Chapter 442: Behind the Scenes

Mo Hua moved along the rooftops, avoiding the corpse cultivators, and left the gates of the Walking Corpse Village. He went to the large rock outside and met up with Bai Zisheng and Bai Zixi.

Bai Zisheng asked, “Why were you gone so long?”

Mo Hua smiled brightly. “I found Instructor Yan!”

“Is Instructor Yan alright?”

“Yeah,” Mo Hua nodded, “we’ll rescue Instructor Yan in a few days.”

Bai Zisheng frowned. “Why wait? We can rescue him now. I’ll charge in and cut down all the corpse cultivators!”

Mo Hua was indifferent. “Sure, go ahead then.”

Bai Zisheng paused, scratching his head. “Better not. You’ve got too many schemes in your head—let’s go with your plan.”

Mo Hua scowled. “You’re the one with too many schemes.”

Bai Zisheng sighed to himself. “I wish I had more schemes, but my nature is too upright. I just can’t think of any.”

Mo Hua whispered, “I think you’re just dumb…”

Bai Zisheng reached out to ruffle Mo Hua’s hair. “How dare you call your senior brother dumb?”

…

The two of them whispered and bickered.

Bai Zixi picked up a stick and tapped each of them on the head. “Talk about the serious stuff!”

“Oh.”

The two obediently agreed.

The three then began discussing their next steps.

Bai Zisheng thought for a moment. “We could set an ambush along his usual route, catch Zhang Quan, and then, with the Walking Corpse Village leaderless, take the chance to wipe out the village…”

Mo Hua was about to nod but suddenly shook his head.

“No, that won’t work.”

“Why not?” Bai Zisheng asked, puzzled.

Mo Hua pondered. “There must be others behind Zhang Quan.”

“Others?”

“People who draw formations for him.”

Mo Hua’s expression turned serious. “The formations Instructor Yan drew for the Walking Corpse Village were standard Five Elements formations, all designed for mountain village structures.”

“But the formations used for corpse refinement are completely different and evil.”

“Zhang Quan can’t draw that kind of formation. I just scoped the village—seems like no one there can.”

“At least none of the corpse cultivators I saw could draw it.”

“Besides, it’s a Ling-Pivot Formation of the Xiao Lingyin Sect. Ordinary formation masters couldn’t replicate it.”

“If we don’t find out who this person is, killing Zhang Quan and wiping out the Black Mountain Village won’t matter.”

“The formation is the key. Whoever knows it will continue killing, buying corpses, and refining them…”

Mo Hua paused, sighed, and continued, “This is an ultimate formation passed down by Instructor Yan’s sect. I don’t want anyone using it for evil…”

Bai Zisheng nodded. “Alright, we’ll follow your plan.”

Bai Zixi also nodded slightly and asked Mo Hua, “Have you figured out what to do?”

“Yes,” Mo Hua nodded, then said, “We’ll let Zhang Quan return to the village, then secretly observe him—see who he meets, who helps him draw formations…”

“Once we have that information, we report to Sister Situ and work with the Dao Court Division to take down the Walking Corpse Village.”

“Then we capture Zhang Quan, seize his Corpse-Control Bell, and restore the Ling-Pivot Formation diagram.”

“Preferably, we uncover the sect cultivators behind him as well…”

“Cut off the root, prevent future trouble…”

…

Mo Hua said everything with careful precision.

Bai Zisheng agreed but still worried. “It probably won’t be that smooth…”

“Master said: always plan ahead, but plans can’t keep up with changes. Adapt as things happen,” Mo Hua said.

“Alright!”

After finishing their discussion, the three began executing their plan.

First, they waited for Zhang Quan to return to the village.

But even this first step had some unexpected complications.

Zhang Quan seemed overly cautious…

He wandered through the wilderness, hid in caves, hid in forests, set traps, and played mental games with the air itself, refusing to return to the village.

He thought he was being thorough, but Mo Hua had seen everything.

Mo Hua was puzzled.

Could he really be this cautious…?

And it seemed he could keep hiding like this indefinitely.

Even Mo Hua’s patience was wearing thin.

So the three decided to split up.

Mo Hua returned to the Walking Corpse Village to map the layout, draw diagrams of the buildings, and chat with Instructor Yan to see if there were any oversights.

Bai Zixi stayed outside to support Mo Hua.

Bai Zisheng went to meet Situ Fang, planning manpower for the village’s destruction.

After a full five days, Zhang Quan finally returned to the village.

He looked disheveled and exhausted but felt a sense of relief.

After a long battle of wits with an invisible pursuer that didn’t even exist, he was finally certain he had shaken off Mo Hua’s tracking and dared to return to his corpse-refining lair.

Occasionally, he still felt something subtly clinging to him, like bone maggots.

