Ren Qing in Other People's Eyes

Just as Ren Qing lay in the coffin, preparing to shed his mortal shell and undergo corpse liberation, the area around Wish-Fulfillment Abbey was bustling beyond compare. Though dawn had only just broken, a sea of voices already surged before its gates.

Stalls selling incense candles and spirit money stood everywhere, while all manner of New Year goods could be seen at every turn.

"Knife sharpening, scissors grinding~~"

Peddlers carrying shoulder poles threaded through the crowd, lowering their heads from time to time to wipe away sweat. A faint greasy odor hung in the air, and their eyes kept darting toward Wish-Fulfillment Abbey.

Had Ren Qing been there, he would certainly have recognized the peddler as one he had seen at the Chen residence.

The peddler's lineage clearly shared the same roots as Daoist Beisu's.

"Zheng Fu, get closer."

A voice came from within the peddler's load. A tiny candle figurine hidden inside was none other than Daoist Beisu.

Daoist Beisu's brow was tightly furrowed. Logically, after Wish-Fulfillment Abbey had suffered the calamity of extermination, its incense offerings should have been affected. Yet instead, it had drawn even more believers.

He suspected Three Incense Lady was behind this. There was likely another hidden truth to the Immortal Ascension Assembly.

"Sun Zu is about to die."

Daoist Beisu faintly sensed that something was amiss, his gaze passing through the open doors of the hall.

Sun Xu was receiving the believers entering and leaving, as though selecting suitable blood food. At the same time, an unnatural excitement radiated from his entire body, his cheeks flushed crimson.

"Master, there are probably fellow disciples of the Immortal Ascension Sect nearby."

Zheng Fu spoke softly and timidly. He could feel quite a few concealed gazes sweeping around the abbey's entrance.

"Obviously."

Daoist Beisu gave a cold snort. "Zhou Can died without rhyme or reason, and Song Baizhou ended up like this. How could they possibly not come out to take a look?"

After a brief pause, he warned, "Stay away from that old woman at the street corner."

Zheng Fu noticed that there was indeed a woman in her sixties or seventies at the corner. She was only half a person's height, with waxy yellow skin and clouded eyes half-closed.

"And that beggar at the western alley entrance is no harmless sort either."

Zheng Fu turned his head. The beggar was curled up in the shadows at the base of a wall. He looked barely over thirty, but his limbs were grotesquely disproportionate, and his chest rose and fell only faintly.

Frightened, Zheng Fu hurriedly backed away. It seemed they had all come to take part in the Immortal Ascension Assembly.

Daoist Beisu swept his wary gaze over the surroundings, then lingered for several breaths on the immortal statue draped in white cloth. Were they not also here for the Yellow Mud Immortal's remains?

They were exceptional spiritual materials for artifact refinement. They would add several more degrees of certainty to one's chances of entering the Immortal Ascension Sect.

Daoist Beisu could not quite understand why the Yellow Mud Immortal's remains had been left for Sun Zu to ruin. Clearly, Ren Qing would have had no trouble at all taking them away.

"Impossible to see through."

After an unknown amount of time, as the sun climbed higher, the clamor before the abbey grew ever louder.

Daoist Beisu kept part of his attention fixed on the scene, until he noticed Sun Zu's coughing suddenly becoming frequent. The Yellow Mud he had consumed recently was clearly beginning to devour his body and soul in return.

He suddenly felt somewhat tense. Ren Qing seemed like a fisherman casting his line.

The Yellow Mud Immortal's remains were the bait.

"Master."

Zheng Fu spoke up in warning. Sun Zu had suddenly frozen where he stood, his expression turning agitated as he repeatedly swallowed.

Then Sun Zu let out a roar, his eyes reddening.

"Thirsty! So thirsty!!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Sun Zu rushed to the water vat outside the hall and plunged headfirst into it. Both hands frantically scooped water into his mouth, yet his body was withering away.

His skin cracked at a visible rate, like a riverbed parched by years of drought.

"Daoist! Daoist, what's wrong with you?"

The crowd watched Sun Zu in horror, and many had already descended into chaos.

"No... impossible. I'm on the verge of becoming immortal. I was clearly about to become immortal."

Sun Zu lifted his head from the water vat, his voice carrying a trace of sobbing.

Plop.

The fingers on his hand had begun to fall off.

He turned and lunged at the altar inside the hall, ripping away the white cloth covering the immortal statue in one pull.

At once, the horribly incomplete clay statue was exposed before the believers, setting off an uproar through the crowd. They all wondered how a newly made immortal statue could be so worn and decrepit.

Sun Zu paid no heed at all. He stuffed fistful after fistful of Yellow Mud into his mouth, swallowing it into his stomach before even chewing.

The Yellow Mud had barely rolled down his throat before it fell back out through the cracks in his body, a ghastly sight to behold.

