Looking at the toiling living corpses, Qiao Zhi recalled that when Chu Qiguang previously employed the services of living corpses, he had designed a form for everyone to fill out. On that form, they could declare whether they wished to be cremated, buried, cast out to sea, or have their bodies turned into fertilizer.

He remembered that burial was the most expensive option, while those who volunteered to have their bodies turned into fertilizer would receive a subsidy.

Now that I think about it, things really took a morbid turn back then, didn't they? I wonder if Chu Qiguang is going to implement the same system this time around.

By the time all of the initial work was done, it was already the end of September.

In the beginning, Chu Qiguang spent almost all of his time at Hidden Fiend Village. Toward the end, he only made nightly visits to deliver food and conduct lessons for the sake of ideological reform. During this time, he also flew around on the back of a Chongming Bird to draw up a rough map of the entire basin, making future planning and development easier.

We'll be able to start growing wheat soon. After the harvest next summer, this village will be self-sufficient. However, we still need to introduce livestock. For these fiends, being able to eat meat is extremely important.

Right at that moment, one of the elderly villagers approached Chu Qiguang with a reverent and fearful expression. Then he said in a timid voice, "Master Omniscient, I've finished things over there..."

The old man's name was Song Baishi, and he had become the unofficial leader of the elderly villagers after Zheng Sanshui's passing.

After Chu Qiguang expressed a desire to introduce livestock to the village, Song Baishi had volunteered to take on the task. He claimed that he was very skilled at raising chicken, and that he also knew how to raise termites to use as chicken feed.

Chu Qiguang knew next to nothing about farming and raising livestock, so he was more than happy to rely on the villagers' expertise.

Song Baishi led Chu Qiguang to a ditch. Once the subject of raising chickens came up, he immediately appeared much more confident and animated as he introduced, "I added wood, wheat straw, and bamboo shavings here. The layer of wheat straw will keep the enclosure from getting damp. It can't be too wet or too dry. I figured this out through over twenty years of experience.

"I added pine wood and bamboo shavings and wheat straw to the mound of soil there, and it'll only take a few days before the termites move in. Three or four mounds' worth of termites should be enough to feed about a hundred chickens. We've been raising chickens like this in my family ever since I was a little boy, and our chickens have always thrived."

Looking at the timid and amicable Song Baishi, Chu Qiguang found it hard to believe that this was the same man who had tried to stab Chen Gang with a pitchfork back in Southern Ravine Village.

These so-called bottom feeders of the Great Han Empire had never lacked the intelligence or diligence needed to survive. All the imperial court had to do was ease up on the taxation and forced labor, and these people would have been perfectly capable of surviving on their own.

Unfortunately, even that was often too much to ask under the heavily flawed feudal system. It was a system built on layer after layer of exploitation, and that was what ultimately forced these people to abandon their faith and even resort to undeath.

"Is this alright, Master Omniscient?" Song Baishi asked uneasily, mistaking Chu Qiguang's contemplative silence for a display of dissatisfaction.

Chu Qiguang was completely clueless in this regard, so he simply said, "You can begin building the enclosure. I'll buy some chickens soon, and I'll leave them all to you. From now on, you'll be the designated chicken farmer of our village."

Song Baishi was unable to suppress a wide smile at the thought of being able to raise chickens again. He didn't know what to say, so he began bowing repeatedly to Chu Qiguang in gratitude.

At dinnertime, Jin Ji was tending to a large pot of meat broth that had been set down in a clearing at the center of the village.

Chu Qiguang ladled out portions of broth for all the fiends, and compared with when they had first arrived at Hidden Fiend Village, they had become much more orderly and organized. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

In the beginning, they were constantly fighting and jostling with one another to get their food before others, but they had since learned to line up in a relaxed and civilized manner.

After dinner, Chu Qiguang began his ideological lessons. The fiends were ideological blank slates, so they were very receptive to his teachings. Furthermore, they could see that the fruits of their labor was gradually bringing them closer to the goal of self-sufficiency, and it was very clear to them that their lives were beginning to change.

Thus, they were quick to accept Chu Qiguang's ideology of class conflict and exploitation. As the village became more and more self-sufficient, they would gradually come to realize that they were capable of living good lives through their own efforts as long as they weren't exploited by the higher social classes.

In contrast, the elderly villagers had been much more deeply poisoned by the ideologies of the feudal system, so they didn't show much interest in the contents of Chu Qiguang's lessons. Instead, they were much more interested in farming and raising chickens. In their eyes, they were still being ruled over, except it was now by Master Omniscient, rather than the imperial court.

As he left Hidden Fiend Village on the back of a Chongming Bird, Chu Qiguang thought to himself, The village should be entirely self-sufficient after next year's summer harvest, and that's when I'll be able to recruit more people and fiends.

This world was filled with disillusioned farmers who had abandoned their faith and fiends who had to fight constantly just to survive. If even a cult like the Immortal Dao could gain so many followers, Chu Qiguang was confident that he could do an even better job.

The foundation of everything was food. Only by keeping the fiends and people fed would they continue to be loyal to him.

I still need more talent on my side. I have plenty of manual laborers now, but I still need intelligent subordinates to take some of the load off my shoulders.

All of a sudden, a name sprang into Chu Qiguang's mind.

"How has Wang Cailiang been doing lately, Master Qiao?"

***

That night, Wang Cailiang was tossing and turning in his bedroom in the Wang Clan Village, unable to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would see Granny Sun's demonic body withering away, while her grandson regenerated his body by sucking away her life force like a leech.

At the same time, Daoist Master Azure Spirit's murmuring voice continued to echo in his ears, impossible to forget or ignore.

"One must first experience death before they can be reborn anew through the elixir of undying..."

At the Daoist temple, he had hoped that the Daoist priests would be able to help him through an exorcism. However, the exorcism only worked at the very beginning and quickly became completely ineffective at suppressing the murmuring voice in his head.

As his symptoms worsened, he could sense more and more animosity from the Daoist priests. In order to avoid being burned to death, Wang Cailiang could only suppress the madness in his mind and pretend that he had returned to normal, telling the Daoist priests that he felt fine.

Granny Sun's courtyard had been sealed off, so Wang Cailiang took a break from Wise Hero Academy and returned home to recuperate.

However, the madness hidden deep within his mind was only growing stronger, and pieces of evil and twisted knowledge were constantly flooding into his mind alongside Daoist Master Azure Spirit's demonic voice.

Stop! Make it stop!

Wang Cailiang bellowed in frustration, and by the time he returned to his senses, he found himself sitting on his chair with no recollection of how he had gotten there.

There was a sheet of paper before him with the Elixir of Undying cultivation art written upon it. Cold sweat instantly began to trickle down from his forehead, and he hurriedly crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball to throw it away.

However, as soon as he turned around, he discovered that the ground was already littered with other crumpled balls of paper, all of which contained text that he had written himself.

"One must first experience death before they can be reborn anew through the elixir of undying..."