Chapter 523

Chapter 523 Beautiful Melodies

Wei Yang was about to make another sarcastic remark, but Qiao Jiajin’s words gave him a brief pause.

“This isn’t your body… is it?” His gaze sharpened at once as he caught the key point in Qiao Jiajin’s eyes. “Because of Qian Five…? No wonder your movements are so strange. With attacks like that, you think you can hit me?”

Qiao Jiajin, however, smiled as if the remark meant nothing to him.

“Farmer lou, aren’t you supposed to be able to read minds?” Qiao Jiajin rolled his wrist slowly. “Then take a look. What am I thinking about right now?”

Wei Yang studied those clear, unclouded eyes. Within Qiao Jiajin’s thoughts, he was still plotting how to strike him.

Only now, the images forming in his mind were growing more and more concrete.

“You’re adapting to this body?” Wei Yang laughed.

“What else?” Qiao Jiajin clenched his fist, smiling. “I’ll be fighting with this body for the next few days so I can't afford not getting used to it."

Hearing this, Wei Yang slowly walked to the side and rummaged around on the ground, pulling out an old, battered pitchfork. It was smeared with darkened blood and rotting flesh. He hefted it in his hand, gave it a casual shake, then turned back toward Qiao Jiajin.

“Punk, take those two ambition-filled fellows of yours and get the hell out of here. I’ll pretend nothing ever happened,” Wei Yang said, gripping the pitchfork in one hand while wiping bloodstains across his body with the other. “Otherwise, I’ll skewer you one by one. All I want is to stay here honestly, farm my land, tend my flowers, and enjoy my own little paradise away from the world.”

“Your own little paradise?” Qiao Jiajin’s expression darkened as he swept his gaze across the fields, where one {indigenous inhabitant} after another was bound to wooden crosses. Anger simmered in his chest. “Just how far gone do you have to be, to call a scene like this hell a paradise?”

“Heh…” Wei Yang chuckled. “You see, these are all scarecrows I’ve selected with the utmost care…”

“Selected with utmost care?”

“In your eyes, every {indigenous inhabitant} mindlessly repeats whatever task is in front of them,” Wei Yang explained. “But only I understand… these {indigenous inhabitants} also have a single thought circling endlessly in their minds. Their sanity is gone, their thoughts can’t wander far, so they keep mulling the same thing over and over again.”

“And so?”

Wei Yang’s smile widened. “So I carefully chose those {indigenous inhabitants} whose hearts echo with {music}…”

He strode to a crucified {indigenous inhabitant}, his face twisted with madness, and raised the pitchfork high before driving it viciously into the {indigenous inhabitant}’s calf.

In an instant, a hole was torn through the leg. Thick, blackened blood gushed out, viscous and foul, yet the {indigenous inhabitant} did not utter a sound. Their lips continued to move, murmuring endlessly.

Wei Yang slid his watering can beneath the body, meticulously collecting the drip-drop of black blood. Then he closed his eyes, as though listening intently to something unseen.

“Do you hear it?!” Wei Yang suddenly flung his eyes open, his face alight with glee. “It doesn't matter if they're hurt! They’re hard to kill, and they don’t fear pain! Even when their bodies are riddled with holes, they’re still humming a tune in their hearts!”

At that instant, it was not only Qiao Jiajin; even from afar, Qi Xia and Chen Junnan’s faces darkened.

“Ole Qi…” Chen Junnan muttered. “You’ve got a read on what sort of freak this guy is now, don’t you? Can someone like him really be an ally?”

Qi Xia’s frown deepened, yet he remained silent. He had dealt with countless madmen; Wei Yang was only one more.

No matter how deranged he was, there were still matters Qi Xia needed to ask and clarify.

For instance, {fraudster}.

For instance, {Wei Yang (未羊)}.

(TLN: Not Wei Yang (魏杨) the person, but Wei Yang (未羊) as in the eighth in the sequence of the twelve zodiac animals, AKA ‘earthly branch goat’. Or it can also be due to Qi Xia’s unclarified confusion regarding Wei Yang’s real name.)

