Cultivation Through Unorthodox Means

The Corpse Grew Legs and Ran Away

Ren Qing flipped open the first page and felt an overwhelming urge to gouge out his own eyes.

Suppressing his discomfort, he forced himself to read carefully, page by page.

The text recorded in The Eyeless Technique was meticulously written, yet it gave him the unsettling impression of wriggling maggots trying to crawl out of the paper.

Moreover, half of the book was dedicated to describing how to consume human eyes raw.

Had he not already grasped the Eyeless Technique, he might have been deeply affected by the words alone. This only proved how eerie the author, the Hundred-Eyed Monk, must have been.

By the time Ren Qing finished reading The Eyeless Technique, his clothes were drenched in cold sweat, and his eyes were bloodshot and sunken, as if he hadn’t slept for days.

He carefully tucked the book close to his body, but after some thought, he felt it wasn’t safe enough. So he pulled out a brick from the corner beneath his bed and hid the book in a secret compartment.

Then, closing his eyes, he began to digest what he had just read.

First and foremost, although he had learned the Eyeless Technique at the cost of his lifespan, he had merely reached the entry-level stage.

The method of cultivating this technique involved envisioning the boundless darkness of blindness, gradually mutating the eyes to gain an inhuman power.

Ren Qing had thought he had grown accustomed to this eerie path, but the final page of The Eyeless Technique was far too bizarre.

To accelerate the mutation, one could hold a fresh human eyeball in their mouth during practice. However, the price for this was growing eyes all over the body.

Fortunately, Ren Qing discovered two other branches of the Eyeless Technique.

This revelation proved that the information flow granted by the technique could reveal hidden knowledge about cultivation methods.

For example, there were the One-Eyed Practitioners and the Double-Pupiled Practitioners.

Additionally, although the book recorded that swallowing eyeballs could heal injuries, it made no mention of extending one’s lifespan—perhaps even the Hundred-Eyed Monk himself hadn’t realized this.

Ren Qing had already made his decision.

Between having eyes all over his body and becoming one-eyed, the Double-Pupiled Path was undoubtedly the most acceptable—at least it still fell within the realm of normalcy…

Unknowingly, Ren Qing had begun to grow accustomed to such grotesque settings.

A rooster crowed.

Pressing his temples, he stepped out of the house. The warm spring sunlight dispelled the chill clinging to his body.

A pungent stench of burning corpses wafted from the courtyard.

In the coming days, unless more wrongful deaths occurred in Tan Street, the furnace would not stop burning. After all, the corpse house needed to be cleared out quickly.

Xiao Wu sat idly on a stone stool in the yard, reading a book. The three of them took turns keeping watch, with two of them guarding the furnace at all times.

“Brother Qing, I noticed you didn’t eat at noon, so I saved this for you.”

Xiao Wu put down the Hundred Family Surnames, which he was using to learn literacy, and handed Ren Qing a steamed bun.

Back when he worked in another fire worker hall, he not only had to endure strenuous labor every day but was often left hungry. Because of this, he genuinely appreciated Ren Qing.

“I need to step out for a bit. I should be back soon.”

After glancing at the furnace and ensuring everything was in order, Ren Qing left the government office.

On the way, he encountered various constables patrolling on their shift. There were only a few fire workers and yamen runners among them.

Leaving the government office, Ren Qing headed straight for the butcher’s shop. Since consuming eyeballs could extend his lifespan, he naturally had to test it.

As he wove through the dense crowds of the marketplace, he became acutely aware of his enhanced vision. Details that would have escaped his notice before now stood out clearly.

The dirt stains on the old man selling candied hawthorn, the scholar’s missing purse after a night of drinking—pickpocketed without him noticing.

Even the tiny bee perched on the tip of a woman’s hair, despite her face being thick with rouge and powder, was visible to him.

His mastery of the Eyeless Technique was becoming more refined.

His peripheral vision landed on a beggar by the roadside, causing him to frown slightly.

The beggar looked to be in his thirties, limping as he reached out to passersby for alms, his expression tinged with pain.

Ren Qing noticed that the beggar’s injured leg was nearly twice as thick as a normal leg, covered in festering sores.

With such severe inflammation, how was he still able to move so freely?

Pausing momentarily, Ren Qing walked over and tossed a few coins into the beggar’s cracked bowl.

“Thank you, kind officer! May you live a long life…”

The beggar expressed his gratitude profusely. As Ren Qing placed the coins, he subtly let his palm brush against the man, and a flood of information surfaced before his eyes.

[Chen Ergou]

[Age: 28]

[Remaining Lifespan: 13 Years]

[Technique: Divine Foot Sutra (Incomplete)]

Details about the Divine Foot Sutra immediately emerged.

[Created by the crippled Taoist Tian Can, this technique requires the practitioner to sever both legs at a young age, then be confined in a vat while being fed special medicinal ingredients. If they survive for three years, they will grow divine legs.]

Ren Qing’s breathing quickened. He temporarily abandoned his plan to visit the butcher’s shop and instead wandered around the western district of the city.

He soon made a startling discovery.

Most of the beggars on the streets had leg deformities, all of them clearly practitioners of the Divine Foot Sutra, and they were concentrated solely in the western district.

Ren Qing realized he had been mistaken about something.

If all cultivation techniques in this world were this bizarre, then talent requirements must be incredibly low. And in a world where human life was cheap, this meant that spreading cultivation techniques had no real drawbacks for powerful factions—if anything, it helped them control large forces.

On the surface, Sanxiang Town appeared peaceful, but who knew how many cultivators were lurking in the shadows?

Ren Qing took a deep breath, his earlier excitement over gaining supernatural abilities now completely dissipated.

He returned to Tan Street and entered the butcher’s shop closest to the yamen.

The butcher was a burly man clad in a greasy apron, sharpening his cleaver. The glint of the blade was enough to send shivers down one’s spine.

Before Ren Qing could speak, the butcher greeted him first. “Ah, it’s you, Ah Qing. Haven’t seen you in days. Thought something might’ve happened to you…”

“Heh, listen to me and my big mouth. Here, I’ll cut you an extra two taels of meat today.”

Ren Qing forced a smile. Given his predecessor’s reclusive nature, he barely knew anyone in the yamen—so how had he interacted with the butcher?

Carefully probing for details, he learned the truth.

The butcher’s surname was Zhang. It was Ren Qing’s deceased elder brother who had been acquainted with him. Before dying, he had asked Zhang to look after Ren Qing, making him one of the few people willing to speak with him.

“Brother Zhang, I’ve been having trouble seeing at night lately. Could I trouble you for some pig eyes to improve my vision?”

“No problem! If you want them, I’ll save them for you from now on.”

Butcher Zhang agreed readily. Some poor folks still bought offal to eat, but pig eyes were usually discarded for stray dogs.

As he prepared Ren Qing’s pork belly, he casually remarked, “You know, Ah Qing, if you’d asked a while ago, I wouldn’t have had any pig eyes left.”

“Someone actually came by and paid silver just to buy them—strange, isn’t it?”