Human lives are worth no more than blades of grass.

Standing before natural calamity and man-made disaster, Lang Jiuchuan felt the full weight of those words. She gently closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she had recovered her cold composure. She summoned Deputy General Huang — left behind by Eunuch Wang and General Ma — and even kept Daoist Zhishang from departing, saying: “In the critical illness ward, any of the living dead who stop breathing must have their heads severed and their bodies immediately burned. Daoist Zhishang, your cultivation is strong — I’ll trouble you to keep a close watch over things.”

Eunuch Wang and the others instinctively glanced at the corpse of Dazhu — the one she had blasted a hole through — then at his noticeably more savage fangs. Their hair stood on end. Turning their backs to those living dead, they whispered: “Fairy Qingyi, since they’re going to die regardless, why wait for them to reanimate as corpse demons? Why not give them a quick end now? If they go berserk, we won’t be able to hold them off!”

Lang Jiuchuan understood this reasoning perfectly, yet those pairs of eyes desperately seeking life continued to drift before her. “Even if there is only the slimmest hope, I want to fight for every last chance of survival for them. What does Daoist Zhishang think?”

Daoist Zhishang sighed. “Before the final breath is drawn, they are still human beings. Fellow Daoist Lang’s refusal to give up places people first — and fights for their chance at life. In that case, we are willing to stand alongside you.”

Lang Jiuchuan gave him a bow of respect, then made another round of inspections. Those whose internal organs were already damaged were gathered in one place. With an expressionless face, she repeated to them the same words she had said to Eunuch Wang and the others.

Everyone grew even more fearful — after all, they had all witnessed Dazhu’s transformation with their own eyes.

“Immortal, are we beyond saving?” A woman clutched her child, her eyes hollow with despair. “My child — can you save him? He is only five years old.”

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the small boy whose complexion had turned a sickly blue-grey. “If it were possible, I would want to save every one of you. But if fate wills otherwise, I can only offer my apologies. I will do everything within my power to develop a true antidote.”

“Thank you, thank you, Immortal.” The woman kowtowed to her.

“If not for you, every last soul in Guanjiang Village would have already perished in the flames. It is the Immortal who has fought for us — for this last little hope of living. If we end up like Dazhu in the end, then that is simply our fate.” An elder who had lived more than sixty years spoke up. “In the face of natural calamity and man-made disaster, there has never been a time when no one died. Whatever happens, we accept it.”

He bowed to Lang Jiuchuan, then began to cough violently, retching up black blood — and within it, the unmistakable shapes of insect eggs.

“Village Chief!” someone cried out in alarm.

He was the village chief of Guanjiang Village. Seeing what was in the blood, he turned to the villagers behind him. “I will not become a corpse demon and bring harm to you all. Wait here for the Immortal’s antidote. I’ll go on ahead.”

With those words said, a sharp sliver of pig bone — a crude knife — appeared in his hand from seemingly nowhere. Without hesitation, he plunged it straight into his own throat. Blood sprayed forth.

Weeping and screams erupted as one.

Lang Jiuchuan’s fist clenched tight. She watched him as he convulsed, until the very last breath left his body — those old eyes fixed on her the entire time, filled with gratitude.

Feeling the power of his devoted faith and goodwill flow into her spirit platform, Lang Jiuchuan’s chest rose and fell. She hurled a talisman-fire directly onto the village chief’s body, sparing him the suffering of decapitation.

She silently recited a passage of scripture for the passage of souls, then turned and walked away.

Jiangche did not even dare to breathe too loudly. It could feel an anger from Lang Jiuchuan unlike anything it had ever sensed before — restrained, tinged with helplessness — her aura low, cold, and fierce. If this corpse miasma had arisen naturally by some twist of fate, so be it. But if it had been deliberately cultivated by human hands, whoever stood behind it… she would tear them to shreds.

After instructing Daoist Zhishang to oversee the situation, Lang Jiuchuan entered the deep mountains behind Guanjiang Village. She found a boulder, sat cross-legged upon it, formed hand seals and finger-locks, drew the vital energy of the surrounding flora through her body, and let her spirit enter the Small Nine Pagoda. At the very top of the pagoda, she immersed herself in contemplating the laws left behind by the Monk Luole. Gradually, her turbulent emotions settled.

