The Worldly Desires Were Gone

Yu Ziqing killed one of the powerful men in a single strike.

A scorching power burst through his body. His Blood Essence surged like a great river, and the cold outside seemed to vanish as well.

He drew in a light breath. The instant his gaze swept over the remaining three, the Blood Essence boiling inside him suddenly erupted. As dust stirred beneath his feet, his figure had already shot several yards forward, charging straight at the three men.

The Scar-faced Man let out a furious shout and spat out a cloud of black mist. Accompanied by the rustling sound of mosquitoes and insects darting through the air, it rushed straight toward Yu Ziqing.

Yet Yu Ziqing remained expressionless. The information he had gathered earlier surfaced naturally in his mind. At the exact moment the other man made his move, he bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a mouthful of scalding blood, which transformed into a sharp arrow and shot forth.

The blood arrow plunged into the black mist, immediately producing a sizzling sound. Before his figure even arrived, the short sword in his hand had already left his grasp, transforming into a streak of silver light that pierced into the black mist.

Yu Ziqing's figure followed close behind. In the blink of an eye, the black mist rolled and scattered to both sides. Yu Ziqing gripped the short sword and pulled it out of the Scar-faced Man's mouth. Moving like a leopard pouncing on its prey, he continued toward the other two.

After only a few breaths, four corpses were lying on the ground.

The previous night, he had already finished gathering the necessary information on all four men. The short sword and scabbard, which had originally been rusted solid together, now showed a tiny crack at their junction. A trace of the old rust had fallen away, which also meant that the judgment had been completed.

As long as he made a move, he would definitely be able to kill his opponent.

Yu Ziqing held the short sword and pondered for a moment before stepping forward to finish them off one by one.

These fellows were frighteningly sinister. Who knew what evil arts they might still have yet to use?

Based on what he had overheard while these men chatted in their awkward dialect, he recalled some of the amusing stories they had occasionally mentioned about other people.

Some heretic cultivator had been butchered, and after this or that had been done to him, his body and spirit had been completely destroyed. That was why, in recent years, certain places could no longer be visited.

Piecing together the scattered information, Yu Ziqing summarized the most common methods of eliminating all future trouble by uprooting the weeds completely: severing the head and burning the parts separately; digging out the heart and feeding it to vicious beasts; cutting the body in half at the waist and suppressing the two banks; piercing the three seas and sealing the coffin with talismans, and so on...

After such a treatment, there was basically no chance of even becoming a Ghostly being.

By contrast, burying someone casually or merely cremating them actually increased the likelihood of them becoming a Fierce Ghost or evil ghost because of their dense resentment. There had even been cases where the handling was incomplete, allowing the resentment itself to develop consciousness, transform into an evil creature, and seek revenge.

What was there to hesitate about? Given the conditions at hand, Yu Ziqing gave the four men the complete treatment as best he could.

A moment later, he used the looted lamp oil to ignite two piles of firewood. He casually threw in the severed hair, black whips, and other sinister objects to be cremated as well.

Before he had finished sorting through the other items, the Blood Essence surging through Yu Ziqing like the blazing sun rapidly weakened and dissipated as a gust of wind blew past. In the blink of an eye, he had returned to his original state.

His body was withered, his cheeks sunken, and his waist seemed too weak to straighten. The cold wind around him also seemed to appear from thin air, making him shudder.

The silver short sword radiating fierce cold likewise returned to its original appearance.

The blade and scabbard had rusted completely solid together. This meant there was no longer a target he could draw the sword against.

Everything he had felt just now seemed like an illusion. Only the memory of that power surging as smoothly as instinct remained undissipated.

"Cough..."

Yu Ziqing coughed lightly and moved away from the bonfires giving off a foul stench and the smell of burning. He put the easy-to-carry items he had looted into a cloth bundle and casually stuffed it into his robes.

He circled around the foot of the mountain and arrived on the other side. Long-haired Ox was still lying on the ground, waiting for night to pass. More than a hundred goats had huddled together in a mountain hollow, trembling as they tried to avoid the cold.

Other than that, he could not see a single living person...

When Yu Ziqing approached, an old mountain goat, thin as skin stretched over bones, squeezed out of the herd. It trotted over to Yu Ziqing, raised its head, and bleated incessantly.

Yu Ziqing squatted down, tugged at the corners of his mouth, and revealed a brilliant, innocent smile.

"Old Sir, you didn't expect this, did you? I actually didn't die. It's all right now. Just as those sinister fellows were about to make a move, a master suddenly appeared...

"Well, the kind who swooped down from the sky with a whoosh, his entire body shining with light—a super-master. He killed all four of them with a single poke of his finger, then vanished with another whoosh."

Old Yang's eyes widened, and he grew even more anxious. Clearly, he did not believe Yu Ziqing's nonsense.

