Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 134: Golden Horn Eats Evil Spirits

At the same time.

The capital of Da Kang. Within the Hall of the Cultivated Heart.

The Da Kang Emperor, freshly bathed and scented with incense, was relieving himself while dressed in Daoist robes.

A figure in black robes and a mask stepped out from the shadowed corner.

"Your Majesty, Wei Four reports: Chen Five and his team are dead."

"Dead? How?"

The Da Kang Emperor gave a few shakes, then pulled up his trousers and walked to a gilded dragon-motif basin to wash his hands.

"Unknown. Only that they died within the Hundred Thousand Mountains. Moreover, the four nails were obtained by the culprit, who appeared to be attempting Your Majesty's technique. The culprit has an associate called 'Huang Er' — possibly a subordinate."

"Anything else?"

"No. The culprit seems to have failed at the attempt. He said something about it 'not being fun,' and then Wei Four couldn't hear anything further.""He likely realized he'd been overheard."

The Da Kang Emperor chuckled. "Audacious, but with a pitiful excuse. Anyone who didn't know better would think it was some ignorant child."

"Go and investigate whether any of the great families have someone called Huang Er."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The man was about to withdraw.

But the Da Kang Emperor waved his hand. "Never mind. Don't bother. The ones with both the nerve and the ability to do this come from the usual suspects — the Song, Li, Meng, Han, Du, or Liu families."

"Since they dared to do it, they're not afraid of my investigation. And investigating would be pointless anyway."

"Still, Chen Five and his team were my trusted men. Not receiving an explanation would be unseemly."

With that, the Da Kang Emperor stepped onto a diagram of the Eight Trigrams. In one hand he held a gold-and-jade-inlaid striker; in the other he held a chime bell. Walking along the diagram, he struck the bell once.

Dong.

The chime rang, crisp and clear, its resonance lingering in the air.

After the sound faded.

The Da Kang Emperor stopped, sat cross-legged on the Kan position, and produced a die.

The die had six faces.

Each was inscribed with the surname of one of the six great families.

The Da Kang Emperor tossed the die. When it landed, the face showing read: Du.

But that was clearly not the result he wanted.

So he tossed it again.

This time, the face read: Song.

"Mm. The Song family."

The Da Kang Emperor nodded with satisfaction. "That Song Tiangang was entrusted with the governance of Xu Province on my behalf, yet he failed to keep his house in order and embezzled this year's tax revenue. The Song family elders did come in person to apologize and offered ten times the original amount — but that is not how this accounting works."

"The City God of Xuzhou City is Song Yuzhang, correct?"

"Indeed."

"Ascending to godhood on the spot was never the proper path. Have him practice the ancient methods."

After the Heaven and Earth Mutation, any cultivator who used the ancient methods would sprout strange growths and transform into an evil spirit.

This was irreversible.

And gods were beings formed when cultivators ascended to godhood in place — clay and wood, their Nascent Souls fusing with the vessel, their physical bodies dissolving entirely.

Without a physical body, one could still practice the ancient methods.

And the result would be even more vicious.

"Shall I bring a nail, Your Majesty?"

"Bring one, just in case."

The Da Kang Emperor waved the guard away.

After a cultivator practiced the ancient methods and transformed into an evil spirit, the nail could be driven in to pin down their sense of self — keeping them lucid and under his control.

But whether a god turned evil spirit could be controlled the same way was entirely untested.

So the Da Kang Emperor held no great expectations.

"Twenty-eight years of the Qingli era already..."

The Da Kang Emperor mused with a grin. "There's no shortage of people in this world as clever as I am. Given this much time, they've surely pieced together the general picture. But they see only one moment, one corner. I see a thousand generations. I see the entire world."

"What I envision — they cannot conceive."

"What I intend to do — they cannot do, dare not do."

Just then.

A faint, agonized growl echoed from somewhere unseen.

The Da Kang Emperor smiled. "There's no rush. The great families and those bald monks from the West Region Buddha Kingdom are already in motion. In time, they'll deliver that black sun right into my hands."

"Those geniuses and mediocrities alike — they all think I'm consumed with unlocking the secret of immortality from your body."

"But even if such a secret exists within you, I've lost all interest in becoming immortal."

"All things carry yin and embrace yang. The blending of qi creates harmony. Water nourishes all things and gives rise to itself. Qi floats upon water. I shall seize water in one hand and qi in the other, riding the great momentum of heaven and earth, channeling yin and yang into myself."

"Petty schemes and minor advantages — all mere illusions."

...

Inside the Pure Immortal Temple.

Chen Huangpi casually tossed the four nails into the Soul-Hooking Manual.

And Mang Shan Jun — which moments ago had been dull-eyed and witless, unable to recognize even itself — suddenly regained its faculties.

Then it said in abject terror, "Chen Huangpi, what have you done to me?"

All it remembered was Chen Huangpi removing two of its heads, then hammering the four nails into its skull with brute force — and then its consciousness had frozen solid.

Not a single thought had passed through its mind.

Chen Huangpi scratched his head. "I was trying to see if those four nails could restore your original consciousness, the same way they did for those other evil spirits. But it seems it didn't work."

Mang Shan Jun sneered. "Why would I want my original consciousness back? I'm an evil spirit. I'm supposed to eat people. If I weren't afraid to leave these Hundred Thousand Mountains, I would have devoured every last mortal in Xuzhou City long ago."

Chen Huangpi shook his head. "You used to be an Arhat. Don't you have even a shred of compassion?"

"Compassion? What's that?"

Mang Shan Jun said with contempt. "I ate people when I was an Arhat too."

"Then why did you become an evil spirit?"

Chen Huangpi was deeply curious.

