The white bone boulder was pushed back to its original position, blocking the darkness outside.
"Damn it, damn it, a bunch of blockheads, truly damn it..."
A faint light enveloped the underground cave, and the light source turned out to be fungi growing in the cracks of the rocks, emitting a weak fluorescence.
A dried corpse of a cat-man with heads growing all over its chest swept a resentful gaze over the scavengers, its entire body appearing swollen and pale.
He was specifically guarding the cave entrance; no matter how resentful he was, he did not dare to act, and could only pull out the scavengers' skulls and stuff them into his mouth to chew.
The clothing worn by the cat-man dried corpse was somewhat similar to yamen runners in the Jingzhou region, but even more tattered, stained with dried blood.
Ren Qing mixed among the carts, using Ghost Shadow to silently make contact with the cat-man dried corpse.
The information flow surged.
[Li Yiliang]
[Age: 986]
[Lifespan: None]
[Technique: Corpse Refining Method]
Ren Qing raised his eyebrows; judging from Li Yiliang's aura, the latter was equivalent to the Ghost Envoy realm of the Restraint Officer method, only more extreme.
He realized that the Corpse Refining Method completely acted on the body; refining a corpse was refining the body.
Li Yiliang's entire body no longer had any trace of decay; although his flesh appeared swollen and pale, it was in fact difficult for sharp weapons to break through the defense.
Ren Qing left a wisp of Ghost Shadow in the surrounding shadows, using it to determine the entrance and exit.
It was foreseeable that the tunnels here must extend in all directions, and perhaps thousands of various zombies lived within.
Moreover, there seemed to be something in the night that zombies feared, which was why Li Yiliang flew into a rage because the scavengers returned late.
"Scram."
Li Yiliang spat out the bone fragments in his mouth, then waved his hand impatiently, signaling the scavengers to stay away from him.
The scavengers had no intelligence to begin with, so naturally they would not produce negative emotions, and they rigidly pulled the carts deeper underground.
Li Yiliang then sat cross-legged beside the white bone boulder, quickly closing his eyes and becoming motionless, like a corpse that had just died.
The carts gradually moved away, but the noise they caused continued to echo.
The fluorescent fungi in the cave seemed to emit light immediately whenever they heard movement, as if warning of something.
At first Ren Qing thought he would encounter many intelligent zombies, but unexpectedly after traveling for two to three hours, everything remained uneventful.
Aside from being wider than the entrance, the tunnels showed no difference at all.
Ren Qing noticed tracks left by carts not far away, indicating that the route of the previous batch of scavengers was the same as his.
He could not help but yawn widely, and with nothing to do, began studying zombies.
Compared to the extremely unstable Corpse Transformation, zombies seemed to be fixed at a certain state, which was why they were not affected by the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Ren Qing raised his hand and looked at his shriveled skin; if the drawbacks of Corpse Transformation could be resolved, could he obtain eternal lifespan through it?
Sigh...
He let out a long sigh.
It seemed he had to figure out whether zombification could coexist with the Restraint Officer method; otherwise, all efforts would be in vain.
As long as the Corpse Refining Method did not affect the Restraint Officer method, after mastering it, if it proved useless, he would directly strip it away and make it a jailer.
Ren Qing closed his eyes and began meditating, while simultaneously checking the situation inside the giant corpse Buddha.
Restraint Officers' Hall's nurturing of the various aberrated organs was fairly standard, mainly focused on developing the intestines and stomach, since they served as the shelter.
However, the world inside the stomach was somewhat chaotic.
The arrival of the Ice Age caused the temperature to plummet below zero; even the light emitted by the Sun of Kindling felt unusually cold.
Even with Reincarnation Remaining Soul, plants and animals still suffered heavy casualties while adapting to the environment.
The various demon-kind tribes had no choice but to focus on how to store food for long periods, and the frequency of going to Dream City for trade noticeably decreased.
Heaven Above Heaven even abandoned farming; Tang Sheng simply organized a caravan specifically for exchanging food in Dream City.
After all, the Cishi people were located in a valley, with fertile fields on the mountainside; under the howling, bone-piercing cold wind, there was no possibility of survival.
Not to mention Corpse Transformation, just the reduction in fertility alone was enough for the Ice Age to stagnate the development of the stomach world.
However, the Wine Sea was full of vitality.
The wine fish thrown into the ocean back then had already reproduced into dozens of species, and there were even several whale-like creatures seven to eight meters long.
If this continued, the Wine Sea in Ren Qing's stomach world would develop a complex ecosystem.
The Yellow Springs of Rebirth grew by absorbing the life and death of plants and animals; clearly, the land could not be relied upon, so it could only depend on the Wine Sea.
Ren Qing poured a large amount of Reincarnation Remaining Soul into it to accelerate the reproduction of fish.
While he was distracted with the stomach world, the scavengers unknowingly reached the depths underground, and the surroundings were finally no longer monotonous rock.
He saw that massive bones were exposed within the rock, and the reddish stone walls gave the illusion that they had once been flesh and blood.
Ren Qing suspected that long ago this place had been a colossal creature.
After breaking free from the constraints of the white bone sand, the colossal creature came to the depths of the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, but did not last long before dying completely.
Its corpse was swallowed by the earth, eventually merging with the underground rock.
The zombies living here were likely once the creatures inside that colossal being, gradually forming an alternative civilization.
It was unknown whether they still had the intention of seeking the "Gate"?
