After the witch ripped out his heart, this mortal body began to lose control.

On March 18th, it rained heavily.

Dark clouds hung heavy, obscuring the sky and earth, making it gloomy and preventing even a sliver of light from penetrating.

The rain poured down like a torrential downpour, pounding against the flying boat with a crackling sound. A light wind whipped up the cold rain, lashing against our faces and stinging.

Lu Changsheng stood at the bow of the flying boat, looking down at the village below, his brows furrowed.

No part of the village that could be seen was intact.

The wooden fence was rotten and collapsed, with half of it submerged in muddy water, turning black and swollen.

The stone tablet bearing the village's name was broken in two and covered in moss;

The thatched huts a dozen or so feet away were leaning precariously, with several holes in their roofs.

The withered yellow thatch collapsed after being soaked by the rain, revealing the dark roof beams, which creaked in the wind and seemed on the verge of collapsing completely at any moment.

This is already the best house in the village; the remaining mud-walled houses have collapsed walls and can't even keep out the wind and rain.

He asked in a deep voice, "Is this Chengnan Village?"

"Yes, son-in-law!" The speaker was Zhang Decai, who had been seriously injured and carried back the day before yesterday. After two days of recovery, he was fine.

If Lu Changsheng hadn't ordered that he be found alive or dead, and hadn't sent people to search for him for several days, he would have been left to rot in the wilderness long ago.

The entire village was deathly silent, with no smoke from chimneys or barking dogs; only the cold rain washing over the dilapidated houses, creating a desolate and bleak atmosphere.

There was no sign of the prosperity that a village with an annual output of five thousand spirit stones should have.

How could a village that produces more than 5,000 spirit stones a year have fallen into such a state of ruin?

The flying boat landed slowly, and Lu Changsheng leaped down.

The soles of my boots sank into the sticky mud, and the icy mud water seeped into them, sending a chill straight to my heart.

He trudged into the village, his body enveloped in spiritual energy, preventing any rain from touching him.

Steward Zhang followed closely behind, carrying the account book, with Li Quan protecting him from the side, never leaving his side.

Occasionally, one could see ragged, emaciated villagers huddled under the dilapidated eaves of broken houses.

His eyes were numb and lifeless, like withered wood.

From a thatched hut by the roadside, where half a wall had collapsed, came the faint cry of a child, the sound so weak it was almost swallowed up by the torrential rain.

Lu Changsheng glanced to the side and saw a gaunt woman huddled in a corner, tightly protecting a dying child in her arms, wrapped in patched burlap.

Her face was sallow and her eyes were sunken; she even had difficulty lifting her head.

Along the way, he encountered only women and the elderly, all with cloudy eyes and lifeless faces. They would glance at him briefly before hurriedly lowering their heads.

Rainwater, carrying mud and bodily fluids, flowed everywhere, mixed with a lingering stench that made people feel nauseous.

The spirit mine brought no prosperity to this place, only hunger, desolation, and despair.

The village was drained of all life, leaving only a broken shell, barely clinging to life amidst the raging storm.

Cold rain slid down his chin, and a cold glint suddenly flashed in Lu Changsheng's eyes, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists.

The spirit mine in Chengnan Village produces 5,000 low-grade spirit stones annually, which has enriched the Li family, but has also exploited the local mortals to this extent.

At this moment, a cultivator at the peak of Qi Refining arrived on his sword and bowed to Lu Changsheng, saying, "Young Master Lu, this place is a refuge for mortals, it's too dirty and filthy."

"Come with me, I will take you to the stronghold of my Li family cultivators."

This man was clearly the manager of the Li family here; his brocade robe was completely out of place.

Lu Changsheng and his group of more than twenty people followed him on their swords to the north of the village.

A courtyard perched on a small hill came into view, starkly contrasting with the dilapidated village dozens of feet away.

There was no mud outside the courtyard, only bluestone slabs paving the ground.

The courtyard wall is made of whole pieces of bluestone, and the base of the wall is clean and free of weeds.

The courtyard contained five brick and tile houses, with intact windows and heavy wooden doors, without the slightest damage.

Amidst the pouring cold rain, there was a stark contrast of tranquility.

A wooden watchtower, ten feet tall, stands in one corner of the courtyard wall. It can accommodate one person on top, and even in torrential rain, someone is on duty.

Neatly stacked firewood stood in one corner of the courtyard, and the faint aroma of wine and meat wafted from between the cracks in the door.

