Daily Settlement

Great Cang Calendar.

Year 13,772, third month.

Spring had just begun.

The grass barely brushed the horses' hooves, and the withered trees had only just greeted spring.

Yet.

The mountain plains, which should have been bursting with life, were a scene of carnage. Chilling Blood Qi shrouded the land for a hundred miles, and Corpse Remnants lay everywhere.

On the blood-soaked mud, a group of able-bodied young men carefully dragged Corpse Remnants through the Blood Qi and Yin Qi, loading them bit by bit onto black-red carts.

Before long, a cart was full.

Wen Jiu was among them. Using a ragged piece of clothing to cover his face, he tossed a severed arm—only two fingers left, its bones exposed—onto the cart.

Smack!

"Phew—"

Wen Jiu let out a deep breath.

He tightened his mask.

But the stench of Blood Qi still flooded his nostrils, making him want to retch. There was nothing left in his stomach but bitter bile.

"It's only the first day. How am I supposed to last the next ten years...? I couldn't have picked a worse time to be reborn."

Reborn into the Cultivation World.

The good news!

But the bad news was that he was a low-ranking corpse-burier, handling the bodies after a sect's battles. He had to spend ten years hauling corpses in this Death Ground, a place littered with the dead.

And today was only the first day!

No matter how exhausting his last life had been, at least he'd worked somewhere humans could stand to be. His boss might've been an idiot, and it hadn't mattered that all his coworkers were men. After a month of work, he'd still earned a decent wage and could at least say he was living for himself.

But as a corpse-burier, he'd practically sold himself into servitude. There was no changing his mind; he had to keep working until he'd served out all ten years.

The most infuriating part was—

That bastard had signed the contract selling himself into servitude yesterday.

Then he died.

And now Wen Jiu, the one who'd been reborn, had to do the work!

"You could've died a day earlier, you know." Wen Jiu was at a loss. When the contract was signed, he could still have chosen to become a servant instead.

As he lamented his situation,

he suddenly heard an angry curse.

Wen Jiu followed the sound. Through the thin haze of Blood Qi, he saw a young man collapse beside a cart after inhaling too much of the dead's Blood Qi and Yin Qi. But the supervisor nearby immediately started cursing him without a word of concern.

Cursing wasn't enough. The man even pulled a bullwhip from his waist and cracked it through the air.

Crack!

The second lash struck the unconscious young man.

Crack!

"Ah—!"

The young man let out a terrified scream as the skin on his back split open.

After lashing him once, the broad-shouldered, bear-waisted supervisor cursed, "Today's task is to clear and bury every corpse in this area. If you don't finish, I'll kill you! As long as you're not dead, you'd better get back to work!"

"I'll move them... I'll move them right away!"

The young man's back torn open by the lash, he struggled to his feet. Daring not to hesitate, he forced himself to endure the burning pain and hurriedly began digging and hauling corpses.

Watching this, all the corpse-buriers seethed in silence, quickly turning their eyes away to get back to their own work.

That was the lowly status of a corpse-burier.

Even some random servant supervisor from Corpse Peak could decide whether they lived or died.

A whipping was only a minor punishment.

Killing them wasn't an empty threat.

If the sect didn't need people to bury corpses, ordinary people like them, who'd signed contracts selling themselves into servitude, would be no different from livestock raised for meat in the Cultivation World.

The original Wen Jiu had resented being treated this way. After cursing at a supervisor, he'd been killed with a single palm strike.

"Move it, you lot! This area has to be cleared today. Give it another two days and the corpses will stink, and plenty of Death Qi and resentment will rise... If you don't want to die, get moving!"

The middle-aged supervisor roared a couple more times before putting away his whip and strolling back to where he'd been resting.

The hundred or so corpse-buriers lowered their heads and hastened their movements.

Just then, the man who'd been whipped seemed to stumble and collapse into the blood-soaked mud again, apparently from the pain.

Everyone hurriedly looked over.

They saw him struggle to his feet at once, trembling as he begged for mercy, then hurried to load the Corpse Remnants onto the cart.

He didn't even have time to spit out the bloody mud that had gotten into his mouth.

Wen Jiu couldn't help sighing.

Corpse Peak was the only Immortal Mountain within five hundred miles. It had tens of thousands of cultivators and ten thousand ordinary people.

Of them all, corpse-buriers ranked the lowest—even below the odd-job servants—and they had to sign contracts selling themselves into servitude. Though after ten years, they could become Apprentice Disciples of Corpse Peak and outrank those servants.

But those ten years were no easy stretch.

First, there was the pay. They earned three taels a month, even with no days off. That was more than they would have made working in an ordinary city.

But life here was expensive too.

Three taels was barely enough to keep body and soul together.

If that were the only problem, they could grit their teeth and manage.

The hardest part was that this Death Ground was filled with people who'd died in battle. It was steeped in Yin Qi, Blood Qi, Death Qi, and Corpse Qi.

If too much of any one of the four entered a person's body, it could kill them in about ten or twenty years.

Even if they managed to last ten years and become Apprentice Disciples, they would likely have little time left after being ravaged by those four kinds of Qi.

They might as well spend their whole lives as servants of Corpse Peak.

Wen Jiu mused to himself, "Don't all the online novels say you get a cheat when you're reborn?"

He'd been reborn for a whole day already.

Where was that "ding"?

Damn it!

Those online novel authors had lied!

Delete their books!

If he could ever go back, he'd have to delete them!

He pushed the thought aside.

Wen Jiu didn't dare dawdle and kept hauling corpses, fighting down his nausea.

He worked like this until the hour of the Rooster before he could finally return to rest.

Back in his wooden hut, Wen Jiu was starving. If there'd been a whole cow in front of him, he might have been able to finish it. But the foul, fishy stench roiling inside him made it impossible to swallow a bite.

With no other choice,

Wen Jiu forced down a few gulps of cold water and sprawled on the wooden bed.

He was exhausted.

Utterly exhausted.

"Damn it, how is it only the first day?!"

Wen Jiu cursed under his breath.

Then he fell into a deep sleep.

At midnight, Wen Jiu was suddenly woken by a voice.

[Daily Settlement Panel Lv1 (1/100)]

[Today's settlement!]

[Hauled corpses for eight hours in the Death Ground, constantly inhaling Corpse Qi and Death Qi. Panel experience +1, Corpse Qi +8, Death Qi +8]

[Wen Jiu]

[Age: 23]

[Lifespan: 23/73]

[Lv1 Corpse Nurturer (0/100)]

[Corpse Nurturers are not eroded by Death Qi or Corpse Qi. These deadly substances instead become nourishment for Corpse Nurturers.]

[Remaining Death Qi: 8 (once you begin cultivating, it can be added to your cultivation)]

[Remaining Corpse Qi: 8 (once you begin nurturing corpses, it can be applied to corpses)]

[Secret Art: Mutate Corpse (Lv1 Corpse Nurturer secret art. Once used, any corpse can be transformed into a zombie extremely quickly and simply. No need to select a corpse, store it, bathe it, choose a Corpse Nurturing Ground, refine it, or commune with it—currently available number of corpses to mutate: 1)]

[PS: Please keep working hard tomorrow! You can do it!]

"Daily Settlement Panel!"

"Corpse Nurturer!"

"Mutate Corpse!"

Those online novel authors—

They hadn't lied to him after all!

So reincarnation really did come with a cheat!

What ten years as a corpse-burier?

What promotion to Apprentice Disciple?

Heh.

With the Daily Settlement Panel,

he was going to become an immortal!

He was going to live forever!