Please provide the text you would like translated.

Ye Yin barely had time to understand what was happening before the old woman shoved her stumbling out of the courtyard and she bumped backward into someone. Turning her head, she saw a man standing at the entrance, a hunting rifle slung over his back, staring dumbly at the pair. "Granny Wang, what's going on here?"

The old woman's face turned pale. "N-nothing. Datou, what are you doing here?"

"The Immortal Lady said before that I should keep an eye on your house, said you’re getting forgetful and might lose things again. It's rare to see a newcomer in your yard, hehe." Datou seemed not quite right in the head, speaking very slowly, with a bit of drool now and then.

Granny Wang gritted her teeth and muttered low, "Such sin... May I be reborn as a beast in the next life..."

The simpleminded man didn’t really seem to understand, only kept grinning foolishly at the door, even pulling some peanuts from his pocket to gnaw on. Granny Wang yanked Ye Yin back and slammed the door shut.

"Who is the Immortal Lady?" Ye Yin seized on the key point in the man's words and cautiously asked Granny Wang.

Granny Wang acted as if she hadn’t heard and went straight back into the house.

Night fell quickly in the small town. There was no electricity here; the entire town was shrouded in darkness, not even a flicker of candlelight anywhere. Ye Yin made a paper talisman dummy to lie in her bed in her stead, then transformed herself into a crow, beating her wings as she soared into the night.

After circling once above the town, Ye Yin finally realized what was off: the town was far too quiet—unnaturally so.

She hesitated, then flapped over to perch on the windowsill of the director’s house, craning her head to look inside.

She regretted it instantly. The sight made her tail feathers bristle: there was no one alive in the house, only corpses strewn about in grotesque disarray!

The director himself had blood streaming from his seven orifices, his face ashen blue; he looked to have been dead for quite some time. His wife beside him was missing half her head, her brain like a walnut exposed under the moonlight. Their son was trussed up and hanging from the ceiling, his tongue lolling, eyeballs bulging halfway out of their sockets. The youngest daughter, only five or six, lay face-down on the dinner table, pools of yellow-black corpse fluid spreading around her; if one were to lift her head, the skin would surely tear away, stuck to the tabletop.

Suppressing her revulsion, Ye Yin checked house after house; every resident on the street, without exception, had died violently at home. The manner of death varied, but there was one constant: every corpse was gruesome, not one a natural death.

She realized then that she’d been deceived by some sort of illusion during the day—whatever had greeted her was no human. Thankfully, she currently lacked the ability to open her spiritual eye, or she’d have lost her appetite for days after seeing those faces.

Ye Yin finally returned to Granny Wang’s house and discovered her fate as well: she’d hanged herself in the kitchen.

Because Granny Wang was short, the rope suspending her was especially long. Whenever a breeze blew, her body would swing back and forth like a pendulum. For some reason, that solitary, aged silhouette tugged at Ye Yin’s heart, filling her with a sharp sorrow. Gently, she spat out a fireball and burned through the rope; Granny Wang’s body drifted softly to the ground like an old cat falling from a height.

Ye Yin recited a spell, and the body floated onto the nearby old bed. From a basket rose a handkerchief, which landed precisely over her face, covering her peaceful features.

"When all this is over, I’ll see to your cremation," Ye Yin murmured, folding her wings in prayer, then flew back to her room to sleep.

When the sun rose the next morning, the town seemed to return to its peaceful calm. Granny Wang was clucking for chickens in the courtyard, the young man at the door still propped against the wall munching peanuts, and the sound of a child’s cry drifted from the neighbor’s house, with a woman’s voice softly soothing them.

Ye Yin wanted to help, but Granny Wang refused her assistance; the man outside wouldn’t let her leave. In the end, she could only squat at the gate gnawing on an ear of corn, her eyes darting everywhere. She had no idea how much of what she was seeing and hearing was real and how much was false.

Piecing together all the clues, it was obvious: Granny Camellia had set up the infamous Corpse Chain Array, beloved of the more sinister sects in the cultivation world. The array was constructed from the corpses of those who died violent deaths, augmented with evil spells, demonic blood, and ghost talismans. The more living flesh and blood it devoured, the more bizarre and indestructible the array became. If Ye Yin wanted to defeat her, she had to find Granny Camellia’s true body among the myriad corpses and annihilate it in a single blow.

But finding the true body was no easy task. Even in a small town, there were thousands of people; identifying the sole living soul among all those dead in a short time was nearly impossible. Furthermore, Granny Camellia was a master of body-snatching—if threatened, her soul could instantly transfer to another corpse. Within the array, if an attacker struck a body without a living soul, all the force would rebound back upon them.

When Qiao Xinran had defeated Granny Camellia before, it was mostly luck. She miscalculated the distance when casting lightning; everyone thought she was aiming for someone else, but by accident, she struck Granny Camellia’s real body. After Granny Camellia possessed a supporting character, the protagonist performed another miracle: her hand slipped and she blasted that body as well...

