Volume 3 - The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 91: Seedlings
Qianye nodded. As it turned out, the merchandise Marquis Ross requested by name was them.
Qianye only discovered the Twin Flower’s significant origins after meeting Lu Shenjiang at the Copper Peacock Terrace.
The blood esquire he had killed was actually a descendant of Marquis Ross and was apparently one of his favorites despite the former’s mediocre strength. The marquis had even granted him the famous pair of guns which had accompanied him on his rise to fame. However, not only did Qianye attack the esquire’s estate, but he also snatched the Twin Flowers and brought over a dozen of their “livestock” back into human territory. This was a great humiliation to the marquis.
But the bounty on Qianye’s head had failed—Lu Shenjiang’s fate caused many people to have second thoughts. After all, staying alive was more important no matter how generous the rewards were. They also had their reputation to consider. It was one thing to run some errands for the vampires in secret, but quite another to be exposed in public.
The local nobility of the Evernight Continent found it even more difficult to track Qianye down after he left for the Great Qin Empire to participate in the Profound Heaven Spring Hunt. How would they dare to get involved with the upper continent?
In his frustration, Marquis Ross shifted the flames of his anger onto the livestock Qianye had rescued back then. He expended a large amount of money in order to track them down and buy them back into dark race territory. The marquis had to let people know that anyone who betrayed him would face a terrible fate.
The sharp Radiant Edge effortlessly destroyed the shackles on the prisoners’ hands. Qianye first selected the few fighters from among them and released them from their bindings, tasking them with freeing the others in turn. He even checked their physical conditions in passing and found them to be in surprisingly good condition. There weren’t many wounds on them and they were even free from troublesome internal injuries. This proved that their captors, be it humans or dark races, hadn’t abused them.
At this point, Qianye suddenly remembered a certain term—“seedlings”. They were to bring new blood to the humans living in dark race territory. No wonder this batch of people were of superior quality. These people normally wouldn’t be tortured or forced into labor, while some might even receive basic living conditions. However, their future wasn’t any different from livestock used to mate and rear offspring.
This batch of humans was quite young. The dozen or so who were close to thirty were either first rank fighters or possessed special skills in certain areas. At this time, good looks was also an advantage—an important advantage. The vampires’ inclination to aesthetics almost bordered on prejudice.
Qianye found that many of these people were soldiers. A portion of them was from the Imperial Regular Army who had been dispatched to the Evernight Continent to serve penal military service for various reasons.
It would be quite difficult to round up such a group of humans in the Evernight Continent. God knows how much effort Wu Zhengnan had secretly invested into this.
Qianye looked at the people who were helping each other unlock their shackles and decided to change his original plan. At first, he didn’t want to alarm the trading settlement and planned to use it as evidence against Wu Zhengnan. As for these people, he had planned to let them scatter and escape—they would have a chance to survive as long as they reached human territory.
He knew, from previous experience, that snatching these people from the hands of the dark race and bringing them back into the city would only invite trouble. The expeditionary army might, once again, use quarantine inspections as an excuse to isolate them. What happened after that would be totally out of his control. Even if they passed the inspections, what then? These “livestock” could hardly blend into human society. It wouldn’t be so easy for the others either—jobs were scarce within the cities of Evernight Continent. Without a job or background, they would definitely become expendable sooner or later, just like the batch of people Qianye had saved before.
These people were exceptionally quiet and obedient, perhaps even numb and mechanical because they knew there was no future for them at all.
Qianye suddenly realized that although he had no way to give them a future at present, other people might be able to—at least the Wei and Song families could. Although their roots were in the upper continent, like all the other aristocratic families, their clans owned industries of various sizes here. And all these industries required human resources.
Most importantly, these people, including the children, weren’t useless. The innate quality of these hand-picked seedlings was basically guaranteed. In truth, the aristocracy would have many uses for them. Over half of them could serve as qualified clan soldiers after some basic training. The 100-odd children were all in their growth phase, the perfect time to lay down a good foundation and nurture their loyalty.
All this meant that they could potentially provide for themselves. This was their true pillar of support.
Qianye decided to test it out at once. He would take these people along. Their destination—the Broken River City which was about 200 kilometers from Blackflow City. There was a Wei Clan branch within the city which might, perhaps, be able to provide a true home for these people.
But if they wanted to leave Blackflow City’s jurisdiction and head toward Broken River City, they would have a long journey ahead of them. Disregarding the perils of this adventure, the black stone fuel supply they had on board was already insufficient. There was, however, a large depot of black stones not far from where they were—the settlement used by the seventh division for trading.
Qianye was prepared to attack that outpost. Losing a piece of evidence to use against Wu Zhengnan wasn’t as important compared to the lives of hundreds of people.
