Cultivation

"Tap..."

A woman appeared on the deserted street.

She was very thin and dark-skinned, dressed in an old-fashioned polka-dot blouse and drab gray trousers. Her clothes were dowdy, her hair was dry and yellow, and she was not good-looking.

She looked like the kind of middle-aged woman commonly seen working year-round in banana fields in the Nantu countryside. Walking down the street, she would rarely draw a second glance.

But her eyes were unusual. Her pupils seemed smaller than a normal person's, with points like needles, and held an indescribable, profound chill.

A heavy rain the night before had washed away most of the traces on the street. Many new potholes had appeared in the ground, all filled with water; one careless step would land a foot in the mud.

Ruan Wen walked slowly past the puddles, her eyes missing no trace, however small.

Gradually, fragments of a scene came together in her mind-

A downpour, lightning, three figures locked in fierce combat.

Acu and Aban coughing up blood, gravely wounded, falling to the ground... A person dragging their bodies up... slowly disappearing into the rainy night...

The images were jumbled and hazy. After all, she had only pieced them together in her imagination from a few lingering traces of the battle.

But Ruan Wen was certain of one thing: her two subordinates had failed.

And not only that, they would never return.

"Splash!"

Ruan Wen stepped into a puddle. The murky yellow water slowly soaked into her cloth shoe, and a barely perceptible trace of crimson rose through the muddy water.

Ruan Wen bent down, dipped her fingers into the puddle, and gently scooped up a small lump of sludge streaked with bright red. She studied it quietly for a while.

"Black Kill..."

Ruan Wen muttered to herself, then abruptly flicked her hand.

"Thud!"

A lamppost seven or eight meters away shuddered at the impact. A small lump of yellow mud had embedded itself deep in the iron post. Its texture was as soft as could be, yet at that moment it was like a bullet fired from a gun barrel!

As for Ruan Wen, her thin, dark, dowdily dressed figure had already begun to disappear down the road.

An abandoned field on the outskirts of Qingsha.

A farm tractor was parked beside a freshly dug, square pit in the wasteland, chugging as it dumped a large quantity of fresh livestock entrails into it.

Several workers holding shovels stood nearby, along with the youthful-looking Cheng Sheng.

"Boss, what are you filling this place with so many entrails for? Making fertilizer? You'd need manure for that..."

Seeing how young Cheng Sheng was, one of the workers spoke to him half-jokingly.

Cheng Sheng glanced at him and said coolly, "What business is it of yours what I'm doing? Just take your money and do your own job."

The worker's expression stiffened. Seeing his unfriendly expression, he did not dare say anything else and obediently shut his mouth.

Five minutes later, all the entrails Cheng Sheng had collected from nearby slaughterhouses had been dumped out, exactly filling the large pit, which was six meters long, six meters wide, and over a meter deep.

He casually took out a few Nan Currency notes and sent the workers who had dug the pit away. Once everyone had left, Cheng Sheng took several large packets of pungent powder from the backpack he had brought and scattered all of it into the pit.

Cultivating Hell Plague Flies required fresh animal entrails, followed by a wait for them to rot. The whole process took roughly three to seven days.

What Cheng Sheng had scattered into the pit was mainly meant to promote and speed up the decomposition of the entrails.

When he finished scattering it, Cheng Sheng began walking around the pit full of entrails.

His head was slightly lowered, his lips moving as he chanted under his breath.

Had someone been present and leaned closer to listen, they would have discovered that the syllables coming from Cheng Sheng's mouth sounded nothing like noises a human chest could produce.

It was a deep, cloying whisper, like a demon murmuring at your ear, filled with an indescribably evil and bizarre quality.

After three circuits, Cheng Sheng stopped walking, and the chanting ceased.

That felt more draining than performing a Dark Sacrifice...

Cheng Sheng wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand and looked at the pit before him. It had already begun to change.

Above the pit, a great swarm of red-headed flies had gathered at some unknown point. Packed densely together, they buzzed as they continuously landed in the pit and took off again.

