Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 65: Three Great Suns

At the peak of Luobo Mountain sat the Soul-Returning Jade.

Even a soul that had been utterly shattered could be gathered and restored by it.

How much more, then, a soul still in the process of dissolving.

The brass oil lamp knew all of this.

There had been a time when its own wick had burned out completely. Chen Huangpi had gone to Guanzhu and begged him to save it — but within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, Guanzhu could decide life and death with a single thought. There was no need for complicated measures. He had simply merged the lamp's fragments back into its core body, and just like that, it had come back to life.

Now Guanzhu was dead, his soul dissolving.

And there was no one left who could command the outcome with a thought.

So the only way was to seek the Soul-Returning Jade.

But how to reach the Yellow Springs and the Yin Lands — that was the real problem.

With that thought, the brass oil lamp said: "After the Heaven and Earth Mutation, the connection between the Yellow Springs and the mortal world was severed. The only way through is when an earth dragon turns — the yellow mud gushes back to the Yellow Springs, and one can slip through with it into the Yin Lands.""That won't work," the Fox Mountain God said in despair. "The earth dragon just turned — who knows how long before it happens again? Will Guanzhu's soul hold on that long?"

True, Guanzhu's soul was extraordinarily powerful.

Its dissolution was slow.

But an earth dragon turn only happened once every several hundred years and was not something you could just wait for. And not every earth dragon turn sent yellow mud gushing out — maybe two or three in ten times, if you were lucky.

Chen Huangpi knew perfectly well that they were right.

But he already had his answer.

"The God-Burying Mound."

Chen Huangpi said calmly: "The God-Burying Mound sits at the junction between the mortal world and the Yellow Springs. It was pushed up into the mortal world by the earth dragon turn — that means it must have left a passage behind. If I want to reach the Yellow Springs as quickly as possible, that is the only way."

The Yellow Peril had been trying to open the God-Burying Mound — to bestow its grace upon the evil spirits of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, giving each of them a chance to become a Disaster. That time, it had also given every evil spirit in attendance a single grain of yellow earth. Rub it to dust after ten days — and the dust would point the way.

By his reckoning, those ten days were nearly up.

The brass oil lamp looked at Chen Huangpi in this moment.

And had the sudden, unmistakable sense that its companion had grown up overnight.

But it had its own concerns.

Rather than agreeing, it cautioned: "Chen Huangpi — think this through carefully. Even if we find a passage straight down to the Yellow Springs — setting aside the one-in-ten-thousand odds of surviving once you're inside — just the yellow mud seeping up from the Springs is something neither of us can afford to touch. To say nothing of the Yellow Springs themselves."

"The Yellow Peril was itself a mountain god once. One touch of the yellow mud — and it became a monster."

"Guanzhu is already gone. You need to think about yourself."

Before Chen Huangpi could respond, the Fox Mountain God couldn't hold its tongue.

"No matter how dangerous — you still have to go."

The Fox Mountain God said with great gravity: "If we sit here and watch Guanzhu's soul dissolve, and he dies and rises again as an evil spirit — none of us will survive."

It was terrified, and deeply unsettled.

Guanzhu going mad was already strange enough.

If on top of that he became an evil spirit — with something as powerful as Guanzhu, the whole world would become a playground for evil spirits. That was in the best case. The worst case was being unable even to become an evil spirit and simply being swallowed whole on the spot.

The brass oil lamp gave a cold laugh: "Guanzhu won't become an evil spirit. He'll just die and be reborn — except the one reborn will be Third Master."

"Is there a difference?" the Fox Mountain God asked.

"This…"

The brass oil lamp was stumped.

Honestly — there wasn't much of one.

Third Master had been suppressed in the Old Temple for who knew how long. The first thing he would do upon emerging would probably be to deal with the lamp. If the lamp was finished, so were all the fragments it was using to suppress the Old Temple. At that point, the Old Temple would devour the Pure Immortal Temple — and then devour the whole of the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

"Chen Huangpi — what do you think?"

