After walking a few li from the village, one could see an official road paved with crushed stone.
More than a dozen people traveled along the road, mostly merchants, with a few scholars heading off to study. Overall, everything looked perfectly ordinary.
It was hard to imagine that just a hundred years ago, Jingzhou had still been shrouded beneath the shadow of True Immortals.
The current Jingzhou appeared completely normal on the surface, but the reason it had developed into what it was today undoubtedly traced back to the influence of the Immortal Positions.
With every step Ren Qing took, he crossed a distance of a hundred meters. Thanks to Heavenly Demon Tribulation erasing his presence, the passersby around him found it difficult to notice him.
He carefully observed the common people while using Zhili Technique to obtain their memories.
The memories were incredibly chaotic, yet not the slightest flaw could be found. It was as if these people had truly lived in this world, experiencing all its joys and sorrows.
An old beggar passed by Ren Qing.
His flesh had withered away, his skin was covered in festering sores, and every step he took was unsteady.
"I can't die here... cough cough cough..."
Although the old beggar possessed the same lifespan as the people of Jingzhou, with just over a hundred days remaining, his body had long been ravaged by illness. It was obvious that he was already at death's door.
Before dying, his only wish was to return to his hometown in the north, have a coffin made for himself, and be buried beneath the banyan tree in his courtyard.
"Cough cough cough..."
The old beggar coughed up dark red blood. He barely regained a trace of vitality, but it was clearly nothing more than a final burst of strength before death.
"Are you alright, Elder?"
A scholar kindly stepped forward to support the old beggar.
The beggar kept his head lowered, but his breathing gradually steadied. When he finally raised his head again, a glimmer of light had appeared in his cloudy eyes.
"Thank you... thank you..."
The old beggar continued walking. His stride was now vigorous, with not a trace of weakness remaining, though he continued muttering about the banyan tree back in his hometown.
The scholar scratched his head, puzzled, but chose not to think too deeply about it.
What he did not know was that, just before the old beggar died, his soul had already been possessed by one of Ren Qing's bacterial souls. Although his memories remained unchanged, Ren Qing's will had been implanted into his subconscious.
Ren Qing glanced at the old beggar out of the corner of his eye.
To him, it was merely an idle move.
Along the official road, he had already used Heavenly Demon Tribulation multiple times, possessing a total of thirteen people to gather clues regarding the Immortal Positions.
The Dreamflowers that had previously attached themselves to the insect-people had returned to Ren Qing's Mud Pellet Palace with their memories after the insect-people were completely absorbed and consumed by the Mother Egg.
The information they provided was of little significance.
The people Ren Qing chose to possess were either those on the verge of death or bandits living outside the law.
Rather than true possession, it was more accurate to say that the bacterial souls merely supported the original owner's soul. Living until their lifespan ran out posed no real problem.
The reason Ren Qing carefully selected his targets was to ensure they continued following their original paths in life. Those without family or close relationships were naturally the most suitable.
Jingzhou's situation was far too bizarre. It involved several True Immortals. Even though Ren Qing possessed numerous life-saving methods, that did not mean he could act recklessly.
Millions of people had appeared out of nowhere, each with independent consciousness, and their memories showed no signs of fabrication. Such a thing simply could not be accomplished by ordinary means.
Unless a Buddha with the Bodhisattva Fruit Position had personally acted, directly creating living beings from souls.
But Ren Qing's hypothesis was almost impossible.
The intelligence of those with the Bodhisattva Fruit Position was extremely rigid. It was unrealistic for Buddhism to cooperate with the True Immortals.
He narrowed his eyes, growing increasingly curious about the identity of the one behind everything.
Ren Qing's presence was an unexpected variable within Jingzhou, but that did not mean his goals necessarily conflicted with those of the mastermind.
He merely wished to leave behind contingencies involving the Immortal Positions.
Under normal circumstances, he would never have had the chance to approach the half-Turbid Immortal Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, much less the Taiyin Star Lord who stood high above the clouds.
Jingzhou's sudden transformation was undoubtedly an opportunity.
If he encountered danger, Ren Qing could also withdraw at any time.
The Heavenly Demon Possession of Heavenly Demon Tribulation, dream traversal through Zhili Technique, and Death Gives No Birth of Corpse Fengdu were all exceptionally valuable methods for preserving his life.
