The wicked female is extremely fierce, but she's pampered by her seven beast husbands.

Chapter 137 Not That Crazy
"That's too lenient on those bastards," Chongzhen couldn't help but curse, then sighed deeply. "More than half of the salt-making workers in Youdi have died or been injured. What should we do next? Send more people over there?"

Salt production doesn't actually require that many people, but the group of orcs who appeared in the Darklands and whose origins are unknown have all disappeared. There will definitely be more people going to investigate the situation, and if this continues, the situation at the Darklands Salt Spring will be exposed sooner or later.

Ling Chengen glanced at Bai Qingyu: "How much salt is currently stockpiled in the warehouse?"

Bai Qingyu, holding the prepared meal, thought for a moment and said, "Why don't you come with me and take a look?"

"Okay, I'll go visit Bai Xi while I'm at it."

Bai Qingyu handed her the bamboo lunchbox and took her to Hanshan.

After checking the salt inventory in the warehouse, Ling Chengen dusted off the powder on his hands and turned to discuss with him, "I plan to seal off the salt springs in Youdi first. This batch of salt is enough for the tribe to eat for half a year. We can continue making salt after the rainy season."

"Do we still need to send people to guard the Netherworld?"

Ling Chengen shook his head: "No need."

"However, we need to completely remove all traces left from the previous salt production, especially the passage leading to the salt spring..."

Bai Qingyu thought for a moment and said, "I'll take care of this."

"As for Yuheng..." He glanced uncertainly at Ling Chengen, "Do you want to discuss this with him?"

Bai Qingyu disliked Yu Heng, but she didn't hate him either.

He felt that this person was dangerous and that he was extremely uncontrollable.

Ling Chengen handed him the bamboo lunchbox, tilted his head and smiled, "Why don't you just discuss it with him? Although I haven't had much contact with him, I always feel that he wouldn't reveal the salt-making in Youdi to others."

"If you're worried, talk to him yourself."

"Moreover, Yuheng also saved Baixi. Even if we don't talk about this, you should still express your sincere gratitude to him."

Bai Qingyu took her words to heart, grasped her fingertips with his right hand, and felt a little uneasy, but looking into her smiling eyes, he didn't know how to speak for a moment.

He didn't want a strong and outstanding male like Yuheng to get close to her.

Even though Yuheng hasn't shown any interest in her yet, as a male, his intuition about a rival is extremely accurate.

Once inside Bai Xi's cave, Ling Chengen discovered that Bai Xi's private quarters were quite large.

It is at least as spacious as the cave Bai Qingyu was in before.

His family was quite wealthy, with all sorts of beautiful animal hides neatly stored away, as well as many extremely rare and beautiful feathers and gems, all of which were made into ornaments commonly used by men. Some were hair ornaments wrapped around braids, some were waist ornaments, and some were ornaments specifically worn on the arms and ankles.

“Your second brother still loves to dress up.” Ling Chengen looked at the entire wall of decorative items and couldn’t help but marvel at it.

Bai Qingyu lowered her head, pursed her lips, and smiled, "He's always been like this; he loved dressing up even when he was little."

“When he was a child, the young women in the village would get colorful stone necklaces. When he got home, he would ask his mother to get him one too. Sometimes his mother would be too lazy to pay attention to him, but he would think about it for half a year. Then he would secretly collect all the colorful stones and make the necklace himself. And the style would definitely be more beautiful than others.”

Ling Chengen was surprised that Bai Xi was so interesting when she was a child. Just as he was about to say something, a muffled cough came from inside the cave.

"Do you have any humanity left? Talking about embarrassing things I did when I was a child in front of me..." Bai Xi's voice came from deeper within.

The two turned left and entered a large room, about 2.5 meters high and at least 20 square meters in area. There was a small round window on the south-facing wall, covered with a transparent film, so the bedroom was not dark at all and looked extremely comfortable.

In the center of the room was a round wooden bed, covered with layers of stuff. At the bottom was a fine, soft, and faintly fragrant layer of hay, followed by a thick, flat round straw mat, and finally a white short-haired animal skin blanket.

Bai Xi lay in the very center of this large round bed, looking more like a noble young master who had come to experience life than a beastman who was trying to make a living in the beast world.

Ling Chengen looked at his face, which always showed a frivolous expression, and was a little surprised, because he rarely showed a vulnerable look. Perhaps because of his injury, his skin looked particularly pale, and his lips were an unnatural red, giving him a vampire-like appearance.

Bai Xi's long hair was a bit messy. She pulled the animal skin blanket covering her waist up a few times and frowned slightly at Bai Qingyu, seemingly somewhat dissatisfied.

