The three hundred thousand cultivators were originally issued pills once every half month. Now it had been half a year with no news.
Bao Gu wasn’t exactly stingy with them, so most people had managed to save up a little extra, but after dragging it out for half a year even that stockpile was on the verge of running dry.
Those cultivators who never saved pills at all had already cut off their rations long ago and were so weak they could barely move.
Ba was guarding the medicine garden, yet she could still feel that something was off outside.
For example, cultivators were now loitering around Bao Gu’s ship all day from a distance.
People who used to work diligently had stopped working, were slacking off, and hiding inside the defensive formation to sit in meditation and conserve energy.
Ba thought about it.
Bao Gu didn’t seem to have a rule that punished laziness.
Bao Gu’s rule was: as long as the job gets done, they could do whatever they wanted.
She decided not to bother with them.
She would just wait for Bao Gu to come out and check their work progress.
If they hadn’t finished but were loafing around, then she could throw them into the Bone Hall and lock them up as rations!
The moment she thought of flavorless stewed human meat, though, her interest in dragging these disobedient cultivators off to be food instantly vanished.
She couldn’t even muster the energy to think about that tasteless stew, yet she was hungry and craving badly; the whole of her just felt wrong.
She looked at the second- and third-tier spirit herbs around her.
They really were hard to eat, and knowing there’d be nothing good after them, she completely lost any motivation to guard the medicine garden and instead went to guard Bao Gu.
After this experience, she finally understood what it meant that the one who controlled the resources held all the power.
Ba squatted at Bao Gu’s side without leaving her for more than another three months, only dragging someone out to eat raw when she was so hungry she couldn’t stand it anymore.
Raw meat tasted awful, just blood and iron in her mouth, and it didn’t have anywhere near the nourishing effect of stewed human meat simmered with seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade treasures and ten‑thousand‑year spirit medicines.
The little energy she got from eating people alone was nowhere near enough to suppress the death qi within her body.
But she had promised Bao Gu she would only eat one person every half month.
So when she got really hungry, she unconsciously ended up eating several times that amount.
Opening her belly and wolfing down human flesh by the hundreds or thousands in one sitting was something she just couldn’t bring herself to do; going back on her word would be unbearably shameful.
As the hunger dragged on, the red light in Ba’s eyes turned into a hungry green glow, and even her fangs were forced out by sheer starvation.
Ba really disliked her fangs.
Ever since she gradually recovered memories of her former life, she knew very well what fangs represented.
So she always tried her best to hide them and only show her pretty, delicate side.
By now she had been hungry for almost a year.
Forget about hiding her fangs—she couldn’t even hide her nails anymore.
Those inch-long clawlike nails, sharp as hooks and wreathed in ghostly flame, pushed out through the flesh.
Ba stared at her own pair of ghost claws, then touched her fangs again, and suddenly felt too embarrassed to go out and see anyone.
She remembered that back in the Upper Realm, when she still looked like a seven- or eight-year-old child, she had once encountered a member of the corpse race.
That thing had a green face, jutting fangs, hooked claws, and it rushed right up to her and opened its mouth, belching out a wave of foul stench.
Her brave father had merely frowned in disgust and said:
“What kind of disgusting thing is this?”
Then, with a slap that landed with a crisp “smack,” he killed that corpse cultivator whose body had been tempered to an indestructible Vajra state.
Because of that, the corpse race had stirred up quite a fuss and even mobilized on a large scale.
But before her father even needed to act, those immortals had worked together to wipe them out, like slaughtering some hated, unclean vermin.
Ba then thought of how, just after she’d first developed spiritual intelligence and her mind still didn’t work properly, she had been hunted down again and again by Earth Immortals, until they finally sealed her into a coffin.
Back then, what she went through had been almost identical to the fate of those corpse race beings in the Upper Realm.
Now she herself was also corpse race—a thing gods and ghosts alike found repulsive.
Ba was at a loss over her current appearance and a little self-conscious besides.
She really didn’t like what she had become, and she especially didn’t want to be despised by her father.
Even if her father was no longer around, she knew he hated the corpse race and would have hated what she was now.
