Chapter 350
Chapter 350
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 351
Chapter Title: Chen Zhuangyuan's Insecurity
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Tong Qianshou was just about to toss out the universe pouch in his hand when Sang Xixi hadn't even had a chance to leave yet. The two of them stood there dumbfounded, staring at the scene.
Sang Xixi had already mentally prepared herself to return and report the death of the old sect leader Tong Qianshou, declare herself the next sect leader, and even envisioned a grand drama in her mind: her senior brothers and sisters vying for the sect leader position, her senior uncles and elders jumping in to stir trouble, and her tearfully sending them all to the afterlife with gunpowder.
Yet before she could even leave, the battle was already over.
Was the Golden List Top Scholar really that formidable?
They couldn't care less about who the Golden List Top Scholar was. Throughout history, top scholars had always been sons of noble and powerful families—who became top scholar had nothing to do with them.
They paid no mind to court affairs either.
All the Medicine King Sect had to do was scour everywhere for medicinal herbs, refine spiritual elixirs and wondrous pills, and pass down the legacy of their ancestors.
But this year's Top Scholar Chen seemed to take a rather unorthodox path.
Not only was his path unorthodox, his strength was extraordinarily high. Bi Chi was a high-bloodline ghost among ghosts, with astonishing power, yet he was slain by Chen Shi in a mere instant!
All the preparations the two of them had made beforehand, including sacrificing themselves with two hundred jin of gunpowder to perish together with Bi Chi, were completely unnecessary!
What shocked them even more was that the techniques Top Scholar Chen used to kill these ghost gods were absolutely not orthodox human methods.
They seemed more like the demonic arts from legends!
Because the corpses of the ghost gods that died by his hand were desiccated, like mummies, as if all their vitality had been drained away.
Such techniques were definitely not righteous!
Top Scholar Chen didn't look like a good person at all!
However, using them to save people seemed somewhat justifiable.
"Did he really awaken the Medicine King's lingering spirit?" Tong Qianshou wondered to himself.
In the past year or so, when disciples of the Medicine King Sect paid homage to the Medicine King, they always sensed a mysterious force responding to them, but they couldn't trace its source. The Medicine King was the founding ancestor of their lineage—if Chen Shi was truly the one who awakened the ancestor's lingering spirit, no reward would be too great.
That was also why Tong Qianshou had planned to help at the cost of his life earlier.
Even if Chen Shi cultivated demonic arts, he wouldn't care.
Chen Shi stood motionless in place.
His killing of Bi Chi had seemed reckless, but it was actually the result of precise calculations and arrangements. He first slew the ghost gods around Bi Chi at the fastest speed, absorbing their blood vitality to bolster his sword qi. Once the sword qi was at its peak, he mobilized a drop of divine blood, infusing its power into the sword qi to shatter Bi Chi's true ghost god body, succeeding in one strike!
But after Bi Chi was killed, the power in the sword qi began to flow back into his own body.
This was a characteristic of the Blood Lake True Scripture.
The Blood Lake True Scripture plundered and absorbed others' blood vitality, essence, soul, and spirit, bolstering the cultivator's own cultivation and strength, expanding the Blood Lake Hell. Thus, after killing, the plundered vitality would feedback to the cultivator. The soul of the slain would also be plundered and imprisoned in the Blood Lake Hell for conversion!
That drop of immense power was far too strong. Now carrying Bi Chi's blood vitality, it surged back, ready to fully empower him and the blood pool!
Fortunately, after Chen Shi killed Bi Chi and seized his divine soul, the blood pool transformed into a blood lake. With the Blood Lake Hell in operation, it swallowed the excess power like a whale gulping rainbows.
At the same time, the Blood Lake True Scripture repaired the cracks in his bones at an astonishing speed!
But the remaining power was still terrifying. Chen Shi's bones had just recovered when they emitted a series of crisp cracking sounds—new fissures appeared all over his skeleton!
