Longevity: Starting as a menial servant in the Green Wood Sect

Gu An raised an eyebrow and looked down at Shen Wan’s pale face, which was strangely calm.

Shen Wan's voice was still hoarse, with a hint of barely perceptible sarcasm. "You're going to the depths of Mine No. 3, to that abandoned ventilation shaft. It's been designated as a restricted area by the Corpse Puppet Sect, and they might even be raising a few armored corpses there to guard the entrance."

Upon hearing the words "Ironclad Corpse," Gu An's eye twitched involuntarily.

That was a monster comparable to a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator, impervious to blades and spears, possessing immense strength, and feeling no pain or fear. If he were to be entangled by such a thing, even he, in his current state, would only have the option of running away.

"In the eyes of those monsters, the scent of a living person is like a lighthouse in the dark; they can smell it from three miles away." Shen Wan looked at Gu An. "Without special means to conceal it, even if you have a token, they will tear it to pieces. After all, inanimate objects don't recognize tokens; they only recognize their own kind."

Gu An was silent for a moment, then asked decisively, "How?"

Shen Wan's lips curled up slightly, seemingly quite satisfied with Gu An's quick wit and understanding.

"The Corpse Puppet Sect has a secret technique called the Corpse Control Technique. It was originally a method for controlling corpse puppets and manipulating inanimate objects with divine sense. However, due to my family's long tradition of learning, one of my ancestors used this technique as a basis to develop a method for mimicking corpses."

"A necromancy?" Gu An pondered the word, a vague guess forming in his mind.

"Not bad." Shen Wan nodded. "Normal cultivators have vital energy and spiritual power flowing through their bodies. But this secret technique requires you to reverse your meridians, suppress your vital energy to the extreme, and even simulate the fluctuations of decaying corpse energy through special spiritual power circulation."

"Once you've mastered it, in the eyes of those zombies, you'll be just a walking corpse, one of their own. As long as you don't attack them first, they'll treat you like nothing."

This is practically made for you.

Gu An thought to himself. With the Turtle Breathing Technique as his foundation, he was already adept at concealing his life force; now, having cultivated the Life Forest Wood Technique, his body contained a large amount of corpse poison and wood evil. This "corpse mimicry" technique was simply like adding wings to a tiger for him.

"Teach me." Gu An didn't waste any words.

Shen Wan didn't stand on ceremony; since it was a collaboration, she naturally wouldn't hold back.

She parted her cherry lips slightly, and slowly uttered a series of obscure and difficult-to-understand incantations.

"The turbid yin sinks downward, the clear yang rises upward, reversing the celestial spirit, and locking the heart with death energy..."

These incantations are extremely difficult to pronounce, and the energy flow routes are even more bizarre, requiring spiritual energy to flow in reverse through several extremely remote, or even normally unused, meridians. The slightest mistake could result in the meridians being severed.

Gu An listened intently, his eyes slightly closed, his fingers tapping unconsciously on his knees as he rapidly rehearsed the trajectory of the technique in his mind.

After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, Shen Wan stopped telling her story.

"This is only a fragment; it can only allow you to simulate aura, not truly control the corpse puppet. And with your aptitude, to even begin to understand it, I'm afraid you'll need..."

Before she could finish speaking, her voice abruptly stopped.

Sitting on a small stool, Gu An's aura was undergoing a dramatic transformation.

The life-giving warmth that had been suppressed but still present within him was fading at an alarming rate. His skin began to turn ashen and dull, like a withered tree that had lost its moisture.

Even more bizarrely, a cold, decaying scent, carrying a strong earthy smell, slowly seeped from his pores.

Gu An slowly opened his eyes.

Those once dark and lively eyes were now shrouded in a hazy gray, their pupils unfocused, like those of a long-dead corpse.

If he hadn't been speaking, Shen Wan would have thought that the person sitting in front of her was a zombie that had just crawled out of the ground.

"is that so?"

Gu An's voice became hollow and monotonous, without any inflection, making people's scalps tingle.

The shock in Shen Wan's eyes flashed by, replaced by deep apprehension.

"You...have you practiced similar techniques before?" she couldn't help but ask.

This speed at which he mastered it was simply unbelievable. Even a genius disciple of the Corpse Puppet Sect would need at least several months of hard work to transform his life force into such realistic corpse energy.

"I haven't practiced it." Gu An's ashen aura slowly subsided, his eyes regained their clarity, and the unsettling deathly aura dissipated. "It's just that this method has some similarities with the cultivation technique I practice; it's just a matter of drawing parallels."

He naturally wouldn't say that this was also thanks to the domineering inclusiveness of the "Life Forest Wood Technique" and the body's instinctive adaptation after he had consumed a large amount of corpse poison during this period.

