The sound of bronze bells, though fleeting, continued to echo in Ren Qing's ears.
He hesitated on whether to join the commotion when he suddenly felt a gale surge nearby, carrying with it a faint stench.
The odor was somewhat like body musk, yet possessed the corrosive quality of demonic qi.
"This should be the aura released by an aberration."
The bronze bells rang again.
Dark clouds gathered densely, and the sunlight was instantly obscured.
A massive fox hide, hundreds of meters long and glued together with flesh and blood, flew past. Its fur was an ashen blue, as though freshly flayed.
The townsfolk did not dare lift their heads, and the convoy quickly halted.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes and could sense the aberrant aura emanating from the fox hide, it must have been the Granny Fox Immortal that Deng Chuan had spoken of.
Yet he saw no human skin, nor any trace of Qingqiu cultivators.
The direction of the fox hide was clearly toward Qingqiu Mountain outside the city. This calamity, born from taboo, should have come to an end.
But something was wrong, terribly wrong.
Ren Qing, without hesitation, left the convoy.
His reasons for leaving Wuwei Monastery were many; that outer disciples had inexplicably turned into aberrant cultivators was only one of them.
He also wanted to understand aberrant cultivators, to discern the true situation in Jingzhou's murky waters before considering contact with the Restraint Officers' Hall.
Of course, there was also the matter of the dream market.
The Immortal Market was clearly restricted by Wuwei Monastery and could only be maintained as is for now.
If he wanted to expand the dream market, the only remaining target was the aberrant cultivators, but he did not yet understand their cultivation system.
Ren Qing strode quickly toward the southwest.
Deng Chuan happened to glance down the street and caught sight of Ren Qing's departing figure, falling momentarily into a daze, overcome by an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
"What's wrong, boss?"
His deputy, Zhao Xiang, asked, and the other guards turned their eyes toward him.
"It's nothing, nothing."
Deng Chuan hesitated for a few breaths before continuing. "Since Granny Fox Immortal has calmed down, there's no need for us to head to Changning Street. Let's find an inn to rest for the night."
"Right. Everyone's exhausted anyway."
The guards' expressions brightened. At least they wouldn't have to risk their lives escorting the goods. The rest of the journey would be far easier.
They calmed their frightened horses and slowly made their way along the street.
Nearby residents emerged from their houses one after another. Stalls were set up again, and vendors' cries filled the air, there was no sign of the earlier desolation.
It was as though the bronze bell's ringing had pulled the neighborhood from hell back into the realm of the living.
Luo Xian noticed Deng Chuan's good mood. Even if their employer's death hurt their business, it was still better than losing their own lives.
He asked curiously, "Boss, how did you know Granny Fox Immortal had calmed down?"
At his words, everyone fell silent for a brief moment.
Even Deng Chuan hadn't realized that the entire street, thousands of people, had all, at almost the same moment, formed the same thought: that the Fox Immortal's anger had subsided.
A flicker of doubt rose in their hearts, but within a few breaths it was gone.
"Whatever the case, let's get to the inn first."
Deng Chuan shook his head. The lively street dispelled the chill along his spine, and the faint unease in his heart faded completely.
The guards promptly agreed.
They laughed and chatted, showing no trace of the danger they'd faced just half an hour ago, even though some of their companions had died.
Invisible butterflies followed the wagon, a sign that Ren Qing had left part of his awareness watching the convoy.
Ren Qing moved through the crowd and soon reached the southwestern district.
Before him stretched a vast open ground, at the center of which stood a dilapidated charity mortuary, the very place where the rogue cultivators had vanished.
Ren Qing activated the Double Pupils to their fullest, but within the mortuary he sensed no abnormality; it seemed nothing more than an ordinary building.
He stepped inside.
The temperature dropped by at least thirty degrees between outside and within. Inside stood over a dozen ancestral tablets with blurred inscriptions and five sealed coffins.
Judging from the inscriptions, the mortuary had been abandoned by the townsfolk for some time, but the musky fox stench was even stronger within.
The coffins were empty, yet nailed shut tight.
Because the streets outside had returned to life, the surrounding noise grew louder.
Ren Qing took a long look around. He knew that the matter of Qingqiu's fox immortals was not yet over, something was about to happen.
From the state of the Immortal Market these past days, it was clear that within the cities where the Daoist temples' disciples resided, there wasn't even the slightest rumor.
It was as if all factions had tacitly agreed to keep silent.
Ren Qing refrained from letting the Wugui devour his own existence and instead walked out of the mortuary, soon vanishing into the deepening streets.
He found a deserted courtyard, sat cross-legged inside, and began to meditate.
Soul Butterfly projections, like fireflies, filled the corners, searching for the source of the aberrant aura, but found nothing.
Ren Qing did not force the matter. If nothing strange surfaced, he would proceed as planned to the area where the Corpse Elephant lingered.
In cultivation, time flowed like sand through fingers. When he opened his eyes, dawn had already risen.
Thick clouds obscured the sky, as if heavy rain was about to fall.
The musky scent grew stronger, yet the townsfolk seemed not to notice it.
