Elio’s Note: Tiny celebratory announcement before we continue: CG is officially fully translated. Yes. The whole thing. Main story, ending, afterstories, every last ghost, dragon, cosmic horror, questionable decision, and supernatural pet. We made it. 😭🎉
That also means we can finally start posting CG more frequently moving forward. The complete translation is already finished and safely waiting in the wings, so from here on out it’s mostly a matter of working through the posting queue and sending Qin Shu and Pei Zhao steadily toward their very well-earned ending.
Thank you to everyone who has been following this wonderfully unhinged ride with us. We now know exactly how the story ends, and somehow these two remain just as ridiculous right to the finish line. ❤️
Daoist Master Xu was naturally rather nervous. That nervousness came from the absolute gulf in strength between them.
If his discussion with Pei Zhao went badly, he would probably die on the spot. And if the Dragon Mother later discovered that such an evil being had sat on her altar and happened to be in a bad mood, Xu Zi Ru might be dealt with a second time as well. Either way…
One old man past fifty dying was hardly important. But he had a disciple, and his disciple was practically about to get married. He had no choice but to protect the boy a little more carefully.
“This humble Daoist is Yunxiaoke. Greetings, Senior.” Daoist Master Xu rose and bowed with complete seriousness.
It was not that he was unwilling to perform an even deeper salute, but Pei Zhao clearly lacked the patience to wait for him to finish fussing.
“There are thousands upon thousands of Daoist temples beneath heaven. You are a Daoist priest. Why insist on worshiping the Dragon Mother?” Pei Zhao looked at him, his voice light and cold enough to glaze the air inside the room with a thin layer of frost.
“…I had no other choice. This humble Daoist was unwilling to leave his hometown. In Jiangcheng, the Dragon Mother alone holds great power. She protects the local people and intimidates petty villains. She also respects Daoism, so very few bald donkeys come here looking for trouble.”
Xu Zi Ru stood before the altar with his horsetail whisk gathered in his hands. After thinking for a moment, he continued in his stiff, formal way, “Her Ladyship cares little for human incense offerings and seldom asks about matters large or small within the temple. My unworthy disciple and I are therefore free to live as we please. We can remain tucked away in one corner while observing affairs beneath heaven… And with Senior watching over Jiangcheng as well, there is nowhere this junior finds more suitable to live. I have never properly thanked Senior for that kindness.”
Every word was true. He had merely mixed a little honest flattery into an already truthful answer. There was no point in lying. Pei Zhao would certainly see through it.
“She did not interfere with you before, but now she is reaching too far. It appears her mental collapse is accelerating again.” Pei Zhao looked at him. “Has something happened to Lin Shi Yu, or to you?”
“This humble Daoist dares to guess that both may be true. Immortals and mortals may be different, humans and yao may walk separate paths, but marriages between humans and yao have long since become something officials ignore so long as no one complains. That heavenly prohibition has gone unenforced and unsupervised. Even if one personally went to the City God and asked him to bless such a marriage, the City God would happily attend the wedding. It has been this way for thousands of years… but, but…”
Xu Zi Ru left the sentence unfinished and merely sighed. His helplessness required no explanation.
Pei Zhao raised a brow. “Has she latched onto the matter between Lin Shi Yu and Huang Yu Yuan and accused them of violating heavenly law?”
“Senior’s insight is uncanny. Precisely so.” Xu Zi Ru inhaled slowly. “The night before last, Her Ladyship personally sent word to this humble Daoist. She said anyone who violates heavenly law within Jiangcheng has only two paths available. Either they work for her, undertaking dangerous matters that may threaten their lives in order to offset their sins… or Her Ladyship will personally report the offense to Heaven and petition the Jade Emperor to order the criminals executed.”
“Report it to Heaven.” Pei Zhao laughed softly. “If Heaven were still useful, she would be the first one losing her head. And you believed that?”