Yu Ziqing laughed heartily and said with an utterly serious expression,

"All right, I made that up. In truth, I possess a special ability. I hadn't wanted to reveal it, but I was pushed to the brink and suddenly awakened and exploded with power, briefly becoming a great master. My Blood Essence was like a dragon's, and no evil could invade me.

"Those sinister fellows couldn't hurt me at all. I killed them with one sword each, like slaughtering chicks. I cut all four of them down without the slightest effort."

Before Old Yang could say anything else, Yu Ziqing led him around the foot of the mountain and let him see the two bonfires that were still burning.

Through the flames, one could vaguely see the corpses burning inside. The arms of those corpses were almost as thick as Yu Ziqing's waist. Who else could they be but those four powerful men?

Old Yang looked somewhat dazed. Now, even if he did not believe it, he had no choice but to.

He might as well believe the nonsense that a master had happened to pass by and casually slain the evil creatures. After all, it really was somewhat possible.

This wilderness bordered Great Qian's northwest. A major natural disaster had occurred here. Whether people from elsewhere could arrive so quickly was difficult to say, but Great Qian would certainly send people to investigate at the first opportunity and obtain first-hand information.

The first people to arrive certainly would not be too weak. Them casually killing some heretic cultivators made sense as well.

As for Yu Ziqing's claim that he had done it himself, with Yu Ziqing's thin arms and legs and his feeble Blood Essence, Old Yang had never even considered that possibility.

The short sword Yu Ziqing had tucked at his waist merely for show was rusted beyond recognition and did not have even a speck of blood on it, yet he claimed it had stabbed people to death...

This young man was quite good in every other respect. It was just that he always loved spouting nonsense. Earlier, he had even bragged about his homeland, claiming no one there would ever starve to death and that everyone had eaten meat.

Old Yang came back to himself and secretly sighed once more. What a fine young man. What a pity he was not a mute.

Yu Ziqing spun a few more tales. Seeing Old Yang's emotions stabilize, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

To be honest, if it had not been necessary, even if he had been certain he could kill them in one strike, he had not intended to eliminate those heretic cultivators yet.

Those heretic cultivators had thought Yu Ziqing could not understand their awkward dialect. Whenever they spoke, they had never bothered to avoid him. Of course, it was more likely that they simply did not care.

More than half of Yu Ziqing's current information had been gathered by secretly listening a little each day and then organizing it. The details concerning Jinlan Mine were discussed even less by those powerful men. They had always treated the mine as a forbidden subject and refused to speak about it in depth.

They needed the rare Jinlan Ore, while the mine needed the people they brought. That was why they would go to that so-called mine.

If there had been another choice, Yu Ziqing would not have wanted to go to a mine that anyone with half a brain could tell was no good.

After all, what legitimate mine would trade with heretic human traffickers?

Unfortunately, there was no other choice. Their supplies had already been reduced to almost nothing.

Even if he was eaten, even if he was killed, it was still better than starving or dying of thirst in this wilderness. There was always a chance if he took a gamble.

At the very least, a person should not be starved to death.

Now that those powerful men were gone, the nearby mine was still somewhere they had to go, but countless variables had suddenly appeared.

There was nothing to regret. Yu Ziqing could never have endured standing by while they butchered him, nor could he watch the old gentleman who had taught him so much get hung up and carved for meat.

Old Yang seemed to see Yu Ziqing's worry. He extended one hoof and nudged him.

"It's fine. That mine isn't far away. Once it's light, we'll go there. We'll survive first and worry about the rest later. It's just that, Old Sir, you were afflicted by an evil art. I'm afraid it can't be dispelled anytime soon."

Old Yang shook his head. He was quite open-minded and did not dwell on his current appearance.

"It's not that it can't be dispelled. It's just that you've been afflicted by the evil art for a long time, and I don't know those people's evil arts either. As far as I know, the simplest method is to strip away your entire sheepskin. Only then can it be dispelled. But given your current condition, even if the finest butcher did it, you probably couldn't endure the pain of being skinned.

"Once we get there, I'll find a way for both of us to eat our fill. We can nourish our bodies first and worry about the rest afterward."

Old Yang pointed toward the mine, then pointed at himself. He wrote the character "eat" on the ground, then crossed it out.

Yu Ziqing thought for a moment, understood his meaning, and nodded.

"Exactly. These people abducted people with evil arts. After going to so much trouble, they can't really be doing it just for a taste of fresh goat meat. In my view, goats are simply easier to carry and hide. Once we get there, perhaps there'll be a way to dispel it."

The night passed without incident.

Daylight appeared, but the temperature had barely risen. The weather was growing colder and colder.

Yu Ziqing's whole body had stiffened from the cold. He got up, boiled some hot water, and soaked a dry flatbread as hard as a stone before eating it. It took more than half an hour before he finally felt a trace of warmth.