"Move aside! Move aside! Xiangwu Escort Agency is conducting business! Everyone else, clear the way!!!"
The sudden shout interrupted Ren Qing's thoughts.
A convoy of escorts was hurrying toward Xiangxiang Town. The nearby pedestrians hurriedly stepped aside, allowing the horse-drawn carriages to race past without slowing.
Amid the merchants' dissatisfied muttering, Ren Qing's figure disappeared along with the convoy.
He appeared inside one of the cargo wagons, his gaze locking onto the head escort.
The man's right arm had undergone an indescribable mutation.
The escort looked only middle-aged, yet both his hair and beard had already turned completely white. The flesh on his right arm had sunken inward, and the bones beneath seemed to wriggle faintly.
Ren Qing summoned the Information Flow.
The escort's name was Zhang Qi. His arm had become this way because of a parasitic Gu worm.
[Iron Centipede Gu]
[The arm parasitized by the Iron Centipede Gu becomes as hard as iron, while increasing the host's lifespan consumption. It must be nourished by applying poisonous insect fluids to the arm daily.]
[By nourishing the Iron Centipede Gu through ingesting deadly poisons, it can advance into the Iron Arm Gu.]
Ren Qing noticed that the refinement method used for Zhang Qi's Iron Centipede Gu was extraordinarily crude.
It somewhat resembled the insect-people of the Insect Nest, making its drawbacks extremely severe.
He could practically imagine the refining process.
Most likely, they simply cut open the arm and forcibly implanted the Gu worm until a parasitic relationship was established.
Not to mention Restraint Officer techniques, even the Body Martial Arts of the Longevity Forbidden Zone were hundreds of times more profound.
According to the information Ren Qing had gathered, cultivators like these were known as Gu Martial Artists. They seemed to have emerged only recently, though the exact reason remained unknown.
He sent a Dreamflower into Zhang Qi's Mud Pellet Palace, intending to obtain his memories.
Instead, he discovered that Zhang Qi's soul was anything but ordinary.
Its strength was equivalent to that of a Ghost Envoy realm cultivator, and it was even not far from the Yin Difference realm.
Why would an ordinary escort possess such a powerful soul?
The methods Gu Martial Artists used to control Gu worms brought nothing but disadvantages aside from the physical enhancements provided by the worms themselves.
If anything, their souls should have become weaker.
The Gu worms constantly drained nutrients from the host's body until the host eventually died.
There was no sign whatsoever that they could nourish the soul.
Just as Ren Qing was about to use Zhili Technique, he discovered that Zhang Qi's soul was faintly connected to something.
He immediately realized it was probably linked to an Immortal Position.
As a result, another crack appeared across the surface of the tortoise shell.
Only after he canceled Zhili Technique did the crack disappear.
Strange...
Jingzhou was simply too strange...
Ren Qing refrained from alerting anyone.
He had more than enough patience to uncover Jingzhou's secrets.
The escorts discussed the profits from this trip among themselves.
Only Zhang Qi remained silent, his tightly furrowed brows revealing deep concern.
Even when others questioned him, Zhang Qi refused to answer.
He merely looked up at the sky and shook his head.
With the escorts urging their horses onward, the convoy reached the territory of Xiangxiang after only half a day.
The official road became even livelier, yet Gu Martial Artists remained rare.
Ren Qing found the surroundings increasingly familiar.
The distribution of the towns was exactly the same as before Xiangxiang's destruction.
To the north lay Heshan Town.
To the south was Annan Town.
At the center stood the most prosperous city, Sanxiang City.
He experienced a strange sense of temporal dislocation, as though he had returned to a century ago.
Before long, the several-meter-high walls of Sanxiang City came into view.
Even the soldiers stationed outside the gates were dressed almost exactly as Ren Qing remembered.
The convoy entered Sanxiang City without encountering any obstacles.
Ren Qing jumped down from the wagon and stood amid the bustling streets, surveying his surroundings.
The familiar local dialect reached his ears, yet his expression became increasingly grave.
Sanxiang City's layout was almost identical to the real Sanxiang City.
The marketplace, the government office, and even the streets were nearly perfect matches.
Only the shops and residences differed noticeably.
