Chapter 326: Chapter 275: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind
Tao Wuli was the first to arrive at the Peach Blossom Spring.
This pure land is so wonderful, the scenery is so pleasant, and the resources are extremely abundant, even the rivers flow with milk and honey. Anyone who comes here probably wouldn’t want to leave.
Except for the first to come, Tao Wuli.
The unfamiliar environment, the strange villagers, the path was familiar, but he ended up in this unfamiliar underground... For Tao Wuli, who intended to reach the Forget Sorrow Village, everything here exuded an air of eeriness, simply because this strangeness was also so familiar to him.
Indeed, he had never seen this Peach Blossom Spring with his own eyes, but he had written about it himself. But why did the place he concocted appear so vividly before him?
Perhaps another person would want to explore why such a situation occurred, but as the person involved, Tao Wuli was not brimming with curiosity; he only wanted to leave this bizarre place quickly and return to his familiar life.
But he couldn’t leave.
On one hand, the villagers of the Peach Blossom Spring were overly enthusiastic, and he couldn’t find a chance to leave. On the other hand, he himself didn’t want to leave — this uncanny Peach Blossom Spring seemed to have a mysterious allure, making him abandon the thought of leaving due to various reasons, even after trying multiple times.
"This is what I wrote myself, no one who comes here would want to leave..."
After the eighteenth failed attempt to escape, Tao Wuli finally realized the root of the problem.
But it was already too late; by then, he had already donned the clothes of the villagers, picked up the hoe like them, worked in the fields by day, and tended to those few pots of chrysanthemums in his spare time — those were perhaps the only things that truly belonged to him, the only time when he would remember who he was, and that he didn’t belong here.
However, he could no longer leave. If nothing unexpected happened, perhaps he would spend the rest of his life indulging in this place he personally wrote about.
Luckily, some unexpected things eventually did happen.
A group of new outsiders arrived at the Peach Blossom Spring. Heaven knows how they found their way here; these people were not acquaintances of Tao Wuli, but a group of wide-nosed foreigners — upon reaching the Peach Blossom Spring, these foreigners even knelt on the ground in excitement, constantly kowtowing to the sky as if worshipping something.
Just like they did with Tao Wuli, the villagers warmly received these foreigners, perhaps because they always held considerable goodwill towards outsiders.
But this time, their goodwill was misplaced.
"Not the chosen people of God?"
Looking at those villagers of the Peach Blossom Spring, who resembled the people of Chen exactly, the leader of the foreigners frowned.
"How dare they desecrate our Promised Land... Kill them, kill them all."
"Huh?"
The villagers in the front rows hadn’t even reacted when scimitars and swords slashed through their bodies.
The villagers screamed in terror, unable to understand why their warm hospitality was repaid with blades and swords striking them, but the foreigners showed no hesitation, not even sparing the elderly and children.
There was a frenzied zeal in the eyes of those foreigners; they were capable of anything.
Tao Wuli naturally fell within the killing range of these foreigners, who slaughtered anyone who looked different from them. Facing the scimitars and swords of the foreigners, Tao Wuli hurriedly ran back to his home in the Peach Blossom Spring and tightly shut the door.
But even that wasn’t absolutely safe. The foreigners would soon reach here, and when they did, being outnumbered and with only a thin door as a barrier, how long could it hold?
"A safe place, I need a safe place!"
Taking a pot of chrysanthemums in his arms, Tao Wuli took advantage of the chaos to rush out again.
There was a cellar at the village elder’s house, originally used for storing food. If he could hide there, those outside might not find him — fortunately, he didn’t encounter any foreigners along the way, and he really managed to hide in the cellar. After sealing the cellar door, the foreigners outside still didn’t discover him.
"Survived..."
At that moment, Tao Wuli felt so grateful, having managed to preserve his life after all.
"Taken it!"
Outside the cellar, those foreigners were so joyful, having finally seized this Promised Land recorded in their scriptures.
This place was meant to be theirs, this land flowing with milk and honey was given to them by God. After killing all the outsiders, this land finally returned to their hands — but considering there were still some chosen people outside, the foreigners who came as scouts decided to have a good night’s sleep before going out to fetch them at dawn.
The foreigners didn’t leave, so Tao Wuli, hiding in the cellar, naturally had no place to go either, and could only hold onto his pot of chrysanthemums, spending the night in the cellar.
What Tao Wuli didn’t expect was that when he woke up, he had returned to his bed.
Not just him, everyone had returned to their beds. When a confused Tao Wuli, holding his flower pot, opened the door, he even saw his neighbor greeting him — though he clearly remembered that this neighbor had been killed by the foreigners with a sword just yesterday, right in front of him.
Yet now, that neighbor stood perfectly fine in front of him, without a single wound.
As usual, the people of the Peach Blossom Spring started their day again, those who needed to work did so, those who needed to farm went to the fields, the elderly still sat at the village entrance chatting, and the children continued to play in groups.
It was as if the bloody massacre of last night had never happened.
"How... is that possible?"
The waking foreigners were also dumbfounded, their hands holding blades and swords even trembling.
"The dead can walk? What on earth are these things?"
Terrified, the foreigners raised their weapons again, refusing to believe these strange villagers couldn’t be killed — but this time, before they could swing their blades, another group confronted them.
This was the third group to come to the Peach Blossom Spring, and each member of the group was armored and armed, but their appearance wasn’t wide-nosed foreigners; they looked like the standard people of Chen.
After surveying this land of milk and honey and the foreigners holding swords, the newcomers all began to smile.
"Knew you foreigners were up to something!"
Seeing the ferocious faces of the foreigners, the leader Bai Wujiu waved his hand.
"Defend the borders and the people! Slay them!"
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