Chapter 368: Giant Salamander

All firearms had been modified, their surfaces coated with a wood-grain lacquer, styled to resemble luxurious, gold-inlaid, carved flintlock muskets.

The saying "poor in literature, rich in martial arts" held true—the martial artists present had all played with and used flintlocks; the wealthiest, Su Konghu, carried several on his person, and after handling them briefly, he understood roughly how automatic weapons worked.

"This craftsmanship, this rate of fire, this power."

Lu Hu raised a Gatling gun in each hand and sprayed the dense forest, firing for only two seconds—bullets rained down, shattering towering trees into splinters and snapping branches.

If an ordinary person operated these firearms, the reanimated corpses might anticipate bullet trajectories with their reflexes and mobility, dodging them.

But with martial artists firing, they could fully match the reanimated corpses' movement speed.

As Lu Hu was shaken internally, his suspicion toward Li Cheng grew stronger.

Neither Great Ming nor any Western nation possessed such advanced firearms—where had this man come from?

He did not know Li Cheng's self-propelled artillery could fire automatically and relocate; he assumed Li Cheng had accomplices hiding somewhere on the island, and that this entire crate of advanced weaponry had been buried in advance, proving he had been watching the Tu family longer than the Brocade Guard.

The question was: what kind of foreign force could plan so flawlessly, completely concealing its actions from both the Tu family and the imperial court?

A foreign force from the moon?

Lu Hu's mind churned with dark thoughts, while others weighed the bottles and jars in the second crate, their expressions strange.

The labels on the various bottles carried an ominous tone, listing effects such as enhanced strength, accelerated physical recovery, and improved bodily healing, with side effects including acne, irritability, mood swings, and hair loss.

Hair loss was tolerable—but what did "testicles may shrink" mean? It was written in bold, italic, red, underlined, and ended with a picture of two quail eggs.

Brother Sikong felt an inexplicable phantom pain in his lower body and awkwardly said, "Master Pi Fu, do you have any pills with milder side effects? I'm not even married yet."

"All medicine carries some toxicity—if your testicles shrink, just soak them in hot water; heat expands, cold contracts, problem solved."

"If you can't endure the side effects, you'll endure the reanimated corpses. How can you grow stronger if you don't understand this?"

Li Cheng shook his head, and beside him, Hui Yu added, "Exactly—didn't the famed drug mistress Dongfang Bubai become a great martial arts master?"

Seeing the others still hesitant, Li Cheng waved his hand and said, "There's another layer beneath the crate with milder side effects. You can try those."

Li Cheng possessed the Two Yin-Yang Blade—he had no need or reason to take banned drugs; he didn't even use protein powder regularly, at most just a little.

But to explore the 【Patched Doll】's effects on the human body, he had indeed purchased a large quantity of goods from other shops in the Slums.

From the most basic steroids, peptides, and psychoactive drugs.

To more advanced performance activators, super-soldier serums, detoxified T-virus, and everything in between.

Ku Yu the Monk even found a bottle of blue "Meditation Injector," designed specifically for monks, Daoist Priests, sorcerers, and psychics, effectively enhancing meditation efficiency and accelerating spiritual energy recovery.

When paired with specially crafted mushroom incense, it could generate wondrous hallucinations in the mind, ideal for breaking through cultivation realms.

The illustration showed a monk sitting cross-legged, smoking an e-cigarette, puffing clouds, his face blissfully serene as if already seeing the Western Pure Land.

Ugh… this is utterly sacrilegious.

After much hesitation, Ku Yu put the bottle down and took only two bundles of self-sewing medical bandages from the crate.

After regrouping and chewing two energy bars, they set off toward the Tu residence.

Along the way, rifles led the way, machine guns provided cover, effortlessly mowing down ordinary mutants; even high-level reanimated corpses transformed from martial artists were shredded under the dense fire net.

Wu Ge and Cao Meng and others felt nothing special—just that the firearms were incredibly effective. But Lu Hu and the other Brocade Guards, raised with loyalty to the throne and love for the nation, couldn't help but fantasize.

If the Great Ming army possessed such firearms, what would Mongols, Westerners, or Japanese pirates be but ants?

Our Great Ming—unrivaled under heaven!

"Stop."

Li Cheng raised his hand, cutting off the Brocade Guards' daydreams.

"What's wrong?"

"Too quiet."

The closer they got to the Tu residence, the quieter the roars and howls became—the reanimated corpses seemed to have all hidden away.

Li Cheng looked at Hui Yu, who understood at once. Quietly, he pulled out a drone remote, using the cover of dark clouds to pilot the drone upward, then activated thermal imaging. Seeing the screen, he unconsciously raised an eyebrow.

No large heat signatures were visible in the forest—instead, countless tiny heat sources dotted the landscape like stars.

Rustle-rustle—

Tiny sounds came from all directions; countless snakes, insects, rodents, spiders, and frogs emerged from the rotting leaf litter, slithering past their feet toward the Tu residence.

Cao Meng's scalp prickled; as he slapped off a flying squirrel that landed on his shoulder, he tugged his shoulder wound and instinctively pulled the rifle trigger, severing a pit viper.

The pit viper's body split in two; its lower half writhed on the ground, while its upper half still crawled toward the Tu residence.

Like a "ren" enduring mosquito bites and insect extortion in the Amazon rainforest, determined to reach the American beacon.

"Let's go."

Li Cheng glanced at the crawling creatures on the ground and strode forward; the others hurried to keep pace.

Following the winding mountain path upward, they reached the Tu residence.

The fire, ignited by overturned lanterns and candles, was suppressed by fine rain, burning at a slow rate.

The entire residence was deathly silent—all corpses, whether killed earlier by Hui Yu and others or devoured by reanimated corpses, had vanished.

"Master Song, where are you, Master Song?"

Su Konghu still worried about Song Zhong, whispering his call; receiving no answer, he gritted his teeth, left the group, and leapt onto the corridor roof, carefully tracing the broken tile marks to reconstruct the battle.

Song Zhong was surrounded by three primordial reanimated corpses, fighting his way back, nearly escaping the Tu residence—until he was driven back again. Forced to rely on the unstable eaves, now weakened by fire, and the reanimated corpses' poor martial arts mobility, he engaged in a desperate standoff.

Unfortunately, much of the battle's trace had been washed away by rain, ending finally beside a pond.

The pond water was dark green, nearly black; in the grass beside it lay a white mass. Su Konghu took a deep breath and used a fallen branch to flip it over.

It was not Song Zhong—it was a white giant salamander nearly one meter and seventy centimeters long.

The right side of the salamander's body was covered in deep cuts; the flesh exposed within was unmistakably the same white fish sashimi Hui Yu loved.

Around the dead salamander, countless snakes, insects, rodents, and arthropods formed straight lines, stretching all the way into the ancestral shrine deep within the Tu residence.

(End of Chapter)