Although the information contained within the scroll just now was too fragmented and blurry, Li Hai still learned quite a bit of important intelligence.
One piece of information was that, apart from that empty side hall, the Guiyou Cave Heaven, in its complete state, actually possessed many, many buildings and areas.
From the information, these buildings and areas included the Front Hall, Main Hall, Material Repository, Armory, Secret Treasure Vault, Cultivation Technique Repository, Exotic Treasure Vault, Training Ground, Forest Garden, Flower Garden, Medicine Garden, Beast Garden, Pill Chamber, Prison, Torture Chamber, Courtyard, Terraces, and numerous sleeping quarters.
However, these buildings and areas have all vanished without a trace, their whereabouts unknown.
Li Hai felt immense regret about this.
Just think, a mere, not-so-important side hall contained three powerful Cultivation Techniques: the Iron Bucket Clockwork Manual, the Moon Marrow Chain Technique, and the Evil Spirit Earth Drawing Yin Method.
So, how many good things must be hidden in the Armory, Secret Treasure Vault, Cultivation Technique Repository, and Exotic Treasure Vault, which sound 'valuable' just by their names?
Additionally, there were the Medicine Garden, Beast Garden, and Pill Chamber; they absolutely must have hidden good things.
Just thinking about it filled Li Hai's heart with intense curiosity and greed.
At the same time, contrary to his previous speculation, the fragmentation of Guiyou Cave Heaven was not caused by external invasion or internal strife within Naihe Prefecture.
Its true reason was that, long ago, Naihe Prefecture encountered a world-shaking formidable enemy.
In the battles against this formidable enemy, Naihe Prefecture suffered repeated defeats and was utterly miserable.
Finally, on the eve of near annihilation, the high-ranking officials of Naihe Prefecture made a decision.
This decision was to preserve a spark for Naihe Prefecture, hoping that in the future, it could achieve Nirvana and Rebirth, and rebuild its glory.
And the naihe token in Li Hai's hand was that spark.
Being a seed, it could naturally grow and strengthen into a fruitful outcome.
According to the information recorded in the scroll, as long as Guiyou Cave Heaven could be successfully activated, after activation, it could be mended, thereby gradually reaching Perfection.
The so-called mending, in essence, meant continuously hunting various levels of ghost creatures, and then using their souls and bones as a guide to recall the scattered buildings and areas from beyond the human world.
Strictly speaking, this was a transparent plot by the previous high-ranking officials of Naihe Prefecture.
Because to rebuild Naihe Prefecture, one must possess formidable strength.
And the best way to verify strength was to kill enemies.
However, rashly killing various experts in the human world would be too conspicuous and not conducive to the dormancy and growth of the new generation of Naihe Prefecture's Legacy bearers.
Therefore, killing ghost creatures was the best and safest choice.
Of course, Li Hai didn't think that much.
In his opinion, this so-called Cave Heaven mending was pretty much like players spending money in a pay-to-win mobile game to unlock heroes, buildings, weapons, and so on.
It's just that mobile games require money, while Cave Heaven mending requires ghost creatures.
As for whether other tokens existed in the vast human world besides this one, Li Hai had no idea.
Even due to the extremely fragmented information in the scroll, he couldn't know if there were other Cave Heavens in this world.
But combining all the information, Li Hai was inclined to believe they should exist.
However, that's a story for another time, not to be discussed now.
In short, these things were still very distant; for Li Hai, the truly most important thing right now was how to activate Guiyou Cave Heaven.
Fortunately, regarding this point, the complex information in that scroll had clear records; otherwise, Li Hai truly wouldn't know how to handle it.
And according to that information, there was only one method to activate Guiyou Cave Heaven—to find the descendants of those former Naihe Prefecture members and water the naihe token with their fresh blood to activate Guiyou Cave Heaven.
Li Hai wasn't particularly concerned about why the previous high-ranking officials of Naihe Prefecture would make such a slightly cruel design, especially one that was cruel to their own people.
He only knew that he was going to kill people.
The targets to be killed were the two daughters-in-law of the Black Wolf Bandits' Second Leader, from the Guo family.
That's right, this lineage of Guo Huaijin were the descendants of the former Naihe Prefecture members.
As for why A Su, an outsider, could obtain the Evil Spirit Earth Drawing Yin Method from Guiyou Cave Heaven after her death or during her life, that remained an unsolved mystery that Li Hai would never know the answer to.
He could only guess that it might be related to the Guo Bloodline that was about to be born within her.
“Guo Huaijin has three daughters and one son,” Li Hai mused.
“That youngest son passed away from illness after having Guo Shiwen, and the eldest daughter, who is the oldest, married far away many years ago; only the remaining two daughters, the twin sisters, were arranged by Guo Huaijin to marry Zhou Hu twenty years ago, and they gave him a son and a daughter.”
“Hmm~” he pondered.
“Guo Laogou's two daughters should be in their late thirties or early forties by now; women of this age usually live secluded lives and are not easy to kill, so... I'll kill Zhou Hu's son.”
After making his decision, Li Hai tucked the naihe token into his pocket and transformed into a sinister ghostly shadow, swiftly rushing towards the direction of the crossroads.
As for whether Zhou Hu himself would have an opinion, it was entirely out of his consideration.
At Steel Tendons Iron Bones stage, he was already unafraid of ordinary firearms, though he would feel pain if hit.
But Li Hai, who had cultivated the Iron Bucket Clockwork Manual to Perfection, probably wouldn't even feel pain if attacked by firearms.
So, why fear him?
If he killed, then he killed; what would you do about it?
“Eh?!”
Somewhere in the black-ash covered You Forest ruins, the Daoist who was holding the divination banner earlier suddenly stopped, his face tense as he said, “How strange, how strange, that intermittent evil Qi... why is it coming in my direction?!”
Heaven have mercy, he only wanted to discreetly investigate some information; he never intended, nor did he have the ability, to deal with such a ferocious ghost creature.
“Could it be that ghost creature sensed my presence from afar? This, this...” The Daoist had a tearful expression, “What level of ghost creature is this? Why is it so outrageous?! It's over, it's over, it's really over now.”
He didn't even think about escaping; how could he escape? Can a person's two legs walk faster than a ghost can fly?
“It's better to fight with my back against the wall; even if I die, it's better than being eaten by a ghost.” The Daoist gritted his teeth and immediately pulled out a stack of narrow yellow talismans from his sleeve, preparing to face the approaching evil ghost.
But just then, the evil Qi, which he had sensed flying rapidly from afar, suddenly vanished into thin air.
As the Daoist looked left and right, full of suspicion, a thick hand suddenly reached out from behind and heavily slapped him on the shoulder: “Fortune teller, what are you doing here?”
“A ghost!!” The Daoist jumped three feet high in fright, frantically turning around and throwing a pile of yellow talismans at the person behind him.
However, his vision blurred, and those dozen or so talismans were all snatched away by a large hand with heavy afterimages.
“Eh?! You...” The Daoist stared blankly at the bald strong man in front of him, “You're not a ghost, you're a person.”
“Nonsense,” Li Hai grinned, “Of course, I'm a person, and a very good one at that.”