The Lady of the Pure Heart spread out her Divine Sense, enveloping the two towns.
Not only Upper River Town was a City of the dead, but also Lower River Town!
The so-called life here was nothing more than a group of corpses moving about!
No wonder the Red Dust Ancestor, who even unsettled the heart of celestial gods, stirred no ripples when she came here. How could the dead possibly have any feelings for a beautiful woman!
She was horrified and had never seen such a sight.
There were eight small towns near the Red Dust Pure Land, and the Lady of the Pure Heart was worried whether the conditions in the other six towns were the same as here.
The other six towns were far away from here, and couldn't be covered by her Divine Sense.
Luckily, Jiang Li soon provided an answer.
"Everything is normal in the other six towns," Jiang Li pondered, adding, "They are all alive."
The Lady of the Pure Heart thought to herself it would be better if you didn't explain.
The Lady of the Pure Heart's Divine Sense could cover two small towns because it was limited to two small towns.
Jiang Li's Divine Sense could cover eight small towns, because there were only eight small towns.
Even if the six towns were very normal, the Lady of the Pure Heart was not happy.
"How long have you not been here? If only someone at the Divinity Transformation Stage had come, it wouldn't have ended up like this."
Such methods of controlling corpses to maintain their actions from their lifetime was extremely high level, only a person at the Divinity Transformation Stage could detect any clues.
The Lady of the Pure Heart explained dejectedly: "The Divinity Transformation Stage practitioners have started their Fasting. In the eyes of the elders, the spiritual valleys are just small matters. They don't worry about any problems with the spiritual valleys, thus only those hopeless disciples at the Golden Core Stage are stationed here. It is manageable for one person at the Nascent Soul Stage to manage the eight towns, there shouldn't be any problems."
"But now a big problem has arisen!" Jiang Li said seriously.
The two arrived at a small pub below, and the waiter received them warmly.
"Yo, the two guests seem to be fresh faces, from outside, right? That's rare. Is the lady here from the Red Dust Pure Land?"
Seeing the breathtaking beauty of the Lady of the Pure Heart, the waiter asked uncertainly. The Lady of the Pure Heart did not say a word, just nodded.
"Young man, I want to ask you something."
Jiang Li took out a low-grade Spirit Stone and placed it on the table.
"Sir, this is not acceptable, you two are dignitaries from the Red Dust Pure Land, we cannot accept your money." The waiter was startled and hastily refused.
After some evasion, the waiter eventually accepted the Spirit Stone.
Here, transactions are done in copper coins, a low-grade Spirit Stone is an extremely rare commodity.
The Lady of the Pure Heart raised an eyebrow slightly. The waiter's movements were smooth and natural, not stiff in the slightest. Going by the naked eye alone, there was no difference from a living person.
She carefully observed the waiter with her Divine Sense and discovered two worms in his Dantian and Sea of Consciousness. One male and one female, one controlling action, and the other controlling thought. There was a very high level of corpse control technique.
This was a corpse control technique unique to the Gu clan!
And as far as she knew, the disciple stationed here was a member of the Gu clan!
She hid her discovery in her heart and quietly watched Jiang Li converse with the waiter.
"Have any particularly beautiful celestial maidens passed by here in recent years?"
Without hesitation, the waiter said, "The fact is, two years, no three years ago, a celestial maiden as beautiful as someone stepped out of a painting came through here. Everyone forgot to eat and ran out to look. But, the celestial maiden didn't even glance at us, she just walked on barefoot. Some people even wanted to follow her, but were stopped by Celestial Yuan."
"Celestial Yuan is...?"
"She is the Celestial Yuan Ling who is stationed here."
"So, Celestial Yuan Ling also saw the lady as beautiful as a painting. What was her reaction? Did she show any obsessed expression, did she kidnap the lady?"
The waiter was frightened, and quickly whispered, "How can you say that, sir? How could Celestial Yuan Ling lose her composure like that? She just casually expressed that the lady was pretty."
The Lady of the Pure Heart's brows slightly furrowed. Since Sister Yuan Ling was of Gu clan, she naturally wouldn't be affected by the Red Dust Ancestor. But why was she unaffected? Strange...
Jiang Li, as if he hadn't noticed the problem, just casually chatted with the waiter about how the harvest was this year, where Yuan Ling was now, how many spirit stones the Red Dust Pure Land was using to purchase spirit valleys, and whether there were any deductions.
The waiter thought these two were investigators sent from the Red Dust Pure Land, so he answered all questions truthfully.
Lastly, Jiang Li asked with a smile, "Do you know that you are already dead?"
The waiter was puzzled, "Sir, what are you talking about?"
"Ha ha, just a joke, just a joke." Jiang Li laughed, letting the confused waiter go on with his work.
"Did Yuan Ling do it?"
"Don't jump to conclusions so quickly. You heard it too, Yuan Ling is not affected by the Red Dust Fairy. This matter isn't as simple as you think it is."
"Yuan Ling should only be at the Golden Core Stage, and judging from the state of development of the worms, these people are completely like living persons, even unaware of their own deaths. This isn't something a Golden Core Stage practitioner could do."
"Moreover, it's not only the Gu clan who uses worms."
Jiang Li, who had been wandering around for many years and seen many strange and bizarre things, naturally thought of more possibilities than the Lady of the Pure Heart, who had only symbolically descended the mountain and roamed a few years before returning to her sect.
Unfortunately, the Gu Clan was on the decline and chose to hide from the world, so Jiang Li didn't know much about the Gu.
"Yuan Ling is not here, I don't know where she's gone."
"Let's go to Lower River Town. I sensed a female Golden Core practitioner in Lower River Town. She should be one of yours." Jiang Li scanned Upper and Lower River Town with his Divine Sense once again, but did not find a Golden Core Stage energy signal in Upper River Town.
...
Du Xin'er was sitting in a cheap Spirit Gathering Array, working hard at her practice. She just couldn't understand why her Spiritual Power had been stagnant for the past few years. She felt like her body was a leaky bucket, with the same amount of Spiritual Energy entering and exiting.
"Maybe I'm not suited to cultivation. Being here is probably fitting for me." Du Xin'er laughed mockingly at herself. She believed her decision to come to Lower River Town was a right choice. "People like me are just a burden in the sect. It's better to come out."
"Who said you were a burden?" A clear voice resounded in Du Xin'er's ear and only then did she realize that the Lady of the Pure Heart was standing in front of her. Beside her stood a handsome man.
For some reason, there seemed to be unshed tears in the saint's eyes.
How could the Lady of the Pure Heart not feel heartbroken? She didn't have much of an impression of Yuan Ling, but as for Du Xin'er, she had a deep memory.
Golden Core Stage disciples thought of her as a high and unapproachable saint, afraid to approach her. Among the Golden Core Stage disciples, only Du Xin'er dared to frequently ask her about cultivation knowledge.
And after not seeing her for several years, they were now living in different worlds.
In the eyes of the Lady of the Pure Heart, Du Xin'er was likewise a moving corpse!
"I failed you, I failed in my duty...." The Lady of the Pure Heart fell to her knees, hugging Du Xin'er and sobbing.
Du Xin'er wasn't aware of the situation, so she just stayed seated, gently patting the Lady of the Pure Heart's back.