Then the Blood Lake Hell operated, restoring his bones once more, only for another explosive crackle the next instant, with bone fragments even scattering!
Strangely, as these bone fragments flew out, blood vitality connected them, pulling them back to reform complete bones.
Suddenly, Chen Shi lifted his foot toward the birdcage on the ground. The moment his left foot rose, his left leg exploded, countless bone shards flying. By the time his body leaned forward, the shards flew back, reforming the leg bone.
Chen Shi raised his right foot, and his right leg burst with a crack, the scattered shards returning upon landing to form a complete right leg.
As he walked toward the birdcage, various parts of his body kept exploding and reforming, exploding again and reforming once more.
Each reformation made his skeletal frame more stable than before, equivalent to a thousand hammer strikes and a hundred refinements!
Even strands of divinity from the divine blood were being refined into the skeleton.
Not only that, under this overwhelming power, his primal spirit constantly developed cracks, only to heal again immediately!
With each injury and recovery, he felt his primal spirit grow more stable than before, especially his soul, which was continuously strengthened!
"Establishing the Blood Lake Hell and converting these malevolent ghost gods truly brings immense merit, greatly boosting my cultivation!"
Cherishing a benevolent heart, Chen Shi arrived at the birdcage. He gradually absorbed the power from the divine blood, the blood lake behind his head growing much larger, his cultivation now even more profound than before.
He opened the birdcage, and Peng Yan'er sobbed, "Brother Chen Shi, they took Brother Peng Ju away and forced him to hand over the Blood Lake True Scripture!"
Chen Shi questioned her carefully. It turned out that none of the ghost gods in Tianchi Kingdom knew how to read. Though they had many ancestral techniques, everyone was clueless, unable to cultivate and only able to advance through bloodline awakenings. After Peng Ju returned to the Eastern Palace, its inhabitants investigated the whereabouts of the ghost herder and traced it to him, discovering he knew the Blood Lake True Scripture, so they captured Peng Ju.
"Peng Ju doesn't know how to read either. I taught him the Blood Lake True Scripture. He didn't betray me—otherwise, Bi Chi would have come to drag me back to the Eastern Palace," Chen Shi thought.
He and Peng Ju had only met by chance, with little friendship between them. He taught the Blood Lake True Scripture to the siblings simply because Peng Ju seemed honest and Peng Yan'er adorable, nothing more.
"Since Peng Ju didn't betray me, I won't stand idly by!"
Chen Shi said to Peng Yan'er, "I'll go with you into the Eastern Palace to rescue your brother. Do you dare?"
"I dare!" Peng Yan'er replied crisply.
Chen Shi laughed. "Good! Then we'll head into the Eastern Palace!"
Tong Qianshou and Sang Xixi listened from the side for a moment and finally pieced together the whole story. Sang Xixi asked puzzledly, "How do you know Peng Ju is imprisoned in the Eastern Palace?"
Before Chen Shi could explain, Tong Qianshou spoke up. "None of the ghost gods here know how to read. Peng Ju knows cultivation methods—this is huge. If the Crown Prince learns the Blood Lake True Scripture, he can secretly bolster his strength and soon become the most powerful ghost god in Tianchi Kingdom. At that point, he won't just be Crown Prince; he'll be the ruler of Tianchi Kingdom. So Peng Ju can only be held in the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace. Would the Crown Prince feel secure imprisoning him elsewhere?"
Sang Xixi came to a sudden realization.
Chen Shi said to the two, "Sect Leader Tong, Deacon Sang, I still need to go to the Tianchi Kingdom capital to save someone. I can't accompany you to see your ancestor.
After you two return to the yang world, go to Xixiang County on Qianyang Mountain and find Magistrate Hu. He'll take you to Sha Qiutong, who will lead you to the Medicine King ancestral temple."
Tong Qianshou thanked him profusely.
