Chapter 40

Song Qingming returned to Mount Lingyuan with a restless heart. Seeing him looking worried, Song Zhangxin thought he had encountered something on the way back and asked with concern.

Song Qingming then discovered that he was indeed too worried. Even if the Liu family suspected him, at most he would just return the things to them. Now that he also had a stable source of spirit stones, as long as he was willing to spend time making talismans, he would definitely not lack cultivation resources in the future.

Thinking of this, Song Qingming finally calmed down and joked with Song Zhangxin. Ever since he had an accident two years ago, Ninth Uncle's concern for him had increased a lot. Every time he wanted to go on a long journey, Song Chang Changxin would give him instructions, which also moved Song Qingming very much.

Next, in order to adjust himself, Song Qingming started making talismans day and night. Busy as he was, he finally stopped thinking about the Liu family matter.

It was just that what he didn't expect was that a few days after returning to Mount Lingyuan, his Thirteenth Uncle, Song Zhangxiong, who came to Mount Lingyuan to transport supplies as usual, brought a shocking piece of news.

Two days ago, for some unknown reason, the Liu family on Mount Jingyuan was actually removed from the Xiaoyao Sect's list overnight. Apart from a few Liu family cultivators who were outside, all thirty-something Liu family cultivators were sent by the Xiaoyao Sect to the mine to serve their sentences. The clan leader Liu Tianlong committed suicide on the spot. Since then, there was no longer a Liu family on Mount Jingyuan in Qinghe County.

Hearing the news that Liu Tianlong had died, Song Qingming didn't come back to his senses for a long time. He truly didn't expect that he had just put this matter down, but the Liu family, which had made him worried a few days ago, had actually disappeared overnight.

Hearing this news, Song Qingming, who should have been very happy, never had a smile on his face, but instead had a heavy look. The sect was high and mighty. For a small family like the Song family, surviving was truly not easy. A moment of carelessness could lead to the same end as the Liu family overnight.

Song Qingming thought to himself that the Liu family being wiped out by the Xiaoyao Sect was very likely related to the Water Spirit Fruit in Liu Tianlong's storage bag. Now that this spiritual fruit was on him, it was equally possible that it would bring such a devastating disaster to the Song family.

After obtaining Liu Tianlong's storage bag, he had thought about this problem more than once. That Water Spirit Fruit looked like a spiritual item that had just been picked not long ago. Could it be that the trip to the Fuyun Mountain Range organized by the Liu family was really aimed at that Water Spirit Fruit? Now the sudden destruction of the Liu family was very likely related to this item.

The fifty thousand mortals under the jurisdiction of Mount Jingyuan, apart from a small portion that had to be moved to Qinghe Marketplace, were all divided up by nearby families. Most of them were accepted by the Huang family. Even the Song family shared over two thousand people. The Fourth Elder, who managed the family's general affairs, also racked his brains to arrange these two thousand people and had no choice but to prepare to send two hundred of them to Mount Lingyuan for resettlement.

Song Zhangxiong came this time and also informed Song Zhangxin and Song Qingming in advance that they should hurry to arrange new residences for the mortals in these few days, so as to be ready to receive these two hundred Liu family mortals at any time.

Song Zhangxin seemed to have been accustomed to such ups and downs of cultivation families. After hearing this news, he just nodded, feeling somewhat troubled about how to arrange these mortals.

Mount Lingyuan was located in the deep mountains, and there were not many fields that could be cultivated. The original grain supply had to be supplemented by Mount Funiu every year. Now that there were two hundred more people, the existing grain was definitely not enough to eat.

After discussing with Song Qingming, Song Zhangxin planned to cultivate some new fields on Mount Lingyuan. Otherwise, relying entirely on Mount Funiu to help supply grain in the future would definitely not be a long-term solution. Now that there were two thousand more people in Mujiao Town, Mount Funiu must also be very tight.

If they could solve this problem themselves on Mount Lingyuan, it would be much easier in the future, and they wouldn't have to look forward to Mount Funiu sending grain every time.

