Observing Zhang Yong this time, one could say his temperament had undergone a monumental shift.

Such a transformation is to be expected after a sudden calamity, yet… something felt amiss.

It was akin to the first time I saw him outside the Tianfu Secret Realm. While he feigned a timid and reserved demeanor, perfectly befitting a descendant of a fallen noble house, there was always a subtle sense of unease.

This “unease” wasn’t born of any personal dislike or ill impression of Zhang Yong. In fact, my initial impression of him was quite favorable. It was merely a subconscious feeling that something wasn’t quite right, not entirely natural. His state at that time seemed somewhat discordant.

And now, this gaunt Zhang Yong, steeped in sorrow, silent as the grave, wary, and wounded – in a strange twist, I felt this was the true him.

There was no logical basis for this, only the most direct of feelings.

Regardless, having assessed that recruiting Zhang Yong was not possible for the time being, I saw no reason to linger and waste further time.

Yang Country lies northwest of Qi Country. The carriage driver was skilled, and the horse pulling it, a fine steed. With the Chongxuan Family’s prestige paving the way, the carriage journeyed forth unimpeded and with steady pace.

And I, seated within the carriage, cultivated with closed eyes.

***

Within the domain of Fenglin City.

Nearly all vitality had been extinguished, save for a single, flickering ember of life burning within the emaciated form of one man.

Who knew how much time had passed? In the realm of Fenglin City, time itself seemed to have lost its meaning. The only testament to its passage was perhaps the almost endless expanse of graves stretching out behind this solitary figure.

He, alone, had buried everyone.

He remembered this place as the Wang Family’s ancestral land.

*Heh*, was there any place in Fenglin City he didn’t know?

How many years had he lived here?

Memory truly is a torment.

Ling He trudged through the ruins.

The erosion of Netherworld aura should have claimed his life long ago, yet for some unknown reason, a single breath remained.

Not a breath of respiration, but a wisp of distinct black and yellow aura, suspended within his Tongtian Palace.

Ling He did not understand that this was the aura of merit, garnered from the superceding of the deceased using the “Taishang Jiuku Jing.” The upper black, and lower yellow – the colors of heaven and earth.

He only knew he was still alive.

And since he was still alive, he must continue to do something, to finish something.

He was a man of persistence and perseverance.

It was precisely this persistence, this perseverance, that had kept his cultivation from lagging too far behind.

Ling He could not count the number of corpses he had buried, nor the mounds of graves he had erected. He simply walked forward, and upon seeing a corpse, laid it to rest in the earth, reciting scriptures to supercede its soul.

Thus, he continued, again and again.

He walked to the most remote corner of the Wang Family’s grounds, a place likely inhabited by their most neglected clansmen. But Ling He paid no mind to such distinctions. He never cared about wealth or poverty, nobility or lowliness, beauty or ugliness. He was, in Zhao Rucheng’s words, a “rotten good person.”

Strangely, it seemed the most dead resided here.

They hadn’t perished from the earthly cataclysm, but from some powerful force, killed in an instant, without any chance of resistance.

Ling He pursed his dry lips.

He began to dig a pit.

Burying as he went, building graves all the while.

Ahead lay a small courtyard. Unexpectedly, in that widespread earthly disaster, where nearly all houses had collapsed, this small courtyard remained remarkably intact.

Yet, it too was silent.

Ling He pushed the door open and entered. The first sight was the already rotten and foul-smelling corpse of an orange cat. The stench of this corpse was nothing compared to what he had grown accustomed to these past days. What unsettled him was the state of the orange cat’s death – it appeared to have been dismembered by someone. This cruelty made him frown.

He considered it for a moment, then casually dug a small pit, buried it, and recited scriptures for it.

Ling He continued onward, entering a bedroom, where he discovered the body of Wang Changxiang. Due to his cultivation, the corpse had not yet decayed. On Wang Changxiang’s face, he saw an expression he had not witnessed on anyone’s face throughout his journey. That expression wasn’t one of great pain; instead, it held a trace of… relief?

