Several men went over to investigate, and dragged it out of the bushes. It was a charred, blackened corpse. It had been burned so strongly that one could easily see that this person had struggled in a sea of fire before their death.

     Its face was completely blackened, so no features could be seen. They could only tell it was a woman from her physique and snow-white clothes that hadn’t quite burned in the fire.

     Chu Wanning hovered his hand over it and closed his eyes, “There’s no trace of a Zhenlong chess piece.”

     Someone muttered, “That’s strange. Xu Shuanglin made an entire mountain of Zhenlong chess pieces. Could it be that he missed this one?”

     Someone else immediately retorted, “Have you ever seen a corpse left alone at the top of a mountain?”

     Mo Ran also walked over and looked at the corpse carefully. As the person who was most proficient in using the Zhenlong Chess Formation in his previous life, he naturally knew about some of the restrictions of this spell. Because of this, he had a fairly firm guess about the identity of this female corpse, but he needed evidence.

     It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

     Mo Ran took a charred chain from her hand, wiping away the gray and black ash to reveal some light red spiritual stones.

     He handed the chain to Jiang Xi and said, “Song Qiutong.”

     “...How did you…” Jiang Xi was halfway through his question when he looked at the chain in his hand, “You recognize this chain?”

     “I gave it to her as a wedding gift.” Mo Ran said concisely, “Song Qiutong is the descendant of Song Xingyi. The clan of Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts, who subdued the demonic phoenix spirit, is the key to opening the forbidden area of Mount Huang.”

     Someone asked, “Did Xu Shuanglin kill Song Qiutong and use her as a key to open the gate to Mount Huang?”

     Mo Ran shook his head and stared at Song Qiutong’s face for a long time. He didn’t feel pity for her, but his emotions were complicated. He said, “No, I’m afraid she was still breathing when he brought her up the mountain.”

     “Why do you say that?”

     Before Mo Ran could speak, Jiang Xi replied first. Perhaps it was in order to save face, but when met with a question he could easily answer, Jiang Xi didn’t plan on letting this junior take the limelight again. He said calmly, “To give Mount Huang an order.”

     Mo Ran glanced at him, thinking that this was for the best. If he were to answer every question, it would be harder to justify himself if suspicions were raised about him in the future. So, he walked to the side and gave Jiang Xi a chance to speak.

     Someone asked, “Order? Song Qiutong is a weak woman. What kind of orders can she give?”

     “She may be weak, but her ancestors may not all be weaklings. The phoenix spirit of Mount Huang will only obey the orders of the bloodline that subdued it.” Jiang Xi was no fool, and he said, “Song Qiutong is the last descendant of this bloodline.”

     That man gasped, “Ah, the one who subdued the demonic phoenix spirit was the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast Xingyi?”

     “That’s right.”

     “That’s unheard of…”

     Jiang Xi said, “It’s normal that you haven’t heard of it. The four great evil mountains have no other purpose besides guarding, so no one cares too much about whether they can be opened or not, or who can open them. Song Qiutong was displaced before, and used as an item at the auction. She probably didn’t know that she could hide on Mount Huang… She herself probably hadn’t heard of her ancestor subduing the demonic phoenix spirit.”

     “So… Xu Shuanglin brought her here?”

     “That should be the case.” Jiang Xi continued, “At that time, Rufeng Sect was in flames, and people were fleeing for their lives. No one would return to the main hall to bother with that weak woman. The only person who could have remembered to go back for her is Xu Shuanglin, or his companion.”

     Xue Zhengyong pondered for a while, then nodded, “Since the person behind the scenes can tear open a space crack and take Xu Shuanglin to another place, it would be a simple task for him to take Song Qiutong with him. We might as well make an assumption—he brought her to Mount Huang. By nature, Song Qiutong is a person who will try to curry favor with those in power. She would undoubtedly do as she’s told, and grasp onto this life-saving straw. That person only simply wanted to take her to Mount Huang and let her give orders. She wouldn’t disobey.”

     Someone asked, “But why didn’t he just use a chess piece to control Song Qiutong?”

     “Because the evil phoenix spirit can recognize whether the person giving orders is being controlled or not,” Jiang Xi said. “Only those who are alive and willing can command the mountain.”

     Everyone slowly realized what was going on.

     Someone exclaimed, “Then what are we doing here? Didn’t we all fall for this trick and run ‘below the stage?’ Because of Mount Huang's damn mantle, we can’t get rid of these gu worms… What do we do now?!”

