Many children, many blessings: Stealing the offspring of powerful figures to cultivate immortality.

"Pfft."

The sound of the demonic blade slicing through the throat was exceptionally clear in the deathly silent alchemy room.

No nonsense.

Ye Wuhen's hand was steady, as if slicing open a ripe watermelon. Elder Huo's head, still snotty and begging for mercy, rolled to Jiang Yining's feet, his face frozen in extreme terror and fawning.

"So noisy."

Ye Wuhen flicked the blood off his knife with disgust, then kicked the head away. "May you be reborn as a mute chicken in your next life, so you won't make a sound in front of me."

On the other side, Bai Ze gracefully pulled out the spear that was stuck in Elder Feng's chest.

With a gentle flick of its nine fox tails, it removed the storage rings from the two corpses and casually tossed them to Erbao Chu Anyan, who was keeping accounts in a small notebook nearby.

"Hurry up."

Jiang Yining didn't even glance at the corpse on the ground. Her gaze swept over the intricate array patterns on the walls of the alchemy room. "The old man is dead. If the owner of this place finds out, we'll be in big trouble."

"What are you afraid of?"

Ye Wuhen grinned maliciously, his demonic aura still lingering. "Kill one if one comes, kill two if two come. Perfect, Sanbao hasn't had enough yet."

As they were talking, a sudden change occurred.

In the center of the alchemy room, at the bottom of the nurturing pool that had been completely drained by the babies, a dazzling blue light suddenly shone.

Om-!

A vast, cold, and terrifying aura, carrying a clear sense of high-dimensional suppression, descended instantly.

Blue light shot into the sky, weaving together in mid-air to form a giant water mirror.

The mirror surface rippled, gradually becoming clear.

It revealed a translucent face, shimmering with starlight.

The man's eyes were two burning silver flames, coldly overlooking the ravaged alchemy room across the endless void.

Inspector of the Celestial Spirit Clan in the Azure Realm!

"Wind, Thunder, Fire".

The inspector's voice sounded as if it were being squeezed out of a metal pipe, with overlapping echoes that made one's eardrums ache.

"Why haven't this month's 'elixirs' been submitted via the teleportation array yet?"

"And why was the spiritual connection with the main tower severed?"

Ye Wuhen gripped the demonic blade tightly, his purple eyes blazing with killing intent.

He instinctively reached out to swing his sword and smash the damned projection.

A hand pressed down on his wrist.

Jiang Yining gave Ye Wuhen a "shut up" look, a playful smile curving her lips.

Killing someone is easy, but what happens afterward?

Once the projection shatters, the upper realm will immediately know that this place has fallen, and a massive army will be pressing in in the blink of an eye.

The current desolate abyss is not yet capable of handling a true cross-border war.

"Chu Jinglan."

Jiang Yining transmitted her voice, looked at the man wiping his fingers with a handkerchief, and gestured to the projection in mid-air.

"It's your turn to perform."

Chu Jinglan gracefully put away the handkerchief and straightened his slightly disheveled clothes.

Her demeanor changed instantly.

He transformed from the decisive and ruthless Confucian sage into a shrewd and mercenary "manager" of the Hall of Longevity.

"cough."

Chu Jinglan stepped forward, walked to the projection, cupped his hands in a gesture of respect, and displayed just the right amount of fear and exhaustion on his face.

"The emperor sent Rongbing."

"It's not that I'm unwilling to hand it over, it's just... a huge mess has occurred!"

The Protoss overseer in the projection frowned, and the silver flame flickered.

"Who are you? Where is that good-for-nothing Feng Wuyai?"

"Reporting to Your Excellency, Lord Feng... has died in the line of duty."

Chu Jinglan spoke with a sorrowful tone, his eyes slightly red, and he even wiped away non-existent tears with his sleeve.

"Just yesterday, the Palace of Longevity was struck by a once-in-a-millennium... mutated insect plague."

"An insect plague?" The inspector's voice held a hint of impatience and doubt. "In a low-level plane like the Floating Cloud Realm, what kind of insects could possibly harm a Mahayana cultivator?"

"Your Excellency is unaware of this, but those are no ordinary insects!"

Chu Jinglan took a deep breath, as if recalling a horrifying scene, and trembled all over: "That was...that was a variant of the Devouring Demon Worm! It feeds exclusively on spiritual energy, gnaws at formations, and even chews on Xuan Iron like it's tofu!"

"To protect the alchemy room, Lord Feng perished together with the Insect King, thus preserving this last foundation."

As Chu Jinglan spoke, he subtly took a step to the side.

This revealed the black iron pillar behind them that had been gnawed on by Jiang Yeyao, one of the Three Treasures.

The incredibly hard black iron pillar was riddled with holes and pits from being bitten.

The inspector's gaze froze instantly.

"this……"

The inspector gasped.

Although the Protoss were well-informed, they had never seen a creature that could eat sixth-tier black iron as a snack.

"You see, Your Excellency?"

Chu Jinglan sighed, looking utterly hopeless: "These are just larvae. If they grow up, they'll devour not only the alchemy room, but the entire far northern ice plain."

"The Hall of Longevity is now leaderless. I have been appointed to lead the remaining disciples in a desperate fight."

As he spoke, he suddenly burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

"It's so difficult! It's incredibly difficult!"

"The formation is broken and we don't have the money to repair it, our disciples are injured and we have no medicine to treat them, and even the pills we were prepared to hand over have been stolen and eaten by these insects!"

"Your Excellency, if you don't provide some support soon, the Hall of Longevity... I'm afraid it won't be able to be saved!"

Ye Wuhen stood behind, his lips twitching wildly.

He pinched his thigh hard to keep himself from laughing out loud.

It's a loss to the cultivation world that Chu Jinglan doesn't go into opera.

That acting, that seamless portrayal of poverty, even made this ruthless tyrant want to spend money.

Jiang Yining mentally gave Chu Jinglan a thumbs up.

This is clearly a premeditated telecommunications fraud.

The inspector remained silent.

Those silver, fiery eyes were fixed on the black iron pillar in the image.

This destructive power is indeed somewhat like that of a cub of a void creature.

If it really is such a disaster, then the decline in production in the lower realms is understandable.

But that doesn’t mean he would easily trust a stranger.

"Are you the new Palace Master?"

The inspector's voice remained icy, "Why have I never seen you before?"

"My subordinate, Chu Jinglan, was originally the steward in charge of the accounting department."

Chu Jinglan pushed up his glasses, his tone filled with unwavering loyalty.

"Palace Master Feng left in a hurry and didn't have time to make his last arrangements. Now that all the elders in the palace are dead, although I am of low cultivation, I really can't bear to see the foundation of the Upper Realm destroyed, so I dared to step forward."

"To combat the insect plague, I even used up my own savings for my coffin."

As Chu Jinglan spoke, he took out several empty storage bags from his pocket and turned them inside out in front of the inspector.

Apart from a few low-grade spirit stones clattering to the ground, there wasn't even a trace of spirit herbs.

Extreme poverty.