Chen Gensheng kicked the corpse over with one foot, letting her face meet the yellow earth.

  The female cultivator’s storage bag didn't hold much. There were a few bottles of medicinal pills; judging by the containers, they were inferior goods meant for fortifying one's foundation or healing wounds. There were also several changes of clothing made of fabric so thin it was translucent, and the styles were so bold and unrestrained that they opened the eyes of even a "cockroach" from the gutters like him. Aside from those, there were eight mid-grade spirit stones and a few Joyous Union Sect cultivation manuals filled with illustrations of "little figures fighting."

  Gensheng curled his lip and tossed them all into his own storage ring.

  The Surging Dragon Fire-Fish Banner, however, was a true treasure.

  He extended all six of his arms simultaneously, cradling the small flag in his palms. The fabric was woven from some unknown fire-silk, warm to the touch yet incredibly resilient. The ferocious fire-fish embroidered upon it was crafted with exquisite skill; the two deep-blue gems acting as its eyes now had their brilliance restrained, yet they still exuded a bone-chilling coldness.

  A High-Grade artifact.

  For Gensheng, the journey from a lowly servant in Red Maple Valley to an Elder of the Heavenly Valve True Sect had been paved with insects, corpse-puppets, and third-rate talismans. This was the very first time he possessed a truly presentable artifact. With this item, he wouldn't always have to rely on piling up swarms of insects to exhaust his opponents in future battles. He could be like the disciples of those prestigious orthodox sects—sacrificing a Dharma treasure the moment a disagreement arose.

  Gensheng found a relatively secluded stone pit and sat down cross-legged.

  The golden spear from earlier had merely been thrown; if he truly wanted to use this new artifact, he had to refine it and imprint it with his own brand to use it with peace of mind. He laid the Fire-Fish Banner flat across his knees. The mental cultivation of the Sutra of Primordial Stability began to circulate slowly within his body as his divine sense divided and sank into the flag.

  Time trickled by.

  Under his constant erosion, the scarlet brand left by the previous owner grew paler and paler, its resistance weakening. Just as he was preparing to wipe out the final residue in one fell swoop, a hauntingly familiar set of footsteps approached from not far away.

  Gensheng did not stop his refining process.

  The newcomer wore a washed-out disciple’s robe and had an ordinary face. It was Li Simin. She looked somewhat disheveled, clearly having suffered quite a bit of hardship upon entering the secret realm.

  The final scarlet brand of the Joyous Union woman was thoroughly erased from the Fire-Fish Banner. The small flag erupted with light, the fire-fish on its surface began to swim joyfully, and the two blue gems flickered with a friendly glow.

  Gensheng slowly opened his eyes and stowed the High-Grade artifact into his ring. He finally looked up at Li Simin standing at the edge of the pit, his brow furrowing slightly.

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  "Simin, stay closer to me from now on."

  Li Simin extended a hand, pointing behind her.

  Gensheng looked over and saw a massive, pitch-black, lump-covered head peeking out from behind the enormous Corpse-Refining Coffin. It was the Essence-Marrow Toad. It appeared to have suffered as well; several deep wounds that revealed bone were visible on its body, seeping with threads of black qi, though its spirit seemed decent enough. Upon seeing Gensheng, its lantern-sized eyes actually revealed a hint of grievance.

  "Croak!" It opened its wide mouth and let out a cry.

  Gensheng sighed. Forget it, forget it. At least everyone had arrived in one piece.

  A cockroach-turned-spirit like himself. A female corpse who had been dead for who-knows-how-many years. And an ugly toad that couldn't survive without corpse-qi.

  "Let’s go."

  With a wave of his hand, the massive coffin opened further. The Essence-Marrow Toad gave a croak and reluctantly shrunk back inside.

  Finding a wind-shielded stone slope, Gensheng reached into his storage ring and withdrew the jade slip given to him by Zhang Cuizhan. The map was drafted with reasonable precision. The entire Star-Fall Gorge was like a shattered roof tile, its edges jagged and filled with grey mists formed by spatial turbulence. In the center of the "tile" was a massive, bottomless Great Rift, dividing the secret realm into two.

  To the west of the rift lay the continuous charred peaks of the Black-Spine Mountains—treeless, steep, and treacherous. To the east was a vast marshland, the Purple-Rot Swamp, perpetually shrouded in purple toxic miasma.

  Zhang Cuizhan had used cinnabar red to mark three locations on the map.

  The first was deep within a mountain cavern in the Black-Spine Mountains, accompanied by small script: "Spiritual energy is depleted here and the terrain is complex; Xiao Bai is highly likely to hide here to avoid detection."

  The second was in the heart of the Purple-Rot Swamp, where a lake was drawn and labeled as "Poison Dragon Pool." The note read: "There may be rare treasures within the pool; Xiao Bai is greedy and might risk exploring it."

  The third, marked most prominently, was on the cliffs of the Great Rift itself: "Thunder-Echo Ridge."

  "The cliff walls grow much lightning-struck wood, often drawing heavenly thunder; suspected habitat of the 'Celestial Calamity Thunder-Pool Flea.' The Jade Tripod Sect deduces that Xiao Bai’s final destination must be here."

  At first glance, this map was clear and logical, analyzing the traitor Xiao Bai’s psychology perfectly. The first point was a hideout, the second a treasure site, and the third the ultimate goal. An ordinary person holding this map would likely rush straight to the third point, Thunder-Echo Ridge, to wait for the prey.

  But for Gensheng, if he believed even half of what Zhang Cuizhan gave him, he’d consider himself naive.

  The second point, Poison Dragon Pool—claiming there were "rare treasures" and that Xiao Bai was "greedy" and "might go there." To Gensheng’s ears, this sounded exactly like a brothel girl enticing a customer to "come quickly." What treasure could possibly be heavier than one’s own life? He had just slaughtered a Foundation-level woman and gained a High-Grade artifact; he was feeling satisfied and had no intention of going there.

  As for the first point, the mountain cavern in the Black-Spine Mountains—claiming Xiao Bai "might be hiding" there. He didn't have the spare time to hunt through an entire mountain range like a headless fly for a single hole.

  All three points were increasingly unreliable.

  His divine sense finally came to rest on a palm-sized blank area at the northernmost edge of the map—the boundary between the Black-Spine Mountains and the Purple-Rot Swamp. Nothing was drawn there; it looked like a piece of a biscuit that had been bitten off, a sudden, jarring gap.

  Yet, next to it, someone had written two lines of commentary in tiny, fly-head script.

  The first line was: "Land of Ghostly Wails; the living must not enter."

  These words were written in a standard hand, appearing to be an original annotation of the map.