Chapter 501: New Residence

Chapter 501: Chapter 501: New Residence

The two stone men rushed back.

Their large feet made the ground THUMP THUMP as they stomped along.

Ah Er carried a cage in his two claws, a gray-furred rat and an old hen trembling inside.

"We’re here, we’re here! It’s all that damned Taoist’s fault. Why does he have to be so meddlesome?"

The two brothers had been away on a long journey with their master, leaving Bai Mo in charge of the Black Prison’s affairs. Now, they had finally returned.

Their bodies, forged from stone, showed no trace of their travels and looked exactly as they had before.

Bai Mo waited for them to approach and bowed gracefully.

"Senior Brothers, it’s been a long time."

The two stone men nodded repeatedly.

"It has indeed been a while."

They looked toward Mi Mountain and immediately noticed the green plants and the floating Spirit Charm on the peak.

"It seems a lot has happened on the mountain while we were away."

Bai Mo nodded, retrieved the Black Prison’s handbook, and handed it to them.

"Indeed, a lot has happened. The changes have been significant. I’ve recorded them all in here."

The two stone men took it and skimmed through, getting a general idea of what had transpired.

"Good."

"Junior Brother, you’ll be involved in the sect’s sacrificial rites from now on. You must be careful. There’s a lot of hidden complexity in it, and one wrong move could get you killed."

They didn’t bother to lower their voices, even with the representative from the Foreign Affairs Hall present.

The green-robed steward’s expression remained unchanged as he stated calmly,

"A Core Formation Cultivator is capable of bearing such risks. There are no completely safe positions in the sect, and that includes the Silkworm Valley of Pill Peak."

"Only the two of you, with your unique abilities, can stay and guard Mi Mountain for a lifetime..."

Bai Mo had anticipated this. He exchanged a few more words with the two stone men before bidding them farewell.

With Ah Er in tow, Bai Mo stepped onto the Foreign Affairs Hall’s large Flying Ship.

The Flying Ship activated, and the group of more than ten people departed.

The two stone men remained where they were. They flipped through the handbook and took a stroll through the Black Prison.

"Heh, some familiar faces. Still not dead, I see..."

They closed the gate, and their forms shifted. In a short while, they had transformed into giant boulders, fitting perfectly into the hollows on either side of the gate.

"Ah, this is a much better fit..."

"Let’s not delay. We just got back, so we can’t afford any mistakes. First, let’s link up with Mi Mountain and check on the changes..."

「...」

The Foreign Affairs Hall’s large Flying Ship landed beside a cliff.

Only Bai Mo and the green-robed steward remained; the others departed.

Not far off was a dwelling that resembled a small farmhouse courtyard, perched on the edge of the cliff.

There was little vegetation nearby, just a stretch of desolation. One had to walk dozens of yards before the scenery returned to the familiar, undeveloped mountain wilderness.

What caught Bai Mo’s attention was the cliff just a few steps away, which looked like a natural fissure in the earth.

A faint mist swirled below, obscuring the view of what lay at the bottom.

Ah Er’s fur stood on end; he was clearly terrified of whatever was down there. In the cage he carried, the chicken and rat huddled even tighter in a corner.

His mount, a large wild boar, hadn’t been brought along. He would have to figure out a way to retrieve it later.

The green-robed steward explained softly,

"It’s not a friendly place down there, Junior Brother. Best not to go peeking."

"But it does have its conveniences. If you have any... inconvenient waste or harmful things to dispose of, you can just toss them down. All the disciples nearby do it."

Bai Mo looked at him.

The green-robed steward explained,

"Your kind of people usually live on this side of the cliff. If you look around, you’ll find others."

As he spoke, the two of them arrived in front of the farmhouse courtyard.

The gate was half-open and covered in dust. The wooden fence gave off a musty scent.

It had clearly been uninhabited for a very long time.

"From this day forward, Junior Brother Bai will be the sect’s Alchemist. This courtyard, both inside and out, is yours to manage."

