Chapter 2105: Vegetative People
As enormous as the three beasts were, they weren’t enough to satiate the million plus residents of Jingzhou City. At the same time, Lu Yun never intended to end their hunger. He just wanted to arouse their long vanished desire.
Greed and desire were the most primitive emotions of living beings. If one lacked even that, then one was alive only through sheer instinct.
Such was the case in Jingzhou City and for all of the ordinary beings in this world. Perhaps cultivators still possessed greed and desire, but ordinary living beings were like gra.s.s and trees. They lived in order to live and gave their bodies up as food when they died. They were no different from unintelligent gra.s.s and trees.
All of their desires had receded.
What Lu Yun sought to do was to spark the long lost desire hidden deep in their souls. But ultimately, he failed.
Out of one million, thirty-four thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six people in the city, he chose only w.a.n.g Shu. The boy was the only one suited for cultivation; the others were no different from gra.s.s on the ground.
The results left him at a loss; he didn’t understand them. The people left after they ate their portion. Some went back to staring off into s.p.a.ce while others returned to repairing the city walls.
Grease ringing her mouth, Yuan Yi walked up to Lu Yun and looked eagerly at the pot. “Why don’t you give me the rest since they’re not eating it.”
“Why are things like this?” Lu Yun frowned. He didn’t read any emotions in the people’s eyes, not even wooden ones.
“In this world, only cultivators are people,” Yuan Yi sighed. “Ordinary beings are just trees and gra.s.s. Cultivators look after them out of self interest. And of course, it’s always good to find more of our kind among the trees and gra.s.s.”
“Two-legged sheep?” Lu Yun’s frown deepened.
Yuan Yi shook her head. “That’s what the hunters call them. We cultivators protect the cities and cannot kill the innocent. We need to constantly keep our desires in check. Once we look at them as sheep and kill whoever we like, that will be when we are not far from death ourselves.
“We’d turn into those hunters even if we didn’t die. A life of aimless wandering in the desolate wilderness is a short one,” Yuan Yi sighed. “Those three would’ve died out there sooner or later if they hadn’t come across you. They would be eaten by ghost zombies, a.s.similated by them, or starved to death.
“Huh? Wait!” She turned sharply to Lu Yun and regarded him with astonishment. “Those three are incredibly strong and qi runs through their bodies. How were you able to fight three of them by yourself and kill them?”
Although the young man hadn’t gone into detail, Yuan Yi had safeguarded the city for a hundred years. She knew the rules of this world like the back of her hand and what kind of person Lu Yun had killed.
What surprised her was his strength. He’d been weaker than her before, but now he could kill three powerful hunters by himself?
“I’ve grown stronger.” Lu Yun was in an awful mood as he felt that there was no way to tackle the problem.
He knew what Yuan Yi spoke of. It was impossible for one person to survive by themselves in a world like this. He needed to latch tightly onto the thigh that was Jingzhou City and nurture a few more powerhouses to slowly change the world.
But now… he felt that he had the heart, yet lacked the requisite strength. It was a situation he’d never encountered before.
Turn a group of vegetative people into powerful cultivators?
They possessed no emotion or desire, they didn’t even have a reason to live. It would be better if they were actual plants or vegetables. Lu Yun could spark sentience in those and slowly nurture them. But these walking bodies were sentient, intelligent, and held their own opinions.
Their goal in life was to wait for death.
It was a deeply rooted mindset that resulted in a pot of meat locating only one candidate suited for cultivation. That greatly depressed Lu Yun.
“The city lord once wanted to do the same thing you’re doing, but he also failed.” Yuan Yi knew what Lu Yun was thinking when she saw his conflicted expression. “Give it up, there’s no hope.”
That city lord was dead, long dead. Apart from Lu Yun, Yuan Yi was the only cultivator in Jingzhou City.
“And what about you?” Lu Yun looked at Yuan Yi and said slowly, “What do you live for? Do you wait for death like they do?”
Yuan Yi paused, then shook her head. “I live so I can live a bit longer and a bit more comfortably… and so they can live longer.”
If she died, the whole city would die. She lived for both herself and the entire city of… vegetative people.
“Why has your strength increased so rapidly?!” she demanded solemnly. “It doesn’t make any sense. Heaven and earth are dead, so we must slowly hone our blood and qi without help from the outside world. Even your cultivation method requires a slow process of tempering!
“It’s not possible for you to improve so quickly!”
She was incredibly serious as there was only one possible way for Lu Yun to boost his strength by such a great degree in a short period of time. He would have to have slaughtered an entire city and absorbed all of their qi and blood to bolster himself.
But if he did so, his cultivation would deviate and he would kill wherever he went.
Even the most brutal of hunters didn’t commit such acts. They simply treated living beings as two-legged sheep, eating some when they were hungry. They didn’t treat sheep as cultivation resources.
In other worlds, an increase in a cultivator’s strength was their secret to keep. No one had the right to pry into it. But in a world like this, Lu Yun had to answer Yuan Yi. If he couldn’t, only one of them would remain on the scene.
Either one of them left, or they would fight to the death.
“Heaven and earth still live. I found a blade of living gra.s.s and located the vestiges of their power. I used it to improve my cultivation,” Lu Yun answered candidly as he knew what was on Yuan Yi’s mind. “I can take you there right now.”
“I can’t leave the city,” she shook her head. “The wilderness is very dangerous. Although there are no ghost zombies during the day, there are other creatures of misfortune. I would not last a day out there.”
Lu Yun blinked. The only trouble he’d run into was the three beasts with horns.
“But if heaven and earth are still alive…” Yuan Yi hesitated and took out a tattered map from her robes. “This is a map of the world in times gone by. It might be useful to you. Go increase your strength during the day and come back to guard the city at night.”