Before the wealthy gates, the smell of wine and meat lingers, and the singing and dancing never cease.

In the desolate wilderness, the corpses of refugees lie scattered, and the chirping of insects signals the arrival of summer or not.

...

The green horse, green ox, and white donkey, after all, were cultivated demons, so even when they slowed down, they were faster than ordinary mounts.

Half an hour later, the four arrived at the scene of the incident, a house on the outskirts of the West Outer City.

Dismounting, Chen Xuance and the guard stationed there from the Shuntian Mansion exchanged greetings with a wave of their hands.

The guard had also been instructed and took the initiative to open the gate.

Before entering, Chen Xuance tossed a piece of broken silver to the guard and asked, "Young man, please take care of the mounts. Also, where are the bodies stored?"

The young guard pocketed the silver and squinted his eyes with a smile. "In the east wing."

The exterior of the house looked ordinary, but inside was a hidden paradise.

There were artificial hills, flowing water, pavilions, and gardens. It was evident that the old cripple had made a fortune over the years with his shady dealings.

Once inside the house, Chen Xuance and his three companions headed straight for the east wing.

Pushing open the door, they saw seven bodies neatly laid out on the ground, covered with coarse cloth.

Wang Qingxuan stepped forward to uncover the bodies one by one, confirming that they matched Li Gou's description.

Apart from the broken body of the old fat man, the other bodies only had fatal wounds on their necks.

The internal organs of the old fat man were missing, and half of his face had been gnawed away. The remaining half bore an expression of horror, most likely dying in excruciating pain.

Looking at the miserable sight of the old fat man, Chen Xuance didn't know whether to feel joy or sorrow.

Joy, because the old fat man's family was wiped out. Although he didn't directly kill them, if Fan Yu had any knowledge underground, he should be able to rest in peace.

Sorrow, because this family of seven was wiped out, and Fan Yu couldn't be brought back to life.

"Sigh, it's good that they're dead, saves me from doing it myself. I'll be a human in the next life, but I won't engage in such deadly dealings again."

After silently reciting this, Chen Xuance waved his hand, and seven palm-sized lightning bolts struck the seven bodies, turning them into charcoal.

"They may have been killed by lightning, but at least they're all in the shape of lightning bolts. That way, my brothers below won't blame me."

Chen Xuance made a joke to himself, relieving some of the suppressed emotions.

The palm-sized lightning bolts were extremely yang, igniting a fire in the east wing. The seven bodies, which should have had no reaction, unexpectedly began to wildly thrash their limbs in the flames like charred charcoal.

Before Chen Xuance could act, Wang Qingxuan took out seven wooden nails about an inch long from his pocket and drove one into the forehead of each body.

The bodies calmed down, and soon after, the entire east wing turned into ashes.

Fortunately, Chen Qianqian wasn't useless. She used her demon arts to contain the fire in the east wing, preventing further damage.

The capital had been experiencing a severe drought for over two months. If the flames were allowed to spread unchecked, who knew how many people would die?

When Wang Qingxuan acted, the characters "Soldier" and "Talisman" reappeared around the Demon Suppression Diagram in Chen Xuance's mind, and a piece of information emerged from the "Soldier" character.

"Corpse-sealing nails, made from peach wood carved with a hundred years of lightning strikes and inscribed with corpse-sealing symbols." Below were densely packed small characters detailing the selection of wood and the cutting process, among other manufacturing details.

The information flowing from the "Talisman" character was about the drawing method of the corpse-sealing symbol.

The Nine Methods of Binding Demons reappeared, and Chen Xuance was secretly delighted. However, he temporarily set aside this joy, as resolving the current matter was more urgent.

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What puzzled Chen Xuance was that when he saw Lv Chonglou's steel spear and Wang Qingzhi's Autumn Water Sword, the "Soldier" character in the Demon Suppression Diagram did not provide a method of refinement.

Without delving deeper into thought, Chen Xuance gave Chen Qianqian a glance while standing in the courtyard.

Chen Qianqian nodded in understanding.

It was her turn to take action, otherwise Chen Xuance would have to personally handle everything, rendering her useless.

Now, Chen Xuance had plenty of capable people around him. If she didn't perform well, she might end up as snake soup someday. Didn't Xiao Qing behave well on the way here?

After leaping onto the roof of the main house, Chen Qianqian's human eyes turned into slits. After surveying the entire house, her pupils returned to normal.

With her current cultivation level, she could sense the dense corpse qi in the backyard while standing in the front yard. Leaping onto the roof was just a flashy act to impress Chen Xuance.

Chen Qianqian's true thoughts were: "Hey boss, look how hard I'm working! Please don't stew me!"

Descending from the roof and returning to Chen Xuance's side, Chen Qianqian's petite face was covered in tiny beads of sweat. Panting, she said, "There's corpse qi hidden in the well in the backyard."

The four of them bypassed the main house and arrived at the backyard, where they were greeted by a vegetable garden.