The greatest obstacle for any person is to become attached to appearances. If she allowed herself to be bound by illusion and rage, she would fall into obsession, and that would hinder the cultivation of her Dao heart.

Having meditated on the Dao within the Small Nine Pagoda, Lang Jiuchuan quickly emerged from within it. She had no time for prolonged seclusion — she needed to get back to developing the antidote.

Yet just as she rose and prepared to leave, her steps halted. She looked toward the other side of the mountain peak, and without a second thought, unleashed her divine movement technique, shooting across toward the far side.

Her figure moved like lightning, darting swiftly through the forest — sending snow cascading off the branches in great rustling showers with every pass.

Less than half an hour later, Lang Jiuchuan stood at the mountain summit, gazing downward. Before her stretched a dense, viscous black fog — as though a single step into it would send one plummeting into a place of eternal damnation. With a mere thought, she channeled her Dao resonance into the bell-body of the Dizhong, and righteous energy surged like waves, cleaving a massive rift through the shadowy, malevolent black fog and revealing the truth hidden beneath.

Jiangche cried out in shock: “The yin malice energy is overwhelmingly heavy — could this be a pit of ten thousand corpses? How can there be so many white bones?”

Compared to that sacrificial altar of century-old corpse demons, this bone pit surpassed it in every measure. White bones were piled layer upon layer within it. Across the floor of the pit spread vast pools of murky green-black liquid, and within those waters floated what appeared to be swollen, bloated clumps of flesh. The stench was utterly nauseating.

And yet the smell would not carry beyond this place — had there not been a ripple of yin energy here moments ago, Lang Jiuchuan would never have noticed this area at all.

She surveyed the scene and said in a low voice: “There is a formation array here.”

She extended her divine consciousness outward, fingers calculating the cardinal directions. She watched as the vital energy of the surrounding flora was drawn into the bone pit from all sides, then transformed into purely concentrated yin energy that blanketed the area — condensing without dispersing. “Someone has cultivated this place into a ground of supreme yin and absolute malevolence, breeding malicious spirits. This is almost certainly the lair of that corpse phantom.”

Jiangche’s heart sank.

Which meant — this corpse plague and this disaster were truly the work of human hands.

What kind of wretch was this? Why hadn’t heaven struck them down with lightning? Was heaven blind?!

“Let’s go down and take a look.”

Lang Jiuchuan launched herself from the tip of her foot, wrapped herself in a shield of righteous energy, and leapt down from the cliff face. In an instant she descended to the bottom of the pit, hovering in midair. A nauseating stench of rot, a bone-piercing yin cold, and poisonous miasma rushed at her all at once — forcing her to seal off her five senses and deepen her righteous energy shield by another layer.

From the floor of the pit, the sight was far more overwhelming than looking down from the summit above. How long this place had existed — what it had once been — she could not say. Bone upon bone, densely packed, had been built into a mountain of white remains.

And the black liquid pooling at the bottom of the pit was unmistakably a mixture of corpse fluids and corpse oil, releasing a miasmic poison that was yin and venomous. The miasma converted into toxins — no ordinary person could withstand it.

The reason it went undetected was because this place was entirely cut off from human traffic. No one could find their way here under normal circumstances — and if by accident someone did wander close, the black fog would disorient them, causing them to lose their footing and tumble into the bone pit, joining the ranks of the dead.

As for other living creatures — they likely gave this place a wide berth. The sense of ill omen here was potent, and animals were far more attuned to such things than humans.

“Lang Jiu, get over here!” Jiangche suddenly called out.

Lang Jiuchuan swept over to where it stood, and found it beside a grave mound situated in the southwestern corner of the bone pit. It was surrounded by corpse fluid on all sides. A stone stele had been erected before it, upon which was carved: Tomb of Luo Zheng. Within lay an ebony-wood coffin of yin wood, its lid pried open. The interior was covered in cinnabar-red talisman script. Strangely, from within it emanated an unusual fragrance — not the smell of decay, but something like the scent of a corpse flower.

Lang Jiuchuan lifted the coffin lid. Its inner surface was likewise covered in intricate talisman script — characters she had never seen before. The same was true of the interior of the coffin itself.

“Lang Jiu, watch out!” Jiangche suddenly bellowed, fierce and thunderous, and lunged at something behind her.