Please control me, my divine being!

As the sun sets, the distant mountains fall silent.

Li Qinghe's body moved uncontrollably toward the deserted village. Occasionally, a sound or two would come from the dark houses on both sides, and rats and weasels would flash by.

She gripped the wood-chopping knife tightly, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest.

"Help! Is anyone there to help...?"

A faint, intermittent cry for help came from deep within.

Li Qinghe suddenly realized, was the god asking him to save people?

But what normal person would stay in this deserted village...?

As the control over his body gradually weakened, Li Qinghe searched alone in the deserted village, but after searching around, he could not find the source of the calling.

Moreover, the calls grew weaker and weaker, and gradually disappeared.

"Maybe we should come back tomorrow." Li Qinghe was starting to have second thoughts. Looking at the dark village without a single light, she had a feeling that something might jump out from the darkness.

But just as she was about to turn around, the god controlled the power of her body and stopped her in her tracks.

Li Qinghe had no choice but to return to the large, withered tree in the center of the deserted village once again.

Use your brain and think!

"Since the deity has allowed me to stay here, there must be a reason. Think about it; you're very clever!"

The girl stood there, covering her head.

About an incense stick later, she had a flash of inspiration and lifted the bangs in front of her left eye.

As various colors appeared before her eyes, Li Qinghe finally discovered the source of the cries for help.

On the withered tree in front of them, seven or eight people, dressed in tattered clothes and with dry, purplish-black skin, were hanging in mid-air.

A pale yellow aura surrounded the withered tree. Li Qinghe turned off her clairvoyance and restored her vision to normal. The people hanging from the tree immediately disappeared.

She hurried forward, nimbly climbed the dead tree, and used a machete to cut the ropes one by one.

The group landed on the ground, and before Li Qinghe could even react, they were greeted not with gratitude, but with a gaping maw.

A strong stench of decay filled the air.

Inside that outstretched mouth, you can see several sharp teeth.

Li Qinghe was startled, but reacted quickly, raising her wood-chopping knife to block the gaping maw.

*Pfft*

The expected collision did not occur.

Li Qinghe felt like she had punctured a paper bag, and a monster lunged at her, her entire chin being smashed to powder by a machete.

"Please have mercy, heroine! Please have mercy!"

jingle.

The old woman got up from the ground and shook the bell in her hand, and everyone immediately stopped.

The old woman came running up, panting, "I'm just an honest corpse-driving merchant. The heroine saved my life, I would never dare to have any ill intentions. These zombies were just reacting on their own after they broke free of my magic."

Li Qinghe stopped.

This was the first time someone had called her a female knight-errant, and she had a strange feeling about it.

She looked around at the motionless zombies, feeling a strange and eerie atmosphere: "Are these all corpses?"

"They're not corpses, they're zombies, raised by us corpse drivers using our skills."

"Lately, everyone around here who's died has been covered in festering sores. A perfectly healthy corpse is incredibly expensive these days." The old woman carefully examined the body with its shattered jaw, her face filled with heartache.

Li Qinghe tucked the machete into her waistband, having no intention of continuing the casual conversation.

Although the old woman didn't seem to have any ill intentions, I needed to get to Lianshan City as soon as possible; time was of the essence.

"Hey, hey, hey, where are you going, heroine? You can't enter Lianshan City at night!" the old woman hurriedly said. "There's a curfew. If you go there and get caught, you'll be beaten and killed as a member of the Fajiao sect. You definitely won't be able to get in if you go like this."

"curfew?"

"Well, the two of us will have to spend the night in this deserted village." The old woman walked to a zombie, rummaged through its body, and quickly pulled out a tinderbox.

The other zombies scattered, picking up stray firewood from the surrounding area.

Soon, a small fire was lit.

The old woman took a few sweet potato skewers from a zombie's bundle and roasted them over the fire: "Thank you for saving my life, heroine. But now all my goods have been robbed by the Huang family's men, and I have nothing of value to offer. I will thank you properly when we get to Lianshan City."

"Sigh, we finally lifted the lockdown on Yuyang City, and our first business trip was robbed."

Li Qinghe was somewhat surprised: "You're from Yuyang City?"

She grew up in Huangshui Town and the farthest place she had ever been was Lianshan County. She had only heard of Yuyang Prefecture from conversations with adults.

It was a city much larger than Lianshan City, and it was the center of Yuyang County.

"Yes, we corpse-transporting merchants rely on our two legs to travel all over the world, transporting goods back and forth to earn a little money through hard work."

The old woman handed me a roasted sweet potato: "I could lose my life at any moment. Today I encountered that Huang family's horse, and luckily, I was clever enough to use a lot of goods to save my life."

Li Qinghe looked at the zombies around her.

There were eight in total, but only three of them had large bundles on their backs; the others must have been robbed.

"What's Yuyang City like?" Li Qinghe asked with some longing.

She herself is now a practitioner, so she will definitely have no shortage of ways to make money in the future. Once her mother is saved, she can move to a bigger and safer place to live.

And the gods like those strange and unusual little gadgets; I can find them many, many more for Him in the future.

The old woman sighed, "What else could it be like? The Hui family wreaked havoc in Yuyang City, causing countless deaths and injuries. If it weren't for Chen Xiangu's intervention, who knows what would have become of them now."

Has Yuyang City also been affected by the epidemic?

Li Qinghe's eyelids twitched as she remembered that the Hui family belonged to the five major families of the North, just like the Huang family.

She clenched her fists. "Doesn't the imperial court care? Yuyang City is the largest city in the north."

"Who knows what those temple gods who sit high up are thinking?"

We people from these harsh, cold places have never been loved or cared for by our parents, so we'd rather rely on ourselves.

Take that Fairy Chen, for example. She single-handedly made the Hui family retreat. What a graceful figure she was!

The old woman had also dreamed of such things when she was young, but after decades of cultivation, she was still just a low-level corpse-driving merchant.

After several grand sacrifices, the family fortune was depleted, and they did not even receive a single blessing from the Corpse God of Ten Thousand Causes.

"Now, while my bones can still move, I want to save up some money for my grandson so that he can leave this awful place and live in one of the big cities in Jiangnan."

Li Qinghe felt as if she were listening to a book from heaven.

Can one person really make the Gray Family retreat?

If I were that powerful, my mother wouldn't be the way she is now, and even the innocent people who died in Huangshui Town would have had different fates.

"It's getting late, heroine, you should rest early. I'll have the zombies keep watch." The old woman stoked the fire a little stronger.

Li Qinghe leaned against a wall, holding a wood-chopping knife, but was not fast asleep.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, the old woman began to dress up her horde of corpses.

She took out various kinds of paint from a bundle and applied them to the corpse's skin. Finally, she took out some rouge with a special fragrance to completely cover up the stench of the corpse.

She dressed up the corpses so they looked like somewhat dull people, completely devoid of their previous terror.

"Although Lianshan City is now open to entry and exit, we Jianghu people still need to keep a low profile."

If you go in like this, you'll definitely be questioned.

I'll give you a zombie, and you can say you're my apprentice.

Also, take this identification tag. It's an internal tag for merchants, and it will give you a lot of convenience wherever you go.

By the way, you can just call me Grandma Yang.

Li Qinghe took the waist token and then poked the zombie's skin. It was cold and hard, and it didn't require much manipulation to follow behind.

The two walked on the official road.

Before long, the outline of Lianshan City came into view.

Several meters high earthen and stone walls stand amidst the weeds.

Several guards stood lazily beneath the wide gate.

Whether they were sitting or standing, a fat weasel was always there, perched on their shoulders or at their feet, its cold eyes fixed on everyone entering or leaving the city gate.