When the black and white ball of qi in his vision approached him, Su Yu instinctively rolled to the side and avoided another frontal attack. After taking a moment to recompose himself, he saw the ‘person’ nearby snap their head around and gaze at him once more.
After rolling down further, Zhang Fugui got a clearer view and watched as this ‘person’ stood up. Half their body was disfigured, eaten away at by the insects piece by piece, yet they still retained a human’s looks and form. He had resided in Nanwu Mountain for a number of years now, and though he had heard that the stronger the ghost, the more human-like, he had never been told of a powerful ghost like the one before him. It was neither human nor ghost, more like a rotted living corpse.
The sole feature one could actually make out on the living corpse’s face was its eyes, and right now, those eyes were staring at Su Yu.
Its body turned around in line with its gaze, pouncing past Su Yu again.
The hillside was in shambles, covered in upturned withered trees and pits. Just as Su Yu began to run, he stepped into a hollow soon after, the uneven terrain making it more difficult for him to pull away. He could only see these bizarre ‘qi,’ not the trees and pits around him. However, the ‘person’ behind him wasn’t slowed down. They jumped in front of Su Yu, keeping to the ground like a beast, and sniffed him.
Su Yu could distinctly feel this creature’s weight press down on him. The other used one hand to clamp down on his left, to the point where he couldn’t exert any force.
The mottled impurities of the creature before him became more detailed. Scattered inky specks were littered around it, but as if by some inexplicable guidance, a dark channel had formed from their flow through its body. Starting from its lower abdomen, it climbed and winded through its body like a human’s meridians.
Is it moving these inky spots? The inky specks kept on shifting. Su Yu couldn’t help but look at their course, watching them gather and disperse, ultimately condensing in the other’s hands.
At that moment, the figure in his view leaned over, and he felt something sticky lick his skin. Su Yu tensed up at the touch. He intently felt the other lick across his neck and continue upwards.
Feeling a sort of bite, a sense of crisis emerged from within Su Yu’s ocean of consciousness. The totem in his dantian lit up brilliantly, and he spat out a mouthful of blood. The yin qi entrenched in his body gave a short burst, immediately knocking the crouched living corpse a ways away.
Zhang Fugui took note of the situation and seized the opportunity to run in. He picked up the youth, placed him on his back, and dashed away.
“Daoist Master, that living corpse was sucking your blood.” Zhang Fugui felt cold all over, the sweet and fishy aroma drifting to his nose was becoming thicker. “It wants to suck you dry.”
Su Yu actually felt more comfortable after spitting out a mouthful of blood. He looked back amidst the bumpy ride.
A living corpse? Interested in his blood?
“You’re not interested?”
Zhang Fugui was stunned by this question. He really did find the Daoist Master’s blood very attractive, but it obviously shouldn’t be this way. When the Daoist Master first fell from the cliff, his desire for fresh mortal flesh far exceeded reason, which was why he chose to cooperate with the other wandering ghosts to eat a human…But now, though the aroma was fragrant, he no longer had the heart to devour a human.
When did it start…? It seemed to have started when the Daoist Master chained him.
Zhang Fugui was chilled. It suddenly dawned on him that it wasn’t that he had no interest, but that he didn’t dare disobey.
The living corpse didn’t immediately react when blood sprayed onto its face. It touched the blood and lapped it. It appeared as though it had affirmed something, and the look in its eyes as it gazed at Su Yu turned more crazed.
“Here it comes.” Su Yu spoke up.
Zhang Fugui snapped out of his thoughts and turned his head to see the living corpse charging at him again.
Su Yu controlled the yin qi in his body to cover his arms and resisted the living corpse as it pounced on him. However a pressure he’d never felt before weighed down on his hands. The next moment, the living corpse’s teeth broke through the yin qi barrier and bit into Su Yu’s skin. Blood immediately gushed out.
In that vital moment, Su Yu’s mind blanked. He tried his best to throw away the living corpse on his hand weighing a thousand jin, and shouted sternly: “Run!”1One jin is about 500g.
“!!!” Zhang Fugui: “Daoist Master, how can I possibly outrun it!”
The living corpse landed flexibly. It stopped in place and licked the blood at the tips of its teeth. Afraid that the blood would drop to the ground, it also licked up the blood that had splattered onto its body clean. The black insects on its body were so excited they wriggled animatedly.
Found it.
The living corpse thought in a trance.
***
Outside Nanwu Mountain, the chill winds grew increasingly ferocious. The injured rogue cultivators retreated from the mountain pass one by one, their bodies messy and wounded. Strange caws sounded from the withered woods, undulating as if mixed with the cries of cultivators.
The seal on the great master’s resting place was a secondary concern. At most, there would be untamed spiritual beasts or wandering ghosts in the mountain, and no matter which, there would be countermeasures left behind by the great master to protect his abode.
But in the words of the cultivators hurrying out, no mentions were made about spiritual beasts or protective formations. The most talked about aspect were the wandering ghosts.
There were quite a few wandering ghosts running out from nearby in the first place, why were there so many within the mountain!
“What’s going on!?”
“There are many ghosts within Nanwu Mountain. There’s no end to killing them.”
