Ren Qing did not kill Chongshuizi. The latter's technique was extremely special. Even if only a fist-sized portion of his body remained, his aura was still alive.
He imprisoned Chongshuizi in the third layer of the underworld's prison, while using Heaven and Earth Genesis to suppress his injuries and secretly extract the other party's memories.
Because Chongshuizi's size was simply too small, his intelligence had also fallen to the level of a beast, leaving him no chance to resist at all.
Ren Qing did not spend much time before completely digesting Chongshuizi's memories.
He noticed that rumors regarding the opportunity in Jingzhou had already been circulating several hundred years ago, but at that time, not many cultivators paid attention to them.
It was only after Ren Qing, wearing the disguise of the Heavenly Court, leaked the information.
That he strengthened the authenticity of the rumors, attracting countless forces to head toward Jingzhou and eventually forming Jingzhou's strange and unfathomable situation.
Ren Qing could not help but laugh bitterly. It seemed that he had unknowingly obstructed the mastermind behind everything once again.
Without his actions, Jingzhou definitely would not have gathered so many Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators. It might even have only been the Insect Nest faction.
With Insect Nest's abilities, if they had expanded and reproduced without restraint, the scale of the Insect Warriors in Jingzhou would only have been even more terrifying than it was now.
Ren Qing did not know what would happen in Jingzhou afterward, but he still prioritized keeping a low profile.
He stayed inside Minghe Tea House every day, and even brought the zombified Yellow Dog outside, allowing Yellow Dog to continue working as a waiter.
The chaos and suffering in Jingzhou did not affect Ren Qing's cultivation at all.
He had already begun preparing for the advancement of Zhili Technique, intending to use it to construct a true Heavenly Court and gradually draw the various factions into the game.
Well, it would be best if he could firmly establish Restraint Officers' Hall as the descendants of the Heavenly Court.
Ren Qing closed his eyes and pondered. Yellow Dog continued serving tea and pouring water as usual. His slightly dull temperament allowed him to notice the rapid changes taking place in Xiangxiang.
After witnessing immortal might, the Insect Warriors gradually abandoned their former prejudices.
They regarded the depletion of their lifespans as a test from the True Immortal toward them. Their secondary personalities did not need to intervene, and most of their negative emotions naturally faded away.
Of course, from various towns throughout Xiangxiang, one could still sense the Insect Warriors' fanaticism.
They crazily worshiped the dragon totem. Every few steps, there was a half-meter-tall descendant temple containing a statue of Dragon King of the Four Seas.
After refining Gu insects, the Insect Warriors were also becoming more and more similar to dragons.
While the other factions stimulated the Insect Warriors and attempted to influence their minds, Xiangxiang instead appeared exceptionally peaceful.
After the various forces in Xiangxiang cooperated for mutual benefit, the remaining few years almost developed the Insect Warriors to the level of the Body Cultivators back then.
Not only did they form a complete power system, their resource points also became increasingly organized on a large scale.
Ren Qing even temporarily recalled cultivators such as Li Heavenly Spirits into Stomach World, preventing their cultivation efficiency from being reduced for a long period.
Without anyone noticing, the lifespans of the Insect Warriors once again reached exhaustion.
Outside Xiangxiang, cries of despair could be heard everywhere, because the Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators were deliberately magnifying the despair of the Insect Warriors.
After all, the more extreme something became, the easier it was to come into contact with the Heavenly Dao.
Ren Qing smoothly completed Stomach World's second Immortal Conferment Ceremony, granting nine Ghost Immortal Office positions, all of them to elders of Restraint Officers' Hall.
They were respectively Sun, who had been stuck in the Yin Difference realm for hundreds of years; Lady White Bone, who was preparing to break through the bottleneck for the second time; as well as Head in the Jar and Little Man in the Bottle.
Although Head in the Jar and Little Man in the Bottle belonged to the same person, Ren Qing still granted them Ghost Immortal Office separately.
