The young man's eyebrows were slightly thicker than others', his lips a bit fuller, and his earlobes larger than average, giving him a look of naive honesty that became even sillier when he smiled.
"Hu Tu, some of us are going to take care of something. You handle these newly arrived Refining Materials properly, clean them up well, so they can't find fault with them, otherwise..." the tattooed man leading them instructed.
"No problem, leave it to me." The burly-browed youth immediately patted his chest, cutting him off with a guarantee.
"Besides the new arrivals, also add another layer of preservative oil to the rest. People from the Black Fire Sect might come today, so make it snappy." The tattooed man, still not reassured, continued to admonish.
"Brother Ba Ru, don't you trust me? I'll definitely not be sloppy," the burly-browed youth said, thumping his chest resoundingly.
The tattooed man nodded satisfactorily, and with the others, helped arrange the corpses neatly before leaving, leaving the burly-browed youth alone in the bunker.
Watching them leave, the burly-browed youth named Hu Tu's smile vanished, and he began to curse, "If it wasn't for going to Iron Tiger Town to do business, being cheated by Central Plains traders, how would I have fallen to this place, working with you scum."
After cursing, he became worried. Doing business was no longer possible, and the only way to turn his life around was to join the military. Escaping debts to this place, working two years, yet he still hadn't saved enough to buy iron armor and weapons. Going to enlist without his own equipment would only mean being sent to the Fire Head Army, or he might end up feeding the War Beasts.
Thinking of this, Hu Tu's eyebrows cramped together, "Sigh, back to work."
On the wooden bunk beds to the left of the bunker, corpses were laid in layers, each coated with a layer of preservative wax to prevent further decay and to seal off the stench of rot.
On the stone platform on the other side lay the newly arrived corpses, a mix of decay and the smell of blood permeated the area, thankfully suppressed by the low temperature inside.
Hu Tu scooped a bucket of water from the large storage tank and began washing away the filth and bloodstains from the bodies.
"Death brings release from all sorrows, forget the worries of life, your flesh abandoned like soil, your soul ascends to the eternal skies. Confusion, confusion, no blame, no blame," Hu Tu chanted the Soul Calming Spell he had made up as he splashed the water on the corpses.
The water, mixed with impurities, flowed into a trench on the side.
With a lift of the water bucket, the icy water "whooshed" onto the comparatively slender, pale-faced youth, splashing droplets everywhere.
As he turned to scoop more water, a faint cough suddenly came from behind him.
Hu Tu's body tensed fiercely, the hairs on his back standing on end, a chill shooting from his heels to his brain.
With a stiff neck, he laboriously turned his head and saw the pale-faced youth he had just doused with water, his hand slightly raised, hovering in mid-air.
"Aiyo, a reanimated corpse!"
Hu Tu yelled out, dropped the bucket, and quickly ran outside.
Only when the sun outside hit him and he glanced at the distant Feathered Serpent God Statue, did he regain some sense and suddenly slapped his own face.
"Confused, confused, it must have been an illusion..." he reassured himself, muttering "May Grandpa Yu protect me, may Grandpa Yu protect me," as he mustered his spirit and carefully moved towards the entrance of the bunker.
Hu Tu peered into the door, and seeing that the youth lay still, with a slight rise and fall of his chest, he realized the boy was not dead.
With that realization, Hu Tu's spirit was lifted; as long as the person was alive, and not feigning death, he had nothing to fear.
He quickly went inside and deftly turned the youth over.
After the rinse, the face that was once smudged with mud and dirt now looked exceptionally clean and handsome, with slender phoenix eyes and sharply defined features, including a thin wound on the cheek, clearly not a person from the Southern Border.
"Such a sin has been committed, Old Smoke Bag is too heartless, sending a living person here for a little money? Isn't he afraid of Grandpa Yu's retribution?" Hu Tu couldn't help but curse.
They were both from the Qingmu Clan and recognized each other.
Hu Tu carefully scrutinized the man's face, and his eyebrows involuntarily raised. There were no such fair-skinned men in the Southern Border, not even the Kasi Clan, who prized paleness, had someone as fair as this youth.
"Could he be from the Central Plains?" Hu Tu suddenly thought of something.
He hastily took a clean water bladder from his waist and gave the young man some water to drink.
"Cough..." But as soon as he had swallowed a little, the person violently choked and vomited it all out.
"Foolish, foolish, I need to give him some beast blood to replenish his Qi-Blood," Hu Tu slapped his forehead and exclaimed as if realizing. S-o+u*rced d^i.re@c@t&l$y% f#ro-m* MV6L&E^M*P6Y!R.*
Saying this, he quickly ran out and returned a moment later, taking out a small black stone bottle from his bosom and carefully brought it to the young man's lips, pouring a bit of fresh blood into it.
This time, the youth did not vomit again, but his lips slightly puckered, sipping all the blood that was given.
After a long while, the pale face of the young man finally showed some color, and his eyelids trembled, slowly opening.
The sight that met the youth's eyes was a coarse black young man looking expectantly at him, his head wrapped in a blue cloth.
Indeed, even though Hu Tu was considered quite fair among the Qingmu Clan, to the young man, he still seemed dark.
"You are a Central Plains person, right?" Hu Tu asked tentatively.
The young man didn't answer and seemed a bit lost.
Seeing the young man's confusion, Hu Tu reached out and "pat pat," lightly tapped his face twice, prompting the youth's eyes to slowly focus on him.
"Who are you?" Hu Tu asked again.
"Yuan Ming." The youth heard him clearly this time and replied somewhat automatically.
A promising start, Hu Tu "hehe" smiled.
Hu Tu sized up the handsome youth who called himself "Yuan Ming" and continued to ask, "You're from the northern Central Plains, right?"
"What Central Plains people?" This time, the youth appeared confused again, looking as if he didn't understand.
"Where are you from?" Hu Tu frowned and asked.
"Where am I from?" The youth tried to recall as if he was making an effort, but after a while, he shook his head.
This time, it was Hu Tu who was confused, "Hey, is this amnesia following a severe injury?"
"Who am I? Where is this?" Yuan Ming struggled to get up, but under his weakness and lack of strength, he found he could hardly support himself.
Hu Tu quickly supported him, saying, "This is the territory of the Qingmu Clan in the Southern Border... Are you... awake now?"
"The Southern Border, Qingmu Clan..." Yuan Ming murmured.
"Do you know it?" Hu Tu asked in surprise.
"I don't know." Yuan Ming thought seriously for a moment and then shook his head.
"It seems you have not only been injured but also lost your memory," Hu Tu sighed.