Chapter 397 - Corpse-refining (1/2)
It was not until the woman in red left that the atmosphere in the hall gradually turned relaxing. Elder Xu looked pale and was sweaty all over. His legs went weak that he slumped down on the ground. Seeing that, Yan Liang stepped forward hurriedly to support him and said, “Elder!”
Elder Xu raised and waved his trembling wrinkled hand. At this moment, Xiao Chen stepped forward as well and said with his hands folded, “The Lady Ambassador was just so angry to say that. I have been trained by you for three years, elder, so, I dare not…”
Elder Xu shook his head and said, “Han Yun, this has nothing to do with you. Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you…” After saying that, he looked out of the hall again, thinking that since the Lady Ambassador had come to such a small place herself, the seniors of the sect must be anxious to get more Grudge Furnaces, and that Furnaces Collection must not be delayed and he could no longer keep the Grudge Furnaces privately.
“Han Liang… Yan Liang.” Elder Xu seemed really frightened this time that he miscalled his disciple. Yan Liang heard him saying, “Bring the Grudge Furnaces to the Corps Cave behind right now, and Rancorous Qi must be extracted within three days.”
“Yes!”
Yan Liang glanced down at the dozens of disciples below, who immediately went outside the cave house in an orderly manner. After they left, Elder Xu walked staggering back to the seat high in the hall. Yan Liang frowned as he said, “Elder, why did the Lady Ambassador come here? Could it be that the Divine Corpse…”
Before the words were finished, Elder Xu glanced at him and said, “Yan Liang, you have followed me for a long time, right?”
Yan Liang replied with his hands folded, “It has been ten years since I came to follow you, elder.” Elder Xu said, “After these ten years, you should know that it is beyond our power to ask about the affairs about the seniors. It is best not to mention them.”
Yan Liang was startled into cold sweats and quickly said, “I was being careless just now. I dare not do it again.” Elder Xu waved his hand and said, “Alright, you go back to work.”
“Then, I’ll excuse myself, elder,” Yan Liang cupped his hand as he said and turned to leave. But when he just took a few steps away, he turned around suddenly. Elder Xu looked at him and asked, “What’s wrong? Is there anything else?”
Yan Liang frowned, shook his head, and said, “Nothing, just that I think Han Yun and his brother were a little strange today…”
…
A while later, the disciples saw Yan Liang come out with a pale face, and one of them stepped forward carefully and asked, “What happened to you, Senior Brother Yan?”
Yan Liang shook his hand and seemed to inadvertently glance at Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue, who had changed their faces into Han’s brothers, and finally whispered, “In recent days, we must speed up the furnace collection. The seniors of the sect are anxious to get them. Let’s go now so as not to delay it.”
The disciples bypassed the Elder Xu’s cave house and walked to the back mountain. After walking for an hour, Xiao Chen saw some simple houses and courtyards, which probably were the disciples’ dormitories. After walking for a while, Xiao Chen felt an increasingly strong death aura. Presumably, he was not far from the corpse-refining cave.
Finally, the disciples reached outside a cave house surrounded by chilling air in the back mountain. It could be seen that some plants nearby were withered, and ice was condensed on the stone wall of the entrance to the cave. Su Lianyue felt so cold that she shivered.
Yan Liang walked to the entrance of the cave house, opened the door of a secret stone room, took out some black robes, and distributed them to the disciples. Xiao Chen took two robes and handed one to Su Lianyue. After putting on the robe, Su Lianyue felt warmer. Of course, these black robes were not for the disciples to keep warm but to defend themselves from Corpse Qi. The disciples of the External Sect did not have a stable foundation; as a result, they should not be exposed to too much Corpse Qi.
After entering the cave house, the disciples felt even colder. After passing through a dark martyrdom, Xiao Chen felt a little shocked by what he saw—it was much more spacious and the light was not too dark inside the cave house, where nearly a hundred altars were neatly placed. On each altar was a corpse, beside which a Corpse Refinery Sect’s disciple was extracting Rancorous Qi.
To prevent sudden corpse changes, a yellow seal was affixed to the forehead of each corpse. With the corpses’ mouths wide open, traces of black gas were slowly drawn out from their mouths to the small black cauldrons that floated in the air next to them.
Su Lianyue frowned slightly. The scene seemed to make her feel a little uncomfortable. The nearly 100 Corpse Refinery Sect’s disciples were expressionless when they did the same action repeatedly as the walking dead. There was a man in red among them. Holding a whip in his hand, he went back and forth to supervise the disciples. Anyone who loafed on the job would be whipped by him.
The man in red saw Yan Liang and the other disciples come in, and immediately came to them and said, “Senior Brother Yan Liang.”
Yan Liang nodded slightly and replied, “Junior Brother Qi Yan.” He added, “This morning, we collected more than 700 Grudge Furnaces, and the elder urged us to speed up the work. Plus the furnaces we collected before, all the furnaces must be extracted in three days.”
“No problem.” Qi Yan answered and turned to shout loudly at other disciples, “Have you heard it? Don’t slack off!”
The disciples were silent, and Yan Liang turned to the disciples that came with him and said, “All of you, join them now.” The disciples didn’t say much, and each of them went to an altar and started to work.
Xiao Chen naturally went to join them as well, and with Han Yun’s partial memory, he naturally knew something about these simple operations, but he felt that the Class D disciples of the sect were like servants.
It was not difficult to extract the Rancorous Qi from the corpses. Most of the Rancorous Qi in corpses was gathered in their throats, and the Qi was commonly known as the last breath that one failed to breathe in before dying. The difficult part about the job was to extract all the Rancorous Qi from the corpses. One could do it only little by little so as not to waste the Qi. Therefore, it basically took more than an hour to extract all the Rancorous Qi in each corpse, and it would take more time to do so if one met a corpse with strong Rancorous Qi.