The next day, night fell.
The night was gloomy and moonless.
Yan Hui stood atop the high cliff, letting the north wind stir her long hair.
The place blazed with lights. Hundreds of Yan Household disciples in white hemp clothing bustled back and forth, using tools, manpower, and other means to hoist up hanging coffins of various standard designs.
Some coffins were opened on the spot, because the zombies inside had failed during the nurturing of their corpse nature and become rotting corpses.
For the rotting corpses, they piled up firewood and burned them to ashes.
The failure rate at this stage was not low, reaching around thirty percent.
"Slowly!"
"Careful!"
Reminding one another, everyone worked together to carry a jade coffin up.
This coffin was extremely special, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong with it, for lying inside was their great-uncle's life-bound corpse.
"Roar!"
While carrying it, the Yan Household disciples even heard the corpse awaken inside the coffin and give a low, displeased growl at being disturbed.
At that growl, everyone turned deathly pale, their minds trembling.
Yan Hui approached and gently stroked the jade coffin with her slender, jade-white hand, as though soothing it.
The corpse settled down and went back to sleep.
Everyone snapped out of their daze as though waking from a dream and hurried onward with the coffin.
Just then, an empty wooden coffin was hoisted up.
Yan Hui stepped forward, lightly rubbing her fingertips over the number inside. Her thoughts drifted to that melancholy, handsome face.
Her Junior Brother Chen.
He was also the one she most hoped to refine into her life-bound corpse.
Unfortunately, problems had cropped up repeatedly during the refining, yet she could not find their cause. Later, she had placed him inside a wooden coffin and stationed it on the cliff, where, like the other zombies, his corpse nature was nourished with moonlight essence under the enhancement of an arcane formation.
She had never expected something would actually go wrong.
Or perhaps Yan Hui had long been prepared for failure, which was why she had chosen to make a move against Senior Brother Su and obtained fresh corpse material.
Of course, work on the new corpse material had only just begun. It lay in the underground altar of the great stronghold, and at least a year would pass before it was placed in a coffin and sent to Corpse-Nurturing Cliff.
Yan Hui could actually accept failure, but she could not accept such an inconceivable failure.
A White Zombie had actually lifted its coffin lid, risen, and run away.
Utter nonsense.
It was just as her great-uncle had said: "When things stray from the ordinary, something sinister must be at work."
Because of this, Yan Hui had considered many possibilities, such as plots and schemes.
The more she thought, the more an inexplicable chill crept into her heart.
She desperately wanted to find this zombie and bring it back.
Then she would have her answer.
She raised her gaze, looking out over the endless rugged mountains and treacherous waters below the cliff.
If the zombie was still in the mountains, it could definitely be found.
The north wind moaned, and in the blink of an eye, goose-feather flakes drifted down from the ninth heaven.
It was finally snowing.
Yet Yan Hui frowned, a look of disgust appearing on her face. Heavy snow would seal off the mountains, and many things would have to be delayed...
A snowflake landed on Yuan Bai's head, followed by others on his eyebrows and white beard.
Softly, steadily!
Snowflakes fell one after another, seemingly without end.
Before long, they had turned the ape into a snow monkey.
But he did not move, simply sitting quietly in the crown of the old banyan tree.
He was waiting for someone.
Yet that person's whereabouts were now unknown, and he feared that person would never appear again.
Suddenly, Yuan Bai thought of the weasel in Yellow Wind Graveyard that had kept waiting for a passerby so it could approach and beg for a bestowal of recognition.
But however long the weasel waited, no one came.
By now, Yellow Wind Graveyard was gone.
The Yellow Immortal Clan was gone too.
The Demon-Slaying Alliance had brought a host of Yan Household disciples, forming a mighty force that left no Demon Beasts wherever it went.
Surrounded and hunted, they were either captured alive or slain...
Not even ordinary birds and beasts were spared.
Huang Yu had probably seen that things were going badly and fled that very night, but there was no way to take so many weasels along. Some were killed, some wounded, and others captured.
