Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 53: Keep It in Your Heart Long Enough, and an Answer Will Come

"It worked!"

Chen Huangpi stared at the bright red-and-white pill resting inside the furnace, his eyes blazing with excitement.

The pill gave off a rich, intoxicating fragrance.

And it was roughly the size of an adult human head.

The brass oil lamp gaped at it, at a loss for words: "The Heaven Pill is that big?"

"This is only the Heaven Pill!"

Chen Huangpi explained: "We still need to add the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man and roast it on the highest flame until tomorrow at this same hour — when day and night exchange, when yin and yang intertwine — only then will it become the true Heaven Toxin Pill."

"I know."

The brass oil lamp said dryly, "I may not understand alchemy, but I have seen the Daoist priests of the Pure Immortal Temple work their furnaces. What you've done is very different from how they did it."

"Different how?"That question stumped the brass oil lamp.

It had come into being not long before the Heaven and Earth Mutation, when the Daoist priests were all busy creating deities. So it had only witnessed alchemy being performed once.

Chen Huangpi's technique had been learned from Guanzhu — the brass oil lamp didn't dare offer even half a word of criticism about that.

It would only comment on the results.

That one Daoist priest had refined a full furnace of over a hundred pills.

Every single one the size of a little fingernail.

Chen Huangpi's furnace had produced one. Just one. And the half-finished Heaven Pill alone was already the size of a human head. What would the finished thing look like?

"Something's not right. This is very wrong indeed."

The brass oil lamp shook its head, its scalp prickling. "Chen Huangpi, Guanzhu's alchemy methods shouldn't produce something like this. Are you sure you actually learned it correctly?"

"What else would I have done?"

Chen Huangpi said: "I was put in that furnace so many times — even if I only committed a handful of techniques to memory each time, I've had more than enough chances to memorize them cold."

"Besides, a bigger pill is better."

"If it were small, I'd be worried the potency wasn't strong enough."

"That does make a certain kind of sense!"

The brass oil lamp reviewed its memory carefully, confirmed that Chen Huangpi's technique matched exactly how Guanzhu had put him through the furnace, and gradually settled its concerns.

"All right — should I throw the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man in now?"

"Wait a moment. Wait until nightfall — that's the ideal time. I have to get the timing right."

After quite some time had passed, darkness finally fell.

Chen Huangpi swept his hand sharply, and the lid of the Nine Dragons Refining Heaven Furnace lifted on its own.

A wave of intense heat billowed out.

The brass oil lamp quickly tossed the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man inside.

The next instant.

That thing called the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man — which was really just a lump of black flesh — instantly melted into liquid.

Strangely enough.

The moment the black liquid entered the furnace, it hurled itself at the head-sized Heaven Pill.

In the blink of an eye, the brilliant red-and-white pill had been coated entirely in black.

Black shot through with silver, yin threaded through with hints of gold.

Those were the colors of the mercury and white lead Chen Huangpi had added.

Alongside them drifted an indescribable scent — something beyond words.

"Fragrant… wonderfully fragrant…"

The brass oil lamp's nostrils flared, and it was immediately hit by a wave of fragrance so overwhelming it bordered on offensive.

The scent was simply too intense.

So intense that even its burning wick flickered between bright and dim.

"I have to say — it does smell amazing."

"Enjoy it while it lasts. Once it's fully refined, there'll be no smell at all — no color, no odor. Touch it and you die, brush against it and you're done. Three breaths and your soul is gone. Then it deserves the name Heaven Toxin Pill."

Chen Huangpi felt rather pleased with himself.

This was the first pill he had ever refined in his life, and he had produced something this extraordinary on the first try.

Placed among the great alchemists of the world, surely he would be considered a rare genius?

……

The night settled over the Pure Immortal Temple, and silence reigned.

Granny Tang sat cross-legged in meditation.

Before her stood the statue of the Fox Mountain God.

In just a single day, the statue no longer bore the pitiful, shattered appearance it had shown before.

"Finally… not easy at all…"

The Fox Mountain God opened its eyes, a flicker of grievance crossing its gaze.

"Less than one-tenth of my incense power left."

"Even at my very lowest point — even then, I was far better off than I am now."

