Qi Xia seemed to have turned the page on the matter. He walked forward on his own, refusing to answer any questions posed by Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin.
It was as if he had briefly opened up his heart, only to seal it shut again almost immediately, leaving behind nothing but that icy exterior.
The three of them continued eastward in silence. After walking for about an hour, the towering buildings around them had disappeared, replaced by rows of low, squat houses. Strangely enough, there were quite a few natives here as well, moving about in a daze, repeating the same motions over and over like machines.
Roughly an hour and a half later, they no longer saw any “Zodiacs” around them—only the occasional native. Another half hour passed, and even the natives became a rare sight.
Beyond the cracked, abandoned road beneath their feet, all that surrounded them was barren land. Yet this wasteland was different from those in the real world—there were no overgrown weeds, just bare, lifeless soil.
“Don’t you think there’s very little plant life here?” Qi Xia suddenly asked.
The other two glanced around indifferently, finding his observation oddly specific.
Given that even the people here weren’t normal, did it really matter if the land wasn’t lush with vegetation?
“Not really that strange,” Chen Junnan replied. “Would anything even survive here? The sun in the sky is bizarre, the air reeks of rot—hardly ideal conditions for plants.”
Qi Xia nodded and fell silent again. The group trudged on for another ten or so minutes, fatigue creeping in, when they finally spotted a house in the distance.
It was a low, ramshackle structure made entirely of wood, its surface weathered and cracked like wrinkles, looking particularly grotesque under the setting sun of the “Land of the End.”
They walked a few hundred meters closer and noticed crude fencing behind the house, pieced together from scrap metal and wood. Inside the enclosure was a horrifying sight.
Dozens of “scarecrows” stood upright.
But calling them “scarecrows” didn’t quite fit—upon closer inspection, each one was subtly twitching, their eyes even shifting from side to side.
These were no ordinary scarecrows.
In this small farm, dozens of wooden crosses stood, each one binding a “native” with their arms outstretched and tied to the horizontal beams, leaving them as immobile as actual scarecrows.
Then came the “crops” in the field.
The soil was studded with severed limbs, arranged neatly as if meticulously tended to.
The farm had clearly been carefully cultivated—the earth was tilled, and the ground around each limb was moist, as if freshly watered.
Some of the limbs had already dried out and blackened, their surfaces wrinkled like dead wood, while others looked freshly severed, still vibrant in color and dripping with blood.
A faint breeze carried the farm’s nauseating stench straight into their nostrils.
“I… *Dang it!*” Qiao Jiajin’s lips trembled slightly. “Trickster… Handsome Guy… have we just walked into hell?”
“This place has always been hell,” Qi Xia replied coldly. “No matter what someone does here… it’s considered normal.”
Chen Junnan swallowed hard at the sight. “This feels really bad… This guy’s completely lost it. He’s way crazier than he was seven years ago. Are we seriously just going to knock and have a friendly chat?”
“Just based on this, yeah, he’s completely insane,” Qi Xia said. “Chu Tianqiu seems downright gentle in comparison.”
“Those two are about the same level of crazy…” Chen Junnan muttered, frowning.
He recalled waking up this time in Chu Tianqiu’s basement, filled with bloodstained animal masks and the severed heads of “Zodiacs.” The grotesque scene, reeking in the damp darkness, had been just as horrifying as this farm.
“So… do we knock?” Qiao Jiajin ventured.
“Uh…” Chen Junnan scratched his head, genuinely stumped. Did they even need to knock when dealing with a madman like this?
As the three hesitated at the entrance, the wooden door of the house creaked open. A gaunt figure stepped out, clutching a rusted metal watering can.
“Is that him?” Qi Xia asked.
“Yeah…” Chen Junnan nodded, eyeing the thin, middle-aged man. “He hasn’t changed at all.”
Wei Yang, standing some distance away, had clearly noticed the three of them. His expression froze momentarily before he straightened up, watering can in hand, and locked eyes with them in a silent standoff for a good ten seconds.
Then, slowly, he parted his lips and uttered two hoarse words:
“Impressive.”
Only then did Qi Xia notice that Wei Yang’s features were actually quite symmetrical—he might’ve been handsome in his youth. But time had carved deep lines into his face, and the “Land of the End” had gifted him with a deranged glint in his eyes.
Now, standing just a dozen steps away, he exuded an eerie aura so unsettling that even Qi Xia hesitated to approach him.
When the trio remained silent, Wei Yang slowly bent down, set the watering can behind him, pressed a hand to his abdomen, and gave them a disturbingly polite bow. Then he turned and walked toward his “fields.”
Baffled by the gesture, Qi Xia muttered under his breath, “He recognized us.”
“Most likely,” Chen Junnan agreed. “He’s always been the kind of snake who smiles before striking.”
Wei Yang, his back now turned, strode into the field with his watering can. He crouched to inspect the severed limbs, dusted them off with his fingers, and then poured liquid over them.
Only then did the three realize that what he was sprinkling wasn’t water—it was thick, blackened blood.
The viscous fluid oozed from the can in sticky strands, dripping onto the limbs and making the already horrifying scene even more grotesque.
“*Hmm hmm hmm~*” Wei Yang began humming an old tune—one that felt vaguely familiar, though none of them could place it. He moved through the field like a diligent farmer, watering each “crop” while softly singing to himself.
“Night’s coming. We can’t wait any longer,” Qi Xia said, suppressing his disgust. “I’ll go talk to him.”
Just as he took a step forward, Wei Yang suddenly spoke up, as if to himself:
“I’m not going…”
“What…?”
“Rebelling against the ‘Heavenly Dragon,’ destroying the ‘Land of the End’—that sort of thing… I’m not going.” Wei Yang finished watering, checked the “crops,” then turned back with a wide grin. “If you want to die, go ahead… but don’t drag me into it.”
With that, he wiped his cheek with his hand, smearing a streak of dark red blood across his face.
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