Please control me, my divine being!

Li Qinghe looked at the old beggar in front of her.

If he hadn't offered her the copper coins back then, leaving a deep impression, she probably wouldn't have recognized him at all now, since he has completely changed his appearance compared to before.

Why was he in the cult's storeroom?

Li Qinghe gritted his teeth and continued walking forward. More and more people were lying on the ground, and without exception, they all had evil sores on their bodies and their wrists were wrapped with talismans from the Fajiao sect.

Didn't they say that Huangshui Town has been brought under control and that no new people have contracted the evil sores?

So what is the reason for these people's...?

Li Qinghe's mind was in turmoil. As she continued walking forward, she heard light footsteps ahead.

She quickly hid, shrinking into the darkness.

"Hurry up and get this done. We still need to move more than twenty more tonight. If we don't move enough, we'll all be in trouble when our senior brother comes down to blame us."

"Okay, okay, let me rest for a while, or my bones will fall apart."

A voice filled with complaints rang out.

As someone sat down, Li Qinghe felt that the other person was only a few meters away from her, and she could even hear the other person's heavy breathing.

She was tense all over, her heart pounding with anxiety.

Fortunately, neither of the last two cultists noticed the intruder in the warehouse. After resting for a while, they picked up a person and walked towards the end of the warehouse.

Li Qinghe followed cautiously.

The deeper one goes, the more people are infected with the evil sores.

When the two reached the end, there was a downward passage, dark and gloomy, with no idea where it led.

Li Qinghe hesitated for a moment before stepping into the passageway.

The entire passageway was damp, smelly, and pitch black.

She had to feel her way forward, and after walking for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, a faint light appeared ahead.

Li Qinghe quickened her pace, heading straight for the source of the light. It was an upward exit, with moonlight filtering through the cracks and providing a small amount of illumination into the passage.

The exit of the passage leads to a grove of trees.

She used to chop wood and herd livestock, roaming freely across the mountains and forests, and was very familiar with the mountains and forests surrounding Huangshui Town.

This grove is near a tributary of the Zhuohe River. Many people used to come here to cut firewood and graze livestock, but since the floods and the outbreak of sores, no one has come here anymore.

Following the trail of marks in the woods, Li Qinghe found the direction the two had gone.

Before long, she walked through the dense forest and followed the tracks left by the two to the riverbank.

Ahead, the water roared, and believers walked back and forth on the bank, throwing those afflicted with sores onto the large sampans moored along the river.

A quick count revealed that there were over thirty people in the several sampans combined.

These people were afflicted with evil sores, and most of them were mentally unstable, let alone able to resist. They could only be manipulated by other believers.

Li Qinghe witnessed the old beggar being moved to the riverbank and then thrown heavily back down.

"Damn it, what happened? That old bastard is dead?"

"Damn it, one of my people died too."

"Hurry back and bring a few more over, otherwise we won't have enough."

The group walked back, grumbling and cursing.

Li Qinghe hurriedly hid in the bushes and, through the gaps, saw the old beggar's eyes rolled back, his face turning bluish-purple in the moonlight.

The riverbank suddenly became quiet.

The remaining believers sat down to rest.

It wasn't until the moon was obscured by clouds that the believers, who had returned to the storeroom, carried people out of the tunnel again.

"Hurry up and bring it up; Lord River God has been waiting for a long time."

"Who are you calling 'Master'? You stinking fishermen are used to being servants, now you can only call me 'Immortal Master'? Do you still think you're living the life of making a living off the water?"

"Stop dawdling, let's set sail."

Several believers decorated these sampans with red silk and flowers, making them look like wedding sedan chairs.

"That damned old man, he insists on doing all this. Marrying? In previous years, it was fine to send young girls as brides, but now he's even taking sixty- or seventy-year-old men, he doesn't discriminate at all."

"Don't you think it's troublesome for your senior brother to send so many people to Him every day? Why keep this monster hanging like this?"

"Do more and ask less questions. Just do as your senior brother instructs."

As they chatted, the group boarded the sampan, began to pole it with bamboo poles, and then started singing in unison from the bow:

hey~~~

The river doesn't rise high in October, so there's nowhere to find a wife.

In the twelfth lunar month, the river flows with surging waves, and the River God invites his bride.

I won't choose gold or silver, I'll choose a girl in her prime.

The flower-clad bride and sedan chair will be delivered to the heart of the river, ensuring a good harvest for us all year.

As the song faded into the distance, Li Qinghe, her hands and feet ice-cold, crawled out of the grass, flicked the small insect off her neck, and quickly walked to the shore.

Several corpses lay on it.

She looked at them one by one. These members of the Fa Cult were of all ages, and they all died from the same cause: sores.

The severe sores claimed their lives.

"Cough cough."

At this moment, the old beggar's body on the riverbank suddenly twitched a few times, his rolled-back eyes slowly returned to normal, and intermittent coughing sounds came out.

Li Qinghe was startled and turned around to look.

"It hurts like hell, you old bastards!" The old beggar coughed for a long time, his eyes darting around. "Luckily I'm still alive, otherwise there wouldn't even be anyone to collect my body. Little girl, to have survived until now in Desolate Water Town, you're truly blessed with good fortune. You're a promising talent."

The old beggar had just smiled when the movement aggravated his festering sores, causing him so much pain that he almost fainted on the spot.

Li Qinghe asked nervously, "Who exactly are you?"

Everything that had happened in the past few days, plus what she had just witnessed, completely shattered all of Li Qinghe's unrealistic fantasies.

The old beggar tried to make his smile as gentle as possible, but his face, covered in dead spots and sores, made him look even more terrifying: "My name is Bai Tieya, and I used to be the head of the Lianshan City Pimping Company."

But now, he's just a dying old man.

"Little girl, how about we make a deal?"

Li Qinghe couldn't tell whether what the other person was saying was true or false, so she just listened quietly without responding.

"Although you have great fortune, if no one leads you into the gate of cultivation, you will be kept in the dark, drift with the tide, and eventually die in the struggle among cultivators."

Just like the people of this Dharma sect, they are manipulated like puppets without realizing it, thinking they have attained immortality and attained enlightenment, but they are nothing more than domesticated pigs and dogs.

Take, for example, the Fifth Immortal's brother, Ma. He was not in control of his own destiny and became a lackey of the immortals. He did not hesitate to slaughter his own family and exterminate his clan.

They are merely outsiders, just expendable resources for true cultivators.

But if you do me a favor, I will guide you through the initial steps, help you become a true cultivator, and at the same time, bestow upon you a great opportunity.

Li Qinghe frowned: "How can I help you?"

"The woman who killed the current head of the brokerage firm, nicknamed Sister Hong, was Qin Hongshi!"

The old beggar's eyes gleamed with a ghostly white light, and his tongue sprouted countless tiny holes, like a bagpipe. His voice became intoxicating: "You're confused right now, aren't you?"

By inheriting my mantle, you will know everything.

They wanted to know what had happened in Lianshan City and the surrounding towns.

I can even show you the way: Come, become my successor.

Li Qinghe's mind was hazy, and all her thoughts seemed to be in disarray.

Just as he was about to speak, his eyes suddenly became empty.

next moment.

The girl coldly drew her machete from her waist, her tone devoid of any emotion: "So powerful, how come you're lying on the ground, almost dead?"