Inside Xiuzhuzhou.

"Chief's ah'zhu, we discovered another long worm that's not afraid of even the copper corpse." A middle-aged woman led her copper corpse grasping a king cobra in its hand back to the village.

The woman, donned in a headscarf and silver jewelry, did not dare to go near the king cobra as she was a little scared, but the copper corpse wasn't.

The poisonous snake could bite the copper corpse all it wanted, but the copper corpse would not get affected by the snake's toxins regardless.

As such, the king cobra looked a little helpless at this moment. No matter how hard it bit the copper corpse, it was like biting an old piece of wood. It could not cause any harm to the copper corpse.

The woman said, "But this long worm is a little strange. After it was caught by the copper corpse, it stopped resisting and has been sizing us up since then."

At this moment, Li Shentan was instructing a group of women on how to distill wine. When he looked up, he immediately corrected her, "Big Sis, you can't address me as your chief's ah'zhu. I won't acknowledge it!"

The woman said with a sincere smile, "Isn't that just a matter of time?"

Little Liren nodded firmly at the side. "Yes, it's only a matter of time."

Li Shentan did not bother to bicker with them. He walked up to the copper corpse and observed the king cobra. He felt it was a little strange.

He asked, "Haven't these snakes already wised up and no longer dare to attack the copper corpses anymore?"

"That's right!" The woman said, "That's why I found it a little strange. This might be a foreign snake!"

Li Shentan did not know whether to laugh or cry as he touched the king cobra's head with his finger. Initially, the woman was worried the long worm would bite the chief's ah'zhu. However, the king cobra suddenly stopped moving like an obedient baby.

A moment later, a silvery liquid-metal started seeping out of the king cobra's body and spreading towards Li Shentan's finger.

Li Shentan did not seem bothered by it as he just let the liquid-metal wrap around his finger.

In an instant, a brilliant radiance bloomed in Li Shentan's pupils. He had the same look as Yan Liuyuan when he analyzed the nanomachines in the grasslands that day. However, Li Shentan exercised more restraint when using his superpower.

Actually, in the development of their superpowers, although Li Shentan and Yan Liuyuan followed a very similar path, Yan Liuyuan's progress seemed more like it was driven by the god's bone marrow in him. Meanwhile, Li Shentan pursued the truth of his physical self and willpower.

Yan Liuyuan's superpower was derived from Ren Xiaosu's bone marrow, so his peak potential was not actually up to him. As one of only two people with the Blood of God running through their bloodstreams in the world, his peak potential was higher than Li Shentan's.

Meanwhile, Li Shentan was different. Although it was extremely difficult for him to achieve a higher breakthrough level, he was more proficient at controlling his power, because every bit of his strength stemmed from his own discoveries.

So when Li Shentan realized he needed to achieve greater breakthroughs to reverse-analyze these nanomachines, he immediately stopped the process.

He knew full well what would happen if he crossed that line.

"That's strange." Li Shentan muttered, "Who's the mastermind controlling these nanomachines?"

With just a simple inspection, Li Shentan suddenly felt like he had been out of touch with the rest of the world for too long. It seemed that a tremendous change had occurred out there in the past few months while he was in seclusion.

Otherwise, why would a nanomachine-controlled king cobra suddenly come to such a godforsaken place?

This was not the first snake they had discovered. After another snake got away the last time, they discovered this one at a location even closer to the Lian tribe's village.

These snakes did not look like they were being controlled to deliberately attack anyone. Instead, it felt more like they were searching for something.

Young Lian Yi also came over when she heard the commotion. She looked at Li Shentan. "Ah'zhu, what's the matter?"

"Hey, hey, stop calling me your ah'zhu. We're not even in a relationship." Li Shentan raised his voice and said, "Don't think I'll acknowledge it just because you keep calling me that."

Lian Yi glanced at Li Shentan. "But I've already decided on the name of our baby!"

"It's pointless even if you've thought of it," Li Shentan said resentfully.

