When system cheat becomes rampant!

The elderly woman in a hemp garment staggered in the alley, the iron bucket in her hand in no way affecting her pace. She was dressed snugly, wrapped in a large cotton-padded coat, and had a thick grey scarf around her neck that looked as dusty as a rag.

The hand holding the bucket wore a pair of grey gloves that seemed to be made of snake skin and were quite new, as if recently purchased, but they bore some deep red stains like dried blood, along with some bluish spots, perhaps something like bile.

Except for her aged head, the old woman was wrapped snugly from head to toe.

Pedestrians hurried past her on the street, frowning as they glanced at her and then at the bucket in her hands, noticing the stench coming from it and covering their noses. She seemed not to care, simply stretching out her hand to cover the exposed part of the bucket with a grey cloth.

Xiang Beifei had been following her from behind, appearing like an ordinary passerby, all the while observing the elderly woman's system log, trying to Learn more about her past. However, he soon discovered something unusual.

The elderly woman's system log could only be traced back to May 15, 3023.

That was about eight years ago.

And the first entry in the system read:

[Beginner's Task: Please tailor a book cover for the system's compendium. Reward: A pair of scissors]

Wait a minute! A beginner's task?

Normally, only newly awakened systems issued beginner's tasks. Was the old lady someone who had just awakened her system eight years ago?

"Or perhaps--"

A bizarre thought crossed Xiang Beifei's mind.

His gaze on the old woman grew extremely solemn.

Carrying the bucket, the old woman left the crowded alley. This was beyond the wholesale market street, near a dilapidated residential area where most employees who worked in the wholesale market lived for convenience.

The houses were makeshift shanties made of crude industrial boards, irregular and vastly decrepit, their windows even deformed, sealed with yellow transparent tape. Some of the houses were container homes, with clothes lines strung directly across the roadside poles if there was no place to hang laundry.

The old woman bypassed a row of clotheslines beside some container houses and walked towards a grove of trees. The area was becoming less populated, hardly any houses around, just a few crude stone buildings without doors, seemingly uninhabited.

The surroundings were filled only with gnarled banyan trees, lush and large, but their thick canopies blocked out the light, casting a somewhat ominous shadow.

She approached a crude shanty, its roof covered with sheet metal, painted blue, much of the paint peeled away, revealing blackened rust streaked with yellow. The roof also bore some tattered cloth and soda cans, corroded by years of rainwater and left unattended.

Two lush banyan trees obscured the shanty, making the lighting very dim. Standing under the trees, a cool breeze blew, rustling the leaves on the ground gently.

The old woman, unaware of anyone following her, carried the bucket towards the dilapidated shanty. The wooden door of the shanty appeared nearly unhinged, secured only by a chain that was not locked. She pushed open the door and the chain rattled loudly, the sound eerily resonating through the woods.

After entering, she slowly closed the wooden door, and the chain clanged again, sounding distinctly clear in the quiet forest.

Xiang Beifei stood behind a tree near the shanty, surveying the surroundings.@@novelbin@@

"Living alone in such a secluded place, it's quite sinister."

He noticed several bamboo poles beside the shanty with strings of black objects hanging from them. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be intestines of some kind of desolate beast, dried to a dark hue and exuding a pungent smell, with flies constantly buzzing around.

Since arriving here, a strange odor had pervaded the air, as if something was rotting, continuously drifting out from the shanty. The shanty was leaning to one side, definitely a hazardous building, its surface smeared with some black substance akin to blood traces, making the hut seem even more sinister.

Xiang Beifei walked a few steps beside the shanty, spotting a vegetable patch on the side, long abandoned and overrun with waist-high weeds. These plants thrived abundantly, exuding a black aura as if constantly under the influence of some dark energy.

He frowned slightly, since normally, such dark grass could only be seen in the wild lands outside the domain. Jiuzhou rarely harbored such peculiar grasses.

Xiang Beifei carefully parted the tall weeds, the pungent smell growing stronger, forcing him to hold his breath. Approaching closer, he discovered a large pit ahead with countless insects crawling along its edge. The insects, dark and numerous, were a kind of black ladybug.

The ladybugs, countless in number, cloaked the area with a dark aura, occasionally emitting a buzzing sound. Xiang Beifei, not wanting to alert anything prematurely, lightly stepped onto his flying sword and ascended to the treetops, peering into the pit.

