There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

Sure enough, after saying that, the anger on Burnett's face gradually subsided. After taking a long deep breath, he finally calmed down and nodded to me.

Looking at the bald man again, I realized that although he had been beaten up, he wasn't seriously injured. At most, he had some bruises on his face, and not even a scratch. In contrast, Burnett had taken a blow from my "Northern Dipper's Kindness Face-Breaking Fist," which knocked out a tooth and swollen up half of his face, making him look much more pitiful.

Burnett was already recovering from serious injuries, and now, weakened by the long journey, he was completely exhausted from the fight. The kid was only at a disadvantage because his leg injury prevented him from running; otherwise, he would have easily defeated this seemingly strong but actually weak, balding man.

"Why are you back so early? Have you finished dealing with things at Shisong Manor?" I asked as I led the two of them back into the house and sat them down at the table in the hall.

Having witnessed the devastation there, Burnett should have completely given up hope, abandoned his naive fantasies about the Loader's Territory and the Wasteland, and begun preparing to abandon business for martial arts, join the colony, and change the world with me, right?

Burnett then came to his senses, nodded heavily, and said excitedly, "That's right! Boss, you really are a genius! If you hadn't sent me back, I would never have discovered that there might still be people alive in Ten Pine Manor!"

Ok?

When did I mean that?

No... that's not the point...

Are there still people alive in Shisong Village?

Chapter 315 The Hunt for the Killer

Burnett and I both turned our gazes to the bald man sitting dumbly to the side.

Ever since I enlightened him, this guy has been in a daze, probably with his mind full of the knowledge I imparted. If I don't loudly wake him up, he'll probably stay in this dazed state forever.

The bald man's gaze returned to his original direction, and he said in a low voice, "Impossible... Although I made an excuse to go outside when the massacre started, they said they received a kill order, so there couldn't possibly be any survivors... If they allowed survivors, we wouldn't have had to come all this way to hunt them down..."

That makes sense.

I turned my gaze to Burnett: "What did you find? Tell us first."

Burnett gestured wildly, “When I rushed back to Shisong Village, all I saw were ruins and fire damage. The houses in the village had been burned to the ground, and even the ripe tobacco and barley in the village had been looted and destroyed…”

"I had no choice but to collect the bodies in the square strewn with corpses, dig graves for everyone, and bury these villagers who died unjustly... But when I came to the vicinity of the village granary to look for a shovel, I found that the underground granary, which used to store grain, had been opened. There must have been more than a dozen people who went in and out, but the footprints were a bit messy."

"When I was collecting and burying the bodies, I also discovered that about ten bodies were missing. Even including the incomplete limbs, it was still far less than the number of people in the village!"

After saying that, he stared at the bald man with a complicated look, his eyes filled with both hatred and pleading. "If you know anything, please tell me! Although I will never let go of my hatred, I can guarantee that I will not do anything to harm you while I remain rational!"

I encouraged the bald man with my eyes: "Tell me everything you know. Hatred is temporary. So-called unsolvable hatred doesn't stem from poor communication, nor from prejudice and arrogance. True hatred originates from class antagonism. Before, you and he were natural class enemies, and everything you did was antagonistic, naturally exploiting them. But now you're on the same side, and you shouldn't be bound by blind hatred and fear each other."

After listening to what I said, the bald man muttered to himself, "There are no eternal hatreds, only eternal interests... Boss, I understand..."

What do you know? Is that what I meant? You vulgar sociologist!

After speaking, he pondered for a long time, then suddenly said, "Based on my understanding of the leader, he would never leave any survivors unnecessarily; it's more likely they would all be tortured and buried alive... But I remember when I was wandering the wasteland, filled with fear, I encountered the town's fourth guard..."

"Another group of privateers?" I asked.

But the bald man shook his head: "No, our Third Guard Team is the real privateer team, and we specialize in doing dirty work, so no one cares how aggressive and violent our methods are. The Fourth Guard Team is more like the trade route guards on this road, responsible for protecting the safety of the caravans in this town. Only when we are absolutely sure of success will we put on a mask and act as bandits."

"Rumor has it that the Fourth Guard actually works for some big shots in town, so their status is naturally incomparable to ours..."

Burnett's eyes lit up with hope: "It's them! I've given those bastards plenty of money. Did they come to Ten Pine Manor that night too?"

The bald man nodded and said, "Yes, after I identified myself as the Third Guard, they asked me where the Third Guard was, and then we all headed over there..."

The bald man hesitated and said, "If there's anything that can stop their slaughter, something that's above the town's order to kill, it's definitely the latest order they brought..."

But something didn't feel right to me, so I said to the bald man, "So you never went back to Shisong Village after that? You don't know what happened to it in the end?"

The bald man gave a smile that looked more like a grimace: "I was terrified. I didn't dare go back... I was afraid they'd go berserk and kill me too. After I stayed in the wasteland for a while, I saw them riding out on camels, saying they'd found traces of someone escaping and were chasing me south..."

I turned to Burnett and asked, "Did you find any traces of them at Ten Pine Manor? Or were you able to identify the survivors from the remains?"

