Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 67: The Evil Daoist Returns

"I've done it!"

Chen Huangpi snapped his eyes open, a sharp light flashing in them.

The Demon Tree branches that had been poking out of his ears and nostrils all retracted smoothly back inside.

The sight was deeply unsettling.

The brass oil lamp couldn't help asking: "Chen Huangpi — done what, exactly?"

Right.

Done what?

The Fox Mountain God was baffled.

He'd just been sitting there cross-legged for two hours — had he somehow ascended to immortality?

"Could it be — he subdued the Demon Tree?"The Life-reaping Ghost said it offhandedly, its gaze fixed intently on the Kidney Temple within Chen Huangpi.

"Kind of yes and kind of no."

Chen Huangpi nodded and shook his head at once. "The Demon Tree isn't as ferocious as you all imagine. It and I are both reasonable — once I laid out the stakes clearly and promised to water it every day, it agreed to give me my power back."

"All things considered — it's probably half-tamed."

"Half-tamed is still tamed. Round it up and it's fully tamed."

The Life-reaping Ghost quickly added its two cents.

Its relief was beyond words — waking up to find itself inside the Soul-Hooking Register rather than inside that terrifying Kidney Temple had very nearly unmade it.

It had not forgotten what Chen Huangpi had said, out of nowhere, when the Kidney Temple was still empty.

'A'Gui — you were born in the Yellow Springs. That means you must be water-element, right?'

Yes. The Life-reaping Ghost was water-element.

Pure, Yellow-Springs-water-element — a kind that simply didn't exist in the mortal world.

But that didn't automatically mean it was safe.

The Kidney Temple housed a wood-element entity — the Demon Tree. And the Demon Tree was now a Calamity-class being, vastly stronger than itself.

If Chen Huangpi failed to subdue the Demon Tree — who was to say he wouldn't simply give up on the Demon Tree and throw the Life-reaping Ghost in instead?

Chen Huangpi seemed to read its anxiety.

He smiled and reassured it: "A'Gui — don't worry. Each organ temple can hold only one deity. The Kidney Temple belongs to water, but a wood-element occupant got in first. You can't enter."

"Right — I believe you. I'm not worried."

The Life-reaping Ghost smiled with visible strain.

Water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water.

The Kidney Temple had no place for it.

But as for the last of the five temples — the metal-element Lung Temple — that was another matter. Metal generates water.

The brass oil lamp gave the Life-reaping Ghost a quick sidelong glance and quietly shook its head.

This A'Gui was still a new arrival. It didn't understand Chen Huangpi's character.

Yes, he was strange and dangerous — but he was also a person of deep feeling and loyalty, old to his roots. He would never put the Life-reaping Ghost into the Lung Temple to suffer.

Besides — what kind of power did the Life-reaping Ghost even have?

The lamp nearly laughed at the thought. It had recovered a great deal of its strength by now. This Life-reaping Ghost probably couldn't even reach half its level.

Thinking this, the lamp felt a certain smug satisfaction.

It lifted its head, about to say something — and found Chen Huangpi staring directly at it.

There was something strange in that gaze.

Difficult to read.

"Chen Huangpi — why are you staring at me?"

"Nothing. Just planning ahead."

Chen Huangpi shook his head and turned to look at his master standing behind him.

The moment he did, his brow furrowed: "That's strange — why are his two heads spread so much further apart than before?"

The words had barely left his mouth before the brass oil lamp, the Life-reaping Ghost, and the Fox Mountain God all crowded closer.

"Chen Huangpi — are you sure you're seeing this correctly?"

"Yes — we've had our eyes on both you and Guanzhu the whole time. Doesn't it look the same as before?"

"Contract-holder — I noticed nothing either."

At that, Chen Huangpi said nothing. He reached out and placed both hands between his master's two heads, measuring the gap.

Then he turned to face them both.

"First Master, Second Master — I'm sorry."

And then he simply pulled his master's collar open.

The next second, Chen Huangpi's face went very pale.

Having two heads meant having two necks — and at the junction where the necks connected to the chest cavity, small fleshy growths had begun to appear.

The Fox Mountain God took one look at this and immediately dropped to its knees in terror.

