Chapter 487: Zombies Mining

Lu Chengyun's voice was very soft, but Mo Hua still heard it.

Finding someone to feed the diagram wasn't anything unusual—back at the Walking Corpse Stronghold, Zhang Quan had done it too.

But Lu Chengyun's smile was too gloomy, which made Mo Hua very suspicious.

If it were just ordinary killing to feed the diagram, it shouldn't be much for Lu Chengyun, and his expression should have been indifferent—he shouldn't have shown the look he had now.

Mo Hua stroked his little chin.

Find someone to feed the diagram?

Who was he looking for?

"Mine cultivator? Corpse cultivator?"

"Zhang Quan, and… me?"

Mo Hua gave a start.

Thinking about it this way, it actually made some sense.

Every evil entity that had leapt into his consciousness sea claimed that his divine sense was a great tonic, perfectly suited for feeding the Visualization Diagram.

Could this Lu Chengyun have harbored ill intentions from the very start?

Mo Hua mulled it over in his heart.

Although it was only his own guess, he still had to be on guard…

After Lu Chengyun's divine sense recovered, he drew the Lingshu Evil Array once more. At the hour of Mao, he sealed the bronze coffin and rose to leave.

After Lu Chengyun left, Mo Hua waited another cup-of-tea's worth of time, confirmed that Lu Chengyun had gone far away and wouldn't return anytime soon, then quietly left the altar and came before the bronze coffin.

The bronze coffin had been sealed once again.

Mo Hua circled the coffin, tapping and knocking here and there, but still couldn't figure out how this coffin was opened, or how it was closed.

He felt a little regretful.

When Lu Chengyun came, he hadn't paid attention to how he opened the coffin.

When he left, he also forgot to watch how he sealed it.

Now that he couldn't open the bronze coffin, there was no way to figure out the secrets inside.

"Next time, then…"

Mo Hua muttered to himself, then quietly left the Ten Thousand Corpses Altar as well.

Back in his room, Mo Hua immediately hopped onto the bed, sat cross-legged to cultivate, and sank his divine sense into his consciousness sea.

Within the consciousness sea, all was a blank white.

Within that blank white, there was a Golden Lock Array, which had locked away a wisp of green smoke.

It was the remnant soul left behind after the Iron Corpse Elder had been blasted to death.

Mo Hua seized the time, manifested the Molten Fire Array, and roasted this wisp of green smoke bit by bit, burned it bit by bit, refined it into pure divine thought, and drew it into his mouth.

Just like that, he "roasted" while he ate.

Until this entire wisp of green smoke was fully roasted and fully swallowed.

Some bloodthirsty, greedy, and evil thoughts welled up in Mo Hua's heart.

Mo Hua, well-versed in this, meditated and cultivated, his heart like a bright mirror, untouched by a single speck of dust, and cast out and purged these stray thoughts and evil desires one by one.

Once the evil thoughts were entirely gone, a stream of pure divine thought surged into Mo Hua's consciousness sea.

Mo Hua's divine sense had grown a little stronger again.

This bit of growth pushed Mo Hua's divine sense a step further past the peak of twelve patterns, infinitely close to thirteen patterns, but still always falling just a little short…

Mo Hua opened his eyes and sighed.

Growing divine sense was really hard.

He had "eaten" another Foundation Establishment divine thought, yet still couldn't push his divine sense up to thirteen patterns.

Could it be that this Foundation Establishment divine thought was too weak?

After being refined by himself once more, the divine thought left was even less, so he simply couldn't "eat" his fill?

Mo Hua blinked.

Did he really have to "eat" Zhang Quan's Laozu Sect to push his divine sense to thirteen patterns?

But how would he eat it?

Mo Hua's big eyes rolled, and he began scheming again in his belly…

Zhang Quan's Ancestral Master Diagram was kept close to Lu Chengyun's body, treasured like a precious jewel—it wouldn't be easy for him to get his hands on it…

Then he could only think of a way.

He might be planning to use me to feed the diagram…

Mo Hua lay on the bed, kicking his little legs in the air as he mulled things over carefully…

Thinking and thinking, he suddenly remembered that it seemed like a long time since he'd written to Senior Sister.

There were some things he needed to mention to Senior Sister and Senior Brother in advance.

Mo Hua hurriedly got out of bed, took out a sheet of paper, and spread it on the table.

Then he began jotting down some key clues.

For instance, Lu Chengyun's position within the Lu family.

The transaction between Lu Chengyun and the Lu family ancestor.

The Lu family ancestor had been refined into a corpse.