The brass oil lamp turned to Chen Huangpi.

The Fox Mountain God did the same.

Without Guanzhu, the only one who could make decisions for the Pure Immortal Temple was Chen Huangpi.

He was the one who truly held the authority here.

Chen Huangpi thought for a moment, then said slowly: "Huang Er, I know you're looking out for me. But the Fox Mountain God is also right. Whether it's for Master's sake, or for yours, or for mine — no matter how great the danger, I have to go straight at it."

His master had gone mad.

He called himself three people — First Master, Second Master, Third Master.

All the same person — lucid when lucid, mad when mad.

For Third Master to revive and leave the Old Temple, First Master and Second Master would have to disappear.

Only when all three became one again would his true master be restored.

Failing to cure his master was a matter of his own medical skill being insufficient. But to never even have the chance to try — that was something Chen Huangpi could not accept.

As if sensing his resolve, the brass oil lamp's tone softened considerably: "Very well. Since you've made up your mind — the Yellow Springs and the Yin Lands it is. I'll go with you. No matter how dangerous it gets, I'll keep you in one piece."

The Yellow Springs and Yin Lands might not even be safer than the Old Temple.

And from what the Life-reaping Ghost implied, there was a real possibility that something had gone wrong down there.

But this time, the brass oil lamp made no excuses.

"There's still one problem."

Chen Huangpi frowned: "If we find the passage — how do we avoid the yellow mud and water splashing up from the Springs?"

Just the yellow mud alone was unspeakably dangerous.

Touch it once and you could never free yourself. In moments you would transform into an evil spirit.

The Yellow Peril had been a mountain god — one splash of yellow mud and it had become what it was: personality reversed, savagery extreme, the kind of thing that would devour its own faithful without a moment's hesitation.

And the yellow mud was something even the brass oil lamp dared not touch.

It had to be avoided entirely. There was no contact permitted.

Chen Huangpi looked at the brass oil lamp. It said nothing.

He looked at the Fox Mountain God. It shook its head with a sigh.

Clearly — neither of them had any answer.

Just then.

Chen Huangpi suddenly felt the Soul-Hooking Register in his inner robe pocket radiate a cold, eerie energy. It was bitterly cold — the moment it appeared, it swept through his whole body. As if it were helping him sort through the tangle of thoughts in his mind.

At the same time, a familiar voice rose from deep in his heart.

"Contract-holder — I hear you want to descend to the Yellow Springs?"

It was the Life-reaping Ghost.

Chen Huangpi's eyes lit up.

The next second, thread upon thread of yellow mist seeped out from the Soul-Hooking Register.

The yellow mist drifted to Chen Huangpi's side and gathered into a single mass.

From within the mist, the enormous skeletal skull of the Life-reaping Ghost slowly pushed through.

Chen Huangpi said quickly: "A'Gui — we need to go to the Yellow Springs and the Yin Lands, but the Yellow Springs are too treacherous. We don't know how to manage it."

"You are creatures of the mortal world. Of course you have no answer for the Yellow Springs."

The Life-reaping Ghost explained: "But I was born within the Yellow Springs, and I crawled my way up to the Yin Lands. The Yellow Springs are my mother — they cannot hurt me. I can carry you safely through."

"A'Gui — thank you."

Chen Huangpi was moved.

But the Life-reaping Ghost shook its head and said: "My true form has been gnawed into this state — only returning to the Yellow Springs can restore it."

"I have been away from the Yin Lands for too long."

"I want to go home and see it again."

"It is I who should thank you."

At those words, the brass oil lamp finally gave the Life-reaping Ghost a proper look.

So this skeleton was smarter than it appeared.

Which made all the effort it had spent speaking up for the Life-reaping Ghost feel worthwhile.

At this moment, the Life-reaping Ghost looked at Chen Huangpi — who seemed to have a great weight lifted from him — and then said: "Don't rejoice too quickly. The descent to the Yellow Springs I can manage, but I suspect something has changed down there. If my fears are correct, even once we arrive — every step will be a struggle."

