Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 68: Into the Old Temple — A Hand

After nightfall, the Pure Immortal Temple changed beyond recognition.

Many new areas appeared.

And so there were many routes into the Old Temple.

Some were stone-paved paths that simply became swallowed by darkness halfway through — walk into them, and you'd entered the Old Temple. Others were through a room. Others through the gate of a courtyard.

But the closest route to the Scripture Pavilion was still the one through the courtyard gate they had taken before.

Now, Chen Huangpi and the brass oil lamp reached the courtyard gate.

Looking inside — only darkness and a lurking wrongness, all of it blurred and indistinct.

Chen Huangpi had entered the Old Temple seven or eight times in total. But every single time, he felt a tension in his chest.

His plan was clear in his mind: go straight to the Scripture Pavilion the moment he was inside, take whichever of the two — Golden-Horn or Silver-Horn — and leave immediately. The fewer complications the better.

"This time — in and out fast. If it comes to it, I'll use the Divine Flash to get you out."The brass oil lamp's tone was wary.

Third Master was still inside the Old Temple. By all logic, Third Master shouldn't make a move on Chen Huangpi — otherwise, with all those previous visits, something would have gone wrong long ago. But First and Second Master had established a very high bar for "terrible ideas." It was hard not to wonder what new innovations Third Master might come up with.

With that thought, the lamp added: "If you need to — you can use the Dog Rearing Scripture to command me. But how much of your essence energy has recovered?"

"Let me think."

Chen Huangpi performed a swift internal accounting, then shook his head. "Less than a tenth of a tenth."

The essence energy in the Kidney Temple before had been extraordinarily abundant — built up by slicing through tens of thousands of Human Fruits with black-smoke sword qi and absorbing their essence. But now the Kidney Temple was complete, the two kidneys were gone, and with them the great abundance of essence energy.

In their place was what the liver was now generating — a faint, barely-there thread of yellow-green energy, the color of bile. That was all there was.

"That little?"

The brass oil lamp said curiously: "Then you must have drawn a great deal of power from the Demon Tree."

It paid close attention to Chen Huangpi — and it could feel that he was considerably stronger than before. He had definitely taken a substantial portion of the Demon Tree's power.

Chen Huangpi frowned: "Huang Er, you're talking nonsense again. First — I didn't draw anything. The Demon Tree gave it willingly. Second — it's my power."

"You're the one talking nonsense. How does the Demon Tree's power become yours?"

Chen Huangpi said with complete matter-of-fact logic: "The Kidney Temple is mine. The Demon Tree belongs to the Kidney Temple. Therefore its power naturally belongs to me."

"Ha…"

The brass oil lamp couldn't help a derisive snort.

By that logic — if it moved into the Kidney Temple, would its power become his too?

That was absolutely shameless.

Chen Huangpi wasn't running the Dog Rearing Scripture at that moment, so he had no idea what the lamp was grumbling about. He adjusted his expression and said quietly: "Huang Er — I'm going in. Your spirit sense is sharper than mine. If anything feels off, you have to warn me."

"Don't worry — I know what to do."

With that, Chen Huangpi plunged headfirst into the Old Temple with the brass oil lamp.

The next instant, everything went dark before his eyes.

The ground vanished beneath his feet. He dropped into weightlessness and fell fast.

……

Elsewhere.

Inside Xu Province city, it was also deep into the night.

Nighttime was a terrifying thing for ordinary people. Evil spirits were abroad.

Even Xu Province city, protected by several thousand deities, would occasionally see one or two appear from nowhere. Sometimes it was a few months between sightings. In good stretches, years went by without any. Though whenever an evil spirit appeared it was quickly detected and eliminated by the deities, every household still shut its doors tight and put out its lights to sleep when night fell.

But even so.

Inside the residence of the Grand Tutor of the Da Kang Empire, there were lights burning everywhere.

And as before — it was the outhouse.

Wang Taiyu shuffled in, reeking of alcohol, clothes hanging open around him.

The moment he stepped inside, he asked in a low voice: "Why are you back so soon?"

"No results whatsoever — of course I'm back quickly."

"You were detected?"

"No. Those deities turned back halfway — they were recalled to Xu Province. Every one of them, in a great hurry, as if something urgent had come up."

Wang Taiyu frowned. "Where had those hundred deities gone in the first place?"

"A place called the Pure Immortal Temple. Beyond that, nothing further is known."

"Even where it is — unknown?"

"Unknown."

At that, Wang Taiyu was immediately disappointed.

"Very well — you go. Let your father think this over."

"Yes, Grand Tutor."

The voice never once acknowledged the father-son bond.

But Wang Taiyu wasn't hurt by it. His son had always been cold and proud — disdainful of everything and everyone — including this very father of his.

And just at that moment, Wang Taiyu's brow suddenly creased. He sensed someone approaching.

Cough. Cough.

Wang Taiyu coughed twice loudly.

The person halted immediately: "Grand Tutor — several distinguished guests have summoned entertainers to join them. They asked this humble one to pass the word along."

