Investigating the Situation

The people who had been screaming in terror suddenly fell silent, as if someone had pressed a stop button.

They looked up blankly and turned toward Du En.

"Stop shouting. Hurry up and bury them."

He remained as calm as ever.

"Oh, oh."

Several of them dazedly followed him in burying the corpses. As the bodies were covered, they quickly broke free of the influence. Even so, they still felt a lingering fear whenever they thought about it, and unease and terror continued to spread.

After all, even the people who had bullied them in the past and left them utterly powerless had died like this, in such a gruesome state. If they were targeted, wouldn't their fate be even worse?

Fear and unease born from such thoughts were normal.

What was abnormal was the way the Evil Technique had magnified those emotions until they spiraled out of control.

This was an Evil Technique!

Take Xu Ran, for example. When he had first seen it, no one had interrupted him in time. By now, he stood there like a wooden chicken, neither moving nor remaining still.

Only after Du En and the others had completely buried the corpses did he begin to come to his senses. He could not help taking huge gasps of air.

"Whew! Whew! Whew!"

"What happened to me just now? No, wait! Du En, you really are born with a Corpse Burying Spiritual Body! How did you manage to keep your face unchanged and your heart unshaken!?"

Regarding Xu Ran's somewhat incoherent behavior, Du En silently observed him and combined it with everything he had seen and felt before arriving at his own judgment.

It seemed that personally watching the corpses being buried had also broken the Evil Technique on him!

Moreover, the remnant aura on the Corpse Bag had completely dissipated as well.

Before Xu Ran came to his senses, Du En had taken a shovel and touched the Corpse Bag again.

No remnant aura had appeared to infect him this time.

Clearly, the Evil Technique was attached to the corpses. Once the corpses were buried in the wasteland, they could no longer stir up any waves. Thus, all the nearby residual influence had disappeared along with them.

If that was truly the case, then everyone who had witnessed the corpses besides Xu Ran was still under its influence.

He looked like an unlucky fellow who had been specifically targeted, but in reality, he had accidentally broken the Evil Technique and removed the hidden danger from his body. He was actually a lucky man.

"My senses and perceptions have become clearer. In the past, I could only sense the evil nature, but I couldn't detect the existence of the remnant aura or confirm the existence of the Evil Technique. This is a change brought about by the breakthrough in my cultivation method."

The deeper one delved into cultivation and cultivation methods, the clearer one's understanding and perception of heaven and earth and all living things became!

"All right, Du En. I have to go back and report."

After settling his emotions, Xu Ran naturally did not want to stay here any longer. He had to go back and report first.

At that moment, Du En stopped him and asked, "There's no need to hurry off. If you go back now, you'll probably be sent to transport more corpses here. Why not slack off here for a while first?"

"This... all right. It's true—the boss is the best at squeezing people dry." Xu Ran had to admit that Du En was right. The corpses that were supposed to be transported here today were still waiting to be brought over!

Then, since he had already returned to normal, he continued, "You want to ask about what happened, right? Let's go to the corner. I'll tell you about it."

He acted as though this matter could not be spread carelessly, leaving the others somewhat disappointed.

Du En, however, said bluntly, "You just want to leave the wasteland, that's all."

"Haha..."

Xu Ran laughed awkwardly without denying it. He turned and headed straight for the woods outside the wasteland.

Du En followed him, and the others followed as well. They gathered beneath the shade of the trees.

Sure enough, Xu Ran did not care in the slightest and spoke directly. "I actually don't know how they died. At the time, we had just gathered together and were about to begin the work of sorting the corpses at midnight."

Sorting the corpses meant searching the corpses.

"At that time, the overseer was cultivating. He had no need to get involved, since the boss would obediently offer up his share. But the overseer from the corpse collectors' side suddenly came running over in a panic, so we were all summoned and taken to the scene."