See, this was another reason he had not planned to kill those powerful men right away. Having four human furnaces beside him was ultimately much better.

From among his few spoils of war, Yu Ziqing sorted out a portion and laboriously buried it beneath a pile of rubble. It never hurt to make a few extra plans.

With full daylight overhead, the dim sunlight shone down as the group set out again. The herd of goats followed behind in a daze. The mountains in the distance drew closer and closer, and after they entered the continuous mountain range, the temperature suddenly rose slightly.

Yu Ziqing's spirits lifted. He hurriedly climbed a hilltop and surveyed the surroundings, then searched around the mountain hollow for a while.

"Old Sir, I took a rough look. These mountains encircle the area, forming what seems like a sealed whole. There appears to be geothermal heat underground as well. The mine here still has people active in it, and that's probably the reason."

They had just entered the mountains, yet they had already received rare good news. In this increasingly freezing ghost of a weather, a warm place was truly too hard to come by.

However, after the group entered the mountains and crossed three hilltops along a faint, barely visible path, Yu Ziqing began to feel that something was not quite right about the atmosphere.

There was actually greenery here.

There was a hillside on either side. Scattered across the left hillside were a few withered, dead shrubs. At the very top was a protruding cliff, behind which lay a bottomless ravine.

The right side, meanwhile, was covered in neat rows of locust trees. Their branches were lush, and strings of gray flowers hung upside down. The ground was covered by a thick layer of fallen leaves.

From a distance, the entire Locust tree forest looked like soldiers standing in formation.

Yu Ziqing's brows drew together slightly. Normally, even if the mountains were noticeably warmer, these trees should have lost all their leaves by now even if they had not died. How could they still be flowering?

Even if the natural conditions allowed it, surely it was impossible for every leaf and flower to be completely free of any signs of being nibbled. Had none of the animals fleeing in panic passed through here?

Before Yu Ziqing could think any further, a commotion erupted from the herd following behind. The dazed, skin-and-bones mountain goats saw the branches and clusters of flowers nearly hanging to the ground and charged straight toward the right hillside.

"If you want to die, then go ahead."

Yu Ziqing stood where he was and offered a word of warning.

Some of the goats seemed to understand him and hesitated, not daring to advance. But several others charged up as if mad and began chewing on the leaves and flowers.

Yet nothing happened.

Only joyful bleats mixed with the crunching sounds, ringing out in alternation.

When several goats remained unharmed and their shrunken bellies visibly swelled, more goats in the herd could no longer resist and rushed up after them.

A moment later, the goats that had eaten until their bellies were round stopped in satisfaction. One by one, they collapsed beneath the trees, their goat faces seemingly still wearing expressions of utter contentment.

At that moment, their bodies slowly sank into the layer of fallen leaves on the ground. The leaves were like quicksand, swallowing them bit by bit.

In just a few breaths, everything became calm and still.

The remaining goats that had not yet eaten their fill seemed not to have seen anything. They continued contentedly chewing on the leaves and flowers.

Everything looked perfectly harmonious, but Yu Ziqing's hair was practically standing on end.

He grabbed hold of the already somewhat dazed Old Yang and refused to let him go to that Locust tree forest. Dragging him along the path through the hollow between the mountains, he continued forward.

At that moment, on the left hillside covered only by sparse dead trees, a young woman in a long robe gradually solidified from an illusory form and slowly emerged from behind a dead tree.

She poked her head out from behind the tree. A trace of anxiety showed in her eyes as she glanced over the herd and beckoned to Yu Ziqing.

"Come this way. It's dangerous over there."

Yu Ziqing tilted his head and glanced at her, then lowered his head and said to Old Yang,

"Old Sir, do you think this woman who suddenly popped out is taking me for a sucker?"

Old Yang looked right, then left, and solemnly nodded at Yu Ziqing.

Yu Ziqing sighed and tightened the ragged cloak around his body.

He seriously looked the woman over. In weather cold enough to kill a person, she wore a thin, somewhat tattered long robe. Judging by the standards Old Yang had taught him, if this had been a prosperous place, she would certainly have attracted the eyes of many lecherous old men.

"Miss, stop striking poses. In this ghost of a weather, people lost all worldly desires long ago."

As he spoke, Yu Ziqing prepared to step onto the path in the middle and continue forward.

He did not want to take either side. Neither side could possibly be a good place.

One side was eerily and unnaturally quiet. The other side definitely was not human.

However, the next moment, just as Yu Ziqing's foot was about to touch the ground, his gaze instinctively flicked aside. He saw that the woman still wore the same anxious expression, blocking him with the same movements as if she were stuck in a loop. His heart suddenly gave a violent lurch.

Damn it, I've been tricked.

This woman had wanted him to take the middle path all along.