Starting as a stray dog, I embarked on a journey of cultivation.

After discovering that Long Youzi indeed had a strong talent for alchemy, Gou An simply took the boy as his disciple.

Long Youzi had always called himself master, purely because he was shameless.

Now that Gou Anzhen has taken him in, it's perfectly legitimate.

If one wants to become a protector of the country and climb the ranks step by step, then one needs to cultivate one's own loyal followers.

Otherwise, no matter how high one's position, without one's own power and without trustworthy people, one will ultimately remain alone.

Long Youzi has only been in the City of Ten Thousand Demons for a short time, has no roots or complicated relationships, making him a perfect fit.

The days that followed became simpler.

Besides cultivating, Gou An spent his days researching new elixirs to stabilize his soul.

In addition, I need to study the animal hide map I bought from the black market, the Nine-Turn Golden Elixir recipe I obtained from the Blackwater, and the walking stick made from the bone I found.

As for the Jade Lotus Bottle, Gou An directly handed it over to Liu Dayong in the Palm Heaven Diagram, instructing them to use the bottle to cultivate spiritual materials, which would make the process twice as effective.

The purchased Qi-generating machines were also placed in various locations within the spirit fields.

With the blessing of various magical treasures, the spiritual plants in the spiritual field grew quickly and well.

Even after those spiritual plants had grown, Gou An did not allow them to harvest them, but instead let them continue to grow in the ground.

However, as the scale of the spiritual fields in the Palm Heaven Map grew larger and larger, the problem of insufficient manpower began to emerge again.

So the first thing Gou An did after taking office was to find a mountain forest outside Wan Yao City with relatively abundant spiritual energy and prepare to cultivate spiritual fields.

The plant they were growing was not an ordinary spiritual plant, but spiritual tobacco.

The excuse was that there wasn't enough tobacco in stock and they needed to plant more as soon as possible, otherwise they would run out of stock.

In this way, it would be legitimate to use public funds to buy slaves for land reclamation.

And in doing so, they had an excuse to buy demon slaves.

Then, they can select all the monsters from these purchased demon slaves and put them into the Palm Heaven Map, thus deceiving others.

After all, the lives of demon slaves are worthless and no one cares. Moreover, the spirit fields are located in the wasteland outside the city, so losing a few is insignificant.

A month passed quickly.

The city of ten thousand demons was only just beginning to tremble after Lord Jinyang had not appeared for a month.

The first to report this news was Long Youzi, who was now in charge of delivering pills and naturally had contact with the monsters in the mine.

Although Lord Jinyang rarely went to the mine in the past, he would occasionally go to inspect it.

But now, more than a month has passed since they last went to the mine, and Blackhorn and the others have lost contact with them, all wondering what happened to Mountain Lord.

Then there was the Demon King's place. The seven guardians would meet with the Demon King every month to discuss matters, but Lord Jinyang was absent. The Demon King could not contact Lord Jinyang and did not know where he had gone.

If it weren't for the fact that Lord Jinyang's life lamp was still lit, the entire city would probably be in turmoil.

So the Demon King had no choice but to send people to search for him, since there were very few people in the world who could touch a great demon with the cultivation of the Nascent Soul stage.

During this period, Gou An accelerated his alchemy process, concocting and refining several kinds of pills to repair damage to the soul.

Just these past few days, the Demon King has sent a little demon to report that Princess Yun Yao's headache has flared up again.

This is a good opportunity to offer the medicine. If it works, it will earn the Demon King's trust even more.

Once you've proven your worth, you'll have more confidence to protect yourself even if things go wrong later.

After all, neither the Crimson Flame Mountain Lord nor the Ash Yang Mountain Lord were the ones who actively provoked Gou An, but were forced to retaliate.

Even if you put it bluntly, it's still legitimate self-defense.

Just as Gou An was putting the prepared pills into a bottle and preparing to go find the Demon King, someone came to his door.

He is the Evil Bone Taoist.

"Master Gou, where are you going in such a hurry?" Xie Gu stood at the entrance of Gou An, waving his tattered fan.

"I'm going back to Protectorate, I have something to report to the Demon King!" Gou An said with a polite smile.

"Don't rush!" Xie Gu chuckled softly and walked into Gou An's courtyard without being invited.

He looked around and exclaimed, "That old fox Cangxuan really left you a nice courtyard."

"Guardian of the Nation, I have urgent business to attend to the King!" Gou An looked at this guy and felt a headache coming on.

"I already told you, don't rush!" Xie Gu said while admiring the flowers in the courtyard. "The Demon King is currently discussing matters with several other demon cultivators to protect the country, so he won't be able to see you for a while."

"Discussion?" Gou An frowned slightly.

"That's right!" Xie Gu turned to look at Gou An and smiled, "It's about the disappearance of Lord Jin Yang."

At this time, the Evil Bone Taoist came to find him again, which made Gou An very uneasy.

"What does the Protector of the Nation want with me?" Gou An asked cautiously, continuing to play dumb.

"I just want to ask you, where is Lord Jinyang now?" Xie Gu shook his annoying fan again, his tone calm.

"How would I know?" Gou An smiled, somewhat unable to see through the person in front of him.

Xie Gu glanced around to make sure no one was listening before he began to speak: "When Lord Jin Yang was investigating you, you went out of the city to find medicine, and he followed you out."

"Since that day, Lord Jinyang has never appeared again, nor has there been any news of him."

At this point, the Evil Bone Daoist turned to look at Gou An, his eyes filled with scrutiny: "You're saying it has nothing to do with you?"

