At the appointed time, deep underground, Shi Chun got to work again. He piled up fuel and burned the Death-Defying Incense, opening the Two-Realm Passage once more before long.
He slipped inside again and soon summoned Wu Jinliang and Lao Changhai from nearby.
The moment they met, Wu Jinliang asked, "Well? Does it work?"
"It does." Shi Chun nodded, glanced around, and tilted his head. "Come on. We shouldn't linger here. We'll talk when we're back."
But Wu Jinliang caught his arm. "Chuntian, I'm afraid we can't come here again."
Shi Chun paused, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
Wu Jinliang said, "Souls have been drawn away from the soul hub at Wandering River over and over. Lao Xi told us it's happening far too often. There's no way the higher-ups won't notice, and it's beyond his power to suppress now. He said Zhuyong Hall is already preparing to set things up here. He advised us not to show our faces here for the time being, or it'll be very dangerous."
Beside him, Lao Changhai nodded repeatedly in agreement.
Wu Jinliang patted the two black cloth bags at his waist. "So I had Lao Xi capture two more Earth Wolf souls while he was at it. Two extra spares."
Shi Chun considered this briefly, then immediately asked, "Where are the two Earth Wolf corpses?"
Wu Jinliang pointed back at Lao Changhai. "With him, of course."
Shi Chun immediately told Lao Changhai, "Take those two wolf corpses to the soul hub at Qiangyu Hall in the Nether Realm right away. We'll meet there next time."
Hearing this, Wu Jinliang immediately understood that the next time they used the Death-Defying Incense to enter the Nether Realm, they would not be killing Earth Wolves. They would be killing people outright. According to the books