Perhaps the mastermind had once visited Sanxiang City.
But from many small details, it was clear that this town had not been deliberately constructed as an imitation.
Ren Qing could not help closing his eyes, directing his consciousness toward the Stomach World.
Ever since the Restraint Officers' Hall had withdrawn from the Longevity Forbidden Zone, the towns of Xiangxiang had all been moved into the Stomach World, preserving almost all of their original appearance.
Ren Qing inspected the Sanxiang City there, observing the traces left behind hundreds of years ago.
His consciousness then returned to his body as he slowly walked toward the city gate.
He crouched down, his expression strange as he touched a series of indentations.
The marks left by time on both cities were identical.
It was as though the city he currently stood in had come from a piece of history that had long since been forgotten.
Back then, Chen Changsheng had not yet climbed out of the dried-up well.
The various locations throughout Jingzhou likely all originated from ancient towns.
The span of time involved might exceed a thousand years.
No one knew what had happened.
Using some unknown method, the mastermind appeared to have recreated the ancient past from thousands of years ago.
Once the people's lifespans ran out, something bizarre might very well occur, revealing the source of this world's chaos.
Ren Qing understood the mastermind's intentions even less.
Even if it were all for the sake of attaining immortality, the result seemed to be nothing more than temporarily resurrecting the people of antiquity.
As he pondered this, he wandered through the streets, noticing an unusually large number of martial arts schools and escort agencies, along with quite a few Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries.
What struck Ren Qing as odd was that all of these organizations kept an extremely low profile.
None of them interacted with the outside world, as though they feared something.
Martial arts schools and escort agencies were understandable. Opening for business meant earning enough to last several years.
But why would even Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries keep their gates shut?
After making a full circuit of Sanxiang City, Ren Qing discovered that Zhang Qi's situation was far from unique.
Every major faction contained individuals whose souls were far stronger than their physical cultivation.
Experts at the Yin Difference realm were by no means rare.
Even within the government office, two individuals had already reached the Yang God realm.
In contrast to the strength of their souls, their use of Gu worms was astonishingly crude.
The diseased tree within Ren Qing's Mud Pellet Palace communicated with the bacterial souls scattered throughout Jingzhou, revealing that the other towns were no different.
Not only did every town contain groups of Gu Martial Artists whose souls were above the Ghost Envoy realm, but the organizations they belonged to were all extraordinarily cautious, shrouding Jingzhou's situation in a dense fog.
It was obvious that the Gu worm cultivation system had appeared very abruptly.
Gu worms similar to the Stag Beetle Gu were extremely common.
There was no way Gu Martial Artists should have been so scarce.
Instead, this further proved that the memories of Jingzhou's millions of inhabitants all originated from antiquity.
After all, in that era, spell techniques had been the mainstream.
Ren Qing raised an eyebrow.
He had finally realized how he had obstructed the mastermind.
If the third Immortal Position connected to Jingzhou's Forbidden Zone had truly been Wind God Bo Qiang, then the dominant cultivation system would certainly not have been these incomplete Gu Martial Artists.
Instead, it would have been Body Martial Arts using bacteria as the medium.
After all, Wind God Bo Qiang's Immortal Position also contained the core concepts of plague and disease.
Seen this way, the Longevity Forbidden Zone had probably been the mastermind's arrangement all along.
By gathering a vast population inside the Forbidden Zone, they intended to naturally develop the Body Martial Arts system.
Another patriarch of the Restraint Officers' Hall?
Yet just as everything was about to bear fruit, Ren Qing had directly taken away Wind God Bo Qiang's Immortal Position.
How could the mastermind possibly spend another several hundred years allowing a Gu worm-based cultivation system to develop naturally...
Wait.
Could guiding the Insect Nest into Jingzhou have been an attempt to steal their cultivation methods?
Instead, the Insect Nest sensed that something was wrong and promptly cut their losses.
Most of the Insect Nest members within Jingzhou were insect-people.
Ren Qing had also witnessed their methods of controlling insect bodies.
The crudeness of their techniques was practically inherited from the same lineage.
The sharp increase in the number of insect-people he had sensed outside was probably made up almost entirely of Gu Martial Artists.
As for the Heavenly Dao insect-person cultivators, they were most likely hiding somewhere, waiting in secret.