The crowd dispersed, each person getting busy with their tasks.
"Hurry up and clean this up. There are still Barbarian Iron Cavalry active outside the mountains, and they could charge in at any moment. Heifeng Stronghold still needs our protection."
Clan Leader Chen Xuan kicked over a half-charred Corpse and tore off the ruined Leather Armor from it, slinging it over his shoulder.
Blood and gore splattered onto the cuffs of Chen Changsheng’s torn jacket. He lowered his head, suppressing the urge to vomit, and dragged half of a Barbarian Race Corpse across the ground.
"Damn, I underestimated how disgusting this job would be!" he thought.
As he grumbled inwardly, his pale hand brushed against a heavily tattooed arm. The icy touch made him flinch and instinctively yank his right hand back. Suddenly, a wisp of scarlet Qi Mechanism emerged, traveling directly from his palm into his heart.
In a trance, he seemed to see a blurry, fragmented cauldron materialize in his mind. The scarlet Qi Mechanism plunged into the cauldron like a baby swallow returning to its nest.
In an instant, memories of his transmigration flooded Chen Changsheng’s mind.
Just last night, he had been at the movie theater watching the Nezha 2 movie. When the Celestial Essence Cauldron was shattered by the combined efforts of Nezha and Ao Bing, a fragment flew straight out of the screen. He then woke up in this world, occupying the body of an original owner who shared his exact name and was also twenty-eight years old.
This was a world similar to the Ming Dynasty of his previous life, but it was thousands of times larger than Blue Star. There was no technology here, nor was there Cultivation. There was only the clash of the Hundred Races, overwhelmingly powerful Martial Art, omnipresent slaughter, and lives as cheap as ants.
Yesterday afternoon, the Northern Barbarians’ tribes had marched south for a plundering raid. A small group of scouts entered Yuntai Mountain and was discovered by the Great Yan’s Night Patrol. During the ensuing slaughter, Clan Leader Chen Xuan of Chen Family Village arrived with the village’s young men to provide backup, entirely annihilating the Barbarians’ scout unit.
Over two hundred young men from Chen Family Village participated in the battle; thirteen died, and forty were injured. The original owner’s legs had given out during the chaotic melee, and he accidentally took a club to the head! While unconscious, whether it was an awakening or a transmigration, their memories merged, and he became the dominant soul of this body.
"Chang Sheng, why are you spacing out? Hurry up!"
Clan Leader Chen Xuan’s booming voice jolted Chen Changsheng awake, making him realize this was no time for idle thoughts.
From a distance came Chen Fusheng’s smug sneer. "PFFT!"
Suppressing his nausea, Chen Changsheng grabbed the shoulder of the bisected Corpse and dragged it to a large pit several yards away.
THUD!
After dropping the Corpse, Chen Changsheng walked briskly toward a second one. The moment his hand touched its skin, another wisp of scarlet Qi Mechanism traveled up his palm into his heart and sank into the cauldron.
Though he didn’t know its exact purpose, Chen Changsheng had a gut feeling that the cauldron might be his cheat ability. Since the cauldron needed this energy, he would just touch more Corpses. Dragging another heavy, mangled Corpse, Chen Changsheng threw it into the pit.
"Sigh. Chang Sheng, Zhu Baihu gave us this battlefield cleanup as a reward for our merits. You didn’t even empty the Barbarians’ pockets properly. What kind of cleanup is that?"
Clan Leader Chen Xuan’s somewhat exasperated voice rang out again. Chen Changsheng looked around and sure enough, none of the young men of Chen Family Village were in a hurry to drag away the Corpses. Instead, they were patting down the Barbarians and even stripping them of their clothes.
Thinking of his destitute family, his several starving children waiting to be fed, and his completely empty rice bin, Chen Changsheng suddenly didn’t find those Barbarian Corpses so disgusting anymore.
"Oh, got it!" Chen Changsheng replied as he walked over to a Barbarian Corpse and bent down to loot it.
He quickly figured out the routine: every piece of clothing had to be squeezed, shoes had to be removed and thoroughly inspected, hidden areas like armpits needed checking, and all earrings and nose rings had to be ripped off. Weapons were piled together, valuables were pooled, and all Leather Armor, Armor, and Cotton Armor had to be stripped off and gathered in one place.
While the others collected Weapons and stripped equipment first before looting the bodies and dragging them to the pit, Chen Changsheng looted the bodies first, collected Weapons and stripped equipment second, and finally tossed them into the pit.
Not only that, but he also patted down Corpses that had already been looted by others. Even when a mangled Corpse was stripped almost completely naked, he still went over to inspect it. Everyone was dirt poor, so no one laughed at Chen Changsheng. They just cursed the Barbarians as they looted the bodies.
After dragging his tenth mangled Corpse, a scorching heat emerged in his mind. Chen Changsheng leaned against a tree, pretending to rest, and focused his consciousness inward.
The cauldron was becoming clearer! Fiery, crimson blood energy surged within it!
The cauldron was bronze in color. It had a belly with flat, dragon-patterned feet and thick, sturdy pillar-like legs. Its shape was perfectly round, adorned with curved Taotie motifs and that striking, unmistakable US Dollar emblem.
Chen Changsheng was absolutely certain now: the cauldron in his mind was the exact Celestial Essence Cauldron from the Nezha 2 movie he had watched in his past life!