“…This humble Daoist has no choice but to believe it. If Heaven is useless, then Her Ladyship will simply execute them herself. Yet this humble Daoist has nowhere to plead, nowhere to appeal. I dare not provoke the Dragon Mother. I truly cannot stand before her and argue that my useless disciple is innocent. There is no reasoning with her, Senior!
“You know this as well. Her Ladyship’s own biological son lost his life because of this same calamity… The incomparably noble Dragon’s Eldest Son violated this very same heavenly prohibition, and even he had to accept punishment and die. How could insignificant commoners like us possibly dare claim innocence!”
Xu Zi Ru’s voice became increasingly impassioned and grief-stricken. Feeling that the atmosphere had finally been prepared properly, he dropped toward his knees with a thump, ready to kowtow.
Pei Zhao’s eyelid twitched. He did not let the old man reach the floor. So Xu Zi Ru somehow ended up half-squatting while clinging tightly to one wooden leg of the altar table. For a man his age, that degree of flexibility was honestly astonishing.
Once Xu Zi Ru had latched on, he absolutely refused to release it. The instant he opened his mouth, tears and snot came pouring out. “Wuuu, Senior, save us! The old Xu family isn’t going to survive! Senior, please save the dozens of lives in this humble Daoist’s household! Qingfeng, you damned brat, where did you run off to? Hurry and bring Senior wine! The good wine!”
Pei Zhao: “…”
＊
The joys and sorrows of the world were not shared equally.
While Pei Zhao numbly listened to that old ox-nosed Daoist wail and play shameless, Qin Shu had enjoyed a wonderful nap on the enormous super-soft bed Lord Zhaoyuan had conjured.
Elio’s Notes: “Bald donkey” is an old insult for a Buddhist monk, while “ox-nosed Daoist” is a similarly mocking traditional term for a Daoist priest.
Even Qin Shu had not expected matters to develop this way.
He had talked until he grew tired, drunk tea until he grew sleepy, then lain down beneath the watchful eyes of a colossal creature and simply gone to sleep… In any case, he had inexplicably fallen into a ghost domain and still had not found any effective way out. First he should make sure he was properly rested. Everything else could come later.
Qin Shu’s mentality was remarkably healthy. After sleeping, his mental state, which had been hovering on the verge of explosion, returned to life. Even the hostility filling his heart faded by more than half. Earlier, Qin Shu had constantly been forced to struggle against that hostility, with the murderous impulse inside him occasionally seizing the upper hand. At the root of it, he simply had not slept, so the effects of every emotional fluctuation had been growing steadily more severe.
Lord Zhaoyuan told him that although his soul was extremely resilient, the body he currently inhabited was tens of millions of times stronger than even the soul within his Purple Palace. Yes. Tens of millions. Those were Lord Zhaoyuan’s exact cold words. He had spared Qin Shu absolutely no dignity.
So Qin Shu was effectively a Gundam pilot with severely insufficient stamina and approximately zero experience. If he kept piloting a killing machine for too long, the only possible result was collapse, explosion, and death without a burial place. Sufficient, effective, deep rest was therefore essential.
Lord Zhaoyuan was quite indulgent with him on this matter. Using his already consummate transformation arts, he created the most comfortable bed Qin Shu had ever experienced in his life. Qin Shu secretly lay there for ages, unwilling to get up, and Lord Zhaoyuan never once hurried him.
That made sense. To a shen dragon with an immensely long lifespan, the time it took Qin Shu to sleep was probably equivalent to a blink.
Unfortunately, although Lord Zhaoyuan could still use spells inside Fengdu Prison, he could not use them upon himself. Doing so would disturb the slender iron chains buried in the flesh beneath his reverse scales and trigger even stronger defensive measures… Qin Shu’s fantasy of sleeping in the same bed with him was therefore probably impossible for now.
“Ahem. I’m awake.”
After being watched by those calm golden eyes for far too long, Qin Shu finally became a little embarrassed about lazing around and slowly sat up.
