Chapter 291: Love Even as a Skeleton
What grandfathers? These were clearly skeletons!
Skeletons were everywhere. Their bone frames were rickety; a skeleton would walk a couple of steps, fall apart, and then stop to reassemble itself.
Bizarre.
It was utterly bizarre.
Han Xiaoyun was also stunned. If he were still a skeleton, this crowd of skeletons might have seemed rather familiar.
But now that he was human, the scene was simply horrifying.
Unlike the talking, Advanced skeleton Han Xiaoyun, all the ones Yu An saw were mute. At least, aside from the clattering of bones, they didn’t hear any of the skeletons speak.
Mo Yan suggested, "An’an, A shao recovered by eating a Nirvana Fruit. Can they do the same?"
She gestured toward the skeletons. Yu An fell silent.
"Female Mother," Yu An said with a helpless smile, "there’s a limited number of Nirvana Fruits, and the ones that have grown recently aren’t ripe yet."
With so many skeletons, even if Nirvana Fruits were as prolific as dates on a palm tree, it wouldn’t be enough!
After asking Tian Shu, Yu An learned that in the past, when people were turned into Blood Crystals, they didn’t leave behind skeletons. Beastmen were the exception.
But Han Li had also been turned into a Blood Crystal, so why hadn’t he left a skeleton behind?
Han Li scratched his head. "An’an, I don’t know what happens to other people when they become Blood Crystals. I was in a sea of blood, and a voice calling itself the ’Divine Stone’ taught me how to cultivate my spiritual power."
’Divine Stone?’
Yu An immediately thought of the Little Stone that taught the Zaizai. ’Could it be that Han Li is different from the other Beastmen because of it?’
The Zaizai said they could hear the Little Stone speak, but Yu An had never communicated with it. It seemed the Little Stone wasn’t very willing to talk to her.
So, Yu An had Little Wolf ask it for her. Only after getting an affirmative reply did she feel relieved.
’So that’s how it was.’
They made a special trip to the Imperial Palace to check, but unfortunately, all the skeletons looked more or less the same. Their auras were gone, and their clothes and ornaments had all fallen to the ground in a jumbled mess, making it impossible to tell who was who.
The four brothers only managed to recognize Ao Jin. While the other skeletons scurried about randomly, one skeleton clung desperately to another, following it wherever it went.
"That’s got to be our Beast Father," Ao Si said confidently. "He’s still in love, even as a skeleton."
He then cheekily suggested, "Little Sis, why don’t you take these skeletons to the Upper Realm with you? If you run into trouble, you can just unleash your skeleton army. Even if you can’t beat your enemies, you can scare them to death!"
"If you think that’s too many, just take our Female Mother and Beast Father. If you need a weapon, you can use our Beast Father’s bones. I bet they’re pretty sturdy."
He even pulled off one of Ao Jin’s leg bones and tapped it with his hand. The sound was crisp and clear.
"Or, you could push our Female Mother into an enemy encirclement. Our Beast Father is... what’s that term again? Right, a ’hopeless romantic.’ This hopeless romantic would go berserk and annihilate them all!"
Everyone else was speechless.
’What a filial son!’
The skeleton immediately stopped chasing his wife and started hopping on its one remaining leg to attack Ao Si, which caused the rest of its bones to fall apart.
Ao Si honked like a goose before his eldest brother grabbed him by the ear and dragged him aside for a scolding.
Yu An, however, was inspired. She began collecting the skeletons.
A dark look crossed Ao Er’s face. "Little Sis, you..."
’How did his sweet, gentle little sister learn such bad habits from that scoundrel Ao Si!’
As his eldest brother chased him around, hitting him, Ao Si didn’t forget to defend himself. "What do you mean she learned it from me? She didn’t!"
’She looks sweet on the outside, but she’s all mischief on the inside.’
’You can’t tell just by looking at her, but I bet she’s got more schemes up her sleeve than me and Ao Wu put together!’