He rarely met outsiders in such an undignified manner, and even Ling Chengen, who was already in a relationship with Bai Qingyu, was not someone he could accept.

However, there was no time to change his clothes, so he simply wrapped a rather short animal skin skirt around his neck and awkwardly pulled the animal skin blanket down below his neck.

Looking at his pale face, Ling Chengen chuckled and said, "Looks like you don't really want to see me?"

Bai Xi curled her lips and snorted, "I thank you for coming."

"However, it would be even better if you could pick a better time."

Bai Qingyu knew he had a sharp tongue, so she helped him sit up, opened the lunchbox she had brought, and set up a small table on his bed.

Seeing the sumptuous meal, Bai Xi's expression finally improved. Holding her chopsticks, she said with a touch of emotion, "I thought I was going to have to eat that bland boiled meat for a long time. Ah Yu, you really understand me!"

Ling Chengen frowned slightly as he looked at the pink scar on his chest.

The wound was longer than she had expected, and it wasn't near her heart as Bai Qingyu had said.

Instead, it ran all the way through the chest, from the left shoulder and collarbone all the way to the right waist and abdomen. The wound near the heart was deeper and larger, and it looked like it had been repeatedly stabbed and stirred with a sharp instrument.

Only Yuheng could save someone so badly injured.

"Don't stare at my body with those lecherous eyes, I'm still eating."

Bai Xi's mouth was a master at ruining the atmosphere, and Ling Chengen's guilt quickly vanished.

Bai Xi ate half of it, but then lost her appetite because her chest was still hurting.

He looked listless. After closing the lunchbox, he leaned back against the animal skin blanket and touched the scar on his chest. "Going to the Underworld to take charge of salt production was my own decision, and I'm sorry I couldn't protect the warriors who followed me."

Ling Chengen put the lunchbox away and said in a firm tone, "Don't talk nonsense. I know what's going on in Youdi."

"Take good care of your injury. You can't blame anyone else for this."

Salt production in the Darklands is inherently extremely risky. No matter who was in charge of the salt production project, they would not have been able to withstand the sneak attacks from so many high-ranking orcs.

Bai Xi pondered for a moment, then said seriously, "However, the group that ambushed us this time consisted of twelve people, all of whom were warriors of the eighth rank or above."

Ling Chengen's expression hardened: "So many?"

Bai Xi nodded: "Moreover, I can't see through the one with the highest strength at all. Based on my experience, he is at least stronger than your father."

"Did anyone escape from Yuheng's grasp?"

Bai Xi shook her head and said, "Yu Heng's ability is very strange. He suddenly appeared in the cave, and then all those people slowly fell down without any ability to resist."

"Those twelve people were completely powerless to fight back. In just a few breaths, their hands and feet were all broken. Moreover, he inserted some strange, transparent stone directly into their chests and hung them all on the stone wall outside the cave. The inferior beasts that roamed into the dark land dared not approach the cave because of his intimidation, but the people hanging on the stone wall were all gnawed to pieces."

Bai Xi's account was relatively conservative; the actual scene was far more brutal than he described. Those people were eaten bit by bit while fully conscious. Some died from the pain, some from fear, and some from excessive blood loss. The stronger a person was, the slower they died, until finally, their internal organs were almost completely devoured by the beasts, and they died a miserable death.

Even he, upon witnessing Yu Heng's methods, couldn't help but feel his hair stand on end.

"When you left, Yuheng was still here?"

Bai Xi shook his head and said, "He probably doesn't plan to go too far from Youdi. He's probably planning to wait for his prey to come to him."

"However, when the beast tide appeared, he told me to withdraw our people from the Darklands first."

"The next few months there are unlikely to be peaceful."

Ling Chengen guessed Yu Heng's plan: to use Youdi as bait. He had been imprisoned in a cave in Youdi, and because those people couldn't kill him, they would definitely return every now and then to check on the situation. Now that the group that went to investigate had disappeared without a trace, there would definitely be a second group trying to find out what was going on.

Yu Heng only needs to place spies around Youdi, and no matter how careful those people are, they will not be able to escape his grasp.

However, he lived alone in a notorious burial site for several months...

It still takes a lot of courage.

Bai Xi pulled a tender green leaf from under the mattress: "He asked me to give this to you. He saved some of the warriors from Shilin and Hanshan, so we need to supply him with the supplies he needs while he stays in Youdi."

Ling Chengen: "..."

"Okay, are there any other conditions?"

Bai Xi looked up at her younger brother, then at Ling Chengen, and finally said bluntly, "He said that no one else can stay in the treehouse he built, especially A Yu."

