Chapter 103
After leaving the Cloud Mist Mountains, Qi Ping visited several gathering places for ordinary cultivators and the families of mortals.
Those once bustling and lively places, filled with the smoke of daily life, were now almost completely deserted, with only a handful of households still showing signs of life.
In some locations, there were even corpses, gnawed down to nearly bare white bones.
What was even more tragic was that in villages like these, such remains were left uncollected; it seemed that where one died, one’s bones simply piled up.
These remains belonged to cultivators and mortals alike; to adults, and also to children.
Yet, under the menace of the demonic insects, such distinctions seemed to make no difference—all were merely food for the insects.
Qi Ping had thought the Cloud Mist Mountains were bleak enough, but seeing these small villages made him understand what a truly wretched world looked like, what deathly stillness truly meant.
There were barely any living people left!
He hadn’t expected Qing Stone County to deteriorate to this state in such a short time!