Human Livestock After Crossing Over

After that, as the golden glow faded, Wang Ping finally got a look at his surroundings. He was in a storeroom.

Dim lights burned inside.

Ten lifelike bronze figures stood in the open space. Wang Ping stood among them like a husky mixed into a pack of wolves.

"This is bad."

Wang Ping quickly reviewed the memories that had come with this crossing, and his heart sank. His present situation might be no better than it had been in the Great Shun Dynasty.

Strictly speaking, it was even worse.

In the Immortal Sect, Force Servitors were not permitted to possess consciousness. They knew only what was necessary, and every action they took followed preset instructions.

In other words, Force Servitors are human-shaped dead things. There's obviously something wrong with me having my own personality and thoughts. If anyone finds out, disaster will strike at once. I absolutely can't expose myself before the Otherworldly Celestial Demon recovers.

That was easier said than done.

What most separated a person from a dead thing was the ability to think. Once you could think and feel, some reactions could not simply be held back.

I have to find a way.

Wang Ping gritted his teeth and dug deeper into his memories of Force Servitors, hoping to find something useful.

As it turned out, the Immortal Sect lived up to its name.

There really is something!

Even the lowest-ranking Force Servitor was no stiff, lifeless puppet. In those memories, Wang Ping found a complete spell.

The spell was called Qi Suppression.

By using it on himself, he could refine a peculiar power called True Qi. It could stop bleeding, grow flesh, mend bones and sinews, and render him impervious to blades and spears.

The thought left Wang Ping itching to try it.

If his surroundings had allowed it, and he had not needed to keep his head down, he would have practiced Qi Suppression a few times just to savor the feeling of casting a spell.

After all, learning a spell required actual practice. Running through it in his head would do no good.

But Wang Ping was in no hurry.

No matter. I'm a cultivation tool now, and it seems someone's already ordered me. I'm bound to get a chance to practice the spell.

With that, Wang Ping waited patiently.

He did not know how long had passed when a sudden bang came from outside the storeroom, pulling him out of his study of Qi Suppression.

Clang!

The door had opened.

Dazzling light struck Wang Ping's eyes, revealing the scene beyond the storeroom: an old, unadorned Daoist temple.

The temple seemed to sit deep in a mountain forest. A brilliant morning sun shone overhead; below lay a green wilderness fit for immortals. Everywhere he looked, birds sang among flowers, auspicious clouds drifted, and light flowed across the ground. Inside the temple, three figures stood by the storeroom door, one facing the other two.

"Senior Sister You, here are the ten Force Servitors you wanted."

Of the two on the right, one was short and stout, with a round face and a mouthful of sharp teeth that showed when he spoke. The other was tall and thin, with a long, horse-like face.

It was the third person opposite them who caught Wang Ping's eye.

She was a Daoist nun in blue-and-white robes, her hair falling to her waist. In the moonlight, she looked like an immortal maiden who might ride the wind away at any moment.

"Thank you, Junior Brothers."

Her red lips parted, and her voice rang clear and sweet. It took some of the otherworldliness from her bearing and lent her a touch of mortal warmth.

Wang Ping did not consider himself lustful. Yet the instant he saw her, desire rose in him for no reason. Almost by instinct, he began to picture dragging her down from the clouds, pinning her to the ground, and tearing through that unearthly air about her.

...That's not right!

As soon as the thought arose, Wang Ping realized something was wrong. He focused on the Force Servitor's memories, and every wicked notion subsided into nothing.

Almost at the same moment—

"Hmm?"

The Daoist nun, who had been speaking with the two delivery disciples, suddenly drew her brows together. She turned toward the storeroom.

Fortunately, there were ten Force Servitors inside.

Wang Ping could almost feel the "weight" of her gaze, as though soft little hands were passing over his body.

It stirred his senses.

He could only concentrate with all his might on the Force Servitor's memories, reading through them and forcing himself to think of nothing else.

"Senior Sister You?"

Seeing Daoist Nun You stare into the storeroom, the stout Immortal Sect disciple asked curiously, "What is it? Are these Force Servitors not to your liking?"

"You misunderstand, Junior Brother."

Daoist Nun You shook her head. "Their quality is quite good. They're more than sufficient for practicing the True Explanation of the Immortal-Slaying Gourd."

Wang Ping's heart gave a small jump.

The True Explanation of the Immortal-Slaying Gourd appeared in his Force Servitor memories too, because serving its practice was one of a Force Servitor's purposes.

