The Secret Way of Immortality

The soul fragment collapsed under the influence of the forbidden area, and its memories returned to the main soul.

Ren Qing woke up as a result, his head throbbing slightly.

This was because the destruction of the soul fragment had damaged the main soul, requiring at least thirty days of rest to recover.

Immediately, Ren Qing realized that he was hanging upside down in mid-air, with several tough threads wrapped around his body, connected to the top.

After trying to exert some force, he found that it shouldn't be too difficult to break free.

Unfortunately, the damage to his soul also indirectly hindered the use of his Double Pupils.

Ren Qing could only see darkness all around him, with many figures similar to his own faintly suspended, while dim light shone from below.

He then calmed himself down.

He should figure out the situation first, as all sorts of bizarre things could happen in the forbidden area.

The dark shadow flowed to the palm of his right hand.

Ren Qing took out a dozen eyeballs from the Abdominal Prison, which were fed into his mouth by the dark shadow, taking care not to make any noise during the process.

These eyeballs were called Yin-Yang Eyes, and they were quite expensive in the Great Dream Pavilion. Swallowing them could help heal injuries to the soul.

He had prepared them specifically in case his soul fragment was damaged.

The pain in Ren Qing's soul vanished in an instant.

The Double Pupils revived, and the darkness in his eyes slowly dissipated.

He was in a large iron cage, which should have been held by the Rice Grain Giant before. Forcibly breaking it would definitely cause a lot of noise.

As for the gaps between the bars, probably only children could squeeze through.

Because the light inside the cage relied entirely on the candlelight from the kitchen, it was relatively weak, causing the top of the cage to be completely covered in darkness.

He noticed more than a dozen human-shaped amber pieces hanging next to him.

Inside were the corpses of forbidden soldiers, but similar to the Non-Action Dojo, the corpses were hollow inside.

In addition, Ren Qing also found Huang Ziwang and the others.

They were not dead, but their souls had been interfered with and separated from their bodies after entering the forbidden area, so they were also hanging upside down at the top of the cage.

Mu Yi was not among them, so she might be one of the few who avoided the forbidden area.

Ren Qing guessed that those amber corpses should be forbidden soldiers who had mistakenly entered the forbidden area before, and perhaps Zhang Mu could be found among them.

He looked towards the bottom of the cage.

The area of the iron cage was not small, with dozens of An'nan townspeople gathered in a corner, and the rest were densely packed with strange insects.

The strange insects were half a man tall, with thick black carapaces covering their bodies, somewhat similar to cockroaches.

They also wore crude cloth clothes, the material of which was clearly made of rat skin.

The insect-men had wings on their backs, and their small size allowed them to move through the gaps in the iron cage's bars.

They had formed a tribal scale in the cage, using animal skins to build many tents, which were also used to entertain the townspeople.

Ren Qing frowned slightly.

After observing, he felt a little absurd that the insect-men did not harm the townspeople, but instead used the fruits from the rats' backs to entertain them.

Ren Qing could barely hear the insect-men talking to the townspeople.

The insect-men could communicate normally, but their intelligence was not high, and they always called the townspeople "Immortals", with a very respectful attitude.

With ample food, the townspeople's emotions also eased.

They cooperated tacitly, using the materials provided by the insect-men to build wooden houses, and the atmosphere seemed to be thriving.

The stability was only superficial, and the insect-men definitely had other plans.

However, he did not find any traces of plant-like transformation after the townspeople ate the fruits, indicating that the food provided by the insect-men was indeed relatively safe.

This made it seem even more strange.

Ren Qing was not in a hurry to break free from his restraints, and his soul was still damaged.

The insect-men felt to him like ants herding aphids. The superficial peace was only because the townspeople could not leave the iron cage.

Ren Qing just wanted to recover as soon as possible.

He glanced at the suspended forbidden soldiers.

Huang Ziwang and the others were definitely still alive, but their souls had been stripped from their bodies by the inexplicable power of the forbidden area.

As long as they didn't act recklessly, they should be fine.

When Ren Qing's soul fragment was re-incubated, he could leave the cage and, with the help of Huang Ziwang's body, might be able to find his soul.

As for Lu Xiaoyu, he could help her if there was no danger to her life.

Leaving the forbidden area probably wouldn't be possible in a short time, and Ren Qing would definitely need to rest in between, so they would still have to cooperate.

Other forbidden soldiers would need to be considered carefully, as they were likely to have side effects.

Ren Qing's expression suddenly froze. He actually found Yu Dachuan among the forbidden soldiers, the latter still in the form of a blood gourd.

What made him envious was the thousands of remnant souls sealed within the gourd, which were also mixed with a large number of beast ghosts.

For the Water Gourd, it might involve the promotion to the Yin Messenger Realm, or even the opportunity to reach the Yang God Realm.

If the Ghost Shadow absorbed these remnant souls, the spell would be enough for its first distortion.

He just didn't know if he could choose a distortion branch through the Alienation Tree during the autonomous promotion, otherwise it would be somewhat of a loss.

What if the ability of the distortion branch was relatively useless? Wouldn't that be a waste of resources?

Ren Qing suppressed the distracting thoughts in his heart. No matter what, he had to try, because success would save him fifty years of lifespan.

He closed his eyes and rested, occasionally eating some eyeballs.

Every half a day or so, the insect-men would fly to the top to check the corpses, mainly those amber ones, as if they were deliberately looking for something.

