Chapter 359
Chapter 359
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 360
Chapter Title: King Chen's Evil Transformation
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“Besides this matter, there’s one other thing.”
Chen Shi pondered for a moment before deciding to tell the truth. “When I broke through to the Body Fusion Realm, I sensed that I was undergoing evil transformation.”
Li Tianqing’s mind trembled slightly. “What happened?”
Chen Shi recounted his bet with Yang Bi. “The path I’m cultivating is the True King era’s cultivation path. It doesn’t have the Divine Embryo, Divine Descent, or Void Refining realms. It only retains the two realms of Tribulation Transcendence and Ascension. Yang Bi said I couldn’t avoid evil transformation, and indeed, when my primordial spirit and flesh fused, I detected it.”
Li Tianqing asked, “What did it feel like?”
Chen Shi hesitated for a moment. “The Body Fusion Realm requires three unions: the primordial spirit with the body, the body with heaven and earth, and the primordial spirit with heaven and earth. This is the so-called unity of heaven and man, allowing one to wield the power of heaven and earth. During my fusion, I sensed the righteous qi of heaven and earth connecting to me. But hidden within that righteous qi was evil qi, which entered my body alongside the unity of heaven and man. It’s quietly growing in my body, my primordial spirit, and my soul—like a seed sprouting and taking root.”
His tone grew strange. “I can feel something wriggling and growing in my soul, burrowing deep into it. The same sensation appeared in my primordial spirit, and even in these bones. It’s like I can sense fleshy buds wriggling in my bones—...”
Li Tianqing stared at his ear.
Chen Shi’s heart stirred. “What do you see?”
Li Tianqing said, “Something like a strand of hair is growing out of your ear canal. It’s softer and finer than normal hair, like it’s alive, probing the air.”
“Thud!”
Chen Shi cupped his head with both hands and lifted it off, probing inside the ear canal. Sure enough, he found the hair-like thing Li Tianqing had described.
With a gentle tug, a drilling pain assaulted him!
His skeletal body actually felt pain!
The pain came not only from the skeleton but also from his primordial spirit and soul.
This strand was rooted simultaneously in his primordial spirit and soul!
Chen Shi gritted his teeth and yanked harder. The hair didn’t snap; instead, a long section pulled out.
The pain nearly made him convulse—he wanted nothing more than to collapse and writhe on the ground!
He clenched his jaw and kept pulling, yanking out another section!
Chen Shi continued tugging. Soon, the ground was littered with tangled strands, yet more kept emerging endlessly from his ear canal, as if inexhaustible!
“Little Ten!”
Li Tianqing raised a hand to stop him, saying gravely, “Evil qi persists eternally between heaven and earth. Now that you’ve reached the Body Fusion Realm and connected yourself to the external world, for every strand you pull out, heaven and earth’s evil qi replenishes it! You’ll never pull it all!”
Chen Shi stopped. The hair-like strand actually retracted into his ear, leaving only a tiny tip poking out from the canal, cautiously testing for danger outside.
It wasn’t mere hair—it was alive, an eerie lifeform born from evil qi latching onto Chen Shi and feeding on him.
It was gradually developing, growing with Chen Shi’s cultivation, a symbiotic part of him.
Li Tianqing had never seen anything like this. After a long pause, he said, “Unless you cripple your Body Fusion Realm—but doing so would cripple the subsequent Three Corpses, Soul Refining, Void Return, and Great Vehicle realms as well.”
Chen Shi steadied his mind, plucked out the bone of his pinky finger, and stuffed it into his ear canal to plug the strand. “The True King abolished the Tribulation Transcendence and Ascension realms, adding the Divine Shrine, Divine Embryo, Divine Descent, and Void Refining realms. There must be a trick in those four realms to halt or delay evil transformation.
Otherwise, every cultivator breaking through to Body Fusion would face the same issue as me.”
Li Tianqing’s eyes lit up. “Exactly. If we can figure out the reason behind it, we might avoid evil transformation altogether. I’ll head back to the阳间 first and come find you when I break through. We might even discover a way to stop it!”
He left in high spirits.
Chen Shi tried activating the First New Talisman, using thunder to temper his body. Thunder was pure yang righteous qi, capable of refining away all evil qi.
He discovered the strand could indeed be refined, but it would grow back afterward.
He tried burning it with true fire. It burned away, but it grew back.
He tested various methods but couldn’t truly eradicate it.
Chen Shi even noticed the evil qi subtly influencing his thoughts, making him more violent and irritable!