"At least there are those sixty deities in the temple feeding the Guan—"

The Fox Mountain God caught itself at once, clamping down on the thought. It had been about to say it was lucky that those sixty foolish deities were there for Guanzhu to drain — but something inside it sliced the sentence off cold before the words could form.

Can't say it.

Say it and Guanzhu might hear.

It consoled itself quietly: 'As long as my incense power doesn't surpass those sixty idiots', I'll be fine.'

The Fox Mountain God had accepted its fate.

It had come to this wretched Pure Immortal Temple, and it would never leave. Not in this life.

It would die here.

Those sixty foolish deities were the perfect example — they'd arrived thinking they could simply walk back out. And had they? No.

Now weren't they all sitting in the same cage as the Fox Mountain God?

'Deities from outside the mountains may have more incense and worshippers, but when it comes to reading the room and keeping yourself alive — anyone from inside the mountains could run circles around them.'

The Fox Mountain God had nothing but contempt for those sixty deities.

Because it had already figured out what to do to survive before they were all drained dry.

Become a dog.

Become Chen Huangpi's dog.

Foxes are dogs too!

The Fox Mountain God was confident — because at least it and Chen Huangpi were acquainted. They had exchanged words. There was goodwill between them.

Even if that boy was a bit strange — just a few words with him, and the Fox Mountain God had lost a chunk of its divine soul.

But that certainly wasn't the boy's fault.

Every time it thought about its lost soul, the Fox Mountain God felt a stabbing ache in its head.

It had decided that one whose name must not be spoken and must not be thought was the one who had eaten it.

That was precisely why it had resolved to serve Chen Huangpi as a loyal dog.

'If a broken lamp can do it, why can't I?'

'Once I become the boy's dog, surely he'll put in a good word for me — I won't be left with absolutely no way out, will I?'

The Fox Mountain God was inwardly quite pleased with itself. It glanced over at the room next door. Even here in the Pure Immortal Temple, its divine power couldn't touch a single blade of grass within the grounds, and its divine sight couldn't see through the walls.

But it knew — it and those sixty deities were no longer traveling the same road.

Among deities, there are ranks.

And just at that moment.

Knock knock knock…

A familiar knocking suddenly rang out.

Without a word, the purple-robed Daoist priest materialized inside the room out of thin air.

That gaunt, wizened face — all sharp angles and otherworldly bearing — leaned in close as the Fox Mountain God stared up in terror.

"Little fox — you were just now muttering about dear little Huangpi, weren't you…"

"When you say his name, this Daoist priest can hear it, you know!"

One breath.

The tiny reserve of incense power the Fox Mountain God had carefully scraped together vanished entirely.

The purple-robed Daoist priest came without warning and left just as abruptly.

As if he had never been there at all.

In his wake, Granny Tang — who had been sitting cross-legged throughout — slowly opened her remaining eye, her expression deeply complicated as she looked at her mountain god. She rose and stepped forward, murmuring, "Mountain God…"

"Don't… move…"

The Fox Mountain God forced out a few words with great difficulty: "Cracked… I'm cracked."

……

In the room next door.

Song Qiuyue couldn't sleep no matter how she tried.

She sat cross-legged in quiet contemplation, while the other cultivators kept watch by the door.

The guest quarters of the Pure Immortal Temple were not particularly large — single rooms, each one — and having this entire group of cultivators crammed into one space created an atmosphere that was indescribably strange.

Fortunately, as a daughter of a great noble house, Song Qiuyue had her privileges.

She had claimed half the room for herself and hung a curtain down the middle, with a soundproofing barrier set behind it. Any cultivator who drew close would trigger a silent alarm.

She trusted that her retainers wouldn't dare harbor any ill intent.

But as a woman — Song Qiuyue instinctively found the situation unsettling.

So though she had been sitting cross-legged in meditation since nightfall, her mind was a tangle of restless thoughts, and sleep refused to come.

Nascent Soul cultivators had no need for sleep.

But not unless they were truly exhausted in mind and spirit.

Song Qiuyue was, in fact, drained to the bone. Anyone would be, after the bizarre series of events she'd been through.

She desperately wanted to sleep.

But she didn't dare.

"Four more hours until dawn."

Song Qiuyue counted the time silently in her head.

At first light, the people her uncle had sent to rescue her would arrive.

That old Daoist priest was terrifying — it would take at least a hundred deities to subdue him. And not just any deities — not cultivators who had spontaneously ascended to godhood. She needed mountain gods and river gods who had received proper imperial decrees, and at least one City God among them.