Burnett's face showed a look of utter despair as he said coldly, "Those scumbags burned most of the bodies, and boiled a few more in a pot; they're unrecognizable. I could barely make out the village chief's family's bodies by their clothing and bones, but the others were completely unrecognizable..."

I slammed my hand on the table: "So one of you doesn't know which ones escaped when you got there, and the other doesn't know which ones survived. Isn't this completely irrelevant, with no clues connecting at all?"

"The people stuck in the wooden stakes outside are also unconscious and can't answer..." Burnett's hopeful face instantly turned dejected. "...Yes, not only did I fail to save them, I don't even know if they're alive or dead..."

But as I pondered the setting sun, a thoughtful look crossed my eyes, and I caught a clue: "It's not entirely impossible. Baldy said he saw another group of privateers visit Shisong Village, and you also noticed that some villagers were missing. So the most likely scenario is that the villagers were taken away by these privateers, but didn't die on the spot. The horrific massacre should have stopped because of that. Your guess that some people survived is very likely true..."

"But where can I find them?" Burnett's eyes were filled with sorrow. The saddest thing in the world is to know someone but not be able to see them, and to be left only with the bitter search. For example, the parents of trafficked children continue their futile search in this kind of despair.

"No need to think about it anymore. As long as we find the Fourth Guard Team, we'll definitely find a clue," I said confidently.

The bald man hesitated and said, "But boss, the Fourth Guard has been wandering the wilderness for a long time, and their numbers are not like the Third Guard, which is a five-person team. They have at least forty people, divided into six groups that take turns attacking. How are we going to find them and get them to tell the truth?"

Under the horrified gazes of Burnett and the bald man, I patted the head of the approaching Cheetah One, sat upright in the bar lobby, letting the evening wind howl around me, my eyes full of contempt.

"Since there were others present that day, it seems others have heard of Lord Shafulin's name. That lord's name cannot be desecrated; I must make them all pay the price..."

I glanced at the bald man. “If the mountain won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain. These privateer gangs may come and go without a trace, but they still have to rotate through the loader’s ranks and obey the loader’s orders.”

"What a waste of your powerful hairstyle. Come with me back to the Loader's Territory tomorrow; I have my own ways of getting the information."

Chapter 316 A Long Night May Bring Many Unexpected Mishaps

The campfire at the entrance was still crackling, scorching the endless stream of flying insects that came to their deaths, and emitting a faint smell of burning.

This small flame illuminated the empty ground in front of the tavern, revealing a dilapidated tavern standing alone in the wilderness. But to passing travelers, even such a run-down tavern offered more solace than the bright moonlight in the wilderness.

The moonlight was indeed bright, but the moon peeking out from the sky was eerily menacing, displaying a shocking pupil-like structure, as if a cyclops, the embodiment of heaven and earth, was watching over everything on earth, coldly observing the loves and hates of the ants.

In this disorderly place, utopia has probably never existed. Everyone is only concerned with whether they can survive tomorrow, and whose life they will take tomorrow. This cycle forms a tightly linked logical chain, so tight that it is almost unshakeable.

I stood outside, in the dead of night, silently facing the cold and desolate surroundings.

…………

Tonight, unusually, I didn't dream about the bizarre videos playing on repeat. Instead, I dreamt that I was in a burning village, with countless wails rising and falling, but I couldn't clearly see what was happening.

My ears heard the sounds of chopping, shouting, and crying; my nose smelled the smoke, blood, and wild animals; yet my vision was blurred, and I could only grope my way forward.

Soon, I touched a section of intestine protruding from the ground. Blood and filth flowed out, staining my hand, but it was as cold as a stainless steel water pipe. Upon closer inspection, I finally saw that the person in front of me was a young man who died with his eyes wide open, blood flowing from his mouth, though the blood had been dried for some time.

I reached out to cover his eyes, but my hands wouldn't obey me; they wobbled and couldn't find their target.

When I came to my senses, I realized that the joints of my hands were in a strangely twisted state. The wrists, which should have been smooth, were loose and rotten like wood, oozing terrifying bruises. My fingers were completely immobile.

I was lost in thought for a while, feeling a sense of helpless indifference towards the situation, so I continued to explore forward, searching for new reference points.

The further you go, the more and more gruesome corpses appear on the roadside, scattered here and there. The only distinguishing feature is that the wounds are all very fresh, appearing to have occurred only a few hours ago, and there is no sign of decay.

When I arrived at an empty square, the fog suddenly cleared, and I saw a huge, red-hot iron pot where countless people were being cooked, layered upon each other but unable to rise above the surface. Arms kept reaching out, fingers twisting and clenching unnaturally, before finally falling back into the pot empty-handed.

Beside this astonishingly large cauldron sat four bizarre creatures, each over ten feet tall, with complete limbs, ugly features, and yellowish-green saliva dripping from their mouths. They were intently staring at the cauldron, occasionally sniffing the aroma, as if the pot contained the most delicious food in the world.