Over these years, all her bodily functions had recovered nicely; her memory and intelligence had steadily come back.
She had been aware that it was because she had been eating well.
Now that she’d gone hungry for this stretch of time, her recovery hadn’t just stagnated—it had actually regressed.
The death qi was spreading beyond her control.
She possessed an undying golden body; she couldn’t truly die.
But once the death qi spread, her skin would lose its luster and elasticity, turning a dark bluish-green and becoming extremely stiff.
A green face and protruding fangs, her whole body iron‑blue, with fangs bared and terrifying ghost claws, her flesh as hard as an iron plate—and as time went on she would even lose the moisture in her body, and her chest would flatten.
A beautiful imperial princess would become a hideous dried corpse.
Even if her combat strength and cultivation wouldn’t decrease, the sheer change in appearance was so terrifying that she felt horrified just imagining it.
How ugly would that be?
So ugly she herself wouldn’t dare look straight in a mirror.
Bao Gu still hadn’t woken up, and Ba couldn’t get any spirit treasures or miracle medicines to make up for it.
To avoid becoming ugly, she had no choice but to increase how many people she ate.
Even eating ten people a day, she still couldn’t stop her skin from turning green!
Back when the ground had been crawling with people, she ate so many in a day she couldn’t even count them herself.
Those people were at least Soul Formation cultivators, Void Tearing experts were everywhere, and she’d even eaten Earth Immortals before.
How could it compare to now, when Nascent Soul cultivators weren’t even enough to fill the gaps between her teeth?
During the time Ba watched over Bao Gu, the more people she ate, the more bones she left behind, until the pile almost buried Bao Gu.
Bao Gu’s cabin was jammed full of white bones; it wasn’t just the floor, some places had bones piled nearly up to the two‑zhang‑high ceiling.
Ba felt it was only natural and proper that she ate people.
She was hungry.
If she didn’t eat them, she’d be hungry—and she’d become ugly.
But whenever she saw Bao Gu sitting there and then looked at the sea of bones, she couldn’t help feeling a guilty flutter in her heart.
She could clearly picture Bao Gu opening her eyes, seeing the white bones everywhere, and flying into a towering rage.
They had agreed on one person every half month.
Ba had never counted how many she’d eaten, but she had a rough idea—at least over a thousand.
What if Bao Gu got mad and cut off her rations?
Bao Gu wasn’t afraid of death or a beating.
Even if Ba wanted to threaten her or rob her by force, she’d have no way.
Better not piss Bao Gu off.
Thinking this, Ba hastily crawled up from the one seat‑sized spot next to Bao Gu that was not yet buried in bones and started shoving the sea of bones in the cabin wholesale into the depths of her Blood Prison World.
As she flung them in, she smacked her own hands and silently cursed herself for being so stupid.
She’d been so angry about not having spirit treasures and miracle medicines to eat that she had thrown the bones down beside Bao Gu out of spite each time she ate someone, and without paying attention she’d piled up this much.
Afraid Bao Gu would notice something off, she cleaned up extra carefully.
She even scraped the bone fragments that had fallen into the cracks she’d clawed into the floorboards and swept them all into the Blood Prison World.
When Bao Gu opened her eyes, what she saw was a girl of sixteen or seventeen with her little butt sticking up, lying on the floor, using those inch‑long, metallic‑glinting, ghost‑flame‑wreathed nails to scratch dust out of the cracks between the planks.
Bao Gu was instantly stunned.
Just how bored did you have to be for this?
So bored that, with no ants to count, you resorted to digging dust out of floor cracks for fun?
Sure, your intelligence took a big hit after you died, but did you really have to do something even more childish than a three-year-old?
Ba felt the gaze from behind her and the change in Bao Gu’s breathing.
She snapped her head around and stared at Bao Gu, eyes wide with shock.
Awake?
There’d be rations again!
She instantly realized that Bao Gu had just seen her destroying the evidence.
She sprang to her feet, kept her expression calm, and said lightly,
“I was, uh, sweeping the dust.”
Without a trace, she shifted the opening of the Blood Prison World behind her, moving that bone hill she’d just shoved in to where Bao Gu wouldn’t be able to see it.
