Sha Shanzi replied: "The initial proposal was put forward by Chaoyangzi. He said that the Immortal Ascension Ladder could be used to receive descending Ze Immortals, and this then obtained the approval of the authorities."
"Later the authorities discovered that using the Immortal Ascension Ladder could yield more Immortal Grubs, so they built for several years, and only now is it nearing completion."
"Chaoyangzi's corpse is outside the city?"
"Mm, at that time I performed the rites for his soul."
Ren Qing felt that the Ze People leaving Qingxu Temple should not require the Immortal Ascension Ladder for reception; back then, the Ze Person transformed from Xiao Ying had simply appeared at the edge of the Water Marsh.
It might well be that Chaoyangzi had come into contact with the Wine God Technique, though only in fragmentary form, and thus came up with such a crude Qi Refining Method.
The complete Wine God Technique might be inside Qingxu Temple, and Chaoyangzi had wanted to ascend to the clouds through the Immortal Ascension Ladder.
Ren Qing organized his thoughts. In any case, he would first obtain the manual of the Water Marsh Method, and then make plans at length to slowly obtain the Wine God Technique.
He collected Sha Shanzi into the Prison Within the Abdomen, and then his appearance underwent slight changes, deliberately adding a few wrinkles.
The two's figures were already very similar, only Sha Shanzi was somewhat thinner.
Ren Qing did not deliberately conceal himself, but with the illusion of the Immortal in the Mirror it was enough, plus a technique to diminish presence, so that he would not be recognized.
He turned his attention to the Prison Within the Abdomen.
Sha Shanzi's expression was dazed.
He found himself in an enclosed prison, and his expression immediately turned fearful.
Sha Shanzi's mind kept replaying his conversation with Ren Qing, always feeling that he had undergone some inexplicable horror, a chill running down his spine.
Especially after coming here, his heart was filled with thick unease.
After hesitating for a long time, he left the cell and walked along the corridor.
From afar came strange noises again and again, and there was even a stench of blood and rot; everything indicated this was no longer the familiar Huang Sand City.
Sha Shanzi pinched his arm; the pain arose, proving he was not dreaming.
"Could it really be that he is a disciple of the Primordial Heavenly Venerable..."
From a cell came the sound of heavy breathing; he instinctively approached, and was immediately frightened into collapsing to the ground by the scene before his eyes.
In the darkness appeared a monster with a human face and a tiger's body, licking its fur with a tongue covered in barbs.
The monster noticed Sha Shanzi and its ferocity was revealed; it could not restrain itself from pouncing straight at him, but was blocked by the bars of the cell.
Sha Shanzi scrambled on hands and knees, hurriedly crawling toward the end of the passage, only to find that in the other cells, at least thirty to forty monsters were imprisoned.
His expression twisted, and warmth spread damply between his legs.
How could Sha Shanzi know that these monsters were all reserves of Supernatural Remnants, to be thrown by Ren Qing at any time into the Flesh Furnace.
He was even more horrified.
Sha Shanzi carefully crossed the prison area, thinking it would be somewhat safer.
But what met his eyes instead were ghost wolves as tall as mountains in the open space, as well as great roc birds resting with closed eyes, and skeletal sand dunes.
"Help!!!"
Sha Shanzi fled in panic into the nearest cell, only after closing the door did he breathe a sigh of relief.
Calming himself, he noticed that the walls appeared like flesh and blood, threaded with veins, occasionally writhing.
"I... have I been swallowed into the belly of an immortal..."
But why was the world within the abdomen like a boundless hell, filled with terrifying monsters, completely unlike the ethereal immortal aura Ren Qing had displayed?
He could not help but feel suffocated.
Sha Shanzi muttered Daoist scripture to himself, then sat cross-legged on the ground, operating the Qi Refining Method.
The collapse of his worldview caused his Dao Heart to waver, even to the point of doubting the reality of the Ze Immortals in Huang Sand City.
