Master of Strange Dao

"Speaking of which, you all must have recovered some spiritual wisdom and some memories by now, right?"

A hungry ghost emerged from the locust tree, its gaze somewhat blank.

"I have seen the superior."

"Among you, there should be some who turned into hungry ghosts during the early period of the Wilderness disaster, right?

Back then, a hungry ghost gave me a small packet of mystery meat that tasted like beef. I want to know, does anyone know what that thing was actually made of?

It tasted like beef, had the flavor of beef, was dark and dry, but it actually wasn't beef."

"Superior, we do not know," replied the standing hungry ghost, blankly.

"If you don't know, that's fine. Pass this question on, even if it wasn't one of you who made the mystery meat. Ask around for clues. As long as I can confirm it, all those who provide clues will be rewarded.

If someone can make an exact replica, once I confirm it's usable, I will grant them a transformation certificate."

Yu Ziqing posed the question, and the hungry ghost immediately burrowed back into the locust tree to spread the message to all the hungry ghosts.

The transformation certificate, Yu Ziqing was not sure if it was only his previous calculations that counted.

Or if it was just the same thing, it could count, so he decided to try it out first.

He needed this to build his own team.

Moreover, many hungry ghosts had begun to regain their spiritual wisdom and started to instinctively accumulate power.

Someday, these hungry ghosts would have complete spiritual wisdom like ordinary people, have their own thoughts, and then it would be time to manage them, and he would need manpower for this.

He had given up on Wu Shuangge. Relying on Cece alone was a bit difficult.

The house-watching hungry ghost at his clubhouse now was a potential target.

The deceitful ghost in the Abyssal Rift was also a potential target.

But all these required a transformation certificate to give them chances.

Whether interfacing with the outside world or other matters, at the very least they shouldn't be so scary. Even those man-eating evil ghosts knew to disguise themselves well on a normal day; this would be very useful.

Several days later, Cece brought a timid and honest hungry ghost.

Seeing Yu Ziqing, the hungry ghost nervously didn't know where to place his hands.

"Don't be nervous. Do you know how the fake beef jerky I got before was made?"

"I don't know that."

"Then do you know any clues?"

"Back in our hometown, north of the Wilderness, there used to be a method for making jerky, just as you described, but it wasn't made of beef." The hungry ghost grew even more nervous, his hands twisted together.

"Don't be nervous, just take it slowly." Cece comforted him from the side.

In their previous lives, they were all ordinary people, some who had never even left their hometowns for their whole lives.

They died of starvation, became hungry ghosts, and now, having slightly regained some spiritual wisdom and some of their former memories, naturally brought back some other things from their past.

For example, being nervous in front of important people, showing a timid and shrinking behavior...

Comforted by Cece, and seeing that Yu Ziqing indeed didn't seem to have a bad temper, the hungry ghost continued.

"There used to be a kind of duck, entirely covered in green feathers, glistening green, that appeared every summer in the lake outside our village.

The meat of the Green Feathered Duck wasn't tasty, was hard to cook thoroughly, and was also poisonous.

Moreover, they appeared just for a month each year before flying away; we couldn't breed them, so we could eat them only for a month each year.

Later, when the cattle in the village died of old age, someone mixed cattle offal and butter, stewed it, and made a lot.

The leftovers were all dried and kept for slow consumption, prepared enough in a month to last a year.

When the Green Feathered Ducks flew back the next year, there would still be some.

People in our village started doing this decades ago, and later we also learned to cook it thoroughly and dry it for slow consumption.

But as for the beef-flavored ones, I only know of that one family; I don't know about any others."

"Very good." Yu Ziqing nodded with a smile, glancing at Cece.

Cece immediately took out a drop of sweet rain and gave it to the hungry ghost.

Regardless of its usefulness, the attitude must be there so that the subordinates would work earnestly.

After sending off the hungry ghost, Yu Ziqing gazed out at the snow-covered grounds and sighed deeply.

Even if it were true, it was not to be thought of now; those Green Feathered Ducks would have surely died after the Wilderness transformation.

The good news now was that the Green Feathered Ducks seemed to be migratory birds that would arrive when the weather warmed up and leave when it cooled down.

And since they stayed only for a month, that place was probably not their final migration destination.

Currently, there wouldn't be any Green Feathered Ducks in the Wilderness, but it couldn't be said for sure about south of the Wilderness.

Whether or not it was true, at least they had a clue now to pursue later.

He asked Yang about it, but Yang also didn't know what kind of green-feathered ducks Yu Ziqing was talking about; those kinds are pretty numerous in Daqian, but none of those would travel such a long distance to the north of the Wilderness.

Those migratory birds wouldn't travel such a long distance even across a year.

Thinking it over, Yu Ziqing took out the Seventh Floor ring.

He figured he'd ask No. 4, a scoundrel who ran around everywhere; maybe he had seen them.

"No. 4, do you have any sweet rain now?"

"Out of stock." Yu Ziqing decisively denied, the quota of sweet rain available for sale was already exhausted: "I have something else I want to ask you about."

"Oh..." No. 4 seemed disappointed but still sat down: "Just ask."

"You've been to a lot of places; you must have seen a lot."