden of the host body’s original owner was so heavy; it was no wonder he had ventured into such a dangerous place.

"Do I have to catch the Ancient Dream Demon to allow the people in my city to survive?" Wu Hen murmured to himself.

"You might want to think about it yourself. Being too kind is just incompetence," said the straw raincoat-clad woman.

After speaking, the straw raincoat-clad woman stood up, looking like she was going to leave the warm tent. Just as she was about to take a step, she appeared to remember that this was her resting place and turned her gaze to Wu Hen, signaling that he could leave.

One would have thought the other party would stand up and return to the stable, but this Young City Lord, pushed to the brink, remained seated by the warm stove, drinking freshly made hot sheep’s milk, his body still in a relaxed posture.

"Would you like me to find you some bedding so you can spend the night here?" the straw raincoat-clad woman offered.

"If there’s some available, sure. It’s cold and damp outside."

"Leave at once!" the straw raincoat-clad woman said, raising her voice.

...

Wu Hen couldn’t understand why the straw raincoat-clad woman, who hadn’t treated him poorly, suddenly lost her temper.

He stepped out of the warm tent and glanced at the continuous night rain. @@novelbin@@

Suddenly, a swift surge of movement came from a tent nearby. Wu Hen’s hearing immediately captured it, like the strike of a venomous snake, and he instinctively dodged backward.

"Snap!" The heavy horsewhip cracked right before him, narrowly missing his cheek and sparing him from a whip mark!

Wu Hen stayed on guard, his gaze fixed on the dim area.

"I thought it was some thief sneaking into Miss Ruan’s tent, but with your kitchen staff getup, it certainly suits your demeanor," Jiang Jiutao said with malice as he looked at Wu Hen, withdrawing the whip in his hand but not relaxing his stance, ready to strike without warning.

"Lord Jiang," Wu Hen greeted simply, opting not to provoke the man for the time being.

Jiang Jiutao remained silent, eyes cold and disdainful as a wolf’s, staring at Wu Hen.

Wu Hen could feel the profound hostility and malice from the man, and without further words, he walked towards the stable after completing the greeting.

Upon reaching the stable, a rich scent of blood filled the air.

Wu Hen frowned.

He strode into the stable, only to discover the mangled corpse of a man.

Judging by the body size, it appeared to be Wang Rui.

Further inside the stable, Yang Qin, Luo Yuying, and Tian Jia Bao approached, rage in their eyes!

"Wang Rui is dead?" Wu Hen stared at the corpse in front of the stable, rather surprised.

"Yes, it was that Lord Jiang who did it. Not long after you left, he came here to inspect, and Wang Rui was lying on the straw of a warhorse. That Lord Jiang then took out his whip and whipped Wang Rui to death, meaning Wang Rui had dirtied the resting place of the warhorse and deserved death... Wang Rui wanted to explain, but that Lord Jiang seemed to be targeting us intentionally. There was no way out, so Wang Rui had to disconnect his consciousness from here first," Yang Qin described the incident briefly.

Yang Qin remained relatively calm.

Besides anger, Tian Jia Bao and Luo Yuying also had a hint of fear.

Such a small mistake resulted in beating a live man to death, so cruel and savage to the extreme.

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Wu Hen took a deep breath, suppressing the anger in his chest.

My dear brother was beaten to death like that!

No wonder that Lord Jiang had looked at him with such a strange look a moment ago; it turned out he had given him a "malicious gift."

"Wang Rui must have returned to his homeland, his virtual equipment likely damaged," Tian Jia Bao said.

"This damned bastard, relying on his bit of cultivation to treat us like animals," Luo Yuying cursed furiously.

"Worse than animals," Yang Qin said.

Wu Hen had thought that they were temporarily safe and could gather more information in this land, but in the blink of an eye, Wang Rui was gone.

Fortunately, they had entered as passersby; otherwise, Wang Rui’s death would have been too tragic, with a death by continuous whipping, a fate reserved for the extremely vicious.

"Should we leave?" Tian Jia Bao asked reasonably.

"If you feel uncomfortable, you could leave first; I have to avenge Wang Rui. This Lord Jiang must die!" Wu Hen declared.

Leaving now would make it difficult to find Jiang Jiutao again.

"Yes, we can’t just let this go. We can leave after collecting enough information," Yang Qin indicated.

"We have to avenge Wang Rui," Luo Yuying said.

"Good, let’s plan how to kill this Lord Jiang," Tian Jia Bao nodded, stirred into action.

"Our current strength put together probably wouldn’t even defeat his whip. Let’s first take stock of what we’ve got. Each of your host bodies’ original owners should have at least one identity. My host’s original owner is a Young City Lord, hereditary, but it seems he hasn’t inherited any special abilities," Wu Hen said.

"I seem to be a herbalist," Yang Qin said. "The wet clothes I had before were stitched with a beast skin book that recorded many uses for herbs, including recipes, and I also have some knowledge about herbs in my memory."

"I should be a kitchen maid, in charge of the meals," Tian Jia Bao said.