Ren Qing frowned. With his current cultivation, to sense nothing at all was strange, could it really be as Deng Chuan had said?
"The aberration's calamity has already vanished?"
Booming thunder rolled.
His thought had barely formed when the sound of dense rainfall followed; a torrential downpour blanketed all of Jingzhou City.
The chill of late autumn swept through the air, yet people still walked the streets.
Soon, someone began to play a suona, accompanied by drums and gongs, and a shrill, eerie singing voice of an old woman followed, like a mourning song.
Surprised, Ren Qing opened the window. He saw a festive bridal sedan procession moving along the street, something exceedingly strange under the circumstances.
The townsfolk went about their business, ignoring the sedans completely.
The bearers wore mourning clothes, and the accompanying crowd were likewise dressed in sackcloth and hemp.
Their bodies were heavily mutated, their heads showing clear fox-like features, by Jingzhou's standards, well-suited for Qingqiu's aberration techniques.
On nearby streets, similar processions appeared. Over a hundred bridal sedans were being carried out, with the clamor of drums and horns unending.
Inside the sedans were no brides, but flayed corpses.
The corpses wore luxurious wedding garments. From their forms, one could tell they were women, though many parts had already begun to rot, drawing swarms of flies.
Hundreds of players blew their suonas, their eerie music echoing through the storm until it became truly unsettling.
Ren Qing looked puzzled. Where had so many sedans come from? Even all of Jingzhou together might not possess dozens of them.
This must be related to the Qingqiu aberrations, but there were no traces to be found.
"Wait..."
"Could this be happening within the Crescent Moon Layer?"
Ren Qing's Double Pupils turned rapidly. He looked toward the direction of the blood moon and felt a brief sensation of weightlessness.
He only gazed at it for an instant, and since it was daylight, his body and soul were not drawn into the waxing moon layer, only a slight dizziness arose.
Through that subtle state, the scene before his eyes changed dramatically.
The sedans' outer surfaces had become flesh-like, their curtains resembling freshly flayed human skin that occasionally writhed and sprouted hair.
Veins and blue vessels spread across the surface, and the flayed corpses inside came to life.
Each corpse, like a bride on her wedding day, held a bronze mirror, carefully applying rouge and powder to her grotesque face.
The sedans were indeed from the Crescent Moon Layer and were clearly connected to aberrant cultivators.
All of them seemed headed toward the mortuary in the southwest.
Ren Qing looked that way and saw that the mortuary had transformed into a vast courtyard filled with bustling figures.
Guests moved to and fro; their appearances were half-human, half-fox. Their cultivation was shallow, it must have been the same rogue cultivators as before.
Perhaps they had come to Qingqiu, hoping to learn the aberration techniques.
"What is this supposed to be, a Fox Immortal bestowing the Dao?"
Ren Qing's curiosity deepened. Since it was certain that the aberration itself would not interfere, this was indeed a rare chance to study their techniques.
But was the Crescent Moon Layer truly safe for aberrant cultivators?
That realm teemed with aberrations of every kind.
As Ren Qing pondered, the scenes from the Crescent Layer began to fade.
He had only two options: to enter the Crescent Moon Layer himself, or to cultivate an aberration technique. The Double Pupils alone could not peer across layers.
"Perhaps there's a way to take a shortcut..."
After a moment's hesitation, Ren Qing's consciousness entered the Prison Within the Abdomen.
Because the Immortal Market closed by day, it was quiet. Yuan Si was walking with a few newly gathered children, wandering among the shops.
Ren Qing took a deep breath. The three dream techniques merged as one.
Outside the Immortal Market, a massive illusory figure took form, its aura nearly tangible, but one Dream Seed on its forehead was missing.
Dream Seeds differed from Soul Butterflies; they could not create projections, only maintain the Immortal Market, which in turn subtly affected dream arts.
Ren Qing had long hesitated, but now his choice was clear.
He tore away the Heavenly Way Dream Seed without hesitation. A faint pain rose from his soul but quickly faded.
The Immortal Market trembled.
His action caused the Market to verge on collapse; cracks spread across the shops, and the dream became ever more fragile.
He shouted, "Transform!"
Light and shadow intertwined, the Market stabilized again, and all cracks vanished.
The Heavenly Way Dream Seed was now permanently rooted at the center of Wine Lake Island, signifying that he had abandoned this dream artifact.
Yuan Si, though the ground quaked, stood calm in the middle of the street, simply waiting.
The children, seeing this, also grew fearless.
Ren Qing nodded to himself. These children were seeds for cultivation he had gathered for Wuwei Monastery, and Yuan Si had brought them into the Prison Within the Abdomen.
Though it was unrealistic to expand the Monastery this way, it would at least ease their current troubles.
His consciousness returned to his body.
Then Ren Qing opened his palm. With the support of the three dream techniques, a new Dream Seed, normally requiring months to gestate, began to take form.
This Dream Seed was pure, without any mixed aura.
Ren Qing pressed it into his brow. As it touched the musky scent, he finally saw the dense aura filling the air.
The Dream Seed began to absorb it.
The aberrant aura was more like demonic energy, so Ren Qing named this Dream Seed:
Monster Aberration Dream Seed.