Chapter 315: Chapter 284 Xu Ling_1

“Big sister Ling Ling, will anyone come to save us?”

The children looked at Xu Ling with hopeful eyes, but Xu Ling didn’t know how to respond.

Rescue, definitely no one would come to save them. She once heard from her parents that this is a closed space, apart from the high and mighty figures in the central palace, no one could leave this place.

But if she told them the truth, these little ones, just like her, born here, would likely sink into complete despair.

“Certainly! Don’t you worry! As long as we hold on for a while longer, someone will come to save us!”

Xu Ling’s face broke into a smile, as if she was filled with hope for the future.

Seeing her in such high spirits, the children were slightly reassured.

“Time to eat!”

A young man, as skinny as a pole, walked into the dungeon and took bundles of Yinming flowers from his storage bag, shoving them into different cells like feeding pigs.

Inside the cells, apart from children around eight or nine years old like themselves, there were also quite a few adults. Compared to the hopeful children, these adults were lifeless and appeared to be waiting for death.

“Big sister Ling Ling, I don’t want to eat this!”

A little boy looked at the Yinming flowers in front of him with a resistant expression.

“I’ll choose some for you!”

Xu Ling picked two Yinming flowers that weren’t fully mature yet and whose Yin energy was not so heavy, and offered them to the boy, but he smacked them away.

“I won’t eat! I won’t eat!” the boy shouted angrily.

“Then just wait a bit longer to eat!”

Xu Ling didn’t insist further.

She was related to the boy by blood, as his cousin, so she always took good care of him, but her care had simply become the currency of his tantrums.

In the current situation, she wasn’t inclined to say more. He would naturally eat if he was hungry enough.

The young boy sat obstinately in the corner, watching as everyone picked up a Yinming flower and ground it into a pulp before swallowing it, like taking medicine. He couldn’t help clenching his fists.

After eating, everyone sat down in practiced way to expel the Yin energy within their bodies.

Though the Yinming flower is a tier-one spiritual medicine, long-term consumption in large quantities will still accumulate extensive Yin energy in the body. If not promptly eliminated or dispelled, the body will quickly deteriorate.

They were merely at the Qi Cultivation Stage of cultivation, and no matter how much they tried to dispel the Yin energy, some would always remain. With the accumulation over time, death is inevitable; it’s just a matter of time.

But they had no other choices. Yinming flowers were basically the only edible thing here.

Higher tier spiritual medicines would just make them die faster.

In the past, individuals from the palace would send them regular food. Back then, their only jobs were to cultivate the martial methods given by the palace and grow various spiritual medicines.

Life at that time was monotonous and dreary, but worry-free.

But things changed a year ago.

The individuals from the palace no longer appeared, and the wilderness started to swarm with spirits and puppet corpses. Although the spirits and puppet corpses wouldn’t attack them due to the martial methods, the loss of their food sources meant certain death.

At first, with the long-established prestige of the palace, the town managed to maintain stability.

However, as food became scarcer, chaos inevitably began to grow.

Before cultivators reach the Golden Core Stage, they need to eat, albeit less as their cultivation level increases.

The people in the town were all at the Qi Cultivation Stage. They could endure without food or drink for a few days, but they couldn’t last much longer.

They could use their skills to condense water, but food couldn’t be created out of thin air.

As time went by, the town grew increasingly chaotic.

Xu Ling’s parents died in one such upheaval.

She couldn’t even find their bodies.

As for where the bodies might have gone?

The group of people who imprisoned them was working on the same task each day.

The Yin-attribute spiritual medicines grown in the outside world can’t be used in large quantities. In order to live longer, those powerful figures started to band together, beginning to keep them as livestock.

They ate the spiritual medicines, and those figures turned them into food.

Thinking of the possibility that she could become food at any moment, how many could bear that? That’s why the faces of the adults were filled with despair and numbness.

Xu Ling’s only wish now was for someone from the palace to appear. If that happened, they would have a chance.