Lord Zhaoyuan silently regarded him for a moment before speaking softly. “Since you are rested, leave. Return and find me again in several days.”
The instant he finished speaking, the softest bed in the entire world disappeared cruelly before Qin Shu’s eyes. The white-jade tea table and beautiful daybed vanished with it.
The dark chamber returned to its original dead, cold silence. There was no light, no sound, only the faint lingering scent of blood.
“So coldhearted. Why are you chasing me away…” Qin Shu muttered unhappily, still sounding half-asleep.
Lord Zhaoyuan had never before encountered such a peculiar human attitude.
He stared steadily at Qin Shu and seemed to freeze for several seconds, as though his mind had stalled. Then his manner became even colder than before. “Return and contemplate what you learned today. Think carefully, reflect upon yourself often, and cultivate diligently. One cannot become fat by swallowing a single mouthful.”
The icy tone naturally carried the stern authority peculiar to teachers, instantly becoming imposing.
“Did you accidentally start treating me like your disciple?” Qin Shu’s heart warmed at the words, and he could not stop himself from raising a brow. “Zhaozhao, cultivators who aren’t capable enough these days apparently don’t even want to become my teacher. According to rumors on the street… teaching me is a dangerous profession in itself.”
“It is good that you are aware. Given the circumstances, I had never expected Warden Qin to possess much filial devotion.”
Lord Zhaoyuan’s tone grew even colder. Yet beneath that coldness was the faintest deliberate jab, which somehow made him seem less cold instead. Qin Shu liked that temper of his and found it difficult not to laugh.
After laughing, he was thrown out.
Just as the stone door fully opened, a bloodstained dragon scale appeared out of thin air inside Qin Shu’s hand, instantly wetting his palm.
Even the wooden identity tablet he used to open the door became inexplicably smeared with a layer of strange blood. The tablet glowed crimson in the dim prison, tracing the carved character Qin in deep, sharp lines and making it appear even more vicious.
Qin Shu’s expression did not change. With a dark face, he raised a leg and strode outward without stopping once. He would have to be an idiot to turn around now and make a fuss by asking what the dragon scale was for.
And barely ten meters from Heaven Cell No. 1… the instant Qin Shu raised his eyes, he spotted the nearly hunched, trembling figure of a certain little ghost.
Yi-12 stood there quivering, maintaining an absolutely perfect safe distance. It had its ears pricked, listening carefully while repeatedly craning its neck toward the cell. Its face looked even more haggard than before Qin Shu had gone inside.
Qin Shu fixed his eyes on it. His face remained dark. Without a word, he approached one slow step at a time.
Yi-12’s obvious attempt to gather information became rather awkward under that stare. It hesitated, opened its mouth, closed it, thought left and right, then chose the most awkward yet somehow exquisitely timed moment to drop to its knees with a thump. Its head nearly struck the toes of Qin Shu’s shoes. “M-My Lord…”
Feudal remnant. Feudal remnant!
Qin Shu’s painstakingly maintained expression nearly cracked. He gave a cold laugh, his voice sinister. “You had nothing better to do, so you came all the way here and waited just so you could use my legs as a pillow?”
Yi-12 nearly lost its soul from terror. Like some extraordinarily flexible worm, it scrambled upright against the backs of its heels and began bowing repeatedly. “I wouldn’t dare! This little one would never dare!”
Qin Shu did not even raise an eyelid. He walked around it without stopping. “You certainly know how to enjoy yourself.”
“My Lord, My Lord, please see the truth! How could this little one harbor such outrageous ambitions!”
Yi-12 hurried after him in tiny steps, carefully explaining itself, its words growing increasingly absurd. “This little one is simply useless by nature… I kept counting the watches and listening to the night calls, but I truly couldn’t sit still, thinking of you day and night. My Lord, who beneath heaven possesses your ability, able to remain alone with that criminal dragon and interrogate him for three days and three nights!