Body-snatching was a perilous process; after forcibly taking over someone else’s body, all faculties and coordination would be greatly diminished, and cultivated power would be halved or worse. That was the only reason the heroine’s accidental strike succeeded. In the original story, Granny Camellia had to have died with regret—had she known, she’d have rather faced the gods themselves than have such a teammate!

Ye Yin hadn’t even finished her corn when the director arrived with several others to fetch her.

"Brother, the mayor wants to see you. Come with me," said the director.

Ye Yin readily agreed. She stood, dusted off the corn crumbs, and was about to leave when Granny Wang clung tightly to her sleeve, eyes full of pleading as she looked at the director. "Didn’t the mayor only summon people every few days before?"

"Well..." The director hesitated. "It’s not up to us."

"Don’t worry, Granny," Ye Yin replied with a simple smile. "I can work. The mayor will surely put me to good use."

Granny Wang’s eyes reddened, and she turned back into the house.

Along the way, the group walked in silence, only the occasional strange clinking of metal breaking the stillness. Suddenly, a knife slipped out from the director’s pant leg, giving Ye Yin a fright—good heavens, wasn’t he worried about slicing himself in the wrong place?

"Don’t be scared," the director explained, picking up the knife. "Just brought it along after slaughtering pigs today."

"Oh."

The others exchanged glances, flashing eerie smiles before lowering their heads again.

After a long walk, traversing most of the town, they finally arrived at an extremely dilapidated building, said to be the mayor’s office. It had bright red iron doors, glass windows, and low whitewashed walls, spray-painted with crooked slogans: "Boys and girls are equally good," "Demolish by law," "With Golden Fertilizer, wheat yields 1,800 per acre," and so on.

Ye Yin was busy admiring the slogans on the wall when the director suddenly shoved her inside and locked the door.

She pounded desperately. "Open up, director! Open the door!"

No answer. Silence all around.

Ye Yin transformed into a tiny insect and slipped through a crack in the window, trailing after those who had deceived her.

"Did more people arrive today?"

"Yep, found by Lao Wu’s group—five in total."

"Bah, they got the upper hand again this time."

"No worries, ours has more meat."

On another street, a banquet was being prepared as usual: several families combining tables for a feast, five young men and women sitting at the head, faces cold and indifferent.

"Eat, children. You must be starving out there," a kindly aunt urged them, her face full of warmth. "We’re all parents here; can’t bear to see you suffer away from home."

"I’m not hungry," one young woman replied icily.

The aunt was momentarily taken aback, then tried to persuade the other young men. "Come, have some wine. It’s spicy and warming!"

"Who knows what you’ve put in that wine," a crew-cut young man sneered. "Drop the act."

Despite their rudeness, the townsfolk didn’t mind, continuing their enthusiastic hospitality. Ye Yin could have wept—had she known these were all masochists, she’d never have bothered being so polite!

Whenever outsiders arrived, the townspeople would swarm around, layer upon layer. Ye Yin seized the chance to memorize every face for her next move.

But suddenly, she noticed something: Where was Granny Wang?

Ye Yin flew to Granny Wang’s house and found her emerging from the cellar with a basket of empty dishes. After looking cautiously around, Granny Wang shut the cellar door tightly and went to the kitchen to wash up.

Ye Yin tried to approach the cellar, but a formidable barrier sent her reeling, leaving her wings numb for ages.

What on earth was hidden down there? Why the barrier?

Unable to answer these questions, Ye Yin shook her head and put them aside for now, hurrying back to the street.

At the banquet, food and drink remained untouched. The smiles on the townspeople’s faces resembled flowers left out overnight—though not yet withered, they were starting to wilt.

"Well then, if you don’t want to eat, never mind," a teacherly figure tried to smooth things over. "Let’s decide on accommodations. Would you like to stay at my place? It’s clean and spacious!"

"Stay with me, my home is better."

A new round of host-claiming began, and Ye Yin started to see the pattern: Why did it look so much like a rural scramble over piglets for contract breeding? Could it be that her body was so plump that it didn’t need fattening—just ready for the slaughter?

Suddenly, the crew-cut youth slammed a hand on the table. "You fiends! How dare you bewitch and harm your own kind in broad daylight! See if I don’t burn you all to ashes!"

The others shot to their feet. "We are all outstanding disciples of the Lightcloud Sect, come to vanquish monsters and subdue demons! Reveal your ringleader at once!"

Ye Yin almost spat out a mouthful of moth blood.

No wonder these people seemed so out of place—they were all Taoist priests under Master Floating Cloud! Not good—how did they know something was wrong here? Could it be...

Ye Yin tensed with alarm. If news had leaked from Zhuo Chenglan’s side, what was happening at the farm now? Had the Lightcloud Sect seized it? Without her, could Jiang Wen and Huahua hold out?

Author’s note: Don’t worry—the quest rewards won’t be snatched by the original heroine~ No more spoilers!