Legend of the Imperial Tomb

【Year 201, age 225.】

【The contamination continued.】

【The entire planet lay shrouded in black fog that severely limited visibility.】

【After prolonged exposure to the black fog, the mortals began to exhibit abnormal symptoms, just as expected.】

【They became violent and vicious, lost all reason, and could have their tempers explode at the slightest word. Their aggression intensified, and they attacked anyone and anything around them.】

【Mortals with powerful factions backing them were found by the cultivators and confined together in a designated location.】

【They were fed three meals a day and kept alive while they waited for the contamination to recede.】

【Those without powerful protectors could only fend for themselves.】

【Some who provoked the cultivator factions were simply killed on the spot.】

【Most of those killed were human.】

【The other races had never liked humanity. Now, they had found what they considered a perfectly legitimate excuse.】

【As for their own mortal populations, the other races did their best to preserve them—unless the contamination continued for an extremely long time.】

【After all, if even the cultivators themselves could no longer get enough to eat, they certainly would not keep feeding mortals.】

【The other races’ favoritism was not entirely due to their discrimination against humans.】

【It was also because the populations of the other races were generally small.】

【If they neglected their own mortals, many races might eventually face a break in their lineages.】

【You traveled all across Vermilion Purple Star, searching for places where the contamination was relatively weak. Along the way, you heard plenty of cultivators grumbling.】

【“I cultivate every day, yet my cultivation keeps declining instead. Damn this contamination!”】

【“The mortals have all gone crazy. Sooner or later, we’ll have to mine and farm ourselves. Otherwise, what will we eat and use?”】

【“I heard the people from those major factions have already fled to the Eastern and Western Star Realms. There’s no contamination over there.”】

【“Even if we wanted to run now, we couldn’t. I heard the starport was damaged and has been shut down.”】

【“How long is this contamination going to last? Where did this thing even come from?”】

【“The latest news from the Milky Way Daily says there are many ‘contamination-sealing pools’ throughout the universe. The contamination in the Southern Star Realm this time was caused by one of those pools breaking.”】

【“Why did it break? Who did it?”】

【“Who knows?”】

【Year 202, age 226.】

【Vermilion Purple Star was enormous.】

【When you measured it on foot instead of using any means of flight, its vastness became even more apparent.】

【Although you had spent several decades adventuring across Vermilion Purple Star before, you still reached many places you had never visited and encountered countless unique local customs and sights.】

【That year, the three of you arrived at a village.】

【Everyone living there was human.】

【As the contamination continued, fewer and fewer mortals outside were able to remain normal. Yet every resident of this village was perfectly fine.】

【The three of you found this highly suspicious, so you climbed the steep mountain cliffs and entered the village known as Longevity Wood.】

【The village had originally been a settlement for mortals, but quite a few cultivators had recently begun coming and going there.】

【Clearly, you three were not the only ones who had noticed the village’s peculiar nature.】

【However, all the cultivators who had come here were human.】

【The other races had never been fond of humanity. Some even regarded humans as filthy creatures and refused to have anything to do with them.】

【Therefore, for now, only human cultivators had taken an interest in this human village.】

【“They’re here to investigate the reason, just like us.”】

【You stopped at a small restaurant in the village.】

【Ji Baiming no longer needed to eat. He had comprehended the divine ability known as “Fasting.” By using the corresponding secret art of the Ji clan, he could convert immortal power into energy that sustained his life.】

【However, given the current circumstances, it was still better to eat and conserve his immortal power.】

【The restaurant was packed with people.】

【The three of you pricked up your ears and used the extraordinary hearing of high-level cultivators to take in every sound throughout the village, extracting whatever information seemed useful.】

【The restaurant’s server was a stooped old woman.】

【“What would the three honored guests like to eat?”】

【Your attention was focused on gathering information, so you casually replied, “Anything.”】

【Ji Wuqing, however, was much more enthusiastic.】

【“Old granny, do you have any local specialties?”】

【“Of course, of course. A lot of visitors from out of town have come recently. You may not know this, but our Longevity Wood Village has an ancestral specialty.”】

【“An ancestral specialty? Wonderful! What is it?”】

【“Why, Ancestor Soup, of course.”】

【“Ancestor Soup? What an imposing name! Bring us a bowl each.”】

【“Right away.”】

【The old woman went to serve the soup.】

【Of all the conversations around you, three topics caught your attention.】

【The first concerned changes in the contamination.】

【“Have you noticed? The contamination is much weaker in this area. At last, my cultivation isn’t declining in reverse anymore.”】

【“Now that you mention it, I’ve noticed that too.”】

【“Why am I still constantly having my cultivation neutralized?”】

【“That’s because your talent and cultivation technique are both poor, and your cultivation speed is too slow!”】

【You and the father-daughter pair, Ji Wuqing and her father, had noticed this phenomenon as well.】

【The contamination here had indeed weakened somewhat, but it still seriously affected cultivation.】

【If it truly had no effect at all, the other races would have already claimed this place for themselves.】

【The second topic was the Emperor’s Tomb.】

【“Do you think the weaker contamination here might have something to do with the Emperor’s Tomb?”】

【“You mean the ‘Emperor’s Tomb’ on the mountain behind the village?”】

【“What other Emperor’s Tomb is there on Vermilion Purple Star?”】

【“I went to look at it. There didn’t seem to be anything special.”】

【“Then how do you explain the fact that the people in this area aren’t affected?”】

【“Maybe there’s some other reason.”】

【The Emperor’s Tomb.】

【You had heard about it while traveling across Vermilion Purple Star.】

【According to legend, it had been left behind from the era of the Heavenly Emperors—the tomb of one of them.】

【Unlike the Female Heavenly Emperor’s cenotaph, the legend claimed that this Emperor’s Tomb truly contained a Heavenly Emperor’s remains.】

【Whether that was true or not was impossible to know, because no one had dared to rob the tomb.】

【The third topic was someone who could eliminate the effects of the contamination on mortals.】

【“I heard there’s a woman near Haosong City to the north who can eliminate the effects of the contamination.”】

【“Really? Brother, take me to her! I can’t stand this contamination anymore. I worked so hard to cultivate, only to watch my cultivation decline day by day!”】

【“Forget it. She can only eliminate the contamination’s effects on mortals. And there’s also… there’s also… What was it again? Something about having to believe in her, I think.”】

【“Is she cultivating the Incense-Offering Path?”】

【The Incense-Offering Path?】

【Could it be…】

【At that moment, the old woman brought over the restaurant’s signature Ancestor Soup.】

【It was a bowl of oily green soup with a strange smell rising from it.】

【You frowned.】

【“Wuqing, what did you order? Is this even edible?”】

【Ji Wuqing picked up the bowl and began drinking.】

【“There’s only one way to find out.”】

【You also picked up your bowl and took a sip.】

【“It’s actually pretty good. It smells strange, but it tastes delicious. Old granny, bring us another bowl!”】

【Curious, you asked the old woman beside you,】

【“Old granny, how is this soup made?”】

【The old woman smiled and said,】

“It’s quite simple, really. Just put all the leftovers you can’t finish into a large earthenware crock and let them ferment. Given enough time, they’ll naturally become delicious! Folks around here don’t take medicine when they fall ill—we just drink a bowl of this broth, and that does the trick!”