Under the Immortal Sect, there are millions of cultivation methods, but without exception, they all come from the Three Paths, Eight Methods, and Seventy-Two Arts. Anyone may learn the Seventy-Two Arts, but only True Disciples may read the Three Paths and Eight Methods.

And the True Explanation of the Immortal-Slaying Gourd is one of the Eight Methods.

Wang Ping knew this because the method required Force Servitors to act as "whetstones." Its practice demanded their active cooperation.

A little like dual cultivation.

Even so, he knew only the parts a "tool" needed to know.

That included Qi Suppression. A "whetstone" inevitably suffered wear, so it needed a spell with which to repair itself afterward.

Damn it. The tool even has to maintain itself?

Wang Ping cursed inwardly. The anger distracted him so effectively that, for a moment, he forgot Daoist Nun You was scrutinizing him.

By sheer accident, it worked.

Not far away, the two delivery disciples suddenly cried out. Their previously straight backs bent almost imperceptibly.

"Senior Sister... have mercy on us!"

The stout disciple was the first to beg. Hunched over, he said miserably, "You were born with a Blissful Immortal Physique and passed your Human Tribulation long ago. How could we withstand you?"

"You misunderstand, Junior Brothers."

Daoist Nun You shook her head. Her red lips parted, and her voice grew gentler. Her otherworldly bearing slipped further away, giving way to a decadent air of worldly indulgence.

"It's just that your senior sister is short of money lately."

"I truly couldn't gather enough Dharma Coins to buy the Force Servitors. That's why I tried this, to see whether you might be flexible and let me pay another way..."

As she spoke, her blue-and-white Daoist robe quietly slipped down.

Underneath was a rather tight inner garment that barely contained her full figure, leaving much of her snow-pale skin exposed.

Her ample chest caught the falling robe before it could reach the ground.

Yet her expression remained perfectly proper, as cool and aloof as that of an immortal maiden.

The contrast drained the color from both delivery disciples' faces, even as their blood surged helplessly downward.

For a moment, both Immortal Sect disciples cursed inwardly:

That damned woman! If we don't give in, she won't stop. If she really defiles us, what hope will we have of walking the immortal path in this life?

For all their cursing, they hurried to speak.

"A—a discount!"

"Senior Sister, please stop using your Divine Ability... Cost price! Just ten Dharma Coins! We'll cover the rest ourselves, and this whole batch of Force Servitors is yours!"

The two shouted with the look of men recoiling from venomous snakes, yet their bodies moved beyond their control, pressing step by step toward the Daoist nun.

Daoist Nun You, meanwhile, looked relieved.

With my Tribulation Transcendence Stage Dharma Power in motion, anyone ordinary would desire me, and I'd sense it. But I haven't detected a third person.

It seems I was overthinking it.

Or perhaps someone I met earlier developed wicked thoughts about me from far away and used a portrait of me to trigger my senses.

Wang Ping had been right to be cautious.

Daoist Nun You really had sensed that something was amiss. Though she appeared to be targeting the delivery disciples, she had actually been testing the Force Servitors' reactions.

Ah, I'm still too poor.

Daoist Nun You shook her head. No matter how much she tested them, she could not quite put her doubts to rest.

The best solution would have been to destroy every Force Servitor, cut the weeds out by the roots, and replace the batch. That would solve the problem whether one existed or not.

But she had no money.

She had scraped together everything she could to obtain this batch. When she said she was short of money, she had not been joking. How could she afford another?

She stopped dwelling on it and turned to the delivery disciples. The worldly air about her vanished, and she gave a soft laugh.

"In that case, let's settle the bill."

She took ten gleaming slips of talisman paper from her sleeve. Countless sigils were inscribed on both sides, and faint wisps of green smoke seemed to drift from them.

What are those? Dharma Coins?

Meanwhile, once Wang Ping felt the desire-inducing power disappear, he quietly came back to himself. Peeking at them in secret, he could not help feeling curious.

"That's ten Dharma Coins, thank you!"

The two Immortal Sect disciples stepped forward and snatched the talismans Daoist Nun You offered, stuffing them into their sleeves with ravenous haste. Sincere smiles returned to their faces.

"May you soon master your Divine Ability, Senior Sister, and attain the Dao through Qi Refinement."

"And if you need a suitable Dharma Treasure then, you can buy one from our Heaven and Earth Pavilion."

With that, the two delivery disciples formed seals and chanted incantations. Escape-light rose around them, and they flew out of the temple in desperate haste, as though fleeing a calamity.