     Jiang Xi furrowed his brows, as if he despised the puppet analogy that Mo Ran was using. But he still said, “Find the ‘stage’ and go directly destroy Xu Shuanglin’s puppets.”

     “Mo-zongshi.”

     After Jiang Xi finished speaking, he suddenly called out to Mo Ran. Mo Ran was originally listening attentively with his arms crossed. He couldn’t help but be startled when he mentioned him.

     “Hm? What’s wrong?”

     Jiang Xi said faintly, “Mo-zongshi’s analysis just now was very thorough and logical. Then, I would like to ask Mo-zongshi one more question. Where is the stage, or how do we find it?”

     Mo Ran: “...Try seeing ghosts?”

     “Try… what?”

     Mo Ran coughed softly. His palm lit up with a red light, and a willow vine suddenly emerged in his hand. He said, “This. It’s called Jiangui.”

     Jiang Xi: “...”

     Just like Tianwen, Jiangui had the power of interrogation. It could interrogate living people, evil spirits, and even corpses whose souls had left their bodies. The difference was that the interrogation of living people involved making them speak, while the interrogation of ghosts involved direct communication with their souls.

     Song Qiutong had been dead for more than a month. Her soul was long gone. But fortunately, Mount Huang was full of yin energy and her body hadn’t yet decomposed. Mo Ran said in a low voice, “Jiangui, let’s go interrogate.”

     Jiangui immediately obeyed the order, and wrapped its branches and leaves around Song Qiutong three times, causing her body to emit a dazzling red light. As the red light flickered in the depths of Mo Ran’s eyes, he opened his mouth and asked in a low voice, “Was it Xu Shuanglin who brought you here?”

     Song Qiutong’s charred face, with its indistinguishable features, remained motionless.

     “...Is it not working?” someone muttered softly.

     Mo Ran narrowed his eyes and asked again, “Was Xu Shuanglin the one who brought you here?”

     Still no movement.

     Jiang Xi said, “It seems like Mo-zongshi is still too young. Why don’t you let your Shizun do it instead?”

     However, just at this moment, Song Qiutong’s neck suddenly moved! Her movements were extremely stiff and slow, but she undoubtedly shook her head.

     Xue Zhengyong said in shock, “It’s not Xu Shuanglin?!”

     Mo Ran clutched Jiangui tightly, the meridians on the back of his hand bulging slightly. He asked, “Then, did you see the person who brought you here?”

     After a few more moments of silence, Song Qiutong suddenly opened her mouth, but she didn’t reply. Instead, what came out of her mouth was a large, slimy snake. It fell to the ground and slithered away with a hiss.

     Guyue’ye’s disciples immediately recognized it, “She has a swallowing snake in her stomach!”

     The swallowing snake was a demonic beast. It wasn’t poisonous, but it was covered with spiritual armor that could survive in a human’s stomach for more than twenty years.

     This non-poisonous snake was used by many sects in the upper cultivation world. It was specially used for the Shadow Guard to swallow it. From then on, the Shadow Guard could only answer falsehoods or half-truths no matter what they were asked, and could only answer the truth to the swallowing snake’s owner. Otherwise, this snake would wake up from its slumber and instantly tear apart the host’s internal organs, throat, and tongue.

     Jiangui’s dazzling red light was extinguished abruptly. Song Qiutong’s entire body was trembling. She kept shaking her head as a large clump of scarlet blood spilled out of her mouth. It looked like her internal organs had been torn apart, as well as her tongue and throat…

     She could no longer speak the truth.

     Everyone was shocked.

     Someone suddenly suggested, “Since she can’t speak, why don’t we ask her to write?”

     The moment Mo Ran saw the swallowing snake, he already knew that the mastermind was very meticulous, and was already beyond the reach of something an ordinary person could handle. However, he still went forward and raised Song Qiutong’s hands to examine them.

     “How is it?” Xue Zhengyong asked.

     Mo Ran shook his head and said, “All of her muscles and tendons have been severed. She can’t write anything at all.”

     All of a sudden, a cold wind blew past, and the leaves in the mountain forest began to rustle. The howls of zombies could be heard near and far. The atmosphere on the mountain peak became extremely tense in an instant.

     Ma Yun, the founder of the Taobao Mountain Sect, broke the silence, saying, “T-then the lead is broken?”