Chen Huangpi frowned: "A'Gui, if you're putting it that way — you must have a solution."

"Indeed."

The Life-reaping Ghost slowly let four words fall.

"The Sons of Diting."

The Sons of Diting — those were the Golden-Horned and Silver-Horned guardians of the Scripture Pavilion.

They moved through the Yin Lands with their ears to the Yellow Springs.

They could hear the voices of the Yellow Springs and the Yin Lands.

In ancient times, when cultivators descended into the Yin Lands, they would borrow the ability of a Son of Diting to locate treasures they sought — or to find the soul of a loved one.

The brass oil lamp shook its head like a rattle-drum.

"No no no — the Golden-Horned and Silver-Horned are in the Old Temple. There's simply no way to bring them out."

But Chen Huangpi was resolute. "There is a way. Just like the Demon Tree — die and be reborn."

"How would they die and be reborn?"

Chen Huangpi and the Life-reaping Ghost exchanged a look.

Then said in perfect unison: "The Dog Rearing Scripture!"

"The Dog Rearing Scripture?"

The brass oil lamp's eyes went wide. "That sinister technique can bring them back from death?"

In that case — if they simply passed it along to Third Master, wouldn't that be…

An act of absolute revolt against Nature itself!

The brass oil lamp shuddered and hastily crushed that terrifying thought before it could go any further.

Chen Huangpi had no idea what the lamp was in the middle of contemplating.

He was turning over the mechanics of the Dog Rearing Scripture in his mind, pacing in slow circles around the cooking platform.

The Dog Rearing Scripture was profoundly strange.

Without both master and servant voluntarily dissolving the bond together, the servant could never break free for eternity.

And stranger still — alive, it was his dog. Dead, it was still his dog.

With that thought Chen Huangpi halted, and said: "I only need them to become my dogs — and then I kill them with a single sword strike. Even in death they must answer to me. That might well count as dying and being reborn. There is only one problem."

"What problem?"

"I don't know what they'd become after. Whether they'd come back as evil spirits — or as what they were."

Golden-Horn and Silver-Horn were unusual creatures — entities that had stopped mid-transformation, fixed in the state between living being and evil spirit.

Dying and being reborn might break that balance.

What they'd become afterward, no one could say.

The brass oil lamp, hearing this, immediately relaxed and said with a laugh: "Simple enough — we try one first. If one doesn't work, there's still the other. And if both don't work — that's just their bad luck."

"It'll work."

Chen Huangpi explained: "Each one gives a fifty-fifty chance. But there are two of them — that's the same as a ten-in-ten probability."

……

Elsewhere.

Inside the Old Temple — it was daytime.

During the day, the Old Temple existed independently from the Pure Immortal Temple. It was only at night that the Old Temple emerged.

At this very moment.

Three enormous suns hung over the Old Temple.

One purple. One white. One cyan.

The three great suns blazed against one another in competition.

And beneath them, every bluestone slab paving the Old Temple's grounds was trembling without cease, thin streams of cyan mist seeping up through the cracks.

That cyan mist blanketed the entire Old Temple.

Within it, figures like gods and demons alike — howling in madness, contortion, and suffering.

Those were the evil spirits Guanzhu had thrown inside.

Disasters, Calamities, and things even beyond Calamities, wailing in the mist.

With each cry, the cyan sun blazed brighter — overpowering the purple and white suns, crushing them both into shadow.

At the entrance to the Scripture Pavilion, the two unusual creatures — Golden-Horn and Silver-Horn — huddled together, shaking.

"Elder brother — did you see it? That sun, inside it…"

"There's nothing inside it."

Golden-Horn kept its eyes tightly shut, voice trembling with terror: "I can't see anything — I can't see anything at all. The mortal world is terrifying. I want to go back to the underworld. The underworld is my home."