"What a terrifying world."
Ren Qing could not help but sigh as he controlled the bacterial soul to investigate the inner world, discovering that the distribution of the towns was almost identical to that of the surface world.
Every town had a large number of monks, all of whom claimed to be helping the world through medicine while actually engaging in all kinds of thievery and prostitution, filling the inner world with despair.
However, Ren Qing did not discover any system of power in the inner world.
Including the monks, all the people were ordinary mortals, though their lifespans were somewhat longer, allowing them to live to one hundred and fifty years old.
The social order was firmly controlled by the numerous monks.
They controlled every walk of life, presenting themselves as benevolent and righteous to outsiders, but in reality, even the brothels and gambling dens had monks lurking behind them.
Although the monks openly and secretly fought over merit, the moment they discovered that the people had begun to suspect them, they would join forces without hesitation.
Only by maintaining long-term control over the towns could they harvest merit more steadily.
Ren Qing referred to this group of monks as "Merit Monks."
The Merit Monks also had temples directly under their control, but there were no Buddha statues inside. According to their teachings, one had to believe in oneself to cross the sea of suffering.
In Ren Qing's view, it was purely because the existence of Buddha would make the people's gratitude toward the Merit Monks impure, thereby affecting their harvesting of merit.
After Ren Qing returned to Sanxiang City, he attached the bacterial soul to Blackwater Daoist.
After experiencing the separation of life and death from his wife and son, Blackwater Daoist's will became extremely dispirited, as if he had already lost the motivation to live.
Every day, he wandered aimlessly through the streets. Only when he occasionally saw a monk would he come back to his senses and sincerely clasp his hands together in greeting.
After such extreme ups and downs, Blackwater Daoist had undoubtedly come to regard the Merit Monks as good people. If the temple had been willing to accept him, he probably would even have wanted to become a monk.
Wushan occasionally went to help Blackwater Daoist, ensuring that Blackwater Daoist would not starve to death.
But this was not out of kindness. It was because, in Blackwater Daoist's condition, once his mentality became unbalanced and he wanted to commit evil, it would be difficult to suppress himself.
This would inevitably give rise to quite a few disasters, allowing Wushan to continue earning merit from them.
Compared to Kongchan, Wushan, who possessed twenty-three merit sariras, was indeed a cunning old fox, able to devise all kinds of schemes with ease.
Ren Qing had a premonition that the second layer of Jingzhou was still not the end.
The monks' ascension to Western Paradise definitely had a process. They might have to undergo multiple layers of selection before ultimately coming into contact with the Three Dao Ancestors.
While he was secretly pondering this, Blackwater Daoist finally stopped sinking into his pain.
At this time, Blackwater Daoist's body was thin and gaunt, his cheeks sunken, his eyes dull, and his hair had almost completely turned white overnight.
He returned to the village outside the city in a daze, drawing quiet discussions from the villagers.
Fortunately, it was now the dead of winter, so the bodies of his wife and son had not decayed, though they had inevitably begun to smell, attracting carrion-eating insects.
Blackwater Daoist dug a deep pit in the courtyard, then buried the bodies of his wife and son inside and simply made two tombstones.
He even deliberately left a place in the grave for himself to rest after his death.
After completing all this and passing the first seven days after their deaths, Blackwater Daoist regained some vitality and took his boat to the lake to fish.
Ren Qing was not surprised. In the surface world, Blackwater Daoist had never been the sort of person who was constantly worried about gains and losses. In fact, the impression he gave Ren Qing was mainly one of ruthlessness and unscrupulousness.
Unfortunately, in the inner world, even if Blackwater Daoist pulled himself together again, he would only face more disasters and become a tool for others to obtain merit.
Ren Qing chose not to follow Blackwater Daoist. He really could not be bothered to watch a third-rate melodramatic story.
A few days ago, there had even been a situation similar to Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, with the man and woman ultimately committing suicide together beneath a peach tree.
Their parents were plunged into unbearable grief, and a salvation ceremony presided over by a Merit Monk was held.
As a result, the Merit Monk used a sleight of hand to take two butterflies from his sleeves, claiming that their souls had attached themselves to insects and that they could still remain together forever.
The methods the Merit Monks used to harvest merit made Ren Qing's scalp tingle.
There was even less need to intervene, because this was the rule of the inner world. The interest group formed by the Merit Monks was connected as one, and touching one part would affect the whole.
For now, it was better not to act rashly, lest the only clues be cut off.
Ren Qing temporarily stayed in Blackwater Daoist's courtyard.
The village where Blackwater Daoist lived had a sparse population. More precisely, because there were no traveling merchants and it was difficult to purchase supplies in bulk from the shops, most of the population had gathered in the various towns, which were controlled by the Merit Monks.
The villages were instead quite safe, containing only children under the age of fifteen and some women and children.
Only then did Ren Qing realize why there were more men than women in the surface world. He had originally thought that refining Gu required a strong physique, so men had an invisible advantage.
Now it seemed that most women simply were not targets of the Merit Monks.
The Merit Monks needed women to reproduce the population, thereby increasing the efficiency of obtaining merit and allowing more people to have the opportunity to ascend to the Western Paradise.
Ren Qing knew that reaching the inner world was not difficult, and there was more than one way to do it.
The bacterial soul could completely refine a gateway Dharma artifact leading to the mirror world, allowing his main body to enter the inner world through the mirror world.
Alternatively, he could imitate those demons and evil spirits from the Jingzhou of the past. By having his name passed down through word of mouth, he should also gradually be pulled into the inner world.
There was no need to rush the spreading of his name. Besides, whether to bring the various factions from the surface world into the inner world was another question.
