1.The dead body is laughing

The forest of blue mist is a vast and mighty forest filled with massive trees and countless spirit beasts. The forest was covered with a blue mist that got denser as one proceeds deeper into the forest. The mist in the outer layers mainly lay low on the surface and gave the viewer the impression that what they were looking at was a vast river.

The residents of blue mist town who shared their name and much of their northeastern border with the forest called it the river of life and death. The outer forest was filled with spirit beasts of the first and second levels of qi absorption, a single one of which could easily overpower and kill a group of 10-12 ordinary men. The only reason a town could exist near such a forest was that the beasts never crossed the forest and came out, the trees that form the outer border of the forest made some sort of natural array formation that prevented the sprit beasts from leaving the forest.

It was unknown who if anyone had created such a formation, but the residents were thankful for its existence as it allowed them to settle near such a dangerous but rewarding place. The lands near the forest had moderate levels of spirit energy which would leak from the forest, making it an ideal place for spirit herbs cultivation. The areas with the highest levels of spirit energies were occupied by the major cultivation families but even they couldn't own all of the lands near the forest. Various households in the town earned their income by planting low-level spirit grass and selling to these families or the merchant houses.

Some brave souls would also often venture into the forests to pick out some lower-mid level herbs which they could sell for gold or if they got lucky even a spirit stone and live of on it lavishly for an entire year. Stories of people finding rare herbs and being rich overnight were common here, and so were stories of people never returning and end up feeding the beasts for free. So the locals found it fit to name such a place that could make one rich overnight or fertilizer the next second 'The river of life and death'.

As for the cultivators they too treated the forest with caution. Though the beasts in the outer area pose no challenge to cultivators the level of beasts one could find increased in strength as one ventured deeper into the forest and even several late-stage foundation establishment cultivators have been known to lose their lives in it.

The treasures one could find also increased one went deeper, and the cultivation families held regular expeditions into the forests. The forest proved an ideal place for tempering their youths through life and death battles. Various trials and competitions were also held here which saw the rise and fall of many geniuses. It became bragging right among the youths about how deep one could venture into the forest alone and return.

In one such corner of the forest, near the outer ring, a beast was feasting on a human that it had just killed. Such a scene was very common in this forest but what made this weird was that a youth much stronger than the beast was standing near the and watching it with disdain on his face. The beast was completely unaware of the presence of the youth.

Scenes of betrayal and murder were common in these forests, friends could become enemies, and brothers could turn on for some gain or in order to save their own skin. This scene however would shock one as the two youths held a special identity in the blue mist town. The one on the ground having his innards feasted upon by the beast was the trash young master of the Zhao clan, Zhao Feng and the one watching from the side calmly was his bodyguard and sworn brother, Zhao Wen.

While seeing his sworn brother being eaten alive by the beast, Zhao Wen had no emotion of grief or sadness on his face instead it was adorned with happiness and excitement and also a little bit of disgust.

"Haha Zhao Feng you useless piece of trash, you have no right marry Liu Xieren. " Zhao Wen laughed loudly. 'Trash like you with no meridians wishes to be with goddess Xieren, dream on, all your fat self is good for is as food for this low-level spirit beast." Saying so he gave a kick to the beast which immediately shrieked and ran away as it knew that it could never match the human that had just appeared seemingly out of nowhere and kicked it. Seeing this he laughed again.

"look even this swine which managed to kill you ran away as soon as it saw me, tsk ahh how ashamed I was to be known as your brother, all you ever do is eat and laze around, you trash nearly dragged me down with you. luckily young master Jiang took pity on me and agreed to let me into his faction, all he asked in return was your life."He even gave me this concealment to make sure no one disturbs us here."

He bent down and picked up a blood-soaked pouch and began weighing it in his hands"Haha, this is my payment for sticking with you for so long, goodbye young master Feng ha ha ha" laughing even louder he started kicking the corpse and stomping on its face.

He..he...he....suddenly Zhao Wen stopped laughing as he heard another voice laughing with him. He knew that unless the other person was a foundation establishment cultivator they couldn't see or hear him through the concealment formation.

He also knew that it was impossible for a foundation establishment cultivator to be here as this area had low sprit energy and had already been explored many times over so there was nothing new to be found here. Even commoners avoided this place as it was inside the forest and there was no potential reward to be gained from coming here.

It was one of the so-called many 'dead zone' of the forest which refers to areas that have been explored extensively and had no use anymore other than to hunt for beasts which too was very rare here, one could wander around many days and still not see any. People rather prefer to explore other areas as they had more chance to find rare herbs or treasures, even if their only goal was to hunt for beasts, the other areas had plenty. This made it the perfect place for getting rid of people and no one would ever found out.

That is the reason they had chosen this location. They even had a perfect cover story, they would say that Zhao Feng had sneaked out to play as he often did and heard of a rare herb in the forest and decide to go in thinking as it was a dead zone no beasts would come here but was suddenly ambushed by a spirit beast which killed him.

He was sure that the one laughing was either some low-level cultivator or some other people who like him had come here to conduct some unsavory business and the other party hadn't actually seen him.

"Who's there, scram for me now, or don't blame me for being impolite." He looked around but the laughter didn't stop. He fully unleashed his aura belonging to a 9th stage qi refinement cultivator and called again, this time his voice traveled wide and carried the power of a late-stage qi refinement cultivator. This would let the other party know someone whom they couldn't provoke was conducting their business here and it would do them no good if they decide to continue.

Being a late-stage qi refinement cultivator he was very confident in his sensing ability and was sure that no one of a lower level could hide from him, but he couldn't sense any movement around him. The laughter still continued without stopping but he couldn't tell where it was coming from.

Suddenly he felt an chill all over his body as he felt something grabbing his leg that was over the corpse's face. His face went cold as he looked down. The arm grabbing his leg was that of the corpse and he could even see its lower jaw moving under his foot and the laughter was coming out of its mouth. This frightened him to the core as he had never seen or heard of a corpse that had its whole stomach and innards eaten away moving or laughing.

when he slowly lifted his foot from the corpse's face he saw that the face had a mocking expression and its eyes were open and seemed to be looking straight through him while laughing. This sent a chill up his spine and fear completely overcame him.

"Ahhhhhhh..." He screamed as he ran out of the forest.

"He....he...he...." sounds of laughter continued to sound through the forest from the mouth of the half-eaten corpse. Suddenly it stopped and was replaced by a loud scream full of pain and suffering.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".