CH 19

The cold-looking immortal seemed to be thinking wistfully of someone.

Wu Xingxue watched him for a while before withdrawing his gaze.

A certain feeling suddenly arose in his heart. He couldn’t clearly describe what it felt like, but he suddenly lost interest in continuing to ask further.

Thus, when Ning Huaishan came over, he only saw his City Lord’s expressionless face—when he wasn’t smiling, the slightly down-turned corners of his eyes always seemed to carry a hint of annoyance.

At first glance, it made him look like he was extremely unhappy.

Wasn’t he smiling just now? Why is he unhappy again!

Ning Huaishan didn’t want to accidentally bring trouble to himself and bounced back next to Fang Chu without a word.

“What are you jumping back and forth for?” Fang Chu asked.

He was currently massaging his shoulder. On the wound where his arm had been cut off, some new flesh had already grown, carrying fresh blood, and looking a bit pinkish. In comparison, his face was bleak and pale, with a hint of green.

“I just wanted to hear what the City Lord was whispering to that puppet about. He’s lost his memory, so if he has something to say, why doesn’t he tell us about it? What can you chat to a puppet about?” Ning Huaishan felt very much like he had fallen out of Wu Xingxue’s favor, as if he had forgotten that not long ago, he had wanted their City Lord to cry and beg for mercy from them.

“Did he ever tell us what was on his mind before he lost his memory?” Fang Chu uncourteously dismantled his logic.

“True.” Ning Huaishan looked towards Wu Xingxue again, then suddenly lowered his voice, “A-Chu, I suddenly feel like that puppet… hmm, he seems to be a little off. What do you think?”

Fang Chu: “……”

Fang Chu rubbed his shoulder as he said without hesitation, “Not at all.” 

The last time they “suddenly felt” like something was off, they had to pay terrible consequences for it. Only idiots would want to try it again.

Fang Chu looked over at Xiao Fuxuan’s face, then said gravely, “When I got this kind of wound before, do you know how long it would take for it to grow back?”

Ning Huaishan thought for a bit.

Fang Chu’s most tragic form… had to be that day dozens of years ago, the day he had just arrived in Zhaoye City. When Wu Xingxue ordered people to carry Fang Chu out of that black carriage, Ning Huaishan almost didn’t recognize that that was a person—

Because both of his arms and one of his legs were all missing, bitten off by some sort of creature. His face was also full of wounds, looking like a blood-soaked rag.

For an ordinary person to be in this state, they should have been long dead already. But Fang Chu seemed to be particularly stubborn, he just refused to take his last breath.

What their Zhaoye City had the most of was heinous and crooked methods, as well as their poison restriction techniques. Reviving the dead, the flesh, and the bone, none of these were difficult to achieve as long as one could bear through. As bone and flesh couldn’t just grow on their own, they needed to be supplemented by something.

After that, Ning Huaishan would often remember that scene —

Wu Xingxue had thrown Fang Chu into a pool to soak there. That viscous black water splattered out of the pool, but when it landed on the snow piled by the pool’s edge, it was red.

Beside the pool was an enormous, towering tree. Because of the deadly atmosphere, no living creatures ever dared to land on its branches. Therefore, Wu Xingxue’s residence was named after that enormous tree: No Bird’s Landing.

When those people… oh, no, those little devils settled Fang Chu inside the pool, Wu Xingxue leaned on the enormous tree with his arms crossed, watching them silently.

“City Lord, we’re done. Everything is ready; we’re just missing some living people.” Those few had come to No Bird’s Landing before Ning Huaishan, and they had been following Wu Xingxue for a few years, diligently doing everything. They rubbed their hands together and discussed with faces full of excitement: “White Deer Ford is the closest to Zhaoye City. We can capture a boat or two of living people without a problem. We can go right now if you want us to.”

But Wu Xingxue looked weary, his voice slightly tinted with sleepiness. “It’s already late at night, and there are very few people who pass through White Deer Ford at this time. It’ll probably be difficult to catch people.”