He scanned the orderly formation of the people and said calmly, “We cannot remain here for long. I plan to bring you all to Broken River City but there isn’t enough fuel for the cars. We’ll have to head to the slave camp first to… requisition some things.”
None of them made a sound. Qianye nodded and said, “Those who can drive the cargo trucks, step forward!”
Unexpectedly, dozens of people stood forward. Next up were those who could use various types of weapons—even more stepped forward. Qianye distributed the weapons they had found on the cargo trucks and the dark race corpses to these people. He then assigned all the rank one fighters into a simple squad and allocated them to each truck.
Qianye instructed indifferently, “Your duties are to protect the other people.”
The soldier from the 65th division suddenly asked, “Are you going to fight alone?” As a soldier, he easily understood the meaning behind Qianye’s orders. The incredulity was evident in his voice.
Qianye only turned his head slightly and smiled before jumping onto the first truck. He instructed the convoy to head directly toward the settlement. There were approximately one hundred soldiers stationed there, and among them, almost one third were fighters who had awakened their origin power. Captain Zhou himself was at rank five. However, this kind of lineup was hardly an obstacle for Qianye.
The sentry tower was the first to notice the abnormality when the convoy appeared within the village’s field of vision. The alarms sounded, sending the camp into a state of confusion. Captain Zhou immediately appeared on the village wall accompanied by an increasing number of soldiers.
Qianye halted the convoy 500 meters away from the village and advanced alone, stopping at a point 100 meters from the wall.
It was completely silent atop the village wall—all eyes were on the lone Qianye, but for some reason, they felt a sense of profound dread instead of superiority.
“Who are you?” Captain Zhou shouted from afar.
“The one who killed the whole dark race convoy alone.” Qianye’s reply was simple and direct.
Many gasps were heard atop the village wall. They were very clear about the strength of the dark race convoy. Everyone had to keep quiet out of fear during the few days they had stopped over at the camp. The werewolves had even found an excuse to devour one of the soldiers. But now, the lone youth standing outside the village was claiming to have actually killed off the whole convoy!
“Why should I believe you?” Captain Zhou shouted with a frown on his face.
“You need not believe me. You only need to surrender. That way, fewer people will die.”
“Damn it!” Captain Zhou swore hoarsely. He then raised his voice and shouted, “You want to make me surrender with just a few words? With you alone? Forget about it!”
Qianye replied coldly, “You bow and scrape before the dark races but dare to fight against me? I don’t understand where your courage stems from. Perhaps it’s because I’m a human, someone of the same familiar species?”
Captain Zhou’s frown intensified as he quickly weighed the pros and cons in his mind. In truth, he had already realized that things weren’t looking good the moment he saw the familiar convoy behind Qianye. The merchandise was worth tens of thousands of gold coins. The dark races would never yield submissively.
Qianye suddenly raised his Eagleshot and shouted, “Look, what do you think this is? Resistance is futile. Or perhaps you think I don’t dare to kill? Only death awaits if you don’t surrender!”
Captain Zhou felt his heart thump after seeing the two-meter-long weapon. The enemy was an incredible sniper! Now he knew the fate of the dark race caravan. The range and power of the Eagleshot were too deadly. It could kill anyone within the settlement, including himself, in one shot.
Surrender or escape? Captain Zhou was puzzled as to where this brat had suddenly popped up from. However, there were simply too many secrets within this camp that he couldn’t let people know. It wouldn’t be as simple as death if things were exposed. He suddenly took out a flask of alcohol and took a hard swig before shouting, “Charge! Charge toward him! We can kill him as long as we reach him!”
Following Captain Zhou’s roar, the soldiers within the village hurriedly jumped down from the wall and rushed toward Qianye! They covered the hundred meters in the blink of an eye.
Qianye shook his head and inwardly sighed. At the same time, the flames of fury raged within his heart. He couldn’t understand their way of thinking. Why couldn’t they show such courage when facing the dark races? On the contrary, they were so courageous when facing him, the person who killed those dark race warriors alone.
Qianye lifted the Eagleshot. He ignored those charging madly at him and locked onto Captain Zhou who was standing on the village wall.
Captain Zhou sensed mortal danger. He let out an odd cry and turned around to jump down into the village, but alas, it was too late! As the Eagleshot rumbled, the origin bullet directly shot through the wooden wall and struck his body with great accuracy.
Captain Zhou watched as the lower half of his body vanished into the origin power explosion. It was uncertain what was going through his mind at that moment—was it regret or was it something else?
Qianye’s body suddenly lit up with small origin power eruptions. He staggered back a couple of steps from the impact of the origin power bullets which struck him head-on.