Chapter 17 The Underworld: He has neither a past life nor a present life.
"Xu Qiubai, come and lend a hand..." Shen Cangyu hadn't finished speaking.
Xu Qiubai, who was standing nearby, also fell to the ground.
Shen Cangyu: "?"
She looked at the incense burner that had rolled to the side. The incense inside had burned out. No wonder he had fainted too; the incense had run out.
"No!" Shen Cangyu was still holding the unconscious Pei Wenjing in her arms. Both of them were down, so what about her? How was she going to get them back by herself?
Shen Cangyu looked around at the corpses scattered on the ground. These people were wearing the clothes of Kunlun inner disciples, so they should all be members of the Kunlun inner sect.
She went over the corpses on the ground and took off the name tags from their waists.
The nameplates of the Kunlun Inner Sect are made using the Daoist art of "Wenxin Diaolong" (文心雕龙). These nameplates contain spiritual energy, allowing disciples to communicate. Each nameplate bears the name of a corresponding disciple, and as long as the person is alive, they can communicate.
But at this moment, all the names on the nameplates have become dull and lifeless, and none of their owners have survived... Wait!
Shen Cangyu's gaze fell on one of the nameplates, the light on which was very faint, and she almost overlooked it.
She looked at the name on the name tag and read, "Lu Yuan?" Just as she uttered the name, a rustling sound suddenly came from the pile of corpses.
Shen Cangyu leaned closer and parted the pile of corpses. Something darted out from under the snowdrift, rushed to the side, and then "poof" disappeared back into the snow.
lizard?
Why are there lizards here?
She walked over and was about to approach the snowdrift where the lizard was hiding when the lizard seemed to sense her approach and burrowed deeper into the snow.
"Lu Yuan?" Shen Cangyu suddenly spoke, and the lizard, which was diving headfirst into the snow cave, stopped. It popped its head out of the cave entrance and looked at her warily.
“Lu Yuan.” Shen Cangyu confirmed its name.
It shares the same name as one of the Kunlun disciples on the ground, or perhaps that Kunlun disciple did not die, but instead transferred his soul to this lizard through some means.
Shen Cangyu extended his hand to her: "Can you contact other Kunlun disciples?"
Lu Yuan looked at her, hesitated for a moment, then carefully crawled out of the hole and crawled toward her, toward her hand.
The lizard's soft, cool claws rested on her index finger, and it slowly shook its head.
Well, the hope that had been so hard to rekindle has been shattered again.
They can't contact Kunlun's reinforcements now, and staying here isn't a solution. Who knows if that demonic cultivator has accomplices? If they catch a whiff of their presence and wipe them all out, they're truly doomed.
The most urgent thing is to leave this place as soon as possible.
Shen Cangyu asked tactfully, "Do you still have a chance... to turn back into a human?"
The lizard nodded.
"Then how can you turn back into a human?"
The lizard shook its head.
Well, it's unclear whether Lu Yuan meant she couldn't do it, or if she couldn't find a way to change back. The Taoist practices of Kunlun are incredibly diverse, and Shen Cangyu couldn't understand those strange people either.
Shen Cangyu sighed, "Pei Wenjing and Xu Qiubai are both unconscious right now, and I have no way to contact Kunlun. I can only take you to a safe place to stay for now, and we'll talk again when they wake up."
As soon as she finished speaking, the lizard climbed up her arm, landed on her shoulder, and patted her clothes.
Shen Cangyu summoned the Sun and Moon Pot and put Pei Wenjing and Xu Qiubai into it. She looked at the corpses on the ground, hesitated for a moment, and then decided to take them away as well.
After all, they were all people of Kunlun in life, so bringing their bodies back to Kunlun can be considered as returning to their roots.
Moreover, Kunlun might have the ability to bring the dead back to life and save all of these people.
Shen Cangyu led everyone along, estimated the direction, and headed down the mountain.
Unbeknownst to her, after she left, the charred corpse of the demonic cultivator, which had been lying on the ground, suddenly twitched, boiling and churning like water before melting into the snow, leaving only a black bead on the snow's surface.
The black bead rolled once, and a strange voice came from it. The voice overlapped, as if a thousand voices were ringing out at the same time: "Coin Eye? Well, what a Coin Eye! Your successor actually killed the believer I raised for so long... Is this why you left the Wasteland?"
*
Pei Wenjing looked at the endless darkness before him, lowered his eyes, and gazed at the fire burning on the ground.
He was surrounded by orange-red flames, trapped in a small space, unable to move, for ten years without change.