They nodded, “True, then what should we do?”

“Ah, it’s easy.”

Wu Xingxue spoke as he straightened up and walked towards the edge of the blood pool. Taking one in each hand, he dropped those little devils into the pool.

Live people could be used as supplements, but so could devils.

Fang Chu was unconscious in the pool. His eyes were closed, knowing absolutely nothing about what was happening around him. But Ning Huaishan witnessed this very clearly from across the walkway: a few bubbles rose from that pool, and immediately afterwards, the bloody wounds on Fang Chu’s face closed and healed at a rate visible to the naked eye.

And Wu Xingxue just stood there, watching by the edge of the pool. After a long while, he walked to the bamboo pump nearby to wash his hands.

That was the origin of all of Ning Huaishan’s terror towards Wu Xingxue.

For a very long time after that, he was deathly afraid that in a moment of unhappiness, Wu Xingxue would throw him into the blood pool, feeding him to someone as supplemental medicine. But his and Fang Chu’s luck wasn’t that bad, as other people in No Bird’s Landing frequently switched, not staying for long, but they had been with Wu Xingxue for tens of years, and they were both still alive.

Back then, the Fang Chu who had looked like a clump of bloody rags, had only soaked in the pool for two days before he was back up and jumping about.

Afterwards, Fang Chu would continue to get hurt every now and then, frequently losing a hand or a foot. The people in Zhaoye City wouldn’t normally take the initiative to provoke each other. If they were hungry or heavily wounded and needed a supplement, they would go outside to catch living people.

But Fang Chu was different. After he had experienced the benefits of using devils as supplements, he would often pick the subordinates of the people in Zhaoye City. Only by relying on the City Lord as his backer was he not killed.

And after that, he cultivated his “regeneration technique” to the point of perfection. Even if he couldn’t immediately find something to supplement himself with, he could still quickly heal.

***

Ning Huaishan pondered for a moment, then said, “Right, to you, losing an arm or a leg is a very ordinary thing, you can grow everything back in half a day or less. How come this time…”  Fang Chu said: “Before, I had thought it was because I’d been hungry for a few days and was a little weak. But thinking about it now, I’m afraid it’s not that. Look, since we’ve come to this Valley of Great Sorrow, I’ve grown new flesh.”  His technique of regrowth was fundamentally a demonic technique, and some things would naturally inhibit it. Such as… if he was constantly too close to an immortal and was being suppressed by their invisible celestial energy.

Fang Chu said, “Before, I had thought it was because I’d been hungry for a few days and was a little weak. But thinking about it now, I’m afraid it’s not that. Look, ever since we’ve come to this Valley of Great Sorrow, my limb started to grow back.”  His technique of regrowth was fundamentally a demonic technique, and some things would naturally inhibit it. Such as… if he was constantly too close to an immortal and was being suppressed by their invisible celestial energy.

His regeneration technique was, after all, a diabolic technique. Some things would naturally inhibit it, such as… staying too close to an immortal and being suppressed by their invisible celestial energy.

It wasn’t the type from cultivation disciples, it had to be from the Immortal Capital.

The reason his arm didn’t grow back at all before was because the celestial energy around him was far greater than the demonic energy. Now that they’ve come to this heinous place of the Valley of Great Sorrow, it was finally a bit better.

Ning Huaishan suddenly realized, looking towards that so-called puppet: “???”

“So stop having a death wish, I beg you. Just continue honestly following our City Lord. I don’t want to suspect anything right now, I just want to grow my arm back.”

“What? Shouldn’t we tell the City Lord?” Ning Huaishan asked in surprise.

Fang Chu looked like he was watching a tragedy, “Do you think the City Lord is dumber than me, or is he dumber than you?”

“Are you saying… City Lord already knows?”

……

So the City Lord fucking knows already, yet he’s still always sticking around that “puppet” and whispering to him?

***

After that, Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu were silent. They didn’t approach Wu Xingxue too close, but they also didn’t stray too far. They were honest and obedient like two quails.

