Pure Land and Strange Land

Taking a deep breath, she temporarily cast her worries aside.

Lu Qiancha clumsily brought her paws together, finally managing to steady the roasted chicken skewered on a bamboo branch before her.

She tentatively lifted a paw, bringing the chicken to her mouth with a tremor.

“Awoo~”

She carefully took a bite!

The scalding juice burst in her mouth in an instant!

The tender texture of the chicken, wrapped in the rich aroma of oil and a hint of char, rushed down her throat!

Savoring it carefully, she could even taste a faint, clear… sweetness.

Hmm… It was probably undercooked.

Lu Qiancha looked down at the skewer in her paws—gleaming grease, streaked with a few specks of crimson blood, meandered down the sharp bamboo stick…

But perhaps because she was now part of the wolf clan, this half-cooked, unseasoned, and crude wild game had a unique flavor all its own.

It was just that these paws were incredibly difficult to use, which gave Lu Qiancha a bit of a headache.

A thought suddenly occurred to Lu Qiancha: perhaps Xun Xue knew how to turn her paws into hands.

So she sent Xun Xue a message: [Mother, do you know how to turn my paws into hands?]

Before long, Xun Xue replied immediately: [Why would you want to change them? Paws are the best! They’re fluffy and warm, and so nice to squeeze! And they’re very practical.]

Xun Xue: [Don’t underestimate them~ A third of our wolf clan’s fighting power is in our claws.]

Lu Qiancha was a little speechless when she read this.

Eighty percent of her combat power came from her potions, and of the remaining twenty percent, most was from her magical artifacts.

Aside from all that, her direct combat ability was practically zero.

If it ever came down to her having to scratch someone with her claws, Lu Qiancha figured she might as well start planning her own funeral.

So, Lu Qiancha replied directly: [But paws are just so hard to use.]

Xun Xue: [Alright then, anything for my baby. OVO]

Xun Xue: [For a demon’s secondary transformation, you need a pill called a Transformation Pill. I have the ingredients and the recipe for it, but I don’t know how to perform alchemy.]

Reading this, Lu Qiancha blinked.

If she had the recipe and the ingredients, then refining the pill wouldn’t be difficult.

Could this pill possibly be harder to craft than the Soul-Returning Pill?

Lu Qiancha certainly didn’t think so.

So, Lu Qiancha sent: [Okay! I can just refine the pill myself! Thank you, Mother.]

‘Hehehe.’

Far away in the Tianyuan Sect, when Xun Xue saw the message “Thank you, Mother,” her beautiful eyes instantly curved into crescent moons.

A blissful smile crept onto her lips, and she replied almost instantly: [You’re welcome, my little baby~ (づ￣³￣)づ]

Having finished her chat and eaten her fill, Lu Qiancha was in high spirits.

She took out a meditation cushion and a warding array disc, setting up a simple isolation formation nearby.

Gazing up at the night sky where dusk had fallen and the river of stars shone brilliantly, she sat cross-legged, immersing herself in a night of spiritual cultivation.

The next day, at the crack of dawn.

Lu Qiancha packed up and once again strolled through the silent, golden ocean.

Unlike the leisurely pace of the previous day, her steps today carried a clear purpose and a hint of undisguisable urgency—to find the missing people as soon as possible, complete the mission, and go back to refine the pill.

This investigation took four days.

Lu Qiancha traveled by day and found a place to meditate and cultivate by night.

Under the constant sweep of Lu Qiancha’s spiritual sense, she finally detected a trace of abnormality.

Although the surrounding earth meridians showed no irregularities, the spiritual energy to the southeast was unusually thin, as if it were being… silently devoured by some force.

It had formed a bizarre spiritual energy vacuum.

Lu Qiancha’s spirits lifted.

She tightened her grip on the ever-shifting, cold cube in her palm and cautiously crept southeast, following the flow of this spiritual energy.

The deeper she went, the sparser the withered yellow bamboo forest became… until it disappeared completely.

A towering, craggy, blue-black stone cliff abruptly appeared before her, as if it had been cleft by a giant’s axe.

In the very center of the cliff face, a dark and unfathomable cave was starkly visible, like the greedily opened maw of a giant beast, silently swallowing the last vestiges of life and spiritual energy from its surroundings.

Feeling the dead silence of the spiritual energy around her, Lu Qiancha felt she had likely come to the right place.

Passing through the cave, the light suddenly dimmed.

After another few hundred steps, just as the tales of the Peach Blossom Spring described, she entered a dense grove of peach trees.

She looked up to see the air filled with a flurry of pink and white falling petals.