“It’s just an ordinary mountaintop, and there aren’t that many people in the nearby towns. How can the violent ghosts here be unending!?”
The rogue cultivators, who originally wished to go against the Su family and explore the inside, stopped one after another. They looked towards the Su family and Lihuo Sect.
The elders of the Su family and the Lihuo Sect stayed in place, appearing rather disdainful of the rogue cultivators’ futile behavior.
These ignorant cultivators, they truly thought that the hidden treasures within a mighty figure’s place of rest were so easy to get?
The Su family’s elder held a spiritual weapon in his hand, stirring up Nanwu Mountain’s yin qi. First, it gave the Su family an outward excuse to close the mountain and take control. Second, it caught up those ignorant cultivators and made them doubt Nanwu Mountain’s fierce evil spirits for their Su family.
Half a month ago, the Su family failed to explore the mountain’s interior. If they were to really allow the young master and his group to enter alone, there would still be potential dangers.
However throwing in a pack of cultivators was different. Good bait could clear many obstacles for them…The living tomb was just one of them. The Su family’s cultivators wouldn’t fall into the living tomb. What was more worrying than the living tomb…were the strange things at the misty river’s banks.
How did the group of Su family cultivators die a month ago? They had no definite information for the moment.
“But Elder, don’t we need to inform the young master when we do such things?” A cultivator from the Su family whispered beside him, “The young master came to help us this time, but he doesn’t know what we’re doing outside…”
The Su family elder gave him a cold look, “What do you know? The young master has been in closed-door cultivation within the Cangxue Sect throughout the year, and he may not know all the happenings in the outside world. There are some things we needn’t tell the young master. We must simply pave his way.”
As he thought this, the Su family elder’s shrewd face was a touch surly. In addition to Nanwu Mountain’s issue, there was also the marriage contract incident in Tianyuan City.
In the past, the Gu family would always come out to explain the situation first…Like many years ago, when the Gu family’s young master left to travel and encountered serious danger, the outside world rumored that he had died, but the Gu family stepped up to explain the situation first.
Regarding the Gu family’s young master, when it comes to anything relating to him, the Gu family isn’t the least bit careless.
Yet this was the first time the Gu family had ever been indifferent to such a thing. Now the whole of the eastern realm and south were waiting for the Su family to express their stance, rendering it hard for the Su family to make a call.
But could their Su family express their position?
Few in the Su family knew of the marriage contract, even their young master, who had stayed in the Cangxue Sect all year round, might not know such a secret.
That is because the one who formed a marriage contract with the Gu family’s young master…was not actually their young master, but that trash.
The Su family and the Gu family did in fact have a marriage contract. With the real marriage contract in hand, the Su family wouldn’t have been so worried. However, the marriage contract was destroyed half a month ago, and as for how it was destroyed, no one knew.
At the time, the Su family’s head and a group of highly respected elders came out of the ancestral hall with extremely displeased expressions. That trash was also locked up in the back mountain’s side house. They had thought this matter was under control. But who knows how the news leaked, now the whole city knew of it. Even the whereabouts of that trash were unknown, which made the family head furious.
The Su family elder gazed at the crowded Nanwu Mountain, his gaze firm.
Nanwu Mountain must be taken. Momentum must be built for their young master and the Su family. Only then may the winds within Tianyuan City shift.
The defensive formation transformed from the spiritual boat firmly guarded the seal at Nanwu Mountain’s passage, its swirling yin qi completely blocked.
The Su family elder frowned and spoke offhandedly, “I don’t know which mighty figure passed here. I’ve read all the south’s classics, yet I have never heard of a great master related to Nanwu Mountain.”
Once could say Nanwu Mountain was powerful, yet it was also not that powerful. Though, it was indeed the most bizarre place the Su family elder had seen in all his years, otherwise the Su family wouldn’t have lost so many cultivators within it half a month ago.
“Could the great ancestor that passed here in meditation have been an evil or ghost cultivator?” The Lihuo Sect’s elder thought. If such were the case, most of the hidden treasures left behind would be items related to their cultivation during their lifetime, utterly contrary to many orthodox arts and techniques today. The place where they passed would also be prone to the emergence of fierce evil spirits.
A voice sounded from the side, interrupting the conversation between the elders of the Lihuo Sect and Su family.
“This sort of seal isn’t an art or technique evil cultivators can use.”
The one who spoke was the white-haired old man reclining against the spiritual boat. He looked up and pointed out a couple things: “Nanwu Mountain’s seal uses an orthodox sealing technique, however its yin prospers and its yang declines. There’s no spiritual energy, whereas yin is overflowing…Rather, it seems like some great master used this seal to seal off something.”
After he said this, the Su family’s elder gazed at the old man seriously, “What do you think?”2Formal ‘you’
“What esteemed opinion could an old man like me have? At most, I’m simply a boatman.” The white-haired old man shrugged. He didn’t care about the southern families robbing a secret realm. If he was a powerful figure from a thousand years ago, who would later have his grave dug up after his passing for treasure, he would drag this bunch of disgraceful cultivators down even if he had to jump out the coffin.
