Chapter 387: Drowning, Thirsting for Water

Salted fish Ao Yulue lay on the ground, turned over, and let out some mumbling sounds, sleeping very soundly.

The Empress's face was ferocious.

After the person before her eyes failed to turn into a salted fish, a second anomaly appeared — the guy sleeping like a log behind her.

Can't absorb!

That guy who slept like the dead, so much a salted fish, could actually only yield a tiny bit of essence, energy, and spirit.

Like a stubborn rock, even scraping at it with a knife with all one's might only scrapes off a little powder.

"Focus your attention." Tang Luo spoke.

The Empress's eyes turned stern, refocusing on the person before her.

His right hand was very steady, and very heavy; she fundamentally had no way to break free.

And if that dead-asleep salted fish behind her was a stubborn rock, then this one before her was a mountain peak — he didn't even have the ability to make her turn into a salted fish.

Let alone absorb any essence, energy, and spirit from him.

Even if both sides made contact, it was the same.

"I, I am the Empress..." the Undying Empress spoke with difficulty; she sensed fear.

"Mm, I know." Tang Luo nodded, "Du Hun."

Uttering those two words, he had already cast Du Hun.

He wanted to see what this Undying Empress was really like.

A dilapidated throne, worn crookedly atop her head, not the least bit magnificent, instead revealing an air of being at the end of one's rope — the crown.

The Queen sat on the throne, body hunched, skin devoid of luster and vitality sagging down, face full of crisscrossing ravines, aged beyond recognition.

At her feet lay a pile of souls stacked into a small hill.

The bottom layer of the hill, the most numerous, took the form of white bones — but not human bones.

Rather, some kind of "foreign object."

More looked like fish bones, various features clearly visible.

Higher up were incomplete corpses, half-human half-fish — not the kind with a human upper body and fish lower body like a mermaid, but upright-walking fish-men.

Appearance bizarre and ferocious, bodies emitting a swirling mist.

Piled together, twitching faintly, exuding an aura called "salted fish."

The top layer looked closer to human, bodies full of fish features — grown fins, scales all over, and fish gills near the mouth.

Behind the Empress's throne, black "tubes" spread out.

Dense and numerous, piercing into the small hill at her feet.

One could see those tubes swelling and flowing from time to time, as if little mice were scurrying inside.

Everything of those souls was being absorbed by the Queen into her body, sustaining her vitality.

Another portion of tubes connected to the water on the ground, trembling faintly; they should be absorbing the mental energy of other "salted fish" in the Water Source Palace.

She was already very, very old.

Judging by appearance alone, she was even older than the 150 years deduced by that unnamed friend of Lu Xiuqi.

Perhaps the fourth life was her, the fifth life was her, the third and second lives were also her.

After a couple of glances, Tang Luo ended the Du Hun state and let go.

The Undying Empress fell to the ground, face filled with utter terror.

Although she could absorb others' essence, energy, and spirit to maintain undying status, her soul was actually in a lingering, dying state.

Very weak, extremely feeble.

Tang Luo cast Du Hun to pull her out of her body, like dragging someone from a warm house and throwing them onto a bone-chilling ice plain — without clothes at that.

Also like kicking someone off a cruise ship into the open sea.

"This poor monk has some things he wants to ask you." Tang Luo crouched down, looking at this Undying Empress, and spoke.

"What do you want to know?" The Empress acted very cooperative.

Her whole body lay prone in the water, like a greedy, water-craving fish.

Actually not far off, because Ao Yulue found this Empress in the large lake beside the Water Source Palace.

Also the name Water Source Palace was personally chosen by the Empress — showing the Empress's longing for water.

After finding the Empress, Ao Yulue felt his mission was complete, didn't say another word, and fell asleep on the spot, coincidentally dragged back by the Empress.

"A lot, like your origins. And information on more 'anomalies' in this world." Tang Luo said.

There had been speculation before: between Gods and Demons Walking and strange events, there should actually be a "mutual attraction" relationship.

In a sense, Gods and Demons Walking can also count as a "strange event" in this superficially calm world.

Then, would strange events and strange events also mutually attract?

Even if not, the Undying Empress as head of state should at least know some things ordinary people don't, right?

Reporter friends can dig up some things too.

The Empress's age indeed exceeded 120 years, but not by too much.

Long ago, the Empress was no different from most people in the world, until an accidental drowning incident.

That incident wasn't major; at that time she wasn't Empress yet, and the royal family's situation wasn't particularly good either.

Not many people paid attention to this incident.

But for the Empress, this incident was a turning point.

That time, she was comatose for two days; upon waking, she discovered the world had changed!

She changed, becoming close to and fond of water, wishing she could stay in water twenty-four hours a day.

No special changes like growing scales or gills.

The Empress, however, could stay in the water for long periods; simply breathing in and out water was enough to sustain her breath.

Then, she gradually discovered more of her abilities — for instance, absorbing a person's essence, energy, and spirit.

