Chapter 965: and translation of chapter title, then ===GLOSSARY=== with list of named entities appearing in these lines

The rain clouds dispersed.

After a long absence, sunlight shone on Wind Mountain City; in the refugee camp, muddy water rose and steamed, making people's heads dizzy.

Strong young men gathered around the well, continuously pulling up buckets of cool well water and placing them in the water wheel; then someone turned the wheel, delivering clean drinking water to each household.

Many women, elders, and children stood at the doors of their wooden and grass sheds, holding bowls of various sizes, gratefully receiving clean water from the wheel to give to their relatives to drink.

A patrol militia composed of ordinary commoners' able-bodied youths walked slowly by; upon seeing the water-delivering wheel, they gathered around, asked the nearby women for a few ladles and bowls, and gulped down the cool well water in large mouthfuls, easing the burning in their throats.

"All safe through the night." A burly man stretched: "Ah, I'm hungry, hurry to get the rations."

The militias ran in groups toward the recruitment office.

They were willing to accept Wind Mountain City's reorganization, taking up weapons and donning armor to become militias; their treatment was naturally much better than that of refugees. Each morning, every one of them could receive a portion of meat, a portion of grain, a portion of elixir, plus an additional portion of nutritional items such as eggs and cow's milk.

These provisions could fill their own bellies and also feed an ordinary family of five or six.

A large fleet of flying boats came from the south; clerks in blue garments and small caps stood on the boats, continually tossing down lotus-leaf bundles. Still, they were steamed buns mixed with a lot of bran, poor in texture and lacking oil, but at least they could guarantee the refugees' basic livelihood needs.

Not starving to death has become a great luxury in these times.

Compared to those killed or captured by the demon chiefs, being able to fill one's stomach in the relatively safe Wind Mountain City is already quite good treatment.

The refugees busied themselves in an orderly manner, distributing the steamed buns tossed down by the clerks one by one according to the habits formed these days; no one dared take an extra one, let alone snatch the rations from the hands of the elderly, weak, women, and children.

Wind Mountain City has already declared martial law; causing trouble at this time will get one's head chopped off.

Bowl after bowl of well water went down, mouthful after mouthful of steamed buns were filled. The medicinal power of the 'Zombie Pill,' altered in nature by Wu Tie, was slowly released within these refugees' bodies.

At the top of the highest pavilion of the City Lord's Mansion, Fu Feng You Ran and Fu Feng Ya Si stood with hands behind their backs, gazing at the movements in the northern part of the city.

In Fu Feng Ya Si's hand, he played with a pill the size of a baby's fist.

This pill is entirely gray-green, with a ferocious ghostly face faintly visible on its surface. It is a 'Zombie Mother Pill'; once all the city's commoners, refugees, and the discarded low-ranking soldiers and officials have taken the 'Zombie Pill,' crushing this mother pill will let its medicinal power disperse on its own.

It is like dropping a tiny spark onto a barrel of fire oil; the medicinal power of the Zombie Pill will then erupt fully.

Wind Mountain City will become a place where demons dance wildly; over a hundred million civilians and soldiers will turn into zombies immune to blades and spears, fearless of death, and highly contagious.

Even the weakest infant among them will possess destructive power comparable to that of a body cultivator at the Womb Storage realm.

Such a zombie army of over a hundred million will certainly give the demon chiefs outside a great surprise.

"It's a bit cruel, but heaven and earth are like a bronze furnace; we are the firewood—this world has always been this cruel." Fu Feng Ya Si sighed, shook his head, and said: "Imperial Uncle, in a few years, if my Fu Feng Divine Dynasty manages to survive, the local gazetteer of Wind Mountain City will surely record this in vivid detail."

"When the demon chiefs breach the city, the righteous citizens inside will rise in resistance, shedding their heads and spilling their blood, inflicting heavy blows upon the demon chiefs."

"Here, a monument will be erected to honor their great achievements." Fu Feng Ya Si earnestly pointed at the crossroads at the heart of Wind Mountain City: "Right there, a monument will stand."

Fu Feng You Ran narrowed his eyes and spoke coldly: "First, we can hold out to the end; second, everyone who knows about this must clean it up thoroughly."

Fu Feng Ya Si smiled and nodded: "Imperial Uncle, you are absolutely right; of course we must handle it spotlessly. Our Fu Feng royal clan cannot bear even a hint of disgrace."

Fu Feng You Ran looked toward the direction of the City Lord's Mansion's rear courtyard.

There, faint cries and pleas could be heard. The clerks who had gone to various wells last night to administer medicine are now being silenced one by one by the imperial capital's guards brought by Fu Feng Ya Si.

How could these lowly cultivating clerks possibly escape the slaughter blades of the Divine Realm guards?