He was very familiar with this darkness; it had been in his mind since birth. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could return to this place and gaze into the darkness and the fire. He knew what lay at the end of the darkness, but he was trapped by the fire and could not leave.
As a child, he once charged into a sea of fire with brute force, trying to escape. He then suffered greatly; the flames scorched his soul, and he almost perished as a result.
Even after he woke up, the burning pain in his soul did not subside and lasted for several months.
From that moment on, he knew he couldn't fight this sea of fire head-on.
For so many years, he had been trapped in the middle of the inferno, forced to huddle in the only place he could find shelter. He devoured books and searched through ancient texts, hoping to find a way to escape the inferno.
As he continued to cultivate his inner core, the area encircled by the flames finally underwent subtle changes, from initially only large enough to accommodate two feet to later becoming large enough for him to lie down and rest.
He didn't know what this darkness was, nor where the fire came from. He had asked the elders of Kunlun, but apart from him, no one had ever seen these things, and the elders couldn't explain them to him. He could only rely on his own strength to slowly figure it out.
He knew that as he continued to cultivate his inner core and increase his strength, the space between the seas of fire would expand. With each new mental technique he learned, the sea of fire would recede further outward, and the darkness that was originally without light would gradually become visible, from an inch to a foot.
He knew there was something in the darkness. He didn't know what was in there, but he could vaguely sense that what was in there was very important to him.
He spent his entire life searching for a way to see through the darkness.
He had seen Tai Chi Daoist techniques in books long ago and knew that they had the ability to reverse Yin and Yang, but he wasn't very interested in them. Now, in order to save the other Kunlun disciples, he inherited Tai Chi Daoist techniques, but unexpectedly, the flames in the darkness retreated quite a bit.
Could it be that Tai Chi Daoist techniques can really suppress this flame?
Pei Wenjing narrowed his eyes. Unexpectedly, he had stumbled upon a solution to the flames...
However, he doesn't have time to study these things right now; he has more important things to do.
He inherited the Tai Chi Daoist arts in order to forcefully cross into the underworld and retrieve the souls of his deceased junior brothers and sisters.
What he did was force it, forcefully reverse the order of yin and yang, forcefully bring the dead back to life.
He recalled the hand seals in the book and replicated them step by step.
After a person dies, their ghost will walk across the Bridge of Helplessness, cross the River of Oblivion, drink the Meng Po soup, forget their memories of their previous life, and be reincarnated.
Pei Wenjing circulated his internal energy and sensed that his inner core was in a sealed state, so even a mental technique probably couldn't detect it.
He bit his lower lip and walked towards the Bridge of Helplessness. Many people walked onto the bridge, their expressions varied, their bodies bearing different wounds; they were all likely people who had just died. His gaze swept across those faces, trying to find his junior brothers and sisters in the crowd.
Suddenly, he saw a familiar figure, and his heart finally settled down. He ran over to grab his junior brother, but just as his hand was about to touch his shoulder, a chilling coldness suddenly came from his fingertips, and a thick layer of frost formed where he and his junior brother's ghost touched.
His movements paused for a moment, but realizing what was about to happen, he ignored the stinging pain in his hand and grabbed his arm.
The next moment, a gust of wind swept him up and pushed him off the Bridge of Helplessness. He knew that the gatekeeper had noticed his presence. But fortunately, he managed to pull back the ghost of a Kunlun disciple.
He was thrown over and slammed hard onto the bridgehead. His face was turned to the side, and as he winced in pain, he looked up and saw a large rock—the Three Lives Stone. Legend has it that through the Three Lives Stone, one can see their past and present lives.
But the stone in front of him was empty.
He has no past life, nor this life.
Pei Wenjing suddenly opened his eyes, feeling a splitting headache.
Suddenly, he smelled the aroma of meat and looked to the side in surprise.
Xu Qiubai chewed on the roasted pheasant leg in his hand. Seeing that he had woken up, he mumbled, "Senior Brother, you're finally awake. You slept for three days and three nights. We thought you weren't going to make it."
He spoke words of concern, but his hands never stopped moving as he frantically spun and ate the roast chicken.
Sitting to the side, Shen Cangyu held a wooden skewer of meat in her hand, skillfully grilling the meat over the campfire. Seeing that he was awake, she nodded to him: "Fellow Daoist, you're awake? There are some freshly grilled meat skewers here, you can try some."
Fellow Daoist?
Fellow Daoist? What fellow Daoist? She called him fellow Daoist?
Pei Wenjing narrowed his eyes. For some reason, he found Shen Cangyu's address grating and made him very uncomfortable.
She shouldn't call him that; she should call him... Senior Brother.
A note from the author:
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
