Holy Maiden Jing Xin spread out her divine sense, blanketing the two towns. Not only was Upper River Town a dead city, but Lower River Town was also a dead city! The so-called life of the people here was just a group of corpses moving about!
No wonder the Red Dust Ancestor, whose beauty could shake even an Immortal God's Dao Heart, caused not a single ripple when she came here. How could dead people have any feelings for a beauty! Her blood ran cold; she had never seen such a scene.
There were a total of eight small towns near the Red Dust Pure Land. What worried Holy Maiden Jing Xin was whether the situation in the other six towns was the same as here. The other six towns were very far from here, and her divine sense could not cover them.
Fortunately, Jiang Li quickly gave her an answer.
"The other six towns are all normal."
Jiang Li thought for a moment and added an explanation, "They are all living people." Holy Maiden Jing Xin thought to herself, you might as well not have explained. Holy Maiden Jing Xin's divine sense could cover two towns because she could only cover two towns.
Jiang Li's divine sense could cover eight towns because there were only eight towns. Even though the six towns were all normal, Holy Maiden Jing Xin did not cheer up.
"Just how long has it been since you people came here? If even a Spirit Transformation Stage cultivator had come, it wouldn't have come to this."
This technique of making corpses maintain their living activities was extremely high-level; only a figure at the Spirit Transformation Stage could discover the clues. Holy Maiden Jing Xin explained with a heavy heart, "Spirit Transformation Stage cultivators have already achieved inedia.
In the eyes of the sect's elders, spirit grain is a trivial matter, so there's no need to worry about problems with it. Therefore, the sect would only dispatch those disciples with no hope in their cultivation, who were only at the Golden Core Stage, to be stationed here.
Having a Nascent Soul Stage steward manage the eight towns would be sufficient, and no problems were expected."
"But now, a huge problem has appeared!"
Jiang Li said sternly. The two descended to a small tavern below, where the waiter greeted them warmly.
"Yo, you two customers look unfamiliar. You must be from the outside, right? That's quite rare. Is this lady a fairy from the Red Dust Pure Land?"
Seeing Holy Maiden Jing Xin's exquisite beauty, the waiter asked uncertainly. Holy Maiden Jing Xin did not speak, merely nodding.
"Waiter, I have something to ask you."
Jiang Li took out a low-grade spirit stone and placed it on the table.
"Customer, I really can't, I really can't. You two are honored guests from the Red Dust Pure Land, how could I possibly take your money."
The waiter was startled and quickly refused. After some back and forth, the waiter still accepted the spirit stone. Transactions here were made with copper coins; a single low-grade spirit stone was an extremely rare item.
Holy Maiden Jing Xin raised her eyebrows slightly. The waiter's movements were natural and fluid, without the slightest stiffness. Just by looking with the naked eye, one couldn't tell the difference between him and a living person.
She carefully examined the waiter with her divine sense and discovered a Gu worm in both his dantian and his sea of consciousness. The two Gu worms were a male and female pair; one controlled his actions, and the other controlled his thoughts. It was an extremely skillful corpse controlling technique.
It was a corpse controlling technique unique to the Gu Clan! And as far as she knew, the disciple stationed here was a member of the Gu Clan! She buried her discovery in her heart and quietly watched Jiang Li converse with the waiter.
"Have any particularly beautiful fairies passed by here in recent years?"
The waiter replied without thinking, "You know, two years ago—oh no, it was three years ago, a fairy who was as beautiful as if she had walked out of a painting passed by here. Everyone stopped eating and ran out to look. But the fairy didn't even spare us a glance, she just walked straight past, barefoot.
Some people even wanted to follow her, but they were stopped by Fairy Yuan."
"Fairy Yuan is..."
"That would be Fairy Yuan Ling, who is in charge here."
"So Fairy Yuan Ling also saw that painting-like beauty. What was her reaction? Did she show an infatuated expression? Did she go up and abduct the person?"
The waiter was taken aback and hurriedly said in a low voice, "Customer, please don't speak carelessly. How could Fairy Yuan Ling lose her composure like that? Her expression was normal, she just faintly praised, 'how beautiful.'"
Holy Maiden Jing Xin's brows furrowed slightly. Junior Sister Yuan Ling is from the Gu Clan, so she naturally wouldn't be a descendant of the Red Dust Ancestor. Why was she also unaffected?
How strange, how strange. Jiang Li acted as if he hadn't noticed any problem and chatted idly with the waiter, asking questions like how the harvest was this year, where Yuan Ling was now, how many spirit stones the Red Dust Pure Land was buying spirit grain for, and if they were shortchanging them.
The waiter thought the two were sent by the Red Dust Pure Land to investigate and answered each question truthfully. Finally, Jiang Li asked with a grin, "Do you know that you are already dead?" The waiter said blankly, "Customer, what are you talking about?"
"Haha, just kidding, just kidding."
Jiang Li laughed it off, letting the bewildered waiter go back to his work.
"Was it Yuan Ling's doing?"
"Don't jump to conclusions so quickly. You heard it too, Yuan Ling wasn't affected by the Red Dust Fairy. This matter isn't as simple as you think."
"Yuan Ling should only be at the Golden Core Stage. And judging from the level of cultivation of the Gu worms, these people wouldn't be like living people, not even knowing they are already dead. This is not something a Golden Core Stage cultivator could pull off."
"Besides, it's not necessarily only members of the Gu Clan who can use Gu."
Having roamed the martial world for many years, Jiang Li had seen all sorts of strange things. He naturally thought more deeply than Jing Xin, a Holy Maiden who had only symbolically toured the world for a few years before returning to her sect.
Unfortunately, the Gu Clan had declined and chosen to live in seclusion, so Jiang Li didn't know much about their affairs either.
"Yuan Ling is not here, I don't know where she went."
"Let's go, to Lower River Town. I sense a female Golden Core cultivator in Lower River Town, she should be one of your people."
Jiang Li scanned both Upper and Lower River Towns with his divine sense again but did not find the aura of a Golden Core Stage cultivator in Upper River Town. ... Du Xin'er sat cross-legged in a cheap spirit gathering formation, cultivating diligently. However, for some reason in recent years, her spiritual power hadn't increased at all.
She felt as if her body was a leaky bucket; however much spiritual qi went in, that much went out.
"Perhaps I'm really not suited for cultivation. Coming here is quite suitable for me."
Du Xin'er laughed self-deprecatingly. She felt that her choice to come to Lower River Town was the right one.
"A person like me would just be a burden in the sect, it's better to come out here."
"Who said you were a burden?"
A crisp voice sounded in Du Xin'er's ear. Only then did she realize that Holy Maiden Jing Xin was standing in front of her, with a rather handsome man standing beside her. But for some reason, tears seemed to be welling up in the Holy Maiden's eyes.
How could Holy Maiden Jing Xin not feel sad? She didn't have a deep impression of Yuan Ling, but she remembered Du Xin'er vividly. The Golden Core Stage junior sisters felt that she was a lofty Holy Maiden and dared not approach her.
Among them, only Du Xin'er dared to frequently seek her out to ask about the path of cultivation. And after not seeing each other for a few years, they were now separated by life and death. In the eyes of Holy Maiden Jing Xin, Du Xin'er was also a moving corpse!
"It is I, your senior sister, who has wronged you. It is my dereliction of duty..."
Holy Maiden Jing Xin knelt on the ground, hugged Du Xin'er, and sobbed. Du Xin'er, unaware of the situation, could only maintain her cross-legged posture and gently pat Holy Maiden Jing Xin's back.
(End of this chapter)