Senior sister, stop working and go home for dinner.

Chapter 381 The Difficulty of Overcoming Mortal Desire

"Alright, you'll come with us to Cloud Hidden Mountain first, and we'll protect you."

As Qi Lan finished speaking, an even deeper silence fell inside and outside the thatched hut.

Old Shi protected his granddaughter, his lips moving slightly, his eyes struggling with a faint glimmer of hope, but it was suppressed by a deeper fear.

Go to the mountains? Go to those "suddenly appearing" celestial territories? Jump from one tiger's mouth to another... unknown mouth? He had lived most of his life and understood all too well the price behind these "celestial connections" and "protection".

The villagers surrounding the house also heard it, and a suppressed commotion arose in the crowd, but no one dared to speak loudly.

Old Shi's withered hands gripped his granddaughter's arm tightly. The faint light in his cloudy eyes struggled to flicker, but was ultimately overwhelmed by deeper fear. He lowered his head, his lips trembling, but he couldn't utter a single word, only shaking his head, shaking it forcefully.

The surrounding villagers instinctively stepped back, and the young man murmured, "In the mountains...yesterday...those houses..."

"We're different from them!" Shen Zui couldn't help but step forward, his tone urgent. "We can protect you! The people of Qingyang Valley wouldn't dare..."

"Different?" An aged voice interrupted him. It was another old man in the crowd, leaning on a wooden cane, his back hunched, his eyes filled with the numbness accumulated over the years. "Three hundred years ago, when the Crimson Cloud Sect first arrived, they also said they were different, that they would protect us from the invasion of demonic beasts. And then what? They demanded spiritual food even more thoroughly than the demonic beasts ate, and they squeezed our population more thoroughly than a flash flood. In less than fifty years, the Crimson Cloud Sect was destroyed by the Azure Sun Valley, changed its name, but it's still the same."

He raised his cloudy eyes and looked at Qi Lan and Shen Zui, his gaze as if he were looking at two ignorant children spouting nonsense: "You can drive away the immortal masters of Qingyang Valley once, can you drive them away ten times, a hundred times? What if you leave? Or... do you also want spiritual food, want people to eat? We mortals don't understand the affairs of immortals, nor dare we understand. We only ask... we only ask for a way to live, even if it's like this, just barely clinging to life."

Having said all that, all words seem pale and powerless.

Looking at those faces filled with despair and distrust, Qi Lan's anger gradually cooled, turning into a heavy sense of powerlessness. She understood that this wasn't a barrier that could be bridged with a few words or a few pieces of bread. This was a deep-seated cognitive chasm, forged in blood and tears over three thousand years—no, the long history of this distorted cultivation civilization.

Trust? On this land, the "trust" that mortals have in cultivators has long been ground into dust and scattered by the wind.

She silently walked out of the room, leaving behind only the cloth bag containing the food.

"Let's go," she said to Shen Zui, her voice devoid of emotion.

Shen Zui opened his mouth, but in the end it only turned into a silent sigh.

The two turned and left Xiaoshi Village. The villagers watched from afar until their figures completely disappeared into the forest before someone dared to let out a sigh of relief.

………………

The atmosphere was somewhat somber on the way back.

Shen Zui kicked away a pebble, breaking the silence first: "They don't believe us at all. Even if we talk ourselves hoarse, they still won't believe us." He paused, looking at Qi Lan, "But this village is within our territory."

Qi Lan shook her head. "Chen Anran can't possibly keep an eye on every corner all the time. Like today, when the people from Qingyang Valley came into the village, we weren't there, so we didn't know. Those villagers were bullied, extorted, and even taken away. Unless they speak up and come crying out in front of us, we might never know."

She stopped and looked back towards Xiaoshi Village, though her view was obscured by the dense forest.

"Shen Zui, think about it. Thirty kilometers isn't a huge area, but it's not small either. There might be more than just Xiaoshi Village there; there could be other settlements, scattered hunters, and herb farmers. Our current understanding of this area, apart from the terrain and spiritual energy, is almost zero. The eyes outside are watching us, but the eyes inside... we are blind."

Shen Zui sighed, "What can we do? Didn't you see those high-level cultivators yesterday? Apart from Chen Anran, we were no match for them at all."

Qi Lan paused for a moment before saying, "The only way now is to gather them together."

Shen Zui spread his hands. "So this brings us back to the first problem: they don't trust us at all."

Qi Lan sighed. At this moment, she had no choice but to go back and think about it later.

…………

When Qi Lan and Shen Zui returned to the Yunyin Sect, the sun was already close to noon.

At the mountain gate square, Fatty Li was cooking in the kitchen of the Immortal Cuisine Restaurant with Zhang Laoshi and his disciples. After all, Zhang Laoshi and the others didn't have much work to do yet. Before they officially embarked on the path of cultivation, they could only help out in various ways.

Fatty Li was busy at the makeshift earthen stove in the kitchen, sweating profusely. A large pot simmered with fragrant meat broth, while steam rose from a nearby steamer. Zhang Laoshi's two apprentices were helping, chopping vegetables and mincing meat; their movements were still a bit clumsy, but they were working very hard. In the square, people gathered in small groups, some trying to absorb the spiritual energy of this world, others organizing supplies and conversing in hushed tones.

Upon seeing Qi Lan and Shen Zui return, Daoist Tianbao immediately jumped up from a meditating rock and rushed over. "You're back? What was the scene like in the mountains? Were there any spiritual herbs or exotic beasts?" He rubbed his hands together, his eyes full of eager anticipation. "I sensed the area all night yesterday. Although the spiritual energy here is intense, the earth's energy is rising in many places. There must be quite a few good things!"

Qi Lan ignored his question, her gaze sweeping across the square before finally landing on Huiming, who was discussing something with Feng Wenzheng and Jiang Yan.

"Where is Chen Anran? Has she already gone into seclusion?" she asked.

Huiming approached upon hearing the sound, pressing his palms together: "Amitabha, Benefactor Qi Lan, Benefactor Shen. Before Master Chen went into seclusion, he instructed that this seclusion would last from a few days to more than a month, in order to break through the barrier. If there is no urgent matter, please do not disturb us."

Qi Lan frowned, but didn't say anything. She walked to a bucket of clear soup that Fatty Li had just brought out, picked up a bamboo tube, scooped out a ladleful, tilted her head back and drank a few mouthfuls. The icy liquid suppressed the slight irritation in her heart.

Shen Zui then quietly told Huiming, Feng Wenzheng, and Jiang Yan what they had seen and heard in Xiaoshi Village.

Upon hearing the terms "a monthly offering of thirty catties of spirit grain," "debt settlement for the family members," and "being taken to the mines or used as servants," both Feng Wenzheng and Jiang Yan's faces darkened. Although the Feng family was also a family of cultivators, in this degenerate age, they valued a low-key approach to inheritance; the Jiang family, who specialized in ingenious mechanisms and dealt more with objects, found this blatant exploitation of mortals shocking.