For him now, this transformation is as natural as breathing.

"That's good now that you've learned it."

Shen Wan gave him a deep look, but didn't delve into it. Instead, she clutched her chest and coughed violently a few times.

A few streaks of black blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the snow-white bandage, a shocking sight.

"My body... can't hold on much longer."

Shen Wan wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her face even paler than before, even showing a kind of ashen exhaustion. "Although you helped me suck out the poison from my heart meridian, that only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. The medicinal ingredient of the Reversal Life Creation Pill has penetrated deep into my bone marrow and may backfire at any time."

Gu An frowned: "What are you trying to say? If you die now, wouldn't all my previous investments be wasted?"

He needed this woman alive; at least until the Nine Dragons Demon-Suppressing Cauldron was activated, she couldn't die. The ancient restrictions and formations on it were beyond the capabilities of someone knowledgeable like him, a mere farmer with no real skills.

"Don't worry, I won't die so easily before I kill those who plotted against me."

A ruthless glint flashed in Shen Wan's eyes, and then she looked at Gu An, "But if I am to have the energy to break the sealing formation of the Nine Dragon Cauldron, I need to suppress the backlash of the poison in my body and maintain absolute clarity."

"Although this No. 3 mine is dangerous, it also contains many rare Yin-attribute spiritual plants that are hard to find elsewhere. While you are exploring, please keep an eye out for a certain type of grass."

"What kind of grass?"

"Soul Grass." Shen Wan uttered three words. "This kind of grass only grows in places where the corpse energy is the densest and the dead are the most numerous. It is completely black, with leaves like ghostly hands, and its roots often take hold in the skulls of rotting corpses, feeding on the remnants of souls to survive."

"Although this thing is insidious, it is a good medicine for me to fight poison with poison and stabilize my soul."

Gu An felt nauseous upon hearing this. Grass growing from inside a corpse's brain? And they're going to eat it? These madmen in the cultivation world are truly the most ruthless to themselves.

"Understood." Gu An nodded, memorizing the name. "If I have the chance, I will bring it back."

This wasn't for Shen Wan, but for his own Golden Core cultivation path.

……

The next day, at dawn.

The mornings in Broken Soul Valley are always shrouded in a thick layer of miasma, with extremely low visibility. The unique stench of decay mixed with dampness clings to the skin, making one feel as if covered in a layer of indelible grease.

In a secluded corner of the logistics camp, which is also the base of the "waste recycling team".

A huge, specially modified flatbed cart was parked there.

The cart was made entirely of ironwood, its surface mottled and covered with a thick layer of dark brown scabs—marks left from years of transporting corpses. Pulling the cart were two scaled beasts with cloudy eyes and drool dripping from their mouths. These low-level demonic beasts were incredibly strong and indiscriminate in their diet, making them perfect for this kind of dirty work.

Gu An stood beside the car, making final preparations.

He had already taken off his servant's clothes and put on a leather armor that had been taken from a pile of corpses and had been handled by who knows how many people.

The original color of the leather armor was no longer visible, and it was covered with various claw marks. Gu An was carrying a bucket of foul-smelling black oil and was expressionlessly applying it to the leather armor with a brush.

This is corpse oil.

It's oil extracted from the bodies of those failed zombies. Not only does it act as a preservative, but it's also an excellent material for masking the scent of the living.

Although he had already mastered the Corpse Control Technique and possessed the Breath Concealing Pendant, Gu An never thought having more means of survival was better. In this perilous Valley of Broken Souls, every extra layer of disguise meant a greater chance of survival.

"vomit……"

A passing cultivator witnessed this scene, smelled the nauseating odor, and couldn't help but gag. He stared at Gu An as if he were a madman, covered his nose, and hurriedly ran away.

Gu An ignored this.

He carefully smeared the corpse oil all over his body, even his hair and neck. The cold, slippery texture made him somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn't even flinch.

After doing all this, he looked like a demon who had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, exuding a suffocating aura of death.

"That's about it."

Gu An muttered to himself, his voice hoarse.

He turned around and looked at the back of the cart.

The place was piled high with "waste" transported back from various war zones the previous night. There were blackened limbs from poisoning, torsos blasted beyond recognition by magic, and even a few heads with their eyes wide open in death, all haphazardly stacked together, radiating an overwhelming resentment.

Gu An climbed onto the carriage shaft with an indifferent expression and cracked his whip.

"drive!"

Snapped!

The whip tip crackled in the air.

The two scaled beasts let out a low growl and slowly started pulling the heavy cart.

The massive wooden wheels rolled over the uneven, gravelly surface of the camp, producing a teeth-grinding "creak, creak" sound that, in the deathly still morning, sounded like a death knell leading to the underworld.