"The location was an open area where the two gangs negotiated. Although the Blood Eagle Gang and the Iron Hand Gang had been having some friction lately, they still maintained their cooperation under the pressure of the Green Robe Gang. So they should have been holding one of their routine meetings and negotiations."

At this point, Du En interrupted him directly. "It rained yesterday. Even if the rain stopped in the middle of the night, they generally wouldn't go to some open area to negotiate at that time—especially with the situation among the gangs stable recently and no major changes."

Xu Ran froze. After carefully sorting through his memories, he nodded. "That's true. The whole scene was a mess, and so was I. Thinking back now, the strange thing was that there were no other members from either gang over there, only the two gang leaders, who had died stuck together."

Had they been lured there?

Everyone quickly thought of this possibility.

Xu Ran rubbed his temples, looking deeply worried. "In any case, Evil Cultivators are running rampant. They've already dared to attack the two of them. Most likely, they'll make some other major moves next."

The leaders of the two gangs were connected to the stewards and controlled by them from behind the scenes. Even the overseers might not think much of them ordinarily, but they would not offend them for no reason and had to take that relationship into consideration.

But the Evil Cultivator—or Evil Cultivators—who had acted clearly did not care about that!

Du En deliberately asked, "So the overseers didn't investigate at all? I remember that the one on your side was at Peak Qi Refining."

Upon hearing this, Xu Ran thought it over carefully again. Then his pupils contracted. "At the time, the overseer was first shocked and furious, then terrified. He might have known the Evil Cultivator who attacked them and realized that he couldn't defeat the other party, which was why he hurried off with the other overseers to report to the Elegant Courtyard!"

Good heavens!

Just hearing this made their scalps crawl!

Even an overseer at Peak Qi Refining had felt fear. How could this not be terrifying!?

Ning Caize and Wei Ming exchanged glances, their hearts growing increasingly worried. They could only feel that the seemingly stable situation was on the verge of collapsing.

Having learned what he wanted to know, Du En calmly formed his own judgment.

Judging from the fact that the overseer at Peak Qi Refining seemed to recognize the attacker and had been terrified of him, combined with the remnant Evil Technique aura leaked by the Corpse Bag artifact, the Evil Cultivator who had acted—whether there was only one or several—should still be limited to the Qi Refining Stage.

If the overseers had already reported the matter successfully, then this was very likely the case.

All they needed to do was see whether the corpse collectors would transport the corpses that had been scheduled for delivery today here as usual.

If the overseer returned safely, they would naturally continue working obediently. But if the overseer had died as well, they would naturally huddle up and refuse to come here in their usual formation.

Li Yue's temperament had essentially doomed things to turn out this way.

Thus, Du En waited patiently.

He did not have to wait long before the rumble of wheels began to approach.

It was the corpse collectors' convoy.

In reality, it consisted of only three carts, piled high with corpses like three moving burial mounds.

They looked terrified. Seeing the wasteland under the sunlight, empty of people except for the handcarts, frightened them so badly that they nearly turned around and ran.

Fortunately, Du En's group promptly waved their shovels as a signal. Only then did the corpse collectors see the seven of them gathered beneath the shade of a tree to one side.

"Fuck, you scared me to death!"

"Ah Ran is fine too. Good, good. Du En's side really is reliable."

"Just like Ah Ran said—a Corpse Burying Spiritual Body!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down. If he hears you and smacks you in the face with a shovel, I'll only laugh at you."

Since the people here were safe and the overseer had already returned, the corpse collectors quickly settled down. They chatted among themselves in a fairly relaxed manner.

Then they hurriedly got to work, laying dozens of stinking corpses in neat rows across the wasteland beneath the sunlight.

Du En watched their every move from afar. From this, he determined that the overseer's side had probably returned safely. However, the Evil Cultivator had likely not been captured, and the stewards had not mobilized either. That was why the corpse collectors had just now been so unsettled, like frightened rats.

"Those stewards..."

He was not surprised. He merely shifted his thoughts and considered what he should do next.

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