novelraw Chapter 21 : Chapter 21
Chapter 21 : Chapter 21
Chapter 21: The Mountain Watchman
Lin Bai first returned to his room and carefully checked through all the ordinary materials needed for the evolution, along with that cage of costly Phosphor Fireflies. After confirming that everything was in order, he stuffed a few bottles of Fasting Pills refined by Lin Su into his pack as well.
“All right, Mo Ling. We’re ready to set out.”
Lin Bai said this to the little one on his shoulder. Just as he was about to step out the door, he suddenly remembered something and turned back.
Although he had already informed his sister beforehand, he would still be gone for several days. It was safer to leave a note behind.
He found some paper and a brush and quickly wrote down his destination, the estimated length of his trip, and his departure time, then weighed the note down with a teacup in the most visible spot on the table.
Good. Lin Bai now felt that everything was fully prepared.
With the materials in hand and Mo Ling with him, he left the room.
The Yin-Nurturing Ground built by the Zhong Family was outside the city, but fortunately it was still within five hundred li of Yunmeng City, so the Spirit-Powered Carriage could still reach it.
Profound Yin Cavern. Lin Bai silently chewed over those words.
That was the name of Yunmeng City’s Yin-Nurturing Ground. It was shaped like a mountain, and he had heard that there was a lake atop it that gathered a great quantity of yin energy.
The drifting yin energy around the mountain’s foot had been divided by Yunmeng City into rental zones.
When Lin Bai arrived, he found the place sparsely inhabited. The distant mountain lay beneath the sun in an ominous dark hue, like a gigantic beast lying in ambush.
There was no so-called howling yin wind. Instead, there was a kind of silent deadness.
It should be known that Lin Bai had arrived in the afternoon, when the sun in the sky was still strong. Yet the closer he drew to the mountain, the more he felt threads of chill seep into him. Even with the physique of someone in the Transcendent Realm, Lin Bai could still feel the cold. That was anything but normal.
Even Mo Ling, a bird that liked environments heavy with yin energy, curled up in his arms for warmth.
Left with no other choice, Lin Bai tucked her into the inner lining of his clothes. Fortunately, Mo Ling was still in her juvenile stage and was not even as large as Lin Bai’s palm, so there was no issue.
Lin Bai walked to the road entrance at the outer foot of the Profound Yin Cavern. There was almost no one around, only a few small houses.
Any cultivator in Yunmeng Commandery who cultivated a yin-vein path either belonged to at least a small clan or was a Spirit-Invocation Shaman.
They had their own clan grounds for raising ghosts and nurturing corpses. Only when they were on the verge of a breakthrough would they come here to borrow the Profound Yin Cavern, because the fees were simply too high. Nurturing a corpse here even once cost at least several hundred, or even over a thousand, Spirit Stones. A clan or a sect did not have only a single member to support.
Lin Bai walked up to one of the small houses and knocked on the door to see whether anyone was inside. The houses resembled the crumbling mud-and-tile dwellings in a run-down village, the sort no one lived in anymore.
Fortunately, Lin Bai’s luck was not bad. The person inside was still there and had not gone up to patrol the Profound Yin Cavern.
With a CREAK, the door opened, and out walked a short old man. His cropped hair was in disarray, his face was dull and expressionless, and he limped as he walked, one leg dragging behind him.
He was likely the mountain watchman of the Profound Yin Cavern, one with an unusual fate.
Lin Bai did not dare show the slightest disrespect. He hurriedly saluted and asked, “Sir, this junior wishes to enter the Profound Yin Cavern. Are there any taboos I should know?”
The old man nodded and asked in a flat, mechanical tone, “How long are you renting it for? Long term or short term?”
“Eight days will do.”
Lin Bai reached out, took out eight Spirit Stones, and handed them to the mountain watchman.
He only needed seven days, but just in case something unexpected happened, Lin Bai felt it was better to pay for one extra day. In matters like this, he never quibbled over a bit of money.
The mountain watchman took the Spirit Stones, returned to the room, and came back with a token, which he handed to Lin Bai.
“Section Ding, No. 56.”
After seeing Lin Bai take the token, the mountain watchman beckoned to him, indicating that he should follow.
“You just asked me whether there are any taboos. The Profound Yin Cavern has already been suppressed, so there are no major taboos.”
“But if you hold any gratitude or pity in your heart for those who died violent deaths and were buried here, then come with me and burn some spirit money for them.”
The moment Lin Bai heard that, he hurriedly followed. The mountain watchman’s hut was much the same as its exterior, like the home of an old farmer.
Only there were no farming tools. Instead, there were several blurred divine images hanging on the wall, faint blue smoke curling from the incense burner, and a furnace for burning paper offerings already ablaze.
The room carried the mixed scent of medicine and incense.
