Anti-fraud manual for the cultivation world

Three days later, at dusk.

After the yamen closed for the day, Li Gu changed his clothes again, disguising himself as a chivalrous wanderer with a full beard, and arrived at the Ghost City gambling den with only thirty low-grade spirit stones on his person.

First, intentionally lose a few rounds, then start betting on random numbers like 5 or 3 spirit stones, only betting on big or small, or odd or even, and not touching anything else. With wins and losses, slowly accumulate the results.

He has been coming here for several days in a row, using this method every day, stopping immediately after winning 200-300 low-grade spirit stones, and has not attracted any attention.

Just when it seemed there wouldn't be any major incidents today, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Hua Qianfang walking into the gambling den's main hall.

Li Gu was startled and quickly lowered his head, deliberately avoiding looking at Hua Qianfang.

People with high cultivation levels have very keen senses and might be able to detect "others' focused attention," so Li Gu dared not look at him at all. He even tried to squeeze into the group of gamblers around him to hide his aura.

Hua Qianfang was followed by six men dressed in black, two men each carrying a stretcher covered with a cloth, so it was impossible to see what they were carrying, but judging from the shape of the cloth, it should be a person.

Since the cloth covering their bodies also covered their mouths, noses, and faces, they were most likely human corpses.

Li Gu frowned, a bad feeling rising in his heart.

As Hua Qianfang and his group walked through the casino lobby, the gamblers nearby quickly stepped back. A few people who were close by pinched their noses and muttered under their breath, "It stinks! What the hell are they carrying?"

Someone immediately tugged at his sleeve and made a "shh" gesture: "Those are people from the Demonic Sect, don't mess with them."

The person who disliked the smell was startled, dared not utter another word, took a few steps back, and hid in the crowd.

Hua Qianfang merely glared coldly at the man before taking the three stretchers and entering the inner reception room.

"What is the Demonic Sect up to?" a gambler whispered nearby.

"Is that even a question? The corpses are carried into the ghost town, of course they're used to make corpse puppets," his friend whispered back.

"What are corpse puppets?"

"Using corpses as raw materials, and refining them with insidious secret techniques, corpse energy, runes, and crystal cores... to create a controllable puppet." The friend whispered, "This thing is a specialty of Ghost City. It's usually used to do things that living people can't do, such as... exploring those extremely dangerous monster caves. Send a corpse puppet down to scout ahead, and once it's safe, go down yourself."

"Wow, that's so convenient! I want one too."

"Don't talk nonsense, we don't deserve it." The friend whispered, "Even if we did, I wouldn't want it. Spending a long time with a corpse is disgusting, we can't stand the smell alone."

Li Gu heard their conversation and felt a chill run down his spine.

Something's not right. Something feels off.

His sixth sense was warning him that danger was approaching!

He didn't even want to gamble anymore and quickly left the gambling den.

After turning two streets, Li Gu thought it over and over. Last time he encountered Hua Qianfang, he didn't dare to follow her, fearing he would be discovered. But now his danger antenna was already beeping, and if he didn't figure out what Hua Qianfang was doing, something terrible was bound to happen.

Li Gu wandered around the messy, dilapidated houses in Liziba and returned to the gambling den. This time, however, he didn't go in. Instead, he climbed onto the roof of a broken house a mile away, lay down, and tried to blend himself into the thatched roof as much as possible. Then, he channeled the [Hidden Flower Heart Technique] into his eyes to improve his vision.

Looking at the casino gate from afar...

----

In the cellar of the ghost town gambling den.

The pale-faced, expressionless middle-aged woman asked Hua Qianfang, "Are you sure you want to preserve their minds?"

Hua Qianfang nodded: "I need them to recognize people, so of course I need to preserve their sanity."

The middle-aged woman said coldly, "A corpse puppet that retains its consciousness might not be very obedient. Especially... if you killed them..."

Hua Qianfang shrugged: "It's okay, just do it. If they don't obey, I'll make them listen."

The middle-aged woman said nothing more, took out the prepared materials, and placed them on the three corpses...

The corpse refining process begins...

Much later.

The first corpse slowly lifted the cloth covering it and sat up. Although it was already somewhat decomposed, it was still vaguely recognizable as a handsome young man.

Hua Qianfang said in a deep voice, "Zhou Shijie, do you want revenge? If so, go find Li Gu. He should be in Jiangzhou City right now."

The corpse's head tilted slightly, and its empty eyes revealed a deep-seated hatred...

"We must...kill...Li Gu..."

Then, the second and third corpses sat up one after another. They were the brothers Ouyang Ming and Ouyang Liang, but their corpses were not complete. Their heads and bodies were separated, and both corpse puppets were holding their heads in their arms.

After Hua Qianfang caught up with them, he beheaded their leader and brought him back to Flower Valley to warn the other disciples not to go down the mountain on their own. Now, in order to capture Li Gu and the other three, he has put his head and body back together.

The stone golems of Ouyang Ming and Ouyang Liang showed expressions of terror the moment they saw Hua Qianfang, their entire bodies trembling backward...

"Go find Li Gu, Zheng Xiaodong, Zhang Yi, and Meng Ting," Hua Qianfang said. "If you can find these four people, I will grant you peace and give you a proper burial. Otherwise, I will leave you to remain neither human nor ghost forever."

The Ouyang brothers' corpse puppets remained frozen for a long while before slowly nodding...

They forgot they were holding their heads in their hands; as soon as they nodded, the heads slipped from their grasp and fell to the ground, rolling around wildly. The Ouyang brothers quickly bent down to pick up the heads, stretching their arms forward and running after them all over the cellar.

Ouyang Ming's head rolled past the middle-aged woman's feet. She kicked him on the head, sending it flying. It hit the wall, bounced back, and landed on Ouyang Ming's neck with a thud. Ouyang Ming quickly used both hands to steady his head, preventing it from falling.

Hua Qianfang couldn't help but frown: "A fool is still a fool even when he becomes a corpse puppet."

The middle-aged woman said expressionlessly, "You still accepted someone this stupid as a disciple? The Demonic Sect's standards for selecting disciples have truly opened my eyes."

----

Li Gu lay prone on the dilapidated roof, not knowing how long he had been lying there, until his body began to feel numb.

People came and went at the entrance of the gambling den, with many cultivators going in and out. Everyone went in full of ambition, but most of them came out dejected and half-dead.

Just as Li Gu was getting a little impatient, Hua Qianfang finally came out.

Li Gu quickly shifted the focus of his pupils away from Hua Qianfang. Even though they were a mile apart, "staring" was still a very dangerous thing.

Nine people followed Hua Qianfang out of the gambling den.

Li Gu's heart sank: Sure enough, the three corpses had turned into corpse puppets.

His gaze was fixed intently on the face of the foremost corpse puppet...

Just as expected, it was the second senior brother, Zhou Shijie!