When Sha Shanzi opened his eyes again, he noticed in front of him a thick book, its cover's script slightly strange.
But just like the relation between simplified and traditional characters, Xiangxiang after all was adjacent to the Water Marsh, many customs and habits were quite similar, not to mention the writing.
He vaguely made out that the title should be Wind and Sand Method.
Sha Shanzi flipped it open, and was so shocked by the contents of the technique that his whole body trembled uncontrollably, crying out "heretical method."
Each day one must pour three catties of sand into the five orifices, until even the blood was mixed with sand.
Would anyone really cultivate this...
Ren Qing glanced at Sha Shanzi.
Within the cell sand appeared out of thin air, and the souls within the sand had already been devoured by the Sand Ship Dragon Bones, their essence completely different from Ze Sand.
Sha Shanzi swallowed, his hands holding the Wind and Sand Method trembling slightly.
Ren Qing paid him no more attention. Even if the other did not cultivate the Wind and Sand Method it did not matter; in any case, Huang Sand City had tens of thousands of Gobi People.
He also had no energy to instruct Sha Shanzi, though in the book he had made some annotations, and had already removed the content concerning swallowing sand.
At the third watch of the night Ren Qing went out, wandering idly within Huang Sand City.
He noticed some Daoists holding jars in their hands; these Daoists were actually temple-born, and within the jars were Ze People transformed into mist.
But these Ze People had not yet cultivated to the Self-Consumption Realm, their three souls and seven spirits not yet fully digested, their ascension long since hopeless.
Fake Ze People must have some use, otherwise the temples would not expend effort to worship them.
Ren Qing used several hours to tally which temples the fake Ze People belonged to, and quickly reached a conclusion: it should be related to advancing into the Other-Consumption Realm.
Temples with more Self-Consumption Realm Ze People also had more pseudo-Water Marsh.
It was likely that in order for a Self-Consumption Realm to advance to Other-Consumption Realm, they needed to devour pseudo-Water Marsh, thus growing the bodily features of the Five Qi Facing the Origin.
Seeing the night about to pass, Ren Qing quickly walked to a temple, on whose stone plaque were carved the three characters "White Cloud Temple."
Liu Chuan was in this temple, his status far higher than the fake Ze People.
Many worshippers were going in and out of White Cloud Temple, seemingly all local residents; Ren Qing, using his faint presence, blended in.
The temple was simple, inside placed seven or eight statues of Ze Immortals, likely those worshipped through the generations, with Liu Chuan's statue at the head.
The Daoists warmly received the worshippers, not taking silver money from their hands, seemingly satisfying the Ze People's yearning for immortality.
Ren Qing pretended to burn incense, but in fact pricked up his ears to collect information.
From this he learned that White Cloud Temple was not large, worshipping only one Ze Immortal.
And ever since the Green Snake Immortal's Ascension, White Cloud Temple had not had a single Self-Consumption Realm Ze Person for ten full years; Liu Chuan filled this vacancy well.
Only after White Cloud Temple had a Ze Immortal in residence did it begin recruiting Daoist children, currently only three.
Seeing this, Ren Qing was reassured, and maximized the illusion of Immortal in the Mirror.
He passed among the worshippers as if no one else were there; even with bodily contact, he did not arouse the Daoists' awareness.
Ren Qing quickly walked into the rear courtyard of White Cloud Temple, already able to sense where Liu Chuan was, but he found it strange.
In just half a month, Liu Chuan's aura had not strengthened, but rather had weakened, as if about to collapse at any time.
Ren Qing came to the side room outside, and heard within the sound of chanting scripture.
He used Double Pupils to look, and couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth; before his eyes the Daoist child's appearance was bizarre, and a chill spread up his spine.
The child was only about ten years old, thin, with strange lotus-shaped mouthparts of "three flowers gathered at the crown" on his forehead and ears.
His slender neck strained to support his head, and on both shoulders had grown bulges.