A Daoist reacted quickly enough to close the main hall's doors in advance.

Yet even as Sun Zu died, his mouth still murmured about attaining immortality and realizing the Dao. In the end, his body completely split apart.

Zheng Fu froze for a moment and saw that, at some unknown time, the old woman had already passed through the crowd. With her back hunched, she walked step by step toward the main hall, while the beggar had vanished without a trace.

He hurriedly asked, "Master, should we go in too..."

"Wait."

There was a trace of hesitation in Daoist Beisu's voice. His recent encounter with Ren Qing was still vivid in his mind; he simply could not believe that man had made no preparations at all.

Bloodwater began to seep inexplicably from every corner around Wish-Fulfillment Abbey.

He discovered that someone's method had already sealed off the abbey. Not only could divine sense not penetrate it, even what the naked eye saw was somewhat distorted.

"Who?"

Daoist Beisu hurried into Wish-Fulfillment Abbey, only to notice a mangy mutt darting out.

The mutt had a human face. It began gnawing on Sun Zu's corpse of its own accord, faint whimpering sounds issuing from its mouth.

Daoist Beisu drew a sharp breath and cried out, "Seven Links Immortal?!"

Zheng Fu asked in confusion, "Master, what is Seven Links Immortal?"

"It is a lineage that refines one's own seven souls into seven immortals." Daoist Beisu's tone was full of disbelief. "That human-faced dog is clearly the Corpse Dog transformed from one of the seven souls. By all reason, Three Incense Lady has never passed down this lineage."

He furrowed his brow tightly. "Could something have happened to Three Incense Lady?"

After swallowing a little of the yellow mud, the human-faced dog shook its head and swept its gaze around wildly, seemingly using the yellow mud to trace things back to their source and locate Ren Qing behind it.

Seeing this, the old crone stopped in her tracks, while the beggar also emerged from the shadows. Instead, they waited for the human-faced dog's response.

Even more covert gazes turned toward the human-faced dog.

The human-faced dog first nodded slightly. "I will take thirty percent of the Yellow Mud Immortal. As for the person behind this, I'll tell you their particulars. How you deal with them has nothing to do with me."

"Agreed. Please proceed, Fellow Daoist. Whether this person is friend or foe remains unknown." Plum Blossom Granny nodded.

The human-faced dog opened and closed its mouth, divine sense spilling from its brow. It was clearly casting a spell.

Yet moments later, its expression turned somewhat lost and helpless.

"No, no..."

The human-faced dog seemed to be sensing something, terror seeping into its voice. "He... clouds and mist coil around his body of their own accord; behind his head, a halo circulates like a still, deep pool; within his belly, seven-colored glazed energy cycles without end..."

Before it could finish, its mouth opened wider and wider beyond its control, splitting all the way to its ears. Veins throbbed violently, as though something were about to explode from its throat.

The human-faced dog turned to Plum Blossom Granny, its eyes filled with venomous hatred. "Plum Blossom Granny, you've ruined me!"

With that, its body swelled at a furious pace visible to the naked eye, its bones groaning under unbearable strain.

Bang!

A muffled blast rang out as the human-faced dog's head exploded, spraying minced flesh all over the ground.

Daoist Beisu's pupils contracted sharply. Before he could recover his senses, six consecutive muffled blasts sounded from the street nearby.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

They were especially piercing amid the bustling market, drawing the glances of passersby.

Daoist Beisu instantly understood, his voice trembling. "It's... the cultivator who controlled the Seven Links Immortal. The other six souls have all been destroyed, their divine soul obliterated!"

He carefully recalled his encounter with Ren Qing and could confirm that the latter had not yet become immortal.

Just what kind of divine being stood behind this man...?!

A flicker of fear flashed through Plum Blossom Granny's eyes as she retreated without hesitation.

The Yellow Mud Immortal's remains were certainly important, but the existence behind them was simply not something they could afford to offend.

The other cultivators did not linger either.

Before leaving, Daoist Beisu cast one last distant glance at the main hall and could not help repeating, "Clouds and mist coil around his body of their own accord; behind his head, a halo circulates like a still, deep pool; within his belly, seven-colored glazed energy cycles without end."

"What kind of lineage could cultivate such an... extraordinary, terrifying appearance?"

The spell sealing off the abbey vanished, and more than a dozen rats silently slipped into the main hall.

As Daoist Beisu stood there dazed, not only had the immortal statue vanished without a trace, even the human-faced dog's corpse was no longer where it had been. A chill crept up from the bottom of his heart.

That person is still watching us from the shadows. So he really was fishing.

Master and disciple hurriedly departed. Wish-Fulfillment Abbey became lively once more, while the altar in the empty main hall had, at some unknown time, risen slightly, as though a statue were being conceived within.

The worshippers' incense offerings were utterly unaffected—or rather, they had long since been deeply affected.