The old man appeared tired and waved his hand to signify he’d mind his own business, “Regardless, those who dig graves will suffer retribution.”
The Lihuo Sect’s elder intended to say a few more words, and the Su family elder gave the old man a thoughtful glance. He was about to ask a few more questions.
Just then, a cultivator from the Su family in the distance ran over. In his hand, a voice transmission talisman had half burned out, and the cultivator’s face looked bleak—
“There’s bad news Elder, the connection with the young master and the others has been cut off!”
The expressions of the Lihuo Sect and Su family’s elders changed drastically.
“Is this not retribution? Everyone should accumulate virtue in response…” The old man was midway through his words as a few strange lights appeared in his cloudy eyes. He abruptly looked upwards. A sudden sword aura leaped down from far away, crossing a corner of the seal no one took note of, entering Nanwu Mountain.
A sword cultivator! Who’s arrived?
The sword qi passed through the heavy mist, broke through the seal, and slammed into Nanwu Mountain’s fissure.
As the sword qi dispersed, two figures appeared in the withered forest raging with yin qi. A man in flamboyant red swept the dust off his shoulders. He looked to the east in displeasure, then paused briefly: “I was wondering why the outer entrance was tightly sealed off. The yin qi here’s too strong. The southern cultivators didn’t take action earlier to seal it off…The situation within Nanwu Mountain isn’t simple. It’s almost as bad as the far north’s outskirts.”
If it were a normal case of strong yin and weak yang, it wouldn’t lead to a large-scale battle.
But the yin qi in this land was so potent that it bred fierce evil spirits. With time, this land would ultimately turn into a land of fierce evil spirits.
“Gu Zi…Gu Qi! Are you listening to me?” The red-clad man chattered on for a while without a response. He impatiently turned to the other side of a withered tree.
A swordsman stood dozens of steps away. The seal-covered sword on his back vibrated ever so slightly.
At that moment, he stood beside the withered tree. The chill winds that swept through the forest instantly paused upon reaching his vicinity. It was so quiet that only the rustling of the scorned earth and dead leaves remained. He leaned against the withered tree and closed his eyes in deep thought before crossing the raging winds and heading towards the mountain’s depths.
Then suddenly, the swordsman seemed to notice something.
He moved a bit and leaped a few paces forward.
“I’ve been calling you for so long, why don’t you respond? There must be fierce evil spirits passing by here, coupled with the unknown seal from ancient times, why don’t you pass the news on to Master—” Jiang Xingfeng talked on for a while but didn’t see the swordsman walk over. He found the other stopped beneath some tree. He was drawn by the swordsman’s actions before he finished speaking: “Gu Qi, what’s wrong?”
The swordsmen knelt down slightly. He pinched some coal black soil between his fingertips, brought it to his nose to smell, and then parted his lips: “Blood.”
Blood? Jiang Xingfeng, who had just walked over, heard this and quickly followed the other’s gaze. He then noticed that there were several strange marks on the ground around him. The hue of the rotten soil beneath those marks was indeed extremely dark, different from the dark brown rotten soil within the rest of Nanwu Mountain. It seemed like something had burned it.
The swordsman looked up and saw the marks extended to the edge of Nanwu Mountain’s mountain wall. He looked back down and took a closer look. He found there were lingering traces of blood on the damaged withered tree roots. It seemed like a person had been lying here not long ago.
“This…someone fell from above?” Jiang Xingfeng looked up at the tall cliff and pondered aloud: “So much blood…the burnt qi and blood is probably from a blood burning art, the ones common among talismanic arts.”
The swordsman picked up the soil, it had a particular smell.
Its scent was overshadowed by the blood’s smell. The swordsman wanted to investigate it more carefully, but he could no longer smell it.
The blood around them had been burnt dry, save for its fishy smell, the other scent was blown away by the winds.
The scorched earth’s burnt blood had formed pitch-black marks on the ground. But though there were so many marks, there wasn’t a cultivator in sight, nor any wandering ghosts. Taking another measured look, he found that the bloodthirsty withered trees of Nanwu Mountain hadn’t devoured the remaining bloodstains. Instead, the burnt marks dotted the scorched earth. The yin born spiritual grasses growing beside the withered trees were burnt to a crisp…none had survived.
As if all their vitality had been robbed within seconds.
Spirit-slaying talismanic arts had no life-robbing effects.
Jiang Xingfeng, scanning the surroundings, saw this. He raised his hand and pressed on his shoulder, “Many cultivators have come to Nanwu Mountain. Among them, the ones adept at talismans and formations should be Tianyuan’s Su family.”
“This isn’t the Su family’s talisman.”
The swordsman let the soil drop between his fingertips and peered deep into the endless depths of Nanwu Mountain. There was a more chilling edge to his gaze: “Taking borrowed yin into the body and burning blood and qi.”
“This is someone cultivating an evil yin path.”
Author’s Postscript:
Gu Qi: Someone’s using evil techniques.
Hot Commodity Yu-ge:3香饽饽 (hot commodity) is a metaphor for a person or thing that’s popular, but literally means ‘fragrant cake.’ I don’t know, it just happens.
Young Zhang (nods along)