Sang Xixi pulled him aside and said, "Are we really going back to see the ancestor without helping?"
Tong Qianshou replied, "Seeing the ancestor comes first. Our Medicine King Sect has declined over the years, losing most of the ancestor's legacy. Now we finally have a chance to revive the sect—how can we let it slip?"
Sang Xixi said, "Chen Zhuangyuan awakened our Medicine King Sect's ancestor and told us the location of the ancestral temple. How can we just watch them march to their deaths in the Eastern Palace? If they're going to save someone, the Medicine King Sect must help."
Tong Qianshou hesitated, then said, "Go back and tell the sect elders that you temporarily take the Medicine King Sect leader position. If I return alive, I'll resume as sect leader. If I don't return alive, you'll be the sect leader."
Sang Xixi laughed. "Sect Leader, you're so smooth with entrusting your legacy. You don't know Tianchi capital as well as I do. These two don't seem very clever, and you're pretty foolish yourself. Going there would be suicide."
Tong Qianshou was so angry he nearly dropped dead on the spot to spite her.
Sang Xixi continued, "So you go back to see the ancestor, and I'll help them. That way, we have some chance of success."
Tong Qianshou hesitated.
Sang Xixi grinned. "If you make me go back, someone in the Medicine King Sect will definitely fight me for the sect leader spot. I won't yield, and then I'll either poison them or use gunpowder to send my senior brothers and sisters on their way, and take out a few elder uncles and senior uncles while I'm at it. Once I've secured the sect leader position, if you return alive, I'll still have to send you off—such a hassle. Just go back yourself, and let me go with them."
Tong Qianshou knew she meant well and could only say, "Go with them and help rescue the man. If you return alive, I'll name you the next sect leader."
"Deal!"
The two hooked their pinky bones.
Tong Qianshou took out a stick of incense. Its smoke drifted into the air, seemingly drawn by something, vanishing suddenly as if entering another world.
Meanwhile, at the Medicine King Sect, the disciples guarding the spirit saw a wisp of incense smoke appear before the sect leader's coffin, drifting toward his corpse's nostrils. They hurriedly shouted, "The sect leader is returning! Quick, perform the soul-summoning ritual for him!"
The Medicine King Sect disciples immediately activated soul-summoning talismans, activating the incantations.
Beside Sang Xixi, before Tong Qianshou's incense had fully burned, his bones suddenly collapsed with a clatter. His primal spirit was pulled back to the yang world by the soul-summoning talisman.
Sang Xixi quickly caught up to Chen Shi and laughed. "You two, how do you plan to rescue him?"
Chen Shi said, "Infiltrate the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace, find Peng Ju, save him, and leave."
Sang Xixi couldn't help but chuckle. "If you go in like that, you'll definitely get beaten to death. There are indeed plenty of wandering cultivators and ghosts in Tianchi capital, but they all wear clothes. You need to prepare some clothes for yourself."
Peng Yan'er said, "I wove a set of clothes for Brother Chen Shi using my feathers, but the ghost gods tore them apart."
Sang Xixi shook her head. "That won't do. The Medicine King Sect has a foothold in Tianchi capital with some clothes inside. I can find you a set. But how do you infiltrate the Eastern Palace? As a skeleton cultivator, it's hard to sneak in. Even if you find Peng Ju and rescue him,
how do you escape? You can return to the yang world, but they can't."
Chen Shi asked for advice. "So, what should we do?"
Sang Xixi laughed. "The Medicine King Sect has some connections in Tianchi capital. Many ghost gods seek us out for medical treatment, and we earn money from both yin and yang realms. I can help you infiltrate the Eastern Palace. I can't help much with the rescue, but I can cover the retreat. The Medicine King Sect has gunpowder for that. But I only have two hundred jin here—I need a few days for more to be delivered from the sect—"
"How much?" Chen Shi interrupted her.
Sang Xixi looked at him in surprise. "You have gunpowder?"
