The Mount Ran Away

Two hours later, Zheng Que finally brought Qing Li back to the outskirts of Changfu Town.

The entire town had now been reduced to ruins. Houses had collapsed, courtyard walls had toppled, ponds were filled with debris, and trees were snapped in two. Amidst the broken walls and shattered pillars, skeletal remains were occasionally visible, their skin a bruised purple, devoid of any breath of life.

A sense of death permeated the streets and alleys; everything was deathly silent.

Looking at the town so close at hand, Zheng Que suddenly stopped and looked at Qing Li beside him. "How many ghosts are in the town?"

Qing Li let out a cold snort and replied immediately, "I only sense one ghost from Tongue-Pulling Hell, and it's extremely weak."

"But I don't know if that old ghost made of nothing but bones is still here."

At this point, Qing Li paused, then continued with great satisfaction, "Although I want to stew that old ghost into soup, you human brat don't need to be in such a rush to come here just to please me."

"That old ghost has at least several hundred years of cultivation; the matter of making soup requires careful planning..."

Before Qing Li could finish her sentence, Zheng Que had already shouted loudly toward the town: "Evil Shadow Play! Evil Shadow Play!..."

His voice was loud, quickly spreading throughout the ruins of the town and echoing between the broken walls.

However, after shouting more than a dozen times, nothing happened in the surroundings, and there was no sign of Evil Shadow Play appearing.

Zheng Que frowned immediately, then, without further hesitation, walked straight into the town.

Tap, tap, tap...

The sound of footsteps broke the deathly silence of the town. The once-tidy streets were now covered in collapsed bricks, stones, and sand, mixed with various clothes, household items, and corpses. A faint, putrid stench drifted through the air.

Zheng Que walked down the congested main street with Qing Li. The surroundings were like a frozen painting, devoid of any vitality. Along the way, they did not encounter any ghosts, nor did they see any surviving living people.

It seemed that because of the rampage of Evil Shadow Play last night, all the ghosts in the town had been scared away...

A short while later, Zheng Que and Qing Li had circled the entire town. Evil Shadow Play had not appeared at all, as if it had already left the town long ago.

Seeing this, Zheng Que's brows furrowed even tighter. He did not believe that a Wicked Sin like Evil Shadow Play could not come out during the day, nor did he believe that it could not find him now.

Under the current circumstances, there was only one possibility... Evil Shadow Play refused to be his mount and had snuck away before he could even reach the town!

How outrageous!

This Wicked Sin was actually so bold!

The next time he entered the Underworld, he would summon it again and intimidate it once more!

Thinking of this, Zheng Que let out a cold laugh and immediately turned to head toward the town mayor's house.

Since he didn't know where Evil Shadow Play had gone, he had no way to deal with it for the time being, but there was still a great medicinal herb hidden in the mayor's house.

That potent herb could increase his cultivation speed; he had to get his hands on it as soon as possible.

Besides that, the town mayor's ancestors had also passed down a few old books, suspected to be left behind by a cultivator. It would be best to acquire those as well...

While lost in thought, Zheng Que led Qing Li through the ruins, arriving at the former site of the mayor's residence.

This mansion, once the most luxurious in the small town, was now a dilapidated mess. The courtyard walls had completely toppled over, the blue-brick corridors were uneven and broken, and only a small portion of the main rooms remained standing. A large number of tables, chairs, and cabinets were scattered everywhere, mixed in with mud and sand.

Bang.

Zheng Que kicked aside a half-wooden basin blocking his path and looked around. He quickly began his search, starting from the ruins of the room that had served as the study.

Before long, he picked a stack of books out of the sludge.

With cloth-wrapped covers and red and green paint smeared on the spines... these were exactly the volumes that had been laid out on the desk when Xu Houde had greeted him earlier.

Zheng Que opened the books and checked them one by one. Most of them were miscellaneous notes, trivial matters about the town, social exchanges, and account books...

As time passed, after flipping through them for quite a while, he found five special volumes among the pile.

These five volumes were exceptionally old and emitted a faint scent of camphor.

Of the five, the cover of the first was inscribed with the four characters "Ghost Identification"; the next three were "Basic Spiritual Herbs", "Herb Gathering Notes", and "Medicine Making Essentials"; the last one appeared to be a journal.

Zheng Que quickly determined that these five books were likely the old books the mayor had mentioned, the ones passed down by his ancestors.

However, these five books were clearly very old; the paper was extremely fragile, and they appeared to have been read frequently, as there were many missing sections inside.

What surprised him was that the journal contained some information about Taiping County at the beginning, while the content that followed was actually insights on alchemy.

The mayor's ancestor was not only a cultivator but also seemed to have been an alchemist!

With no time to read the journal carefully, Zheng Que tucked all five books away and continued searching through the ruins.

Clatter, crash...

Zheng Que pushed aside numerous bricks, stones, sand, pillars, and furniture, searching the Xu residence inch by inch.

As the sun slanted to the west and began to set, he had gone through almost the entire Xu residence, yet he still hadn't found the potent herb.

Zheng Que couldn't help but knit his brows. After a moment of thought, he turned to look at Qing Li, who was hanging from a broken beam suspended in mid-air: "Qing Li, there is a potent herb here with very dense spiritual energy. Can you sense where it is?"

Qing Li let out a cold snort and immediately retorted: "You human brat, do you really think this lady can sense everything?"

"My Yin Profession can only sense ghosts from the Tongue-Pulling Hell."

"There is only one ghost from the Tongue-Pulling Hell here, and it's right beneath this ground."

"But the Yin Energy is too weak; this lady has no interest in it!"

Hearing this, Zheng Que felt a wave of disappointment, but he quickly reacted. Underground?

He had already searched the entire town mayor's residence and hadn't found any basement.

With thoughts racing through his mind, Zheng Que immediately said, "Take me to that ghost!"

Qing Li let out a soft huff, but she still drifted down from the broken beam and began walking in a certain direction.

Zheng Que followed immediately.

Before long, Qing Li led Zheng Que to the center of a relatively orderly ruin. This appeared to be the location of the back garden. Beside a flower bed stood a rockery over two people tall; half of it had collapsed during the turmoil last night, leaving the other half standing alone.

Qing Li pointed to the ground of the flower path beside the rockery and said, "It is right beneath this."

Zheng Que did not hesitate. He immediately set to work, clearing away all the debris on the ground to reveal a plum blossom pattern made of pebbles and broken porcelain underneath, which looked quite sturdy.

Zheng Que aimed a punch directly at the paved path.

BANG!!

This patch of ground was far sturdier than it looked. With his current cultivation at the Second Layer of Qi Refining, his punch didn't cause the slightest reaction from the paving.

There was indeed something fishy going on underneath.