Yes — that was exactly the message she had relayed through the deities in the small hours of the morning when she had been forced to climb the mountain.

And just then.

Song Qiuyue's brow furrowed slightly.

She thought she heard strange sounds.

Like someone knocking on a door.

Mixed with faint, muddled noise — as if dozens of voices were rising and falling in conversation all at once.

'Could that be the old Daoist priest knocking?'

A cold dread settled over Song Qiuyue.

Chen Huangpi had warned her — if she heard knocking at night, she should ignore it entirely and go to sleep. It would pass quickly.

She didn't know what would happen if she responded.

But she was not about to take that risk.

With that thought, she simply blocked out her hearing altogether — and sure enough, the sounds disappeared.

What she failed to notice was that in the seed bag resting at her side, the wooden shrine housing the sixty deities had begun to shudder violently.

Deities drew out their full power only when sheltered within a shrine.

A shrine also had the capacity to store collected incense offerings.

The wooden shrine was a kind of portable traveling palace.

Song Qiuyue's shrine was different from the one Twelfth Madam had used.

It was larger, more intricate.

Enough to house all sixty deities.

And it was precisely because they were inside this shrine that those sixty deities, gazing up at the purple-robed Daoist priest standing in its hall, felt even more hopeless than they otherwise might.

Just moments before, they had been quietly absorbing the shrine's stored incense offerings, trying to offset the power that was mysteriously bleeding away.

Then, without warning, a knocking had sounded.

The deities had all paused in bewilderment — just like the Fox Mountain God — not yet understanding why anyone would knock on a shrine's door, before the purple-robed Daoist priest pushed the door open and walked inside, pulling it shut behind him.

Wiping drool from his chin, he advanced toward them.

"Senior, please spare us."

"This deity — no, this humble one — would gladly become an evil god, a servant under your command."

One by one, the massive deities who had been seated in lofty positions on their sacred pedestals toppled down and dropped to their knees, begging piteously.

"Heh heh — human qi! Such rich, dense human qi!"

The purple-robed Daoist priest cackled and strolled up to one of the deities, giving it a firm thump on the head.

The sound was not crisp.

It was muffled and dull.

The purple-robed Daoist priest's expression soured. "This one won't do."

Before the deity could even understand what was wrong with it, it saw the purple-robed Daoist priest's mouth open wide, and the old man inhaled sharply.

The deity's incense offerings rushed out in a single column of smoke and vanished into the Daoist priest's mouth.

Crack.

With all its incense drained, the deity could no longer maintain its physical form. Half its body snapped off on the spot, and from its upper half spread a dense web of cracks.

The purple-robed Daoist priest kept walking.

Whenever he reached a new deity, he gave its head a casual thump — as if he were testing a melon at the market.

"This one won't do either."

"No good."

"No good."

"Still no good."

"Not a single one will do!"

The purple-robed Daoist priest's temper finally snapped. He slapped the last deity hard enough to shatter its head, and the defeated deity didn't even have time to resist — it crumbled instantly into a heap of yellow earth.

"Infuriating! Absolutely infuriating!"

The purple-robed Daoist priest seized another deity by the throat and snarled: "This Daoist priest promised little Huangpi he would find him a suitable deity — but not one of you will do! You're all useless, every last one of you — you all deserve to die!"

That deity sputtered feebly: "I… the sound my head makes when you tap it is crisp…"

"Then you're even more useless. You deserve to die even more."

The purple-robed Daoist priest said it coldly, and crushed the deity in his grip.

The surviving deities, witnessing all of this, pressed their faces flat against the floor in utter despair.

They shut their mouths. Shut their eyes. Covered their ears.

Say nothing. See nothing. Hear nothing.

They were going to die either way.

Better to die without knowing what was coming.

After a long while, the shrine fell deathly quiet.

A deity with a serpent's head and a human body suddenly felt its eyelids twitch.

'I'm still alive. Why didn't the old Daoist priest kill me?'

"I'm alive too!"

"So am I!"

The fifty-eight remaining deities broke into a wave of relieved, post-catastrophe gratitude.

"It feels so good to be alive!"

The next instant.

A familiar voice sounded in all their minds at once.

"It's fine. You'll be dead soon enough."