Wuji didn't answer. Instead, he bent down, grabbed the other two chickens by their legs, and stood up. He turned to Wang Da, whose expression was caught between disbelief and fear.
"Bring me coffins for the three of them," Wuji said in an utterly calm voice.
Before he could respond, Wuji had already vanished into the workshop. Moments later, he emerged with ritual materials in hand and walked past Wang Da toward the village cemetery, the limp bodies of the chickens swayed behind him like grim pendulums.
Wang Da stood there for several minutes, unmoving, his mind refusing to process what he had seen. Part of him still hoped it was an elaborate joke, a final bout of bitter humor. But Wuji's quiet, focused, and disturbingly sober look had crushed that hope.
"Had the abandonment by his sons truly broken him?" The thought lingered in his mind and for a long moment, he wrestled with himself.
If the old man had truly lost his mind, if grief or dementia had finally overwhelmed him, what then? Should he play along? Should he stop him? Should he fetch the village chief?
In the end, after an intense internal battle, he sighed as the struggle left him. It didn't matter. Wuji had given him work when he was starving and a place to sleep when he had nowhere else to go.
Whether the old man was crazy or not, Wang Da was just a hired hand. What Wuji buried didn't matter. Why he buried it didn't matter either. His job was simple: carry coffins and dig graves.
With that resolve, he went inside, hoisted one of the smaller coffins onto his back, and headed toward the cemetery, though the absurdity of the situation clung to him with every step.
When he arrived, the sight that greeted him made him falter.
Wuji had already placed the chickens in front of the three shallow graves. Clay beads were arranged in precise, cryptic patterns around each corpse. Wuji moved slowly between them, his motions deliberate and almost reverent.
His lips moved in a low chant that Wang Da could not hear.
This did not look like madness but looked like a ritual. And that, frightened Wang Da far more than insanity ever could.
He dropped the coffin with a dull thud and stood there for a moment, his mind struggling to accept the strange sight. Then, without a word, he turned to retrieve the other two coffins.
Several minutes later, all three were aligned beside the open graves.
Wuji carefully placed the chicken corpses into the coffins one by one. Then, with Wang Da's help, he lowered the first into the earth. Wuji climbed out and began filling the grave.
Chop! Thuck!
The shovel struck the earth, the rhythm echoing through the silent cemetery. With each scoop of dirt, the scene grew more surreal for Wang Da, who stood to the side, watching in mute disbelief.
No jokes came to mind and no questions felt adequate for the bizarreness of the situation.
After a dozen minutes, the grave was sealed. The moment the last shovelful of dirt settled, a panel flickered before Wuji's eyes.
[Lifespan obtained: two months]
"Two months?" Disappointment flashed through him. "That's too short."
He caught himself immediately. "No. I'm becoming too greedy, too fast." His jaw tightened. "How could I expect years from a chicken? I didn't even use the Heaven Burial Coff—"
The thought shattered as a sudden, irrational urge surged through him—to lower his head and peck at the soil beneath his feet. His body twitched, responding to an alien instinct. He staggered back instantly, horror flooding his face, and forced himself to stop.
Then he felt Wang Da's gaze on his back. Immediately, his hair stood on end as an overwhelming fear seized him, a primal urge to flee, to scatter, to hide.
"Damn it…" Wuji muttered, breathing hard. "I absorbed its instincts."
He steadied himself, taking slow breaths and, fortunately, the urge faded, leaving a cold sweat in its wake.
"Fortunately," he thought, "it wasn't some creepy chicken memory."
He turned toward the remaining coffins. With Wang Da's help, he buried the other two. The work took nearly an hour.
By the end, Wuji collapsed onto the graves, his body giving out all at once. He lay there, chest heaving, fingers trembling, his robe soaked with dirt and sweat. This time, the foreign instincts receded quickly, dissipating like mist in sunlight as he had been ready for them.
He then lifted his gaze to the panel.
[Stored Lifespan: 1.1 Years]
"If this is what a normal coffin yields," he murmured, his voice thick with exhaustion and awe, "then what would the Heaven Burial Coffin give me? Decades? Perhaps more?"
The thought ignited something dangerous in his mind. "And if it were a cultivator…" His breath hitched. "Perhaps… centuries?"
The realization thrilled him so deeply he nearly forgot the price of the Lifespan Plunderer and the person standing behind him.
Nearly.
