Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 61: The Demon Tree, Reborn

Chen Huangpi froze.

He had never once considered what would happen if his master didn't wake up.

The brass oil lamp's offhand question sent him into silent contemplation, head bowed.

Chen Huangpi murmured to himself: "Master and I have depended on each other for so many years — we are like father and son. If Master never wakes… then I would be the Guanzhu, wouldn't I?"

At those words, the brass oil lamp was struck dumb.

It had expected anger, or a rebuttal.

Not this.

The brass oil lamp had been made by Guanzhu, and naturally had feelings for him. If Guanzhu hadn't gone mad and started using it as a chew toy, it wouldn't have been thinking about running away every other day.

To hear Chen Huangpi put it like that made the lamp deeply agitated.

"Chen Huangpi — I underestimated you. I thought you were only a little bit bad. Turns out you're completely rotten.""You've been biding your time, playing dumb, all for today — isn't that right?"

Chen Huangpi scratched his head, baffled. "Huang Er, what are you talking about? I don't understand."

"Stop pretending. We're all family here."

The brass oil lamp roared with laughter: "You knew Guanzhu would never allow you to leave the Hundred Thousand Mountains, so fury rose in your heart and evil bloomed in your gut — and you calmly knocked him out with a pill, so you could seize the chance to have me take you away!"

"Because I have the Divine Flash of One — I can traverse the world in a single breath."

The brass oil lamp was convinced it had uncovered the truth, and was overcome with delight.

Its best friend was rotten to the core — and somehow, learning this put it completely at ease.

Chen Huangpi stared blankly.

He was only trying to cure his master's illness.

Once he cured him, he still planned to take care of him into old age.

How had it turned into biding his time, playing the fool, and seizing a chance to escape the Hundred Thousand Mountains?

Chen Huangpi was about to explain when his brow suddenly creased, and he felt a bone-chilling presence.

It was coming from the Pure Immortal Temple.

From the Old Temple, to be precise.

"Huang Er — what is that?"

"Chen Huangpi — you felt it too?"

The brass oil lamp's voice was filled with alarm. "Something is trying to come out of the Old Temple. How — how is that possible?"

It had divided itself into several thousand fragments at Guanzhu's instruction, each lodged in a different corner of the Pure Immortal Temple, keeping the temple from being swallowed by the Old Temple.

Inside the Old Temple dwelled horrors beyond counting.

Should anything or anyone wander inside, if they failed to exit before dawn — they would never leave again.

That was the rule. That was the law of nature.

And now that rule appeared to have broken.

"Impossible, impossible!"

The brass oil lamp shook its head frantically. It would rather believe it had been mistaken than accept that something had actually broken out.

The Old Temple was packed with terrifying things.

Some were native to it — like the evil spirits the dead Daoist priests had become. Like the Golden-Horned and Silver-Horned guardians of the Scripture Pavilion, which were unusual creatures but in essence also evil spirits, simply frozen in their transformation. These were manageable.

Even if the Old Temple truly malfunctioned and the evil spirits could escape — those ones wouldn't leave. They wouldn't dare make a move.

Because Guanzhu was only knocked out, not dead.

Who would walk out looking for death, knowing the moment Guanzhu woke up, they'd all be slapped into oblivion?

But the Old Temple held something else — something far more dangerous. In his lucid moments, Guanzhu had patrolled the Hundred Thousand Mountains, and every evil spirit he brought back and threw inside the Old Temple was either monstrously evil or a full-fledged Disaster-class entity.

If those things came out — they would never go back in.

Though the brass oil lamp had no idea why Guanzhu had thrown so many evil spirits in there, Guanzhu never acted without purpose.

If something from inside really escaped and ruined Guanzhu's plans — when Guanzhu woke up and got angry, Chen Huangpi would get hit at most. But the lamp itself would be in serious trouble.

Just at that moment.