Before Gou An could refute, the Evil Bone Taoist continued, "Later, I discovered obvious traces of a battle in a part of the mountains, including many traces left by Lord Jin Yang."

"This means that a few days after Lord Jinyang left the city, he engaged in magical combat with others in the forest."

The Evil Bone Daoist smiled slightly, shifting his gaze from Gou An, and began to stroll slowly through the courtyard: "Among them, I discovered fragments of a Heavenly Star Sect cultivator's robe, as well as bits of flesh and blood. Clearly, his Golden Core was directly detonated by external force, causing his death!"

"Perhaps it was the people from the Tianxing Sect who harmed Lord Jinyang!" Gou An interjected at the opportune moment.

"Heh!" Xie Gu just chuckled coldly and said, "I have people in the Tianxing Sect. The high-ranking elders who can deal with Lord Jinyang are all in seclusion. No one has left, so it's impossible."

"Furthermore, Lord Jinyang already had a good relationship with the Tianxing Sect, so there was no reason for him to take action."

Gou An swallowed hard, pondering how he should refute the argument.

Xie Gu continued, "So if I'm not mistaken, it should be that Lord Jin Yang suspected you killed his younger brother, Lord Chi Yan, so while you were out searching for medicine, he invited an elder from the Tianxing Sect whose cultivation was comparable to Lord Chi Yan's to test your strength."

"In the end, you successfully turned the tables and killed that elder of the Star Sect, proving that you did indeed obtain some remarkable treasure from the Ancient Tower Secret Realm."

"At this moment, Lord Jinyang appeared, and you fought with him, eventually defeating him and imprisoning him."

After listening to Xie Gu's analysis, Gou An's heart pounded wildly.

This guy's analysis was almost entirely correct; he was clearly well-prepared.

However, Gou An naturally couldn't admit it, and simply laughed, "How could my meager skills possibly deal with Lord Jinyang?"

"You certainly can't succeed on your own!" The Evil Bone Daoist smiled slightly and continued, "But who knows what kind of opportunity you obtained from the ancient tower's secret realm?"

"These are just speculations by the Protector of the Nation, they shouldn't be taken seriously!" Gou An remained stubborn.

"Hehe!" Xie Gu chuckled, waving his fan as he looked at Gou An. After a long while, he finally spoke slowly:

"It's just speculation, of course, but what would happen if I reported all of these speculations to the Demon King?"

Faced with this blatant threat, Gou An frowned even more deeply and slowly said, "Guardian of the Nation, just tell me directly what you want to do?"

"I can help you solve this problem!" Xie Gu shook his fan again, his face still showing an air of complete composure. "But you need to tell me exactly where Lord Jin Yang is."

"Help me?" Gou An was even more puzzled.

"Of course!" The Evil Bone Daoist nodded. "As long as you hand over Lord Jin Yang, I have a secret method to erase part of his memory, making him forget your experience. In that case, he will not bother you again."

"And after doing this, Lord Jinyang will return, and the Demon King will naturally no longer investigate this matter, so there will be no disadvantage for you."

"But why are you helping me?" Gou An couldn't help but ask.

The evil Taoist priest in front of me must be at least 80-90% certain that I am the one who did it, which is why he came to me twice in a row. There is no point in continuing to argue.

The Evil Bone Taoist smiled and looked into the inner room: "Are we going to talk here? If someone overhears us, I won't be able to keep it from you no matter what."

"Then please, Protector of the Nation, come this way!" Gou An gestured for him to enter, led the Evil Bone Daoist into his alchemy room, and closed the door.

Then, the Evil Bone Taoist made a hand seal, and an array was set up, covering the entire room and completely isolating the sounds from inside and outside.

The Evil Bone Taoist sat in the main seat where Gou An usually sat, shook his fan, and slowly said, "As you know, our Ten Thousand Demon City has a total of seven guardians."

"Although we three are of equal status on the surface, we can never touch the core interests of the City of Ten Thousand Demons while protecting the country."

Gou An sat quietly to the side, listening without interrupting.

"The old fox Cangxuan is in charge of all internal affairs and alchemy within the city!" The evil bone Taoist began to analyze for Gou An: "The old ox Zhenyue is responsible for the overall defense of the Ten Thousand Demon City."

"The Black Flood Dragon of the Azure Sea is in charge of the array setup for the City of Ten Thousand Demons. Lord Jinyang is in charge of supervising the mining of spirit stones."

"Those four guardians are responsible for the foundation of the entire Ten Thousand Demon City, but what about us three human cultivators who are supposed to be guardians?"

At this point, Xie Gu chuckled and said, "Blood-Drinking True Monarch? Let her guard the gate outside the City of Ten Thousand Demons!"

"The Hundred Poisons Hermit? The Demon King sent him to find a secret realm."

"And me? I merely help the Demon King gather intelligence from the outside world and keep track of the movements of various forces."

At this point, he looked up at Gou An, the calm smile in his eyes fading slightly:

"The three of us are cultivators who protect the country, and although we are ranked among the eight great protectors, the lifeline of the Ten Thousand Demon City is not in our hands at all. The real prize has been completely seized by those four protectors who are of demon race origin."

"In the end, we are more like tools of the Demon King."

Xie Gu looked at Gou An again, the smile on his face slowly disappearing, and his tone became more serious: "As long as you hand over Lord Jin Yang, I have a way to make him listen to me. Not only will he not cause you any trouble in the future, but I can also give you some spirit stones as a benefit."

"It will only benefit you, and not harm you."