Plague!

"First-tier middle grade!"

Wang Ba stared in surprise at the white light rising through the smoke from the burning material.

Though he had suspected it, when Jia Five's grade was truly confirmed, he still could not help losing his composure a little.

Jia Five, however, had no awareness whatsoever of being a middle-grade Spirit Chicken and rubbed ingratiatingly against Wang Ba.

Wang Ba immediately rewarded him with a few discarded Spirit Insects.

Yet he still felt some regret.

What a pity Jia Five is only a meat chicken, not a Spirit Beast that can fight. If I had a first-tier middle-grade Spirit Beast protecting me, that would be wonderful!

For some reason, Wang Ba vaguely felt that the atmosphere within the Sect had been rather strange lately.

He had not felt it particularly strongly at the Lu Family Grain Shop, but when he saw that the herbal shop and talisman shop had both sold out of their goods, a faint unease stirred within him.

Yet, being inside the Sect, he truly could not imagine what danger there could be, or where such danger might come from.

He simply stopped thinking about it. If the sky fell, the tall ones would hold it up; it was not his turn yet.

Time flew.

It was the fifth day after Wang Ba successfully broke through to the sixth level of the Body-Strengthening Scripture.

At the foot of the manor.

Old Hou looked in puzzlement at the extra buckets of chicken feed.

"What's going on with you? Why does the amount of chicken feed you use keep going up and down, and by so much?"

"You know I've been researching how to breed Spirit Chickens lately, so the amount I use really isn't steady. How about this? Leave these buckets here. The weather's getting colder anyway, so letting them ferment a little longer won't hurt."

Wang Ba smiled helplessly as he spoke.

He had not hidden his research into Spirit Chickens from Old Hou. In fact, one could say he had deliberately let Old Hou know.

He had merely concealed his results.

This, too, was deliberate: he was giving the Sect an inoculation in advance.

He wanted the Sect to know that he had not suddenly produced so many Spirit Chickens out of nowhere, but had followed a traceable course and process.

Even if something went wrong with Steward Li, he could use Old Hou's big mouth to plant something with the Sect for later.

Whenever he needed it, it would be there to use.

It counted as double insurance.

As for keeping his results quiet, that was to avoid revealing them too early and attracting prying eyes.

After all, there were plenty of chicken-raising Servant Disciples hoping to turn their fortunes around through Spirit Chicken Breeding, but almost none actually achieved results.

Even if people knew Wang Ba was doing research, most would not believe he could achieve anything.

This had always been Wang Ba's explanation, so Old Hou could not be bothered to ask more. With an easy lift, he helped Wang Ba carry the chicken feed up into the manor.

Seeing that Wang Ba seemed utterly absorbed in his grand chicken-raising enterprise, he shook his head helplessly and said:

"You really can sit tight, my friend! Haven't you noticed something's been off in the Sect lately?"

"What's off? Everything seems pretty good to me. Why? Has something happened?"

Wang Ba's interest stirred, but his face remained a picture of complete obliviousness.

A hint of exasperation at Wang Ba's lack of drive immediately entered Old Hou's eyes, and he promptly put his fine, big-mouthed habits to work:

"Don't you know? The Sect's been press-ganging people!"

Wang Ba was rather bewildered.

"They've sent some Servant Disciples outside the Sect to do hard labor!"

Old Hou continued spilling the news.

"Hard labor? That doesn't sound very likely, does it? The Sect's immortals could do it with a wave of their hands. Why would they need Servant Disciples doing hard labor?"

Wang Ba thought for a moment, then shook his head and scrutinized Old Hou skeptically.

"Don't tell me those people from that Immortal Ascension Society told you this again?"

"Shh!"

Old Hou hurriedly raised a finger and glanced around. "Keep your voice down!"

"Why would I need anyone else to tell me? I saw disciples from the External Affairs Office escorting Servant Disciples out myself!"

"And I heard from someone at the Mountain-Cleansing Office that a spirit spring was supposedly discovered not far from the Sect. I reckon they've been sent to dig it out!"

"Besides, if these Sect disciples really could solve everything with a wave of their hands, why would they need us working here?"

His words carried considerable dissatisfaction with the Sect disciples.

On reflection, Wang Ba thought he had a point. If the immortals truly were all-powerful, they would indeed have no need for people like them to raise chickens for them.

"But that doesn't really have anything to do with us, does it? We belong to the Ten Thousand Beasts Office. The External Affairs Office shouldn't have authority over us, right?"

"Besides, I raise chickens. They can't make me abandon all these chickens and go dig out a spirit spring, can they?"

"Don't the immortals need Spirit Cuisine anymore?"

Wang Ba's argument was sound and well-supported, leaving Old Hou unable to offer a response. He racked his brains, but in the end could only say indignantly:

"Anyway, I think bottom-rung Servant Disciples like us have to band together. Only then will nobody dare look down on us or bully us!"

"That doesn't sound like something you'd come up with, Old Hou. Don't tell me someone from the Immortal Ascension Society said it again?"

Wang Ba teased him with a smile.

"Oh, get lost! Why am I wasting my breath chatting with you? Go feed your chickens!"

Old Hou glared at Wang Ba in annoyance, then drove his donkey cart away.

But he had not gone far before he seemed to remember something. He jumped down from the donkey cart and ran back.

He swiftly covered the hundred-odd zhang and arrived before Wang Ba without a flushed face or a labored breath.

"I nearly forgot something important!"

Old Hou spoke rapidly. "I heard there's disease spreading at Jiazi Manor, where they raise pigs, and Yizi Manor, where they raise cattle and sheep! Oh, and more than twenty manors under Dingzi Manor have Chicken Plague now, too. You really must be careful!"

At this news, Wang Ba's expression could not help changing slightly.

"More than twenty manors have Chicken Plague?! Didn't it start spreading over three months ago? Haven't the immortals from the Ten Thousand Beasts Office dealt with it yet?"

He had previously heard Shopkeeper Lu mention that some manors under Dingzi Manor had Chicken Plague, but he had not expected it to have spread to more than twenty.

"That I don't know. I'm not the one delivering feed to the manors with Chicken Plague. I only found out because I recently saw quite a few livestock carcasses at the Mountain-Cleansing Office and asked about them. Anyway, you really must be careful!"

With that, Old Hou dashed away. He had quite a few manors to deliver to every day and little time to spare.

Wang Ba did not know whether he was imagining it, but he vaguely felt that Old Hou had been considerably more nimble lately than before.

But his thoughts were soon caught up in the Chicken Plague.

More than twenty manors have Chicken Plague already! This is trouble!

Chicken Plague was a blanket term for poultry diseases.

Even in his previous life, there had still been no specific effective treatment for such diseases. Their spread could only be stopped through disinfection, isolation, and the mass slaughter of poultry and livestock.

And if this world's immortals were equally helpless against Chicken Plague, the Precious Chickens of Dingzi Manor would probably soon face an extermination.

No, perhaps there would never be another Precious Chicken to be seen throughout the entire Eastern Saint Sect!

Wang Ba had no mind to spare for the Sect's losses. What mattered more to him was that, once disaster struck the Sect's Precious Chickens, his plan to rely on them to reach the tenth level of the Body-Strengthening Scripture would be cut short.

More importantly, he felt something was suspicious:

Chicken Plague broke out three months ago. Logically, it should have drawn the Sect's attention long ago, shouldn't it?

Yet the result was another outbreak of Chicken Plague.

And Chicken Plague, swine plague, and the plagues affecting cattle and sheep all have different causes, yet they just happened to break out together.

There's... something wrong here!