They behaved so well that even those cultivation disciples were completely unable to tell that these two were problematic, let alone suspect that they were from Zhaoye City.

Unable to figure out who the divine statue was, the little disciples stopped thinking about it. They continued to test everywhere around the catacomb with their golden compasses. But for some reason, the golden compasses swiveled around like headless flies.

There were not only commoners beside them who had asked for help, but there were also some unknown powerful rogue cultivators. Those few little disciples were deathly afraid of losing face and embarrassing themselves as their cheeks turned red from being too anxious.

“What’s wrong with these spiritual compasses today?”

“It was never like this before!”

“Martial Brother, are the compasses broken?”

“Nonsense! We just checked them before coming out.”

……

“What is this needle supposed to detect?” Wu Xingxue chose the disciple whose face was the reddest and asked him.

The little disciple pointed to the drop of blood on the tip of the compass needle and replied, “It searches for spirits. It’ll search for the spirit of whoever’s blood it touches.”

He looked at the woman who had lost her daughters and continued, “It’s truly a pity for the victims’ family… after words appeared on her daughters’ necks, like many others, she used rope to tie her daughters to the bed, keeping watch by the bed at night. Afraid that she would fall asleep during the night, she even tied the other end of the rope to her own hand just in case. But when she awoke with a shock just before daybreak, she found that the rope was still in her hand, but her two daughters were gone, leaving only blood all over the rope. And the blood on our compasses is the same blood from that rope.”

“If it’s been too long since the person disappeared, then the golden compass might not be too accurate, but it still shouldn’t be like this.”

“Try it again and let me see.” Wu Xingxue patted him.

The commoners watched anxiously from behind.

With a face full of embarrassment, the little disciple let out an “oh.” He turned the needle towards himself, and taking this as the starting point, he pushed it outwards.

The golden needle spun chaotically towards the rock walls around them. Then, its motion abruptly ceased, and it returned to its starting position.

“I heard that our Martial Siblings who came to search for those people before us also ran into a similar situation. The needle would spin in a circle, and then return to where it started. They didn’t even have an overall direction, so they could only hastily make a quick search through the entire valley and then return in vain.”

“Forget it; we can’t depend on the compasses anymore,” the other two disciples said. They turned to Wu Xingxue and asked politely, “Do you guys have any other methods?”

Wu Xingxue shook his head.

He didn’t remember anything. Although he still had a bit of instinct left to save himself during emergencies, he didn’t know anything else at all.

But he did remember that before Xiao Fuxuan and the others had come down, One-arm Fang Chu had called out, “What the hell is this?”

If he remembered correctly, Fang Chu should have been standing over…

Back then, Wu Xingxue had kicked Fang Chu, so he remembered his general location. He walked back towards that area, carefully checking the holes of various sizes lining the rock wall. The ones towards the top held oil lamps inside, while the one towards the bottom was a little bigger, capable for a person to hide in there.

Wu Xingxue reached out a hand to search inside the hole. He could feel a cool, moist breeze.

“Oh, right, Cheng… Young Master!”1 Fang Chu saw his movement and finally spoke up, “There’s something inside there, I had glanced at it before! But afterwards, we were interrupted, so I didn’t have time to look clearly.”

Wu Xingxue was just about to bend down to look when that red-faced cultivation disciple scrambled over.

He probably wanted to recover some of the face he had lost due to the golden compass, saying “It’s easier to enter with my height.” Then, he took an oil lamp and entered the hole.

The little disciple lifted the oil lamp to light up the hole, illuminating a silhouette that crouched deep inside—its hair was tied into two buns, and its face was ghastly white, with two deep, black, unblinking eyes, staring silently at him.

“Fu—”

“!!!”

The little disciple’s soul almost flew out of his body!

“Why are you trembling?” Someone suddenly tapped him from the back.

Thanks to the sudden pat, the hairs all over his body immediately stood up. With a startled cry, he shrunk back, bumping into the person behind him.

