Chapter 118 The Elixir Scroll: Immortals eat gold and drink pearls, their lifespan as long as heaven and earth.
The knee injury was hurting so badly that Zhou Yaren staggered forward, but Lian Zhao caught her quickly: "Tingfengzhi..."
Zhou Yaren felt her heart and lungs burning, and subconsciously cried out, "Innocent!"
The boys were suddenly stunned, because Bai Yuan was not here. Bai Yuan had been slaughtered by Qiu Jue Dao last night, and only Ting Fengzhi's umbrella remained.
Zhou Yaren asked, "Are these the ashes of the Undead?"
If the so-called immortals turn to ashes, will they never be able to come back to life?
And who burned it to ashes?
From the moment Bai Yuan reunited with Zhou Yaren, he knew that Zhou Yaren was a very inquisitive person.
Everything that happened along the way was more or less entangled with the past, and Zhou Yaren kept clinging to those clues to trace their origins, which was really exhausting to deal with.
Normally, she could have kept quiet and no one could have pried her mouth open, but the current situation was tricky and special. External words and actions or the environment would trigger certain memories, and Zhou Yaren had also developed a empathy with the Death Umbrella.
When Zhou Yaren conveyed the line "Who burned it to ashes?" through empathy, many things could no longer be hidden.
The long-sealed memories of the Death Umbrella unfold like a scroll, and Bai Yuan still remembers that she once tried to tell He Yan everything about A Zhaosu.
She told He Yan that he was A Zhaosu, an immortal who had been resurrected in a tomb near Hangu Pass.
Such words sounded like a fantasy, and He Yan naturally refused to believe them; no normal person would believe them.
Until she took He Yan, who was to be executed, away from the execution ground, Bai Yuan established a empathy with He Yan through the "umbrella of death," just as she has established a empathy with Zhou Yaren today.
At that time, Bai Yuan believed that clearing the names of every wrongfully killed person was her mission, the sole meaning of her existence. She was entrusted with the divine mandate to administer justice, traversing the boundary between life and death, and was on the righteous path of humanity.
Looking back now, it's both ironic and laughable.
Bai Yuan couldn't laugh. For a long time, she questioned whether it was because she had interfered with human justice, broken the laws of heaven, disrupted the fate of those who were supposed to suffer calamity, and ruined karma that she had pushed He Yan into the abyss.
If she hadn't stormed the execution ground and told He Yan everything about A Zhaosu, He Yan might not have ended up on the path to utter ruin.
She should obediently respond to the grievances of the wrongfully deceased, and stand aside from everything else; this is in accordance with the laws of heaven, earth, and humanity.
Because in this world, the distinction between "human" and "ghost" is blurred, and the truth of grievances is hard to discern, Heaven and Earth endowed her with the ability to be summoned by the underworld. However, she could not stand by and watch He Yan be executed...
She has already done these things, there is no going back or ifs, right or wrong, and the consequences will be dealt with by fate. She will bear all the consequences and will never back down.
Looking back, she had once acted impulsively and was moved by life and death, far from the numbness she is now.
Compassion is something that may be innate.
She thought she was helping He Yan, A Zhaosu, and the Undying People, and then she followed the clues and traces she had finally found to reach Zhongtiao Mountain.
It was a towering peak located in the Zhongtiao Mountains, majestic and reaching the sky, covered with lush and verdant vegetation, with thousands of acres of green pines, and shrouded in mist and clouds.
Whenever the mountain wind blows, the vast pine forest echoes with the sound of waves, creating ripples on the water.
He Yan's first visit here was actually with Bai Yuan.
Zhou Yaren couldn't help but ask, "What are you here for?"
This time, Bai Yuan didn't hide anything: "I've come to find the Undying People."
Such remote mountains and forests are ideal for hermits seeking spiritual cultivation, and naturally, many temples and monasteries were built there. Some flourished and endured for centuries, while others fell into ruin and became abandoned and forgotten. As for why they were abandoned, it's hard for later generations to say for sure. Perhaps the Taoist priests went down the mountain, the monks and nuns returned to secular life, or perhaps they found a better place to go.
