Chapter 452

On the street to the left, several people were pushing wooden carts loaded with raw materials.

Those people saw Zhao Chi and the others, but showed no reaction at all.

They simply passed right in front of them as if they didn't exist.

From their appearance, they were all human, wearing tattered cloth clothes — they must have been the ones the harpy had reported.

But without exception, all of them were extremely thin and frail, and their skin was deathly pale, completely bloodless.

It looked as though all their blood had been drained out.

Just as he was watching, another dozen or so people came walking down the street ahead, carrying something on their backs as they moved — they all looked the same: thin, frail, and deathly pale.

Tang Ruan asked in surprise, "My lord, are they also mutated, modified humans?"

Zhao Chi shook his head. "No… they should be normal humans, but they've all been raised as blood banks by the vampires, supplying them with fresh blood."

"Ah?" Tang Ruan covered her mouth.

The dozen or so people walking toward them from ahead also wore blank expressions; when Zhao Chi and the others blocked their path, they said nothing and silently walked around them.

Zhao Chi stopped one of them. "What are you doing?"

The person stopped, pulled down the collar of their clothes, and exposed their neck.

On the neck was row upon row of tooth marks.

Some had already scabbed over, while others were still bleeding.

The person stood in place, staring blankly to one side, as if waiting for Zhao Chi to come over and suck their blood.

Zhao Chi frowned. "Can you speak?"

The person showed no reaction at all.

Gu Qing sighed. "My lord, they've all probably been soul-captured by the vampires. Now they're no different from ordinary zombies — except that they're still alive."

Tang Ruan couldn't help but ask, "Soul-captured? They have no souls left?"

Gu Qing shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure either, but you could say they're like walking corpses."

Zhao Chi nodded. "Yes, I've read about this in books before. These people are all vampire thralls — people with no minds of their own, who only follow orders."

Tang Ruan stared at the person in astonishment.

Even hearing them discuss him, the person showed no reaction whatsoever.

Zhao Chi sighed. "Living like this is worse than death. Later, we'll give them a quick end."

Gu Qing nodded. "Yes, that's for the best."

Zhao Chi said, "Later this territory will be destroyed, and when that happens, every living thing here will die. We don't need to waste time doing it ourselves. What everyone needs to do now is loot — take anything valuable back with you. If you can't carry it in both hands, go inside the houses and wrap it up in bedsheets. Everyone, move out!"

"Understood!"

The female soldiers scattered in all directions.

They entered the various buildings.

There were quite a few buildings in Zhao Ji's territory.

But most of them were houses.

Next came various production buildings, such as blacksmith shops and tailor shops.

There were also some special buildings that Zhao Chi had never seen before.

For example, there was a training ground covered in dust and smoke.

There was also an unusually grand temple, wreathed in mist.

These special buildings probably all had different functions, but Zhao Chi couldn't take them with him, so he didn't waste any time on them.

Zhao Chi rushed into one of the houses.

It was very dark inside, with no lamps lit.

But the light from outside came in through the windows and door, enough to see clearly.

The interior followed the default layout — no different from the wooden houses in Zhao Chi's own territory.

The only difference was that the communal sleeping platform was crammed with fifteen people.

The standard capacity for this kind of small wooden house was five people, but these fifteen were all lying rigidly flat, pressed against one another — somehow they still fit.

They all had their eyes closed, their skin deathly pale, like corpses in a morgue.

Hearing Zhao Chi enter, all of them opened their eyes.

But their eyes just stared blankly at the ceiling, their bodies not moving at all.

Presumably they had to be ready to follow orders at any moment.

Zhao Chi sighed. "It's fine, go back to sleep."

Those words worked like a charm — in unison, they all closed their eyes again and returned to their corpse-like state.

Zhao Chi did a quick sweep of the room.

There was nothing.

That was pretty much a given.

Zhao Chi stepped back out and closed the door.

After entering a few more wooden houses and peering inside from the doorway, Zhao Chi found they were all the same.

It seemed these wooden houses weren't worth searching.

Further in were the barracks and various production buildings.

The barracks were full of vampire soldiers living inside, and some female soldiers had already gone in to search.

Zhao Chi turned and entered the tailor shop.

There were some rare materials inside, and Feng Xiu was in the middle of looting them.

"My lord, there are some rare materials — I've taken them all. These ordinary ragged cloth clothes, we don't need to take them, right?"

Zhao Chi nodded. "That's right, take the rare ones. After all, it's about bearing the load."

Feng Xiu laughed. "I've already swept through four tailor shops. Plenty of gains, but I haven't had time to look closely. We'll talk when we get back."

One could tell she was very happy.

Of course anyone would be happy about this sort of thing.

Anyone would be happy.

Zhao Chi laughed. "Keep at it. I'll go look around elsewhere."

The women soldiers outside had also discovered the wooden cabin had nothing worth searching, and all gave up on it.

Various production buildings also had female craftsmen entering them.

They each entered buildings matching their own specialty.

For instance, Feng Xiu specialized in searching tailor shops, Ding Dang specialized in searching blacksmith shops, Li Zhu specialized in searching carpenter shops, and so on.

Zhao Chi looked around left and right — every woman's enthusiasm was running high.

It was as if, while out shopping, they'd stumbled into a discount store.

Everyone was snatching things like crazy.

Zhao Chi entered a warehouse.

There were quite a few women soldiers here too.

Gu Qing was also inside.

She had already wrapped up a large batch of supplies with silk thread.

It looked just like courier packaging — all the supplies had been bundled into one big sticky ball.

Through the silk thread, one could see it was mainly weapons and equipment inside.

There were also plenty of daily supplies.

The daily supplies weren't ordinary ones — they were the kind reserved exclusively for nobles.

Regardless of their value, the price was very high.

Looking further inside, one couldn't make out what they were.

Besides this big sticky ball, there were several others beside it.

It seemed this warehouse was almost completely packaged up by Gu Qing.

Zhao Chi asked, "There aren't any basic resource packs in here, right? Stone, iron ore, that sort of thing? Those are too heavy and not worth much — no need to bother with them."

Gu Qing laughed. "My lord, I understand. Everything in this warehouse is semi-finished products and finished products — no basic resources."

As Gu Qing spoke, she tugged at the silk thread near her navel.

Then she leaned in close.

"My lord, help me see if my navel has gotten bigger?"