Famine 80: The Gods Never Lowered Their Gaze

Meanwhile, Yi Zheng made her way around the hot springs, distributing desserts to the edge of the 45°C pool.

Allen, perfectly comfortable and content, leaned on the side and grinned. “I’ll take the double-skin milk.”
Gray propped himself up. “Double-skin milk, thanks.”

Yi Zheng handed two bowls of red bean double-skin milk to the brothers. “Here you go, you two.”

Allen waved her off. “Give them both to him. I don’t like sweets.”

Gray lounged back on a rock, cheerfully accepting both.

Yi Zheng, seizing the opportunity, squatted by their pool and smiled. “Hey, friends, you really… don’t feel off at all?”
“That server kid kept repeating, ‘no fighting in the milk bath’… Does it make you feel even a bit irritable, on edge, anything like that?”

“Uncomfortable?” Allen said, “Not at all. Irritable? The soak is so comfy, I can’t even be bothered to stir up trouble.”

He seemed so at ease that his expression even grew honest and open. “If you ask me, all these rules are just paper tigers. That so-called Farm Master isn’t even human—high and mighty, and couldn’t care less.”
“You shouldn’t treat his words as gospel. Chances are, he forgets the rules himself after he turns around.”

Gray joined in, laughing, “Right? Look, nothing’s happened. We soak, we drink, we’re living large! These milk baths are even more comfortable than the other hot springs!”

Yi Zheng made a face in her heart but kept up the act with a few polite laughs.

Allen stood and wiped his face. “You soak in one pool too long, you get used to it. Let’s try the next one.”

“Sure.” The bandit gang splashed out and followed him.

Yi Zheng squatted at the pool’s edge, watching them go.

The next pool was the 55°C milk bath.
For most people, that was already scalding. Few dared try it; only a handful of tougher players, curious, watched as the group entered.

Allen’s crew showed no hesitation, frolicking and splashing, laughing boisterously.

Gray was sweating and flushed red, but didn’t seem to mind; he polished off the first bowl of double-skin milk and happily started on the second.

One clearly skilled player in the pool eyed them and said, “How long have you guys been in here? Got to be forty minutes at least.”

“Forty minutes?” Allen shot back, “Big deal. Feels great, not a problem.”

The player hinted, “You all are something else. I can’t last even half an hour.”

Allen slapped his thigh and barked, “Ha! Weakling.”

The others fell silent. That player, his good intentions rebuffed, exchanged a look with a teammate and stopped talking.

Ten minutes… half an hour… one hour passed.

Allen suddenly stood up with a splash.

In an instant, everyone drew a sharp breath.

From their necks down, their skin had flushed deep rose, veins bulging all over in red, mottled streaks.

Mild scalds!

“Holy shit!” gasped a player in the same pool, edging away.
The group clearly had zero resistance to 55°C water!

“Ahh, so good, so good, it’s addictive. Even hotter would be better…”

Allen brushed his wet hair back and strode up the steps, still wearing a contented grin, his entire body flushed red, swaying as he headed for the next pool.

The 65°C pool!
That’s hot enough to scald your mouth just taking a sip. Steam roiled off the milky bath, which was completely empty.

In full view of everyone, Allen dove in with a splash.

Instantly, the skin touched by the water turned a vivid red. Allen looked like a shrimp cooked alive—every inch flushed scarlet, congested blood threatening to burst from his capillaries.

Yet his team betrayed no discomfort at all, following him in one by one.

The entire bath area fell silent as people stared in shock. The bandit troupe didn’t notice.

“Ha ha… So good, it feels amazing!”

Allen even stripped off his clothes, curling up completely and submerging himself. Floating, wrapped in the boiling water, he wore a look of rapture.

When he lifted his head, his face was beet red, eyes bloodshot, wearing a blissful, feverish smile.

“I could fall asleep like this…”

Soon, they climbed out again, a troop of naked, lobster-red figures, heading for the next pool…

At last, someone couldn’t take it and moved to ask—

Allen slowly turned.

