The Nine-Age Crane immediately flew out of the window. It couldn't stay in Dingnai Hall for even another second.
It only came to a stop when it reached the Gathering Fortune Pavilion and landed on a branch of the unaging pine.
The old pine and the crane exchanged a look.
They both saw the same thought in each other's eyes.
This was it.
Tomorrow.
No.
Immediately.
Right now.
They had to summon their old friends immediately!
The unaging pine rolled up a scrap of paper and used its branches to scrawl a few names on it in a crooked fashion.
The Nine-Age Crane flapped its wings, pointing and gesturing at the paper.
The two began to communicate through divine sense.
"Old Locust. Old Locust must still be alive. He settled in Qingzhou. We had some friendship ten thousand years ago; we even peeked at the Celestial Maiden Spring together in secret."
"Do you remember the old deer? Yes, the Longevity Deer. I don't know if he's dead or not. Can we contact him now?"
"And then there's Bai Ze. He owed me a favor back then..."
The two of them muttered while they wrote.
Nearby, Jiu'er was carrying a bucket of Fortune Spring Water, preparing to water the unaging pine.
Seeing this, he also crouched down and looked at them with curiosity.
"What are you doing?"
The Nine-Age Crane looked up and glanced at him.
"Honk."
Jiu'er blinked. "Calling someone? Who are you calling?"
The unaging pine remained silent for a while before frantically waving its branches.
"Calling old friends?"
"To come live here?"
Jiu'er tilted his head. "Why?"
The unaging pine fell silent again.
Then it lowered its head and continued writing names.
Why?
Because if they didn't come soon, these two were going to be plucked bald.
...
In Tianchi Province, Plague Rat walked at the front to lead the way while Chen Zhou and the others followed behind him.
They deliberately slowed their pace to observe the surrounding environment.
The landscape of Tianchi Province was completely different from Gloomlight Province.
There were no mountains, no water, no trees, and no grass.
As far as the eye could see, there was only endless desolation.
Occasionally, some stones could be seen, but they were all black and covered in fine cracks as if they had been corroded by something.
Chen Zhou had always been curious about the imprints on the ground, which were all complete human shapes.
The edges of the imprints were curled up, oozing a faint pus.
Chen Zhou casually summoned a bone spear and poked at an imprint, only to feel it hit something slippery and slimy.
"How are these things formed?"
Plague Rat looked back casually. "Oh, those? They are the nests of hundred corpse patchworks."
"Usually, if you don't disturb them, they rarely take the initiative to attack living beings."
As soon as he finished speaking, the imprint Chen Zhou had poked wriggled a few times.
The gray-green soil slowly rose, and then a piece of rotten flesh squeezed out from the imprint.
That piece of flesh had no shape; it was just a mass of rotten meat with a surface covered in dense holes.
Pus continuously seeped out of the holes and dripped onto the ground.
Immediately afterward, the surrounding imprints also seemed to be awakened.
Countless pieces of rotten meat surged out from the human-shaped imprints, wriggling and rolling on the ground as they fused together.
Soon, several figures that could barely be recognized as human appeared before everyone.
They had heads, torsos, and limbs.
But their entire bodies were rotten.
Their heads tilted to one side, and their facial features were a blurred mess, leaving only a mouth that opened and closed as they gasped for breath.
Their torsos were covered in gashes, through which writhing internal organs could be seen.
Their limbs were of varying lengths, with some parts bulging with massive pustules and others so rotten that only bone remained.
The creatures trembled all over as they walked toward the group step by step.
Plague Rat clicked his tongue.
"Yeah, that's them."
"Everyone calls them hundred corpse patchworks."
"Some people call them Rotten Tumor Monsters."
"But I like to call them Sticky Clumps."
He took a step forward and raised his hand.
Dark green mist surged from Plague Rat's palm as his Great Plague Heaven expanded.
The mist rolled across the ground, and every hundred corpse patchwork that touched the domain began to fester.
Pustules burst, gashes tore open, and flesh fell off in chunks.
But they did not fall.
The hundred corpse patchworks continued to walk forward amidst the festering, and dense human-face sores grew on their bodies.
Every face was twisting and screaming, shrieking something in different voices.
The monsters began to stop, looking down at the human faces growing on various parts of their bodies, their entire forms trembling violently.
Then, they collapsed one by one.
Plague Rat withdrew his hand and nodded with satisfaction.
"Done."
Chen Zhou looked at the pile of rotting meat being corroded and raised an eyebrow.
"Are these things common?"
Plague Rat was currently giddy with excitement over using the special ability granted by the Lord for the first time.
Hearing this, he thought for a moment before speaking again.
"There are quite a lot of them. They are in almost every no man's land in Tianchi Province."
"They are sticky and very disgusting, and they all carry malignant plagues."
"But these things aren't actually living beings; they are just some rotten flesh patched together that can barely move."
"They are also quite troublesome."
"If you chop them up, they can reassemble. If you burn them, new ones will crawl out of the imprints."
"In the past, I had to take a detour whenever I saw them."
He kicked the pile of melting rotten meat on the ground.
"But now, it's just too easy."
He chuckled, looking triumphant.
"I never thought I'd see the day where I could do this!"
Plague Rat increased the output of death qi, causing the mist on the ground to spread further.
The Great Plague Heaven submerged more hundred corpse patchworks, and corpse after corpse festered in the mist, turning into a pool of pus that seeped into the ground.
Then, more human-shaped imprints were corroded into the earth.
Plague Rat withdrew his domain and nodded in satisfaction. Just as he was about to turn around, he suddenly discovered something unusual through the feedback from the human-face sores.
"Huh?"
He walked over quickly and crouched beside a newly left human-shaped imprint.
Chen Zhou also walked over.
"What is it?"
Plague Rat stared at the imprint, his brow furrowed.
"Lord, these things... actually still retain a bit of sanity."
Chen Zhou raised an eyebrow.
Plague Rat pointed at a small piece of flesh remaining in the imprint.
That piece of flesh was trembling slightly as if it were still struggling.
"I've lived in Tianchi Province for over three hundred years, and this is the first time I've observed this thing from such a close distance."
Plague Rat picked out two small, relatively intact pieces of flesh from the imprint, wrapped them in mist, and placed them on the ground.
After hitting the ground, the rotten meat was quickly infected by the human-face sores and began to wriggle, trying to reassemble.
But they were too small and could only form a face the size of a broad bean.
Plague Rat stared at the human-face sore for a while before looking up.
"Lord, it seems to be speaking."
Chen Zhou narrowed his eyes.
Indeed, on the wound that looked like a human face, the lips were constantly opening and closing, making an extremely faint sound.
It sounded like someone whispering.
But it was impossible to hear what was being said.
Jian Huaishuang also crouched down and leaned in to listen.
"It seems to be repeating the same word."
He frowned, trying hard to distinguish it.
"Is it... is it... 'Help'?"
"No, that's not it."
Plague Rat listened for a while, and his expression suddenly changed.
"It's... Jing Hui?"
The group turned their heads together to look at Jing Hui.
Jing Hui's paper figure stood there, motionless.
He had heard it too.
The faint sound coming from the rotten sore was indeed two words.
Jing Hui.
Over and over again.
Jing Hui.
Jing Hui.
Jing Hui.
Rate on N.U.