“My Lord, you have truly exhausted heart and strength for the sake of our prison! Such martial prowess, such courage, none beneath heaven can compare! Sooner or later your glorious name will spread across Mount Luofeng. It is merely this little one who is useless. Even when I wish to offer some tiny assistance, all I can do is prepare roast meat and peach-blossom wine for you. My Lord, please…”
Without changing expression, Qin Shu extracted the important information from that heap of inexplicable flattery and was genuinely startled.
He had talked with Lord Zhaoyuan for three days and three nights… Did time in Fengdu move that quickly? Or had they simply talked for a very long time, and Qin Shu slept even longer?
The length of time was certainly suspicious, but fortunately, Lord Zhaoyuan had given him a bloody dragon scale. Not merely an ordinary scale, but a reverse scale that had been tangled beneath those iron chains.
To remove a reverse scale from a living true dragon and emerge completely unharmed, without even dirtying the corner of one’s clothing… If word of such a thing reached the mortal world, it would become the beginning of another legend.
Nothing could have been more suitable for establishing authority. It was more than enough to erase whatever suspicions the other underworld officials in the prison might develop.
Qin Shu understood Lord Zhaoyuan’s intention. They were protecting each other. He understood the reasoning perfectly. He simply did not feel very good about it.
He could not bear it. He could barely bring himself to pinch Pei Zhao’s cheeks too hard, and yet this person had silently ripped out one of his own reverse scales. The thought left a bitter taste in Qin Shu’s mouth. Ultimately, this was still what happened when he lacked strength.
With his mood complicated, even the enormous platter of sizzling roast meat on the desk no longer smelled particularly appetizing. Qin Shu could not even identify what creature the meat had come from.
A large piece of fatty belly tasted almost like living fish, its aromatic fat roasted glossy and bright. A large portion of tender loin carried the freshness of young lamb, yet strange cartilage was embedded within the meat, crisp and fragrant when chewed. It had probably come from some unknown monstrous beast, a Fengdu special.
Qin Shu ate a few pieces but had little appetite. He wanted the peeled lychees Lord Zhaoyuan had conjured instead. The peach-blossom wine inside the narrow-necked porcelain bottle, however, was genuinely fragrant. The longer he smelled it, the more intoxicating it became.
Its ghostly aroma carried floral sweetness together with an inexplicable trace of sorrow and melancholy, like fine liquor personally fermented with the tears of a resentful ghost. Stored for a thousand years, every grief and resentment had melted into the wine. After all that time settling, the flavor had become rich, mellow, and sweet on the finish, every old sorrow transformed into an accent beneath the honeyed peach blossoms.
Qin Shu returned to his icy stone throne. He casually pulled over an already stamped silk document and carefully wiped the glaring scarlet blood from the dragon scale, then touched it, touched it again, and repeatedly rubbed it between his fingers.
Using “you’re annoying to look at” as an excuse, he chased Yi-12 away, experimented with the various functions of his identity tablet, and locked the enormous, freezing chamber from the inside. Only then, without saying a word, did he begin pouring wine.
His alcohol tolerance in this life was probably quite good, and his behavior when drunk was probably acceptable too. Otherwise Yi-12 would not have dared casually serve him alcohol.
Qin Shu exhaled and drained the small cup of honey-colored liquor in one swallow.
Cool liquid passed down his throat. Heat exploded instantly from his dantian.
For one brief moment, Qin Shu felt as if his entire body had caught fire. A scorching breath surged into his chest, which he slowly expelled, but it was not enough. He inhaled deeply again, trying to use the chamber’s cold, sinister ghost qi to soothe the burning sensation, then breathed out another wave of heart-searing heat…
He struggled like this several times before he could barely suppress the trembling growl fighting its way out of his throat.
Good wine.