But within that mountain peak lies a hidden paradise...
Meanwhile, Yu Heqi, while touching and looking around inside the pagoda, inadvertently triggered a mechanism hidden in the cremation scene carved on the wall.
Suddenly, the heavy stone wall trembled, and everyone turned their heads to see the stone door behind the statue of Shakyamuni's Nirvana slowly opening.
The young people were all astonished.
Zhou Yaren also turned his head upon hearing the commotion. His attention was slightly diverted, but he could still see Bai Yuan and He Yan stepping into a cave through the umbrella.
Zhou Yaren also stepped inside with the help of several teenagers.
The cave had been sealed off for far too long, giving off a musty, unpleasant odor, seemingly mixed with the smell of sulfur and gunpowder. Perhaps no one had ventured there for hundreds or even thousands of years, and it was pitch black inside.
The boys took out tinderboxes from their pockets and lit them one by one.
The flames illuminated the entire cave chamber, which was fully equipped with stone tables and chairs. What shocked the boys was a bronze cauldron standing on the three-tiered platform in the center, which was several feet tall.
Upon closer inspection, you'll discover that the platform is actually a stove, containing burnt charcoal and ashes.
On the wooden shelves on both sides were various cups, plates and utensils, as well as stone pestles for grinding medicine, and countless bottles and jars of all sizes.
Lian Zhao casually opened one of the bottles; the cap was covered in a foot of dust, and inside was a crimson powder. Lian Zhao was all too familiar with this stuff; it was the cinnabar they usually used to draw talismans and spells.
The other bottles and jars contained some yellowish-green, blackish-blue substances that Lian Zhao hadn't seen before; they looked like powder made from some kind of mineral.
Lin Mu, holding a tinderbox, looked around and said, "This place is obviously a place for alchemy."
“Hmm.” Wen Yi stepped onto the central platform, looked up at the cloud and thunder unicorn breathing fire pattern on the bronze cauldron, and nodded, saying, “Clearly, this is an alchemy furnace.”
Alchemy has always been prevalent in Taoism, with many practitioners of alchemy who concoct rare and precious medicines, obsessed with researching "elixirs" for longevity or immortality. The Taihang Mountains also have Taoist physicians who practice alchemy and are also deeply interested in the secret methods and scriptures related to longevity, but what they produce are mostly pills for strengthening the body, treating illnesses, and healing injuries.
The Taoist doctors of the Taihang Mountains couldn't even concoct a cure-all medicine, let alone some kind of magical elixir. Fortunately, no one in the hierarchy forced them to do anything unreasonable. The Celestial Master was a skilled leader, and his disciples all knew that the lifespan of a human was no more than a hundred years, so they were pragmatic and didn't indulge in wishful thinking.
But countless people are also delusional.
Li Liuyun stood in front of the shelf in the southeast corner and saw a whole wall of stone covered with scrolls of alchemical formulas and scriptures. One of the scrolls was spread out on the ground, the ink covered with dust and completely obscured.
Li Liuyun crouched down to pick it up, blowing away the dust: "Immortals eat gold and drink pearls, their lifespan is as long as heaven and earth... Gold, even when placed in fierce fire, will not lose its brilliance..."
When Li Liuyun spoke, his voice overlapped with He Yan's voice from the "Death Umbrella" incident.
He Yan held the scroll of alchemical texts, his hands trembling, his face ashen.
Li Liuyun skimmed the text, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper, his Adam's apple bobbing. When he spoke again, his throat was tight: "...using the Undying Clan as a catalyst, throwing them into the furnace for refining..."
He Yan, who was inside the death umbrella, suddenly turned his head to look at the furnace, the alchemy scroll in his hand fell to the ground, and then he rushed towards the furnace like a madman.
Bai Yuan couldn't stop him: "He Yan!"
"They're here, they're here..." He Yan's eyes were bloodshot as he slammed into the furnace, his fingernails digging into the bronze furnace wall, drawing blood.