He shuddered inwardly. “If this continues, will my consciousness still be my own? Are my thoughts truly mine?”
He grew melancholic and listless. The white-clothed immortal, however, remained as affectionate as ever, showing no distance despite his skeletal form.
Chen Shi lay on her lap. She leaned down, her waterfall of black hair cascading over her chest. From his angle, he could see her heart-stirring beauty. But after turning skeletal, his connection to the Lower Corpse God Peng had severed.
Chen Shi was now like a Buddha, empty of the four elements.
The white-clothed immortal gestured for him to turn sideways. He did, and she bent down to clean his ear canal.
His ear canal was now large enough for a finger to insert directly.
After two digs, Chen Shi suddenly felt her tug on that strange strand.
“No, don’t!”
Chen Shi cried out in alarm, starting to rise. But the white-clothed immortal yanked hard. Chen Shi felt his soul shake, as if something in it had been ripped out!
He steadied himself and looked. In her hand was the strange strand, rapidly withering into flying ash!
Chen Shi froze, hurriedly checking himself. He sensed that the strand of heaven-and-earth evil qi drawn into him during his communion with the world had been severed by some incomprehensible force!
He shouted in joy, leaping up and running laps around the hall in delight.
The white-clothed immortal watched him with a smile. Once he tired himself out like a playful pup, she gently patted her legs, inviting him to lie back down.
Chen Shi lay down, still thrilled.
His eerie strand of evil was gone!
This girl had somehow severed the link between heaven and earth’s evil qi and him!
He could sense that if he continued cultivating and advanced further, the evil qi would reconnect.
It was unavoidable in the Body Fusion Realm’s unity of heaven and man!
For the short term, though, he no longer needed to worry.
“I can cultivate the Blood Lake True Scripture first! Wait—...”
Chen Shi gazed at the beautiful girl now fiddling with his skull, thinking, “What method did she use to cut off heaven and earth’s evil qi from me?
Is she really the female juren who took the exam with me?”
He rolled upright, scrutinizing the girl. He parted her hair, his bony finger lifting her chin as he stared into her eyes. The white-clothed immortal blushed shyly, turning her head to avoid his gaze, then rolled her eyes at him warningly.
Chen Shi’s mind swayed, sensing a surge of power from the Lower Corpse God Peng. Just as he moved to probe her origins further, Inner Minister Sang Xixi burst in, laughing. “Your Majesty, there’s a girl outside claiming to be Wen Wuyu, requesting an audience.”
She saw the two and inwardly sighed at their handsome man and beautiful woman.
Even after seeing the white-clothed woman multiple times, Sang Xixi still marveled at her beauty, feeling she was the most stunning girl she’d ever laid eyes on—not of this world.
“No wonder people say scholars are lustful demons. For His Majesty to top the imperial exams, he must be the king of them. Even fallen to the underworld, he hides a beauty in his temple.” She thought this while curiously eyeing Chen Shi’s form.
She had yet to see his true appearance.
Chen Shi straightened up. “Wen Wuyu keeps her word. Invite her in.”
Sang Xixi coughed. “Your Majesty, your robes.”
“Troublesome.”
Chen Shi draped on his grand robe and picked up the crown from nearby.
Only then did Sang Xixi usher Wen Wuyu in.
Wen Wuyu wore a light blue straight long skirt embroidered with peacock tail feathers, black lapels accentuating her perfect figure.
She glided into the hall.
Her makeup was exquisite, with one long and one short pearl earring dangling by her ear—clearly, she had dressed up carefully for this meeting with Chen Shi.
But when her gaze fell on the white-clothed immortal, her heart couldn’t help pounding fiercely twice. “What a striking beauty!”
The white-clothed immortal, seeing a stranger, grew shy and darted into the small temple behind Chen Shi’s skull, vanishing.
Wen Wuyu glanced at the small temple behind Chen Shi’s head, only to see it slowly sink into the Blood Lake Hell, blocking her view.
Wen Wuyu found it odd and smiled. “Child Scholar, what’s that temple behind your head? It seems like a Divine Shrine, but it isn’t.”
Chen Shi smiled faintly and invited her to sit.
Wen Wuyu glanced at his throne and shook her head. “Sitting on the throne with you would make me your queen. I won’t. Child Scholar, this palace of yours is dull—it’s for your civil and military officials’ morning court. I’m no subject of yours. Why not stroll outside?”
Chen Shi rose, laughing. “Where are these civil and military officials? I’ve never held court once since becoming king!”