"Chen Huangpi — is your master turning into an evil spirit?!"

"No, Master won't."

Chen Huangpi shook his head, his expression complicated. "It's just — he may be growing a new head."

"Third Master!"

The brass oil lamp couldn't hold back — it jumped up urgently: "Chen Huangpi, it'll be dark soon. Into the Old Temple we go! Whichever of Golden-Horn or Silver-Horn we can take — we take and leave. We find the Soul-Returning Jade before Third Master emerges, and we save Guanzhu."

There really was no more time to wait.

Third Master was still Guanzhu himself.

Forcing yourself against yourself — he would be absolutely merciless.

Right now there were only flesh buds — tomorrow there could be bones and blood and a whole new head.

……

At this same moment.

Deep in the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

At an undetermined distance from Mount Yuqiong.

An old Daoist priest with snow-white hair and beard, wearing a deep black robe embroidered with scattered red plum blossoms, walked through a mountain forest.

Had Chen Huangpi seen this figure, he would have been infuriated.

Because this Daoist priest looked identical to his master.

This was the Evil Daoist — the entity that had tricked him out of one drop of his blood, then vanished for a long while.

Now, with less than an hour left before nightfall, certain evil spirits had already begun to stir and move about.

People work at dawn and rest at dusk. Evil spirits do precisely the opposite.

Suddenly.

A figure wrapped entirely in straw stepped out to block the Evil Daoist's path.

"Elder — help me."

The Evil Daoist looked the figure over briefly, and gave a mild smile: "What kind of help do you need this poor priest to give?"

The figure said: "Help me remove this straw garment."

The Evil Daoist said: "Your hands are whole and uninjured. Why ask me to do it?"

The figure said: "Elder doesn't know — I am a man of letters. These are the hands that write poetry and compose prose — they cannot touch coarse things. And this straw is sharp. If it were to prick my hands and injure them, it would ruin my literary spirit."

"I see."

The Evil Daoist said with a smile: "But from what this poor priest can observe, you appear to be wearing nothing beneath that straw garment. Would removing it not be a humiliation to one of your station?"

The figure said: "Elder doesn't know — as a man of letters, I should wear silk and satin. Wearing this straw garment is itself the humiliation. Better to strike the pose of an eccentric, and let the world see my integrity."

At those words, the Evil Daoist smiled without speaking, and waved one hand carelessly.

The straw garment on the figure vanished in an instant.

The next second, the figure screamed — let out a wail unlike any human sound.

Because beneath the straw coat, from head to toe, from top to bottom, there was not a single patch of whole skin. It was covered entirely in dense tiny holes, thin trickles of blood dripping from each — and in the very next moment, one by one, strands of straw pushed back out from inside, weaving themselves back into a coat.

But then the freshly grown straw coat vanished again.

This time, the wailing was even louder.

The Evil Daoist said: "Don't be afraid — this poor priest will help you."

"Stop helping, please stop helping!"

The figure shrieked and backed away frantically, its body twisting and lengthening, like some horrifying, writhing worm.

As it retreated it was still speaking: "A coat of straw is still a coat. A coat of brocade is still a coat."

"If my integrity could be hidden by what I wear, what use would that integrity be?"

But the moment that speech was done, the figure suddenly erupted — every straw on its body shot straight upward — it used the straw as legs and in an instant dove into a shadowy corner.

But…

Very soon, it came shuffling back out again.

Because the Evil Daoist walked out from inside the shadows to meet it, that lean, ancient face still smiling exactly as before.

"Little Huangpi reads widely — he is also a man of letters. One imagines he, too, has integrity."

"But what shape that integrity takes — this poor priest cannot see just yet. Let me have a look at yours first."

His voice fell.

The figure let out a howl of pure, unimaginable pain.

Then — a skin grown entirely over with straw peeled away from its body, revealing raw, glistening flesh beneath.

Then even the flesh peeled away.

Leaving only a skeleton.

The jaw of the skeleton was opening and closing, as if trying to say something.

The Evil Daoist said with disappointment: "Your integrity shatters at the first touch. Better off without it, I suppose."

Then the skeleton turned instantly to fine powder.

