Nanwu Mountain, mist-shrouded lake.
Recurring waves rolled up from the deep waters, and above them, unmoveable, were Nanwu Mountain’s fierce evil spirits, exuding pressures so intense one could term them equals to Nascent Soul cultivators. The fight more or less took a toll on all involved, but this also made the cultivators who had ventured close face a significant setback.
The expressions of the Su family’s people were rather unsightly.
Nearby, a number of fierce evil spirits bore the Su family’s crest. With a single glance, they recognized them as the elders who had entered Nanwu Mountain half a month ago and lost contact. Now, the elders had grayed faces, unnatural postures, bereft of consciousness. It seemed as though they had already been exiled here as fierce evil spirits and wandering ghosts.
“Young Master…” A Su family cultivator spoke.
Su Yi controlled a spiritual tool in his hand, concealing everyone’s breaths to the farthest extent possible, “They can’t be saved.”
At this point they had essentially lost their minds, dead.
After some observation, there was no doubt that this misty lake was the most important matter along the Nanwu Mountain misty river’s reaches. The cultivators half a month prior must have come to this crucial location, then, were ambushed by the fierce evil spirits here, ultimately losing their minds too and becoming new fierce evil spirits. It’s highly likely this land isn’t the resting place of a great master like what they had expected. Rather, with so many fierce evil spirits present at this misty lake, there was certain to be something of even more importance at the lakebed.
Su Yi’s expression remained unchanged. With a hint of resolve in his eyes, he calmly watched the grand and evenly matched battle in the distance.
The strange phenomena within Nanwu Mountain, as divined by the Cangxue Sect’s astrologer, may not refer to the passing of a figure in meditation, but something more special.
“Fortunately, Su-shixiong responded swiftly, allowing us to use this misty river as cover for our bodies.” A Lihuo Sect cultivator bowed and said, “Those fierce evil spirits battling right now are evenly matched, they’ll inevitably get worn out. By then, we can reap the profits.”1A literal translation would be ‘fishermen who reap the spoils.’ A reference to a common Chinese idiom ‘when the snipe and clam grapple, it’s the fisherman who stands to benefit.’ meaning it’s a third party that often benefits from disputes.
“Let’s wait for those fierce evil spirits to finish.”
“If they continue to fight like this, they’ll surely exhaust themselves. Then, we can enter the lake to investigate.”
“This place at the river’s end has something, something that can make this bunch of fierce evil spirits fight so heatedly.”
At this moment, a splash sounded from the water, falling from high above. It seemed to startle the fierce evil spirits wandering on the misty lake, and alerted the cultivators as well.
Seeing movement from the Nascent Soul fierce evil spirits around them, one cultivator said, “Su-shixiong, it appears something fell down.”
Something had fallen down from upstream of the misty river, and it happened to land on the shore where the cultivators were. They were originally hiding their bodies using the rapid falls. After that thing fell down, they smelled a kind of nauseating scent mixed with blood, like a very thick fishy smell. As soon as they approached, they saw a terrifying living corpse.
The Lihuo Sect’s cultivators backed away several paces and hurriedly covered their faces.
“What is that? There’s so much blood.”
“This should be a refined living corpse…” Su Yi neared and pushed the living corpse away with a somewhat surprised expression. The living corpse seemed to have been dead for a long time, dry and withered, but the blood on the living corpse was a fresh crimson.
No, there’s something wrong with this blood…He abruptly shouted, “Everyone stay away from that creature!”
The cultivators rushed to step back hearing this, and at the same time, a rippling roar came from far away. The Su family cultivators looked to the side and found that the fierce evil spirits, previously engaged in battle with one another, were now heading straight towards them.
As though they had locked onto them, they charged right at them with full force.
Su Yi was gazing sideways, into the distance, but he raised his head to peer higher. What’s up there…? He looked up in haste, and amidst the gradually clearing mist, he seemed to catch sight of a bloody figure, standing on the misty river’s banks high above the lake. He was just about to see who it was when he heard cries from the other cultivators.
“They found us!”
“What’s going on!?”
“Weren’t we well hidden!”
Su Yi swiftly turned his head back. When the evil spirits and fierce evil spirits locked in endless battle noticed the living corpse, the surrounding yin qi seemed to boil under their will. The increasingly powerful yin qi rolled outwards, and cultivators with low cultivations instantly began to bleed from their seven orifices.
“Retreat! Quick!” someone shouted.
After the living corpse fell, the fierce evil spirits above the lake swarmed it.
The cultivators’ already challenging situation turned more dire. The spiritual weapons and secret treasures they used to defend also began to crack one after another. More cultivators retreated due to lack of spiritual energy.
Su Yi immediately swept the living corpse into the lake and took the cultivators back a few steps. He saw that after the living dead fell into the lake, all the fierce evil spirits rushed towards it. The scene was terribly disconcerting, quick and violent like starved wolves pouncing on food.
