Chapter – 72
Laughter in the Darkness
Jiang Xi didn’t want to keep dragging things out, so she spoke to the First Matron and the Chief.
“Please ask everyone to disperse. Only the relevant family members should remain—namely, their female mates and offspring.”
This time, without the need for further explanation, the onlooking beastmen and females quickly scattered.
Several elders did not leave.
When Jiang Xi saw that Litte, Nanasi, and their beast-husbands were still there, she looked over in confusion, her intent to drive them away obvious.
Litte instantly realized that she was no longer an elder.
She clenched her teeth, then took Nanasi and their beast-husbands and left.
“Let’s go!”
After they left, the courtyard suddenly felt empty.
But Jiang Xi soon noticed that among everyone present, only she, the First Matron, and three elders were female—there was no sign of the female called Chen Ya.
Wasn’t she the female mate of those two contaminated beastmen?
Jiang Xi looked toward the First Matron, who was also momentarily stunned.
Just then, through the wind and snow, Gaxi came running over with the lynx cub Sol in his arms, panting.
“Mother! Chen Ya and her beast-husbands haven’t come back. Only Sol, Peter, and Mel were at home. Peter and Mel refused to come, so I brought Sol instead.”
Chief Rupert frowned.
“Didn’t Kairi and the others go looking for their female mate yesterday? They still haven’t returned?”
Sol squatted in the snow and slowly shook his head.
“They didn’t come back.”
Chen Ya’s mother, Chen Yun, instantly changed expression.
“They didn’t come back, and you didn’t come to tell me?!”
Sol shrank back, his pale yellow beast eyes filled with fear.
“Great-grandmother… Great-grandmother wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t dare.”
Anger flickered across Chen Yun’s face, but she didn’t lash out on the spot.
She hadn’t allowed him to come because she despised both him and his father-beast!
That father-beast had driven her two daughters against each other, and then he had completely thrown her daughter Chen Ya’s life into chaos!
Lynx beastmen—those sly beastmen from the Giant Wood Forest—specialized in destroying other people’s families. She found them utterly detestable!
Standing to the side, Jiang Xi recalled what Yi Yuexi and Lu Liufeng had told her yesterday.
Her gaze drifted over unconsciously, then she quickly pulled it back.
Every family had its own unspeakable troubles. She didn’t want to get involved. But thinking of this little beast child—whom she had seen twice now being scolded and yelled at by elders—she couldn’t help but speak up.
“Why don’t we start first?”
“I’m not certain it’ll succeed, but if we delay any longer and they break out of the cage and hurt the females in the tribe, that would be bad.”
When facing Jiang Xi, Chen Yun’s attitude softened considerably.
She still had a beastman child who hadn’t been married off yet. Before, when she thought Nanasi might become the next First Matron, she had considered marrying him to Nanasi.
But because her relationship with Litte wasn’t good, she had hesitated.
After hesitating for two years, she hadn’t expected an even better opportunity to arrive instead.
Because of this, her attitude toward Jiang Xi was extremely polite.
“Everything will be done according to the Female Envoy’s wishes.”
Jiang Xi turned her head and nodded to Lu Liufeng, signaling for him to accompany her to inspect the situation.
As she stepped forward, she sensed a gaze lingering at her side.
When she turned her head, she met the eyes of the lynx cub, Sol.
Caught staring, Sol’s eyes widened instantly.
Jiang Xi gave him a friendly smile, then turned and walked on.
Although she didn’t know whether the black patches mixed with white on her face might frighten a young beastman, she still instinctively conveyed goodwill.
That morning while washing her face, she had noticed that the white lines on her face had begun breaking into small white patches.
Presumably, it wouldn’t be long before she fully recovered.
She was quite looking forward to that.
After all, no one wanted to keep wearing a face like a lump of black charcoal forever—but compared to the poisonous boils she’d had before, this was already much better.
There was hope!
The Chief and several beastmen together removed the wooden boards and dried grass that had been shielding the cage from wind and snow.
But then everyone discovered that inside the cage, the two beast-form beastmen were lying on the ground, barely clinging to life, as if they might die at any moment.
“How could this happen?!”
“This shouldn’t be possible.”
Beastmen who suffered curse contamination, once they entered the Cursed Land, became immortal cursed beasts.
Only while still inside the walls—before entering the Cursed Land—could they be killed.
And even then, killing them required blue-scale powder and fire. Other methods couldn’t kill them at all; instead, they would return to the Cursed Land and come back again during the next curse tide.
Seeing the Female Lord’s confusion, Lu Liufeng took the initiative to explain.
There were no external wounds on the two barely-breathing beastmen, nor any signs of freezing injury.
That made the situation particularly strange.
Still, the fact that they weren’t struggling made things easier for Jiang Xi.
So when she went forward to treat them, Lu Liufeng and the other beast-husbands didn’t stop her.
They did, however, remain close by, watching the cage vigilantly in case the beastmen were pretending and suddenly lashed out to harm their Female Lord.
Jiang Xi looked at the giant beast inside the black iron cage, took a deep breath, and then extended her hand through the bars, pressing it against the beast’s head.
The moment she closed her eyes, she was instantly pulled into a pitch-black realm.
A dangerous aura enveloped her—but it wasn’t the kind of danger that inflicted harm.
Instead, it was a suffocating danger, as if it were trying to wrap around her entire body, sealing her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.
A faint green glow spread through the darkness where one couldn’t see their own hand, yet it was far from enough to illuminate the place.
Like a traveler walking in darkness, Jiang Xi held up the light in her palm and moved forward without direction.
Suddenly, something ahead seemed to flicker.
She ran toward it, trying to find the source of that light.
But the more she ran, the farther away it seemed.
When she was exhausted to the point of collapse, she suddenly realized she was surrounded by light.
And it was black light.
“Who’s there? Is anyone there?” Jiang Xi called out within the black glow.
A manic “Heh heh heh” laughter suddenly echoed from all directions.
The instant the sound rang out, Jiang Xi was violently yanked out of the darkness.
“Female Lord! Female Lord, are you alright?”
“Female Lord!”
“Female Lord!”
Urgent voices rang out from all sides, as if merging with that manic laughter from the darkness.
Jiang Xi slowly opened her eyes and found herself in Lu Liufeng’s arms, the young man’s amber eyes full of worry.
She felt utterly drained, so exhausted she couldn’t even lift her arms. Inside her beast-skin clothing, her entire body was drenched in hot sweat.
“I’m fine. I just exhausted my mental power.”
Panting, she looked toward the iron cage.
“It worked—”
Her words cut off abruptly.
Because she saw that inside the black iron cage, what had once been two giant beasts was now one giant beast—and one corpse, half black and half white, covered in beast skins, hideously dead.
Jiang Xi’s breath caught. She hurriedly turned her head away.
Clutching tightly to Lu Liufeng, she asked,
“Did I succeed?”
She had succeeded—so why was the beastman still dead?
Lu Liufeng nodded. As if he understood her thoughts, he spoke softly, answering her doubt.
“Chen Ya is dead.”