Bao Gu didn’t notice Ba’s little movements.
She was too busy being shocked by Ba’s current appearance.
A faint red glow of blood fiend and death qi shrouded Ba’s entire body.
On her forehead, the Blood Prison Lotus looked so vivid it might start dripping blood at any moment, releasing a powerful aura.
It was clearly suppressing the death qi in Ba’s body.
Ba’s blood‑red eyes were tinged with a hungry green light.
That look immediately made Bao Gu think of the cannibalistic gaze in the eyes of those people in Qing Shan County during the famine.
Two long fangs jutted out between Ba’s lips, slightly curved, reaching all the way down to her chin.
A delicate, rosy‑lipped girl with pearly white teeth was now showing the traits of a ghostly monster—so strange it was unsettling.
Yet the faint unease and awkwardness leaking from Ba’s body stirred a sliver of pity in Bao Gu.
Seeing Bao Gu staring at her, Ba subconsciously touched her fangs.
Shame and anger flared, and she knit her brows with a cold snort.
“What are you looking at? Never seen someone with fangs before?”
She turned her face away in a huff.
But she almost immediately twisted back and said,
“We agreed I’d get to eat every half month. You sit down without a word and vanish for a whole year. My teeth starved their way out!”
She finished and glared at Bao Gu, furious and puffed up, as if her fangs showing were entirely Bao Gu’s fault.
Which, in her mind, they were.
If Bao Gu hadn’t starved her, would her teeth have come out?
Bao Gu quietly went, “Huh?” inside, and gave Ba a surprised look.
Since when could Ba count time?
Before, she only counted the marks on the hourglass.
Now she actually understood that those marks represented months and years.
A year!
Bao Gu glanced at the hourglass and saw that nearly a full year really had passed.
Startled, she shot up and rushed straight out of the ship.
The moment she stepped out, she saw the steward in charge of issuing pill rations leading a group of people loitering outside.
They all sensed the movement of her emergence and jerked their heads back in shock.
When they saw it was Bao Gu, the steward instantly threw himself forward, dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, and bowed until his forehead smacked the deck.
“Commander, you’re finally out!”
The “thunk” of his head hitting the floor was so loud Bao Gu’s own forehead hurt in sympathy.
Ba took one step and blurred to Bao Gu’s side.
She stared straight at Bao Gu and declared righteously,
“I’m hungry.”
She thought about it, worried Bao Gu would go hand out rations to the cultivators and forget about her, so she tilted her little head up, bared her fangs, and even tapped her own teeth with a finger.
“See? My teeth are starving their way out.”
Bao Gu had, without meaning to, left Ba hungry for a full year.
How could she ignore this little act of disgruntled begging?
She rubbed Ba’s head and coaxed,
“Good girl, don’t be mad. I’ll give you extra.”
She pulled a few leaves of Flood Dragon Enlightenment Sacred Tea, a dozen ten‑thousand‑year spirit herbs, and a ninth‑grade spirit treasure out of her massive storage bag and stuffed them into Ba’s hands, then added a jug of fifth‑grade Monkey Wine.
The fragrance of the spirit treasures and miracle medicines drifted to Ba’s nose.
Her eyes lit up the moment she saw what Bao Gu had taken out, and when she spotted the jug of fifth‑grade Monkey Wine, her gaze turned pure delight.
Bao Gu had taught her basic bookkeeping; although she hadn’t learned it well, she could still count.
She said,
“My rations for a whole year are just this much?”
Bao Gu hurriedly made up the full amount she owed Ba for the year, then added another year’s worth on top as a bonus.
The corner of Ba’s mouth lifted.
With a flick of her hand, she swept up the pile of spirit treasures, miracle medicines, and the two jugs of Monkey Wine Bao Gu had given her, and then she vanished without a trace.
The dozen or so cultivators kneeling on the ground had seen the whole exchange.
Watching Ba and Bao Gu interact with such easy intimacy, they felt even more fear and reverence for Bao Gu and didn’t even dare to breathe too loudly.
After Ba had left with her haul, Bao Gu finally turned her gaze to the group of cultivators kneeling in front of her.