What is that living corpse!?
“First came a large group of Nascent Soul fierce evil spirits, now there’s a strange living corpse.”
“Didn’t you of the Lihuo Sect say this place is a land of rest!”
“But such a strange mist-shrouded formation lay here. What is hidden in here…”
Since the spiritual veins of the eastern realm’s cultivation world declined a thousand years ago, secret realms and cave dwellings had almost become the only means for them to advance their cultivation. The one mountain, four sects and eight great families had taken various minor secret realms scattered throughout the eastern realm’s cultivation world under their control. They use the spiritual energy and spiritual veins left by great masters to guide the cultivators of the world and uphold the current world lacking in spiritual energy.
For a minor secret realm like Nanwu Mountain, judging by the Lihuo Sect’s intel, the cultivation of the great master who passed away here wasn’t that high. But, there were also several elders from the Su family at Nascent Soul sitting on the outskirts.
No matter how dangerous this place is, it should not have been overly perilous.
However now this land wasn’t a place of rest, and all their means were nearly exhausted. Support from the outside had yet to arrive, and this place was becoming more and more dangerous.
“If it isn’t a land of rest, what kind of place is this Nanwu Mountain…”
“Have you not heard about the far north’s matter more than three-hundred years ago!”
When the far north was mentioned, the cultivators shrinking behind the protection of the spiritual weapons had varying expressions.
A younger cultivator asked, “What far north?”
“Discovered hundreds of years ago in the far north—the Far North Demonic Abyss. Back then, the cultivators who went to the far north suffered heavy casualties. In the end it was Tianlu Mountain’s founder who left the mountain and, together with powerful figures from several major sects, subjugated many fierce beasts in the Far North Demonic Abyss and saved the eastern realm’s northern periphery.” A cultivator explained with a pale face, “I heard that the Far North Demonic Abyss is also said to have been an ordinary secret realm at first, yet no one expected the creatures hidden within it would be so terrible.”
After hearing this, the cultivators’ faces were even uglier.
“The yin qi here isn’t at the level of the far north. At most, it reaches that of the outer edge of the demonic abyss.” Su Yi interrupted the panicked cultivator in a stern voice. He lifted his gaze and looked at the protective spiritual weapon at the fore. There were already a few cracks on the spiritual weapon. “If you have time to make alarmist remarks, you might as well reserve your strength to leave here. We should take advantage of these fierce evil spirits being attracted by the living corpse and leave to a safe area.”
The situation within Nanwu Mountain was different. It wasn’t an ordinary place of rest.
They had to leave this place first, communicate with the outside world, and then make a later judgment.
Suddenly, the fierce evil spirits that pounced at the living corpse abruptly became alerted to something. Their scarlet eyes turned to the shore the cultivators were on.
Su Yi was unnerved by their gazes. He turned around to see the ground where the living dead had been lying covered in blood. Those fierce evil spirits were looking at them.
The problem wasn’t the living corpse, but rather the blood on the living corpse. These fierce evil spirits had mistaken the blood as theirs!
Everyone’s face suddenly turned even more unsightly.
***
Above the waterfall flowing into the misty lake, Zhang Fugui watched the fierce evil spirits rush at the cultivators hiding down below, his heart almost leaping out his throat. He saw a cultivator about to go under. Could this be caused by the living corpse? Are those people okay?
Su Yu suddenly asked: “Are you kind-hearted?”
His voice was calm, as though seeing everything for what it was.
Zhang Fugui was stumped. When it comes to a doctor and kind-heartedness, there was no difference in being kind-hearted or not. But when he thought back on their past misfortunes, they had encountered so much because of these cultivators from great noble families. If it weren’t for the Daoist Master, he might have died in the Tomb of the Living, “I may be kind-hearted, but not foolishly kind.”2愚善 ‘foolish kindness’ roughly means being ignorant and unable to distinguish who is worthy of kindness, potentially aiding those with evil intentions with or without receiving something in return.
Foolishly kind? Su Yu tilted his head a bit, as though trying to understand something.
After a while, he said, “They won’t die.”
How won’t they…? Zhang Fugui looked down after hearing this and saw the cultivators from great families sacrificing spiritual and dharmic weapons one after another, stacking up layers of defense and fending off the fierce evil spirits’ attacks desperately. Seeing the dazzling array of spiritual weapons, he belatedly realized, those were cultivators, and not all cultivators of great families have a multitude of spiritual weapons on hand…
Thinking such, he looked at the young Daoist Master leaning on the Misty River’s banks for rest.
“Daoist Master, don’t you have earth-shattering dharmic weapons like those?” Zhang Fugui asked curiously.
After his question followed a silence.