Mang Shan Jun could eat people perfectly well as an Arhat. Becoming an evil spirit actually worked against it — feared by mortals, hostile to the gods.

"You want to know?"

Mang Shan Jun sneered. "Fine. Lean your head closer and I'll tell you."

"Sure." Chen Huangpi leaned in.

A flash of murderous light sparked in Mang Shan Jun's eyes. All four of its remaining heads lunged, jaws gaping wide — but before they could close.

The collar around its necks suddenly emitted a pulse of light.

"AHHH!!!!"

Mang Shan Jun screamed in agony. The collar felt as though it were clamped onto its very soul, its true form. The instant it tried to bite Chen Huangpi, the collar detonated, threatening to grind its soul to dust.

"You can't hurt me."

Chen Huangpi brandished the crane-beak pickaxe threateningly. "Your life and death are entirely in my hands. If I want you dead, you die. If I don't, you couldn't die even if you wanted to."

"If I cooperate and confess, will you spare my life?"

"No."

Chen Huangpi said matter-of-factly. "Talk if you want. Don't if you don't. What does it have to do with me?"

"Fine. I'll talk."

Mang Shan Jun laughed bitterly. "In the spring of the fourth year of the Qingli era, monks from the Western Regions visited the capital of Da Kang to meet the Emperor. But according to their customs, I — as the attending guardian Arhat — was not permitted inside the palace."

"I was housed in a station outside the palace walls. I did nothing. And then I inexplicably became an evil spirit."

"Were there no other gods at the station?"

"There were. But I was the only one who turned."

"After I became an evil spirit, many masked men in black robes came to kill me. If I hadn't been able to slip into the void and escape quickly, I would have died right there in that station."

Mang Shan Jun stopped there.

Because that was all it remembered.

Chen Huangpi mused, "Those people weren't cultivators — they were evil spirits. It seems the capital of Da Kang has quite a number of these disguised evil spirits, and even the gods can't tell the difference."

"Evil spirits?"

Mang Shan Jun said in disbelief. "Impossible. Those people were cultivators. How could they be evil spirits?"

"What a stupid dog."

The Brass Oil Lamp said derisively. "Cultivators cap out at Nascent Soul — they can't even match an ordinary evil spirit. How could they have hunted you?"

"If they were evil spirits, then why did they try to kill me?"

Mang Shan Jun racked its brains but couldn't make sense of it. Then again, what did it matter even if it figured it out?

Chen Huangpi wouldn't spare its life regardless.

If it had known it would come to this, it should never have fled from the capital of Da Kang. It should have let those traitors kill it then and there.

Chen Huangpi paid no mind to Mang Shan Jun's brooding.

He'd only been listening to it like a story.

Now that the story was over, Mang Shan Jun had outlived its usefulness.

So with a thought, he commanded Mang Shan Jun to regrow the two heads he'd removed, then threw it back into the Soul-Hooking Manual.

Tonight, he was going to visit Second Master in the Old Temple.

Second Master had to be starving in there.

He'd serve him a few monkey brains as a tonic.

And right then.

A mournful bark rang out.

The next moment, the purple-robed old Daoist came bounding over, dragging Golden Horn behind him.

The purple-robed old Daoist held the end of a hemp rope. Golden Horn lay sprawled on the ground, belly swollen grotesquely full, as though it had eaten far too much. Even being dragged along the dirt, it couldn't muster the energy to move.

"Huangpi, your master is back!"

"First Master!"

Chen Huangpi ran up to greet him. "What happened to Golden Horn? Did you sneak it off for a secret meal?"

The purple-robed old Daoist preened. "I did — and it ate quite a lot. It needs to eat more if it's going to grow bigger, fatter, and fiercer."

"What did it eat?"

"Not telling. All sorts of good things, that's what. The problem is it's too lazy. Your master took it on one lap around the Hundred Thousand Mountains and it refused to take another step."

"So naturally, your master wasn't about to be lazy either. He dragged it for another dozen laps or so."

Hearing this, Chen Huangpi was stunned.

How vast were the Hundred Thousand Mountains?

So vast that even the Brass Oil Lamp's Divine Light of Escape took who-knew-how-long to complete a single round trip.

And Golden Horn had survived being dragged for over a dozen laps.

Master really had been feeding it something extraordinary.

Chen Huangpi couldn't help but say, "First Master, if you have good things, why didn't you share any with me?"

"You can't eat evil spirits."

The purple-robed old Daoist shook his head like a rattle drum. "Evil spirits taste terrible. If you eat them, the flavor will infect your flesh and ruin its quality."

"What?!"

Chen Huangpi said in shock. "First Master, you fed Golden Horn evil spirits? How many did it eat?"

"Your master can't remember. The general idea was: if it couldn't die from eating, then keep stuffing it until it nearly did."

The purple-robed old Daoist chuckled. "But it ate too much and can't digest it all. Your master is going to carry it to the pill furnace to help with digestion. No need to save lunch for your master — he'll eat something else."

As he spoke, the purple-robed old Daoist was already dragging the despairing Golden Horn toward the alchemy chamber.

...

Time in the mountains passed quickly.

As the sun set and the moon rose.

The Pure Immortal Temple became the Suppress Immortal Temple.

The modest Daoist temple swelled into something immense with the coming of night.

But those added regions remained forever shrouded in darkness — hazy, indistinct.

That was where the Old Temple lay.

Chen Huangpi arrived at the courtyard gate he'd used to enter the Old Temple before, and was about to step through with the Brass Oil Lamp in hand.

But the lamp suddenly said, "Chen Huangpi, don't go this way. Take a different path in."

"Why would I change? This way is shorter."

"Because the Third Guanzhu said there's one of his robes along the other path."