Wen Wuyu couldn’t help giggling. “Tianchi Kingdom is tribal co-governance. Tribal chiefs handle their own affairs—no need to bother the king. What the king can do is collect taxes from the tribes, make them pay up, and build his own power base. Or lead them to conquer other nations, seizing people and land.”
Chen Shi walked out of the palace with her, strolling casually onto the capital’s streets.
Many little yakshas were queuing up—Red Mountain Hall was opening a branch in the underworld and starting construction, so the little yakshas sought work.
Chen Shi glanced at Wen Wuyu and asked, “Did you really work in my Yuan Chen Palace for three years?”
“I lied!”
Wen Wuyu laughed. “I only worked a few days, but you really were so honest—you gave me most of your money.”
She shook her head with a smile, finding Chen Shi clever yet endearingly boyish in his naivety.
Chen Shi said, “I gave you the money to thank you for your guidance. I regretted it after taking back those paper notes. I thought you were after my innate dao embryo, so I was harsh. If you want it, I’ll give it back.”
Wen Wuyu walked ahead, turning back with a beaming smile. “What would I do with that stuff? I’m no ghost.”
Her smile was so sweet it felt like sunlight piercing the underworld’s canopy, shining right on her.
Chen Shi caught up. The two—one a grand skeletal figure draped in robes, the other a blooming maiden like a yellow flower—drew stares from ghosts and gods alike.
Wen Wuyu said, “Chen Shi, we’ve met many times now. This is one, the immortal was another, and there was New Township County too.”
Chen Shi’s heart stirred. “I don’t remember the New Township one.”
Wen Wuyu said, “I do. Back then, I followed my master to New Township. I was the disciple she selected from thousands of children for the best talent and comprehension—Despair Slope is strict about that. I was over eight but not yet nine. Master said a peerless genius had emerged from New Township County, granted an innate dao embryo by the true god, honored as Child Scholar, top of the fifty provinces. I was so curious about this Child Scholar.
When I met you, I realized you were just a snot-nosed kid like me.”
Recalling the past, she continued, “You were only nine then, but acted like a little adult, speaking with erudition. Uncles, aunties, elders—they all brought various techniques and spells to test you. You mastered them instantly. Your moves were breathtaking; you were amazing, earning praise from everyone.”
Chen Shi’s face remained expressionless. “Those testing me with techniques and spells coveted my innate dao embryo. They were just probing me before digging it out—like merchants at market checking a cow or sheep’s teeth before slaughter.”
Wen Wuyu fell silent for a moment. “But I didn’t know they saw you that way. I admired you so much back then, always following you around wherever you went. You always said I was dumb, and I felt it too. I was smarter than other kids, but compared to you, I seemed stupid.”
Chen Shi’s tone turned cold. “Miss Wen, spare me these words. Don’t try to close the distance between us.”
Wen Wuyu shook her head. “I was just over eight then. I’d freshly passed Despair Slope’s trials and become a disciple. I hadn’t formed a Divine Embryo yet; I was still at Qi Refining. Three years later, I built my foundation, then formed the Divine Shrine and got my Divine Embryo—”
Chen Shi hesitated, his tone softening slightly. “I thought you were one of those who took my Divine Embryo back then.”
Wen Wuyu said, “Master brought me to witness the power of an innate dao embryo, to teach me humility. Despair Slope is one master, one disciple—each master takes only one apprentice. My other two uncles also each had one disciple.”
Chen Shi asked, “One was Zhuang Wuju. Who was the other?”
Wen Wuyu said, “He’s called Wuwang, the eldest senior brother of our Despair Slope generation.”
Chen Shi committed the name to memory.
Wen Wuyu hesitated. “Senior Brother Wuwang has the highest talent, comprehension, aptitude, and cultivation achievements among us all. His cultivation is profound and unfathomable; his strength surpasses mine countless times.”
Chen Shi remained unmoved. “I died and was reborn; I’ve truly cultivated for less than two years. I’m confident I’ll catch up to him!”
Wen Wuyu said no more, changing the subject with a smile. “When you took over as king from Xiang Fu, you did uncover some interesting things—and died because of it. Want to go see?”
Chen Shi’s curiosity piqued. He smiled. “Last time, you said he went seeking immortals and died at an immortal’s hand. Are there really immortals?”
“I came for that too, on orders to investigate.”
Wen Wuyu’s eyes sparkled as she smiled. “In my view, there probably are. The glow on King Xiang Fu’s corpse was an immortal art,
containing the power of the Great Dao. Child Scholar, coming along?”
“Good!” Chen Shi laughed heartily.