Zhang Fugui reacted, what standing did he have! He dared to ask the Daoist Master about dharmic weapons, “No, I don’t mean that, I just saw you unarmed…”
“No.” Su Yu replied: “I don’t have anything like that.”
A cultivator without spiritual or dharmic weapons? Zhang Fugui was stunned. He recalled his life and death journey with the Daoist Master, and it seemed like the Daoist Master never mentioned nor used anything of the sort. When he first met the Daoist Master…It seemed the Daoist Master had fallen into Nanwu Mountain.
As his thoughts ran wild, Zhang Fugui hastily shook his head and spotted some blood still on the Daoist Master’s body. He was afraid the scent of the blood would be blown downstream, so he hurriedly blocked the downwind.
He saw a large number of wandering ghosts gather at the Misty River once more. Without the threat of the living corpse, those wandering ghosts watched them eagerly. Saliva dripped between their pointed teeth as they stared at the blood-covered Daoist Master.
If it were just these wandering ghosts, it would be fine. The key point was there being dozens of high-level fierce evil spirits in the deep pit below.
Zhang Fugui didn’t even dare look. Just a glance sent into a panic, limbs trembling. If the wandering ghosts and fierce evil spirits down below rushed up as a group, they could be torn to shreds in a single breath, leaving nothing behind.
As he thought to himself, suddenly, he saw the movements of fierce evil spirits down below slow down to the eye. They no longer attacked the cultivators below, but instead raised their gazes.
“Daoist…Daoist Master.” Zhang Fugui’s teeth chattered.
Su Yu tiredly lifted his gaze.
Those eyes, a terrifying scarlet, were clearly bloodshot at their rims. Zhang Fugui was so scared he couldn’t speak. Right after, he saw all the ghosts turn to stare upstream of the waterfall and rush to its upper reaches in a flash!
“Ah—” Zhang Fugui crouched down in fear. The next instant, the person beside him grabbed Zhang Fugui with one hand. Flustered, Zhang Fugui immediately stopped shouting.
Su Yu spoke in a displeased tone: “What are you yelling for?”
The numerous phantoms seemed to be dispersed by the voice of the one beside him. Zhang Fugui hurriedly grabbed Su Yu’s hand, his teeth jittering: “All the ghosts in the misty lake are coming here—”
“—all the powerful ghosts are charging up!”
“Where are they?” Su Yu questioned.
Zhang Fugui suddenly snapped to. The wandering ghosts that pounced on them didn’t tear them apart as he’d imagined. It looked as though they passed through them without causing any actual harm. He looked around dazed. The Daoist Master was still sitting, watching him with his gold-red eyes.
When he saw the youth’s eyes, Zhang Fugui immediately calmed down.
“If there were so many ghosts in the Misty River, do you think you could still survive till now?” Su Yu let go of Zhang Fugui’s hand and scanned around the Misty River. The originally thick mist and yin qi had nearly disappeared entirely after the living corpse was sent out, and a few scattered ghosts had already run away. He recalled the appearance of the living corpse from a bit earlier, as it roared madly, it had also seemed intent on driving wandering ghosts away. He looked down at the slow flow of yin qi below.
Zhang Fugui was confused and said, “The living corpse that was just killed…there are also dozens of high-level fierce evil spirits below…”
“How many did you say?” Su Yu was surprised.
“How many are there below?”
Zhang Fugui just remembered that Su Yu was blind, and hurriedly pointed to the bottom of the falls: “Dozens—all high-level fierce evil spirits.”
Su Yu gazed into the deep pit. From beginning to end, he only saw four or five living dead-like figures over the Misty River…What he could see was different from what Zhang Fugui did.
He stood with the help of the rocks on the banks. He stared at the misty lake below and asked in a deep voice: “Did you see it? The powerful ghosts fighting each other that the wandering ghosts spoke of.”
Zhang Fugui had nothing to say, he had never seen it.
All the rumors were hearsay, and he’d never seen any ghosts who had been to the depths of the Misty River and come back.
An illusion…This word inexplicably popped into Su Yu’s mind. Since they had left the Tomb of the Living and come to this Misty River unexplainably, they couldn’t get away no matter how they walked. It’s very likely that, from the start, or rather from when they entered this mountain cloaked in thick mist, they had long entered Nanwu Mountain’s trap.
Some things were true, some things were false.
The Misty River could lure people, and it could also lure ghosts.3蠱惑 means to seduce into wrongdoing. There were so many wandering ghosts and so many humans here. In truth, they were all the means of this misty-filled river occupying Nanwu Mountain’s depths, luring a large number of wandering ghosts and cultivators here. The bones and corpses at its riverbed were evidence of this.
The fierce evil spirits near this place were killing one another, and the cultivators who find themselves lost here are tempted to their deaths by desire.