He could sense that the two were gradually becoming harmonious. If they could merge into one, there was truly hope for them to challenge the Yang God realm, a realm as imposing as a towering wall.
Apart from Soldier Vein, the other five branches each received one Ghost Immortal Office position. They were all cultivators with high status and authority selected by Ren Qing.
Restraint Officers' Hall had always followed the rule of the strong. Since the source of the Immortal Offices came from Ren Qing, there was absolutely no possibility of the situation where people worried about unfair distribution rather than shortage.
Most likely, once Heaven and Earth Genesis advanced to Earth Immortal, the Ghost Immortal Office positions would completely lose their limit on numbers.
Dang dang dang...
The bronze bell of Golden Light Temple rang.
Ren Qing opened his eyes and looked solemnly at the Insect Warriors sitting cross-legged on the street.
Even as they aged and approached death, they continued chanting the name of the Dragon God.
Ren Qing stared at the information flow of the Insect Warriors as their lifespan countdown slowly reached zero.
The bodies and souls of the Insect Warriors turned into ashes and disappeared from the world without warning. The enormous Jingzhou once again became completely silent.
Ren Qing raised his head and looked at the slightly incomplete full moon.
He had always held a question in his heart. Did the current Jingzhou still have layers?
After experiencing the once real and fake Jingzhou, Ren Qing indeed felt an unreal sensation. Even knowing the layout behind it did not lessen that feeling.
The so-called opportunity of Jingzhou had to be built upon the premise that one's perception would not be distorted.
After careful consideration, Ren Qing deliberately selected more than ten strands of bacterial soul, each no stronger than the Ghost Envoy realm, from the branches of the diseased tree and hid them inside the Mud Pellet Palace of the Insect Warriors.
He sensed that after the bacterial souls disappeared together, Zhili Technique was still unable to communicate with them.
Ren Qing stared at the moon and quietly waited for the full moon to arrive.
Back then, when the blood moon hung over Jingzhou, the more incomplete the moon was, the more fake the world one was in. The deepest layer truly contained a full moon.
More than ten days quickly passed, and the moon finally became like a round disk.
Ren Qing had implanted instructions into the bacterial souls beforehand. If Jingzhou truly had layers, then after the full moon appeared, they were to take certain actions.
The more than ten strands of bacterial soul would find an opportunity to merge with each other, barely reaching the Yang God realm.
Ren Qing's expression changed slightly, because he discovered that the bridge between Zhili Technique and the bacterial souls was indeed becoming increasingly clear.
"So you really calculated everything..."
His consciousness then descended onto the missing bacterial souls. He only felt as if he had passed through a thin barrier, and a world both familiar and unfamiliar appeared before his eyes.
Sure enough, under the effects of Taiyin Star Lord, Jingzhou was still a multilayered world.
The bacterial soul was standing in a remote alley. The streets were filled with streams of people, and above their heads, the moon emitted a faint red glow.
From the details of the town, Ren Qing discovered that it was exactly the same as Sanxiang City he had encountered when he first arrived in Jingzhou, except there were fewer residents inside.
He could not help but look around, and soon discovered that the residents of the inner-layer Sanxiang City were the Insect Warriors who had died from lifespan exhaustion.
The first batch of Insect Warriors was the largest group.
The residents appeared extremely normal, without the slightest trace of Gu insect transformation. However, the order of the inner-layer world was rather chaotic.
Ren Qing had only stayed for a moment before witnessing many human tragedies.
Because they were too hungry, young and strong beggars were sharing the flesh of children and the elderly, placing their meat into containers to steam and boil.
Gamblers dragged women toward brothels. When they had no money, they sold their relatives.
The residents clearly did not possess the memories of the surface world. They simply lived day by day, causing the inner-layer world to resemble hell itself.
It was highly likely that after entering the inner-layer world, they were forcibly assigned certain identities. Only after returning to the surface world would their memories be restored.
Ren Qing noticed Blackwater Daoist.