Gu An leaned against the carriage shaft, swaying slightly with the bumps of the carriage. He wore a tattered straw hat, the brim pulled low, obscuring his eyes that gleamed eerily in the shadows.

The law enforcement disciples guarding the camp exit could smell the suffocating stench of corpses from a great distance.

"Damn it, it's the recycling team again. What a jinx!"

One disciple, cursing and covering his mouth and nose, didn't even bother with questioning and simply waved for him to pass. "Get out of here! Don't leave this stench in the camp!"

Gu An didn't speak, but just nodded blankly, looking like a laborer who had become numb and dull from dealing with corpses all year round.

The cart slowly drove out of the camp gate.

The noise behind us gradually faded away, and the road ahead was swallowed up by thick fog.

That was a dead end leading to the No. 3 abandoned mine pit, and also a bloody path that Gu An paved for himself... to the heavens.

"Soul-Slaying Grass, Armored Corpse, Nine Dragon Cauldron..."

Gu An's fingers gently caressed the cold black token in his arms, a slight smile playing on his lips in the shadows.

"I hope this buffet will allow me to eat my fill."

The wheels rolled on and soon disappeared into the seemingly endless gray fog.

……

About ten miles away from the Valley of Broken Souls, the surrounding scenery became increasingly desolate.

The once lush vegetation here has become sparse and twisted. Most of the trees are dead, their branches charred black, like ghostly hands reaching towards the sky for help. The ground is barren, the soil a strange dark red, as if soaked in blood countless times.

This is already the edge of the area controlled by the Corpse Puppet Sect.

Gu An did not rush on his way, but controlled the scaled beast to maintain a moderate speed.

He is adapting.

Adapting to the environment here also means adapting to the operation of the "Corpse Control Technique" within the body.

As they ventured deeper, the spiritual energy in the air became thin and violent, replaced by a dense concentration of Yin energy. This was highly poisonous to ordinary righteous cultivators; inhaling too much would damage their foundation and even cause hallucinations.

But for Gu An, this place felt like returning to the underground cave in Youying Valley.

The "Life-Generating Wood Technique" within his body was operating joyfully, with every pore greedily absorbing the surrounding Yin energy and transforming it into nourishment for himself.

The feeling of being completely at ease made him want to groan out loud.

"As expected, my physique is naturally suited for the demonic path."

Gu An chuckled self-deprecatingly.

Suddenly, the scaled beast pulling the cart let out an uneasy growl and stopped moving.

Gu An's eyes narrowed, and his divine sense spread out like mercury.

From the mist a hundred feet ahead, a series of heavy footsteps could be faintly heard.

Boom, boom, boom.

Each step was powerful and heavy, causing the ground to tremble slightly.

Immediately afterwards, several tall, dark figures tore through the mist and appeared in Gu An's field of vision.

Those were three walking corpses.

They were dressed in tattered sect robes, some missing arms, others with gaping holes in their chests, exposing their blackened internal organs. Yet they continued to walk, dragging rusty weapons in their hands, their eyes gleaming with a bloodthirsty red light, wandering aimlessly.

These are the outposts of the Corpse Puppet Sect, the lowest-ranking cannon fodder.

Did they smell the scent of strangers? No, that's not right.

Gu An had already activated the Corpse Control Technique, and with the corpse oil covering him, he appeared to them as a slightly "fresh" corpse.

Why are they blocking the way?

Gu An remained calm and observed quietly.

The three zombies walked up to the cart, their murky red eyes sweeping over Gu An before settling on the mountain of severed limbs piled up inside.

"roar……"

One of the zombies let out a muffled growl, seemingly craving the blood food, but hesitant to approach due to some rule.

Gu An immediately understood.

This is both instinctive greed and the suppression of hierarchy.

He took out the black token from his pocket and infused it with a wisp of spiritual power.

hum.

The white skull on the token lit up instantly, emitting a cold and majestic aura.

The three zombies, which had been restless, trembled as if their bones had been removed the moment they sensed the fluctuation. They then retreated in unison, awkwardly bending over in a gesture resembling submission.

"Get out of here."

Gu An mimicked the tone of a Corpse Puppet Sect disciple and gave a cold shout.

The three zombies, as if granted a pardon, immediately made way and even retreated to the pile of rocks by the roadside.

"This token is more useful than I expected."

Gu An put away the token, feeling slightly relieved.

This is just the first hurdle.

The further you go, the stronger the things you encounter will become, until... you encounter demonic cultivators who have truly gained sentience and can even speak human language.

Gu An cracked the whip again.

"drive!"

The cart continued forward, crushing a skeleton by the roadside, and slowly drove towards the No. 3 mine pit, which opened like the mouth of a giant beast.