Yuan Bai's troop of monkeys had likewise been scattered to the winds and ceased to exist.
He himself had hidden here and there, escaping the disaster by sheer luck.
For the Demon Beasts in the mountains, this was a true catastrophe. Not even one in ten survived.
Overnight, Yuan Bai suddenly discovered that he seemed to be the only one left in these vast mountains.
Later, he had secretly returned to the old pine grove to see whether he could meet Chen Jin again. He had even crept outside the Yan Household Great Stronghold and stared blankly at its high walls, wondering whether Chen Jin had been captured and taken inside.
But on second thought, the immortal master was someone with skills and Divine Abilities. He could not have been captured easily.
So Yuan Bai returned to Banyan Tree Slope. Whenever the night grew deep and all was quiet, he climbed into the crown of the tree, sat in silence, and began to wait.
In his heart, he set himself a deadline:
When spring came next year, when the weather warmed and the flowers bloomed, if Chen Jin still had not returned, he would leave.
He did not know where he could go, nor where he should go.
He would leave, regardless.
Put on clothes, shoulder his staff, and leave this place...
Time was the most heartless of all. Heedless of east, south, west, or north, it passed through spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
After heavy snow sealed the mountains, the ice and snow melted. Migrating birds returned, settling on branches that had only just sprouted tender buds and singing their chirping songs.
In the crown of the old banyan tree, green shoots had actually appeared on those charred, twisted branches.
The Lightning-Struck Wood had formed.
The spring chill still bit, and the cold wind churned up waves on the Nether Passage River.
Amid croaking sounds!
An enormous toad's head stealthily poked out.
He had not followed the Demon-Ghost Alliance to attack the Yan Household Great Stronghold. Instead, he had returned here early and burrowed into the riverbed to hibernate, and thus remained safe and sound.
After a thoroughly satisfying sleep, he had now awakened and wanted to come out to see how things stood.
The weather was gloomy today. As the clouds rolled, spring thunder suddenly rang out.
The toad trembled with fear, immediately recalling certain experiences he could not bear to look back on, and hurriedly sank back into the water.
Beside the ancient road, the mountains were lush with trees.
A party of several people was resting in the woods, drinking water and gnawing on dry rations.
They were mountain foragers heading into the mountains to dig for medicinal herbs and seek treasures.
Some time earlier, word had spread through the martial world that the Yan Household's holy maiden had formed the Demon-Slaying Alliance and wiped out all the Demon Beasts in Stream Mountain, making it a peaceful place.
Upon hearing the news, many wandering swordsmen and traveling merchants had felt their hearts stir, wanting to come here to explore hidden places and uncover fortuitous opportunities.
After all, this wilderness had been renowned in years past and had produced plenty of good things. Although the Demon-Slaying Alliance and the Yan Household disciples had swept through it, such a vast place was bound to have spots they had missed.
Thus, in recent days, parties like this had arrived one after another, following on each other's heels.
It seemed that before long, Stream Mountain Ancient Road would bustle with life again.
The weather was not very good today. It looked like rain.
People traveling far from home hated rainy and snowy weather.
This group of mountain foragers wanted to fill their bellies quickly and get moving, so they could reach somewhere to shelter from the rain.
Crack!
A sudden thunderclap rang out with terrifying force.
The mountain foragers sitting on the ground were so startled that they sprang straight to their feet.
Crack!
A second thunderclap soon exploded. Dark clouds gathered overhead, silver snakes danced, and it looked as though they were about to strike this patch of woods.
"What's going on?"
"This is bad. There's something very uncanny about this!"
The mountain foragers had traveled far and wide and seen much, but they had never encountered weather like this. They exchanged bewildered looks.
"We shouldn't linger here. Come on, let's go!"
Someone soon took the lead, and the others followed without hesitation.
Just after they left, an unusual movement suddenly stirred a patch of soil in the woods, now quiet once more, as though some monster lurked beneath it.
Crack!
The next moment, a withered, bony hand covered in red hair reached out.