“See, I told you I should’ve gone.” Wu Xingxue testily turned to the side, dragging that little disciple out. Just as he was about to squat down and enter, he saw someone raise their foot from the side of his eye.

Those long, black boots were very narrow, making the legs look straight and strong.

With just a step on the rock wall, the miniature cave’s entrance suddenly expanded, cracking into multiple fissures in a split second. Loose rocks were shaken down in a storm of clattering, and the hole expanded to more than half the height of a normal person. One didn’t even have to bend down now. Just with a sweep of the oil lamp, the scene inside the cave could be seen.

“……”

Wu Xingxue turned his head and saw Xiao Fuxuan’s face

How should he describe his feelings…

He felt that in the end, there might not be many places in this catacomb left intact.

Is this what the Celestial Immortal is like???

Wu Xingxue complained in his head and lowered his head to sweep the oil lamp towards the cave. He also saw the ghastly white face.

“……”

With this appearance and squatting in this place, it was indeed very easy for others to be frightened.

Fortunately, the hole was enlarged, and the appearance of the thing became clearer. Wu Xingxue saw its face gleam with the shine of pottery and said, “It’s a statue of a little girl.”

That thing was neither a living person nor a ghost, it was a sculpture. Its face was painted snowy white, and its cheeks even had some red rouge, just like the types of statues of little boys and girls worshipped on each side of the celestial temples. 

But a talisman was stuck to the body of this statue, and there were words on the talisman.

It read: This worships Immortal Envoy Zhao Qinglai.

The words were written with blood, and they were scraggly written. It wasn’t because the writer had bad handwriting, but it was more like when he wrote this, his hand was too stiff and couldn’t write properly any longer.

“Zhao Qinglai?” Wu Xingxue read the name and stood up straight.

One of the disciples suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! This name… I’ve heard of it before. Didn’t one of our Martial Brothers mention it before? It should be someone who was ordained.”

The other cultivation disciples’ expressions suddenly became unpleasant, “How big is that little girl’s statue? Can it hold a person?!”

“Don’t tell me those people who were ordained are actually sealed in this statue.”

Xiao Fuxuan placed a hand on the curved ceiling of the cave, bent down, and looked inside.

Then, he curved two fingers, and the talisman on the little girl’s statue fell into his hand with a swish.

“!!!” Those few cultivation disciples immediately called out, “We’re not clear about the whole story, that talisman shouldn’t be rashly touched!

But after they finished yelling, they suddenly realized that since the others were powerful senior rogue cultivators, they probably knew what they were doing.

Sure enough, Wu Xingxue looked towards Xiao Fuxuan and asked him, “What kind of talisman is this?”

Xiao Fuxuan flipped it over, replying, “It’s used to raise spirits.”

Wu Xingxue: “……”

“And what does raising spirits mean?”

Xiao Fuxuan: “……”

“Oh—” Yi Wusheng remarked, “I know this, I heard my teacher talk about it when I was younger. He said that before, there used to be a type of array to summon immortals. Place a divine statue in the middle, and then hire people to act as the little boys and girls of the immortal’s household. Position them according to the direction of the array, and then stick talismans on them. If the worshipper’s name is written on the talismans, then the immortal can be summoned into the divine statue.”

“Then after that, someone probably twisted this legend, and people started to say that it is an array that could let a divine statue come to life. Hence, it’s called spirit raising.”

As they spoke, a quick-handed cultivation disciple had already used his sword to crack open the little girl statue. Broken shards of clay scattered all over the floor, and its insides were covered in blood. The pungent scent of blood carried over, making their stomachs turn.

It was obvious that once there was indeed something stored here in this statue.

“It’s so short, I don’t think they can be stuffed inside, right?”

“So they were cut apart…”

The crowd all remembered that for the people who had been ordained, the ropes they had been bound with were soaked in blood, appearing like they had been chopped into pieces. If their head and four limbs were all separated, then it wouldn’t be hard to stuff them inside a small statue like this.

It was just that…

Inside this little girl’s statue, there was only blood remaining. Where did the person who was stuffed in there go?