But as time passed, as their number continued to decrease, she was close to sinking into desperation as well.

“I wonder what the outside world looks like? It would be nice to see it before I die!”

After purifying the Yin energy within her body, Xu Ling was lying at the prison cell door, fantasizing in her heart.

She was born in this space and had never been outside. She had only heard tales of the external world from the mouths of others.

There, honey was ten to a hundred times sweeter than black vinegar fruit, there were foods of various tastes, all kinds of unheard-of fruits, and various colorful sights.

It was said that there was something called a rainbow that could have seven colors at the same time, she could hardly imagine it.

“No! Don’t! Don’t kill me!”

A harsh scream brought Xu Ling back to reality. She turned her head and saw a guard opening one of the cells, and a young man being dragged out like a piglet.

The young man struggled too violently, so the impatient guard knocked him out with a single blow.

She had witnessed the same scene more than once. Her heart skipped a beat, then quickly returned to calm.

“I wonder who will be next?”

Xu Ling prayed in her heart, hoping it wouldn’t be their cell.

But fate always likes to play tricks on people.

Not long after the young man was dragged away, two more guards came in, walking straight to the cell holding the young boys and girls.

“The boss wants a change of taste today, we better make a good choice. Last time, idiot Shen Biao lost two fingers!” said one of the guards.

“It wasn’t the food last time, it was Shen Biao’s clumsiness that got a strand of hair in it, that’s why the boss got angry!” another guard laughed and said.

“I see! No wonder the boss was so angry! This time we better be careful!”

“Don’t worry! You don’t know my skills?”

“Then it’s up to you. If the boss is satisfied this time, maybe we won’t have to eat leftovers in the future!”

The guards engaged in casual banter, acting as if they were not here to grab people, but to shop for groceries at the market.

This place was isolated from the world, with a weak sense of morality to start with, and they had gradually become accustomed to this environment over a long period of time.

“Don’t come here! Don’t come here!”

Xu Ling kept repeating this in her heart, but it didn’t change anything. The guards kept coming straight towards them, breaking the seal on the door and forcefully pulling them open.

The boys and girls huddled together in fear, like frightened little chicks. Xu Ling trembled all over, with extreme fear turning her brain into a blank void. She instinctively stood in front of the crowd.

Because she was slightly older, she had always been the leader among the village children. Therefore, she had to stand at the forefront, armed with stubborn bravery.

“Yo! Little girl, you’ve got guts!”

Surprised, one of the guards remarked at Xu Ling’s action.

He had done this job countless times before, but this was the first time he had seen anyone move forward instead of pushing others forward.

“This girl seems to be Xu Mang’s daughter, her temperament is just like her father’s, she likes to be in the limelight!”

The other guard seemed to recognize Xu Ling and showed a look of disgust in his eyes.

When Xu Ling’s father was alive, he was his superior officer. He was very strict with him, making a big deal out of the smallest mistakes. It was a source of resentment for him.

He had had a hand in the ambush that led to Xu Ling’s father’s death.

“Since you don’t like her, you might as well choose her.”

The other guard commented indifferently.

“Alright!”

He nodded, and reached out to grab Xu Ling.

Xu Ling instinctively dodged backward, but didn’t expect someone behind her to shove her hard at that moment.

And so, she was easily captured by the guard.

She dared not look back at the rest, only to see relief in the eyes of the rest of the boys and girls.

They were relieved it wasn’t them, relieved they could live for just a little bit longer.

The boy who pushed her still hadn’t completely lowered his hand. It wasn’t anyone else, it was her very own cousin who complained about disliking spiritual medicine.

After catching Xu Ling, the two didn’t stop there. They also grabbed her cousin on their way out. After all, his hand was sticking out.

“No! Don’t grab me!” Xu Ling’s cousin, who had a strong desire to survive, cried out loud and struggled hard. “She is very meaty, one is enough. Don’t grab me! I don’t want to die!”

“Shut up!”

The guard slapped him unconscious and then exited the room, with one of them carrying each of the captives.