The steward of the Li family stepped forward and pushed open the door, only to see several burly men drinking and eating meat inside.

How satisfying!

These people have brick and tile houses to shelter them from the wind and rain, and they enjoy leisurely lives with plenty of food and drink.

Just a few dozen feet down the slope, the villagers were huddled in moldy, damp, dilapidated thatched huts.

They were poorly clothed and starving, unable to even get a bowl of hot porridge.

Just a slope apart, yet worlds apart!

Lu Changsheng's gaze first swept over the commotion in the courtyard, then fell upon the village below the slope, shrouded in death.

The last trace of peace in his eyes vanished, and a faint aura of spiritual power silently spread out from his body.

"You all deserve to die!"

Upon hearing this, the steward, a peak Qi Refining cultivator, turned deathly pale, his legs buckled, and he knelt on the bluestone slab with a "thud."

He trembled all over, unable to even utter a word of begging for mercy.

The burly men in the courtyard were so frightened that they dropped their wine bowls, the sound of them shattering particularly jarring.

Lu Changsheng did not roar; his voice was calm but carried a chill:

"Just a slope away, it's hell on earth."

The wine you drink and the meat you eat are all obtained by draining the blood and bones of these mortals.

He flicked his finger, and a stream of spiritual energy struck the steward's dantian, instantly crippling his Qi cultivation.

"Butler Zhang, drag him out and break his legs first!"

Then his cold eyes swept over the cultivators who had been drinking and eating meat just moments before, but were now standing there too scared to move.

"Get out of my sight and go back to the Li family before I can kill anyone."

Upon hearing this, the Li family cultivators dared not linger any longer. They abandoned the steward, whose cultivation had been crippled and whose leg broken by Lu Changsheng, and fled straight away.

Lu Changsheng glanced at the twenty-odd people he had brought with him:

"Take the food and firewood from the yard and come with me!"

After saying that, he turned and walked down the slope toward the dilapidated thatched huts.

……

On March 19th, the heavy rain continued.

The sky was still overcast, but Chengnan Village today was no longer the Chengnan Village of yesterday.

It was supposed to be the day for the handover of the spirit mine.

More than a hundred emaciated miners returned to the village from the Lingkuang Mountain cave on the west side of the village.

The two spirit mines are only five miles away from Chengnan Village, but these miners haven't been home for several years.

Their days were spent endlessly mining spirit ore in mines where the sun never shone.

Today is different; for the first time ever, they have returned to the village and to their homes.

This is all because of that young man whom the fat butler called "son-in-law".

He came to the village yesterday, and everything had changed.

He brought light by eliminating evil and wickedness; he dispelled the dark clouds, and they saw the clear sky!

At this moment, the young man took off his luxurious brocade robe and put on a patched coarse cloth garment. He was leading more than twenty people to repair dilapidated houses in the village.

Lu Changsheng manipulated objects with his hands, skillfully spreading thatch over the holes in the roof. He was very familiar with this kind of work, having seen Uncle Zhao do it many times before.

"Brother Changsheng!"

A familiar voice called out, and Lu Changsheng turned around and smiled unconsciously when he saw who it was.

The person who came was none other than his good brother, Chu Feng.

"Xiao Feng, you're here? Did you bring all the food and clothes I asked you to prepare?"

"Of course, would I be careless about what you asked me to do? This time I brought 16,700 catties of brown rice, 1,500 live chickens, and five giant-toothed pigs. It cost me thirty taels of gold in total, so you have to make it up to me."

"Alright, alright! You spend thirty taels of gold and I'll give you three low-grade spirit stones in return, okay? Also, you did a good job, so here's another hundred spirit stones for you."

Here's a low-grade spirit sword for you, worth twenty spirit stones.

As Lu Changsheng spoke, he tossed him a storage bag and a sword of decent quality.

At the same time, Chu Feng tossed him a storage bag.

Lu Changsheng reached out and took it. He scanned the bag with his divine sense and found that it contained a lot of supplies, enough to feed more than 300 people in the village for nearly a month.

He looked back and saw that the villagers, whose expressions had been as blank and lifeless as withered trees yesterday, now had a glimmer of light in their eyes and were whispering in twos and threes, no longer as dead silent as yesterday.

Seeing this, Lu Changsheng felt inexplicably happy.

Yesterday, he used less than a low-grade spirit stone to give these dying mortals a new lease on life, allowing them to live like human beings.

Despite such a paltry contribution, the Li family, who could readily offer 30,000 spirit stones, refused to part with even a single one.