Ling Chengen's lips twitched: "So he planted a listening device at my doorstep!"

"Leaf can send messages remotely, but it can only be used for one month. After one month, he will send a new one."

"It will tell you what you need through this leaf, so you'd better carry it with you at all times."

Ling Chengen sighed deeply: "Alright, I understand."

As she finished speaking, the leaf in her hand slowly turned crimson. Ling Chengen touched the leaf and felt that it was a kind of metal with a good texture.

Yuheng's voice suddenly came from the leaf: "Very good, you finally got the leaf."

Ling Chengen looked down at the slightly warm leaves and said speechlessly, "I'll send you supplies every two weeks. It's absolutely impossible to send them every day. So you'd better tell me what you need in a group, otherwise you'll have to wait another two weeks."

Yu Heng's voice was clear and melodious, with an air of nobility: "You're really ruthless. I just saved so many of you and helped them survive the beast tide."

"That's why I send you supplies every two weeks. As long as you're in the Dark Lands, I'll send them to you for free."

"Isn't this enough?"

Ling Chengen raised an eyebrow: "Who knows how long you're going to fish for us in Youdi?"

Yu Heng was sitting on a rock at the entrance of the cave, resting his chin on his hand, looking at the round leaf that Jiao Jiao had raised, a gentle smile on his lips: "Entrapment? You're quite amusing."

"I'm getting rather bored waiting for those idiots in this desolate place. I know all your methods for making salt, so I can help you continue making salt here. But how do you plan to repay me?"

Ling Chengen: "The salt we have stockpiled so far is enough for us to use for a while, so I plan to stop production at the salt spring."

Yuheng didn't care about her rejection at all, and simply said, "What if I'm willing to be the witch doctor of your tribe?"

"Tell me, what do you want?"

Ling Chengen had no idea what he was up to by beating around the bush, so he simply got straight to the point.

"Are you interested in the two major tribes in the south? How about joining forces?" Yuheng asked.

Ling Chengen's lips twitched: "So you're joining forces with all three of our tribes by offering to be our tribe's witch doctor?"

"And there were several times when he saved my life."

Yuheng lightly tapped his cheek with his fingertips, his expression somewhat amused, the cinnabar mole on the base of his palm as bright as a drop of freshly oozing blood.

Ling Chengen remained unmoved and said, "The two major southern tribes together have tens of thousands of people, while the combined population of Shilin and Hanshan is barely over ten thousand. Do you think I'd join forces with you to deal with the two major southern tribes? I'm not that crazy to gamble with so many lives."

Yu Heng said with some regret, "You should reconsider. There's no one else like me in the entire Beast Plains who is young, good-looking, and a highly skilled witch doctor."

Ling Chengen:......

When some men get narcissistic, even narcissism becomes irrelevant.

"How do I sever the connection with this damn leaf?" Ling Chengen's icy voice reached Yu Heng's ears.

Yu Heng scoffed lightly: "What a heartless little female."

"Thank you for the compliment, but I am indeed a cold and ruthless person!"

Ling Chengen fumbled around for a while before finally stuffing the leaf directly into Bai Qingyu's hand.

The moment the leaf landed in his palm, it immediately returned to its original green color.

Bai Qingyu held the leaf with a helpless expression: "Aren't you going to keep it?"

Ling Chengen untied the animal skin bag from his waist: "Put it here."

As long as she holds this tattered leaf, Yuheng can harass her by phone anytime he wants.

Ling Chengen glanced at the system that was jumping around in her mental domain and said coldly, "It's not that I don't want to do the mission, it's just that this guy is asking for an exorbitant amount."

She didn't have any deep-seated hatred for the two major southern tribes. Her previous dissatisfaction with the southern tribes that controlled the salt mines stemmed from the rising price of salt. But since sea salt hadn't been sold yet, there was no need for them to preemptively confront the major southern tribes.

Although a war with those large tribes is inevitable in the future, it is still a long way off.

Since we're not strong right now, we should play it safe and develop our strength cautiously.

Bai Qingyu put the leaves into the animal skin bag at her waist, glanced at the drowsy Bai Xi, and left Bai Xi's cave with Ling Chengen.

After returning to the treehouse, Bai Qingyu untied the animal skin bag from her waist and tossed it onto the small cabinet by the bedside.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lowered his head to kiss her lips.

He didn't say a single word from beginning to end.

Ling Chengen noticed that he was in low spirits and seemed sullen. She raised her hand to brush his long, satin-like hair behind him, her slender fingertips caressing his earlobe, and then took the initiative to pry open his lips.