Over the course of a single night's sleep, they had run into two waves of living corpses.
The living corpses wielded shovels, rakes, and other farm implements, seemingly taken from the villagers' homes. In their hands, the farming tools served as weapons, posing a serious threat.
"Truth be told, Huangzhou really lives up to its name. You wouldn't run into this sort of thing anywhere else—quite an eye-opener," Lu Yang quipped with a chuckle. Drawing his Green Blade Sword, he remained completely relaxed, the sword's gleam flashing brilliantly in the candlelight.
Although the corpses were formidable in number, armed, and had completely surrounded the ancestral hall, the two of them were dignified Golden Core stage seniors—figures capable of establishing minor clans or founding sects in the wider world. There was no way a bunch of rustic walking corpses could pin them down.
"No wonder the villagers wouldn't let us stay in the village. They must have feared the danger. And all that talk about being eaten by corpses—is this what they were referring to?"
Even if the villagers had treated them rather coldly, Meng Jingzhou wasn't one to hold grudges; taking care of a little trouble for the village in passing was nothing to him.
"Look, there's a woman among the corpses!" Lu Yang pointed at a disheveled female corpse with unkempt hair and called out in surprise.
Meng Jingzhou looked bewildered. "Since when does death discriminate by gender? What's so weird about a female corpse being in the mix?"
"What I mean is, aren't you suffering from karmic backlash and forbidden from encountering women? But now you're fine seeing a female corpse! That proves your karmic backlash is limited strictly to living humans. Corpses, the demon race, and the like don't count. If you can't resolve your problem here in Huangzhou, you can just go chill in the Demon Domain until you reach the Soul Formation stage."
"Get lost! As if Eldest Senior Sister will never come!" Meng Jingzhou snapped. He struck first, charging straight at the living corpses.
"Collapsing Fist!" Meng Jingzhou clenched both fists, thrusting them forward like ram horns as he slammed hard into the living corpses.
Boom!
The living corpse blasted apart. The corpses surging into the ancestral hall were sent flying by the punch, clearing a path through the throng.
"Huh? These corpses are surprisingly tough." Meng Jingzhou was astonished. He had assumed they were just stray corpses from somewhere in the wilderness with brittle bodies, something a single Collapsing Fist should have pulverized to bits.
"Fairy, are these living corpses contagious?" Lu Yang had initially wanted to stop Meng Jingzhou from attacking until they figured out if there was any danger, but it seemed a bit late for that now.
"What do you mean, 'contagious'?" the Immortal Fairy asked, puzzled by his question.
"Like, if a living person gets bitten, they turn into a living corpse too."
The Immortal Fairy looked at Lu Yang as if he were an idiot, completely unable to fathom his train of thought. "Of course not! If anything, I've never even heard of such a thing. What on earth made you think of that?"
"Just a random thought."
Now assured there was no risk of infection, Lu Yang finally stepped forward with peace of mind to join the fray.
Once they clashed, Lu Yang also discovered that the living corpses were remarkably tough—definitely refined by an expert.
"Still, if you think you can eat us, you're daydreaming!" The two laughed heartily, hurling every living corpse right out of the ancestral hall.
From the living corpses' perspective, they had Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou surrounded. But from Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou's perspective, the two of them had surrounded the corpses.
"Don't even think about escaping! Today, us two brothers will rid the people of this menace!"
Just as the two were about to unleash their ultimate techniques and wipe out the horde of living corpses in one sweep, an aged voice sounded nearby.
"Young brothers, please show mercy! They mean no harm!"
The one who had arrived was the very old man who had refused their request to stay the night earlier.
"My talk about them eating people was just to scare you off! They only wanted to come to the ancestral hall to eat the offerings. You two just happened to be staying here!"
Hearing this, both froze. Looking back, it seemed the living corpses hadn't actually shown any intent to attack them from the start.
Tentatively holding their strikes, they watched as the corpses indeed ignored them, stepping around them to file into the ancestral hall.
Only after all the living corpses had entered the hall did the two approach the old man to ask for an explanation.
The old man sighed. "I am the village chief of Jianshi Village. The matter of these corpses might be hard for you two to believe, so you'd best see for yourselves first."
They watched as the living corpses crowded into the ancestral hall, circling the piping-hot steamed buns. Before long, the buns turned icy cold, all steam and warmth vanished, and only then did the corpses cease.
When they left the ancestral hall, the corpses carried shovels, rakes, plows, and other implements, marching in unison and in neat formation out of Jianshi Village.
The three followed behind the corpses. They didn't walk far, stopping as soon as they reached the edge of the fields. Taking up their shovels, plows, and tools, they began tilling and planting the soil.
Some living corpses used carrying poles to haul water from the riverbank, tirelessly watering the fields.
Others without tools squatted on the ground, plucking weeds and squishing pests.
With a clear division of labor, they worked just like diligent, seasoned farmers.
Once the farming was finished and the day's tasks were complete, the living corpses carried their farm tools from the fields back to the village entrance, and then from the village entrance to the graveyard at the far end of the village. There, using the tools in their hands, they dug pits and buried themselves.
Lu Yang: "..."
Meng Jingzhou: "..."
Both painfully rubbed their temples, wondering if they were hallucinating.
"Do all the people of Huangzhou use living corpses to farm?"
This was vastly more advanced than any other province. Even their Dao Seeking Sect couldn't compare.
At the Dao Seeking Sect, they only used the azure-eyed water buffalo clan and the Third Elder for plowing.
The village chief of Jianshi Village gave a helpless explanation. "It is not as you imagine. We are merely common folk; how could we afford to keep so many living corpses?"
"In truth, we have no idea where this group of corpses came from. One evening, while we were cooling off under the tree by the village entrance, we saw a crowd of living corpses walking over. At first, everyone was terrified, thinking they were going to attack us."
"Yet after interacting with them, we realized they had no intention of harming anyone. Likely because they had run out of energy, they stopped in our village and wouldn't leave."
"Although our village doesn't have a corpse driver, I followed one for a brief time in my youth and learned a tiny bit of the craft. So, I tried steaming some buns to feed them."
"The method actually worked, and the corpses started moving again. Someone then suggested whether we could have them plow the fields. I thought it was worth a shot, so I drove them forward and had them till the land."
"And so, we rest during the day, steam a pot of buns in the evening, and place them in the ancestral hall. Come nightfall, the corpses crawl out from the graveyard, absorb the yang energy from the buns, and set to work farming. Since everyone is still afraid of them, every household shuts their doors tight at night."
"Once the farming is done, they automatically bury themselves again until the following night, repeating the cycle."
"Truth be told, ever since the living corpses took over farming for us, life has become far easier, freeing up our time for other pursuits."
"Then why wouldn't you let us stay the night?"
The village chief confessed honestly, "We were afraid you'd discover these unowned corpses and report them to the yamen. If the yamen found their master, wouldn't we have to go back to farming ourselves?"
"We originally meant to scare you away. Who would have thought that instead of leaving, you went and slept in the ancestral hall? Seeing that the secret was bound to come out anyway, I figured coming forward to explain was better than having you injured by the corpses."
Chapter 404