The Nanshan Inspection Office was typically a quiet, forgotten place except on payday. But now, at the call of the assembly whistle, it was once again overflowing with people.

Li Jinghong sat upright in the main hall. Inside and out, the building was filled with armor-clad, weapon-wielding Inspectors, yet they seemed to offer him no sense of security whatsoever.

His face was ashen, the terror still palpable, and he couldn’t even stop himself from trembling.

The room was in shambles, with a large hole torn through the roof. Amidst the debris, several desiccated corpses could be seen partially buried.

A Resentful Soul... It seemed to have appeared again. And this time, its target was none other than the County Captain of Qinghe County, Thousand Households Li Jinghong!

Wu Shuo cautiously entered the room. His expression flickered when he saw the desiccated corpses buried in the rubble.

But upon seeing Li Jinghong’s ashen face, he quickly lowered his head. "Thousand Households, the two Hundred Households in town have finished assembling their men."

At that, Li Jinghong seemed to snap out of his lingering terror. He looked at Wu Shuo, about to give orders, but the words died on his lips.

’With a Cultivator involved, any arrangements I make seem... utterly meaningless!’

"Just... do the same as before..."

Li Jinghong waved his hand, his voice feeble.

Wu Shuo hesitated for a moment but ultimately said nothing more, simply acknowledging the order and taking his leave.

In the room, Li Jinghong remained seated. But after the terror faded, what remained was perhaps a deep, simmering indignation...

Back in the Inspection Office, the numerous Inspectors who had just gathered were once again dismissed under a series of orders.

It was no different from any other time, except that given the tense situation, there were far fewer slackers today.

Chu Mu had arrived before Mingxin Hall. Staring at its tightly shut doors and windows, the last shred of hope in his heart vanished completely.

In the several months since he’d arrived in this world, he remembered that for months on end, Mingxin Hall had opened punctually at a quarter past seven every morning, without a single day’s deviation.

But today, Mingxin Hall had, for the first time, not opened. That alone was proof enough of many things.

Chu Mu’s expression remained neutral as he led a squad of Inspectors on patrol through the streets. Seemingly by chance, he scanned the residences lining the road.

He paid special attention to the homes of Mingxin Hall’s few apprentices.

Without exception, the courtyard gates of every apprentice’s home were shut tight. Chu Mu found an excuse to leave his squad, hopped over a wall to investigate, and found each of the residences completely empty.

’The work of a Cultivator?’

Chu Mu mused to himself. As far as he knew, the apprentices of Mingxin Hall all came from well-off families.

They were all prominent figures in Nanshan Town. A family like that wouldn’t just pack up and leave based on a mere hint from Elder Li.

But knowing Elder Li’s character, it was highly likely he wouldn’t stand by and watch these apprentices get implicated because of him. Using some special means to get them out seemed normal.

When Chu Mu thought about his own situation, the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but twitch.

He then connected this with what he had seen earlier and the news he had just gleaned from Wu Shuo at the Inspection Office. A clear picture began to form in Chu Mu’s mind.

In other words, early this morning, the Resentful Soul attacked Li Jinghong. The man in white then detected it and gave chase.

The sequence of events made sense. And whether Li Jinghong lived or died had nothing to do with him.

’The important thing is... did that youth from Qili Village really come back for revenge?’

’Or... is this a ploy to lure the enemy away?’

Chu Mu had made sure to find out that all the ore extracted from that mysterious Spirit Ore mine had not been collected by the man in white; it was all still piled at the bottom of the mine pit.

And Elder Li’s target was precisely that pile of ore.

All he needed was to lure the man in white away...

But then, Chu Mu grew doubtful again.

The man in white belonged to the so-called Nanshan Li Family; he was a Cultivator with a powerful clan behind him.

Judging by the importance he placed on that mysterious Spirit Ore mine, if he possessed a legendary item like a Storage Bag, he would have collected the extracted ore long ago.

He wouldn’t have left it piled up in the open for several months.

So that raised a question. If the man in white, a Clan Cultivator, didn’t even have a storage-type Cultivation Immortal Item, how could Elder Li, who was merely a Loose Cultivator...

If this really was a ploy to lure the tiger from the mountain, how could anyone possibly move thousands of pounds of ore without a sound?

Chu Mu gazed toward the mining mountain. He estimated that the outcome, whatever it might be, would be decided today.

If it truly was a ploy to lure the tiger from the mountain.

Then... the ones who needed to escape probably wouldn’t just be the apprentices, or even just him, Chu Mu.

After all, if the man in white returned and found he’d been played for a fool, where would he vent his rage?

The wrath of a Cultivator, even just the aftershocks, was not something ordinary mortals could withstand.

Li Jinghong couldn’t handle it, and the others could handle it even less!

Chu Mu pursed his lips, carefully piecing together the threads of the situation. The anxiety that had gripped him finally began to ease.

He hoped his guess was correct.

If it was, then he was still just a nobody. Whether he stayed or left, at least in the current situation, would not attract any attention. No one would care.

Chu Mu gazed toward the mining mountain, his eyes glinting.

"Brother Mu..."

Beside him, Xu Yuan finally couldn’t help but speak up, wanting to ask something but clearly not knowing how to begin.

"Stay calm."

Chu Mu clapped Xu Yuan on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper a few words. Although he didn’t say much, what he implied was clearly enough to lessen Xu Yuan’s anxiety.

Afterward, Chu Mu continued his patrol through the streets as usual.

Everything was prepared, all that was missing was the final catalyst.

And now, all he had to do was wait for it.

Once that catalyst came, confirming all his suspicions and cutting off any path of retreat, he would have fewer regrets about what he had to do.

For Chu Mu, the situation was already clear as day, but for everyone else, it was obviously still shrouded in fog.

The reappearance of the Resentful Soul sent a wave of panic spreading through the populace.

As the news spread, the scene of families packing up and fleeing played out once again in Nanshan Town, a place that already had few residents to begin with.

Within the ranks of the Inspectors, morale was also wavering. However, after several recent upheavals, there were not many local Nanshan Town Inspectors left.

The remaining Inspectors were mostly transfers from other regions. They had only heard rumors about the Resentful Soul and had never seen it or experienced it firsthand.

Though morale was shaken, the situation was, at least for now, still under control.

What was undeniable was that Nanshan Town, after a long period of peace, was once again in an uproar.

The mining area, only a few hundred meters away, had been deathly silent ever since the workers’ revolt.

But today, as the uproar grew in Nanshan Town, that deathly silence was shattered by a sudden and unexpected event.

It happened at the bottom of the pit, in Mining Area Nineteen, where the mysterious Spirit Ore was located.

The commotion and chaos began there.

The forced laborers, as numb as ever, toiled mechanically in the man-eating pits.

The man in white didn’t care about the lives of these consumables, and the supervising Inspectors clearly didn’t either.

"Better you than me." When faced with life and death, self-preservation was how most people thought.

Stationed in these teen-numbered mining areas were two Hundred Households and nearly three hundred Inspectors.

Their duties were to suppress the forced laborers and guard the "Ore Materials"...

Those Ore Materials, paid for with human lives, were usually piled in an open space just outside the mining area.

The supervising Inspectors all clearly avoided these sinister Ore Materials like the plague.

They were said to be guarding it, but at most, they would only glance at it from a distance. No one was reckless enough with their own life to get close and inspect it.

But now, in broad daylight, the mountain-like pile of Ore Materials had vanished with shocking abruptness.

It was as if one second, it was piled high as a mountain, and the next... there was nothing but an empty plot of land?

...