Several days later, on the boundless sea, a lavishly decorated treasure ship rode the wind and cleaved the waves, heading toward distant Northsky Island.
The vessel belonged to the Merchant Association and carried a full load of rare treasures and precious goods, along with spirit materials both graded and ungraded.
Two large cats stood upright, leaning against the rail to gaze into the distance. They were female demon cultivators from the mainland who had grown up in the mountains and had never seen such an immense expanse of water. Their ears twitched now and then, and their tails rose high, betraying their delight.
Bai Xiaohuan stood nearby with a tray holding some fruit and a wine flask.
Li Ling stood at the rail, casually holding a golden goblet. He seemed to be lazily enjoying the sea breeze, but in fact, he was recalling the top-secret intelligence One-Mind Daoist had sent him.
In the recording, a corpse lay exposed in the wilderness. On the surface, it looked like an ordinary person who had collapsed and died by the roadside.
Such scenes could hardly have been more commonplace. Whenever disaster or unrest struck, harvests failed, and refugees wandered everywhere, the old, young, sick, and disabled were especially likely to die on the streets. Some large cities had even developed the profession of corpse collector for this reason. Every morning, they cleared the streets and alleys, lest the bodies offend the masters' precious eyes.
Bloody water flowed around the corpse, as though the person had cracked his head in a fall, and continuously seeped into the ground.
Torrential rain fell from the sky. Thin streams of bloody water soaked the surrounding earth, saturating the sand and turning the barren ground to mud.
The recording had been copied through special channels by people a