Over time, Nanwu Mountain will be deep in such massive amounts of yin qi. The wandering ghosts and fierce evil spirits, tempted here by greed, are long gone. Only a few fierce evil spirits remain, while the rest were all illusions.
“Stay away from that mist.” Su Yu abruptly said.
Zhang Fugui hurriedly covered his nose.
The conversation between the human and ghost came to an abrupt end. The Misty River nearby was overflowing with ever-dense and endless mist.
The mist that permeated Nanwu Mountain’s entirety seemed to be shrouded in mystery at this moment.
Su Yu was a mess, and his physical strength didn’t seem to be as good as before. Even when standing his chest continued to heave. The yin qi in his dantian was nearly emptied when he dealt with the living corpse. The pain in his body was extremely dense, like an ulcer attached to bone, difficult to remove. Every breath felt like the bones all over him were breaking again, and his meridians also burst in multiple locations under the strong stimulation.
The eye totem dwelling in the deepest part of his dantian was sluggish, but its surface still spun steadily. The scattered yin qi in his body was mobilized by it, and once again condensed into creamy white yin qi. As the yin qi gathered, Su Yu felt like his broken bones and ruptured meridians seemed to be subtly nourished, slowly recovering.
Su Yu now fully grasped that the totem in his body was using yin qi to save him, so to say, autonomously preventing him from killing himself.
He lowered his eyes a bit, and from his perspective, he saw the end of the Misty River.
He couldn’t see the deep pit that Zhang Fugui mentioned, the only thing he could see in his sight was a huge lake-shaped white jade.4Same as the white yin qi previously described as ‘creamy’ mutton fat jade. This white jade was like a heavenly lake on earth. The yin qi accumulated to form it was purer than that of the Misty River’s upstream, and alongside drifting frost fog-like white qi, they resembled a fairyland.
‘Eat it.’
‘You may then live on.’
A bewitching voice emanated from his ocean of consciousness.
An illusion!? No…The voice seemed to come from the totem in his dantian.
Su Yu felt its hunger firsthand. Since he fell off the cliff to now, he had only felt throbbing pains in his body. But at this moment, the hunger from his dantian was on the verge of overwhelming the pain. The jade-white heavenly lake of yin qi before him was brimming with temptation, and he was almost unable to control his body.
“Daoist Master!” Zhang Fugui suddenly shouted.
Su Yu recovered his senses and noticed that his feet were almost half in the air, having nearly entered the Misty River’s deep waters like the living corpse.
“Is there someone down there?” Zhang Fugui pointed in a direction, “I just saw something move in the lake, is that false too?”
A mixed black and white qi ball appeared amid the messy white yin qi in his vision. The mass of qi was solid and definite, very obvious within the misty lake.
—Akin to the qi of the ‘living corpse.’
Su Yu spoke coldly: “I held back. That thing isn’t dead yet.”
***
Within Nanwu Mountain, corpses were strewn about the Tomb of the Living, and a few talismans steadily levitated as a figure clad in red chanted the Pure Land Rebirth dharani.5往生咒 – Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Dharani.
While gazing at the disorderly terrain around him, a swordsman swept the remains around the Tomb of the Living into the dharani’s formation. When they arrived, the states of the living dead here had already weakened, as though they had experienced something. Their movements had been slow, and their appetite for humans feeble.
“I don’t know who saved us some time by cleaning up this living tomb and gathering up the living dead here, but what era still had evil cultivators building living tombs?” Jiang Xingfeng finished reciting the dharani of rebirth and saw the tomb owner’s tombstone split into pieces by a sword technique: “You’re too cruel.”
“This part’s even broken off. Gu Qi, your sword art isn’t as good as before.”
Jiang Xingfeng then said in surprise: “No, this isn’t the result of a sword technique.”
Upon hearing this, the swordsman, Gu Qi, tilted his head and gazed at the tombstone on the ground he had already split into pieces. One corner of it was very out of place: “…This was broken off.”
Broken!? Jiang Xingfeng was shocked and said: “This is an evil cultivator’s spirit-gathering tablet, with eighteen path prohibitions. What kind of hand strength can just break this thing?”
The swordsman lowered his eyes to look at the bloodstains left on the tombstone’s edge. He then raised his gaze and peered into the east of Nanwu Mountain, speaking with a calm voice: “An evil spirit.”6邪物 – Like in the prologue, an evil thing that causes disasters
In the distance, yin qi surged, as though heralding a storm.
The sword wrapped in cloth on the swordsman’s back vibrated faintly, as if sensing something.
“Over there.”
Author’s Postscript:
Young Comrade Zhang (cowering, scared, helpless)
Yu-ge: Hungry (wants to eat)
The other cultivators: Ahhh! What the hell!
Gu Qi: (set off three chapters ago, still on the way)