Therefore, he first needed to determine whether the inner world was truly incapable of cultivation and whether the rules governing the formation of immortal positions had changed.
If he rashly went to the inner world and his techniques happened to become ineffective, would he not be trapped here and forced to die, with only Death Gives No Birth available for escape?
With Ren Qing's current powerful body and soul, reconstituting his body after death would probably take several decades, which would indeed be somewhat wasteful of time.
Thinking of this, Ren Qing searched around the village and finally led an old dog back to the courtyard.
He intended to try cultivating the Corpse Dog Method. The main reason for choosing this technique was that the bacterial soul in the inner world was the "Mad Dog Disease Strain."
The Mad Dog Disease Strain was the rabies of his previous life. Patients would normally develop a fear of drinking water, become increasingly irritable, and have an extremely high mortality rate.
Under normal circumstances, mastering the Restraint Officer Method was extremely troublesome, but the Mad Dog Disease Strain was connected to the Martial Practitioner's "Dog-Beating Staff Method." Once the Martial Practitioner cultivation was perfected, one could switch to cultivating the Corpse Dog Method.
The Martial Practitioner had different schools, corresponding respectively to three different paths of mutation.
The mutation path of the Corpse Dog Method was actually somewhat special. Both were related to beast taming, but the "Corpse Dog User" possessed the ability to seize the body of a corpse dog.
The Martial Practitioner realm of the Corpse Dog User was entirely focused on nurturing corpse dogs. Only upon reaching the Half-Corpse realm would they seize and possess a corpse dog's body, thereby replacing it.
Ren Qing infected the old dog with the Mad Dog Disease Strain and began helping it enter the Corpse Dog Method.
As a result, the old dog showed no sign of mastering the technique. Instead, after only a few days, it was already on the verge of death under the torment of the Mad Dog Disease Strain.
Ren Qing pondered for a long time before removing the Mad Dog Disease Strain from the old dog's body. The old dog then tucked its tail between its legs and left the courtyard.
It seemed that mastering techniques in the inner world was unrealistic.
Ren Qing could only shift his target to Gu. In theory, since they possessed the same immortal positions, the rules should be connected.
Although there was not a single Gu to be seen in the inner world, that did not mean it was impossible to refine Gu.
Ren Qing was considering the details of refining Gu when he suddenly heard dense footsteps. He saw quite a few children walking toward the courtyard.
After learning that Blackwater Daoist's wife and son had died, the children, following the instructions of the women and children, each brought some paper money to pay respects at the graves.
In Jingzhou, there was indeed a custom of using children to bring good fortune to the bereaved.
Although they were somewhat afraid, they still mustered their courage and entered the courtyard. After all, poor families had children taking responsibility early, and most children had to help with farm work from around the age of ten.
Mashan walked at the front. At fourteen years old, his skin had already been tanned dark by the sun, and he was patiently explaining things to the children beside him.
The children did not dare to be negligent. First, they used brooms to sweep away the fallen leaves on the ground. Then Mashan carried over an earthen basin and lit it with a fire striker.
They began chanting the Rebirth Mantra, though it was indeed a Pure Land Buddhist incantation.
"Homage to Amitabha Buddha, Thus Come One, Thus Come One, Thus Come One, Amitrita..."
The paper money was thrown into the brazier, and specks of ash drifted through the air.
The children's ignorant eyes had no understanding of the impermanence of life and death, but they could still sense the sorrow from the bloodstains on the surfaces of the tombstones.
"The Rebirth Mantra was recited incorrectly..."
"Who is it?!"
Mashan widened his eyes and looked around in disbelief.
His gaze fell beneath the banyan tree. The smoke and dust from the burned paper money slowly gathered, forming a blurry half-meter-tall phantom with a dragon's head and a human body.
The children's expressions changed several times, but under the influence of the bacterial soul, they ultimately stopped being afraid.
"Recite the Rebirth Mantra after Me."
"By the decree of the Most High, I transcend your lonely souls and all wandering ghosts, so that all four forms of life may receive grace..."
After the salvation ceremony was completed, the chill in the courtyard slightly warmed. Zhili Technique was silently activated, and the children had already come to completely trust Ren Qing.
Ren Qing had the children help him capture some insects in the mountains and forests surrounding the village.
After hearing this, Mashan immediately led the other children away from the courtyard excitedly, and the experience just now seemed almost like a dream.
Ren Qing was not actually short of manpower. He simply wanted to use this opportunity to test whether he could traverse the multiple layers of the world through the methods used by demons and evil spirits.
Suddenly, Ren Qing's expression became strange, and his consciousness returned to his main body.
He closed his eyes and sensed the differences in his body and soul, discovering that there was indeed an imperceptible abnormality, as if his connection with the inner world had grown deeper.
An inexplicable sense of being pulled away surged into his heart.
It seemed that even without telling others his name, merely knowing of his existence could cause Ren Qing to be gradually pulled into the inner world.
Fortunately, Ren Qing had taken precautions with the children's souls. Otherwise, with one telling ten and ten telling a hundred, he might have been forcibly pulled out of the surface world.
Ren Qing stroked his chin and looked toward the surface Jingzhou, which was currently in a dormant phase.
Going to the inner world alone was indeed somewhat unreliable. He still had to find a way to send all the various factions there as well.
Since the Merit Monks believed that the surface world was hell, if he brought this group of evil spirits into the inner world, what kind of expressions would they have?
Ren Qing was also very curious. The Paranoid Ones of the second-layer world were extremely crazy, but they were still far from reaching the level of contacting the Heavenly Dao.
What kind of scene would await him in the deeper world?