Ren Qing's split soul, like a black goat, returned to the Niwan Palace, and was already close to losing control.
At this time, the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed actively transformed into a Daoist robe and draped itself over the split soul's body, greedily absorbing the tainted Heavenly Demon aura.
Ren Qing looked somewhat helpless. The Heavenly Demon Dream Seed was the first magic artifact to undergo metamorphosis, but its progress had already come to a halt.
The truth was that the Heavenly Demon aura was too difficult to obtain. It was impossible to always go to the Wuwei Daoist Altar.
He turned his attention to the statue of the Dao Ancestor inside the Prison Within the Abdomen. Originally it was quite solemn and majestic, but now it looked somewhat eerie.
Ren Qing tried to create an imagined technique, but the statue showed not the slightest reaction.
On the contrary, the husky became extremely frightened, barking incessantly, as if the Dao Ancestor statue would devour it in the next moment.
Only when Ren Qing locked the statue away inside a sealed prison cell did the barking finally subside.
He was not in a hurry to explore the secrets of the Dao Ancestor statue. Having imprisoned it, he simply ignored it.
The sky was already darkening, the sun about to set. He wondered how Liu Chuan's situation was.
Ren Qing patiently waited for a long time, until the instant his soul connected with the ghost shadow. His consciousness descended into the Yellow Sand City of the Gobi.
Opening his eyes, he found himself actually in a room. Judging from the decorations, it should be a Daoist temple, but the furniture was all carved from stone.
The dim candle flames crackled and sputtered.
Corpse oil already had many impurities, and moreover, it gave off a strange burnt stench.
Ren Qing was somewhat unaccustomed to the eyesight of this body, he could hardly see clearly.
He rubbed his eyes, then his expression turned extremely grim. Just a single day had passed, but his belly was now like that of a woman ten months pregnant.
With the help of the ghost shadow, Ren Qing quickly understood the situation, not much different from that of the Restraint Officer Luo Mingmeng.
The lungs were extremely swollen, transformed into a glass-like state filled with liquor.
Could it be that the immortality spoken of by Shashanzi was the process of turning oneself into food?
Ren Qing inwardly denied it.
Impossible.
After all, Liu Chuan had died of dehydration, completely different circumstances. Eight or nine times out of ten, it was that the cultivators of Yellow Sand City, upon noticing damage to his soul, had treated him as some sort of discarded pawn for an unknown purpose.
"Hic..."
Ren Qing burped.
His mouth was filled with the thick stench of alcohol, making him feel faintly nauseous, and his head ached sharply.
Just like waking from a hangover.
Ren Qing wanted to get up from the cold bed, but the aberration in his lungs made his breathing heavy, and his saliva already contained streaks of blood.
He could not call forth the information flow, but he could sense that his lifespan was now likely measured in days. With his internal organs mutated in this way, how could any ordinary person possibly survive?
If he wanted to live a few more nights, it seemed the only way was to try cultivating a technique.
But the Restraint Officer Method's entry requirement was far too high, not something that could be grasped in a short time. Only practicing imagined techniques was somewhat reliable.
Ren Qing endured the pain and began to search inside the house.
He found that this room seemed to have originally been Liu Chuan's residence, likely before he died of depletion.
Personal belongings were neatly arranged, and people frequently came to clean, as if the place had been deliberately prepared for Liu Chuan.
Ren Qing found this very puzzling.
Then his attention turned to a seemingly ordinary jar in the corner. From within, faint rustling noises could be heard.
The jar's lid opened a crack, revealing a pair of blood-red eyes.
A terrifying aura burst forth.
Ren Qing shook his head at this sight.
With this frail body, he would have no way to resist an uncanny being. It seemed he could only transfer the ghost shadow away before dying.
But he was unwilling. This was clearly already deep inside Yellow Sand City, perhaps there were clues about techniques to be found.
Ren Qing closed his eyes, grasping at straws, while his split soul went to the Dao Ancestor statue in the Prison Within the Abdomen, chanting the imagined technique.
He crossed his arms over his chest, silently leaning toward the jar.
The jar lid slowly opened. Sharp teeth scraped against each other, and the clattering of bones resounded one after another.
"Eat you, I will become immortal."
"Eat you..."
The uncanny being inside abruptly stopped. Its gaze was somewhat confused, for the thin child before it made even greater noises than itself.
Ren Qing's breath was full of a fishy stench, his belly swelling at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if filled with flesh.
From a height of barely one-point-two or -three meters, he rapidly grew. Muscles covered thick bones, and in just a few breaths he became a burly giant.
The uncanny being let out a sound of disbelief: "You are not Liu Chuan, you..."
Ren Qing opened his eyes, a baleful aura surging forth.
His head nearly touched the roof of the house, his height at least 2.3 to 2.4 meters, his body brimming with strength.
Moreover, his swollen lungs were covered by solid muscles. Aside from still having difficulty breathing, they no longer hindered him from making large movements.
Ren Qing touched his belly, sighing involuntarily: "To forcibly digest thirty-six hearts, I almost burst."
The Dao Ancestor statue truly was the source of the imagined technique. Simply by relying on it, he had Liu Chuan's body cultivate the Pure Yang Filthless Method.
Originally he thought Liu Chuan would die while attempting to master the imagined technique, but the Gobi people's stomachs were very peculiar.
Though seemingly only fist-sized, they could actually contain twenty to thirty catties of food, and their digestion speed and efficiency far surpassed that of ordinary people.
