“City Lord, we found this in Qi Zhengyan’s room!” A Guard member came flying over to report, holding a spirit-jade box in both hands.
Xia Yunzhao took it and opened it. His brows immediately tightened. “Set off first. We’ll talk on the ship!”
A short while later, the Guards still collecting spirit items from Yunjiangguan watched Cloudwater Ferry fly away.
A younger Guard asked in confusion, “The City Lord is leaving already? What about everything still left in Yunjiangguan?”
An older Guard smiled. “He must have found something that can save Puppet City.”
“Puppet City…” The younger Guard hesitated. They all knew the attack on Puppet City was what had started this entire battle, but he had not expected their City Lord to actually abandon a whole mountain of spirit treasures and rush off to save people.
The older Guard patted his shoulder. “Aren’t we still here? Several Guard seniors are here too. The City Lord is waiting for us to bring all these resources back. Yunjiangguan will be our territory from now on, and there are so many spirit mountains nearby that people will definitely have to be stationed here. If you perform well, you might even land yourself a squad-leader position. Getting stationed here would be a very lucrative assignment.”
The younger Guard was almost dizzy from the glorious future being painted for him and nodded fiercely. “All right! I definitely won’t disappoint the City Lord!”
Had Xia Yunzhao found a way to save Puppet City? Of course he had.
What the Guard had found was the refinement method for the Demon-Warding Spirit Pill, as well as the method for producing Demon-Warding Crystals.
Only after reading the records did the Qingxi City group understand that the people who had attacked Puppet City were mortals who had taken Demon-Warding Spirit Pills.
After taking the Demon-Warding Spirit Pill, a mortal’s body would begin changing, gradually turning into the kind of monster that had attacked Puppet City, something neither human nor ghost, like a charred corpse.
At that point, the mortal might still look human on the outside, but only an empty shell remained. Everything inside had already dissolved into black water. Anyone touched by even a little of that black water would have their meridians corroded, mortal or cultivator alike. Only after the black water was transformed into Demon-Warding Crystals did it become useful.
Yunjiangguan had paid a considerable price to capture Puppet City. They had disguised mortals who had taken Demon-Warding Spirit Pills as refugees and smuggled them into the city, then found an opportunity to trigger the pills inside their bodies, finally creating the mist barrier over Puppet City.
Their original plan had been to wait until Xia Yunzhao abandoned Puppet City, then disperse the mist barrier and take the city for themselves. That would give them an even larger supply of raw material. If the method worked, they would repeat it against every neighboring force in turn. Instead, their very first bite had landed on the hardest persimmon of all. They had not only broken their teeth, but smashed their heads as well.
The good news was that if Yunjiangguan wanted Puppet City’s mortals, then at the very least the civilians should still be alive for now.
“Well?” Du Yan asked quickly when Xia Yunzhao raised his head. “Can they be saved?”
Xia Yunzhao nodded and put down the jade slip in his hand. “They can.”
The pill recipe might have been useless in someone else’s hands, but fortunately, Xia Yunzhao was a pill cultivator himself. The Demon-Warding Spirit Pill was difficult to reverse, but merely dispersing the mist barrier it created was not especially hard.
Xia Yunzhao beckoned, and paper and a brush flew from his Hundred-Compartment Pouch. He rapidly wrote down more than a dozen names, cut the sheet apart, and handed the pieces to Du Yan, Zhong Yundu, and Xiang Moyue. “We don’t have much time. Help me gather these spirit items. We’ll meet at Puppet City.”
The others accepted the slips without wasting words, cupped their hands, and flew away from Cloudwater Ferry.
Xia Yunzhao looked toward Shang Shuangze. Shang Shuangze spread his hands slightly and smiled at him, clearly meaning: At your command whenever you’re ready.
Xia Yunzhao smiled and took his hand. “The two of us have the hardest job. The main ingredient for the antidote is called the Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchid. It’s extremely difficult to find and grows only in places littered with corpses and saturated with yin qi. Whether we can refine this antidote depends on the two of us.”