His face was as red and swollen as raw flesh; eyes bulged like half-moons, lips ulcerated into a bloody grin, dripping as he opened and closed his mouth:

“What’s wrong?”

The player recoiled, trembling in terror. “N-nothing, you go on, go on…”

All eyes watched as Allen led his gang, step by step—

Zhong Manwen bowed her head, eating her last spoonful of double-skin milk, unwilling to look any longer.

What she’d realized was this.

In the milky mist and high heat of the bath, ordinary people would have had enough after several dozen minutes. Even in the cooler pools, a few hours was the utmost.
Zhong Manwen herself had only come up because the heat was too much—she needed iced dessert to cool down.

But Allen and his crew, after following so close behind, felt no aversion to the heat—in fact, the hotter, the better…

It was completely unnatural.

Worse still, she wasn’t sure it was only her imagination…

Zhong Manwen’s face paled, recalling how Allen looked floating on the surface.

A normal person floats with limbs outstretched, a relaxed, buoyant posture.

Allen, on the other hand—arms folded, body curled—floated just like…

…like an infant floating in amniotic fluid.

Zhong Manwen shuddered violently.

Across the bath, Allen and his men submerged themselves deeper in the white water, curling up small.

Letting the milky bath envelop them, completely.

Allen, soaking in scalding water, his ulcerated voice rasping with mad laughter: “The Farm Master’s rules are just garbage—brothers, when we get out, the good times are back!”
Gray laughed too: “Damn straight, bro! We soak here, pay the fee—then ambush the forest after, rob whoever passes by.”

They surrendered completely to comfort, letting their bodies soak in almost boiling water.

Allen plotted: “Nobody who comes to a hot spring’s on guard. We do as always—break their arms and legs, loot everything, all the points and artifacts, then a knife to the gut—spare no one.”

Muscles split, flesh sloughed off, skin bubbled with blisters, each easily burst by the water….

Gray, oblivious, eagerly added: “I just saw an old woman out there—how’s she still alive at her age? Must be loaded…”

Pool after pool…
With every step Allen took, burned and blistered feet left traces behind.

“Anyway, the Farm Master’ll never interfere. Rules and laws don’t mean a thing here…”
“Right—don’t mean anything.”

They boasted as they walked on, step by step, toward the deepest, boiling milk pool.

Sizzle—

Finally, the bloody group walked into the churning cauldron, squatting low, curling up in the bubbling liquid, floating and sinking beneath the surface…

Never to rise again.

The air held a faint aroma of cooked meat.

The whole milk pool fell abruptly silent, as if someone had pressed mute.

Many people went pale as death, barely stopping themselves from vomiting.
Even for famine-game survivors, watching people boil alive in milk was just… too much.

Creak…

Someone’s teeth chattered.

Steady footsteps rang out.

A figure in a black tailcoat approached—Yun Zhong, still wearing a young man’s bright smile, holding a kettle and shovel, methodically washing away every trace of blood as if he were just cleaning spilled milk from the floor.

All eyes tracked him.

After finishing, Yun Zhong straightened, glanced around, and offered a sincere smile:

“Please help keep our shared spaces clean, and avoid leaving trash in communal areas—it’s a real pain for us to clean up.”

The crowd collectively shivered—no one could speak.

The Farm Master had seemed so welcoming, so benign, that they’d almost forgotten—the Farm itself was a powerful, inexplicable thing.

The whole Farm was just a dungeon instance.

At Bone Ferry, a killing was quick—a blow and it was over; Commander Nie was human, and wouldn’t violate basic decency.

But here in the Farm’s dungeon, who cared about those rules?

This had been… live boiling!

Who knew how many land mines were buried in the rules, or where they were hidden? All it took was violating a single rule, and you never knew how you’d end up.

Human rights? Compassion? Not proportional to the offense?
To the uncanny, those words were laughable.