"We just wait for the demon chiefs to attack the city." Fu Feng Ya Si played with the Mother Zombie Pill in his hand, murmuring lowly: "After a slight resistance, we will break open the gate and let the demon chiefs enter."

He gave a grin, then Fu Feng Ya Si sighed lightly: "How vicious these demon chiefs are! Because Wind Mountain City inflicted heavy casualties upon them, after entering the city they actually used demonic arts to slaughter the populace… even using demonic arts to turn all the city's inhabitants into zombies…"

Fu Feng You Ran raised his head and looked at the rain clouds in the sky that were rapidly dissipating.

The morning light streamed in from the east, gilding the edges of the rain clouds with layer upon layer of gold, overlapping like golden fish scales, giving a rather heart‑stirring beauty.

Inside the refugee camp in the north of the city, a commotion suddenly arose.

Fu Feng You Ran and Fu Feng Ya Si turned all their attention there; Fu Feng You Ran's expression shifted slightly as he sharply asked Fu Feng Ya Si: "Has the medicine lost control? Has it taken effect early?"

Fu Feng Ya Si hastily shook his head: "Impossible; the Zombie Pill, without the Mother Pill's power to trigger it, merely lies dormant in the body, continually accumulating power— the longer it is stockpiled, the fiercer the zombies it becomes upon eruption."

"Premature eruption is impossible, absolutely impossible." Fu Feng Ya Si firmly denied the possibility raised by Fu Feng You Ran.

Fu Feng You Ran's expression changed slightly; he said in a deep voice: "Someone, go and quickly find out what exactly happened."

In the northern part of the city, a woman with a sallow face and tattered clothes was holding a child whose facial skin was burning red.

The child, having contracted some unknown pestilence, had run a continuous high fever for a day and night. The woman, fleeing disaster, had been separated from her family; she alone with her child had escaped to Wind Mountain City, making her among the most vulnerable and helpless of the city's refugees.

Having fled into Wind Mountain City in darkness, the child developed a high fever; the woman, lacking much experience, did not know whom to turn to for help, and the gazes of the able-bodied men from all directions filled her with terror, nearly causing her to collapse.

Early that morning, in a daze, she took two bowls of water for herself and the child in her arms.

Facing the occasional intentional or unintentional strange glances from the able-bodied, the woman trembled as she held the child, carefully retreating to the corner where a grass shed met a wooden shed, using the crude eave to shield her body.

The child's face, burning red and already delirious, had its reddened skin return to a normal, fair complexion within the time it takes to finish a cup of tea.

He opened his eyes, and a gurgling sound rose from his belly.

He kicked his legs and waved his arms, then somehow wriggled free from the woman's embrace.

"Auntie, my belly is hungry!" The child stamped his foot, and with a bang, the heavy blue‑stone tiles laid on the ground shattered into seven or eight pieces from his light kick.

The woman stared blankly, and the nearby men, women, old and young also stood stunned.

"Ah, ah, my old waist has been strained for so many years…" Before the bystanders could recover from the child's startling change, a hunchbacked old man suddenly let out a strange cry.

Everyone heard a dull, bowstring‑like resonance emanating from the old man's prominently raised hunchback.

With a series of thuds, the old man's waist gradually straightened; his flesh writhed all over, his withered skin slowly plumping and swelling, and soon he had fully straightened his torso.

He swung his fists hard and kicked his legs; the old man's fists cutting through the air produced a deep, muffled sonic boom.

The old man opened his mouth and stared blankly at his own fists: "Is this… Heaven opening its eyes?"

With a few pattering sounds, the old man's few remaining seven or eight broken teeth fell out; then his gums tingled, and visible to the naked eye, tiny white crystal‑like tooth tips sprouted from his gums, soon forming two rows of gleaming white teeth.

"My hand, my hand!" A burly man curled under the eaves of a roadside wooden shed, mindlessly gnawing on a steamed bun, let out a hysterical shout.

The man's right arm had been chopped off at the shoulder, his chest had suffered two vicious cuts that went deep to the bone and still bore deadly poison, with large areas of muscle rotted and spoiled; he was only a few breaths away from death.

But after he had just finished eating a steamed bun and drunk a bowl of well water, copious pus and toxic blood gushed from the wounds in his chest; one could see the muscles near the two cuts writhing rapidly as the wounds began to heal quickly.

What is even more astonishing is that faint green light began to emanate from the man's right‑arm wound; copious granulation tissue and bone spurs kept drilling out of the wound, and within just a few breaths a lump of flesh over an inch long had sprouted near the injury.

Before everyone's eyes, the man who had been utterly exhausted and barely able to move leapt up, shouting wildly; within the time it takes to finish a cup of tea, his entire right arm had regrown completely.