“Get up.”
She recognized these stewards; they were all in charge of rations in various areas.
With one glance she saw that not a single steward responsible for food was missing—they were all here.
If she didn’t keep a tight grip on the spirit herbs and pills, these cultivators would definitely cause trouble.
She absolutely couldn’t stockpile too many rations in their hands and let them feel secure.
Spirit treasures and miracle herbs couldn’t grow without the True Sun Fire.
Out here in the void there wasn’t even a sun, never mind a moon.
They had to rely on treasures that stored True Sun Fire to supply it to the medicine gardens.
The strands of Sun Essence Fire the three hundred thousand cultivators had brought either belonged to smiths as reserves or were sealed inside a very small number of high‑destruction treasures that contained it.
The total amount was extremely limited, so Bao Gu naturally had to use it sparingly.
Right now, only the two ships had five mu of land each that could grow spirit herbs at all, and even then it was only low‑tier herbs, nowhere near enough to supply three hundred thousand people.
They still had to rely entirely on what the Xuantian Mountains produced.
All the rations produced by the three thousand cultivators inside the Xuantian Mountain Range had naturally been stockpiled in the safest place of all—the Xuantian Mountains treasury.
After all, food for three hundred thousand people was no small amount.
Even half a month’s worth, never mind a year or two, was enormous.
Once their rations were fully guaranteed, a couple of bold ones grabbing a ship that could store True Sun Fire, grow spirit herbs, and tear open the void to run away with was entirely possible.
Bao Gu turned back into the ship, and the dozen stewards followed behind her with careful, measured steps.
She didn’t bring up the pills yet.
First she sent people to summon the stewards in charge of all the various tasks.
She wanted to know exactly what things had been like this past year while she hadn’t been managing anything.
If there were any bad signs, she needed to nip them in the bud.
Situations where she accidentally went into seclusion and failed to come out for a long time were definitely going to happen again in the future.
No big problems would crop up in a year or so, but if she disappeared for seven or eight years, the trouble would be huge.
Not long after, all the stewards arrived and reported in detail one by one, not daring to hide anything.
Because there had been no resupply, many cultivators were weakened.
Since they didn’t know when she would appear or replenish their rations, they had cut their own consumption to preserve strength.
All the various kinds of work had ground to a halt.
To put it bluntly, they had stopped working because they were starving.
No food, no strength to work.
No food, so they didn’t work—was that to conserve energy and survive, or was it to show Bao Gu an ugly attitude?
Bao Gu was at fault in this.
She didn’t punish them, but she did give them a heavy verbal beating before issuing them pills.
Then she took out ten years’ worth of reserves and sealed them inside a ship that had no power and couldn’t move on its own, assigning heavy guards and drafting strict regulations on how the reserve grain could be used.
Once that was properly handled, Ba appeared in Bao Gu’s cabin again, her clear eyes fixed on Bao Gu without blinking.
The death qi around Ba’s body had been completely suppressed.
Her fangs and claws were retracted; she looked like a delicate little carved jade doll, irresistibly cute.
The stewards who saw Ba come in were scared out of their wits, instantly shrinking in on themselves and trying to erase their presence.
When Bao Gu waved them away, they slipped out like men suddenly pardoned from death.
Ba’s ferocity in eating people had been carved deep into their hearts.
During the year Bao Gu was absent, Ba had shown herself from time to time, and every appearance scared people so badly their souls nearly flew out of their bodies.
If they hadn’t known that with Bao Gu sitting in command Ba wouldn’t touch them, quite a few of them would probably have killed themselves already just to die quickly and be done with it.
Bao Gu asked Ba,
“You need something?”
Ba spoke a little guiltily.
“I’ve been hungry too long. One person isn’t enough.”
In truth, she’d just secretly stewed two people and eaten them, but it still wasn’t enough.
And the stewed meat just didn’t taste as good as before; it wasn’t the flavor in her memory.
She felt that Bao Gu could make something much tastier for her, so she’d come to find Bao Gu.
But she also felt a bit embarrassed, like she was pushing her luck, so everything she said carried a faint guilty edge.