The middle of the fresh entrails that had filled the pit seemed to have sunk slightly. Some of the entrails there showed signs of melting, and viscous bubbles rose from them...

I need to come back and chant the incantation three times a day. If the entrails in the middle are used up, I'll need to replenish them... After that, all that's left is to wait for time to work.

The weather in Qingsha City these past few days was quite suitable for Cheng Sheng's cultivation. A heavy rain had fallen just yesterday, and today, before afternoon had even arrived, the air was already turning hot and muggy again.

In such conditions, the entrails would rot much faster, which would help the cultivation to some extent.

I wonder if it'll succeed in the end?

Cheng Sheng stared at the pit for a while. More and more flies were coming from every direction, and he prepared to leave.

He could not possibly stay here twenty-four hours a day, but simply leaving it unattended did not seem right either.

After thinking it over, Cheng Sheng found several pieces of rotten wood nearby, made them into signs, and planted them not far from the pit. On them he wrote: [Important experimental site. No admittance to unauthorized persons!]

The wasteland Cheng Sheng had chosen had once been a poppy field. Later, someone had cleared it, and it had gradually fallen into disuse.

It was said that the remains of quite a few people were buried beneath the ground here...

If anyone asks, I'll say I'm cosplaying a Curse practitioner and practicing the Curse Art!

The new generation of young people in Nantu loved all kinds of bizarre things and thrills. Some even chased after and worshipped the Black Tide, so it would not be strange for someone to enjoy studying the traditional Curse Art in their spare time, would it?

Thinking this, Cheng Sheng walked slowly toward the distant road.

After leaving the "Hell Plague Fly cultivation base," Cheng Sheng had nothing to do. He thought about it and concluded that he could probably only go home.

"Creak-"

Cheng Sheng pushed the door open and entered. He had expected the house to be empty again, so the sight of the whole family of three together in the living room left him standing in the entryway in surprise.

His father, Cheng Shuisheng, was feeding the fish in front of the tank. Cheng Yue sat on the sofa watching television, while his mother, Wu Li, wearing an apron, was setting dishes on the dining table.

"Shengsheng's home!"

Hearing the door open, Wu Li called out in delight before she had even turned around.

"I was just about to call and ask you to come home for lunch!"

Wu Li wiped both hands on her apron, hurried over, and cupped Cheng Sheng's face, turning it this way and that to look at him, her eyes full of joy and concern. "Let Mom have a good look. Have you lost weight? The special training at the boxing gym must have been exhausting..."

"It was all right. Can't you see how much bigger I've gotten?"

Cheng Sheng smiled and struck a muscle-flexing pose for Wu Li, then asked, "Mom, Dad, how come you have time to be home today?"

"Your dad and I led tour groups for more than a month straight. Our backs were almost broken from the work... We're resting for a few days. There's more to keep us busy next month."

Wu Li took Cheng Sheng by the hand and led him into the living room.

Cheng Yue, who was sitting on the sofa constantly changing channels with the remote, glanced at him with an indifferent expression.

Then she glanced again, and again...

Finally, frowning, she slowly turned toward him with a look of suspicion.

Cheng Sheng could not be bothered with her. He walked over to the fish tank and called, "Dad."

"Mm."

Compared with the last time Cheng Sheng had seen him, Cheng Shuisheng had grown thinner still, but he looked to be in excellent spirits, with an air of someone riding the spring breeze of success.

It was clear that he really loved the new tank of goldfish. When Cheng Sheng greeted him, he did not even lift his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the several golden lionhead goldfish swimming around in the tank.

Fourth update. For the free-release period, that's not a small amount of updating, right?

Generally, when I'm in good form, I update more. I've been reading everyone's comments. You can tell from the subject that this book will have a fairly grand setting and be a long story. Everything you want to see will be there. We're only this far in, so let's take it slowly.

Also, I hope everyone will vote more and check in to keep reading every day. The book's ranking on the new releases chart just won't go up. It's worrying... orz. Thank you.