But after so much effort and so many precautions, whatever it was, he could surely shake it off.

Zhang Quan sneered.

He had lived for many years; his cultivation experience far exceeded that inexperienced kid.

That sneaky little kid could never track him again!

Zhang Quan, now confident and joyful, strode back to his secret, hidden, and illicit Walking Corpse Village.

At this time, Mo Hua was already at his old home, waiting for him.

Seeing Zhang Quan enter, Mo Hua felt even happier than Zhang Quan.

During his days in the village, Mo Hua had secretly observed and mapped the entire place and, bored, started finding things to do.

He even counted every coffin in the village…

Zhang Quan swaggered through the village gates.

Mo Hua’s eyes lit up. Using the Flowing-Water Step, he leapt lightly across rooftops and entered the innermost room, climbing onto a beam and sitting cross-legged, patiently waiting.

The room was spacious, concealed, with completed formations, and full of corpse-refining materials.

He guessed this was Zhang Quan’s secret chamber.

Sure enough, after a while, Zhang Quan entered, right under Mo Hua’s nose.

Mo Hua remained hidden, having even preemptively set up a concealment formation nearby.

Zhang Quan was completely unaware.

The room was silent. On the surface, it seemed only Zhang Quan was there.

He let out a long sigh, burned incense, bathed, changed into normal-looking clothes, and meditated for a while. Gradually, corpse cultivators arrived to report the village’s situation.

The corpse cultivators reported respectfully; Zhang Quan listened attentively, seated high, while Mo Hua sat above him, straining to listen.

Most reports were about mundane village affairs.

Which traveling merchants were robbed this month, which cultivators were killed, how many corpses were bought…

How many walking corpses were refined, how many succeeded, how many failed;

How many spirit stones were spent, how many materials used;

Which corpse-refining materials were lacking, needing purchase, which zombies had gone out of control, needing handling…

All scattered details.

Mo Hua, listening from the beam, gradually understood the village’s operations.

The village had robbers and corpse cultivators.

Ordinary robbers could join as long as they dared to kill.

But joining didn’t guarantee learning corpse refinement.

One needed assessment, experience, and Zhang Quan’s trust to become a proper corpse cultivator.

Corpse cultivators refined and controlled corpses.

Refining corpses required cultivator corpses.

The sources were several.

One was robbery and murder.

The village’s cultivators were either criminal or robbers before joining, used to killing and looting.

But this “loot” included not just spirit stones and artifacts, but also cultivator corpses.

Robbers would kill, bring back the bodies, and use them for corpse refinement.

The second source was purchase.

They hired people to kill mining cultivators and buy their corpses, or bought from grave robbers.

The main source remained mining cultivators.

Southern Yue City had many mines and cultivators, considered cheap in the eyes of the robbers.

Once bought, corpses were refined.

Mo Hua had looked at this briefly before.

The corpse-refining process, as the senior sister had said, required herbs, corpse-maintenance coffins, and the Corpse-Control Bell.

But the exact methods were complex.

Which herbs, in what proportions, boiled into a putrid potion.

The corpse soaked in the potion.

After sufficient time, placed in the corpse-maintenance coffin to be refined.

During refinement, corpse cultivators would pace around the coffin daily, shaking the Corpse-Control Copper Bell.

The process was tedious but clearly divided.

Like herbs for alchemy or fine iron for forging, corpse cultivators treated corpses as “materials,” not people.

Their expressions were cold and numb, as if it were natural.

Mo Hua frowned.

He even considered drawing a Reverse-Spirit Formation to collapse the village outright.

But he restrained himself.

Small impatience could ruin a grand plan; one cannot act on impulse.

The corpse cultivators’ reports were all about trivial village matters, not formation techniques.

After listening for days, Mo Hua found no clues—until the third day, when he noticed something.

A corpse cultivator whispered to Zhang Quan,

“Master, should we deliver the corpses?”

Mo Hua’s heart skipped a beat.

Deliver corpses?

Which corpses? To where? Why deliver?

Could it… be for drawing formations?

He remembered: newly refined walking corpses in the village had no formations at their heart meridian.

If not present, they must be drawn.

Delivering corpses… meant someone else, not him, would draw them?

Mo Hua held his breath, eager to know where, to whom, and who would help Zhang Quan draw formations.

But Zhang Quan shook his head. “No delivery.”

The corpse cultivator hesitated, then said,

“If not delivered soon, it might be too late; those zombies… can’t be controlled…”

Zhang Quan’s eyes turned cold. “If they can’t be controlled, discard them, feed them to other zombies. Do I need to teach you this?”

The corpse cultivator immediately lowered his head. “Yes, master.”

After the cultivator left, Zhang Quan snorted and began to meditate again.

Mo Hua frowned.

This Zhang Quan was tricky.