There were many who’d been tempted earlier, now sweating in terror, their bathing clothes soaked through as they desperately rejoiced they hadn’t been the ones to test the rules.
Others, scheming quietly, had already gone ghostly, racking their brains to remember if they’d crossed any hidden line.

In a closed, tight-knit settlement, word spreads fast.

One way or another, from today, the Farm’s law and order was guaranteed.

………
……

[Fount of Life (Stage One)]
From the very birth of life, the greatest tenderness is milk.
The mother cow, warm and loving, offers her first blessing to her young.

But are those that sip her milk truly her children?
[Buff for soaking over 30 min: Distortion—Mother’s Blessing]
Effect: Defense +15%
Duration: 24h.

—But are those that sip her milk truly her children?

The “source” in Fount of Life is birth itself. The white milk in the pool is the manifestation of a mother cow’s milk and womb.

The mother cow, desperate to protect her young, will treat any creature soaking in the [Fount of Life] as her own—and bestow the [Distortion—Mother’s Blessing] upon them.

This manifests as a defense buff.

But the mother’s protection is deranged, broken. Si Zhiyan, the Farm Master, could hardly bear to approach the Fount of Life himself—he felt an uncontrollable anxiety and dread.

Many have felt something similar; when faced with life’s struggles or danger, parents are sometimes even more anxious than their children.

Many mothers, in crisis, have felt this wild impulse—
That if the world were truly too dangerous, to simply take the child back inside themselves, fully, forever, would be best.

The purest love in the world always comes with a side effect—overprotection, overwhelming anxiety… These pure and mad flashes flicker by, never spoken, but never gone.

Usually, though, the cow’s confusion doesn’t reach its extreme—so only the buff is given, not other drastic effects.

Unless… you ate the tomato hotpot.

[Soup for the Living—Tomato]
The red broth not for the dead.

Eating 1000g rewards you with a buff: Intimacy with Ghosts (mild)—vengeful spirits appreciate your empathy, and their favor subtly rises.

The favor of ghosts with this “intimacy” pushes the already loving mother cow into utter madness.

Si Zhiyan, arms folded, watched calmly from the treetops as all this unfolded.

He could see through the bubbling surface. In his view, Allen and his crew curled fetal in the boiling milk-womb, faces radiating peace, trust, happiness—as if back in a mother’s arms. Flesh boiled, melted, and vanished into the uterine pool.

[Ding!]

The system notification sounded.

[The mother cow has found her children… 12.]
[The mother cow thanks you.]

[The favor of the Tianmai has slightly increased.]

Si Zhiyan’s face was impassive, gaze fixed on them, and looked inward…

After a while, he gently closed his eyes.

Nothing.

No fear, no pity, no regret…

Not a trace of such feelings.

In the 55°C pool, the Fount’s effect wasn’t as strong, so a player actually tried to warn them.
Even if no one had, Si Zhiyan would have sent Yun Zhong over for one last warning.

If any spark of merit had shone in these men—had there been anything, Si Zhiyan would have given them another chance—at a price, of course, for their wrongdoing.

Just like the time with Gu Haoping and his gun’s final nudge away.

But Allen and his brother did nothing. They repaid kindness with malice, driving off those who tried to warn them and indulging in their pleasure. In their minds, power made right; might justified all, and weakness was a sin.

For such people, there was only a single, miserable ending.

It too is part of human nature, and Si Zhiyan neither approves nor cares.

It wasn’t exactly disappointment—just no feeling at all. Si Zhiyan brushed dust from his hands and left quietly.

By midnight, today’s smiles would be tallied and the shrine maiden would likely come find him;
Zhong Yanqing’s team would finish copying the sacrificial array, ready to hand off to Nidhogg tomorrow;
The day’s profits from the inn would be settled tonight, earning more for new security items, furthering the farm’s defense…

Five days remained before the Reprisal of the Eye.
Si Zhiyan had far too much left to do—no time to waste on these men’s lives.