The pit was littered with the bones of various desolate beasts!

The creatures seemed as if they had been torn apart, their bodies chopped in half, leaving only skeletons. The black ladybugs crawled over these skeletons, encasing them, as if building nests or perhaps gnawing at them.

"What is this for?"

Xiang Beifei watched with surprise. Were the skeletons of the desolate beasts being used to cultivate something by dumping them here?

As he watched, a noise suddenly came from a window of the shanty.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The old woman's mud-like face appeared at the glass window, rhythmically tapping against it with her fingers.

As the frequency of her tapping varied, a "sush" sound started emerging from the hole in the ground, and the skeletons covered by the ladybugs seemed to begin writhing, as if something was trying to crawl out from underneath.

Whoosh!

A tender, young hand reached out from beneath a pile of bones!

It was a child's hand, slender and pale, with black ladybugs crawling up the arm.

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Whoosh!

Another hand stretched out from the pile of bones, followed by a frail little girl emerging from beneath.

"Grandma is calling me,"

The little girl appeared to be no older than seven or eight. She was covered in ladybugs, but they weren't nibbling at her. Instead, they quickly crawled off her. She giggled and leapt up from the edge of the pit.

The old woman stopped tapping on the window and swiftly turned, disappearing into the shadowy interior of the house.

"I'll play with you guys later,"

The little girl squatted at the pit's edge, grinning at the black ladybugs.

Her smile was stiff, and she was missing two front teeth, as though she was at the age for losing baby teeth. She also held a grimy teddy bear, whose chest was torn open, revealing not cotton but dark black ladybugs inside.

Clutching her teddy bear, the little girl ran toward a side door behind the shed and quickly disappeared through it, entering the house.

Xiang Beifei stood atop a tree, watching the little girl's retreating figure in astonishment.

He couldn't be sure whether the girl was human since children didn't have an Awakening System and therefore lacked a system interface. But he could tell there was life in her, though it was faint and seemed suppressed, as if it might be snuffed out at any moment.

A little girl who could frolic among a heap of black ladybugs didn't look like a normal person.

"Giggle, giggle, giggle!"

The shed echoed with the girl's laughter.

Click! Click! Click!

Along with the laughter, there was a strange sound that was harsh and grating, making it extremely uncomfortable to listen to.

A side door behind the shed was left open; the little girl had just gone through it. There was a trail of dark stains on the ground, extending from the door to the big pit, possibly bloodstains formed over years of dragging desolate beasts' corpses, creating a rather startling sight.

"I need to check it out,"

Jumping down from the treetop, Xiang Beifei cautiously approached the side door.

The house was musty, but there was also a mix of smells like machine oil and even a strange fragrance. All these scents combined into a chaotic mixture, reminiscent of a muddled soup—difficult to imagine anyone living in such a disheartening setting.

After a moment's reflection, he stepped inside the shed.

It may have been his imagination, but the moment he entered, the light seemed to dim and a chilling atmosphere enveloped the area. Visibility dropped as he walked further in. The floor was dirt, compressed by footsteps, covered in slimy moss.

As he continued inside, the sound diminished; it seemed that the outside wind couldn't penetrate here, but the "creak, creak" from within grew ever clearer.

Many tools were stored along the walls inside—scythes and axes, apparently stained with blood. There were also fragments of bone in the corners.

Xiang Beifei was highly perceptive, and he felt as if something hidden were watching him, making his skin crawl.

This seemed to be the back hall of the shed, with a door leading to the front hall. The door was only covered by a ragged cloth, resembling a curtain. The cloth was so decayed it fluttered slightly, and the "creak, creak" sound was coming from behind it.

Xiang Beifei stepped forward, intending to quietly check on the other side.

But before he took even two steps, suddenly—

Drip!

Something like a drop of water fell from above, and almost instinctually, he sidestepped, the droplet barely missing the corner of his eye.

As the substance passed by his nose, he quickly detected a metallic, bloody smell.

This was not water, but a drop of blood!

He abruptly looked up!

And then his breath hitched!

On the dim rafters above, there hung numerous eerie eyeballs, as if someone had plucked them out with the arteries and hung them mid-air, each sinisterly fixed on Xiang Beifei below!