Only ashes from the raging fire remained in the alchemy furnace. He Yan's face was covered in tears, his eyes wide open as if about to pop out. "It was me, it was me, I killed them, I killed them..."
Zhou Yaren stood frozen in place, her chest throbbing with excruciating pain as if it were about to explode.
Besides He Yan's heart-wrenching sobs, all he could hear was the deafening sound of him pounding on the furnace in despair, and the chatter of several teenagers in reality.
"Does this mean that the Undead should be used as a catalyst in the alchemy process?"
"Can it be used to refine an elixir of immortality?"
"Aren't the Undead human? Senior brother, are the Undead human too?"
The scroll of alchemical text that had fallen from He Yan's hands was picked up by Li Liuyun, separated by time.
Lian Zhao had just examined the enormous alchemy cauldron: "So, the ashes in the stone box at Nirvana Platform really belong to the Undead, and were dug out of the cauldron?"
Even metal and stone can be reduced to ashes after being refined by intense fire, let alone a mere flesh and blood.
Zhou Yaren looked at He Yan through the umbrella that reported the death. He Yan was sitting in front of a stone table, rummaging through the bamboo slips on the table.
Zhou Yaren stepped across using her senses and landed on some scattered scrolls.
Wen Yi then leaned over, casually picked up a bamboo scroll, and unfolded it. He was astonished after reading only a few lines, attracting the other teenagers to gather around and look through it.
"What does it say?" Zhou Yaren's voice was hoarse.
Li Liuyun's expression was solemn: "Record it."
Zhou Yaren asked, "What record?"
"The process of alchemy."
Lin Mu knew that listening to the wind revealed what couldn't be seen, so he recited aloud: "First, take five stones: cinnabar, realgar, alum, azurite, and magnetite, crush and mix them together..." The ingredients were detailed down to the dosage and usage, and then various rare and exotic herbs were added. "Put the immortals into the furnace and seal it tightly. Then, start a fire and refine it for forty-nine days, with the flames burning day and night until the cinnabar turns grayish-white..."
Yu Heqi also read aloud the record in his hand, which included different minerals and herbs in varying dosages, as well as different temperatures and firing times: "...using the hearts of the people as a catalyst, burn until the smoke turns blue and the color turns ash..."
Wen Yi continued: "Using eight stones, cinnabar, mercury, realgar... take the blood of the Undead and mix it, burn the flesh and bones, and the smoke will not yet dissipate the soul..."
Lian Zhao stared at the bamboo slip in his hand: "Isolated yin cannot produce, isolated yang cannot grow. Without yang, yin cannot be born, and without yin, yang cannot transform... Take one male and one female immortal, combine them with yin and yang, yang is endowed by yin, and yin receives yang, yang and yin depend on each other, put them in the furnace and refine for sixty days and nights to form an elixir, the color of which is purple..."
Li Liuyun: "Place the Undying People inside the cauldron, the male representing the Yang spirit of the sun, and the female representing the Yin spirit of the moon, and blaze them with fierce fire for forty-nine days to refine their essence into cinnabar..."
It turned out that the bamboo slips piled up on the stone table were all records of alchemy. In that instant, Zhou Yaren, who was completely immersed in the process, experienced a reversal of her bloodline. The veins on her arms crisscrossed, her muscles bulged, and her bones cracked.
Before Li Liuyun could finish reading, Zhou Yaren suddenly overturned the stone table, and the violent aura she unleashed made all the teenagers take several steps back.
The boys didn't even realize why Ting Fengzhi had angrily overturned the stone table. When they turned around, they saw that Ting Fengzhi's eyes were red and tears were welling up in his eyes. Then, he spat out a mouthful of blood.
The moment Zhou Yaren collapsed, she also saw He Yan, who was suffering from a stroke, fall into Bai Yuan's arms.
He heard two voices, one from inside and one from outside, simultaneously.
"He Yan!"
"You'll know if you listen to the wind!"
So this was the truth behind He Yan's drastic change in temperament. After reading all the alchemy records here, he learned that the Undying People had all become handfuls of ashes in the furnace, and that the pills for "immortality" were being boiled in the raging fire every day.
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