Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton-Chapter 500 - 293 Broken Ugliness_1
Chapter 501: Chapter 293 Broken Ugliness_1
Located on a hillside south of Goddess of Beauty City is a cemetery, where the environment is beautiful, the scenery is remarkable, and the view is pleasant. From the hillside, one can overlook the entirety of Goddess of Beauty City.
The hillside is clean and dry, open to the north and south, with rows of tombs hidden away in the low shrubs. When the wind blows from the north to the south, a fresh corpse can dry out in just a few days.
Not only is this a cemetery, but it’s also home to Undead creatures. The Skeleton Zombies, who work nearby, prefer to return here to rest after their early morning shift has ended, avoiding the sunlight to refine their souls and taking baths along the way.
The Skeleton Zombies of Goddess of Beauty City are the most immaculate corpses in all the dimensions, so much so that they could even be placed in a room.
Just as dawn was breaking, Xi arrived at the cemetery entrance with clean deer hide cloths and linen in hand, stepping on an oil brush of sheepskin and waiting for the returning Undead creatures.
Xi is an odd name, unlike any normal human name, mainly because it isn’t really a name, but a nickname given to her by others that eventually stuck, so much so that even Xi doesn’t know what it means.
But she knows that whenever she hears the sound of her name, they are calling her.
However, there usually aren’t many people who would voluntarily seek her out. They would only call her by name just to bully her. But as she aged and her appearance became increasingly hideous, even the ones willing to bully her were gone.
Upon seeing her, both young and grown up will flee. The adults were subtle about it and would quicken their pace while the children would let out a shriek and turn tail at once.
Whenever she scared off some kids, she’d often get beaten with a bat, which would have her running off cupping her head.
Let’s see just how hideous she is. Her face is crooked, with her right cheek higher than the left, which results in her eyes not being parallel. This asymmetry also applies to her forehead and mouth, making it difficult to find any symmetrical elements on her face.
And, this has also led to her dental malformation and a leak in her lips.
Apart from her ugly face, she has rough skin, large pores, swollen joints, long hands and short feet. From a distance, she looks like the franken-creatures of lore, truly frightening for anyone who lays eyes on her.
On that hideous face, the only attractive feature might be her clear eyes.
From a distance, several silhouettes were seen moving stiffly and slowly in the early dawn, soon reaching the entrance of the cemetery. Seeing these ‘people’, Xi revealed a smile; these were the only ‘people’ who wouldn’t strike her upon seeing her smile.
“Morning,” Xi warmly greeted a skeleton that shuffled up in front of her. She didn’t care whether the skeleton would understand or not, and then stomped on the air pump beneath her feet.
Connected to the pump was a large leather bag, clamped by two pieces of wood. With a stomp, all the air inside was squeezed out.
Xi took a flexible tube, aimed the front of it at the skeleton’s bones, and sprayed the high-speed pumped out air onto the bones. The soil, grass seeds, moisture, and dirt lodged in the joints, gaps and cavities were blown away by the high-pressure air.
Seeing each dirty skeleton become clean under her hand, Xi’s entire face was stretched into a smile, making her look even uglier.
But that’s okay. The skeleton zombies in front of her won’t ridicule or hit her, instead, they will just walk silently into the cemetery.
Xi didn’t mind, this was her favorite job. She continued to spray air onto the second skeleton, then the third, until a zombie replaced the skeleton.
Cleaning a zombie was much more troublesome than cleaning a skeleton. She had to blow the stains and moisture off their body, brush off the stubborn filth, dry them with the deer hide cloth, then apply sheep oil, rub it in until the oil permeates their skin, then dry them again. The whole process was similar to leather maintenance.
The cleaning of one zombie was more troublesome than cleaning ten skeletons, but Xi didn’t care. She carefully cleaned each one, and each zombie or skeleton that came before her was enthusiastically greeted: “Morning.”
All of a sudden, a zombie let out a groan, “Hur——”
Xi looked up, pleasantly exclaiming, “Ah, it’s you, Red Trousers, good morning. What kind of work were you doing last night?”
The clothing on this zombie happened to reveal a piece of red trousers, hence it was called Red Trousers due to this characteristic.
“Hur——” the zombie responded.
Of course, Xi wouldn’t be able to understand what was being communicated through a groan, but she could gather plenty of information from the body of the zombie. From the leftover grains of rice on the body, she inferred: “You must have gone to separate rice grains. There’s no mud on the bones of your feet, so it’s not like you worked in a field.”
Zombies fear water, and they wouldn’t work on a field, but they can winnow rice, sun it out, and even carry huge bags. They have more physical strength than skeletons and they don’t wear out easily.
After half a day of busy work, Xi finally finished cleaning all the skeletons and zombies. She returned to her little hut, took out a piece of hard bread, toasted it over a charcoal fire to make it softer, and then carefully took a bite. A contented and satisfied expression adorned her face.
Before coming to Goddess of Beauty City, she had never been well fed, let alone eat a loaf of bread made of pure grains. Having a few mildewy pieces of black bread was seen as a luxury.
That black bread, even after being toasted, was as hard as a rock and contained stones, debris, and other hard substances. If you weren’t careful, you could break a tooth or cut your lips.
Before coming to Goddess of Beauty City, Xi didn’t even know that bread could be without stones. Even now, she is careful when chewing her bread because of her past experiences.
There were some sounds from outside the cemetery. Xi quickly pulled up her hood to cover her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. She sneaked out of her hut and hid in the bushes for further examination.