In the inner-layer world, Blackwater Daoist was a middle-aged fish seller, smiling shamelessly as he greeted the people passing through the streets.
Working hard to sell his fresh fish, all he thought about was his sick young son lying at home.
He desperately needed money. Not long ago, his wife had died from a cold, and his son had also fallen ill because of it. His life was now hanging by a thread.
After Blackwater Daoist worked all day, he took out the silver he had saved previously and counted it. It was almost enough to buy a set of medicine.
After packing up his stall, he hurried excitedly toward the pharmacy.
However, he was blocked by local ruffians. Even though Blackwater Daoist desperately protected his money, he was beaten severely and robbed of everything.
Blackwater Daoist knelt on the ground covered in blood. The despair on his face was impossible to hide.
Ren Qing hid in a nearby corner. In order to understand the situation, he did not interfere.
He frowned and looked into the distance, only to see an old monk dressed in gold and silver jade ornaments smiling as he paced around, seemingly waiting for something.
Seeing that it was getting late and that Blackwater Daoist had regained his strength and stood up, the old monk immediately walked before him and placed his hands together.
"Amitabha."
"My name is Wushan. Looking at your appearance, it seems you have encountered suffering?"
"Master, my son needs three taels of silver to buy medicine. If he is not treated, he will die..."
Blackwater Daoist cried bitterly. Wushan stroked his head, displaying the demeanor of a virtuous monk to perfection.
"Take it. Meeting each other is fate."
From the corner of his eye, Wushan saw another monk wearing luxurious clothes approaching him, so he quickly took out silver and handed it to Blackwater Daoist.
Blackwater Daoist thanked him and accepted the silver. Ignoring his own injuries, he rushed toward the pharmacy.
"Wushan, you should know this person was a merit I carefully arranged, right?"
"Kongchan, what belongs to one who sees it also belongs to them."
Wushan showed disdain. He took out a string of golden relic beads from his robes. There were thirty-six beads in total, with twenty-three of them lit.
"Once my merits are complete, I will be able to ascend to Western Paradise before you."
"Amitabha. It is clear that your cultivation is still too shallow, Kongchan. How can you lose merits? Go and seek enlightenment for a few more years."
After saying this, Wushan left without paying attention to Kongchan's iron-blue expression.
Ren Qing pondered silently. He quietly left the alley and walked around Sanxiang City, discovering that there were actually several thousand monks inside the city.
On the surface, they were performing good deeds, but in reality, every single one of them was a thief and a murderer.
The ruffians who robbed Blackwater Daoist were actually arranged by Wushan on purpose. Even the silver given afterward had merely just changed hands.
Because of the delay caused by the robbery, when Blackwater Daoist arrived at the pharmacy, it had already closed. No matter how much he shouted, no one paid attention to him.
He could only return home, only to discover that his son had already frozen to death beside the bed.
According to Ren Qing's speculation, as long as Blackwater Daoist remained alive, he would continue experiencing all kinds of suffering at the hands of monks who deceived the world and stole fame.
Until he committed suicide.
In Buddhist scriptures, the sin of suicide was no less than murder. After death, one would inevitably fall into endless hell, unable to transcend and unable to reincarnate.
"So this is the true layout of Jingzhou..."
The Insect Warriors selected by the surface world actually had nothing to do with cultivation or state of mind.
The main reason was that they suffered unbearable torment in the inner-layer world, chose suicide in despair, and their souls arrived at the surface world, this human hell.
The Insect Warriors were more like "Redeemers."
Only after redeeming their sins in the surface world could they return to the inner-layer world.
Meanwhile, those monks who committed evil deeds for the sake of merits had an extremely strong desire to reach the Pure Land. For this goal, they could slaughter entire families without hesitation.
Ren Qing could sense the madness of the monks.
Perhaps they were the true "fanatics" who were destined to come into contact with the Heavenly Dao.
The so-called Pure Land was merely an even deeper layer of Jingzhou, and merits were the key.