Chapter 69: Finally Here
Wasn’t this red-clothed woman the “madam” who he had met at the inn? She was about to return home to visit her parents.
The woman in red stepped forward and tried to pull her parents up from the ground with the servant girl.
However, it was useless. The two middle-aged parents kept repeating all sorts of begging. Their bodies were huddled together and they were unwilling to give any more reaction.
The woman in red was so anxious that she was about to cry. However, her parents still did not notice her and treated her like an “immortal” as they hugged her head and begged for mercy.
When she returned home, her family did not recognize her.
Moreover, although humans were essentially repeating words throughout their lives, the words that they repeated were too similar. It was a little strange.
The scene before him finally caused Jiang Li to slap his forehead and notice that something was off.
He ran to the other residences again, this time not going in himself.
Instead, he took out gold and silver ingots from his pocket and threw them into the house.
Some people were bewildered at first, but after discovering the gold ingot, they were overjoyed.
This was a normal reaction.
Some people were initially suspicious, but after discovering the silver ingots, they started to thank the heavens.
This was a normal reaction.
However, in a portion of the residences, the glittering gold and silver rolled past the mortals inside. However, they only took a glance before ignoring it.
This was very abnormal.
This caused Jiang Li to feel that the hundreds of thousands of souls were most likely from them.
Still unwilling to give up, he found the death row prisoners’ dungeons in Cloud Stream City. After strangling a few of them, he sent his Yin attribute spiritual qi into his eyes to take a look, but none of their souls left the body.
This time, there was no longer any doubt.
Elder Duan Shuang and the others had used some unknown method. In a short period of time, half of the city had already died.
Nearly half of the residents in the city had already become zombies without souls. This situation was even more horrifying than seeing 200,000 skeletons.
Jiang Li was already planning how to leave a way out and escape at the critical moment.
When he returned to the inn, the sky, which was already dark, turned even darker.
Jiang Li returned to his room to listen to the Heart Sutra. At the same time, he used his extremely developed sense of hearing to envelop the surroundings of the inn, trying his best to not miss out on any clues.
Apart from the time when the Soul Capturing Bag was about to be filled and he had to personally transfer it, his monitoring had never relaxed.
However, the next night passed peacefully.
Through the expenditure of silver, Jiang Li roughly calculated the number of souls he had already obtained.
Due to the strong wind on the ground, it caused a lot of trouble for the demons to capture the souls of the dead. Their speed was reduced.
However, that number still steadily broke through 200,000, accumulating towards an even higher level.
While Jiang Li was fine, the city lord’s mansion was not so lucky.
The day before, they still did not find anything useful.
On the contrary, eleven people just happened to disappear that night, making all of them nervous and suspicious.
They wished that they could stay in the city lord’s mansion and report this matter. Many disciples did not have the guts to investigate it anymore.
Slam!
On the morning of the third day, in the world that Jiang Li observed through his hearing, a drop of water the size of a bean suddenly fell from the sky and exploded on the ground.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
A breath later, rain poured down!
Jiang Li’s ears were instantly filled with a large amount of noise, making him helplessly withdraw from the monitoring.
A true Heart Sutra technique definitely did not have such a drawback.
However, relying on just a few incomplete scriptures, reaching this level was already his limit.
Looking at the rain outside that seemed to be deliberately opposing him, Jiang Li was not angry.
He closed his eyes and calmed his mind before continuing to meditate peacefully.
Time passed slowly.
The raindrops formed an exaggerated line, but it was also firm and illogical.
The rolling dark clouds in the sky seemed to contain an infinite amount of water that could go on forever.
The water accumulated on the streets grew higher and higher, and soon, it covered the steps of the house. From the third day onwards, there were no longer any mortals on the streets of Cloud Stream City.
It was unknown if they were locked up at home by the wind and water, or if they had already died under the hands of Elder Duan and the others.
The tables and chairs of the banquet had already been moved to the second floor of the inn.
Due to the effects of the wind and rain, there were fewer demons coming and going compared to two days ago.
However, Jiang Li was generous and raised the price of souls by several times. Moreover, there were indeed many souls everywhere in the city, it was a rare opportunity to make a fortune.
This was why a group of small demons was still willing to gather souls for him despite the storms.
On the third night, in Cloud Stream City, the shallowest water accumulation on the streets could already easily cross one’s knees.
A large amount of wooden junk was washed out, floating in the water on the street.
“Da Qiang! Da Chen!”
At the banquet that was already quite cold and empty, an outer sect disciple suddenly appeared at an unknown time and softly called out to the two disciples who were currently “distributing the silver taels”.
After three consecutive days of work, Da Qiang and Da Chen, who were already numb from working so hard, turned their heads in a daze.
After seeing the person’s face, the two of them jolted awake.
“Ah Niu! It’s you!”
“Where have you been the past two days? We all thought you were dead.”
The three of them had always had a good relationship and had a foundation of trust.
Coupled with the fact that Da Qiang and Da Chen had been working in the shed, no one told them the severity of the situation!
Therefore, they did not suspect anything when they saw Ah Niu, whom they had not seen for two days, suddenly appear.
“Hush! Be gentler. Follow me!”
Ah Niu pointed at the location of Jiang Li’s room, telling them not to be loud. He then beckoned them to leave with him.
“Go? Where? That Jiang Li won’t let us go.” Da Qiang and Da Chen were still a bit afraid of Jiang Li.
“Relax, I’ve already found a way to deal with him. He’ll be fine. Follow me.”
This Ah Niu looked a little unfamiliar to the two of them, but they were friends for many years after all. Amidst his promises and temptations, Da Qiang and Da Chen finally chose to believe him. They abandoned their job of “collecting money” at the banquet and quietly left through the back door of the inn.
Right after they left, Jiang Li woke up from his meditation.
“He’s finally here!” He muttered something, as if he had been waiting a long time.
Jiang Li ran to the second floor. Sure enough, Da Qiang and Da Chen were no longer where they were. There were only two green-gray masks left on the table and a red-coated rat that was busy moving around.
“He’s cautious, but it’s useless!”
Jiang Li took back the two masks and the last two bags of souls. However, he did not take away the gold and silver on the ground. He instructed the demons to continue collecting souls and not cause any commotion.
He quietly left the inn, following behind the three people from afar. He stepped on the floating logs on the water, following in a certain direction.