     No one said anything.

     Mo Ran withdrew Jiangui, and Song Qiutong’s corpse fell limply to the ground. Soon, the vines of Mount Huang crept over and carefully coiled around their master’s body. They wrapped her up and dragged her into the bush, as if they wanted to use this little bush to preserve her.

     Earlier, he actually didn’t understand why Xu Shuanglin and the others didn’t just kill Song Qiutong and burn her to ashes, but instead went through the trouble of cutting off the meridians in her hands and feeding her the swallowing snake. However, seeing this scene, he suddenly understood—

     Mount Huang obeyed the Butterfly-Boned clan, from birth to death. As long as her body was on Mount Huang, the evil phoenix spirit would not allow anyone to burn its master to ashes.

     Mo Ran didn’t know how to feel for a moment. He suddenly thought of himself in his previous life. When he died, there was no one to collect his body. Before he even took his last breath, he had to lie down in the coffin he had dug for himself. Actually, there was no point in doing that either. The rebel army who came up the mountain shortly after surely dragged him out and cut his body to pieces.

     In his previous life, his burial was probably even more miserable than Song Qiutong’s. At the end, he didn’t even have a single vine willing to protect him.

     Many people on the mountaintop were muttering and talking to each other, frowning and discussing what to do next. Others pondered with their eyes closed, like Jiang Xi and Chu Wanning.

     Mo Ran had also closed his eyes to sort through everything that was happening in front of him. Such a bloody method was very similar to what he had done in his previous life. Perhaps that was why Mo Ran felt that it wasn’t too difficult to guess Xu Shuanglin’s thoughts and actions.

     He seemed to see Xu Shuanglin pacing back and forth barefooted in his Three Lifetimes Courtyard. Xu Shuanglin was thinking, asking himself, What should I do if I don’t have enough spiritual power to control a group of cultivator corpses?

     Then, he thought of an idea—

     Using the Shared-Heart Formation, killing the same number of ordinary people, with one cultivator corresponding to one ordinary corpse. This would allow him to control them like a puppet on string.

     Where was the safest place to do this?

     The four great evil mountains.

     What if he couldn’t open the boundary to Mount Huang?

     Just bring Song Qiutong along.

     Mo Ran’s eyes darkened as he pondered. All of these clues were connected.

     Where did the corpses come from?

     Linyi had burned in the tribulation fire.

     Although they were all guesses, they all matched up. The light in his eyes gathered and dispersed, and he even felt like he was Xu Shuanglin, and Xu Shuanglin was him. Standing at the top of Mount Huang, his eyes were almost crazed as he looked at the surging corpse tide below.

     His mind grew clearer and clearer until he finally snapped to a point. If he was Xu Shuanglin, then after doing all of this, shouldn’t he set up the “stage” and perform the puppet show he had so painstakingly arranged?

     Where is the best place for the stage?

     Where could he find the remains of that many powerful elite cultivators?

     Somewhere he could be protected if discovered…

     The gradually flourishing light in the sky suddenly dimmed.

     “Mount Jiao…” he muttered.

     Jiang Xi cast a sidelong glance at him, “What?”

     Mo Ran’s expression changed as he looked to the east. He was suddenly furious, “Mount Jiao! The Hero’s Tomb!—The stage is Mount Jiao’s Hero’s Tomb! During Linyi’s calamity, a majority of the victims were ordinary commoners. Xu Shuanglin was able to obtain so many ordinary corpses, but not corpses of powerful cultivators! It has to be the Hero’s Tomb!”

     Jiang Xi also reacted, “Are you saying that Xu Shuanglin’s corresponding corpses are the corpses of Rufeng Sect’s cultivators buried in the Hero’s Tomb over the past hundred years?”

     Mo Ran didn’t have the time to talk nonsense with him. He cursed under his breath and ran down the mountain.

     Xu Shuanglin was truly a madman! The Hero’s Tomb was filled with generations of sect leaders from Rufeng Sect, even the First Sect Leader, who had become an immortal.

     Using the Shared-Heart Formation to control ordinary cultivators was fine, but to control these people? Once Xu Shuanglin’s spiritual power couldn't support it any more, these powerful corpses would go berserk and break free. At that time, Xu Shuanglin would suffer a backlash and die a violent death, while the most powerful corpses of Rufeng Sect would rage out of control.

     It would be a calamity as deadly as the Heavenly Rift!