Favorite of the Beast-world: I Got Rich Through Farming-Chapter 354 - 235: The Goddess Sent by the Beast God and Seeking Ze Sheng
Their minds were in sync, and she knew Ling Hong wanted to kill them on the spot to prevent any future trouble.
Although these people were clearly hostile, aside from the Mermaid at the very beginning, they hadn’t caused her any real harm. Their crime wasn’t punishable by death.
Besides, they were just pawns, coerced by the person pulling the strings.
That was why An Jin didn’t agree with killing them outright.
But she absolutely couldn’t let them go, either. As long as the slave seeds remained in their bodies, they would be forced to obey the mastermind’s orders and would never give up on kidnapping her.
"Where are the slave seeds?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮
The men stared blankly for a moment before answering honestly, "They’re implanted in the tissue near our hearts."
"If we fail our mission, the slave seeds will burrow into our hearts. They’ll start there, then move to our limbs, devouring us from the inside out until nothing is left..."
The shrewd Old Beastman, who had clearly seen much of the world, gazed intently at An Jin. Though his eyes were cloudy, the emotion within them was exceptionally clear. His palms, wrinkled like old bark, were slick with cold sweat, and his expression was an unreadable mix of hope and apprehension.
He had long heard that the City Lord of this city was a female of outstanding ability. The Beastmen of the surrounding tribes even called her a Goddess sent by the Beast God, whose medical skills could save a Beastman from the brink of death.
’Could she...’
"I can try to remove the slave seeds from your bodies. If I succeed, you’ll have to do something for me." An Jin’s gaze swept over the Beastmen, whose eyes had suddenly lit up. "But I have to be clear: I can’t guarantee you’ll survive. Are you willing?"
"The moment those things were implanted, we lost the right to live a decent life! If you can really remove these damn slave seeds, we’ll do anything you ask!"
...
Inside the infirmary, five stone beds were occupied. On each lay a Beastman with his limbs restrained, his chest wrapped in blood-stained white bandages.
Ling Hong was at An Jin’s side, assisting her by washing bandages, sterilizing blades, changing the water, and preparing medicines.
Chi Li, meanwhile, was compounding the most effective anesthetic for her.
The sun sank in the west, and the sky outside the window gradually darkened. The boisterous sounds of the working Beastmen faded as most returned home to light their fires and cook dinner.
"Whew..." An Jin wiped the cold sweat from her face and handed the bloodied scalpel back to Ling Hong. Once it was clean, she took it back and deftly made an incision in the chest of the Beastman on the table.
Fortunately, the slave seeds were located in the muscle near the heart, but not directly adjacent to it. In their inactive state, they remained dormant.
When the Beastmen were anesthetized, the slave seeds were also rendered unconscious, which made the procedure much easier.
With over thirty people to practice on, An Jin’s technique quickly went from amateurish to proficient.
She located the parasite, and with a flick of her scalpel, she pried out the soybean-sized black worm along with a small piece of tissue and tossed it into a nearby basin.
The basin was half-filled with a specially prepared corrosive solution.
By the end of the day, the bottom of the face-sized stone basin was covered with a layer of dead slave seed carcasses.
"There, that’s all of them." ’This went much more smoothly than I expected,’ she thought. ’I was worried these things would scurry all over the body like in the movies.’
Many of the Beastmen who had undergone the procedure earlier were beginning to wake from the anesthesia.
They looked at their tightly bandaged chests and couldn’t resist reaching up to touch them. HISS. It was painful, but they could clearly feel that *that thing* was gone.
In other words, they could finally go back to their old lives! They would never again be controlled by that monster!
"M-Ma’am... what do you need us to do?" Though they had just awoken and their bodies were still weak, their faces shone with immense joy and gratitude as they looked at An Jin with profound excitement.
"We don’t want to go back to that horrible city! Other than that, we’ll do anything!"
An Jin shook her head. "I don’t need you to go back. But since your mission failed, the mastermind behind this won’t give up. He will continue to send more Beastmen in secret."
Although she had already taken numerous precautions, it was impossible to guard against a complete madman.
He would surely find other ways to plant spies near her.
Therefore, she needed these few dozen men to form a secret team dedicated to rooting out any future "spies."
After all, no one was more familiar with the trade than those who had been "spies" themselves.
She then asked the Beastmen for information about the "mastermind," but their answers were vague. They were merely low-level operatives sent out on a mission, so they knew very little.
She was in the open while her enemy hid in the shadows. The saying goes, ’know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated,’ but her knowledge of her foe was pitifully scarce.
Back in her room, An Jin’s gaze swept casually over the Conch Shell hanging on the wall. She stopped in her tracks, a flicker of understanding in her eyes.
’That’s it.’
’How could I have forgotten my readily available "encyclopedia"?!’
She walked over and took down the Conch Shell.
She channeled her spiritual power into it.
Golden and purple runes suddenly swirled across the surface of the once-dull Conch Shell.
A moment later, a voice as gentle and intoxicating as fine wine drifted from it:
"...Ah Jin?"
’The Conch Shell was answered instantly? What a coincidence.’ An Jin was so surprised she couldn’t speak for a moment.
Hearing a few seconds of silence, Ze Sheng sounded slightly puzzled, but he couldn’t hide the anticipation in his voice. "Has something happened? Is there anything I can help you with?"
"You... haven’t been waiting all this time, have you?" She didn’t know why she asked such a question; it felt like a subconscious slip.
"No, I just happened to hear it," he replied cheerfully after a two-second pause.
"Oh, good." She let out a sigh of relief. ’I’m so weird,’ she thought. ’Why did I ask such a ridiculous question?’
’Ze Sheng is the King Beast, ruler of the Ten Thousand Beasts. His daily life must be incredibly busy. How could he possibly spend all day waiting by a Conch Shell?’ An Jin decided to get straight to the point to avoid taking up too much of his time.
She didn’t tell Ze Sheng that she had been the target of a kidnapping attempt from the Beast Slave King City. He wasn’t an acquaintance she trusted completely, so she didn’t want to reveal too much. She simply stated that she and the Beast Slave King City had recently had some friction over trade.
She wanted to learn what she could from him about that Royal City.
"Most of the Beastmen around you wouldn’t know about this Royal City. That’s normal. Anyone who knew about it has likely already been turned into a slave by its City Lord, so you wouldn’t have met them."
"Who is its City Lord?" she asked.
"Plague Slave. He’s a..." The gentle voice from the Conch Shell paused, then gave a soft, placating chuckle. "I don’t think you’d want to learn about him. For a female, well... he can be somewhat terrifying."
After weighing his words, Ze Sheng chose "terrifying" as a relatively mild term, though he wasn’t sure if it was truly fitting.
The being was a "monster" born from a mutation, one who enjoyed mating with highly fertile females of various races. The offspring he produced were called slave seeds—a type of insect that could control people.
’To think Ah Jin would have a trade dispute with someone like that... what terrible luck.’ After all, Plague Slave was an exceptionally vengeful Beastman; it was highly likely he would come seeking revenge.
"But don’t worry," Ze Sheng reassured her. "Once the rainy season begins, and during the cold season a few months after that, Plague Slave will enter a long hibernation to consolidate his reproductive power. You can rest easy for now."
"If he truly comes to cause trouble for you, you can tell me. Don’t worry about being a bother." ’I can help her kill him,’ he thought. ’It would be a simple matter.’
’Though that disgusting creature is admittedly a bit tricky to deal with.’