The Evil Daoist's steps never slowed as it continued moving through the mountain forest.

As it walked further and further away, so too did the sun.

By the time it arrived at the entrance of a certain village, a blood-red moon had risen high — and the Hundred Thousand Mountains had entered nighttime.

The village was lit up inside, with roughly forty or more households.

It was protected by a deity: one holding a ceremonial staff with a great serpent coiled above it, eight feet tall and powerfully built.

The Evil Daoist made no effort to conceal its arrival.

And so the Serpent God detected its presence immediately.

"Where do you come from, friend?"

"From the Pure Immortal Temple."

"What is your purpose here?"

"To borrow the Serpent God for a while."

At those words, the Serpent God went rigid as if facing a mortal enemy.

Only then did it understand — the figure before it was not a person, not a cultivator, but an evil spirit.

A powerful evil spirit was not necessarily able to speak. But one that could speak clearly, with a mind fully intact — was invariably extraordinarily powerful.

A small deity like itself could never protect dozens of households against something like this.

"You're the one who has been slaughtering deities throughout the Hundred Thousand Mountains — the entity that calls itself the Evil Daoist!"

The Evil Daoist said with a smile: "Serpent God need not alarm itself. This poor priest only needs your life for a use — as for the villagers…"

It paused here, gave an amused shake of its head.

"Even an ant clings to life. This poor priest will give them a thread of hope."

The Evil Daoist spoke no further.

In the daytime, it would have drained this deity's human qi and reduced it to powder — to mask the aura of the blood drop inside it. That blood contained black smoke, and no matter what the Evil Daoist tried, it could not dispel it. So it could only find ways to cover the smell.

Because that way, Chen Huangpi could not sense its location — while it could still sense his.

Visible light and hidden shadow.

That was all there was to it.

With that thought, the Evil Daoist gave a quiet laugh: "Little Huangpi is growing faster and faster. As his teacher, this poor priest must not let him catch up — otherwise, if a disciple ends up killing his master, what would that do to the child's reputation?"

But this Evil Daoist had been born from a fragment of the Fox Mountain God's memory of Chen Huangpi's master. Though sinister in its nature, it was in every way shaped by the existence it had been born from. It called itself the Evil Daoist, claiming to have transcended that memory — yet when you looked exactly the same, how could you truly transcend anything?

……

On the other side.

At the main hall entrance of the Pure Immortal Temple.

The brass oil lamp leapt and hung itself at Chen Huangpi's waist.

The Life-reaping Ghost slipped back inside the Soul-Hooking Register.

And the Fox Mountain God said with a miserable face: "Chen Huangpi — why not take me with you? You let me absorb some of that spiritual qi — I'm not entirely useless."

Chen Huangpi said: "No, Fox Mountain God. You stay in the hall and watch over my master's body. If any birds come to peck at him, or bugs come to eat at him — shoo them away."

"But I'm scared."

"Scared of what? My master didn't die wrongly — he won't rise up."

Chen Huangpi consoled it: "All right — listen to me. I'll be back out of the Old Temple before dawn. Once I've saved and woken Master, I'll make sure he stops draining you."

"Fine, I trust you. But I have something I want to say to you in return."

"What is it?"

"Heartfelt words: a fox is also a dog."

Chen Huangpi was taken aback. He gave the Fox Mountain God a long look up and down — then broke into a short laugh.

"All right. I'll remember that."

He turned and left.

The Fox Mountain God watched him go, raising one paw in farewell.

After he was gone, it looked back into the main hall.

Guanzhu — two-headed — was right there, staring straight back at it.

Gulp.

The Fox Mountain God swallowed.

Inside the hall, a fragment of the brass oil lamp served as the light source — everything was plainly visible, without a shadow to hide in.

But it couldn't shake the cold feeling spreading from the bottom of its heart.

"Why does this feel more like keeping vigil at a wake? If I'd known it would be like this, I would have called Granny Tang to keep me company — at least there'd be someone to talk to."

That said — the Fox Mountain God had no intention of actually doing that.

Granny Tang was its priestess, raised from childhood under its watch.

And Guanzhu was profoundly, deeply dangerous.

These were not things to involve a child in.