Aged in units of millennia, the liquor had been sealed far too well. Not a trace of alcohol had escaped. The concentration was extraordinarily high, and ghostly resentment had merged perfectly with spiritual energy. Qin Shu tentatively took a few more sips, slowly this time, and at last understood how one was supposed to drink it.
He had swallowed the first cup too quickly, without Lord Zhaoyuan sitting nearby to watch him. It had practically been a sudden spiritual-energy empowerment, and a violent one at that. Vast spiritual energy soared through his meridians like a roaming dragon, sweeping through every part of his body and breaking through every blockage and old obstruction in its path.
Things you could drink in Fengdu really were extraordinary. Everything contained pure power that required no further refinement and could be absorbed directly.
Qin Shu had never been good at breathing exercises. No. More accurately, he had never even crossed the threshold, because he could barely perceive spiritual energy at all. Even when he deliberately tried to cultivate, waking at dawn to face the auspicious purple qi of the east, he could breathe as hard as he liked and still never find the way in… until now.
He had learned. For real.
Somehow, violently gulping down a mouthful of strong, fragrant peach-blossom wine had finally allowed Qin Shu to grasp that peculiar sensation.
So this was the basic practice even beginners knew: drawing qi into the body, circulating it through the heavenly cycle, nourishing and expanding the meridians… Only now could Qin Shu genuinely be considered to have entered the path.
He finally understood. If he could not absorb spiritual energy from the air, that did not matter. His path was to take it in through food and drink.
Qin Shu wasted no time and had no desire to bask in the joy of finally learning how to cultivate. He seized the resources readily available beside him and began practicing, devouring large quantities of roasted meat from that unidentified beast. When he felt himself starting to choke, he washed it down with a cup of peach-blossom wine. That worked even better.
Once he had swallowed every edible scrap of spiritual energy into his stomach, he technically could have left everything alone and allowed his body to digest it by itself. But Qin Shu was no longer the Qin Shu of before.
After spending three days and nights inside Lord Zhaoyuan’s Heaven Cell, his store of knowledge had almost doubled.
To maximize the benefit now, he should immediately calm his mind, sit in meditation, and enter stillness. That would reduce the loss of spiritual energy to the minimum and prevent him from wasting precious resources.
The stone chamber gradually fell silent. Only the faint crackle of crimson candles remained, wax tears falling one drop at a time onto the holders, steady and regular.
Qin Shu unconsciously listened to the candles burning. The instant he closed his eyes, every thought in his mind surged forward at once.
This conversation with Lord Zhaoyuan had been the most rewarding experience Qin Shu had undergone since his Heavenly Eye opened.
Most importantly, Lord Zhaoyuan actually knew the true origin of Qin Shu’s cultivation method.
No. Wrong. Actually, Pei Zhao obviously knew it too, and had barely even bothered hiding that fact… Qin Shu himself had been the awkward one, stubbornly refusing to ask.
Matters of the present could be set aside for now. This time Lord Zhaoyuan had explained everything in great detail.
The Nine Netherworld Prison Scripture had an extraordinary origin. It was an orthodox cultivation method capable of leading to ascension, and its roots could be traced all the way back to before the Wu-Yao War. The original version had been created by Xuanming, an immensely powerful Ancestral Wu.
Xuanming did not personally require any additional cultivation method. Precisely because of that, when Xuanming originally created the Nine Netherworld Scripture, the idea behind it had been exceptionally clear: the Nine Netherworlds at the deepest point of the world corresponded to the Nine Heavens at its highest point. Darkness against light, death against life. The rebellious intent contained within the metaphor could hardly have been more obvious.
Lord Zhaoyuan had given Qin Shu an entire history lesson. In the ancient era, yao cultivators dominated the world. The Wu Clan then rose with overwhelming strength, gathering momentum and preparing to formally attack Heaven, joining forces against the Yao Emperor…
Once that historical background was connected into a coherent line, all the “special treatment” Qin Shu had experienced since obtaining the Nine Netherworld Scripture suddenly made perfect sense.
