"Meat?"
Clockwork Gentleman froze, his tone turning dejected. "You've reminded me of some unpleasant memories from the Fourth Layer..."
"Ahem!"
Zhou Qing knew he was surely referring to how Clockwork Gentleman and the village residents had, in order to survive on the Fourth Layer, been forced to eat the children Namiki gave birth to—children whose lifespans were no more than a day. He did not press the matter and changed the subject. "Take us to see the mining site."
"The Red Iron Ore Field is fifty li north of the village gate. The mountains there are all reddish-brown, so it's easy to recognize." Unable to leave Nami Village, Clockwork Gentleman could only point them in the right direction.
"Thank you."
Zhou Qing thanked him.
"Would you like to look around the rest of the village?" Clockwork Gentleman asked. "There's no need to rush the mining. You probably won't finish it within a day anyway."
"Sure."
After pondering for a while, Zhou Qing also wanted to spend more time in this world, hoping to draw inspiration from it and sort through his own cultivation.
The Inner Scenery World opened by the Martial Cauldron Soul Furnace, built upon the cycle of the human body's Meridians and Martial Soul, was a small world modeled after the human body and parallel to the outside world.
Namiki's trait of containing a world within her body had a similar principle.
Dugu Bo had come along more as a bodyguard for Zhou Qing and the others, so naturally he had no objections. Moreover, he too had opened an Inner Scenery World. Perhaps he could discern some mysteries from this peculiar space that formed a world of its own, allowing his Inner Scenery World to grow further.
Boom!
All of a sudden, the walls outside the village trembled