Seeing this, Ren Qing also kept it in mind.

After careful observation, he found that the amber would condense a viscous liquid, colorless and odorless, which the insect-men should be after.

Thinking about it, it was somewhat tragic.

The strange objects that broke out of the forbidden soldiers' bodies after their deaths were swallowed by the forbidden area, their souls became puppets, and their corpses were used as food.

Ren Qing shook his head.

He swallowed the eyeballs without regard for cost, and even actively visualized the Gluttony Technique in order to speed up the recovery of his soul.

Since being trapped in the stomach for more than half a year, he had stockpiled enough resources for three or four years to prevent accidents from happening again.

If the storage time of these eyeballs didn't affect their quality, he would probably have spent all the blood crystals he had earned.

Ren Qing focused on digesting the eyeballs.

Unknowingly, two days passed.

One of the forbidden soldiers suddenly began to wave his limbs violently, letting out bursts of roars.

From this, it could be seen that his soul had either turned into a puppet or was about to die in the forbidden area, causing the strange object to gradually break away.

Ren Qing still had some impression of him, his appearance similar to a chameleon.

The townspeople raised their heads in horror, only to see the darkness above, as if a terrifying monster was lurking.

They had been smiling, but now their legs were weak and they fell to the ground, as if they had just awakened from a beautiful dream.

The facts that the townspeople had been deliberately avoiding flooded their minds. This place was probably not in the mortal world at the moment.

A woman shouted loudly, "A'Yue, A'Yue..."

A five or six-year-old girl sat by the railing, her dull eyes looking at the kitchen, not knowing what she was thinking.

After the woman found her, she wiped away her tears, grabbed Chen Yue's arm, and rushed into the temporary house.

Chen Yue leaned against the gap and looked out. She turned to the woman blankly and said, "Mother, Uncle A'Jiang said that the immortals will come to save us, is it true?"

The woman did not reply. The roars outside were deafening, and she was completely immersed in fear, holding Chen Yue and trembling.

The insect-men were not flustered at all.

They flew in the air, making vague noises from their mouths.

Ren Qing suddenly seemed to understand the language of the insect-men.

Although they had always called the townspeople "Immortals", the strange tones they were currently making were the true meaning of "Immortals".

The Rice Grain Giant strode forward.

Each step seemed to be able to span mountains, like Kuafu chasing the sun in mythology.

He arrived next to the cage in the blink of an eye.

Under the powerful aura emitted by the Rice Grain Giant, the noise made by the strange object suddenly became lighter.

The strange object used its ability to hide in the darkness, afraid of being discovered and not daring to look directly.

The townspeople looked out of the window, and the Rice Grain Giant was standing not far away.

The Rice Grain Giant stretched out his palm, and a large number of roots spread from his flesh, directly binding the chameleon strange object, which was unable to resist at all.

Ren Qing got a close-up view of how the forbidden area devoured other strange objects.

The chameleon was gradually pulled into its body, the rice grains that made up its body separated into openings, and various strange objects entangled together could be vaguely seen.

One of the townspeople was already on the verge of collapse. He subconsciously knelt on the ground, shouting loudly, "Immortal!!"

"Please save me and take me away!!!"

Inspired by him, the others seemed to have a spiritual sustenance, shouting heart-rendingly, even breaking their foreheads.

Only Chen Yue stood blankly in front of the window, refusing to kneel even when the woman slapped her palms red.

Chen Yue stubbornly shook her head: "Mother, he is not an immortal..."

The woman quickly covered Chen Yue's mouth, looking at the Rice Grain Giant with horrified eyes, afraid of being punished.

But in the eyes of the Rice Grain Giant, the townspeople were smaller than ants, and were not worth paying any attention to at all.

He walked towards the stove, and the fallen rice grains caused a new scramble among the rats.

Ren Qing watched the people in the cage, and the atmosphere was completely different.

The Rice Grain Giant opened the lid of the stove, and inside was still the bowl of steamed pork with rice flour, and the eyeballs could still be seen rolling.

He placed the chameleon strange object on the edge of the bowl, and the latter pounced on the food and ate frantically, quickly filling its stomach to the extreme.

Until the chameleon strange object had devoured all the steamed pork with rice flour, its flesh began to decompose gradually.

Chameleon cubs the size of fists scattered and fled, disappearing into the cracks of the stove, soon disappearing without a trace.

Ren Qing gasped.

It seemed that as this forbidden area continued to devour strange objects, the species inside would become more and more abundant, like a small world.

And those rats and insect-men should also have corresponding strange objects.

The Rice Grain Giant did not leave. He walked to the cutting board, then reached into his body, as if groping for something.

After a moment, he took out a whole chicken the size of a hundred meters.

The chicken's meat was pale, as if it had been dead for a long time.

It was as if he was about to cook the next dish.

………

More than a dozen forbidden soldiers were stationed in An'nan Town to prevent accidents from happening.

However, no strange things happened for several days.

The people suddenly felt dry in their mouths and throats, and the lines of their chests and abdomens became increasingly hot. They came to the backyard where poultry were raised on instinct.

Their hearts were filled with unimaginable desire.

At first, they would pluck the feathers and cook the meat, but later they completely turned into raw meat drinkers.

Among them, the Water Gourd ate a full hundred chickens.

However, the food disappeared from their stomachs, which showed the influence of the forbidden area.