The sky was a clear, washed-out blue, and the bright light filtered through layers upon layers of peach blossoms and leaves, dappling the thick layer of humus on the ground.

The rotten peach leaves and fallen fruit covered the ground like a soft, muddy swamp, almost deep enough to swallow Lu Qiancha’s ankles.

Walking on it was like treading through a marsh of accumulated muck.

But this obstacle was no more than a gentle breeze to Lu Qiancha.

With a light tap of her toes, her figure flickered like a phantom of mist and rosy clouds, and in an instant, she had crossed the swamp of decaying leaves and was deep within the forest.

A winding path suddenly appeared ahead.

On both sides of the path stood two guards.

They were clad in simple yet sturdy armor made of wood and vines, holding spears over ten feet long, their vigilant eyes scanning the surroundings.

When they saw an intruder like Lu Qiancha, their gazes hardened slightly.

“Little sister,” the young guard on the left said politely, his voice carrying a hint of a warning, “this place is tranquil, but strange beasts appear from time to time. Since you are a guest from afar, please follow us to avoid disturbing the spirits of the forest and causing unnecessary trouble.”

“Wait… are you constables from Jiangling City? Li Qiang, Wang Ren! Why are you here… acting as guards?!”

Lu Qiancha frowned.

She had seen portraits of the missing people before she came and recognized these two immediately.

“Oh?”

A flicker of shock crossed the eyes of Li Qiang, the man who had been named.

He quickly suppressed it and forced a surprised smile.

“So the little sister is from Jiangling? What… a coincidence.”

“Cut the nonsense!”

Lu Qiancha was blunt, getting straight to the point.

“Where are Tian Xia and the Sun brothers?! And the people Magistrate Zhou ordered you to find?!”

The smile on guard Wang Ren’s face faded slightly, but his tone remained gentle, carrying a strange, persuasive quality.

“Young lady, you misunderstand. Tian Xia and the others are not ‘missing,’ but rather…”

He gazed toward the peach grove, resplendent with blossoms, his eyes filled with sincere admiration and contentment.

“They were deeply captivated by this paradise and asked to stay, to become a part of this place.”

“Captivated?”

Lu Qiancha’s brow furrowed, her gaze as sharp as a knife.

“Abandoning wives and children, forsaking their homes and livelihoods? What kind of ‘paradise’ could drive people to such madness?!”

“Little sister, you are still young. There are some things you may not understand just yet.”

Li Qiang stepped aside to clear the path, his posture still respectful.

“This is not the place for a detailed discussion, lest we disturb the mountain spirits. Please, come with me, and I will explain everything on the way.”

Lu Qiancha wasn’t afraid.

She could sense that these two were only at the Qi Refining realm.

Even if she just scratched them with her claws, she could send them scrambling with their tails between their legs.

Wang Ren’s voice rang out, carrying a peculiar, soothing power.

“Here, there are no harsh taxes from the government, no conscription for military or labor service, and no oppression or exploitation from petty officials.”

He pointed to the peaceful figures laboring sporadically in the fields beyond.

“Everyone can enjoy their own plot of fertile land, planting in spring and harvesting in autumn, living self-sufficiently and peacefully.”

“Merely having enough food and clothing, and being free from taxes and service, is enough to make people separate from their own flesh and blood?” Lu Qiancha’s voice was laced with a bone-chilling skepticism.

“Those who miss their parents and children, who worry for their wives… can they truly be at ease?! And if this place is so wonderful, why not move their entire families here? Why come alone?”

“Little sister, you are mistaken,” Li Qiang said, shaking his head slightly.

He looked toward the depths of the peach grove with an almost pious reverence.

“This is the abode of an immortal! The entrance is mystical and its location ever-changing. To have entered this place is already a blessing from the heavens.”

His tone suddenly dropped, filled with the relief of one who has cast off worldly shackles.

“Return to the mortal world? To that filthy city where officials are like jackals, gangs are like tigers and leopards, and exorbitant taxes cling to you like maggots on a bone? Heh… for common folk like us, rather than sinking and struggling in that mire…”

He took a deep breath, the fragrance of flowers filling his lungs.

“It is better to live out our days in leisure in this blessed land!”

‘Officials like jackals? Gangs like tigers and leopards?’

Could Jiangling City, under Magistrate Zhou’s governance, truly be that wretched?

A flicker of doubt crossed Lu Qiancha’s eyes.

Li Qiang seemed to want to continue painting the picture of his personal paradise.

However—

As they reached a turn in the path ahead, his voice came to an abrupt halt.

The scene before them seemed to render all his unspoken words meaningless.

He stopped, stepped to the side, and said in a low voice, “Little sister… we’ve arrived.”