The first victims were naturally those around her; one after another they turned into salted fish, limp and powerless, their true bodies hollowed out.

Premature aging, early death.

At first the Empress could only absorb essence, energy, and spirit through physical contact, but as time passed, she became able to absorb them through water.

But this water was not ordinary water.

It was water continuously infected and successfully polluted by the Empress, controllable to a certain extent.

For example, the large lake beside the Water Source Palace — a vast amount of its water had been polluted by the Empress, becoming her tentacles, spreading onto the shore, absorbing people's essence, energy, and spirit.

As for the specific cause of this change.

The Empress herself wasn't entirely clear; over the long years, although she had kept living, her condition was actually not particularly good.

Many memories had already faded; most of what had once happened was already forgotten.

Only absorbing essence, energy, and spirit, staying alive, had become an instinct like eating, impossible to forget.

As for other strange events, sorry, the Empress didn't even know about the great fog the Feng family next door had stirred up.

She was simply a standard mascot, eating and drinking and sleeping every day, absorbing essence, energy, and spirit.

Like these past few days suddenly feeling her end was near, she steeled herself, brought forth this water to surge back in and gorge herself, to maintain her state.

"So she really is just a mascot." Tang Luo felt some disappointment; a pure mascot, the kind that truly doesn't handle a single thing.

Lu Xiuqi's missing friend (also a journalist) had nothing to do with the Empress either.

She didn't know about the matter at all.

Perhaps that person investigated and investigated, managed to scare themselves, then threw the materials to Lu Xiuqi and fled.

The Empress didn't speak, her expression shifting between dark and clear.

"Then..." Tang Luo reached out and pressed his hand on top of the Empress's head.

"What are you doing? I am the Empress, you can't kill me!" Sensing calamity descending, the undying Empress — actually this term isn't right; she merely maintained her survival by absorbing others' essence, energy, and spirit, their vitality.

She is not undying; injury would still kill her.

Nor is she ageless; it's just that the process of aging to death has been continuously delayed.

Wanting to kill this Empress is still a very easy matter.

"This poor monk is a renunciate." Tang Luo said, "Merely guiding the female benefactor across."

"Is there a difference?" The Empress was only vague on distant memories, not stupid; her mind was still very clear.

"Sounds better?" Tang Luo said, and once again cast Soul Guiding.

This time it wasn't just looking; Tang Luo acted, severing the mass of tubes growing out of the broken throne — things that felt like blood vessels.

The Empress's soul let out a wail, dissipating very quickly.

Those "foreign objects" connected to her likewise vanished.

Back in reality, the Empress lay on the ground, already breathless; her appearance, however, had not withered into old age.

The lake water that had spread onto the shore dried up at a speed visible to the naked eye, soon leaving only some water stains.

Tang Luo walked over and kicked Ao Yulie once.

Ao Yulie opened his eyes blankly, then jumped up at once: "Master, am I useless again?"

"Just happens to match your salted-fish heart." Tang Luo said.

Ao Yulie was heavily affected because this guy is a salted dragon to begin with.

Salted-fish transformation matches Ao Yulie extremely well.

"Oh, good, good." Ao Yulie let out a breath of relief.

"But being useless is truly being useless." Tang Luo said.

"Cough cough cough!" Ao Yulie coughed.

"Cleanup work is handed to you." Tang Luo said.

With the Empress's death, these staff members who had been salted-fish transformed, wishing they could retire on the spot and lie in bed to enjoy their twilight years, would also slowly return to normal.

The events of these days would also produce a series of follow-up effects.

This isn't becoming stupid or amnesia; it's purely laziness, too lazy to move, too lazy to even care about their own lives, let alone anything else.

Once they recover, the various strange happenings at the Water Source Palace will certainly be put on the agenda for secret investigation.

Although Tang Luo doesn't mind displaying miracles in public, he also has no interest in becoming a suspect in the Empress's death, making an enemy of the state apparatus and finding trouble for himself.

Let Ao Yulie "clean up," extracting them from this affair.

As for the Empress's death, a 120-year-old elder passing away of old age in a sanatorium is a perfectly reasonable matter.

In any case, externally it will certainly be perfectly reasonable.

Just take the funeral that has been prepared since over twenty years ago and "bring it out" to hold again.

As for the Empress's disappearance, the lake water spreading over the shore, the Empress reappearing yet dying in the main hall, the staff's strange changes, the missing memories, and the surveillance footage thoroughly deleted and destroyed.

This series of bizarre events enough to write dozens of suspense-horror stories — let the authorities have a headache over them.

The mission requires the Gods and Demons Walkers to find the strange event and resolve it.

This "Undying Empress," with the Empress's death, has undoubtedly been resolved as well.

The 3 in the information has already become 4, announcing the enemy camp's mission failure. Of course, the enemy camp has already been wiped out; failure or not makes no difference to them.

Coincidentally, this strange event.

Gave Tang Luo the feeling, same as that "Ghost Call" incident, likewise with an unknown shadow looming behind.