The boundless land was covered with mountains, rocks, and forests, the lonely howls of mountain tigers echoing continuously. A man rode a black long-tailed white wolf, traversing the snow-laden mountains, occasionally taking out a gourd to sip fine wine.
An insect floated atop the long grass; its sensitive senses did not react until the white wolf was nearly upon it, at which point it flew away, entirely unaware of the man's presence.
Ren Qing patted Hachis' head, took a sip of wine to warm himself.
"This damn weather, it's almost as cold as the North or South Pole, isn't it?"
He walked countless li, not knowing how many li of cultivation he had traversed, and simply abandoned the Nether Yuan for protection, letting the cold eat into his body. If he were an ordinary person, in this place, in just a few breaths, he would have frozen to death.
The weather was unusually cold. Yet, as with fortune and misfortune being linked, the human-skin book's resistance to cold was gradually increasing. Perhaps in this world, because deaths occurred at the Heavenly Aberration realm, many places' climates had become extremely extreme in cold and heat.
Ren Qing chose to follow the outskirts of the marshland of Jingzhou for several months, proceeding with the utmost caution, even maintaining Disaster Elimination Method while resting.
He encountered no real danger; the desolate wilderness was mostly populated by beasts. Ren Qing even had the illusion that the world's strangeness was concentrated around Xiangxiang, and the territory he was currently treading was the ordinary world.
Beyond guarding his surroundings, he focused on the Eternal Space Prison, occasionally paying attention to the Longevity Restricted Zone.
After adding thousands of cultivators, the Eternal Space Prison greatly increased its workforce for construction. Under Ren Qing's guidance, they began rebuilding Wuwei City on Wine Lake Island, with various demon-kind tribes assisting.
Of course, this brought numerous troubles, particularly the Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators being a mixed lot; naturally, there were good and evil among them.
It was impossible to expect all Yin Difference realm cultivators to abandon cultivation and handle chores. Ren Qing simply used the Six-Illness Method's demonic aberrations to punish cultivators committing evil, simultaneously nourishing dream seeds and soul butterflies.
But what troubled him most was not managing the Eternal Space Prison, but the lack of resources, not cultivation resources. After all, the materials Restraint Officers' Hall obtained from Jingzhou were stored in the Eternal Space Prison, and the wardens could produce additional materials, enough to sustain centuries of expenditure.
Ren Qing never expected that he would be deeply troubled by food.
Due to discarding vast amounts of flesh and blood beasts to attract the attention of giant Rabbit-Toads, the ecosystem of the Eternal Space Prison suffered catastrophic damage; the number of beasts drastically declined.
These beasts had already bred for several generations in the Eternal Space Prison. To adapt to the environment, their physiques had diverged significantly. If Restraint Officers' Hall were allowed to hunt them, they would be extinct in a few years.
Ren Qing thought of supplementing with external beasts, but once entering the stomach-world, they would perish, unable to adapt.
He could only maintain Restraint Officers' Hall's consumption with stored food while preparing farming and labor to achieve self-sufficiency.
The situation in the Longevity Restricted Zone was even worse.
The thousands of cultivators in the Eternal Space Prison were gluttonous, consuming at most ten times the food of ordinary people, but Xiangxiang, the marsh, and Jingzhou had hundreds of thousands of people.
When Chen Changsheng pulled Xiangxiang into the Longevity Restricted Zone, he had clearly not considered this.
The daily consumption of hundreds of thousands of mortals was horrifying; relying only on the farmland outside Wei'an Town, even eating soil would not suffice.
The only fortunate thing was that Abhī Hell was also brought into the Longevity Restricted Zone. At that time, Restraint Officers' Hall had stocked it with plenty of food in preparation for evacuation, enough for the people of Xiangxiang to eat freely for twenty to thirty years. But it was only twenty to thirty years.
Given the Longevity Restricted Zone's situation, farmland outside the protection of the giant tree was impossible; otherwise, longevity species would all develop hysteria.
The urgent task for Ren Qing was to solve the food shortage and connect Abhī Hell through the dream market. Only the material flow between the two could increase the efficiency of lifespan extension.
Ren Qing had two solutions in mind: either advance the dream techniques to Yang God realm, or advance the stomach-world to Yang God realm.
If dream techniques reached Yang God realm, merely relying on the soul butterfly projections left on the Restraint Officers could allow them to use dream seeds to enter the dream market.
As for the stomach-world, due to the ghost market, the Eternal Space Prison and Abhī Hell had some connection; after reaching Yang God realm, linking them was not a problem.
But the Taotie Method and the Eyeless Method both lacked a secondary technique.
Ren Qing could only rely on the "Resurrection Technique" of the Longevity Restricted Zone; if obtained, it could be integrated into either the Taotie Method or the Eyeless Method.
The Resurrection Technique, created by the Longevity Dao Lord, required a month of fasting, two months of sleeplessness, three months of comprehending death, and four months to achieve resurrection. Only when the body decayed could the technique be completed.
Ren Qing currently had no clues about the Resurrection Technique. But he could not rush; first he needed to resolve the peaceful coexistence of Xiangxiang and Wei'an.
Currently, Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators wanting to practice Restraint Officer techniques could only go to Abhī Hell; they could not sense aberrant objects in the Longevity Restricted Zone at all.
The aberrant objects were clearly afraid of the Longevity Restricted Zone, fearing being swallowed.