While they were talking, a middle-aged woman who controlled a silver corpse ran back to the village. The silver corpse was even carrying a man on its shoulder.

"Chief, this young man accidentally ventured into the miasmic forest. I managed to save him using my silver corpse." The woman said, "This boy looks quite handsome and his facial features are quite well-defined. He'll make a fine ah'zhu for me."

Li Shentan scoffed at this. "Ms. Lian Hua, can you at least wait until he recovers before you decide on anything?! There's no need to be so impatient!"

The woman who could control the silver corpse was regarded as a respected "elder" in the Lian tribe. The Lian tribe did not have such a title, but whenever Lian Yi held a meeting, she would basically gather the few women who could control the silver corpses together.

Even Lian Yi usually had to respect their opinions.

Lian Hua was a little embarrassed when she heard Li Shentan say that. She laughed it off and said, "He should be able to recover by tomorrow night since he didn't breathe in too much of the noxious vapor."

Li Shentan ridiculed, "Why do you use nights to count the number of days til he recovers?" He walked up to the young man the silver corpse was carrying on its shoulder and lifted his head to have a look. "Huh? Zhang Baogen?"

Li Shentan was stunned. He really did not expect to suddenly see this guy in Xiuzhuzhou at a time like this. Speaking of which, wasn't Zhang Baogen supposed to be with his grandpa, Hu Shuo?

What was going on?

No, something was not right! Li Shentan immediately realized what was going on. If there hadn't been some tremendous change in the Central Plains, Zhang Baogen would definitely not have come to Xiuzhuzhou to look for him without permission.

Something serious must have happened in the Central Plains, so much so that Hu Shuo did not even use his satellite phone to contact him.

The satellites were in the possession of the Wang Consortium's artificial intelligence. Therefore, the king cobra that recently appeared must also have been controlled by that artificial intelligence to enter Xiuzhuzhou to track down Zhang Baogen, right?!

Li Shentan had roughly figured out the whole situation, but he was not very sure if he was right. He would only know after Zhang Baogen regained consciousness.

At this moment, Si Liren also floated over. She exchanged glances with Li Shentan. "Is that Big Brother Baogen? Did something happen over at Grandpa's side?"

"I think so," Li Shentan answered with a frown. "Perhaps—"

Before he could finish speaking, Lian Hua asked, "Chief's ah'zhu, you know him? Is he your friend?"

"Mhm." Li Shentan nodded with a smile and said, "That's right, he's a friend from the Central Plains. He's a very nice and kind person. On top of that, he's also very good at taking care of children."

Lian Hua hesitated for a moment before asking, "You mentioned that his name is Zhang Baogen?"

"Yes," Li Shentan was stunned. "Why?"

"Oh, it's nothing." Lian Hua blushed a little. "This name sounds really likable the moment you hear it. How about this? I'm an expert at treating miasmic poisoning, so just leave him at my place and I'll take care of him."

"Ahem." Li Shentan choked on his breath. He quickly unloaded Zhang Baogen from the silver corpse's shoulder and ran back with him to his house. "There's no need for that. I also have some miasmic remedy herbs at my place."

Lian Hua looked at Li Shentan's receding figure with an expression of disappointment.

A message from weirdo and Legge:

Thank you all for being such patient readers in this tale of Ren Xiaosu. It has been fun translating and reading your comments, and I hope the quality was up to expectations. Every word chosen, and every character's motivations were analyzed to reconcile possible "out of character" behavior. It is my belief that translations should bring across the author's intended message in its most original form.

I know I took a long time clearing up at the end, but I know you'll understand. Yes, we're really reaching the end. My thoughts are that The Speaking Pork Trotter had planned out the story very well, and most side characters were not forgotten. Their backstories also endeared to me as I translated their parts. My personal favorite has to be P5092, depicting how everyone has two sides to them. Sometimes, you just can't judge a person if you don't understand their motivations. Who can forget Hu Xiaobai and Wang Yuexi, two side characters who aren't extraordinary in strength but made a difference in the Prosperous Northwest goal. Zero's story affected me pretty deeply as well.