Ren Qing looked upward; although the naked eye could not detect Wu Deceit, he knew it was above him.
Could the Gate within Wu Deceit be the same as the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone?
He suppressed the urge to open the Gate, he had not come to the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone to investigate; once he obtained the Dead Man's Sutra, he would leave immediately.
In the brief moment Ren Qing was distracted, the scavengers had already reached their destination.
It was a vast karst cave, filled with a nauseating stench of decay, so strong that even Ren Qing's nearly decorative nose could smell it.
Immediately after, Ren Qing noticed a large number of footprints on the ground; clearly, zombies had already formed a certain scale.
The scavengers slowed slightly, as if stepping into this place made them extremely uneasy, far beyond what they felt toward Li Yiliang.
Seeing this, Ren Qing directly flipped out of the cart and chose to follow in the shadows.
He was confident that even those in the Heavenly Aberration realm would not notice his figure protected by various techniques, as long as he did not get too close.
Unfortunately, the Disaster-Eliminating Method had not reached the Yang God realm; according to the foundation Ren Qing wanted, at least five primary and secondary techniques were required.
He decided that if he encountered an unmanageable crisis, he would simply find two barely suitable techniques and first advance the Disaster-Eliminating Method.
Ren Qing carefully followed the scavengers, continuing for more than half an hour.
Although it was still desolate, bones could at least be seen in corners, along with traces of rodent activity.
After a while, Ren Qing finally saw a yurt-like tent in the distance.
Outside the tent were coffins of various sizes, dozens or even hundreds of them; the source of the corpse stench came from within.
A fat zombie stood in the open space, holding a brass bell in his hand; when he shook it, no sound could be heard.
The zombie's appearance was similar to Li Yiliang's, only more swollen, and water occasionally seeped from his pores.
He stared greedily at the three cocooned corpses, letting out strange laughter, accompanied by neurotic muttering.
"Luck has come and can't be stopped. It's my first time seeing such intact cocooned people, surely the chance of becoming a Purple Zombie will be higher."
The fat zombie opened three coffins and placed the cocooned people inside.
He then took out a worn talisman brush from his chest, spat a mouthful of black blood on it, and began drawing runes on the surface of the coffins.
Seeing this, Ren Qing moved closer and soon arrived beside the fat zombie.
He observed the details of the runes; they were somewhat similar to Moon Patterns, but undoubtedly simpler in structure, their function being to help corpses gather yin qi.
Ren Qing glanced at the fat zombie; he wore tattered Daoist robes, with a rusted copper coin sword at his waist. Only the bell artifact was relatively intact, but still not worth Ren Qing's attention.
He had thought that the zombie controlling the scavengers would at least be at the Yin Difference realm.
[Zhu Dashuang]
[Age: 833]
[Lifespan: None]
[Technique: Corpse Refining Method]
After placing the cocooned people, the fat zombie named Zhu Dashuang noticed there were no coffins left for the scavengers, and could not help but show disgust on his face.
He reached out and tore off the skin of a scavenger, stuffing it into his mouth; its flesh and bones immediately dissolved into sludge.
Ren Qing watched Zhu Dashuang's actions; the latter's cultivation increased slightly.
However, judging by his pained expression, it was clearly due to the lack of coffins that he resorted to this.
"By the way, do you have any books that record the Corpse Refining Method?"
Ren Qing was already standing in front of Zhu Dashuang, yet he was only noticed when he spoke, demonstrating the terror of the Disaster-Eliminating Method.
"You are..."
Zhu Dashuang opened his mouth wide; anyone seeing a shriveled, withered figure suddenly appear in their field of vision would be frightened.
"Forget it, I'll do it myself."
Ren Qing reached out and patted Zhu Dashuang's stiff shoulder, saying in a strange tone: "You should have fatty liver, right?"
Fatty-Liver Disease Seed surged into Zhu Dashuang's body, and under the linkage of the disease tree, his consciousness was directly pulled into Dream City within the stomach world.
Not long after, Ren Qing easily obtained Zhu Dashuang's memories.
A White Zombie's soul was only slightly stronger than that of a mortal; for Ren Qing, it was basically defenseless and required almost no effort.
First of all, Zhu Dashuang was merely an ordinary corpse-raiser, also belonging to the yamen.
Of course, from the scenes Ren Qing saw in Zhu Dashuang's memory, the so-called yamen was extremely bloated and distorted.
It was more like a sect with unclear purposes.
Because corpse-raisers needed to herd pseudo-zombies, they usually operated in relatively outer areas and rarely interacted with others.
It seemed that in Zhu Dashuang's consciousness, life followed a routine of raising corpses until a Purple Zombie was born among the pseudo-zombies, then delivering it to the yamen for processing.
Zhu Dashuang had a total of 103 pseudo-zombies; the number was indeed considerable, but those that could advance to Half-Corpse realm Purple Zombies were extremely rare.
Ren Qing sealed Zhu Dashuang in the underground of the stomach world, then changed into identical attire, transforming into a corpse-raiser.
With the Disaster-Eliminating Method, no one could distinguish real from fake; moreover, Zhu Dashuang knew very few zombies to begin with.
As for the Corpse Refining Method, he did not even need to search Zhu Dashuang's memory, the tent already contained a copy.
Ren Qing flipped through the contents of the Corpse Refining Method, his gaze sweeping over the coffins, weren't these perfect materials for testing the compatibility of the Restraint Officer method?