Ren Qing tried to persuade martial academies to accept Xiangxiang, allowing Restraint Officers' Hall to cultivate physical martial arts; otherwise, their combat effectiveness would be affected.
If food were sufficient, Ren Qing even intended to teach low-requirement physical martial arts to hundreds of thousands of mortals in Xiangxiang.
For example, "Hundred Steps Pierce Yang."
Hundred Steps Pierce Yang, derived from the Six-Illness Method, could stimulate the growth of one's own disease species to a barely controllable degree.
The disease type of Hundred Steps Pierce Yang was "far-sightedness"; elderly mortals generally had a similar issue, which could also be artificially induced through Restraint Officer techniques.
Or "Blazing Heart Technique." Its disease was "fatty liver," which, once refined, allowed seeping of flammable oils from the pores.
Ren Qing shifted position on the husky's back, pinching his temples in frustration.
Who would have thought the bottleneck would be food, and cultivating physical martial arts required large amounts of meat?
He only hoped that upon reaching towns, he could purchase materials in bulk.
According to Chen Changsheng's memory, passing through Jingzhou led to a region called "Cishi," supposedly not dangerous but exuding inexplicable strangeness.
At that time, Chen Changsheng met Heavenly Daozi in Jingzhou, traveling together to Cishi, but were blocked by Heavenly Dao Insects and could not explore fully.
Because Jingzhou was occupied by the Supreme Heavenly Demon, traversing it to reach Cishi was too dangerous; Ren Qing chose a longer detour.
Restraint Officers' Hall had records of this; the marsh on both sides of the water was a bottomless abyss.
Chen Changsheng had entered the bottomless abyss, judging it "not to be entered deeply."
Ren Qing would only go three to four hundred li into the abyss, not its interior. With Disaster Elimination Method, it should be no problem.
As for taking unknown paths, he decided against it. Even though hundreds of years had passed since Chen Changsheng threw himself into the well, at least there was a reference; walking blindly would inevitably encounter danger.
As Ren Qing approached the bottomless abyss, the surroundings grew darker and damper.
He quickly focused, tossing the husky into the Eternal Space Prison to prevent it from screaming.
Upon reaching the bottomless abyss, he inhaled sharply.
Before him was a winding path, angled downward at forty-five degrees, flanked by hard Gobi rocks.
It was clear: the closer to the abyss's center, the wider the path, enveloped in darkness, blind to the hand.
Ren Qing used the Heavy Child to look into the darkness, but visibility was low, indicating some force was affecting its night vision.
He did not light a flame and stepped directly into the darkness.
The abyss's temperature was extremely low; dew constantly dripped from the walls.
As he walked, he prepared, using Disaster Elimination Method to erase his presence, assisted by the illusions of Mirror Immortal.
Simultaneously, a plain-looking flesh ball appeared in his palm.
He was very interested in the Blood Moon's cultivation system and spent some effort studying Moon Patterns; the flesh ball was refined using this knowledge.
Ren Qing called it "Fetal Flesh."
By injecting an appropriate amount of Nether Yuan into Fetal Flesh, it could be activated, becoming an artifact resembling a living being, though with short lifespan.
Fetal Flesh's aura was extremely weak, its temperature matching surrounding objects; it had no intelligence or mobility.
Its only use was as the host for the "Storyteller" technique, allowing Ren Qing to hide his soul within it.
Ren Qing's life-preservation methods were more complete than Chen Changsheng's in the past; he did not believe he could not reach Cishi from the bottomless abyss.
After walking several hours, the path's width reached over a hundred meters, the height dropping to two hundred meters below the surface.
Truly worthy of the title "bottomless abyss," it felt like walking toward the Yellow Springs, the invisible pressure making it hard to breathe.
Fortunately, Ren Qing had practiced the Eyeless Method and was used to darkness; otherwise, prolonged stay here would be impossible.
Continuing, he heard dull thuds of heavy objects from afar.
Boom boom boom boom, the sounds suddenly stopped, replaced by a faint metallic blood smell.
Ren Qing hesitated briefly; the ghost shadow under his feet extended to the location of the falling objects, touching numerous corpses.
He frowned, confirming the corpses were ordinary, and quickly approached.
Heavy Child could see roughly a hundred meters; within Ren Qing's visible range, it was densely packed with corpses, a horrifying scene.
The corpses were obviously thrown from above the abyss, likely originating from Cishi, carried by strong winds.
Ren Qing examined them, trying to understand Cishi's situation.
He noted the cause of death: they had been forcibly filled with metal-mixed water in life, accumulating in their stomachs and dying from bursting.
This caused muscle atrophy, slightly bronze-colored flesh, missing teeth, and tongues seemingly deliberately cut.
The corpses were not peaceful even in death: either skinned entirely, or holes drilled from feet and skull to forcibly remove bones, leaving a mixture of flesh and bones.
When Ren Qing touched them, the information stream showed nothing more than ordinary corpses, some overly ordinary.
"Could the bottomless abyss have been treated by Cishi as a chaotic graveyard? Then why bother to skin and extract bones, do they really think I wouldn't understand?"
Moreover, with so many corpses accumulated, scavenging birds and beasts should be present, but he only saw maggots.
He knew Chen Changsheng must have encountered something in the abyss, prompting him to immediately return to Xiangxiang, but the memory was too fragmented.
Thus, Ren Qing walked day and night for several days, encountering tens of thousands of corpses, growing numb himself.