Chapter 174
Chapter 174
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 174
>Chapter Title: South Heaven Gate
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“Master, is my disciple’s body to your liking?”
Looking at Li Huowang standing before him, Danyangzi’s eyes brimmed with utter hatred.
“It’s you! You treacherous disciple who betrays your master and forsakes your ancestors! This is all your doing!”
Danyangzi roared in fury as he struggled to his feet, sword in hand, charging straight at Li Huowang.
Yet as the two crossed paths, they passed right through each other’s bodies.
By the time Danyangzi turned back in stunned confusion, Li Huowang stood there with a faint smile on his face. “Please forgive me, Master—I forgot to mention that I’m just a hallucination now. You can’t kill me.”
Li Huowang then pointed toward the others around them. “Oh, and by the way, you can’t kill them either. They’re hallucinations too. They’ll follow you forever and always.”
As the terrified Danyangzi slowly turned in a circle, staring at the hallucinations surrounding him, those figures gradually closed in.
Those smiling faces now formed walls hemming him in tight, leaving him no escape, tormenting him at every moment.
“What in the world is this thing!!” Danyangzi swung his sword wildly at the air in all directions.
In the past, no matter what problem arose, Danyangzi had always solved it by robbing, swindling, or stealing.
It had always worked, handling nearly every issue. But now, the methods he’d relied on his whole life were utterly useless.
“Master, this is what it means to be heart elemental. Since you wanted this body so badly, enjoy it all to the fullest.”
With that, Li Huowang joined the laughter of the surrounding hallucinations, his voice dripping with the same contempt and disdain.
“Oh, and Master—be sure to share it all with the real me. Don’t keep the joy all to yourself, after all! Hahaha!”
Seeing Li Huowang’s smug little-man triumph, Danyangzi ground his teeth in jealous rage.
He hurled his longsword to the ground with venom. “You think you’ve won? Dream on! I won’t bother severing the Three Corpses anymore! Just wait and see how the real me will torment you!”
With a sharp “whoosh,” the laughter from all the hallucinations ceased in an instant as they turned to stare in unison.
Danyangzi raised his right hand and slapped himself hard across the face. “I’m not Danyangzi! I’m Li Huowang!”
In the next moment, everyone around him faded away, and a trace of confusion crept onto Danyangzi’s face. “Who am I?”
“I’m Danyangzi? No, I’m Li Huowang?”
“No, I’m not Li Huowang—I’m Danyangzi?”
“Get out! I’m not staying here to suffer!! I’m Danyangzi! I’m not Li Huowang!!”
“Get out! I’m Li Huowang! I’m not Danyangzi!!”
The one-armed young man’s body began to thrash about.
The crowd around him flickered in and out of existence, with the monk popping up now and then before vanishing again just as quickly.
As the one-armed youth writhed on the ground like a maggot, a swath of black clouds drifted in from the sky. Atop them sat Danyangzi, wrapped in immortal scarves, his body covered in grotesque flesh mutations.
He looked rather bedraggled now, missing many of his warped organs and with a dull sheen to his skin—as if escaping the Joy God had taken a great toll.
Danyangzi descended slowly, coming to a hover before the one-armed man. With a gentle beckon of his tentacle-covered hand, the youth floated up into the air.
“Which one are you?” Danyangzi suddenly asked.
The one-armed youth struggled desperately for a long while before gradually calming.
He opened his eyes again and looked calmly at Danyangzi before him. “I am Danyangzi. The Three Corpses have been severed.”
Hearing this, a satisfied expression spread across the face of the three-headed monster shrouded in black mist.
Its hideous, repulsive body pressed close and sucked hard at the one-armed youth’s face.
Something drifted out from the youth’s seven orifices and onto Danyangzi’s body.
The one-armed youth’s body grew rigid and died.
At that moment, Danyangzi burst into laughter. He could finally feel that final missing piece within him slot into place.
“This Daoist is finally going to become an immortal!! Hahaha!!” Danyangzi cackled maniacally as he spread his arms wide and plunged into a roiling black cloud overhead.
The higher he flew through the clouds, the more exhilarated Danyangzi became. In his seventy-four years trudging through the mortal world, he had never felt excitement like this.
Piercing through the clouds, Danyangzi pressed on relentlessly, soaring beyond the twinkling stars toward the heavens beyond.
As he passed through the starry expanse, Danyangzi glimpsed certain things—grotesque, terrifying monsters that defied description.
Grayish-white, slimy colossal bodies pierced through with ever-burning incense sticks, their bizarre forms freely expanding and contracting.
A golden bodhisattva nearly devoid of eyes extended quivering pink tentacles from the vague forefront of its body, as if drawing in something from all around.
Drawing near, he could even faintly hear the wishes of pilgrims in their hearts.
A formless mass of black cranes entwined together, emitting faint glimmers of light. Each struggle let out a hoarse wail.
And it wasn’t just these—Danyangzi spotted the Joy God too, along with the immortal families and the seniors who had once taught him about severing the Three Corpses. Immortal sashes of ethereal mist coiled around them all.
But as Danyangzi looked upon them now, his eyes filled with scorn. These fools had all failed to find the path to immortality, doomed to linger here in dazed stupor until the five decays of gods and men claimed them.
He was different. He was about to live as long as heaven and earth, ascending as a true immortal.
Quickening his pace, Danyangzi shot through the stars and finally arrived beside a jade plaque suspended in the midst of heaven and earth, shrouded in formless chaos.
The plaque seemed suspended by something in the utter darkness beyond, swaying up and down as those shapeless forms writhed and flowed forward.
Three large characters were inscribed upon the plaque. Danyangzi didn’t know many characters, but he could guess what they said: South Heaven Gate.
He might not recognize much else, but that last character for “gate” he knew well.
It looked exactly like a real gate.
Three characters, ending with “gate”—it had to be South Heaven Gate.
Monstrous horrors wandered and wailed around the plaque, seemingly desperate to enter.
“Scram! All of you, get lost! Don’t block this Daoist’s path to immortality!!”
Shoving away the other obstacles in disgust, the ecstatic Danyangzi claimed the entire front of the jade plaque for himself.
Peering through it, the eager Danyangzi caught another glimpse of hazy “immortals.”
Ethereal immortals, bodhisattvas, and arhats.
Unlike their previous motionless meditation, they now seemed to be joyfully sharing some feast—and nearly finished with it.
The view through the mist-shrouded plaque was murky and indistinct.
“What are they eating? Immortal peaches? Immortal pills?”
The thought of them feasting while he went hungry filled Danyangzi with urgency. He charged straight toward the plaque.
But just as he was about to pass through, Danyangzi felt his body slam into an invisible pane of hard glass, halting him abruptly.
“Let me through!! This Daoist has become an immortal! This Daoist is going to the immortal realm!!”
Danyangzi hovered there, shouting into the darkness.
From the chaotic blackness, Danyangzi saw the two headless, tailless giant serpents holding up the South Heaven Gate glance at him once before going still.
“I’ve severed the Three Corpses! This Daoist has become an immortal! I’m a true immortal now! What right do you have to keep me out!”
Danyangzi bellowed at the plaque, his voice thick with unwillingness.
At that moment, he suddenly realized he could read the three characters.
“Lü’s Gate”
(End of chapter)