Totem Chapter 9

Author’s note:
I apologize, something came up at home, so the update came late.

Another clarification:
In order to prevent ghost totems from appearing, Yuanzhi Continent prohibits the dissection of corpses. The corpses mentioned here specifically refer to human corpses.

And although this type of labor of ‘slaughtering pigs’ is also included in the category of ‘dissecting corpses’, and may also bring about ghost totems, the lifestyle of humanity can’t abandon meat, especially chefs who butcher livestock. Therefore, on Yuanzhi Continent, it’s normal that it isn’t forbidden to slaughter pigs or livestock.

On the other hand, there exist some unique occupations on the continent. These occupations are able to ‘legally’ dissect human corpses—for example, executioners.

Here is the chapter update below.

“Alright, alright, whatever you want.”

Jiang Nan shook his head as he stepped out, an expression on his face that said ‘I already knew you were going pick on me in particular’.

For some reasons that Jiang Nan didn’t wish to say, Miss Weylin never ever had a favorable impression of him. As such, she would often seek him out to sort him out, and now that Lola was the manager of affairs, it’d be extremely odd if she didn’t follow in Weylin’s steps and specifically pick on Jiang Nan to sort him out.

“Rodi, right now you are the strongest slave on this farm…”

Lola began imitating the aristocracy’s method of diplomacy, “Abler people do more work, and right now, there isn’t enough manpower to perform labor. Thus, you must take on the responsibility of performing labor with several people… En, from this day onward, you no longer need to raise pigs, and instead have been specially chosen to slaughter pigs! From now on, you must slaughter at least twelve live pigs, understand?”

All the other slaves all inhaled sharply in surprise, their faces expressing, ‘Lola, if you wanted Rodi to die completely, then just say it directly, why beat around the bush’.

To slaughter twelve live pigs in one day was definitely the sort of labor an ordinary slave couldn’t complete!

One must know that slaughtering a pig wasn’t as simple as ‘slitting your own throat’. On West Farms, the precise definition of killing pigs was this: in slaughtering a live pig, one must take out its heart, bones, meat, skin, offals… and such organs had to be completely removed and categorized to be put away into their respective storage areas in the storehouse for the chef to use!

With this kind of procedure, even if it was the chef on the farm whose knife work was the best, he would still only be able to slaughter ten live pigs!

Rodi… this unlucky fellow. Even if he exhausted himself to death, he still wouldn’t be able to finis.h.!.+

Jiang Nan’s face also revealed helplessness, “Miss Lola, yesterday’s test already proved that I am only an ordinary person! Do you think an ordinary person can finish such a task in one day?”

“I don’t care if you can’t finish, in any case, you’d better remember this. Rodi, early tomorrow morning, I’m going to come and inspect your performance: if you slaughter one less pig than you are supposed to, then I’ll have you whipped twenty times. If you slaughter twice less than required, I’ll have you hung at the gate of the farm for three days. If you slaughter three less than you should have…”

Lola aimed her gaze at the distant shanty, “For the sake of your Aunt Alisa, that useless trash that should just die, you had best not slaughter three less than required!”

“You!”

Lola actually made use of Alisa to threaten him! Fury flashed through Jiang Nan, but he still took in a deep breath. As a slave, he had to have the bearing of one, “Alright, I’m a slave. It’s only proper that I exhaust myself to death for *you. Alright, I’ll go slaughter pigs…”

Lola snickered, “You’d better remember~ tomorrow morning at seven, I’m going to inspect your performance!”

The slaves all tilted their heads upward to look at the light of the three moons…

It was already ten in the night, and there were only nine hours left until seven the next morning. To slaughter twelve pigs in nine hours… Ai, Rodi and Alisa were fated to die tomorrow!

When they thought up to here, they expressions they displayed towards Lola suddenly swelled with fear.

At 10:15 p.m., Jiang Nan arrived at the pigpen to prepare to start slaughtering pigs.

Suddenly!

Auntie Alisa hastily crawled *inside, “Rodi, Auntie already knows. Lola wants you to slaughter twelve live pigs in one day. This, this, she’s trying to seize the opportunity to lead you to death!”
(*TL: okay so I thought the pigpen was outside, but apparently it’s a pig house so whatever)

“Auntie, who said Lola wanted to harm me? Alright, even if she truly wanted to harm me, her decision was the biggest mistake she could have possibly made!”

Jiang Nan definitely didn’t have that innocent face from before, and instead radiated with excitement, with an inconceivable smile on his face.

“Auntie, just rest a.s.sured and go back to relax. Slaughtering twelve live pigs in one day, this is definitely a task that I can finish.”