A vibration so faint it was almost imperceptible rippled across the mirror-dark surface of the darkness, sending tiny waves spreading outward.

A second later, a rustling sound rose — like dead leaves stirred up from the ground by the wind.

Then, a withered branch slowly extended from within the darkness.

Hanging from it was a Human Fruit.

Or more accurately — a God Fruit.

Because it was a true deity.

Its form was gaunt and desiccated, as if every drop of vitality had been sucked out of it. Its thin skin pressed flat against its bones, and a single glance at it inspired a creeping urge toward madness, delirium, and distortion.

"It's the Demon Tree!"

Chen Huangpi's eyes went wide. "I remember now — First Master said he went to plant the Demon Tree. I thought he was joking. I had no idea he meant it."

"The Demon Tree actually came back from the dead!"

"Came back from the dead?"

The brass oil lamp's vision blurred. "No wonder it could come out of the Old Temple!"

It wasn't that the Old Temple had malfunctioned and its denizens were trying to escape.

The Demon Tree had died and been reborn.

That made it a new life.

The Old Temple would treat it as entering for the very first time.

And since it was still night — the Demon Tree could naturally come out. Moreover, this was its only chance to do so.

While Chen Huangpi and the brass oil lamp were still talking —

The Demon Tree's incomprehensibly vast body, like a tree piercing the heavens, emerged from the darkness.

The whole of the Pure Immortal Temple was blotted out beneath its shadow.

Its countless branches thrashed and shook in a frenzy.

The forty-eight drained deities hung from those branches, already corrupted — they were evil gods now.

Beyond them, countless Human Fruits dangled from every twig — dense as stars, endless in number — every one of them resembling a decrepit elder in the last days of age.

Malice, thick and suffocating, poured off the Demon Tree in waves.

It moved with the force of something cataclysmic, like a great evil god that had been sealed away for thousands of years finally tearing free of its cage.

Sounds rose — half-cry, half-laugh, unlike either — demonic noise that bored straight into the ears. It was the forty-eight evil gods and the uncountable Human Fruits, celebrating and shrieking with wild joy.

But that celebration hitched to a sudden stop.

The Demon Tree's massive trunk jerked still.

As if it had sensed something.

Then every Human Fruit lowered its head — and looked down at Chen Huangpi.

Their gazes blazed with killing intent and hatred.

"Divine Flash of One!"

The brass oil lamp roared, and its body blazed with sudden, overwhelming radiance. A burning wick shone straight through the lamp's shell, casting golden light across everything around it.

Golden brilliance — like sunlight itself, illuminating all.

But the very next moment, a rustling crash of branches erupted above.

Branch after branch — thick as century-old trunks, twisted and coiling — lashed and crossed together in the sky above the Pure Immortal Temple. Dead bark crawled and squirmed along them like living snakes, condensing in an instant into a screen woven from interlocking branches.

No matter how brilliant the brass oil lamp shone, it was useless.

The light could not get through.

The Divine Flash of One had nowhere to go but spin in place.

Despair overtook the brass oil lamp.

This Demon Tree, by sheer dumb luck, had managed to escape the Old Temple. Any ordinary evil spirit would have run as far and as fast as possible. But this thing had an attitude of "I will not leave until Chen Huangpi is dead."

What grudge could run this deep?

"Chen Huangpi — did you murder its entire family?"

Chen Huangpi's face was bitter. "When I was little, I planted a hawthorn tree. But before it could bear fruit, I watered it to death."

"A hawthorn tree is a fruit tree, and the Demon Tree is also a fruit tree. Maybe they were relatives."

"But it's an evil spirit — does that mean it has feelings and loyalties like I do?"

The moment those words left his mouth, the Demon Tree's aura turned unspeakably terrifying.

Crack…

A fissure appeared at the very center of the branch-woven screen.

Nearly a hundred meters long, it split open like an eye snapping wide.

A blood-red moon formed the pupil;

the black night formed the iris.