The lush green vegetables showed obvious signs of damage, leading directly to the well in the northwest corner against the wall.

Using his technique of observing qi, thick black qi emerged from the well.

It was likely that the Shuntian Mansion had long discovered these traces, but they lacked the ability to handle them. Solving the case was minor; saving lives was paramount.

Even ordinary people knew to stay away from places like ancient wells in old mansions.

While there might not be any monsters inside, legends often spoke of incidents like the tragic death of a noble concubine or the murder of a legitimate son by an illegitimate one using an ancient well.

San Zang, Wang Qingxuan, and Chen Qianqian stayed about two or three meters away from the well, as Chen Xuance had briefed them on the situation on the way there.

Today's matter was not something they could assist with, and Chen Xuance valued camaraderie, which was a good thing for Wang Qingxuan and San Zang.

Alone, Chen Xuance walked to the edge of the well, bent down, and looked inside.

Information appeared in his mind: "White zombie. A person of the heavenly retribution fate dies from lightning fire, and the body is buried in a place of hundred corpse yin. Under the convergence of the Eight Gates, it should have become a Fourth-Rank Copper Zombie. Hindered by obsession and eager to be reborn, it is only of the Eighth Rank. Evil, suppress."

Chen Xuance shook his head as he stood up. He could see very clearly with his divine eyes that the dried, white-haired zombie submerged in the water below bore a faint resemblance to Fan Yu, the little fat boy. Coupled with the keywords "heavenly retribution fate" and "died from lightning fire," it was a hundred percent match for the little fat boy.

The "hundred corpse yin ground" mentioned in the Demon Suppression Diagram was essentially a mass grave.

"What the hell did that damn fat cripple do!"

It was obvious that Fan Yu's corpse had been deliberately turned into a zombie, most likely the one that disappeared from the central area of the mass graves outside the east city.

With a slight frown, Chen Xuance speculated that the fat cripple was unlikely to have actively turned Fan Yu's corpse into a zombie.

This scrawny fellow had been cooperating with the Demon Suppression Bureau for a long time, and his background was well known.

The Demon Suppression Bureau would not let anyone provide them with new recruits, and the gang of people who refined corpses were involved.

How could Fan Yu's corpse have fallen into someone else's hands? Chen Xuance could guess with a high degree of certainty.

There were dedicated corpse collectors outside the capital, charging five copper coins per body. When he first joined the Demon Suppression Bureau, he had considered quitting to do this job after completing the three-month probation period.

This idea was mercilessly extinguished by Li Gou.

In his own words: "Ma Gan, if you want to go, you can. After the three-month probation period, you can leave the Demon Suppression Guard at any time. If you want to leave before the probation period is over, do you think the Demon Suppression Bureau is your home?"

At that time, Chen Xuance hadn't yet demonstrated his fishing skills, and Li Gou's words were quite impolite.

As for the corpse collectors, business was average during the summer, with few refugees gathering in the outer city and dying of illness.

But come winter, business for corpse collectors would boom. With refugees dying and the government paying, corpse collectors could make quite a bit of money.

Their capital for this business was just a flatbed cart and some elbow grease. They'd toss the bodies onto the cart and push them to the mass graves.

Throwing corpses to the chaotic graveyard, one corpse for a big sum of money.

The grave digger had dug the pit early, tossing the corpse inside, filling up the pit, and covering it with soil once it was full.

The entire chain was very mature.

If the fat man had even a shred of humanity, he wouldn't have let Xiao Pangzi's body be sent to the chaotic graveyard.

Even if he was reluctant to spend money on a coffin and burial for Xiao Pangzi, the demon-suppressing furnace of the Town Demon Bureau only cost one or two silver coins to use once, burning the body into ashes and scattering it into the Rouge River would still be better than sending it to the chaotic graveyard.

The fat cripple deserved to die, and the other six members of their family didn't die unjustly either.

The luxurious lifestyle of this family, with dozens or even hundreds of people like Xiao Pangzi, was bought with lives!

It's karma, they deserved to die.

Standing by the well in silence, memories of Xiao Pangzi's gluttony, laziness, cunning, the time he saved him, and his death by thunder and fire flashed before his eyes.

After a long while, Chen Xuance suppressed his tears and leaned forward again, speaking into the well, "Fatso, if you can understand, come up by yourself. If you've lost your senses and can't comprehend, brother, I..."

At this point, Chen Xuance hesitated for a moment. Xiao Pangzi could be said to have indirectly died by his hands, the word "suppress" was difficult to say.

However, after hesitating for a moment, his eyes turned red and he said the rest of his words, "Brother, I can only suppress you with my own hands."

He was gambling, betting that after Xiao Pangzi became a zombie, he would still retain his intelligence from before.

After someone turned Xiao Pangzi into a zombie, there was a high probability that it was due to obsession that he was eager to seek revenge, but there was still a certain probability that he retained his pre-death intelligence.