Chapter 165: Nightmare Honey

"I'm quite curious..." Feng Xue looked at the continuously coughing crossdresser, a playful expression on his face.

"What are you curious about? Cough, cough!" The crossdresser coughed up some more blood, though his complexion slowly improved slightly. However, looking at the caved-in state of his chest, this improvement was likely just a flash in the pan before the end.

"I'm curious about what exactly you wanted to do with shadows?" Feng Xue squatted down and pinched a shadow straight off the ground—yes, literally pinched it up!

Possessing the Origin of Imaginary Numbers, Feng Xue could directly treat something like a shadow as a physical object to play with!

"Cough, cough, cough, cough!" The crossdresser coughed even more violently. "It seems I've really fallen into your trap!"

"You're just unlucky!" Feng Xue tossed the shadow away casually, looking at the crossdresser with the gaze one might reserve for a severely jinxed person. He wondered if this fellow was cursed by the stars or something, to have run into an opponent who completely countered him in every way.

"Luck... cough, cough... luck is also a part of strength!" The crossdresser struggled to sit up, taking a couple of slight, ragged breaths, which were immediately followed by more blood gushing from his mouth.

"Speak, what were you trying to do?" Feng Xue sat down opposite the crossdresser, entirely unconcerned about any sudden moves the other might make.

"What else could I be trying to do?" The crossdresser actually seemed somewhat surprised.

"You had no killing intent!" Feng Xue shook his head. Although the other's special ability had erased all tangible and intangible auras, erasure did not equal non-existence. Before Feng Xue's Origin of Imaginary Numbers, even something that had been erased left behind a shadow. (It is much like a photograph where if you cut out a piece of the scenery, a gap in the shape of the original scenery still remains.)

"Is that so?" The crossdresser gave a bitter laugh, and his entire body suddenly transformed into a mass of shadows, disappearing without a trace under Feng Xue's astonished gaze. "My name is Hua Xiaoheng. I hope you remember this name! The next time we meet, I won't fail so easily!"

"Tch!" Feng Xue clicked his tongue. At that exact moment, Hua Xiaoheng's control over the shadows had actually surpassed Feng Xue's. This meant the other party must have either practiced a shadow-type soul cultivation technique or simply embodied the concept of shadows itself. However, judging by how easily his shadow had been caught earlier, a cultivation technique seemed much more likely.

"Shadow Overlord, is it?" Feng Xue pondered inwardly with hidden shock. As a wielder of imaginary number concepts, how could he not know of this soul cultivation technique? It was just that back when he was choosing his techniques, the AT Field had been more suited to his origin.

While the Shadow Overlord was indeed a soul cultivation technique, it was the kind of method that used the spirit to forcefully influence the physical body. The agony of practicing it was by no means inferior to masochistic supreme arts like the Heaven-Changing and Earth-Striking Great Magical Technique.

Anyone capable of practicing such a method was undoubtedly a person of immensely steadfast will. Bringing such an opponent upon oneself boded an unpredictable future.

"Xiao Bai wants to eat seafood!" Chi XiaoBai suddenly interjected with an answer that made Feng Xue chuckle despite himself.

"Are you really still thinking about what to eat later?" Feng Xue rubbed XiaoBai's head with a doting expression. He found that he was doting on this young girl more and more, almost as if he were facing a younger sister of his own.

"Yeah! Eating is a major event!" XiaoBai nodded firmly, her eyes filled with absolute seriousness.

Yet this seriousness only made her look even more adorable in Feng Xue's eyes. Giving XiaoBai's long hair a vigorous tousle, Feng Xue had no choice but to pick up his fishing rod and head to the seaside to fish.

Come to think of it, it was quite amusing. Before coming to the swamp, neither of them had ever eaten seafood, but once they arrived at the swamp, the two of them started running down to the sea continuously.

Perhaps it was because the fish in the swamp ponds had too heavy a muddy smell.

Without scallions, ginger, garlic, or cooking wine, Feng Xue really found it difficult to deal with fish possessing such a strong, muddy stench.

Even after scraping away the bloodlines and slicing the fish into thin sashimi, the fishy and muddy odors in the meat refused to linger away. Even Chi XiaoBai, a certified foodie, shook her head firmly after sniffing it and gave up any intentions of eating such a thing.

...

Perhaps because very few creatures in the starvation world ever caught marine fish, the seafood in the sea was rather foolish. As long as Feng Xue cast his hook, something would bite within two minutes. Although he frequently reeled up all sorts of weird and bizarre creatures, large fish and prawns were far from rare.

Here, it was necessary to mention the fishing gear Feng Xue used.

Although the spiders in this world were called spiders, they were entirely different from those critters in reality. The spiders in this world were closer to monsters like flying-head ghouls—highly intelligent, and the silk they spat was incomparably tough. Aside from being afraid of fire, even if Feng Xue used all his strength, it was still extremely difficult to snap it.

Of course, after watching Feng Xue struggle to pull the spider silk, Chi XiaoBai merely gave a gentle tug with both hands, and the tough spider silk snapped with a loud "bang."

At this, Feng Xue could only twitch the corners of his mouth and bow in worship to the terrifying strength possessed by Chi XiaoBai.

...

"Feng Xue! Feng Xue! This honey tastes so weird!" Another ten days or so had passed. Feng Xue's "Devil's Liquor" still had no leads, while Chi XiaoBai remained enthusiastic about collecting all sorts of ingredients. Just like today, Chi XiaoBai had gone off to raid a beehive again.

"Mmh..." Feng Xue was currently agonizing over the fermentation process for the Devil's Flower. Just humming an acknowledgment in response, he took a piece of honey and tasted it. But this single taste changed everything—

"Eh?" Feng Xue let out an exclamation of surprise. It wasn't because the honey tasted exceptionally delicious, but because it contained a wondrously bizarre texture. It was a strange sensation lurking beneath the sweet flavor, as if the moment one closed one's eyes, one would enter a dreamscape constructed by the honey. Yet this dreamscape was by no means a pleasant dream; it was a continuous, repetitive spinning and looping, inescapable like a waking nightmare!

"Where did this honey come from?" Feng Xue opened his eyes, blazing infernos erupting within them. This honey was precisely the ingredient he needed! With this honey, the Devil's Liquor was equivalent to having crossed its final threshold—sugar content.

"Just from the beehive next to the flower patch!" Chi XiaoBai picked up a chunk of honey and shoved it into her mouth. Although her brow was furrowed tightly, she refused to spit it out. Without looking, Feng Xue knew that this kind of honey would reduce one's SANity, but seeing XiaoBai lost in the ecstasy of sweetness, he helplessly activated his Aura of Sanity.

There was no help for it. Who made his partner a foodie who, for the sake of food, might even sell herself to a chef as a plaything?

However, prompted by Chi XiaoBai's words, he understood. This honey was clearly brewed by bees after they collected the pollen of the Devil's Flower. Yet this serendipitously conformed to the Chinese culinary principle of "cooking beans with the beanstalks."

[Note: Cooking beans with the beanstalks refers to the practice of pairing ingredients originating from the same source to achieve superior results. For example, pufferfish soup must use the water from the body of water where that very pufferfish was caught, and tofu stew must use soybeans as its base. This is the reverse application of using the original broth to digest the original food.]

However, the sugar content of the honey was simply too high—so high that microorganisms could barely survive in it. Therefore, it had to be diluted with water before fermentation could even be possible.

Yet, now that the sugar was settled, was water still an issue? Aside from the dew of the Devil's Flower, what other water could possibly match the yeast of the Devil's Flower and the nightmare honey?