The green-robed steward pushed the gate open for Bai Mo to enter but remained standing outside the courtyard himself.

"This is the Hall’s title for disciples in charge of the pill-related aspects of the sacrificial rites."

"There are others, such as Formation Painters and Beast Tamers, whom you will meet in the future, Junior Brother."

Bai Mo nodded, and then the green-robed steward departed.

Alchemist. That was what some Barbaric Tribes of the Ancient Times called Alchemy Cultivators.

Back then, Alchemy Cultivators were masters of refining Grand Human Elixirs, a practice that later evolved into the creation of Pills.

’To be called by such a traditional title suggests that the matters I will be facing are all ancient ones.’

’Perhaps by following the customs of that era, I can uncover a corner of something ancient, long buried by the river of time?’

Bai Mo gently stroked Ah Er’s head to soothe him, then said,

"You can put the cage down."

Ah Er’s bristling golden fur relaxed and softened. He squatted down and opened the cage.

The old hen ran out and nestled in a corner of the courtyard, burying its head under a wing.

The gray-furred rat found a broken tree stump, likely once used as a chopping block, which now had a rotten hole at its base.

It crawled inside, sat upright and proper, and began to meditate silently.

’That cliff not far from the courtyard... there’s definitely something profound and dangerous about it.’

’But since the Foreign Affairs Hall dares to station people here, it probably won’t have any major effect on me.’

Looking at Ah Er, Bai Mo asked,

"Did you memorize the way here?"

Ah Er nodded, took out his personal notebook, and recorded the route in detail.

He would have to run back to Mi Mountain often. After all, he had poured his heart and soul into cultivating all those things on the mountain.

Watching him finish writing, Bai Mo said,

"Let’s clean up. We’ll be living here for a long time."

He opened the door to the house. Inside was nothing more than a single hall and a single room.

The place for making a fire and cooking was next to the house.

Ah Er, moving with practiced ease, quickly cleaned the inside and outside. He also found an Array Plate. The only other things left were a cot, a table, and chairs.

Bai Mo took the Array Plate and tested it a few times. He discovered it was used to maintain the house and reinforce its structure.

The house and the courtyard fence were built from ordinary wood and wouldn’t withstand much of a storm.

This Array Plate would actually be quite useful to Bai Mo right now.

He looked outside. The surrounding area was desolate, with a clear dividing line between it and the distant mountain forest.

’This isn’t normal. I wonder what the previous disciple stationed here was doing.’

"We’ll have to change this area to suit our habits."

Bai Mo said to Ah Er, gesturing at their surroundings.

"Huh?"

Ah Er scratched his head and made a few gestures.

Bai Mo shook his head.

"No, the soil quality here probably doesn’t even meet the standard for a medicinal field."

"We’ll just plant bamboo. It’s easy to grow. Once it brings some life back to the soil, we can talk about other things."

He was already making plans for the future.

"And this house and courtyard need major repairs. Many places are riddled with insect holes. It looks like no one has lived here for years..."

’If Ah Er had to do all this work by himself, who knows how long it would take.’

Bai Mo thought for a moment, then turned his head and said to him,

"When we have some free time, let’s take a walk around and see if there’s a market or something similar nearby."

Ah Er nodded, writing down his words one by one.

The man and beast cleaned up the inside and outside, tossing all the useless junk over the cliff’s edge.

Ah Er stood by the cliff’s edge for a long time, but he never heard an echo.

They lit a fire in the stove and ate. Afterward, Bai Mo sorted through his thoughts, then lay down on the cot and slowly drifted off to sleep.

The conditions here were worse than his stone house on Mi Mountain, but Bai Mo had lived through hardship before and wasn’t bothered by it.

Ah Er, on the other hand, deliberately moved his nest to the doorway of Bai Mo’s room to ease his own anxiety.

「In the middle of the night,」 he got up to relieve himself and saw the gray-furred rat staring at something in the distance behind him.

Slow to react, Ah Er turned his head and saw a red glow in the distance, seemingly pulsating.