Seeing Lin Bai follow him in, the mountain watchman handed him three sticks of incense and gestured for him to step forward.
Holding the incense, Lin Bai bowed three times respectfully and murmured in a low voice, “Seniors, this junior Lin Bai offers his respects. If I do anything improper after going up the mountain, I ask that you forgive me.”
After bowing, he solemnly inserted the three sticks of incense into the burner.
Then the old man handed him a stack of yellow paper. Lin Bai carefully fed the sheets into the furnace one by one and watched them turn to ash.
Afterward, Lin Bai bid the mountain watchman farewell and prepared to enter the Profound Yin Cavern.
Just as he was about to step out the door, the mountain watchman spoke.
“At night on the mountain, do not go outside. If you hear knocking at your door, ignore it. If a little ghost slips in, kill it.”
When Lin Bai heard those words, he turned to look at the mountain watchman, who stood beside the still-burning paper furnace with his back to him. It was almost as though what he had just heard had been a hallucination.
Lin Bai solemnly bowed once more to the old man’s back before finally turning and leaving.
As he walked, he mulled over the old man’s warning, and a judgment had already formed in his mind.
I asked the mountain watchman whether there were any taboos, and he told me there were no major taboos. That means there are minor ones.
These little ghosts entering the room must be one of those minor taboos.
The Profound Yin Cavern was no benevolent place. It was a ground for nurturing yin-vein yin spirits. Even genuine blessed lands had Demonic Beasts lurking in them, much less this great baleful land formed from the piled bodies of countless dead.
And this was still only the foothill where Lin Bai stood. Once he truly reached the interior, there was no knowing what strange things might occur.
But kill them?
A trace of a cold smile appeared on Lin Bai’s face. Even if the old man had not warned him, he would never have shown mercy to anything that invaded his space.
Still, he was grateful to know in advance so he could make preparations.
As Lin Bai thought this over, he followed the token in his hand to find the right place.
Section Ding was on the eastern side of the front mountain of the Profound Yin Cavern.
Before long, he arrived.
He studied the place carefully and discovered that although the houses in Section Ding were arranged in a tangled fashion, there was actually an underlying order to them. They were likely nodes of the formation beneath the mountain.
Lin Bai also found his own room, Number Fifty-Six.
The room truly was not large. There were no windows, only a small wooden door. Everything else was sealed shut. The walls were built from a special black stone that felt icy to the touch.
After looking it over, Lin Bai entered the room.
Inside, a Nightglow Stone provided illumination, and there was also a slot in the wall where the token could be inserted to activate the room.
Lin Bai also discovered traces of past rituals on the floor. Most of them had been cleaned away, but some marks still remained.
There was no way to tell what the previous occupant had used the room for.
To prevent those remnants from interfering with Mo Ling’s evolution, Lin Bai carefully cleaned the place again. Fortunately, the room was small, and with his stamina, he finished tidying it up in no time.
At that moment, Mo Ling also poked her head out from the inner lining of Lin Bai’s clothes and curiously looked toward her master.
It was as if she were asking, “Are we there yet?”
Lin Bai chuckled.
“Yes, little one, we’re here. Next, your foundations will finally be improved. You have to work hard.”
Lin Bai first sorted through everything he had brought and divided it into two piles.
One pile was made up of the materials for the Yin-Gathering Formation to be used over the first seven days. The second pile contained the ritual materials needed afterward.
Lin Bai first took the Black Cloud Ore Ink and mixed it with several other materials, such as Hundred-Year Yinwood and Rotting Pool Mud and Sand, creating a gray-black substance that was neither water nor mud, yet incredibly adhesive.
Like a calligrapher, he began drawing all sorts of talisman patterns across the floor. In the end, only one talisman remained unfinished before the entire formation diagram would be complete. After that, he selected the proper direction and placed the core of the Yin-Gathering Formation in an appropriate position.
Lin Bai took Mo Ling out from inside his clothes and lifted her before him, giving her one more instruction.
“Little one, I’m nearly done with everything I can do. What comes next depends on you.”
Through the connection between her and Lin Bai’s soul, Mo Ling also understood how important this time was. She knew this was her great opportunity.
She nodded her little head earnestly.
Lin Bai said no more and began writing part of the final talisman of the formation onto Mo Ling’s body.
It was much like this: the Yin-Gathering Formation below was the data cable, and Mo Ling was the phone. Once the two were connected, energy transmission could begin.
Now that everything was prepared, Lin Bai checked once more that the door was securely locked, then placed the wooden token into the slot.
HUMMM—
The formation beneath the room activated. Lin Bai could sense that an additional kind of chilly energy had appeared inside the room.
There was no time to delay. Lin Bai seized seven Phosphor Fireflies from the basket at the side and fed them to Mo Ling, then let her fly into the center of the Yin-Gathering Formation he had drawn.
The evolution had officially begun.