Surrounding villages are numerous, all dwelling in simple thatched cottages and straw huts.
In the villages, every household worships the 'Reed Law Goddess,' offering prayers three times a day as a rule, and each month they must take rice, hunted game, and cloth to exchange for 'incense' and talisman water at the temple.
Most here are mortals, with many a sallow and emaciated figure, hardly clad, as if the mundane towns of the East Continent had suffered a disaster year, and no Immortal had managed to provide shelter in time.
Li Ping'an suddenly understood why it is said that being born under the main Heaven and Earth is a mortal's blessing.
Li Ping'an concealed his form and walked among the villages, without actively invoking the Path of Sentient Beings, yet it brought to him the voices of sentient hearts.
Throughout there were wails of living creatures, but also some laughter.