Shang Shuangze was indeed somewhat surprised. “A place littered with corpses and saturated with yin qi? Is there somewhere like that nearby?”
“Of course not. Fortunately, our luck is pretty good.” Xia Yunzhao raised a hand and took out a scroll.
It was the Hundred-Refinement Landscape Scroll. Back then, the two of them had been sucked inside it and traveled to the Tianling Mountain Range. The scroll’s spiritual energy had been exhausted afterward. It had since recovered, but they had never used it again.
Xia Yunzhao opened the scroll and smiled. “What a coincidence. I happened to look at it yesterday.”
The Hundred-Refinement Landscape Scroll displayed random landscapes. This time, however, the terrain painted on it was exceptionally strange: an endless plain whose ground was packed not with cattle, sheep, or green grass, but with bones beyond counting. Layer upon layer of white bones covered the earth, forming an entire plain of skeletons.
Three characters had been written in small-seal script in the upper-right corner of the painting: White-Bone Mound.
“White-Bone Mound…” Shang Shuangze thought for a moment. He did not seem to have heard any legends about such a place.
“Neither have I, but it doesn’t matter,” Xia Yunzhao said. “A place covered in bones and heavy with yin qi has to contain Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids. Come on. Let’s go take a look.”
Shang Shuangze nodded slightly, took Xia Yunzhao by the wrist, and stepped into the painting with him.
The sensation of weightlessness flashed past. Xia Yunzhao relaxed into Shang Shuangze’s arms and only raised his head after his feet touched solid ground. “Whoa. So this is what the sky looks like here.”
The place was indeed saturated with yin qi, and even the temperature was far lower than outside. The clouds overhead were a deathly white, utterly devoid of life.
Shang Shuangze turned his wrist and Mingyun appeared in his hand. With his other hand, he shielded Xia Yunzhao behind him. “Let’s search quickly. The spiritual energy here feels wrong.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded, took out the Travel Map, and poured spiritual power into it. The map unfolded and, sure enough, displayed the terrain of White-Bone Mound.
This land of white bones was enormous. Judging only from the region shown on the map, it was not much smaller than the Liancui Mountain Range.
Xia Yunzhao narrowed his eyes and quickly wrote the words “Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchid.” Several points of light immediately appeared on the map. “Found them! This way!”
The two activated their movement techniques and flew toward the location marked on the map. Whenever wind blew through the gaps between the bones, it produced a mournful sound like ghosts weeping.
Shang Shuangze glanced at Xia Yunzhao. His face was completely serious, and every so often he checked the map and adjusted their direction, seemingly oblivious to the ghostly wailing around them. Shang Shuangze’s heart softened. His young man was so focused on finding medicine to save people that he had forgotten he was afraid of ghosts.
Xia Yunzhao really had forgotten. In fact, he had even forgotten that ghosts existed in this world. They reached the nearest marked location and were about to descend when the point of light on the map flickered and went out.
Xia Yunzhao stared. “What does that mean? Can the Travel Map make mistakes?”
Shang Shuangze had seen it too. “Could a slaughter beast have eaten it?”
Xia Yunzhao shook his head. “Impossible. Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids are poisonous. No slaughter beast would eat them. Besides, there’s nothing to eat anywhere in White-Bone Mound, so there shouldn’t be any slaughter beasts here.” He thought for a moment. “Forget it. We’re short on time. Let’s find the next one!”
Fortunately, the next plant was not far away. At their speed, the two arrived almost immediately. This time they did not dare waste any time. They flew straight over the marked location and were just about to land when the light on the map flickered and vanished again.
Xia Yunzhao’s expression darkened. Once might have been a coincidence, but twice absolutely was not. He looked around and said solemnly, “Could some senior be cultivating in seclusion here? My husband and I have come to gather medicine in order to refine a pill and save lives. Please grant us this convenience. We’re willing to exchange resources for it, so name your price.”
He finished speaking and waited, but no one answered.
Shang Shuangze closed his eyes and released his divine sense. A moment later, he opened them and shook his head slightly. “There’s no one here.”