Chen Shi smiled. "I was once an envoy for the Guangji Arsenal in Western Capital and skimmed a bit of weaponry. I stored it in my little temple for emergencies."
Sang Xixi said, "Take it out and let me see if it's enough."
With a slight mental stir, Chen Shi released the firearms hidden in his little temple.
Sang Xixi stared blankly at the mountain of projectiles, iron hedgehogs, general cannons, and packages of gunpowder piled before her!
Among them, the iron hedgehogs were the most striking, towering far above her height, enormously bulky!
More crucially, these weapons were inscribed with lightning-based talismans, even yin lightning talismans, making their explosive power even more terrifying!
Especially the yang lightning talismans—releasing heavenly thunder in a horde of yin-world ghost gods would make for a spectacular sight!
"Are you here to save someone, or to blow up the Eastern Palace?"
Sang Xixi murmured, "Carrying these around, aren't you afraid of blowing yourself up?"
Chen Shi looked somewhat embarrassed and explained, "I've been bullied since childhood, so I have a strong sense of insecurity. Only sleeping on cannonballs makes me feel safe."
Sang Xixi gave him a glance, deeply skeptical. But she then excitedly opened her own universe pouch, stuffing these treasures inside. Though the Medicine King Sect was adept at making gunpowder, they weren't proficient in firearms. Sang Xixi, as a deacon, often blew things up, but the power was always underwhelming.
Chen Shi's arsenal would let her have a field day.
Seeing her stuff his general cannon into the pouch, Chen Shi frowned. "You won't need this one, right?"
"I will!"
Sang Xixi's voice trembled. "Back at the Medicine King Sect, I'll mount it on the ancestral graves of past sect leaders. Let's see who dares to mess with me!"
Watching his dragon-head rocket get packed away too, Chen Shi coughed. "At least leave me one—never mind, take them all. The Luban Sect has already started producing these firearms."
Sang Xixi's eyes lit up. "Does the Luban Sect need a sect leader? Even sect leader's wife would do! I can betray the Medicine King Sect right now and join the Luban Sect!"
Chen Shi thought this woman was even more dangerous than him. "If she joins the Luban Sect, Sect Leader Situ would be blown to the heavens in days."
That cascade from the heavens was called the Heavenly Waterfall, its waters pouring into the various lakes of Tianchi.
Tianchi Kingdom's capital was built about a hundred li from the Heavenly Waterfall, right by the lake.
There were no city walls or gates here. Buildings were haphazard—any ghost god who fancied a spot could claim it, post a notice, and soon swarms of little night yakshas, ox-headed imps, and horse-faced imps would rush over, chattering negotiations with the ghost god before starting construction.
Different ghost gods had different habits, so their homes were bizarrely varied: towers, stone caves, underwater caverns.
Beyond Tianchi capital were villages and towns of all sizes, often built around remnants.
Those remnants were traces of prehistoric civilization: massive fragments of magical treasures, towering city walls, broken bridges, ancient roads, and sculptures of ghost gods.
Villages clustered around these, somewhat like the godmother culture in the yang world. Chen Shi couldn't help but wonder, "Does the yin world have evils too?"
He asked Peng Yan'er, who shook her head. "No evils. But every month, there's a Fog Moon. The Fog Moon is terrifying.
Wherever the fog covers, dead things come back to life."
Chen Shi said in surprise, "Does the yin world have a moon?"
He had visited the yin world many times and never seen a moon in the sky!
"Yes."
Peng Yan'er said,
"A moon appears once a month. Like the eyes of gloomweed, with pupils inside. When it appears, it spews thick fog bubbling out. The fog is tall and dense. Peng bird clan houses must be built above the fog, or we'll be eaten."
"The yin world's moon is also an eye?"
Chen Shi was even more astonished, gazing toward the sky beyond the yin world. Could there be a true god from beyond the heavens in the yin world too?
月初求月票！