Similar incidents kept occurring throughout the refugee camp.

Those who fled to Feng Wind City either suffered from hunger and exposure to the wind, falling ill; others had sustained injuries of varying severity and did not receive timely treatment after entering the city; still others were deserters who had escaped from other prefectures, their wounds more serious, and many were missing arms or legs just like that sturdy man.

But at this moment, their illnesses and injuries were rapidly disappearing.

Moreover, those elderly people on their last legs not only saw their illnesses and injuries vanish, but also all the chronic ailments and old wounds that had arisen from their age and frailty disappeared completely in a very short time.

Elderly people who had trouble walking now were full of vigor, their punches and kicks exuding tiger-like might, as if they had returned to the prime of youth.

What's more astonishing is that in the wounded soldiers' camp within Feng Wind City lay nearly ten million veteran soldiers severely wounded by demonic arts and magic.

These veterans were crippled in their limbs to a severe degree, and some even had their souls damaged, completely losing their combat ability.

But after having today's breakfast, they all unexpectedly recovered.

Some of the Feng Wind City generals who commanded troops in battle were severely crippled, some left with only a head and a small half of their torso; without a lengthy period of recuperation and without taking large quantities of the Grand Dao Precious Pill to mend their limbs, they could never recover.

But merely drinking a bowl of life-sustaining medicinal soup in the morning and eating a few pieces of flatbread caused their wounds to heal rapidly.

Furthermore, these soldiers were mostly body cultivators; among them, the strongest had attained the Divine Manifestation Realm, while the weakest still reached the level of the Life Pool Realm.

Yet after a mysterious breakfast, their body-tempering realm advanced by leaps and bounds; even the weakest soldier's physical strength was now comparable to that of a high-level body cultivator in the Fetal Storage Realm.

Nearly ten million severely wounded soldiers who could only lie in the wounded camp awaiting death were all restored within a quarter of an hour, and their abilities surged dramatically, increasing their overall combat power by multiple times over what it had been.

News from all directions kept flowing back to the city lord's mansion; Fu Feng Youran and Fu Feng Yasi listened, dumbfounded. The two usually dignified and graceful imperial clan adults were now drenched in sweat, with oily perspiration continually seeping from their foreheads.

The Zombie Pill absolutely could not have such an effect.

Someone, someone had tampered with things behind the scenes.

Without their knowledge, the medicinal effect of the Zombie Pill was completely altered, changed into something harmless to humans and instead a greatly beneficial divine pill.

But who possesses such capability?

And who could have such means?

The Zombie Pill had all along been in Fu Feng Yasi's grasp……

"Imperial, Imperial Uncle… Yasi is young and shallow, knowing little of the clan's secret lore; in our Fu Feng clan, could there be such a heaven-defying senior?" Fu Feng Yasi, trembling, took out a few remaining Zombie Pills and asked Fu Feng Youran foolishly: "This pill, is this pill…"

Fu Feng Youran continually wiped the oily sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

He gave a wry, dry smile to Fu Feng Yasi: "Yasi, the Imperial Uncle is only slightly older than you, but you are the main branch of the Fu Feng clan, you hold the title of prince with a feudal lord's rank, while the Imperial Uncle is merely an ordinary feudal lord, holding the actual commission of a Guardian of the State General… As for any secrets or reclusive seniors in our family, shouldn't you know more than the Imperial Uncle?"

Pointing at the Zombie Pill in Fu Feng Yasi's hand, Fu Feng Youran gave a dry smile and said: "Why not test it on two death-row criminals?"

Saying they would test, they did; in Feng Wind City's death row there were also those wicked, unforgivable criminals.

More than a dozen death-row criminals who had long been sentenced were brought forward; Fu Feng Yasi cut a Zombie Pill, took some of the powder, and gave it to these criminals to swallow.

In less than the time it takes to finish half a cup of tea, the injuries these criminals had sustained from brutal torture were completely healed, and their cultivation surged dramatically, their flesh faintly emitting a sheen of metallic luster.

"By a stroke of heavenly fortune, perhaps our Support Wind Divine Dynasty…" Fu Feng Youran wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "Perhaps, there is hope."

Fu Feng Yasi thought more, his face grim as he looked at his own Imperial Uncle: "But this matter clearly shows that the senior is dissatisfied with our plan from last night… Otherwise, why would he stage such a trick?"

"Imperial Uncle, this is an opportunity for our Support Wind Divine Dynasty, but it might turn out to be… a tremendous disaster for you and me!"

Fu Feng Yasi's mind was still quite clear.

Fu Feng Youran's expression suddenly turned even stranger: "Besides Feng Wind City, should we also have our northern major strongholds do the same? Hurry, hurry, order them to stop, hurry, send word, tell them to stop!"