Chapter 4: She Was About to Starve to Death!
The group, standing more than ten meters away, had no idea what was happening.
“Jiang Ning?” Auntie Li was the first to come to her senses, stumbling towards the pile of liquid.
Uncle Li and Li Xiang also lowered their weapons.
What had happened?
How did the Thorny Devil Lizard that was attacking Jiang Ning suddenly die?
Over on his side, Yan Zhou temporarily trapped the three Thorny Devil Lizards with an earth wall and quickly jogged towards the group.
Li Xiang looked at Yan Zhou with hopeful eyes and asked uncertainly, “Brother Yan Zhou, did you kill this Thorny Devil Lizard with your earth ability?”
Father Li and Yan Zhengxiang looked at Yan Zhou with the same expression, awaiting his answer.
It seemed that was the only way to explain why the Thorny Devil Lizard had suddenly died while attacking Jiang Ning.
But in the next second, Yan Zhou shook his head. “My current abilities are limited. I didn’t kill this Thorny Devil Lizard.”
Yan Zhou’s denial brought another guess to their minds.
Jiang Ning.
The moment this thought appeared, Li Xiang immediately shook his head. Impossible. There was no way a frail child like Jiang Ning could deal with a Thorny Devil Lizard. Besides, Jiang Ning was just a liability.
Li Xiang followed behind Yan Zhou and the others, walking towards the lizard’s corpse.
“Jiang Ning?” Auntie Li was now standing outside the green slime, wringing her hands. She called out Jiang Ning’s name anxiously.
“Mom, be careful.” Li Xiang held onto his mother to prevent her from accidentally falling. He stared blankly ahead. Although he found Jiang Ning annoying, seeing a living person suddenly gone like that was something no one could accept in an instant.
He swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly. “Is Jiang Ning… dead?”
“You’re the one who’s dead.”
“What? Who’s talking?” Li Xiang jumped in fright.
“Your granny.”
Pop—
In the puddle of green slime a few meters away from the group, a small mound-like bulge burst open. Jiang Ning, covered head to toe in slime, was lying on the ground in a fetal position.
She looked extremely weak.
“It’s Jiang Ning!” Uncle Li shouted, his eyes sharp.
Yan Zhou’s figure flickered. He released his psychic energy, using the sand and soil to push away the slime under their feet, clearing a path to where Jiang Ning was.
“How are you? Are you okay?” Yan Zhou walked to her side, knelt down, and helped her up with concern.
“Do you have anything to eat?” Jiang Ning asked.
Yan Zhou froze, then nodded blankly. “Yes.”
“You’re not dead?” Li Xiang suddenly felt a sense of relief.
Jiang Ning: She was about to starve to death!
Yan Zhou took an unopened tube of nutrient solution from an inner pocket of his clothes and handed it to Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ning immediately sat up straight, wiped the green slime from around her mouth with her hand, tore open the package, and poured it into her mouth.
After downing a tube of nutrient solution, the dizziness from hunger finally subsided.
She felt like she had come back to life.
By now, everyone had gathered around.
Li Xiang, unable to hide his thoughts, stepped forward and asked, “Did you kill that Thorny Devil Lizard?”
“Yes.” Jiang Ning nodded, admitting it.
Li Xiang’s immediate instinct was to retort that it was impossible, but the facts were right in front of him. He suppressed his rebuttal and, for the first time, asked Jiang Ning patiently, “How did you kill it?”
Jiang Ning said slowly, “The Thorny Devil Lizard’s skin is covered with granular scales. There are various pigment cells within the dermis that allow it to change its skin color according to its surroundings, achieving the effect of hiding itself to avoid predators. Besides being able to perfectly camouflage themselves, their entire bodies are also covered in dense, huge armored spines. These spines are extremely hard, making their bodies difficult to breach. But this also exposes a fatal weakness. The fleshy sac under their neck will rapidly expand several times when stimulated, until it takes the place of the head. That’s why this sac is also called a ‘false head’. As long as you attack the inflated ‘false head’, the Thorny Devil Lizard will die.”
“So I slashed open the Thorny Devil Lizard’s ‘false head’, which caused its death.”
Jiang Ning spoke professionally, her expression surprisingly calm. The group was immediately more than half-convinced.
Only Li Xiang was still stammering, “H-how do you know all this?”
Jiang Ning turned to look at Li Xiang, a cryptic smile forming on her slime-covered face. “From a book, of course.”
Li Xiang: “…” What did that smile mean? Was she mocking him for being uneducated? She definitely was!
After hearing Jiang Ning’s words, Yan Zhou immediately decided to verify it.
He withdrew his psychic energy, releasing the three Thorny Devil Lizards he had trapped. Then, he condensed the surrounding soil into three sand cones and sent them stabbing towards the necks of the three lizards.
The previous struggle had already caused the false heads of the three Thorny Devil Lizards to inflate to a certain size.
The sand cones cut through the air and, before the lizards could react, pierced into their flesh.
Following a few successive thuds, the three Thorny Devil Lizards also collapsed to the ground, motionless.
“!” The group gasped. A visible joy appeared on Yan Zhou’s face.
“That’s great! This way, just by hunting Thorny Devil Lizards, our numbers will surpass Scarface’s group. And it’ll take much less time than before,” Yan Zhengxiang said excitedly.
Yan Zhou was also quite excited.
He first walked over to the Thorny Devil Lizard that Jiang Ning had killed, took out a ring-like object, and scanned the lizard’s corpse up and down.
A moment later, the lizard’s corpse vanished instantly, leaving only a puddle of thick, green liquid on the empty ground.
Jiang Ning blinked, a rare look of astonishment on her face.
She was finally witnessing the advanced level of interstellar technology.