I stabbed them with a knife, stabbed them with a gun, chopped them with an axe, and shot them with a pistol, but I couldn't shake these four foolish giants. The wounds only existed on their bodies for a short time before they were covered by jelly-like fat, and their bodies became even larger.

Finally, I realized that these creatures could not be destroyed by violence, because they were the product of violence themselves. What I struck down was what they loved, and what I condemned was what they rejoiced over. So I stirred up a sky full of yellow sand, buried the giant, and devoured the flames, finally bringing the situation under temporary control.

But I know this is not the end. My efforts can only suppress the monster temporarily, but cannot solve everything at its root. My temporary, self-deceptive actions are only for my own benefit and have no possibility of helping the world.

So I hurried to reach into the cauldron and rescue the people suffering inside. But all I saw was a pile of skeletons, their flesh torn apart by the boiling, bones separated from flesh. Outside the cauldron of bones, several children sat on top of the bones, desperately shaking the barely intact limbs with their tender arms.

They used this method to deceive the giants outside, making them believe that the soup was not cooked, thus barely delaying the inevitable. The adults willingly immersed themselves in the hot soup, using their fragile bodies to shoulder the hopes that would follow.

I took the severed limbs from the children's hands and looked directly into their blank eyes. I could no longer see any desire for life or any hope for the future in them. The only difference between them and the dead was probably the separation caused by the river of time.

The children panicked, opening their mouths but unable to utter a sound. They hurriedly began digging through the pile of bones, frantically searching for anything inside. After a long while, they found a lifelike human head among the bones.

The human head was receding precariously, its expression fierce and menacing, still displaying its dying ferocity. Only in the children's hands did the expression gradually soften, the features slowly coming to life, and the final words mechanically escaped its throat like a recording device.

"Save the children..."

Save the children?

These children are nothing but souls destined to die. The more I save, the more will stray from the path ahead. Hatred will slowly sprout, savagery will grow unchecked, and the evil that eventually blossoms will bear the marks of foolish giants on their brows and eyes.

Do children like this deserve to be saved?

In such an iron house, is it really necessary to wake up these people who should be peacefully suffocating and give them the fear of their dying moments? Even if I shout and wake up a few of the more conscious people, making these unfortunate few suffer the inescapable agony of their dying moments, would that be fair to them?

A deep sorrow enveloped me, and my outstretched hand froze in mid-air, hesitant to touch the children sitting with their knees drawn up to their chests.

Suddenly, the head began to roll, swaying back and forth in the cauldron like a living thing, never settling down, while uttering mechanical words.

"Save the children..."

"Save the children..."

"Save the children..."

I looked at myself. In this environment, besides being able to move and speak freely, how could I possibly reach out a helpful hand to soothe my wounds, or open my eyes to see through the chaos of this world?

I turned around and saw a building engulfed in flames, flames raging from the inside out. The sounds of cracking wood and collapsing building rose and fell, and smoke billowed into the sky, forming a desperate, desperate smoke trail.

Amidst the fire, I saw familiar facades and lobbies, familiar figures and furnishings. This building seemed like the nameless little tavern where Boss Dart once sheltered us from the wind and rain in Mineral Town, a place I hadn't seen in a long time…

Chapter 317 The Truth

"died?"

I walked to where the four wooden stakes were and saw Burnett lingering there as well.

"Yeah, he's dead."

Burnett muttered something, squatted down, and remained silent. If he lit another cigarette, he would be a complete cowardly middle-aged man. However, other cowardly middle-aged men wouldn't commit the act of killing four people in succession.

I pretended not to know about his actions and changed the subject: "The stake torture is indeed quite cruel. I didn't expect them to die before they even lasted a day."

Burnett sighed. "Laugh at me all you want... You're all-powerful, while I can't even bring myself to be ruthless."

Omnipotent? Indeed, to Burnett and his group, what I did was nothing short of transformative, reaching a level they could never have imagined.

But what I am powerless to do is something they cannot even imagine.

With great power comes great responsibility—that's utter nonsense, only good for fresh graduates and working stiffs. But with great power comes great ambition—that's an absolute truth. So-called responsibility is nothing more than a byproduct of ambition.

“Boss Zoffy, do you know that I’m actually in my seventies…”

"Seventy-something years old? You've practiced the Eight Desolations and Six Harmonies Supreme Technique?"

Burnett shook his head, indicating that he didn't understand what I was saying. "I spent thirty years of my life in cryogenic hibernation pods. There was a huge industrial city on this planet back then, but it was destroyed one day. Before the city collapsed, those who were able returned to space, and even becoming poor people in a space city was better than being here."

"And we poor people in the city have no right to class degeneration; we can only wait to die here. To prevent us from sabotaging the evacuation plan, the city has proposed a cryogenic hibernation plan. Each low-income family can choose one member to be cryogenically frozen, at the cost of the remaining members not being able to act on their own or continue working. If any violation is discovered, the cryogenic freezing qualification will be revoked."

"After my parents put me into the underground cryogenic hibernation chamber, the city was destroyed. Countless city residents probably died in the disaster, with only a few escaping to the wilderness..."

I looked at this person and asked softly, "How old were you back then?"