Chapter 410: Why Did He Fall Into Demonic Cultivation

"Is it her?" Zhang Chenze asked quietly, "The 'lingdao zhe' that Bai Hu mentioned... from many years ago?"

"This, who can really know...?" Yun Yao shook her head, "Although she's still alive, it's still something that's 'dead without proof'... after all."

After hearing this, Lin Geng felt like she had found some clue, so she looked up and asked the clerk:

"Hello, do you have any food here?"

"Food..." The female clerk paused for a long time after hearing the question, then extended her dirty fingers—one hand cupped as if holding something, the other mimicking chopsticks as she made a motion toward her mouth, "Are you talking about this kind of food?"

"Yes..." Lin Geng felt this scene was strangely familiar.

Back then, when Qi Xia had asked if there was "needle and thread" here, her first reaction was to mimic threading a needle with her hands.

It seemed she was using this method to cling to a shred of sanity.

"Our store has very little food..." The female clerk shook her head regretfully, "It only comes in a tiny bit at a time... I haven't eaten in a long while myself..."

At that moment, Tian Tian and Li Xiangling were looking around inside the convenience store. They quickly spotted a few cans on the shelves, which appeared quite new.

Tian Tian spoke up:

"Here are a few cans—why don't you eat them yourself?"

Upon hearing the word "cans," Lin Geng turned around to look. She remembered that the last time she came here, the shelves were completely empty.

Now, after just over twenty days, goods had actually been restocked?

"I can't eat them..." The clerk waved her hand, "If we staff want to eat, we have to buy them... but I can't afford it..."

Lin Geng thought for a moment and realized there were two important questions that needed to be clarified.

"Since you never eat from the store's stock... how long has it been since you last ate?" Lin Geng asked.

"How long... hasn't it been..." The clerk's dry, yellow eyes blinked for a while before she finally recalled something, "The last time I ate... I had a pot of soup made from little piglets... it was delicious..."

"At least twenty-four days," Lin Geng blurted out.

Would a normal person look like this after twenty-four days without food?

No... this was terrifying to think about.

Had this clerk not eaten anything for the past twenty-four days?

After a brief reflection, the answer was clear.

"I think what Bai Hu said is true..." Lin Geng turned back and whispered to the others, "This woman's body must have been enhanced... She has 'di ji' physical qualities... That's why she can survive on her body's own energy until now..."

Yun Yao examined the female clerk again. Her frame was now as thin as a skeleton, indicating that her body had been consuming its own energy for a long time.

"If that's really the case..." Yun Yao's expression grew serious, "That means she won't last much longer... It looks like her muscle and fat levels are already very low. If we don't find a way to get her some nutrition, she'll probably turn into a corpse that can never stand up again."

Lin Geng nodded after hearing this, then asked the female clerk: "In that case... who is supplying you with 'goods'?"

"'Goods'?"

Lin Geng pointed to the shelves nearby: "Where do your cans come from? Is someone really delivering stock to this place?"

"Ah..." The clerk raised her eyebrows slightly, her sunken skin making her forehead wrinkles even more pronounced, "It's the 'songhuoyuan'... He delivers some cans to me regularly... but I can't touch them... They're the store's items... I can't afford them..."

"'Songhuoyuan'...?"

Yun Yao picked up a can and examined it closely, quickly noticing something familiar.

She knew these cans all too well.

"What does that 'songhuoyuan' look like?" she asked.

"He..." The clerk thought for a moment, then placed one hand over her eyes, "He wears a... a golden..."

"Eyeglasses," Yun Yao prompted.

"Yes... eyeglasses. He wears a clean shirt... He smiles a lot, and his smile is very handsome..." As the clerk spoke, she unconsciously smiled, "His voice is gentle when he talks... and he smells really nice..."

With her description, a clear image formed in everyone's minds.

"Chu Tianqiu," Yun Yao and Lin Geng said the name aloud at the same time.

Chu Tian... qiu?

The clerk's expression slowly changed upon hearing those three words, as if "Chu Tianqiu" left a deeper impression than anything else.

"Who is Chu Tianqiu?" Her cracked lips trembled, as if awakening some dormant memories.

Yun Yao didn't answer the question; she just frowned and looked at Lin Geng.

A strange idea began to swirl in her mind.

"Lin Geng... what does 'xiao zhu zai' mean?" Yun Yao asked.

Lin Geng briefly explained what had happened during her first visit here.

This woman had been completely insane when they first saw her—she had cooked her own child and even tried to share it with everyone.

Yun Yao lowered her head silently upon hearing this.

Soon, her eyes flickered back and forth, as if piecing together various inconsistencies.

"Wait a minute..." Yun Yao murmured, "It's not because of Qi Xia..."

"What...?"

"I've fallen into a misconception..." Yun Yao said absentmindedly, "I thought Chu Tianqiu completely lost his mind because he saw Qi Xia about twenty days ago..."

"Isn't that the case?" Lin Geng asked in response.

"Or is there another possibility..." Yun Yao turned back, her expression filled with alarm, "What if it's because of this woman?"

"What...?"

"Or rather..." Yun Yao tried to calm herself down, "Because of that child?"

These few words made everyone's brows furrow.

"Yun Yao..." Lin Geng interrupted, "Is this hypothesis of yours too bold? Are you saying that child was Chu Tianqiu's...?"

"Yes..." Yun Yao nodded, "Just as this woman said, the person she's seen most often for a long time is Chu Tianqiu. For some reason, they had a relationship, and when he found out his child had met a tragic end, he completely snapped...?"

Hearing this, Zhang Chenze couldn't help but interject: "That's... that's absurd... I've met that Chu Tianqiu before, though I don't know him well, but I have a basic sense of his character. Even though he's gone mad, how could he have a child with this woman here...? In my memory, he's not that kind of reckless person..."