Chapter 523: The Wonderful Singing
Wei Yang was just about to sneer when he heard Qiao Jiajin's words and froze slightly.
"Isn't this your own body...? Because of Qian Wu...?" He quickly zeroed in on the key point from the look in Qiao Jiajin's eyes. "No wonder your movements are so awkward... Do you think an attack like that can hit me?"
Hearing this, Qiao Jiajin showed a nonchalant smile.
"Farmer, aren't you supposed to be able to read minds?" Qiao Jiajin flexed his wrist. "Take a look—what am I thinking right now?"
Wei Yang carefully examined the clear eyes before him and found that his mind was still focused on how to attack him.
Only now, the images in his thoughts were becoming increasingly detailed.
"You're adapting to this body?" Wei Yang asked with a smile.
"What else would I be doing?" Qiao Jiajin clenched his fist and grinned. "I'll be using this body to fight for the next few days. I can't afford not to get used to it quickly."
Wei Yang listened, then slowly walked to the side, picking up an old, rusty pitchfork from the ground. It was covered in filth, blood, and rotting flesh. He swung the pitchfork in his hand a couple of times before turning to face Qiao Jiajin.
"Kid, take those two ambitious bastards and get the hell out of here, and I'll pretend nothing happened. Otherwise, I'll skewer every single one of you." Wei Yang held the pitchfork in one hand and wiped the bloodstains off his body with the other. "I just want to stay here, tend my fields, grow my flowers, and enjoy my own little paradise."
"Paradise...?" Qiao Jiajin's face darkened as he looked at the fields filled with Natives tied to crosses. It made him feel angry. "Just how insane do you have to be to see a hellscape like this as a paradise?"
"Heh..." Wei Yang chuckled. "You know what? These are all scarecrows I've carefully handpicked."
"Handpicked?"
"To you, every 'Native' mindlessly repeats whatever they were doing. But only I know... these Natives also have the same thought circling in their heads. Since their sanity is gone, their minds can't wander far. They just keep repeating the same thing over and over."
"So?"
"So... I carefully selected some Natives whose minds are filled with 'music.'"
Wei Yang walked over to the side, his expression manic as he raised his pitchfork and drove it viciously into a Native's calf.
Instantly, a hole punctured through the Native's calf, and thick, blackened blood oozed out. But the Native didn't make a sound, still mumbling something under his breath.
Wei Yang placed his watering can beneath the Native, carefully collecting the dripping black blood. Then he closed his eyes, as if listening to something.
"Can you hear it?!" Wei Yang suddenly opened his eyes, exclaiming excitedly. "Even when they're hurt, they're fine! They're hard to kill, and they don't feel pain! Even if their bodies are riddled with holes, they're still humming tunes in their minds!"
At this point, it wasn't just Qiao Jiajin—even Qi Xia and Chen Junnan, standing farther away, had their expressions change.
"Old Qi... you can see what kind of lunatic this guy is, right?" Chen Junnan said. "Can someone like this be recruited?"
Qi Xia frowned but didn't answer. He had dealt with plenty of madmen before, and Wei Yang was just one among them.
No matter how crazy he was, there were still things Qi Xia needed to ask.
Like the "Fraudster."
Like "Wei Yang."
"Listen!!" Wei Yang shouted at the top of his lungs. "How is this just an ordinary farm? This is a paradise filled with beautiful music! Why would you want to take me away from here to join your so-called damn plan?! Huh?! Are you people insane?!"
As he spoke, he walked up to one person, listened closely, then grinned maniacally. "Qiao Jiajin, come listen! An oldie from the 80s!! You've heard this song, right?!"
Then he closed his eyes, waving his hand through the air as if conducting a grand symphony. But the surroundings were silent, save for the occasional breeze.
Before anyone could respond, Wei Yang ran over to another withered woman. He stood beside her, slowly closed his eyes, and grinned again. "And this one! Holy shit! A trendy song from the future! Isn't it wonderful?!"
"This one!"
"And this one!! Listen!!"
"And—"
When Wei Yang reached an old man, he noticed the man seemed to have stopped moving. He leaned down to listen, then raised his pitchfork and stabbed the old man several times. Ghastly wounds bloomed under the old man's abdomen, but no blood came out anymore.
"Holy shit... dead?" Wei Yang reached out to check the old man's breath, frowning. "Too old to eat anyway... might as well bury him in the ground..."
As if remembering something, he turned back to the three of them and shouted, "Oh! By the way! Did you know? Whatever you plant, you reap! I plant limbs here, and in the future, all kinds of people will crawl out of the soil... Do you have any idea what kind of bountiful harvest I'm going to have? The entire 'Land of the End' will be filled with the most beautiful singing—this is my very own 'Farm Chorus'!"
"But all I can hear are screams." Qiao Jiajin's expression darkened. "Every single one of them is tied up here, screaming. Where is the beautiful singing?"
Qiao Jiajin looked at the bound Natives. Their arms, locked in place for so long, had mostly become necrotic, their skin cracked and desiccated from prolonged exposure to the sun and lack of water. They were no different from the dead.
"So you're the ones who are truly insane," Wei Yang laughed. "Since you can't escape this place, why not enjoy life here? If we can't change the world, then we should just accept it!"
"We're the insane ones...?" Qiao Jiajin let out a cold laugh. "If we're insane, then what you're doing is at least understandable."
"What...?" Wei Yang tilted his ear, listening. "How absurd? Are you feeling sorry for these walking corpses? Do you want to teach me a lesson for them? Kid... 'righteousness' needs a reason. Standing up for a bunch of Natives—what reward are you hoping to get back?"
Qiao Jiajin didn't answer. Instead, he took a step back.
"Expecting nothing in return...?" Wei Yang murmured to himself in his usual deranged manner. "How interesting. Isn't that what the books call a 'knight errant'? Wanting to stand up for the people?"
"Farmer, originally I was just going to punch you to teach you a lesson—to stop you from setting up those traps that could kill anyone." Qiao Jiajin slowly crouched down into an attacking stance. "But now, I'm actually getting angry."
"Oh?" Wei Yang held his pitchfork horizontally in front of him, his smile not reaching his eyes. "You guys break into my farm... disrupt my life... and you're the ones who are angry at me? Can't we be reasonable?"
Qiao Jiajin didn't speak anymore, but a voice echoed relentlessly in his mind—
"Three steps to close the distance, then an uppercut sends you flying."
"What...?" Wei Yang raised his pitchfork, placing it between himself and Qiao Jiajin. "You just won't give up..."
Qiao Jiajin curled his lips into a smirk. The roaring thought in his mind burst forth from his clear gaze:
"Three steps to close the distance, then an uppercut sends you flying, nice and solid."