Eternal Life Begins with Learning

"A dried corpse?"

Chu Mu’s pupils constricted. He instinctively thought of all the people who had been attacked and killed by the Resentful Soul.

It seemed... aside from the first few Vice Thousand Households and Hundred Households who were brutally murdered, all the rest, without exception, had been turned into dried corpses!

Although he didn’t know what those blood-red Elixir Pills were, judging by his body’s instinctive reaction and the white-robed man’s act of swallowing it, the blood-red Elixir Pill refined from a desiccated corpse was clearly a treasure!

Perhaps, like the legendary Spirit Elixirs, it could increase one’s Cultivation?

Chu Mu lowered his head and looked away, his mind churning.

THUD!

Following the dull sound, Chu Mu clearly saw the dried corpse being tossed to the ground out of the corner of his eye.

The man in white didn’t linger. He took a step and headed toward the town.

None of the Inspectors dared to make a sound. Only Li Jinghong, still prostrated on the ground, shuffled his body to follow the white-robed man’s departure.

It seemed... as if he wanted to keep himself perpetually facing the man in a reverent bow...

Only when the white-robed man’s figure had completely vanished from sight did the Inspectors finally let out a collective sigh of relief.

At that moment, an Inspector hurried forward to help Li Jinghong up.

It was clear that Li Jinghong’s face was pale, but there was no trace of anything unusual in his expression, as if nothing had just happened.

He looked as haughty and aloof as ever, his thoughts impossible to discern.

"Get... COUGH COUGH COUGH... Get the body and hang it back up..."

He seemed to be severely injured, and even speaking was difficult for him.

After forcing out the order, Li Jinghong couldn’t be bothered with anything else. He quickly shrugged off the supporting Inspector and staggered away in the direction the white-robed man had gone.

The crowd of Inspectors stared at each other. A deathly silence continued to hang in the air.

It was hard to say whether they were more shaken by Li Jinghong’s pathetic state or shocked by the white-robed man’s incomprehensible methods.

Or perhaps... they were terrified by this desiccated corpse, which looked almost identical to the others...

After a long while, two Inspectors finally went forward and re-hung the dried corpse on the memorial archway.

The atmosphere remained oppressive. The men wore varying expressions, but most remained silent.

Chu Mu stared blankly at the grotesque dried corpse, an indescribable fear welling up in his heart.

The man in white had just refined the dead, mysterious old man into an Elixir...

’Then... that black-robed boy... is he doing this for the Resentful Soul’s growth... or is he like the white-robed man, doing it to refine Elixirs to consume?’

’Although both methods involve devouring living people and treating human life as worthless, they are undoubtedly two different concepts!’

’Taking it a step further, at the higher levels of the Extraordinary... would cannibalism be a matter of course?’

Chu Mu didn’t know, but everything he had seen and heard in the few months since he arrived in this world pointed to one clear fact.

Human life was as cheap as grass, not worth mentioning.

In a place like Qinghe County, where the common people were ruthlessly exploited, provoking rebellion time and again—if this were his previous world, even under a Feudal Dynasty, all the officials of Qinghe County would have long since been executed and their clans exterminated by the Court.

And yet, despite the repeated uprisings, the order in Qinghe County remained as stable as Mount Tai.

This clearly showed that the powers-that-be higher up didn’t care about the lives of ordinary people.

These higher powers... were the Commandery City, the Great Chu Court... and likely the Nanshan Li Family, and the mysterious Extraordinary World that Chu Mu had speculated about.

As he was lost in thought, Chu Mu suddenly froze.

’According to what Li Jinghong just said, that white-robed man is an inspector sent from above?’

’But if I remember correctly, this whole situation started because an official inspection from above was imminent. That’s what forced Li Jinghong’s hand, making him recklessly enter the mountains to suppress the rebellion, which led to the current state of affairs.’

’It wasn’t that... the situation spiraled out of control, and Li Jinghong reported it, which then brought the white-robed man here.’

’In other words, the white-robed man’s arrival had nothing to do with the events in Qili Village.’

’What he’s doing right now is just a side task.’

’His real purpose... seems to be inspecting the mines?’

Chu Mu remembered clearly. When the news first came out, it caused quite a stir, and many of the Inspectors were busy covering their tracks.

Chu Mu frowned, subconsciously glancing in the direction of the mines. From what he understood, the Ore Materials produced by the unceasing labor of thousands of men under Forced Labor for decades—at an unknown cost of manpower and resources—had clearly all ended up in the hands of the Nanshan Li Family.

’So this so-called inspection...’

A worried look appeared on Chu Mu’s face.

’There’s a Rebel manipulating a Resentful Soul on the outside, and on the inside, there’s the white-robed man from the Li Family, whose morality is unknown...’

’This world... is harsh!’

Chu Mu sat leaning against a stone pillar of the memorial archway, silent.

Beside him, Xu Yuan was engrossed in a book by the flickering firelight, just as Chu Mu himself had been before.

The surrounding Inspectors gathered in small groups of two and three, some sitting, some standing, whispering amongst themselves around the dried corpse that swayed in the wind.

What none of them knew was that the shadow of their fear, the dark silhouette of the Resentful Soul, had already appeared at the corner of a wall barely a hundred meters away.

Shrouded by the darkness, the black shadow merged with its surroundings. Even if one looked directly at it, it would be difficult to spot anything amiss.

"Xiu, don’t be reckless!"

In the darkness, a large hand gripped the boy’s shoulder as a man spoke urgently.

"What do you want me to do? Should I just hide like a coward in my shell?" 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"That bastard sucked Master’s body dry!"

The boy’s eyes were crimson. He could no longer contain his suppressed rage and grief, hissing in a near-explosive outburst.

In the darkness, a burly man tried to placate the boy.

"I want revenge too!"

"But we’re no match for that man!"

"With his level of Cultivation, he could be here in a matter of breaths!"

"If we rush out there, we’ll just be throwing our lives away!"

A woman beside them chimed in, "He’s right, Xiu. Let’s go back for now and make a proper plan."

"Xiu, didn’t you say you have Master’s inheritance to give us? Let’s go back first..."

In the darkness, amidst their back-and-forth words, the crimson in the boy’s eyes slowly faded, and clarity returned.

The boy fell silent. The dark shadow of the Resentful Soul, which had been just over a hundred meters from Chu Mu and the other Inspectors, slowly vanished.

In an instant, the Resentful Soul’s shadow appeared beside the boy and then merged into his body.

The boy let out a muffled grunt, and his face paled slightly, though it wasn’t very noticeable in the darkness.

However, as the Resentful Soul’s shadow entered his body, several blood-red Elixir Pills appeared in the boy’s hand.

If Chu Mu were there, he would surely have noticed that these blood-red Elixir Pills were extremely similar to the ones the white-robed man had condensed.

They were just a size smaller, and their surfaces lacked the swirling golden threads.

...