He closed his eyes, forcing the excitement down, but the temptation had already taken root within him, one that was hard to suppress.
After resting for a few minutes, Wuji forced himself to stand up straight and began the slow walk back home. Wang Da trailed a few steps behind him. Now and then, Wuji glanced back. It was easy to read Wang Da's face as confusion, worry, and something close to fear were plainly written across it.
Wuji smiled faintly, at least it wasn't the look reserved for a madman—yet. Besides, his future actions might truly drive the young man to that conclusion.
As they walked, Wuji briefly considered letting Wang Da go. Then he dismissed the thought just as quickly. Without him, who would carry the coffins? Who would dig the graves?
"I suppose I really must hurry to cultivate," Wuji thought calmly. "With enough strength, I won't need anyone's help or judgment."
Minutes later, the workshop came into view. Without hesitation, Wuji entered and walked straight to the Heaven Burial Coffin. He then turned to Wang Da, who had stopped at the threshold as if an invisible line barred his entry.
"I'll rest for a while," Wuji said evenly. "Don't disturb me."
Before Wang Da could respond, Wuji lifted the lid and climbed inside.
Clunk!
The sound of the coffin closing made Wang Da's spine stiffen. He stood frozen, staring at the closed coffin. The idea of a living man resting inside one was deeply unsettling. Coffins were not meant for sleeping. They were not beds, they were sacred homes for the dead.
If anyone understood that truth, it should have been Wuji.
Wang Da exhaled slowly, shook his head, and turned away. As he left the workshop, worry lingered heavily on his face, as if he were abandoning someone halfway to the grave.
Inside the coffin, the sigils around Wuji began to glow.
Bronze threads slithered out from the carvings, writhing and alive, and plunged into his body. His limbs trembled, a familiar nausea surging through him, and his stomach twisted as though unseen hands had stirred his insides.
Moments later, the threads withdrew and sank back into the sigils as though nothing had happened.
Wuji exhaled slowly and turned his attention to the panel suspended before him.
[Lifespan: 82/88.1]
Relief flashed across his face, followed by a brief, dangerous spark of excitement, which he suppressed almost immediately.
"Calm down," he told himself. "Don't let greed rot your mind this quickly."
"I need strength. I also need wealth. Strength requires time and resources. Time, I can steal, but as for resources..." His gaze darkened. "My savings won't last long."
Vitality-nourishing pills came to mind.
The sect's black market would sell them cheaply, although they would be impure, they would still be effective for someone as weak as him. With the fragmentary memories of the buried disciple, navigating the sect itself would not be difficult.
Surviving it, however, was another matter.
The black market was located deep within the territory of the sect. It was a four-day walk from the village just to reach the outer perimeter of the sect. Beyond that were layers of disciples, elders, and formations.
Above all were the Sect Master and the five hidden supreme ancestors, entering unnoticed was impossible.
He considered acting deranged at the gates, shouting for his "sons" and demanding to see them, but the thought made him snort softly. The plan was weak, worse yet, it depended on his sons.
If they still had any shred of filial restraint, they wouldn't come.
If they didn't... "They might come to kill me," Wuji thought calmly.
This possibility didn't frighten him as much as it should have. The Heavenly Mountain Fall Sect was righteous, not demonic. If it were the latter, he would already be bones beneath a stone.
The fact that he was still alive meant that his sons still adhered to some boundaries, albeit the boundaries of society and reputation within the faction.
But boundaries erode.
"Do I really have to kill a disciple to enter?" he wondered. Then his thoughts halted as a another face surfaced in his mind: The young woman.
His lips curved faintly. "How careless and foolish of me," he murmured. "She would surely be overjoyed to see her 'lover' return from the grave."
The memory of her grief, its genuineness, how it tore through her composure, played again in his mind, but a bitter sensation rose in his chest.
The fact that he had to rely on such a thing disgusted him. But he understood that disgust did not feed him, nor did hesitation.
He clenched his jaw. "This world doesn't reward those of faint hearted," Wuji thought. "Only results."
If an action violated his former principles, so be it. Principles hadn't saved him from illness, humiliation, or abandonment. Hesitation only prolonged suffering. He had suffered for the last five decades; now, he was truly finished with suffering that served no purpose.
Slowly, the sigils on the coffin dimmed. In the enclosed darkness, Ye Wuji lay still, planning his next move and considering the price someone else would pay for his survival and ascension.