My brother is so cunning

Chapter 1043 Business is tough
Upon entering Chongmin Street, Yun Zhongzi immediately noticed that the architectural style here was quite different from other streets in the city.

There are no orderly houses in the neighborhood; most of them are nests built by the insectoids using their own secretions mixed with mud and scrap metal.

The outermost area is the settlement of the ant demons. Each round nest, half-buried in the ground, looks like an anthill magnified a hundred times. The entrance is covered with a smooth, sticky coating that can resist rainwater.

Several worker ant demons were carrying large pieces of scrap iron with their powerful mandibles. They were all black, and their carapaces gleamed with a cold, metallic light in the dim light. Their six legs made a rhythmic "clattering" sound as they stepped on the ground.

One of the mound-like structures is a rare above-ground building in the ant colony. A sign on it reads "Flavorful Roasted Insect Eggs." Inside the oven at the entrance, ant eggs the size of ostrich eggs are neatly stacked, emitting a rich aroma as they are roasted over charcoal.

As you walk further in, the spider demons' webs intertwine between the buildings, forming a massive net. The spider demons' lair is built on the steel frame of an abandoned factory, woven from silvery-white spider silk into semi-transparent pods that, from a distance, resemble silkworm cocoons hanging in mid-air.

As evening fell, the spider demons were busy repairing their webs. Their slender bodies moved nimbly between the steel frames, their abdomens constantly spitting out shimmering spider silk. With a light flick of their fingertips, they could reconnect broken strands of silk.

Several young spider demons clung to the edge of the web, poking at the fat sheep bound in it with their legs, piercing their fangs into the sheepskin, and sucking the juices from the meat that their mother had injected with digestive enzymes. They occasionally let out a crisp laugh. The spider silk swayed gently around them, reflecting the faint light of the distant neon lights, like a handful of broken diamonds.

In the center of the neighborhood is the settlement of bee demons, where many hexagonal honeycomb-shaped houses are built, constructed of beeswax mixed with mud, and are a warm golden color.

It's rush hour now, and the bees that went to the flower fields around the city to collect nectar have returned to the neighborhood in a floating truck. They are unloading the pollen cans from the truck bed and transporting them into the hive to prepare for the next step of honey making.

In other parts of the city, the buildings are mostly square brick and cement buildings, but the buildings in this Insect Street are small above ground, with the main structure mostly underground.

The lairs of centipede demons and millipede demons sometimes only have a single entrance on the ground, with a hidden world beneath.

On the other side of the block is the aquatic area, with a huge artificial lake in which countless insect demon larvae swim. Some of these larvae are even larger than their adults, such as the dragonfly demon larvae.

Just in terms of living conditions, they are vastly different from other races. One can imagine how uncomfortable their neighbors would feel if they lived with other demons or humans.

Yun Zhongzi was a long-lived immortal who had seen a lot of things in his life, but even so, walking on the Insect People Street, he felt that it was not like the human world, but as if he had come to another strange world.

Even though everything here seemed a bit strange, Yun Zhongzi observed with his divine eyes and couldn't see any malevolent energy, resentment, or hostility. The atmosphere here was no different from the outside world; it was all the atmosphere of everyday life and the atmosphere of the human world.

Among the insect-transformed monsters, there are actually many natural enemies; some monsters are born to be food for other monsters.

However, here, even natural enemies can live in harmony, without having to fight to the death for a bite of blood or hunt each other.

"Where exactly are these lurking demonic insects you mentioned?"

After strolling through most of the block, Venerable Kasyapa continued to lead Yun Zhongzi deeper into the area, prompting the latter to send a curious message via divine sense.

"It's just ahead. Turn the corner past that towering termite nest, and you'll immediately spot the anomaly."

Kasyapa quickened his pace, and the two bypassed a ten-story-high rammed earth ant nest, arriving at the entrance of another alley. "There's definitely something wrong here!"

Yun Zhongzi glanced at him and, just as Jia Ye had said, immediately noticed something amiss.

Even though we hadn't left the Insect Community Street yet, the architectural style of this alleyway had returned to a normal style, exactly the same as the buildings outside the Insect Community Street.

Upon closer inspection, the residents walking on this street were all stunningly beautiful young women. They varied in height, weight, and body shape, and their insectoid features also differed. However, they all shared the commonality of being at a very advanced stage of transformation, and without close examination, it was almost impossible to discern any remaining, hideous insect-like characteristics.

Compared to other insectoid races in Insectoid Street, these insectoid girls who look like insectoid girls are more like humans, both in appearance and lifestyle. If you don't look closely, Yun Zhongzi might think that he has left Insectoid Street and come to a human settlement.

Besides the insectoid girl, there were also quite a few human men wandering around this street.

Undoubtedly, they were attracted by these stunningly beautiful insectoid girls. These insectoid girls didn't seem to mind being chased by the human men with their infatuated expressions, and they chatted and laughed with them quite naturally, their silvery laughter ringing out from time to time.

Other insectoids in the Insectoid Street usually run shops with their own unique characteristics, but this area is not much different from ordinary commercial streets.

This group of insectoids is very similar to humans in many ways. They run normal businesses, such as restaurants, clothing stores, flower shops, bookstores, and even hardware stores, repair shops, and appliance stores that require a high level of technical expertise.

However, in terms of customer traffic, even ordinary shops are doing better business than those in other commercial streets.

After all, Yun Zhongzi only glanced at the group and found that there were no men or middle-aged or elderly women among its members; they were all young and beautiful girls.

The same shop, with beautiful female staff serving customers, will naturally do better business, at least attracting more single men to come and spend money.

Venerable Kasyapa pulled Yun Zhongzi closer. Both of them were immortals and Buddhas with profound realms and keen senses. Even if they were standing far away, they could hear and see clearly. They hid to the side and spied on the interactions between the insect girl and the human men who ran to the block to see the beauties.

After listening for only a short while, Yun Zhongzi frowned and muttered under his breath, "Good heavens, everyone's a Daji! They're all treating men like King Zhou, they must be harboring evil intentions and have grand ambitions!"

Listening to their interactions, Yun Zhongzi became increasingly alarmed. These insect-girls were either all people-pleasing individuals or had some kind of aesthetic problem.

No matter how ugly or sleazy the human men they were talking to were, they acted as if they were seeing super handsome men and incredibly charming gods. They were like little fangirls, and without the ugly men's sweet talk, they were ready to throw themselves at them for free.

"Hmph, it's because of these little vixens disrupting the market that it's getting harder and harder for me to make money. But every cloud has a silver lining, and it's also led me to discover this special group of insect people."

Venerable Kasyapa muttered angrily, but then noticed that Yun Zhongzi was looking at her with a strange gaze. Her pretty face flushed red, and she realized that she had said the wrong thing. She lowered her head and said nothing more.

(End of this chapter)