After a few days of investigation, the two planned to arrange the new mortal residential area on the west side of Yueyahu. This was originally where Song Qingming lived, and there were four or five small buildings next to it that had been unoccupied.

Song Qingming arranged for the mortals at the mine to build a small house on the west side of the Black Iron Mine, directly living by the side of the mine, which would also be convenient for him to patrol the mine in the future.

Led by over a dozen martial arts masters, the villagers of Mount Lingyuan started cutting down trees on the mountain and building new houses. Song Zhangxin also specifically arranged for the miners to stop work for a few days to help build the houses together.

Soon, under Song Qingming's leadership, the villagers of Mount Lingyuan spent half a month finally building over twenty new houses. Adding the original vacant rooms, they could barely accommodate two hundred people.

After building the new houses, in order to facilitate management, Song Zhangxin divided a portion of the original mortal miners on Mount Lingyuan and moved them to the new houses built on the west side of Yueyahu. After the Liu family's mortals arrived, they would then be arranged to be scattered and mixed into the original residents of Mount Lingyuan.

This was also a common method used by major cultivation families when receiving mortals from other families. On one hand, it could allow them to integrate into the new environment faster, and on the other hand, it was also to prevent these people from gathering together and causing trouble.

Only a few days after Song Qingming and the others finished building the houses, Song Zhangxiong and his Fourth Brother, Song Qingrui, escorted these two hundred-plus mortals to Mount Lingyuan. Under the arrangement of the original village head of Mount Lingyuan, these mortals soon each received their own houses. After a count, there were already over five hundred mortals on Mount Lingyuan.

Now that there was no shortage of miners to mine at the Black Iron Mine, Song Qingming decided after thinking about it to temporarily divide these five hundred mortals into two parts. The mortals living on the east side of Yueyahu continued to go to the mine to mine, and the mortals living on the west side were first arranged to cultivate some fields next to the village.

Because Mount Lingyuan was located in the deep mountains, there were not many places where good fields could be cultivated. Song Qingming could only lead these people to use magic tools to chisel mountains and open stones, divert water and build canals, and cultivate dozens of mu of new fields to grow grain.

He even specifically made a trip to Mujiao Town, got a batch of fish fry and put them into Yueyahu, and arranged for a few families to specifically look after and breed them. It took nearly two months to initially solve this thorny grain problem.

Fortunately, he had the remnant map to quickly restore his spiritual power. During this period, apart from talisman-making, he didn't delay his cultivation. It was just that Ninth Uncle Song Zhangxin didn't know this and was afraid that he was too tired during this time, delaying his cultivation, so he specifically sent him some spiritual rice so that he could supplement some of his cultivation progress.

Regarding this, Song Qingming couldn't refuse, lest he let Song Zhangxin continue to worry about him.

Busy as it was, another three months passed. These Liu family mortals finally settled down steadily. Fortunately, these people were relatively easy to manage. Because their main family had suffered a disaster, compared to those who had to move to Qinghe Marketplace hundreds of miles away, their coming to the Song family could be considered very lucky.

Mortals were not like cultivators who could be immune to all diseases. Large-scale long-distance migration of mortals could easily lead to some people with slightly weaker constitutions falling on the road. Moreover, those high and mighty Xiaoyao Sect cultivators wouldn't care too much about the life and death of these mortals. As long as there were no large-scale deaths, they wouldn't take action to save them at all.

In order to take care of them, many of the Liu family mortals assigned to Mount Lingyuan this time were not of the Liu family surname. After dispersing them, they soon integrated into the Song family's mortals.

In order to facilitate management, the original village on Mount Lingyuan was also divided into two by Song Qingming. The east side of Yueyahu was still called Lingyuan Village, and the west side took a new name, called "Yuehu Village." Song Qingyu's father was arranged to become the village head of Yuehu Village.

After the establishment of Yuehu Village, Song Qingming selected some talented mortals from the newly arrived Liu family mortals to enrich the protective formation martial arts masters and mine guards of Mount Lingyuan.

Song Qingming let these people increase the intensity of their training every day, planning to take them into the mountains to hunt some wild beasts after a period of time, which could also help supplement the rations in the mountains.

(End of chapter)