The storage rings from cultivation novels had actually been invented in the interstellar era!
Yan Zhou then walked over to the other three Thorny Devil Lizard corpses and collected them as well.
Jiang Ning silently observed them. It seemed that everyone had a ring on their index finger. She had originally thought they were for decoration, but she hadn’t expected them to have such a wonderful use.
She immediately walked over to Auntie Li and asked, “Auntie Li, how much do your rings cost?”
“Are you talking about the nano-ring?” Auntie Li raised the hand wearing the ring.
“Yes, yes.” She nodded.
“A cheap one can be bought for 100 star coins. I got this one for free when we bought the one your Uncle Li is wearing. It’s not worth much,” Auntie Li said. “The one Xiao Zhou is wearing is the expensive kind. It costs at least 500 star coins.”
“Your Uncle Li and I don’t hunt many mutated beasts, so a 100-coin one is enough,” Auntie Li explained with an awkward smile.
She didn’t mention that even 100 star coins had cost them a lot of money. The family had saved for a long time before painfully buying this one nano-ring. They had haggled until their mouths were dry before the shopkeeper threw in two extra-small complimentary rings for them—the ones she and Li Xiang were wearing.
Jiang Ning now had a vague concept of the nano-ring. She figured the 500-coin one Yan Zhou had must have a larger space and could hold more things.
However, she didn’t even have a single cent in her account right now, let alone a 100-coin nano-ring.
Jiang Ning picked up the blade stuck in the ground and energetically began searching for her next target.
She would put the matter of awakening aside for now. Her current goal was to get a nano-ring.
Ever since she realized she couldn’t go back, Jiang Ning had decided to live a good life in the interstellar era. Hunting star beasts was currently the only way to make money. She couldn’t keep freeloading off Auntie Li’s group’s nano-rings, nor could she carry an entire mutated beast to the market to sell. Therefore, a nano-ring was a necessity.
Auntie Li didn’t know which of her words had spurred Jiang Ning on. Seeing her rush off to find Thorny Devil Lizards full of life and vigor, she felt a mix of complex emotions.
Yan Zhengxiang and Father Li, being simple-minded men, learned of the Thorny Devil Lizard’s weakness and immediately picked up their weapons, eager to try it out in practice.
The two of them began searching for Thorny Devil Lizards on the barren land.
Li Xiang, on the other hand, had been acting very awkward since Yan Zhou left. He had been secretly keeping an eye on Jiang Ning’s movements. Seeing her charge out with such gusto, a sense of competitiveness welled up in the sensitive Li Xiang.
If a pretty but useless person like Jiang Ning could easily kill a Thorny Devil Lizard, he couldn’t let himself be outdone by her.
The six of them went all out. Finally, before the sun set, they had hunted every last Thorny Devil Lizard in the entire area. Only when Yan Zhou used his earth-tracking ability and could no longer detect any trace of a Thorny Devil Lizard nearby did the group stop and return to the truck.
The northern uninhabited zone held many unknown dangers at night; they couldn’t stay there for too long.
Yan Zhengxiang turned the truck around and drove back for a while.
The group in the truck was chatting and laughing. Yan Zhengxiang’s attitude towards Jiang Ning had completely changed. He smiled and said, “It’s all thanks to Jiang Ning’s extensive knowledge. Otherwise, we might have really lost to Scarface’s group today.”
Except for Yan Zhou, the backs of the others were all soaked in the Thorny Devil Lizard’s green slime. It was sticky, damp, and reeked of a fishy stench.
But compared to today’s harvest, what did a little dirt matter?
“What does it have to do with her? It was all Brother Yan Zhou’s skill. He hunted more Thorny Devil Lizards by himself than the five of us combined.” Li Xiang was unwilling to admit it was Jiang Ning’s contribution. He pouted. “Come on, Brother Yan Zhou, show everyone how many you hunted.”
Yan Zhou said slowly, “I have a total of twenty-four here, six of which are Jiang Ning’s.”
Since Jiang Ning was the only one without a nano-ring, the mutated beasts she hunted were all stored with Yan Zhou.
“Jiang Ning killed six by herself?” Uncle Li’s mouth fell open in shock. “That’s very impressive. Li Xiang and I only killed six together.”
“Dad!” Li Xiang glared at his father angrily.
“You guys are very impressive too!” Jiang Ning returned a polite smile.
Li Xiang’s entire face instantly turned beet red, a wave of embarrassment spreading through his heart.
That wretched Jiang Ning, how dare she laugh at him!
The people in the truck were genuinely happy, and the atmosphere was much better than when they had arrived.
Yan Zhengxiang drove for about half an hour. In the endless darkness, a sliver of light finally appeared—the light from a beacon tower standing in the uninhabited zone.
This was an official base station set up by the government of Planet M412, which meant there were military personnel stationed nearby, making it very safe.
When they arrived at the beacon tower, Scarface’s vehicle had already been parked there for some time. The people from East District 1 had set up camp nearby.
Yan Zhengxiang parked the truck on the other side, and the group got out.
Scarface immediately walked over, a very punchable grin on his face. “What are you all talking about? So happy.”
“Yan Zhou, are you regretting finding such teammates now? If all the prey ends up belonging to us later, don’t say we’re bullying you, hahaha.”
Yan Zhou looked up, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. “Scarface, our cooperation isn’t over yet. Don’t be so full of yourself. We can compete tomorrow when we enter the central zone together.”
If Scarface’s group weren’t the only ones in these slums with the strength to enter the central zone, he would never have sought to cooperate with this person.
Scarface was arrogant and conceited, definitely not a good partner to work with.
“Fine. I have no complaints about someone helping us hunt mutated beasts for free,” Scarface chuckled lightly.
The prey would be theirs sooner or later.