Just as Yu An was gathering her skeleton army, on Overlord Mountain, Ao Wu sneezed several times.
’Is An’an thinking of me again? I wonder when they’ll come to the Upper Realm.’
Ao Wu was terribly frustrated. He didn’t know how to get to the Beastman World, and if he went running around searching for a portal, he was afraid he might miss Yu An.
Thankfully, when the Heaven and Earth Stone brought him to the Upper Realm, it had sworn up and down that Yu An would definitely come, so all he had to do was wait patiently.
’While I’m waiting, I might as well earn some money to support the family. For example, by robbing a passing convoy.’
Ao Wu chewed on a blade of grass, sitting on his bandit chief’s throne and pondering his life as a dragon. Thanks to Overlord Mountain’s fearsome reputation, no convoys had passed by for several days.
He didn’t know if they had found other routes or were just cowering in the cities, but either way, his bandits had returned empty-handed several times.
"Just ordinary folk passing by again," the returning bandits said, dejected. "This is boring. So boring."
What was the point of robbing commoners? If they were going to rob someone, it should be the rich—and the unscrupulous rich at that.
This was the rule their chief had laid down for them. The rumor was that he was afraid his wife would be angry when she got here.
If anyone broke the rule, the chief would execute them on the spot to avoid tarnishing Overlord Mountain’s reputation.
Ao Wu said lazily, "If there’s no one, then just rest. We have food on the mountain, and as long as there’s enough to eat, we’re fine."
"Isn’t it about time for lunch? Go check the kitchen and see what we’re having today."
The bandits felt a wave of helplessness toward their ambitionless chief.
Money and grain, of course, were the kind of things you could never have too much of. But their chief only cared about shiny stones.
While the stones were valuable, they just weren’t as practical as gold and silver.
Ao Wu didn’t know what they were thinking. If he had, he would have told them that gold and silver were useless to him.
Before, it could help Yu An improve her superpower, but it was no longer needed for that. So, he found shiny gemstones much more pleasing to the eye.
At the mention of lunch, a fragrant aroma wafted over from the kitchen, and the bandits forgot all about complaining about their chief.
"Braised pork! It’s definitely braised pork. It smells so good..."
"And fried chicken and french fries! I can’t take it, I’m dying from the smell!"
The bandits excitedly guessed what was for lunch. Ever since they met their chief and second-in-command, their lives had changed dramatically.
It went without saying they had full bellies and warm clothes, but they even got to eat *well*!
The chief knew an absurd number of recipes, each one for a dish they’d never even heard of. He never cooked himself, though; he only gave verbal instructions for others to follow.
The bandits found this understandable. He was the chief, after all.
Little did they know, the only reason Ao Wu didn’t cook personally was to avoid wasting food... and to keep from blowing up the kitchen on Overlord Mountain.
In the kitchen, an older woman was directing an older man to add firewood to the stove. She was reducing the sauce for the braised pork, and after a moment, she picked up a piece and fed it to Fuzai.
"Here, Young Miss, help Grandma taste this for me."
The terms of address on Overlord Mountain were a bit chaotic, with everyone calling each other whatever they pleased. While the others called Fuzai "Young Miss," it didn’t stop her from calling everyone else "brother," "sister," "auntie," "uncle," "grandpa," and "grandma."
"Yummy, yummy! Grandma, your braised pork is just as delicious as my Female Mother’s!"
Fuzai praised her with a full, muffled mouth as she chewed the meat, which delighted the old woman so much that she popped another piece into Fuzai’s mouth.
They all knew that the "Female Mother" Fuzai mentioned was the one they called "the Lady." Thanks to the chief’s constant boasting, everyone on Overlord Mountain knew that the Lady was beautiful and kind, possessed top-tier strength and culinary skills, and... well, she was basically the best at everything.
Hearing Fuzai say this was like receiving an official seal of approval, and the old woman basked in the envious gazes of everyone else in the kitchen.