Strangely, the moment they left the temple, they vanished from sight.

Not a trace of either remained.

Daoist Nun You gave a cold laugh. "Heaven and Earth Pavilion? Those parasites of the Immortal Sect are reselling its precious assets. They've gone mad for money."

"Everyone knows Heaven and Earth Pavilion has the Divine Weapons Institute behind it. With the Eight Trigrams Furnace, refining treasures is as easy as taking a shit, and the cost is next to nothing."

"Yet when they sell them, the prices are outrageous. They dress it up as protecting intellectual property rights, but it's all nonsense. They're squeezing ordinary disciples like us. I'd sooner buy a secondhand Dharma Treasure at Ghost Market than pay Heaven and Earth Pavilion's damned stupidity tax!"

Resentment filled every word.

Then she clasped her hands behind her back, turned toward Wang Ping and the other Force Servitors, and let her cool voice echo through the storeroom.

"All right. Come out."

Wang Ping did not move.

More than that, he dared not let a single thought arise. He forced himself once again into the role held in those memories: a perfectly obedient tool, human livestock.

She didn't form a seal!

According to his memories, each batch of Force Servitors had a command seal, much like a password needed to turn them on. Without it, they would not activate.

Daoist Nun You had issued an order, but she had not formed the seal. At least, Wang Ping had sensed no prompt from the seal inside him. He did not dare move. Doing so would be as good as telling her that something other than a true Force Servitor had slipped in!

She's testing us!

She said all that deliberately, and now she's testing us with the activation seal... She really suspects someone has mixed in with the Force Servitors!

Wang Ping dared not think any further.

The storeroom fell silent. Daoist Nun You issued several more commands, sometimes using the seal and sometimes not, testing them again and again.

Wang Ping responded perfectly every time.

Strictly speaking, he really was a Force Servitor, merely one with self-awareness. As long as he took care to conceal it, this sort of test could not expose him.

Even so, it gave him a terrible fright. Why were Immortal Sect disciples so calculating? Was a slight suspicion enough to make her test them over and over?

Only after a long while did Daoist Nun You stop, apparently setting her doubts aside.

"Come out."

This time she used the seal. Wang Ping walked slowly out of the storeroom with the other Force Servitors and lined up inside the temple as instructed.

"Stand still."

"Next, all of you will use Qi Suppression at full strength until you're impervious to blades and spears. Do not dodge. You must withstand my attacks head-on."

That suited Wang Ping perfectly.

The moment Daoist Nun You finished speaking, he eagerly activated the spell. An invisible, intangible current of heat burst from within him.

This was True Qi.

True Qi enveloped his body and warded off blades. That was what it meant to be impervious to blades and spears.

To hurt Wang Ping in this state, an attack would either have to exceed Qi Suppression's defensive limit or strike a vital point his True Qi did not cover.

With that thought, Wang Ping stole another glance at the Daoist nun.

What is she planning?

She had lined up every Force Servitor and ordered them to protect themselves with spells at full strength. It was almost like setting up targets before practicing with a gun...

...Huh?

Oh no!

Rumble!

The instant understanding dawned on Wang Ping, Daoist Nun You moved. Her red lips parted, and a sword-light shot forth with a clear cry.

The strike rose in a white blaze like the moon above the treetops. It seemed slow but came fast, surging like a great river before dividing into countless mighty tributaries. Spray flew as the sword-light struck every Force Servitor at once, sending them hurtling back in sprays of blood.

Wang Ping was one of them.

"Pfft!"

He spat a mouthful of hot blood and looked down at his waist. Despite the True Qi protecting his body, that single strike had nearly cut him in two!

And it had been only one strike.

He had seen the sword-light divide. Its power had weakened considerably by the time it reached each Force Servitor. If she had focused it all on one point...

I'd die!

Qi Suppression? Impervious to blades and spears? Before Daoist Nun You, those defenses might as well have been paper. The gulf in strength was like that between heaven and earth.

This wretched place is worse than Great Shun!

Wang Ping gave a bitter inward laugh. He felt as though he had barely escaped a tiger's den only to enter a wolf's lair.

But he soon rallied, desperately using Qi Suppression to mend his wounds. As he grasped more of the spell's subtleties, he urged himself on.

Hold on!

Life as human livestock in the Immortal Sect was like treading on thin ice, but if he survived this, he could take a cultivation spell back to the Great Shun Dynasty and crush his enemies there!