"I... I should be a horse keeper," Luo Yuying said.

An amateur troupe!

Wu Hen had thought the others would have special identities or possess some kind of abilities.

"However, we should all be from the same city, which might make our relationship closer, so we decided to band together at the Desolate Edge to look for the Ancient Dream Demon," Wu Hen said. "Our fates are pretty much tied together."

"That... Lord Wu Hen, I... I seem to know how to concoct poisons," Yang Qin said as she flipped through her book, adding a comment.

Hearing this, Wu Hen’s eyes lit up.

Knowing how to concoct poisons was very good indeed.

Given their current situation, using poison was the best way to challenge those above their level.

"We can poison that bastard. I’ll find a chance to get to the kitchen and mix the poison into his food!" Tian Jia Bao said. If she was a kitchen maid, it would be easy for her to access the food.

"I’ve been to the Kitchen Camp. They guard the food very strictly there. Before it leaves the pot, they even make the kitchen staff taste it. If we want to poison someone, we’d have to poison the kitchen staff first," Wu Hen said.

"Then where should we put the poison?" Yang Qin asked.

"The best thing would be to put it on the dining utensils. People with even slightly higher status all have their own personal utensils," Wu Hen suggested.

After he said this, Luo Yuying’s eyes immediately brightened. She looked at the horse that Jiang Jiutao had gone to feed earlier and said, "His horse has a spare water bag. We could put the poison on that, and as long as we can find a way to make him drink from the spare, that would do."

"What if we find a way to damage his personal water bottle, so he has to drink the water from the spare?" Yang Qin said.

"Exactly, exactly! We poison his spare water bag tonight, and then find a chance to damage his water bottle tomorrow... The rainwater here doesn’t seem drinkable directly, and he certainly won’t drink from the dirty ground water, so he’d have to drink from the spare," Luo Yuying said.

"That’s not a good idea either," Wu Hen still shook his head and said, "If my water bottle were damaged, I wouldn’t foolishly drink from the spare, especially since someone killed my companion who was looking after the horses last night. It’s too obvious a ploy, and in the end result, we all four would be dead."

"We can’t just let it go like that, I can’t swallow this grievance!" Tian Jia Bao said.

"Luo Yuying, aren’t you a kitchen maid? Poisoning won’t work in the kitchen, but changing the taste of the food isn’t hard for you. Even if the kitchen staff tastes something off, they’re unlikely to throw the food out, so what you need to do is simple..." Wu Hen said.

Luo Yuying caught on at once!

Right, they didn’t necessarily have to damage the other party’s personal water bottle. As long as he drank all the water in his personal water bottle, he would drink from the spare.

Besides, normal people wouldn’t think about being poisoned; they would just curse the stupid kitchen staff for making the meal too salty!

"They’ve all come so far to the Desolate Edge. The food and clean water they carry with them is limited, but this plan has some randomness to it and might not succeed," Yang Qin said.

In the Otherworldly Dust, none of the wild food was drinkable directly; it all needed purification.

That was the case for the Rain Curtain Land too. They could only consume the food they carried, and even if it was a bit spoiled, they’d probably have to eat it since it was better than eating food tainted by the otherworldly evil spirits.

"The more we aim for a 100% chance to poison, the easier it is to be exposed. Simply put, we’re gambling on probability. If we succeed, we make a killing. If we fail, there’s no loss to us and we can move on to the next plan," Wu Hen said.

Poisoning was a good plan, but not the only plan.

Playing the long game, if they didn’t get it done the first time, they could try a second, third, fourth...

After all, as long as one of them remained hidden here, they stood a high chance of getting rid of Jiang Jiutao.

"Okay, let’s proceed with this plan." The three nodded in agreement, indicating they would go along with Wu Hen’s arrangements.

...

...

At home, in a private room of a virtual club in Silver Dome City,

Wang Rui angrily removed his virtual helmet.

The virtual helmet had completely malfunctioned and turned into scrap, hardly worth recycling. After all, the expensive part of a virtual helmet was the Virtual Chip inside it, which required a Yuan You Fragment.

With the current level of human productivity, the price of virtual helmets was soaring. Ever since they’d entered Otherworldly Dust, the price of virtual helmets had doubled.

Fortunately, Wang Rui had the foresight to buy enough early on.

"That damn stray dog, just wait, I swear by my surname Wang I’ll kill you!" Wang Rui had already memorized the face of that guy.

With no abilities in the guest version, so Wang Rui planned to enter Otherworldly Dust in soul state and then summon his Mechanical Beast to crush Jiang Jiutao into pulp!

"Eh, they’re still in there?" Wang Rui glanced back at his classmates and saw Wu Hen and the three girls lying there, their eyes moving rapidly beneath their eyelids, as if plotting something in the world inside.

"Could it be they’re planning to avenge me?" Wang Rui stroked his newly sprouting chin stubble, guessing.

The guest version couldn’t transmit any messages, not even through Yuan You.

Wang Rui could only wait, wait for them to log off.