Xia Yunzhao frowned. No one? Had the Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchid grown legs and run away by itself?
He walked directly to the place the map had marked. There was nothing there but white bones. Refusing to give up, he pushed the bones aside and dug underneath. In the next instant, the bones shifted and were suddenly forced upward as a pale, transparent hand emerged from below.
The wind rose without warning, and the sky instantly darkened.
“Hehehe… so much fun…” A sinister, drifting voice sounded around them, somehow carrying tones both male and female, old and young. “Won’t you play with us some more?”
“Play with us…”
“Wanna play, wanna play…”
“Hehehe…”
Under the darkened sky, one transparent figure after another appeared. They had no feet and floated in midair, slowly closing in around the two of them.
Shang Shuangze immediately looked at Xia Yunzhao. Xia Yunzhao’s face had gone deathly pale, and he stood frozen in place. Shang Shuangze was about to speak when his vision blurred and Xia Yunzhao vanished.
A second later, two arms appeared over Shang Shuangze’s shoulders and two legs locked around his waist. Xia Yunzhao had wrapped himself around him like a suit of chain mail, face buried against Shang Shuangze’s back, refusing to let his feet touch the ground.
Shang Shuangze wanted to laugh, but his heart ached for him too. “Why don’t you go back to the ship and wait?”
Xia Yunzhao shook his head, still thinking about the real problem. “Saving people comes first…” Then he wailed resentfully, “But why does White-Bone Mound have ghosts?!”
Shang Shuangze had no idea how to comfort him. Judging by either the name or the scenery, the chances of a place called White-Bone Mound having ghosts had never exactly been low…
With nothing else to say, he drew Mingyun and swung once. The sword qi was fierce and upright, the natural bane of yin creatures. The little ghosts immediately screamed and fled.
That single strike swept the surrounding hundred li completely clean. Not even a trace of yin qi remained.
Shang Shuangze patted Xia Yunzhao’s arm. “It’s all right now.”
Xia Yunzhao cautiously raised his head. When he saw that the ghastly white figures were truly gone, he lit up and planted a loud kiss on Shang Shuangze’s cheek. “Thank you, husband!”
Then he jumped down, ran back to the same spot, and continued digging. After digging about half a meter, he finally exposed a dark-red orchid. “Found it! Those little ghosts really did hide it!”
He carefully moved the bones aside, dug up the Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchid, and put it into his Hundred-Compartment Pouch with satisfaction. “One down! We need at least five for the antidote, so it would be best to find another four.”
When Shang Shuangze did not answer, Xia Yunzhao turned around in confusion and found him standing frozen in place.
Xia Yunzhao asked, puzzled, “What are you doing?”
Shang Shuangze stared at him. “You…”
“Stop ‘you’-ing at me. Whatever you want to say can wait until we’re back. Let’s go to the next place first. It’ll be dark soon, and I do not want to spend the middle of the night digging through bones.” Xia Yunzhao grabbed his wrist and flew off.
With the Travel Map’s help, the two successfully found three more Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids.
For some reason, however, Shang Shuangze kept swinging his sword every so often along the way. Sword qi went everywhere. Forget little ghosts and wandering souls; even the yin qi was being swept clean.
Xia Yunzhao finally had to remind him, “Easy. Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids need yin qi to grow too. Don’t ruin their quality.”
Shang Shuangze: “…”
Their Hundred-Compartment Pouch now held four Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids. The fifth marked plant was somewhat farther away.
Xia Yunzhao checked the map. “A little over five hundred li. We’ll have to pass a mountain on the way… Hm? White-Bone Mound has mountains? This one looks pretty big.” He examined the terrain on either side. Going around would mean a huge detour. “Come on. Let’s just fly over it.”
Shang Shuangze nodded slightly. The two were traveling on the wind now, and a little over five hundred li was only a few breaths for Nascent Soul cultivators.
As the distance shrank, both of them finally saw the “mountain.”
“This…” Xia Yunzhao’s eyes widened in shock. “My god!”