Ling He didn’t dwell on it. He went forward, carried Wang Changxiang’s corpse out of the room, dug a pit in the courtyard, and buried him beside the orange cat.

When he finished, he turned back and looked around. Beneath a lounge chair in the courtyard, he discovered a book of scriptures dropped on the ground. It appeared to have been flipped open halfway and then hastily discarded. The book’s owner likely didn’t have time to retrieve it.

Ling He looked at Wang Changxiang’s grave, thinking that the owner of this courtyard shouldn’t be Wang Changxiang, but someone with a close connection to him.

Ling He walked forward and picked up the scriptures, examining the cover. The book cover appeared to have been made by the scriptures’ owner, very meticulously and properly. On the cover, in upright and calm handwriting, were the words—”Du Ren Jing.”

Ling He couldn’t help but sit on the lounge chair and begin to flip through the scriptures. He was too tired, but physical exhaustion was not the true hardship. The real torment was the pain in his heart. Burying each corpse with his own hands seemed to confirm to him that those experiences were not a nightmare. They were real, and could never be undone.

Perhaps within the scriptures lay a method to resolve this heart’s lack of solace.

The “Du Ren Jing” itself, while devoid of divine powers or techniques, is a core classic of the Penglai Island lineage as a scripture and Daoist canon. Its full name should be “Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Wuliang Duren Shangpin Miaojing.”

This scripture is hailed as the foremost among scriptures, the progenitor of myriad laws, the source of all Dharma realms. Reciting this scripture, it is said, can dispel heavenly disasters above, protect emperors and kings, ward off poisons and harms below, and supercede countless souls. Men and women alike receive protection and salvation, and all attain longevity.

This is a scripture for transmitting the Dao, not a fundamental cultivation scripture, and thus is not absolutely secret. Its original form is naturally boundless in divine power, but copies possess no such miracles. Its true value lies in the scripture’s exposition of the mysteries of heaven and earth. Those with roots of wisdom may perhaps glean one or two insights from it.

Since ancient times, there have been no lack of white-haired Daoists, great scholars, and Zen masters who pored over scriptures without cultivating divine powers or techniques. And among these profound learners, who have exhausted the secrets of the classics, there are not a few who achieved sudden enlightenment and attained great divine powers through great wisdom, stepping onto the peak of the extraordinary in a single leap, leaving behind beautiful legends.

According to legend, those who can fully comprehend the “Du Ren Jing” are said to “value life in the immortal Dao, supercede boundless people, open the eight gates above, and fly to the heavens. Sins, blessings, prohibitions, and commandments, past life causes and conditions. All are universally received and superceded, and the dead souls are born into new bodies. Having obtained a body, one can listen to all the heavens above.”

Of course, these are merely legends, and no one has truly witnessed such things. In contrast, the fundamental cultivation Dao canon of the Penglai Island lineage, the “Gao Sheng Taishang Yuchen Jing,” is indeed truly boundless in its divine power. It stands alongside the “Zixu Gaomiao Taishang Jing” of the Yujing Mountain lineage and the “Hunyuan Jiangsheng Jing” and “Kaihuang Mojie Jing” of Daluo Mountain, as the strongest cultivation methods in the world.

The special quality of the scriptures Ling He obtained lay in the annotations made by their original owner. In his view, this person should have been an old Daoist with white hair, who had spent his life immersed in scriptures, and for some unknown reason, resided idly within the Wang Family’s ancestral land. This person had a profound understanding of the Daoist canon, and their writing style was plain and distant, deeply imbued with the charm of the Dao gate. There were some concepts Ling He did not fully agree with, but he had to admit that the opponent had certain reasons.

However, the further he flipped, the more he could sense a faintly oppressive feeling.

“Perhaps, having read the scriptures to a certain extent, they had already foreseen today’s tragedy?” Ling He’s thoughts turned over faintly in his mind.

He picked up a dried leaf as a bookmark, took the Daoist scripture, and left the small courtyard, to continue the task of superceding the deceased.

He decided to read two pages of the scriptures every day, expounding on his own understanding and verifying it against the annotations above. This would be a rare point of interest in these difficult days.

If, he could still live on.