If this Big Ghost were a Tenth Tier, then Yu Ziqing would certainly play a speedrun, slicing through this place.
He now had some conjectures.
When he first encountered Grandpa Que, Grandpa Que's temple was a stone room, identical to this one.
And before Yu Ziqing came here, he could indeed see some buildings from high above, see the town.
But not a single person could be seen.
In the end, it was only after borrowing the boatman's cloaked boat to cross the river that he entered the town.
Considering the Earth Deity here was so brazen, it definitely wouldn't keep its temple as a normal temple in size.
This place must be the world transformed by the spread of the Earth Deity's power, identical to the regular world.
The Earth Deity's inner world overlapped significantly with the real world.
But the ancestral halls were deliberately excluded or were perhaps impossible to replicate exactly in the inner world and then overlap with reality.
Those Incense-eating People couldn't find their ancestral halls here, couldn't find their roots.
They've completely become beings that are neither human nor ghost.
Therefore, Yu Ziqing felt that as long as he was within the ancestral hall or within a certain range, he would be beyond the Earth Deity's control.
Yu Ziqing, holding a temple in his hands, flew in mid-air, gazing distantly at the Night Patrol patrolling far away, he quietly flew behind.
Such a large target, yet the Night Patrol didn't see it at all when patrolling.
The Incense-eating People below in the town didn't even lift their heads to look at Yu Ziqing.
It was as if Yu Ziqing was the ghost, and they were the normal ones.
It seemed they truly thought that, Yu Ziqing was the abnormal one, the one who could be killed at will, whose organs could be scooped out and flesh stripped off to worship the gods.
Yu Ziqing followed the Night Patrol around for half the night and also patrolled a radius of several dozen miles in passing.
When the sky began to brighten, the Night Patrol twirled his umbrella, and the wind chimes clinked, leading the people away into the distance.
Yu Ziqing, holding the temple, followed behind flight, and after nearly a hundred miles, finally saw Wuzi City.
Outside Wuzi City, people came and went; if not for Yu Ziqing opening his Yin God eyes, one would think everything here looked quite normal.
As far as the eye could see, all people, without exception, were pale and ghostly-looking.
All the food had been replaced with incense, all the money had turned into Incense Candles.
Everything here seemed to have become normal.
Yu Ziqing, holding the temple, flew directly over the walls of Wuzi City, the protective barrier of incense fire parting to let him through.
But to others, everything appeared as usual.
Having entered Wuzi City, the first thing Yu Ziqing saw was a five-story temple shining with radiance in the distance.
It was only five stories tall but also several dozen feet high, extremely conspicuous.
The radiant glow of the temple enveloped the entire Wuzi City; the Incense-eating People in the city acted as if everything was normal.
Yu Ziqing felt a chill all over.
Everything had changed fundamentally, completely becoming an Earth Deity's Divine Country.
Here, he was the Alien Species, the ghostly apparition.
Yu Ziqing took out the City God's Big Seal of Wuzi City, its glow flickering continuously, but the light was dim, as if covered by dust.
Yu Ziqing sighed and put the Big Seal away.
After flying a distance, he saw the City God Temple teeming with people, with carriages converging. A man with a white face and short beard, quite regal in his robes, flew out from the temple.
In one hand, that man held a thick register, and in the other a pen. Pages of the register fluttered loudly as he flipped to one, sketching something on it with the pen.
Then, those carriages also started moving; an elder dressed like a landlord stepped out among the crowd.
With a wave of his hand, his subordinates lifted the bloody cloth that covered the carriages.
On the carts lay the bodies of demon beasts, wild animals, and even humans, with quite a few bodies of cultivators, especially low-tier Body Cultivators.
Some Body Cultivators were even clad in soldier's garb.
All these bodies had one thing in common; they were not Incense-eating People.
The white-faced man at the temple gate nodded with a smile.
"Landlord Wu, offering three carriages of Incense Candles, six carriages of Evil flesh and blood, your fortune is profound, benefiting the community, you shall be granted an extension of life for 60 years."
The white-faced man found Landlord Wu's name, crossed it out with a stroke, and rewrote a different time beneath it.
After him, one by one, those offering sacrifices stepped forward and received their respective blessings.
"East city's Li San, offering one carriage of Evil flesh and blood..."
"West city's Wang Wu, offering a premium five hundred catties of Evil flesh and blood."
Those in the front offered more, but as the list went on, the amounts became less and less.
They didn't receive much benefit, nor longevity.
However, in the latter part, some people couldn't offer anything at all.
"Zhao Erxiao offers... half a stick of incense." The white-faced man looked down at the person below him.
"Great lord, I truly have nothing left to offer. My elderly mother is gravely ill, and this half stick of incense was scraped together from my own rations. I implore your grace to bestow some favor, and save my family's elderly mother."
The white-faced man sighed, flipping through the register.
"Our Wuzi City's City God is compassionate and has already granted your family an extra year of incense fire.
In order not to break the rules, this has been given privately by the City God himself.
If everyone were like you, only wanting to eat without offering anything, what would happen?"
As he spoke, he marked Zhao Erxiao's name with a bloody cross.