Crisis!

Baihua Restaurant.

Located on the west side of Hanshui City, Baihua Restaurant is one of the top twenty restaurants in the city. The restaurant is most famous for its more than 150 kinds of seasonal flowers, and the taste of Baihua wine is different in each season.

Qiu Jinan stepped into Baihualou. Baihualou was packed with people, bustling and noisy, the noise almost enough to overturn the restaurant. The waiters were as busy as spinning tops, constantly going back and forth between the main hall and the kitchen.

Qiu Jinan finally managed to find an empty spot in the corner.

"Excuse me, is anyone here?"

Sitting opposite him was a diner with a round belly, who was eating heartily, his forehead covered in sweat.

The diner looked up at Qiu Jinan, a stranger, and said, "No one's here, please sit down."

"I can't believe there are so many people eating here even before lunchtime," Qiu Jinan said, chatting with other diners while waiting for the waiter.

The diners were not good at talking, focused on eating, and only half-heartedly responded to Qiu Jinan.

The waiter brought over the menu, which Qiu Jin'an casually flipped through before handing it back to the waiter. "A bowl of rice, five plates of specialty dishes, five plates of the most expensive dish, and a pot of century-old Baihua wine."

"Alright, please wait a moment, sir."

Qiu Jinan didn't have to wait long. A bowl of rice, ten delicious dishes with perfect color, aroma, and taste were placed on the table, along with a pot of century-old mellow Baihua wine, making the diners opposite him drool.

"Sir, if you have nothing else, I'll take my leave."

Just as the waiter was about to attend to other customers, Qiu Jin'an stopped him. "Waiter, I'm a living person, how can I eat food from a dead person?"

The waiter looked bewildered, not understanding what Qiu Jinan was talking about.

Qiu Jinan snapped his fingers, and a series of soft cracking sounds rang out, as if someone had stepped on the newly frozen lake surface, causing the ice to break and revealing the lake's true form.

Looking back at the lobby, the once bustling restaurant and its throngs of customers were nowhere to be seen.

The guests had their heads down, with tiny figures, about a meter tall, riding on their necks, waving their arms and legs excitedly.

The fat diner sitting opposite Qiu Jinan had an exaggeratedly large belly, making him look like a ball.

The waiter was as thin as a rake, so frail that a gust of wind could blow him away.

What was placed in front of Qiu Jin'an was not a delicacy, but maggots and raw meat, still wriggling in the dish.

Only the white rice remained unchanged, except that three chopsticks were stuck into it.

Qiu Jinan's smile widened, "Two ghost kings, the bloated ghost, the starving ghost, and their underlings—this lineup thinks it can deal with me?"

The fat diner and the waiter dropped their pretense, revealing eerie smiles on their faces.

A tiny figure silently rode on Qiu Jinan's shoulders...

Corpse Exorcism Sect.

Four ancient-styled cultivators appeared together in front of the Corpse Driving Sect. Ignoring the wary disciples, they quickly split up and headed to four different locations in the Yin Corpse Mountain Range.

Boom--

Boom--

Boom--

Boom--

Intense battles erupted simultaneously in four locations.

"Damn it, that bastard Huang Ming has secretly found out our location!" Elder Gai was furious. They hadn't even started searching the Corpse Driving Sect yet, and they'd already been attacked.

The four elders of the Corpse Driving Sect were caught off guard, but fortunately they reacted quickly and summoned their living corpses.

One of the ancient-looking cultivators sneered, "Ha, just a sect that accidentally obtained our inheritance, yet they dare to oppose us?"

"You are from the Corpse Witch Sect!" Elder Gai's pupils constricted slightly when he saw the monks' clothes and heard them say this.

Their Corpse-Driving Sect originated from a fortuitous opportunity. The sect's founder accidentally stumbled into a secret realm, escaped three life-threatening crises, and obtained the inheritance—a complete set of corpse-driving techniques.

This lineage originated from a sect called the Witch Corpse Sect in the Great Yu Dynasty. According to the Great Xia Dynasty's classification of the Witch Corpse Sect, it was a top-tier sect with a Tribulation Transcendence stage cultivator in charge.

The Corpse Witch Sect was destroyed in the war of conquest at the beginning of the founding of the Great Xia Dynasty, leaving only a legacy, which was obtained by the founder of the Corpse Driving Sect.

The ancient cultivator rubbed his ring, and one by one, the long-sealed living corpses broke free of their seals, carrying with them an aura of antiquity and death, traversing more than 100,000 years of history to wage war against future generations.

Four, eight, sixteen, twenty... a full twenty zombies appeared and surrounded Elder Gai and the others!

"Then let us elders see how much skill you younger generation have acquired."

A towering figure stood in the sky above Hanshui City, directly above the governor's mansion.

This man walks with the stride of a tiger and the gait of a dragon, like a born emperor, exuding domineering power and tyranny in every gesture.

His presence was so strong that everyone in the entire city of Hanshui couldn't help but look up at the sky. When they saw the towering man who was comparable to the sun, a sense of panic inexplicably rose in their hearts.

"After preparing for so long, the plan was ultimately leaked. Huang Ming and Meng Tian are two useless bastards who are good for nothing but ruining things!"

The emperor-like figure's eyes flashed with murderous intent; he wouldn't have come out prematurely if he hadn't been unable to contact the two.

Later, much later, until the conditions for activating the grand formation are met, the plan will be perfectly executed.

"Well, there's no such thing as a perfect plan in this world."

"The Celestial Calamity Venerable was defeated and captured in Qingzhou. It is said that a powerful expert suddenly appeared and captured him."

"I have investigated Hanshui City these past few days, and there is no one in the city who poses a threat to me."

"To be on the safe side, hereby establish [rules]: [No information may be transmitted out of Hanshui City within one day]."

Adding time limits can make the rules more enforceable.

Lu Yang looked up at the emperor-like figure flying in the sky and felt a headache coming on.

The moment the Immortal Fairy reminded him, he tried to call out to his senior sister, but it was too late. The Emperor's Shadow had set rules for this place, so the Imitation Fist could not borrow power from his senior sister, and thus she had no way of knowing what was going on here.

"Logically speaking, aren't Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivators rare? How come we encounter them everywhere? The Governor said this place is the safest, but why do I feel like it's the most dangerous?"

"Perhaps it's because my status as the young leader is too high; they're all eager to see me."

"Hey, now that you're the young leader, should I also try to get a position in the Heavenly Court Sect?"

"How about you become the young sect leader's lackey?"

Get out of my way.

As Old Ma sensed the aura of Tribulation Transcendence emanating from the sky, he wondered if he should retire.

Meng Jingzhou's father asked it to be Meng Jingzhou's protector, and it thought it was a simple matter, so it readily agreed.

Thinking back to the beginning, when we took Yun Zhi to the Ask Dao Sect, to the Yanjiang Ruins to revive the Immortal Fairy, to the ancient Tribulation Transcendence stage in Qingzhou, and now to the desolate state where we've encountered the ancient Tribulation Transcendence stage again.

It felt it had overestimated itself.

Man Gu had always had great confidence in Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou. With his two senior brothers around, nothing would go wrong, so he remained very calm.

Zhao Po was the most panicked of the four. He had just encountered Meng True Lord, a Great Yu Body Integration Realm, in the morning, and then encountered a Great Yu Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivator in the afternoon.

What kind of luck is this?

I feel like I've had really bad luck lately. When did it start to get worse?