Some details about the Ten Thousand Corpses Array… and so on.

……

Mo Hua tucked the note away safely. That evening, he quietly found Little Tiger again, stuffed the note into Little Tiger's mouth, and let it crawl outside to deliver the letter to Senior Sister.

The next day, Little Tiger crawled back, carrying another note in its mouth.

This paper was pale and fine, with faint gold-embossed patterns—something Little Sister used often; Mo Hua recognized it at a glance.

If a note came back, it meant Little Tiger's message had been delivered.

Mo Hua nodded, opened the note, and looked to see what Little Sister had written.

But after opening it, he found only four simple characters:

"Still not coming back?"

Behind it was drawn a small face, slightly frowning.

Mo Hua froze.

Only then did he realize he had, without noticing, spent many days inside the Corpse Mine.

Little Sister and Little Brother must have been worried about him, hence their impatience.

Master and Puppet Old Man… probably weren't worried.

After all, Master could divine and calculate; he likely knew everything Mo Hua had done.

He just wondered how their meals had been since he was gone.

Did anyone brew tea for Master? Did anyone roast pine nuts for Puppet Old Man…

And Bai Bai—had Little Brother fed it good quality hay?

And Yan Instructor…

…

Mo Hua ran through them all in his mind, suddenly missing Master and the others, and realized it was time to find a way to leave the Corpse Mine soon.

Moreover, Lu Chengyun appeared refined and scholarly, but inwardly had a wolf's heart and dog's guts; though courteous to him, he likely had no good intentions.

Better to escape early and stop playing along with him.

Mo Hua wrote a reply note:

"Almost there! Almost there!"

Behind it he drew a little tiger's head, chubby and fierce.

Mo Hua used his spiritual sense to guide Little Tiger to deliver the note.

Then he began considering what he should do before returning.

The Ten Thousand Corpses Array, the Bronze Coffin, the Corpse Mine…

All must be destroyed, or they would bring endless calamity.

The corpse cultivators in the Corpse Mine, who killed and turned corpses, must all be eradicated.

The zombies inside must also be properly handled—ideally burned, to prevent them from devouring flesh, spreading corpse poison, and poisoning Nan Yue City…

"But how many zombies are there in the Corpse Mine?"

Mo Hua knew there were many, but he couldn't count them precisely.

Those in Shi Dian and within the Ten Thousand Corpses Array were only a portion.

The Corpse Mine was larger than the Walking Corpse Village; its arrays were more complex, and with Lu Chengyun watching, Mo Hua was restrained—he couldn't probe many areas.

Outside the Corpse Mine were mine shafts, and the zombies within those shafts might be even more numerous…

Know yourself and know your enemy.

Without clearly determining how many zombies there were, he couldn't act.

Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator, if trapped by hundreds or thousands of walking corpses and unable to flee, would surely die.

Moreover, the Corpse Mine contained many iron corpses.

Even if the Dao Court mobilized Dao Soldiers to suppress the Corpse Mine, without knowing its inner workings, they couldn't deploy effectively.

Mo Hua thought it over and decided to first visit the outer mine shafts.

Outside Shi Dian were the mine shafts, separated by a great gate.

This gate bore a bloody demonic array.

And also, a key.

Mo Hua had discovered this key later.

The key was made of bone, placed on the body of the gatekeeper corpse cultivator.

As for the array, Mo Hua couldn't touch it yet—he feared alerting Lu Chengyun—but the key could be stolen.

While the gatekeeper corpse cultivator was absorbed in refining corpses and unable to pay attention, Mo Hua controlled Little Tiger to steal the key, then secretly used it to open the gate of Shi Dian.

Beyond the gate lay the mine shafts.

Dark, damp, gloomy, thick with corpse qi, yet incredibly noisy.

Mo Hua stepped out of Shi Dian, followed the mine shafts for a while, and arrived at a vast mining pit.

Just as he had guessed—but also not quite as he had guessed.

Walking corpses were indeed mining, but there were far too many of them…

The pit was extremely wide, and inside, densely packed, were walking corpses.

They wore tattered clothes, their skin rotting and festering, each one holding a mining pick, digging away!

They were dead, yet performing the tasks of the living.

Most had been miners in life; after death, they were refined into corpses and remained miners—even busier and more tireless than when alive.

Countless zombies were mining…

This noisy scene resembled both the mortal world and the netherworld.

The mine's cultivators, though alive, were numbed by life, like walking corpses.

The walking corpses in the mine, though dead, were enslaved by the Lu family, forced to labor endlessly like the living.

