Chapter 415: Ghost Infestation Calamity

"Old Lu should make a breakthrough in three to five days. You just need to wait."

"Recently, there have been many ghost-related disasters in Hanshui City. If you have nothing to do these next few days, you can go to Hanshui City to catch ghosts. You'll be able to exchange them for contribution points when you return. I'll write you a letter of प्रमाण," Elder Gai said with a smile, showing care for Lu Yang and the two younger disciples.

"Ghost-related disasters?" Lu Yang asked, puzzled. Hanshui City had a provincial governor stationed there and the Corpse Herding Sect's support. What kind of ghost disaster would dare to emerge?

Elder Gai sighed, "Didn't the previous provincial governor get reported and arrested, along with a group of officials? There's been a personnel reshuffle in the officialdom of Barren State."

"At this time, many ghost-related disasters suddenly appeared in Hanshui City. Even with rules, it's difficult to completely suppress them. There must be a Body Integration stage cultivator secretly fighting."

"The newly appointed provincial governor hasn't even found his footing yet and encountered such a situation. It hasn't been handled very well, and the ghost disasters haven't been effectively contained."

"The Nine Nether Sect is most adept at controlling and driving away ghosts. The provincial governor suspects the Nine Nether Sect is secretly causing trouble and is conducting a strict investigation, but they haven't gotten any results."

"As a prominent sect in Barren State, our Corpse Herding Sect naturally bears responsibility. We encourage our disciples to resolve these ghost disasters. The level of these ghost disasters isn't high, which is suitable for you to handle."

"Of course, you can also choose to learn Corpse Herding techniques in our sect. It's up to you how you decide."

Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou exchanged glances, seeing each other's confusion.

How could the Nine Nether Sect be secretly causing trouble? They were busy opening a barbecue restaurant. How would they have time for this? Were they unhappy with how much the barbecue restaurant was earning?

Regardless of who was behind the ghost disasters, as disciples of the Dao Inquiring Sect, they had to handle them.

After the group bid farewell to Elder Gai, Immortal Fairy's voice echoed in Lu Yang's mind.

"That old man just now wasn't a living person. He was a living corpse, refined with very skillful techniques."

"Who?" Lu Yang thought he had misheard.

"The old man just now."

Lu Yang's mind raced, instantly thinking of the most likely scenario, and cold sweat broke out: Elder Gai had died, and no one knew. Someone had refined Elder Gai's corpse to create the illusion that he was still alive.

"Brother Zhao, I observed that Elder Gai seemed a bit unusual," Lu Yang probed cautiously.

Zhao Po extended a thumb, "Brother Lu has excellent eyesight to notice that! The one sitting there just now wasn't my master, but a living corpse my master refined."

"What's going on?" Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu became interested.

Zhao Po explained with a smile, without any reservation: "We corpse herders are in constant contact with corpse qi and death qi, which causes an imbalance of yin and yang in our bodies, with yin overpowering yang. This leads to weak physiques. Not to mention compared to body cultivators like Brother Meng, even the bodies of ordinary cultivators are stronger than ours."

"A corpse herder's entire cultivation is reflected in the living corpses they refine. For safety, corpse herders who reach the Nascent Soul stage no longer show their true faces but instead let their refined living corpses represent them."

"It's not just my master; all elders in the sect use living corpses to represent themselves externally. No one knows where their true bodies are."

"Furthermore, most corpse herders are reluctant to interact with living people, being shy and taciturn. It's perfectly convenient to let living corpses represent them, so why not?"

Corpse herders, who deal with corpses all year round, are generally introverted. Zhao Po, who is more outgoing, is a minority.

"So that's how it is," Lu Yang suddenly understood, realizing he had overthought things.

"Next, are we going to our academy to study, or should I accept a task and go with you to resolve the ghost disasters?"

Lu Yang curved his lips into a smile and said with righteous indignation, "Naturally, we must go resolve the ghost disasters! Old Meng has a 'single' spiritual root and has formed two 'single' Golden Cores. His pure Yang body will make any ghost flee to the heavens upon seeing him!"

"With Old Meng on the job, resolving the ghost disasters will be effortless!"

Though it was rare for Lu Yang to praise him, and what he said was the truth, Meng Jingzhou couldn't be happy.

You're the one with the 'single' spiritual root! Your whole family has 'single' spiritual roots!

Sometimes, Meng Jingzhou truly wanted to give Lu Yang a set of 'single' curse fists, but he didn't dare.

An intuition told him that if he were to hit Lu Yang with a 'single' curse fist, the karmic backlash would be even more severe than it was now, making it truly beyond salvation.

Lu Yang is nothing. I'll give him a set of fist techniques when I become an immortal!

"In that case, can we just take any Golden Core stage missions?" Zhao Po mused. With the four of them, all Golden Core cultivators, they could sweep through Golden Core stage ghost missions.

Lu Yang waved his hand, "Be bolder! We can take Nascent Soul stage ones too."

Zhao Po was startled but quickly understood. With the four of them working together, dealing with Nascent Soul stage ghosts shouldn't be a problem.

"Alright, then I'll go find some Nascent Soul stage missions. Please wait here for a moment."

While Zhao Po went to accept a mission, Lu Yang, with nothing to do, pulled out his Nine Nether Token and contacted Deputy Cult Master Shi, typing a message.

"Our Heavenly Court Cult has a Heavenly King in Hanshui City of Barren State. He discovered that ghost-related disasters have appeared here. The provincial governor suspects you did it. Was it you?"

After a while, the Nine Nether Token remained unresponsive. Lu Yang thought Deputy Cult Master Shi was busy and hadn't seen the token. Just as he was about to put it away, he saw the token grow hot, and a long message appeared on its surface.

Lu Yang was speechless, "So it wasn't that Deputy Cult Master Shi didn't see it; he was frantically typing."

Deputy Cult Master Shi's reply was this:

"This is pure slander! These rascals in the court are putting the blame on us again! Our Cult Master thinks what Junior Cult Master Lu suggested about 'in-store discussions' is excellent. Currently, the Nine Nether Cult has too few strong cultivators. We should focus on cultivating to increase the number of Body Integration and even Tribulation Transcendence stage cultivators. All activities of our Nine Nether Cult are in a semi-stagnant state, and everyone in the cult is busy opening chain stores to earn money. This was the Cult Master's decision."

In a Nine Nether Cult branch, Deputy Cult Master Shi saw Lu Yang's question and was filled with righteous indignation.

"We don't even have enough time to make money, so where would we find time to cause ghost disasters? What benefits would we gain? The court has slandered us not just once or twice. Whenever there's something they don't understand, they claim our demonic cult did it. How would our demonic cult have the leisure to do these things!"

He cursed while replying to Lu Yang. If the Heavenly Court Cult misunderstood, thinking the Nine Nether Cult was disregarding the bigger picture and acting unilaterally, it would be difficult to cooperate closely in the future.

After replying, he felt it was necessary to explain more to Lu Yang but found the Nine Nether Token could not be used.

"It still needs a five-day cooldown. So troublesome."

Deputy Cult Master Shi leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling, then suddenly slapped his forehead, "Oh, why am I worrying about this? Isn't the Cult Master in Barren State?"

He took out another Nine Nether Token, told the Cult Master what Lu Yang had said, and waited to see how the Cult Master would decide to handle it.

The Cult Master replied quickly, with only one sentence.

"I am in Hanshui City."