Stranger Danger-Chapter 1710: Old Jingjue

“Thank you for your boon, heavenly god...”

The trio fell to their knees and kowtowed to the black pond once more.

“Go. Bring them to me, no matter the cost...”

A buzz and a response came from the black pond.

“As you command, oh great heavenly god...”

The trio kowtowed one last time before turning around and flying off into the sky. Soon, only the voice was left, still reverberating ominously in the air.

......

“Was someone spying on me?”

At a desert, Ye Qing rubbed his nose with a smirk on his face. “It looks like the Black Water Divine Sect is finally reacting to the setbacks!”

Ye Qing resumed his journey after that. Soon, he arrived at an abandoned, ancient-looking city.

The ancient city looked desolate, tattered, and ruined. It looked like it had been abandoned ages ago; like no one was living here at all.

Ye Qing paid it no heed and walked straight to the center of the ancient city. He eventually arrived at an old but massive stone monument with the words “Jingjue” engraved on its surface.

“This is the place!”

Ye Qing removed the calabash attached to his waist and poured a bit of water on the monument. Then, he circled it three times anti-clockwise and three times clockwise before declaring, “Open!”

As soon as the word left his mouth, an invisible shockwave rippled across the air and kicked up waves of dust. At the same time, a gate appeared before his eyes.

Ye Qing stepped through the gate, and the tattered ruins were immediately replaced by an oasis.

Flowers and grass covered the ground of the oasis like a giant carpet. Lush trees formed large, comfortable shades, shimmering lakes peeked through the waving leaves and branches, and dazzling streams slithered through the trees to form the image of a fantastical paradise.

At the center of the oasis was a magnificent, dazzling, and exquisite-looking city.

It was the legendary Old Jingjue.

The reason it was a legend was because Old Jingjue was the oldest, most elusive, and most fantastic of the Thirty Six Countries of the Western Regions.

It was the oldest country because legends of Old Jingjue had existed in the Western Regions since over ten thousand years ago.

It was the most elusive country because most people only knew the ruins where Old Jingjue used to exist. Very, very few people knew where the true country was and how to enter it.

And finally, it was the most fantastic because those who entered the true Old Jingjue claimed that there were gold and jewelry, delicious food and fine wine everywhere in the country. In Old Jingjue, there was no hunger, no sickness, and no disaster. It was because it was a country that received the blessing of the moon goddess.

Legend had it that the queen of Old Jingjue possessed the bloodline of the moon goddess. In other words, all citizens of Old Jingjue were descendants of the moon goddess.

The first impression Ye Qing got after entering Old Jingjue was that its reputation wasn’t unfounded. The trees were covered in fragrant fruits, the flowers were filled with sweet honey, the water in the rivers were cool and refreshing like fine wine, the streets were paved from white jade, the walls were embedded with jewelry, and piles of gold and silver lay everywhere like small hills. The sunlight was warm, and the breeze was comfortable. It truly looked like a celestial realm.

There was one thing that stood out as disharmonious with this beautiful scenery, however: the people themselves.

Everyone Ye Qing saw was lazy and fat. They were all eating and drinking gluttonously. Despite eating and drinking until their bellies resembled a pregnant woman’s, and their waistline rivaled that of a fat pig’s, they knew no restraint and kept throwing food and wine into their mouths.

It wasn’t one person or one group either. It was all of them.

The citizens of Old Jingjue were descendants of the moon goddess. Therefore, the men were exceptionally handsome, and the women were gorgeous beyond imagination. Right now though, these people looked anything but handsome or gorgeous.

Next, Ye Qing set his sights on the exquisite palace at the center of the city. It was where the queen of Jingjue lived. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Ye Qing’s gaze seemed to ignore all obstacles and cross over spacetime itself to land on one woman.

The woman was sitting inside a magnificent-looking hall. She was fat and bloated like a mountain. She was holding her head up as servants continuously dumped food and wine into her mouth.

At some point, she started chewing slowly and deliberately. The motion caused the fat across her whole body to ripple like water. Just the sight of her made Ye Qing feel oily and disgusted.

The woman was none other than the queen of Old Jingjue herself.

Legend had it that every queen to ever rule Old Jingjue was also the most beautiful woman in the entire Western Regions. Like a fairy under moonlight, flowers hid themselves in shyness when they saw her, birds fell from the sky when they glimpsed her, and fishes sank into the depths when they encountered her. There was no man or woman in the world who wouldn’t fall for her beauty.

Tens of thousands of years ago, a queen of Old Jingjue had made an appearance in the outside world and accidentally caused an upheaval across the entire Western Regions. Every king and warrior who saw her face had fallen for her beauty, and they fought an endless war against each other in order to become the one to win her hand. As a result, the Western Regions plunged into chaos and disaster. Even the people of Old Jingjue suffered many tragedies because of this.

Having learned her lesson, the queen of Jingjue borrowed power from the moon goddess and isolated Old Jingjue from the outside world. At the same time, she created a rule that forbade all future queens of Old Jingjue from ever leaving the country.

That was how beautiful a queen of Old Jingjue was.

However, the woman he was looking at was ugly and fat beyond belief. If not for the fact that she was wearing a purple moon robe and wearing the moon divine crown—both symbols of her status as queen—no one would think that she was the legendary queen of Old Jingjue whose beauty could literally topple countries.

There was no denying reality though. She was definitely the queen of Old Jingjue.

When Ye Qing saw the queen, the queen seemingly sensed his gaze and turned her head in his direction. When their gazes met, endless malice sparked from the collision.

“The Tie of Gluttony?”

Another person might not be able to see it, but Ye Qing could clearly see a transparent shadow possessing the queen.

The shadow had a human’s face but a goat’s body. It had eyes under its armpits, a tiger’s teeth and claws, and a gigantic belly. It was indescribably fat, bloated, and ugly.

Right now, it was possessing the queen of Old Jingjue and eating to its heart’s content.

The malice came from it.

“Kill him!”

The queen of Old Jingjue howled. The entire nation seemed to be shaking from her roar.

The next moment, the citizens who had been eating and drinking to their heart’s content without a care all this time tossed away their meals and charged Ye Qing with roars and savagery.

They were acting like Ye Qing had killed their entire family or something. They only wished they could rip him into a million pieces.

“Interesting. An intelligent Stranger.”

Ye Qing rubbed his nose. The Fish Wife and Sun In Water technically possessed intelligence as well, but they were at best rudimentary-level, animal-like intelligence. They mostly acted on instinct and could not truly think for themselves. The Stranger possessing the queen of Old Jingjue was clearly different though. It was smart enough to throw numbers at him.

Ye Qing did not pause his footsteps or change his expression despite the citizens pouncing him from every direction. He bent his finger and tapped.

Buzz...

A ripple appeared and washed out in every direction like someone had chucked a rock into a calm lake.

Everyone touched by the ripple abruptly froze in their tracks as if they had lost their consciousness all of a sudden.

Next, Ye Qing took one step forward and shrank forty kilometers of distance into one step. He abruptly appeared inside the palace and in front of the queen of Old Jingjue.