The monstrous eye fixed itself on Chen Huangpi, gaze saturated with hatred.

This was not the first time it had died and come back.

But every single time, it had never forgotten Chen Huangpi's face.

Because the hawthorn tree Chen Huangpi watered to death in his childhood was none other than the Demon Tree itself.

But it was no fruit tree — how could it have ever grown hawthorn berries?

The more it failed to produce hawthorn berries, the more frequently Chen Huangpi watered it.

Its roots had rotted from the endless soaking.

And yet by then it had already awakened a spirit — it wanted to live. It refused to die.

During the day, it endured the agony of rotting roots.

At night, it threw everything into growing new ones.

But Chen Huangpi was relentless.

He only ever concluded that the problem was insufficient watering, and began watering it at night as well.

The Demon Tree held on for hundreds of years — and still met its end, drowned by water.

After dying it had become an evil spirit, driven by the sole desire for revenge on Chen Huangpi.

But it never got to make its move.

It was thrown into the Old Temple.

And could never emerge again.

Until now — reborn, it had torn free of the Old Temple and come to claim Chen Huangpi's life.

Hmmmm…

A strange, resonant vibration rose — from the great eye of the Demon Tree.

Chen Huangpi couldn't help but tilt his head back and look up at that monstrous eye — blood-red moon for a pupil, the black of night for its iris.

The blood moon at the center of that eye was turning hideous and strange. Red like blood about to drip from the sky.

The Demon Tree had covered the entire Pure Immortal Temple the moment it appeared. There was nowhere to run.

Chen Huangpi closed his eyes and reached inward, feeling the boundless black smoke locked inside his Kidney Temple.

He channeled the kidney essence from both his kidneys, trying to communicate with the Six Yin Spirits that had not yet taken form in his mind.

Even Huang Er couldn't take him away in time.

Which meant he had to fight.

He had boundless black smoke sealed inside his Kidney Temple.

As long as he opened those temple doors, there was still a chance.

Moreover, it was precisely because his Kidney Temple needed a guardian deity that the Demon Tree had been revived in the first place.

And just at that moment.

Within the monstrous eye, the blood-moon pupil flooded with crimson — and a pillar of blood-red light that seemed to pierce the heavens crashed down directly toward the Pure Immortal Temple, toward Chen Huangpi.

"Chen Huangpi — I'll buy you time!"

The brass oil lamp cried out, and two pale green hellfire flames erupted from its eyes in an instant.

Its whole body lost its former brilliance — and turned instead to the color of rusted bronze.

A cold, eerie, murky aura rolled off it in waves.

"Fire — go!"

The brass oil lamp's voice was cutting and cold, like wind scraped up from the depths of the Yellow Springs and the Yin Lands.

It opened its mouth and breathed out.

A massive column of pale green hellfire hurled itself straight at the blood-red pillar of light.

But the lamp didn't stop there.

It threw itself headlong into the hellfire.

The hellfire immediately exploded to its absolute peak.

The sky-piercing pillar of blood-red light and the lamp-enhanced hellfire met each other with tremendous force.

In one instant, two alien brilliances blazed and stripped all color from the world.

"AAHHH!"

The brass oil lamp screamed — its core was indestructible, but it could still feel pain. Even with its full power behind the hellfire, it still could not stop the blood-red pillar.

CLANG.

The brass oil lamp crashed heavily to the ground at Chen Huangpi's feet.

It was just trying to rise when the blood-red pillar came slamming down toward Chen Huangpi again.

And at that moment, Chen Huangpi's eyes snapped open, and he roared: "Kidney Temple — open!"

BOOM!

The limitless black smoke, answering Chen Huangpi's will, smashed through the doors of the Kidney Temple.

The very next second, billowing black smoke shot into the sky like a geyser.

Chen Huangpi stood at the center of the swirling darkness, raised his head, and looked up at the enormous Demon Tree.

"The Kidney Temple is open — enter the temple, now!"