Because the Nine Netherworld Scripture had never been meant for humans.
Originally, it was suited only to the overwhelmingly powerful warriors of the ancient Wu Clan. It was an extremely pure body-cultivation method. Even the cultivation process was ancient, straightforward, and brutally simple, with combat and dietary supplementation as the basic logic for increasing one’s cultivation, and nothing else.
Lord Zhaoyuan said Qin Shu’s ability to cultivate the Nine Netherworld Scripture was not merely because Qin Shu himself could not truly be considered human. There was another deity who had made an enormous contribution to the technique.
Empress Houtu.
At that time Fengdu had only recently been established. Everything still needed rebuilding, malignant spirits ran rampant, and the underworld desperately lacked capable personnel. Empress Houtu therefore selected the exceptionally powerful Nine Netherworld Scripture as a foundation and revised it a second time according to Fengdu’s needs.
She incorporated the principles of soul cultivation into it, completely remedying the Scripture’s weakness and sealing the natural disadvantage the Wu Clan possessed when dealing with souls. Its fatal flaw disappeared.
Cultivating this method was effectively equivalent to cultivating both the body and magical arts. Among cultivators of the same level, one would be virtually invincible. It could be called a consummate work, almost perfectly complete.
Yet such an extraordinary cultivation method gradually vanished beneath the tides of history. Forget several thousand years later. Even in the current flourishing golden age of cultivation, within this obscenely wealthy and powerful Fengdu, almost none of the other underworld officials besides Qin Shu could easily practice it.
Excess itself became a flaw.
Without at least some of the Wu Clan’s terrifying physical heritage as a foundation, an ordinary cultivator’s progress in strengthening the soul and tempering the body would become too uneven. One careless mistake, and their body would explode. And if their talent was insufficient, they would either become an ordinary martial artist unable to break through a lifelong bottleneck, or a frail skeleton ruined by a mind that had grown too powerful for the body supporting it.
In the end, only some bizarre existence like Qin Shu was genuinely suited to cultivating the Nine Netherworld Scripture.
By this point, more than half the mystery had been cleared up. Lord Zhaoyuan had seen and learned an enormous amount throughout his life and could answer many of Qin Shu’s questions. However…
There was one question that even an ancient shen dragon found difficult to explain.
When, exactly, had Qin Shu first obtained this cultivation method?
The question potentially involved three entire lifetimes. Because the Ancestral Wu Xuanming was already dead. After the ancient Wu-Yao War, Xuanming had completely disappeared.
The prevailing account claimed Xuanming died at the hands of the Yao Emperor, with both sides perishing together during the final battle. Thereafter, yao ceased to dominate the world, and humanity rose once more from the darkness of history.
But Lord Zhaoyuan knew that Xuanming had not only survived that battle, but had subsequently become an actual god worshiped by humanity, also known as Yuqiang. With human incense and worship rebuilding the foundation of divinity, Xuanming remained immensely powerful.
So how had Xuanming, after becoming a god, truly fallen?
That was where matters became rather awkward. At least for Qin Shu.
According to the story Ao Wang had once heard, a Xiezhi had eaten the emperor’s grandson.
According to the story Lord Zhaoyuan had heard… Xuanming died in the jaws of the Xiezhi.
Thus Qin Shu learned another brand-new piece of obscure trivia.
Yuqiang, courtesy name Xuanming.
The founder of the Nine Netherworld Scripture was the Yellow Emperor’s grandson.
Qin Shu sank into contemplation and was forced to reassess his own moral character.
In his third life, he attended high school. He had a bit of a double standard, but he was not a bad person. Fundamentally, he was not much different from an ordinary human.
In his second life, he served as an official in the underworld. His temper had been vicious and he was difficult to provoke, but he had at least barely begun to resemble a person.
His first life… Mm.
He hadn’t stolen the Wu Clan’s cultivation technique and then started practicing it himself, had he?
Surely not?