This caused the Pure Yang Filthless Method's effects to be pushed to the extreme, forcibly reaching the level of a Restraint Officer at the Half-Corpse realm who had mastered physical techniques.
"Eat you, eat you, I will become immortal... immortal..."
The uncanny being in the jar seemed to lose its reason, crawling out only to vanish, leaving behind only endless muttering.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes.
He already understood what the Three Realms of Self-Immortalization meant, and so he figured out exactly what uncanny creature was being raised in the jar.
Suddenly Ren Qing's right arm felt stabbing pain, the flesh rapidly shriveling away.
The uncanny being laughed wildly: "So delicious! Eat you, immortality!!!!"
Ren Qing smiled, looking at the now-empty arm, and inexplicably said: "How many delicacies are there, Liu Chuan?"
"You... who are you..."
"You guess."
Black liquid flowed from Ren Qing's eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Compared to the No Shadow uncanny being inside the jar, he looked even more like a demon.
Most of the ghost shadow had left his body, and in the Niwan Palace only a little remained, controlling part of his body, but it was enough.
The ghost shadow forcibly merged into the withered right arm, and at once terrifying strength surged.
The uncanny being inexplicably felt fear. Just now, the man before it had been a child to be toyed with, but now he was utterly terrifying.
It wanted to flee, but it was too late.
Ren Qing bit his tongue, spraying blood over his right arm.
The blood made a transparent uncanny being gradually reveal its true form, its body composed entirely of vapor, though its upper half was humanoid.
Its face was twisted, its forehead and ears sprouting chrysanthemum-shaped orifices filled with sharp fangs, tongues stretching out to lick its lips.
Its features faintly bore traces of Liu Chuan.
It was using those orifices to forcibly absorb the flesh of Ren Qing's body.
But below its waist, it was like cloud and mist, dotted with faint glimmers, indeed with a kind of indescribable immortal aura.
Liu Chuan let out a shrill scream, feeling his entire body bound tightly by the ghost shadow, then a large hand gripped his throat.
Ren Qing leaned in and asked: "What are the names of the three realms of becoming immortal?"
"Uh..."
"Sorry, I'm holding too tight."
Ren Qing loosened his grip slightly. Liu Chuan coughed violently, his eyes filled with barely restrained venomous hatred, still trying to struggle free.
"Speak."
Sensing the dense killing intent, Liu Chuan dared not resist further. Trembling, he said: "I only know the first realm, Self-Consumption."
"Self-Consumption. Interesting."
"I will tell you the method of becoming immortal, as long as you let me go..."
"Forget it."
Ren Qing tightened his grip on Liu Chuan's throat, his tone mocking: "You haven't even achieved Self-Consumption, how could you know immortality?"
Liu Chuan's pupils dilated, strange gurgling sounds coming from his mouth.
Ren Qing had already guessed eight or nine parts correctly.
So-called Self-Consumption was separating the water within the body by certain means, letting the water become a Marsh Person, then raising it in a jar.
The Marsh Person would feed on the original body. Only if it could absorb the three souls and seven spirits would one be considered to have fully reached Self-Consumption.
Clearly, Liu Chuan's Marsh Person had not absorbed them all, so the original body's Niwan Palace still retained one soul and three spirits.
After possessing the body, Ren Qing had wondered why the rest of the souls had disappeared.
Suddenly he thought of Yan Feng's body, whose souls had already been entirely devoured.
This showed that Li Tiangang had previously tried to bring Yan Feng back to the camp, but an accident caused his souls to be eaten.
It was possible that Marsh People produced by Restraint Officer cultivators would be even stronger, otherwise not even Li Tiangang would have been unable to deal with them.
Ren Qing felt somewhat troubled. Looking again at Liu Chuan, whose neck was about to be snapped, his eyes grew chilling.
"Liu Chuan, meeting me counts as your immortal fortune. I'll help you become immortal now."
"Mmm mmm mmm..."
Liu Chuan desperately tried to resist, but soon cold dread enveloped him. He had never seen anything so horrifying.
Ren Qing pried open Liu Chuan's mouth, forcibly extracting the remaining one soul and three spirits, mixing in ghost shadow, and stuffing them inside.
Liu Chuan had no desire to absorb them, but the veins bulging from the arm gripping his neck looked ready to crush him.
He had no choice but to swallow the souls. His vaporous body slowly spread upward, though its color was somewhat dim.
Once all the souls were absorbed, Liu Chuan transformed into a man wearing a cyan Daoist robe, the orifices on his forehead and ears becoming lotus-shaped, his immortal aura fully revealed.
Liu Chuan's phantom body passed through the restraining arm, trembling as he hid in the corner.
Ren Qing maintained his posture. The ghost shadow in the Niwan Palace was no longer enough to control his body, most of it was in Liu Chuan.
But he felt that as long as the main body of the ghost shadow approached Liu Chuan, he could easily control the latter's life and death.
"Wait. I will come find you."
Liu Chuan wanted to say something, but the ghost shadow surged inside his body, as if layering shackles upon shackles.
The door to the room opened. Several Daoists entered with looks of delight, clearly alerted by Liu Chuan's achievement of Self-Consumption.
But what greeted their eyes was a giant body, bringing incomparable oppression.
They were so frightened they staggered backward several steps. Then they noticed the man had already become a corpse, while Liu Chuan, his expression crazed, knelt on the ground.
"Don't kill me, I don't want to become immortal, I don't want to become immortal, don't kill me."
The morning sun rose.
Ren Qing's consciousness returned to his body.