The bulges took the form of human heads, covered in five colors.
Ren Qing quickly saw that the Daoist child was in a state of losing control to aberration, his soul long since ground away, and could die at any moment.
He opened the door, snatched from the child's hand a stone bowl, inside of which was some unknown black flesh and blood , the source of the aberration.
Ren Qing shook his head, then continued toward where Liu Chuan was.
Liu Chuan's side room was clearly more spacious, inside full of heart-rending roars; clearly the other had already fallen into madness.
"I don't want to become an immortal, don't kill me, don't kill me..."
He slammed his head against the floor, showing no semblance of an immortal.
But what surprised Ren Qing was that the ghost shadow within Liu Chuan had grown greatly, like a malignant tumor seeping into the bone marrow.
It was likely because of the ghost shadow that Liu Chuan's spirit was abnormal.
Liu Chuan's fog-like body kept collapsing, pitch-black flesh and blood falling to the floor, his aura ever weaker.
The Daoists of White Cloud Temple obeyed Liu Chuan absolutely, feeding the flesh and blood to the Daoist children, hoping thereby to share the pain.
Ren Qing came before Liu Chuan, the power of Immortal in the Mirror slowly receding.
Liu Chuan's cries stopped abruptly, his eyes wide with terror as he looked at Ren Qing, recognizing him from the ghost shadow at his feet.
Ren Qing now had some clues on how to deal with Ze People.
The Water Marsh Method was a technique of sacrificing the body to take the soul; if aberration loss of control occurred, it would be impossible to suppress, leading to death.
He considered using the ghost shadows left behind at the Restraint Officer camp to tell Song Zongwu and the others this information, which should help greatly.
Liu Chuan's eyes cleared, and the ghost shadow within him gradually calmed.
He collapsed to the ground weakly, and in a pleading tone said: "Immortal, kill me, please don't torment me anymore..."
"The methods for the three realms of becoming an immortal, do you have them?"
"No, those words suddenly appeared in my mind, probably related to Qingxu Temple, I don't dare..."
"Liu Chuan, speak."
Ren Qing's words carried threat; Liu Chuan, caring nothing for Qingxu Temple, hurriedly began orally recounting the contents of the technique.
The contents only covered the Self-Consumption Realm and the Other-Consumption Realm of the three realms of becoming an immortal.
The Water Marsh Method ought to have been a completely different technique, after all each region's environment differed, and after thousands of years they were utterly distinct.
The Beast Pen Method, the Heavenly Dao Method, the Restraint Officer Method , their cultivation systems were all vastly different.
But Ren Qing had never heard of such an absurd technique, as if it were nonsense.
The more he listened, the more familiar it seemed.
When Liu Chuan finished, Ren Qing's teeth squeezed out three words.
"Food... Immortal... Technique..."
Indeed he had never seen the manual of the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique, but once mastering the technique, careful deduction could yield some fragments within.
Yet Ren Qing felt that the Water Marsh Method was not derived from the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique.
It was more like some cultivator had spent only a few breaths, casually extracting part of the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique, then stuffing in useless nonsense, even mixing in some Heavenly Dao Method theory.
In the end forming this Water Marsh Method that everywhere leaked disharmony.
Ren Qing showed a bitter smile. He recorded the Water Marsh Method on paper, but because it was incomplete, he could not call forth the information flow to examine it.
But since it involved the Food-Consuming Immortal Technique and the Heavenly Dao Method, it should not be difficult to figure out.
But if one wanted to cultivate it, some modifications would surely be necessary, otherwise the flaws were too great.
"You just stay in the room, do nothing, and naturally you will not suffer torment."
Liu Chuan nodded repeatedly, crouched in the corner clutching his head, laughing neurotically.
Ren Qing left some ghost shadows in White Cloud Temple to watch Liu Chuan, and also to suppress the ghost shadow within him, thereby confirming the effects of aberration.