The year was 13,772 of the Great Cang Calendar. It was March, the beginning of spring.
The grass had just begun to reach the height of a horse's hoof, and withered trees were experiencing their first taste of spring.
However—
What should have been a flourishing landscape of mountain plains was instead a scene of carnage. The air was thick with the cold stench of blood, spreading for miles, and broken corpses lay strewn across the land.
On the blood-soaked mud, a group of young men carefully dragged the mutilated remains, moving them through the suffocating aura of blood and death, loading them piece by piece onto dark red carts.
Before long, one cart was filled to the brim.
Wen Jiu was among them. His face was wrapped in tattered cloth, and he casually tossed a severed arm onto the cart—a hand with only two fingers remaining, its exposed bones gleaming white.
Smack!
"Phew—"
He exhaled deeply and tightened his face covering.
But the nauseating stench of blood still forced its way into his nose, making him want to retch. Yet his stomach was already empty, leaving only the bitter taste of bile.
"This is only the first day. How the hell am I supposed to endure the next ten years…? The timing of this reincarnation is absolute garbage."
Reborn in a world of cultivation—
That was the good news.
The bad news? He had become a low-ranking corpse handler for a sect, tasked with dealing with battlefield remains. He was bound to this graveyard of the dead, forced to move corpses for ten years.
And today was only his first day.
In his past life, even when his job was exhausting, at least the work environment was bearable. His boss was an idiot, his coworkers were all men, but at least he got paid a decent salary at the end of the month. It was a life, however mundane.
But as a corpse handler, he had signed himself away—there was no quitting, no escape. He had to endure it for a full decade before he could be free.
The worst part?
The bastard who signed the contract died yesterday.
Leaving Wen Jiu, the reincarnator, to take his place.
"You couldn't have died just one day earlier?" Wen Jiu muttered, speechless. If the guy had died before signing, he could have at least chosen to be a menial laborer instead.
As he was lost in thought, an angry shout suddenly rang out.
Wen Jiu turned his head and saw a young man collapse beside a cart, his face pale—he had inhaled too much of the blood-drenched, death-tainted air.
Before the young man could recover, a supervisor in the distance immediately started cursing at him.
But shouting wasn't enough. The supervisor drew a thick leather whip from his waist and snapped it through the air with a sharp crack!
The second lash landed directly on the young man's back.
Smack!
"Aah—!"
The young man screamed in agony as his back split open, blood oozing from the wound.
The supervisor, a burly middle-aged man, spat, "Your job is to clear every last corpse from this area today! If you don't finish, I'll gut you myself! If you're still breathing, you better keep moving!"
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"I-I'll get back to work—right now!"
The injured youth scrambled to his feet, his face filled with terror. He didn't dare hesitate, enduring the burning pain on his back as he dug into the mud and continued moving bodies.
The other corpse handlers averted their gazes, anger hidden deep in their hearts, and silently focused on their own tasks.
This was the status of corpse handlers.
Even the lowest-ranking menial workers of Dead Man's Peak had power over their lives.
A whipping like this? That was just a minor punishment.
Killing one of them wouldn't even be considered a big deal.
If not for the constant demand for labor, these indentured corpse handlers would be no different from livestock in the cultivation world.
The previous owner of Wen Jiu's body had refused to accept such treatment. He had cursed at a supervisor once—and for that, he was struck dead with a single palm strike.
"Move faster, all of you! This entire area needs to be cleared today! If we delay another two days, the corpses will start to rot, and death energy and resentment will fester! If you don't want to die, get to work!"
The supervisor barked out more orders before finally putting away his whip and strolling back to his resting area.
Over a hundred corpse handlers bowed their heads and picked up the pace.
Just then, the young man who had been whipped trembled, his body giving out as he collapsed into the blood-soaked mud once more.
Everyone turned to look.
The young man scrambled to get up, his face full of fear, mumbling desperate pleas while hurriedly lifting another broken body onto the cart.
He didn't even have time to spit out the bloodied mud in his mouth.
Wen Jiu sighed.
Dead Man's Peak was the only immortal sect within five hundred miles. It housed tens of thousands of cultivators—and among them, ten thousand mortals.
Of these mortals, corpse handlers ranked the lowest.
Even menial workers had more status. And once a person signed the indentured contract, there was no turning back.
Of course, after ten years, a corpse handler could become an apprentice disciple of Dead Man's Peak, outranking ordinary laborers.
But surviving those ten years… was an entirely different matter.
First, there was the matter of ten years' wages. Without taking a single day off, the monthly pay was three taels. Though it was more than what one could earn working in a mortal city, life here was expensive. Three taels were barely enough to scrape by.
If that were the only issue, it might still be bearable—enduring hardship was nothing new. But the real problem lay in the fact that this place, filled with the bodies of those who had died in battle, was saturated with yin energy, blood energy, death energy, and corpse energy.
Any one of these, if absorbed in excess, could claim a person's life within ten or twenty years.
Even if one managed to endure for a decade and became an apprentice disciple, they would likely have little time left before succumbing to the corruption of these energies.
It might actually be better to remain a menial laborer on Dead Man's Peak for life.
Wen Jiu couldn't help but sigh inwardly. "Aren't web novels always saying that reincarnation comes with a golden cheat?"
It had been an entire day since he was reborn.
Where was that familiar ding?
Damn it!
Those web novel authors were frauds!
Delete!
If he ever got the chance to be reborn again, he'd make sure to delete all those novels!
Shaking off his thoughts, Wen Jiu didn't dare delay. Forcing himself to endure the discomfort, he continued moving corpses.
He stayed busy until the hour of You (5-7 PM) before he was finally allowed to rest.
Back in his wooden hut, Wen Jiu was starving. If there had been an entire cow in front of him, he might have been able to finish it. But the putrid stench swirling inside his body made it impossible for him to swallow even a single bite.
With no other choice, he forced himself to gulp down a few mouthfuls of cold water before collapsing onto the wooden bed to rest.
Too tired.
Far too tired.
"Damn it, it's only the first day!"
Wen Jiu cursed under his breath.
Then, he drifted into deep sleep.
At midnight, he was suddenly awakened by a voice.
[Daily Settlement Panel Lv1 (1/100)]
[Today's Settlement!]
[Moved corpses for eight hours in the land of death, continuously absorbing corpse energy and death energy. Panel EXP +1, Corpse Energy +8, Death Energy +8]
[Wen Jiu]
[Age: 23]
[Lifespan: 23/73]
[Lv1 Corpse Keeper (0/100)]
[A Corpse Keeper is immune to the erosion of death energy and corpse energy. Instead, these lethal forces become nourishment for them.]
[Death Energy Reserve: 8 (Can be applied to cultivation once training begins)]
[Corpse Energy Reserve: 8 (Can be applied to corpses once corpse-raising begins)]
[Secret Art: Corpse Mutation (Lv1 Corpse Keeper secret art. Upon activation, any corpse can rapidly and effortlessly mutate into a zombie, bypassing corpse selection, corpse storage, corpse bathing, corpse cultivation site selection, corpse refinement, and corpse awakening—Current number of corpses that can be mutated: 1)]
[PS: Keep working hard tomorrow! You got this!]
"Daily Settlement Panel!"
"Corpse Keeper!"
"Corpse Mutation!"
So those web novel authors hadn't lied after all!
Sure enough, transmigration always came with a golden cheat!
What ten years of burying corpses?
What apprentice disciple promotion?
Ha!
With the Daily Settlement Panel—
I'll become an immortal!
I'll achieve eternal life!
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