What the map had marked as a mountain was actually an enormous skeleton! It had long since become stark white bone, yet it still stood upright with its head held high, radiating an unyielding will to fight.
The skeleton had the head of a beast and the body of a man, with two horns like those of an ox. Its eye sockets were black holes and its mouth hung open as if it were roaring. A gigantic axe rested in one hand. Standing upright, it was even taller than the Heaven-Reaching Tree and seemed to point straight into the firmament.
Xia Yunzhao stared blankly at the skeleton and met those hollow black eyes. For some reason, a tremendous surge of emotion and grief rose inside him.
It seemed as though someone was speaking beside his ear.
“Shoo, shoo! Brat, don’t run wild on my plains!”
“Hey! Believe me when I say this old ox will send you flying with one horn!”
“Hmph, I knew you liked this fruit… What? There’s no more, no more! That’s all of it! Not one extra!”
A tiny figure climbed all over an enormous black ox. He scrambled onto the ox’s head, grabbed one horn with both hands, and laughed loudly.
The giant ox transformed into human shape, standing proudly with the head of a beast and body of a man. With one hand, he caught the little fellow by the back of the neck and pulled him into his arms.
Before them stretched an endless plain carpeted in green grass and filled with herds of cattle and sheep. Humans dressed in animal hides hid among the grasses, gripping stone spears as groups of three or five hunted a young antelope.
Holding the little fellow in his arms, the ox-headed man pointed toward them. “Those are this old ox’s people. I only hope that ten thousand years upon ten thousand years from now, these plains will still be able to sustain them and all the creatures living here.”
The little fellow in his arms raised his head and said something. The old ox burst out laughing. The vision grew hazy and drifted farther and farther away.
Someone gently brushed the corner of Xia Yunzhao’s eye and asked softly, “What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly crying?”
Xia Yunzhao blinked and returned to himself. Following Shang Shuangze’s gaze, he looked down and saw a trace of tears on the other man’s fingertip. Only after a long pause did he say, “These aren’t my tears.”
Shang Shuangze said nothing and simply wiped his cheek dry.
Xia Yunzhao let him do it, then raised his head toward the enormous skeleton. So this was the skeleton of a god.
Why had this Great Ox God died? And who were all these white bones?
Xia Yunzhao quietly looked at the enormous ox skull as though meeting its gaze across countless ages. The plain that had once sustained innumerable living beings was now nothing but white bones. If any of your consciousness remains, you must be terribly sad.
Just then, green light suddenly appeared. Xiao Qing floated out from Xia Yunzhao’s dantian and bounced twice toward the skeleton.
Xia Yunzhao froze, then suddenly understood. “A godhead fragment?”
Xiao Qing bounced twice more in excitement.
Xia Yunzhao fell silent for a moment, then sighed. “Go on.”
Xiao Qing immediately flew into the air. Before it even reached the ox skull, its lid opened. White light shone out, and a thread of golden light flew from the skeleton’s gaping mouth.
The golden light fell into Xiao Qing’s belly. Xiao Qing immediately lit up as if it had been plated in gold, and the inscriptions across its belly slowly emerged.
Perhaps because Xia Yunzhao’s cultivation and even his divine sense had grown much stronger, he could now make out several characters in the inscriptions that had once injured him with a single glance: “Cauldron… myriad… mountains and rivers…”
The inscriptions vanished again. Xiao Qing dropped from the sky, shrank, landed in his palm, and promptly began snoring.
Helpless, Xia Yunzhao could only put it back into his dantian.
Just then, a thunderous rumble rose from the ground. Shang Shuangze reacted instantly, wrapping an arm around Xia Yunzhao’s waist and flying upward. In the next moment, the enormous ox-headed humanoid skeleton suddenly collapsed. Booming crashes rang out from every direction as though an entire mountain had fallen.
The giant skeleton smashed down the surrounding piles of white bones. Ring after ring of bones toppled away, revealing an open patch of ground. Vast swaths of dark red emerged underneath. It was an enormous field of Corpse-Fragrance Heart-Rot Orchids!