For a moment, the daytime labor of the white-day miners and the nighttime digging of the zombies overlapped, blurred, and became indistinguishable in Mo Hua's mind.

He could no longer tell what was real.

Mo Hua was stunned, frozen in place for a long while.

In that instant, he gained a faint, indescribable insight into life and death in this world, and into the Dao of the lowest of "people."

At the same time, another troubling fact lay before Mo Hua.

There were too many zombies in this corpse mine!

Within this massive pit, a rough glance revealed over ten thousand walking corpses.

Based on the surrounding arrays, the mine shaft was far larger than he had imagined—meaning there were still many other mine pits within this mountain.

Each mine pit contained countless walking corpses…

Merely imagining it made Mo Hua's scalp prickle.

If these walking corpses burst out of the corpse mine and formed a zombie tide, spreading their corpse poison, not only would Nan Yue City be destroyed, but the entire Xiao Huang second-grade prefecture might be reduced to a wasteland of corpses.

Xiao Huang second-grade prefecture would become Xiao Huang "Corpse" Prefecture.

Mo Hua stopped looking further.

Time was short; he slipped back quietly.

The gate leading outside was a natural boulder, guarded by two second-grade iron zombies, surrounded by thick mountain walls.

In the short term, he had no way to escape—he could only return first and plan further later.

When Mo Hua returned, the zombie cultivator guarding the gate had not yet finished refining his zombie.

Mo Hua again controlled the little tiger to return the key, then went back to his room and frowned in deep thought.

This corpse mine was larger than he had thought.

The walking corpses within were far more numerous than he had imagined.

With so many walking corpses, how many iron zombies were there?

How many iron zombies were there?

In the Ten Thousand Corpses Array, Mo Hua had counted roughly twenty-four iron coffins.

That meant twenty-four iron zombies.

In some secret chambers within Shi Dian, Mo Hua had sensed the aura of iron zombies; he roughly estimated there were seven or eight more.

There were also some iron zombies in the outer mine shafts.

Adding it all up, the entire corpse mine had at least forty iron zombies?

Among the iron zombies, first- and second-grade ones were mixed; first-grade were weaker, roughly equivalent to weak Foundation Establishment, while second-grade were significantly stronger, comparable to mid-Foundation Establishment.

Combined, that amounted to nearly forty Foundation Establishment cultivators?

Mo Hua's heart turned cold.

Forty Foundation Establishment cultivators—not just in Nan Yue City, but across the entire Xiao Huang second-grade prefecture—would be a force unmatched…

This power alone was enough to dominate the entire second-grade prefecture…

Then Mo Hua paused, puzzled.

Where had Lu Chengyun obtained so many corpses to refine so many iron zombies?

To refine an iron zombie, one needed at least Qi Condensation ninth-layer peak, and a Foundation Establishment cultivator's corpse.

Considering the low success rate of corpse refinement, the number of corpses required would be even greater.

Qi Condensation ninth-layer peak was manageable—but where did he get Foundation Establishment cultivator corpses?

Even if he killed, he couldn't kill that many…

Where did he get so many Foundation Establishment corpses?

Mo Hua suddenly thought of the Lu family's ancestral elder.

In the spiritual pivot sequence of the Ten Thousand Corpses Array, the Lu family's ancestral elder was the "Corpse King," the highest-ranked.

The Corpse King must command all other corpses.

Therefore, the corpse used to refine the Corpse King had to be special—either a sect leader, a clan patriarch, or a monarch…

Those under its control were either sect disciples, family disciples, or the people of a nation.

The Lu family's ancestral elder was the "Corpse King."

According to corpse refinement principles, those subject to it should be… Lu family cultivators?

Mine workers were unlikely…

Among mine workers, there were almost no Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Moreover, though mine workers suffered under the Lu family's ancestral elder, most harbored resentment; after death, their lingering hatred would make them uncontrollable if turned into zombies and forced to serve the Lu family's ancestral elder.

It could only be the Lu family…

These iron zombies were mostly refined from the corpses of Lu family cultivators—or rather, from the corpses of Lu family elders?

But Lu Chengyun was the patriarch; he could kill one or two elders, but killing so many would inevitably cause problems and draw suspicion from the Lu family.

He wouldn't do something so self-destructive.

Then where did these corpses come from?

Elder corpses…

Mo Hua's small brow furrowed tightly.

Suddenly, he realized something, his heart jolted:

"Could this Lu Chengyun have dug up the Lu family's ancestral graves…?"

(End of Chapter)