“Listen to them!!” Wei Yang shouted at the top of his lungs. “How is this just an ordinary farm? This is a paradise beyond the world, echoing with beautiful melodies! Why must you drag me away from here to join your damn plan?! Huh?! Have you all gone mad?!”

As he spoke, he walked up to another {scarecrow} and tilted his head, listening closely. Then his mouth split into a crazed hysteric. “Qiao Jiajin, listen to this one! A song from the eighties!! You’ve heard this one before, haven’t you?!”

He then closed his eyes again, lifting his hands to stir the air as though conducting a grand symphony. Yet the surroundings were deathly quiet, broken only by the occasional whisper of wind.

Before anyone could respond, Wei Yang dashed toward another withered young woman. He slowed beside her, gently closed his eyes, then curled his lips upward. “And this one! Holy hell! Trendy music from the future! Isn’t it f*cking marvelous?!”

“This one!”

“And this one too!! Listen!!”

“And this…” When Wei Yang reached an elderly man, he noticed that the old figure seemed utterly still. He bent down to listen, then suddenly raised the pitchfork in his hand and stabbed the old man several times without hesitation. Horrifying wounds blossomed beneath the elderly’s abdomen, yet not a single drop of blood flowed out.

“Motherfu… dead?” Wei Yang reached out to test the old man’s breathing and frowned. “Too old anyway, not edible… better plant him back into the ground…”

As he spoke, something seemed to occur to him. He turned back toward the three of them and shouted, “Oh, right! Do you know you can reap what you sow! I’ve planted hands and feet here, and one day all kinds of people will sprout out of the soil… Do you know what kind of bumper harvest I’ll have? This place will one day echo with the most beautiful songs in the entire {End Point}. This is my very own {farm choir}…”

“But all I can hear is wailing,” Qiao Jiajin replied, his expression dim. “Every single one of them is bound here, crying out in agony. Where’s this beautiful music you’re talking about?”

Qiao Jiajin looked toward the bound {indigenous inhabitants}. Their arms, tied in place for far too long, had already begun to necrotize. Their skin, deprived of water and exposed to the air for extended periods, was cracked and desiccated. They looked little different from corpses.

“That’s why you’re the ones who are truly mad…” Wei Yang laughed. “Since we are unable to escape, why not enjoy life here instead? We can’t change the world, so the only thing left is to accept it!”

“We’re mad…?” Qiao Jiajin let out a cold chuckle. “If we were mad, then what you’re doing might just make sense.”

“What…?” Wei Yang cocked his head as if listening. “How absurd. Are you feeling indignant on behalf of these walking corpses? You want to teach me a lesson for them? Punk… even {righteous heroics} need a reason. Standing up for a bunch of {indigenous inhabitants}...what kind of return are you hoping for?”

Qiao Jiajin did not answer. He simply took a step back.

“No reward sought…?” Wei Yang went on, raving to himself in his usual madness. “How fascinating. Isn’t this the kind of {chivalry} written about in books? You want to stake your life for the common folk?”

“Farmer lou, when I first thought about punching you, it was just to teach you a lesson,” Qiao Jiajin said slowly as he lowered his body and assumed a fighting stance. “To tell you to stop setting traps that could get people killed at any moment. But now… I really am angry.”

“Oh?” Wei Yang brought the pitchfork across his body, his smile stiff and insincere. “You barged into my farm… disrupted my life… and now you’re angry at me? Can we talk a bit of sense here?”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent. Yet within his mind, a single thought echoed again and again: ‘Three steps forward, close the distance. One uppercut to send you flying.’

“Hmm…?” Wei Yang raised the pitchfork, placing it squarely between himself and Qiao Jiajin. “You punk, still not giving up…”

The corner of Qiao Jiajin’s mouth lifted. The voice in his mind surged, roaring out through those clear, unwavering eyes—

‘Three steps forward, close the distance. One uppercut is all I need to send you flying.’