“Oh, so it turns out that you’re able to finish it… Teehee, it’s fine then, it’s fine then!”
(TL: I imagine Auntie Alisa as one of those cute, absent-minded old ladies hehe)

Alisa patted her chest in relief when she suddenly took out a bowl of golden porridge from the flat cart, shouting so loud to the point where she might lose her voice, “Auntie can leave, but you absolutely must drink this golden porridge! If you don’t drink it, what if ‘they’ come to kill you? What would I do if you died?!”

Again, it was golden porridge and completely baseless crazy talk…

Jiang Nan only laughed bitterly.

Only after personally seeing that Jiang Nan gulped down the golden porridge did Alisa crawl out in satisfaction.

And Jiang Nan could finally start slaughtering pigs.

“Pft…”

Jiang Nan glanced left and right and saw that there was only him in the vicinity. Therefore, he stealthily drew out his dissecting cane, then took a deep, deep breath.

The pigs seemed to have sensed that they were about to become dead spirits under the blade, and were so afraid that they began to tremble.

At this moment, Jiang Nan unexpectedly didn’t even bind the pig or make use of any a.s.sistance. Click, the cane split apart, and an extremely sharp *dissecting knife pierced into a pig’s throat!

Then, all that could be seen was Jiang Nan’s hand flas.h.i.+ng like lightning, the knife as though it were flying, as if it was the burgeoning of spring after the rain, one knife wound appearing on the pig’s body one after another. No matter if the incision was wide or narrow or deep or shallow, not even one bit of blood leaked out from the incisions!

And that obese pig went rigid, no longer moving…

Twenty seconds later, click, the dissecting cane returned to its original appearance, and Jiang Nan turned towards the pig while laughing faintly, lightly expelling the stifled breath within his chest, “Hu…”

Rumble!

That pig that was just fully intact a moment ago abruptly fell apart like pouring rain and like the toppling of city walls. A heart, bones, flesh… all sorts of organs fell apart from a whole, and that pig had already been completely butchered!

And that pig’s blood flowed out like an energetic snake, winding around as it followed along the cracks of the blood and bones into a drain on the side…

The pig was dismembered in twenty seconds! It was exactly Jiang Nan’s golden inch blade!

Letting Jiang Nan slaughter pigs… what a joke. Jiang Nan was a person who had learned the art of dismembering from ‘Butcher Ding’s Bull Dismembering’! No matter if it was killing pigs or dismembering bulls or livestock, all these were simply issues that took about as long as it did spark a fire by striking flint!

Not to mention something absolutely wonderful: Rodi’s body, no matter if it was strength, speed, or agility, they had all reached the limits of the human body! With the support of this kind of body, Jiang Nan’s dissecting speed had already reach a degree that he couldn’t have even hoped for in his past world!

To slaughter twelve pigs, Jiang Nan only needed four minutes!

Lola’s decision was indeed mistaken!

Around an hour later, Jiang Nan had already butchered twelve pigs and put everything away.

But right as he reached the bank of the small creek after leaving the pigpen, “Hold it!”

A gloomy and unfeeling voice that didn’t seem as though it was human abruptly reverberated through the air.

On a big tree some distance away, a black fog shrouded a figure which was currently staring straight at Jiang Nan.

And then this black figure jumped down and walked slowly towards Jiang Nan. Right as the person was walking, the cool breeze of the night scattered the black fog around the figure and the person’s face was revealed.

He wasn’t a person! The muscles and skin on his face had already begun festering. Half of it was rotten, while the other was ghastly bone. Furthermore, an eyeball even toppled down, shockingly hanging on the bare cheek bone of that face.

He seemed like a nightmarish ghost!

   ……

The night was dark and the wind high, and a nightmarish ghost-looking person suddenly appeared before Jiang Nan. If it was any other person in his place, that person would likely have fainted dead on the spot long ago.

However, Jiang Nan had studied anatomy for tens of years, and had personally created a few things even more horrifying than this black figure before him. In Jiang Nan’s mind, the horror factor of this figure… was basically equivalent to that of a cute kitten. ^_^

And Jiang Nan firmly believed that in order to be a model character, he had to maintain the calm att.i.tude of one who ‘wouldn’t bat an eyelash if even the heavens were to collapse’. Very quickly, he calmed himself down, “Alright, Mr. Stranger, you’ve blocked my path home. What is your ident.i.ty?”

“What an interesting young fellow. Human whose expression doesn’t even change the slightest bit at my appearance, you are the first!”

The black figure’s voice was gloomy as before, but was a bit angrier, “You don’t need to know my ident.i.ty. You only need to know that I recognize you, and understand everything about you. I’ve come to make a deal with you.”