The Immortal of Plague begins by establishing the root of lung fire.

Song You lay prostrate on the cold stone slab. The weakness in his body had not disappeared, but the warmth in his lungs was continuously supplying a strange energy. This was the power of the Dao Root.

He had no time to process the changes; his only goal right now was to survive.

He crawled toward a thin, short man whose body was already stiff, his face frozen with the terror of death. Song You reached into the man's clothes and rummaged around for a moment, finding only a few copper coins and a half-eaten, hard, dry flatbread.

Better than nothing, Song You put the copper coins into his pocket and discarded the bread. After what had just happened, the food was no longer edible.

He continued climbing to the next person. The hall was deathly silent, with only the soft rustling of clothes against the floor. His movements were slow and steady.

The second, the third, the fourth. He searched seven or eight people in succession, but the results were disappointing. These poor boys and girls had nothing on them except some worthless copper coins and some dried food that had long since gone bad.

When they were brought here, others probably already assumed they wouldn't survive.

Song You's heart remained unmoved. He crawled back to his original spot and saw the other two boys from Songjia Village. Their deaths were no different from the others; they had all writhed in agony before suffocating to death. Song You silently searched their bodies and took the few copper coins their parents had secretly given them.

After doing all this, his gaze finally fell on Jiang Yangjiao beside him.

She was no longer breathing, her body curled up, her hands that had been scratching the ground were now a bloody mess, and the sickly flush on her face had faded, leaving only a deathly ashen color.

Song You climbed to her side and watched her quietly for a moment. In the end, the girl still couldn't pass the first test of cultivating immortality. He reached out to take the cloth bag that she was tightly clutching in her hand.

Just as he touched the cloth bag, he suddenly noticed that the outline of Jiang Yangjiao's upper body clothing was a little strange, with a square protrusion on her chest.

Song You carefully unbuttoned Jiang Yangjiao's clothes. There was no hidden pocket inside; the protrusion was sewn into the lining of the garment.

He had no tools, so he could only use his fingernails to pick at the rough stitches little by little. His fingernails were quickly worn raw and bled, but he didn't care.

Finally, he tore open a hole, and a thin booklet wrapped tightly in oil paper slid out from the interlayer.

The booklet felt very light in his hand. Song You quickly unfolded the oiled paper; the cover was blank. Inside, the scriptures were copied in fine calligraphy, beginning with the four characters: "Refine Qi and Transform Spirit."

Could this be a genuine Qi cultivation technique?

Song You's heart skipped a beat. He immediately wrapped the booklet again in oil paper and tucked it into his innermost clothing. He could feel the booklet against his skin, a cool sensation.

This thing is worth ten thousand times more than all the silver and copper coins he has plundered combined.

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He calmly surveyed his surroundings. The elder on the high platform was still asleep, and several young disciples and outer elders were also meditating with their eyes closed. No one noticed the small movements of this humble survivor in the corner.

After doing all this, Song You did not immediately return to his original position. He also took Jiang Yangjiao's cloth bag, opened it, and looked inside. There were only a few changes of old clothes and half a wooden comb for combing hair.

He emptied his belongings, stuffed the cloth bag into his coat, and then, dragging his weak body, quietly crawled back to his original spot and lay down.

He closed his eyes and pretended to be recovering from unconsciousness, but his mind was racing.

His hospital experience during his final moments of lucidity was not a hallucination; the effects of the medication were so real that it pulled him back from the brink of death.

But what exactly happened?

Can a person's soul really leave their body before death and return to the place they are most attached to?

He tried to concentrate, wanting to get back into that state. He recalled the white walls of the hospital, the smell of disinfectant, and the face of the intern nurse.

However, nothing happened.

He was perfectly conscious, and the warmth in his lungs and the soreness in his body felt incredibly real.

Song You gave up trying. He had a vague guess that triggering that state might require a prerequisite: being on the verge of death.

Only when life force truly fades to its last moment is it possible to step into that strange space again.

But now, facing this elder who could kill hundreds with a single breath, he dared not gamble with his life. This secret had to remain buried in his heart, his last trump card.

Just as he was pondering, the Elder of the Planting Stove, who was as large as a mountain of flesh on the high platform, made a move.

His enormous body stopped undulating, and his eyes, squeezed into slits by his fat, slowly opened. He didn't look at anyone, but simply opened his festering mouth and took one last deep breath at the corpses scattered across the hall.

It was as if he had inhaled all the air in the hall, creating a powerful gust of wind. Song You felt a tremendous force pulling at his body, and he quickly grabbed onto a raised section of the ground to steady himself.

Then, Elder Zhongzao blew out a sharp sound.

"call--"

An invisible gale arose out of nowhere and swept across the entire hall. The hundreds of stiff corpses were lifted up by the gale, tumbling and colliding in the air, before being blown all at once into the endless darkness deep within the hall.

After the wind subsided, the hall, which had been piled high with corpses, was instantly empty, leaving only cold stone slabs and three living people.

Besides Song You, the other two survivors are a man and a woman.

He vaguely remembered the girl; she was the daughter of a poor peasant from a town along the way. At this moment, she was curled up on the ground, her body still trembling slightly, her face as pale as paper, and her breath weak. She was clearly barely holding on to life, but her condition was not much better than Jiang Yangjiao's before.

The other boy caught Song You's attention a few more times. He sat cross-legged on the ground, his complexion not good either, but his breathing was steady, his back straight, and his eyes even revealed an uncontrollable excitement and fervor. He was clearly in the best condition of the three.

Elder Zhongzao's gaze fell on the boy, and a satisfied expression appeared on his fat face as he beckoned to the boy.

The boy immediately stood up, his face filled with overwhelming joy and surprise. He quickly walked up to the platform and respectfully knelt at the feet of the elder who planted the stove.

Elder Zhongzao didn't look at Song You and the girl again. Several short Taoist boys appeared again, carrying the sedan chair, and lifted the mountain of flesh onto it.

Just as the sedan chair was about to disappear into the darkness, the young Taoist boy who had warned Song You earlier glanced back in Song You's direction.

His face still wore that innocent yet cruel smile, and then he secretly winked his right eye at Song You.