In that moment, Chen Changsheng recalled the Spiritual Light that flew out of the movie screen and how he had inexplicably awakened his past life’s memories. If his guess was right, the Celestial Essence Cauldron was the cause of everything. But the movie was entirely fictional. How could a cauldron from a movie make him awaken his past life memories in this world?
He couldn’t figure it out, so he stopped dwelling on it and instead slowly submerged his consciousness into the Celestial Essence Cauldron.
A ripple flashed.
Overjoyed, Chen Changsheng suddenly opened his eyes. He forced himself to suppress any outward celebratory movements, but the excited expression on his face was entirely beyond his control.
He couldn’t be blamed for his excitement; the information conveyed by the Celestial Essence Cauldron’s ripple was simply too astonishing. This information revealed part of the cause and effect behind his transmigration, a Cultivation Technique, the Early Stage application method of the Celestial Essence Cauldron, and the method to restore the Celestial Essence Cauldron’s Primordial Qi.
The incomplete Celestial Essence Cauldron in his mind was merely the Celestial Essence Cauldron’s Artifact Spirit. The Artifact Spirit didn’t explain which world it came from, nor did it clarify its origins or karma. It merely stated that while crossing the universal barrier with Chen Changsheng’s memories and soul, its already damaged physical cauldron completely shattered, scattering fragments all across the Celestial Essence Continent. In the end, this body accepted the memories and soul carried by the Artifact Spirit, merging and awakening in this world. However, the dominant soul turned out to be the Chen Changsheng from Blue Star in his previous life.
After digesting the information for a moment, Chen Changsheng attempted to communicate with the Celestial Essence Cauldron’s Artifact Spirit, but no matter how hard he tried, there was absolutely zero response. It seemed he would have to wait until the Celestial Essence Cauldron’s Artifact Spirit awakened to truly figure out the entire truth.
Noticing the slightly surprised glances of the clan members around him, Chen Changsheng didn’t dare continue probing the Celestial Essence Cauldron. He walked toward the next mangled Corpse with a joyful spring in his step. The mangled Corpses were no longer disgusting; in his eyes, they were nothing but fertilizer on his path to longevity.
He busied himself nonstop like a diligent little bee, astonishing all the villagers and sparking a wave of murmurs.
"Is that really Chang Sheng?"
"Why does it feel like he’s a completely different person?"
"Chang Sheng was always hardworking. He just wasn’t used to this earlier!"
"Hmm, that’s true!"
After finishing with the mangled Corpses, he looked toward the area where the dead horses were being processed, only to find the hides and meat already neatly separated. Refusing to give up, he touched a few pieces of meat, but gained absolutely nothing.
After nearly two Hours of hard work, over a hundred severed pieces of more than sixty Barbarian Corpses lay piled almost completely naked in the massive dirt pit, soon to be covered by thick layers of soil.
Late in the morning, at the Clan Leader’s command, the villagers carried their supplies and headed toward Heifeng Stronghold.
Chen Family Village was located in a valley near Yuntai Mountain’s Black Tiger Bee. The southern side was only six or seven miles of mountain road away from the Plain, and there were other villages a few miles to the east and west. However, the north was entirely composed of continuous, sprawling mountains. Chen Family Village had a small river flowing south and a flat riverside road for access.
Currently, with the Northern Barbarians invading, the Defense pressure on Chen Family Village was far too massive. Thus, all the men, women, young, and old of the village had long since taken refuge in the perilous mountain stronghold to the north of the village.
Heifeng Stronghold was bordered by thousand-foot cliffs on three sides, with only a gentle, winding slope several dozen yards wide trailing down to the south. It was easy to defend and incredibly difficult to attack, constructed hundreds of years ago by the ancestors of Chen Family Village who had fled here to escape disaster. The stronghold wasn’t large, only a thousand yards across in both length and width. Normally, it served as the village’s martial training ground, but during times of war, it was Chen Family Village’s ultimate sanctuary.
At dusk, Chen Changsheng returned to Heifeng Stronghold. In the main plaza, the Clan Leader was conducting a simple preliminary distribution.
"Forty intact Weapons, fifty Bows and Arrows, thirty sets of Leather Armor, twenty sets of Cotton Armor, three taels of gold, seventy-eight taels of silver, Thirty-eight Copper Coins, five thousand pounds of dead horse meat, twenty horse hides, and sixty-two intact sets of clothes and shoes.
"According to clan rules, thirty percent of everything goes into the public treasury. The three taels of Gold and all the horse hides will count toward that thirty percent. The compensation for the deceased and the twelve injured young men will be paid from the clan treasury. The rest will be distributed now.
"Does anyone have any objections?"
The hundred-plus young men shook their heads in unison. For hundreds of years, no matter how dynasties changed in the Central Plains Dynasty, Chen Family Village had endured in this border region precisely by relying on their clan rules and strictly enforcing them.
Chen Xuan possessed a burly physique, with pure white hair and beard. He was a True Qi Realm Martial Artist. Standing among a massive pile of loot, his sonorous voice echoed clearly as he began the distribution according to the registry.
"Chen Fusheng, you killed a Barbarian last night. You are allocated one blade, one set of Leather Armor, five taels of silver, and fifty pounds of horse meat."
"Thank you, Clan Leader! Fellow clansmen, I’ll head home first, but I’ll be back later to join the feast. We won’t rest until we’re drunk tonight!"
Hearing this, Chen Fusheng grinned widely. He cast a sidelong glance at Chen Changsheng, accepted his share from Chen Xuan, cupped his hands in thanks, and turned to strut proudly away.