"Wait until I've finished and I'll go meet them."

"In that case, I'll take my leave."

The person turned and departed.

Wang Taiyu gave an inward sneer.

Sending someone specially all the way here to announce that a few entertainers had been brought in? More likely they wanted to check whether this supposedly lecherous Grand Tutor was really just using the outhouse as a pretext. With that in mind, Wang Taiyu undid his undershirt and settled into a proper squat.

This outhouse excuse was starting to wear a little thin. Fortunately, he had been genuinely living as an ordinary person lately — eating and drinking and doing everything mortals do — so it was still defensible.

While he sat there, Wang Taiyu was thinking to himself.

'Counting today, Song Tiangang has now secretly redirected half of the tax revenue.'

'And yet the City God seems to have been kept completely in the dark.'

'Who knows if he's truly lost his mind — or if there's something deeper going on.'

With that, Wang Taiyu smiled inwardly.

Even if Song Tiangang had lost his mind, that had nothing to do with him. He was only here to collect taxes. Now that Song Tiangang had done this for personal gain, the Emperor would not let him off lightly. Tax revenue was needed everywhere — there was never enough. Within five days, someone from the capital would arrive specifically to handle this matter. By then, Song Tiangang would not only lose his head — he would have to disgorge every last coin he had swallowed. And Wang Taiyu's own position could move up another notch.

The Da Kang empire these days was crawling with demons and monsters. To get anything done, you had to keep climbing. But climbing too high wasn't good either — that made you conspicuous. Unless everyone already knew you were the Emperor's dog — and the most loyal one at that — otherwise, there was a good chance you'd end up thrown out to be beaten to death just to vent someone's anger.

Wang Taiyu knew this game intimately, and had always operated within the rules between the great families and the court. Which was why he'd earned the title of the Slavish Grand Tutor..

And just at that moment.

Wang Taiyu's brow suddenly creased.

His son had come back so quickly that it had nearly startled him into forgetting to bring toilet paper.

Suddenly…

A hand reached in from the side, holding out a folded stack of paper.

"Grand Tutor, please take your time."

Wang Taiyu's face went completely dark.

"Get out of here — now!"

……

Elsewhere.

Inside the Old Temple.

A blood-red moon had risen high. Without the Demon Tree's sky-blotting canopy, the place was no longer as pitch-black as before — there was enough moonlight to make out shapes.

But unlike before, in just a matter of days the Old Temple had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.

From individual bluestone tiles and pebbles to gazebos and towers and halls — every last thing had been wrenched from the ground and now floated in mid-air.

These floating things were strewn about in complete disorder.

Some were even upside-down.

The same went for the evil spirits.

Chen Huangpi was now standing on one of those hovering bluestone slabs. When he had entered the Old Temple, he'd immediately stepped onto nothing and plunged straight down — and in his moment of panic, before he could launch himself skyward, he'd landed on this particular slab.

In every direction, cyan mist. Except for what was directly beneath his feet, nothing could be clearly seen.

"Chen Huangpi — look down!"

The brass oil lamp was screaming.

Chen Huangpi looked. He could see no boundary in any direction — the Old Temple was expanding endlessly. The ground was rumbling, heaving as if an earth dragon was turning, splitting into countless crevices, cyan mist seeping up through every crack and rising toward the blood-red moon in the sky.

On the ground below, there was no longer any trace of the Old Temple's structure.

Because everything — every single thing — was suspended in the air.

Including Chen Huangpi himself.

"Only a few days since I was last here — why has it changed this drastically?"

Chen Huangpi murmured, his mind shaken to the core: "Could this be because of Third Master?"

"It must be him!"

The brass oil lamp said in alarm: "Third Master intends to use the dying-and-being-reborn method to escape the Old Temple — but the Old Temple has melded into him far too deeply. It's already making this much disturbance at this stage. When he truly manages it — even if I had ten times as many fragments, I couldn't stop the Old Temple from spreading."

Its fragments had been placed with great deliberateness — in some nameless formation. Without them, the Old Temple would have already encroached beyond its boundaries.

The lamp had actually been thinking: if Third Master truly emerged, it could do as a last resort what any dog might do — kowtow to Chen Huangpi, beg him to protect it for the sake of their years together.

But looking at things now…

Even if Chen Huangpi could protect it — the moment Third Master emerged, the Old Temple would swallow every last one of its fragments in the same instant. And those fragments were part of the lamp. Of course it would be dragged down. It would truly die.

Chen Huangpi understood the severity of the situation, and stopped drifting in his thoughts. He looked urgently for the Scripture Pavilion.

But right now the Old Temple was in absolute chaos. Endless cyan mist was rising from the ground below. Visibility ended at about five steps — anything beyond ten steps was swallowed by impenetrable cyan. The Scripture Pavilion's location was nowhere to be found.

"Huang Er — your vision is better than mine. Can you see anything?"

"No — nothing at all."

The brass oil lamp said urgently: "That cyan mist belongs to Third Master. I can't even see through Second Master's white mist — let alone this cyan."

"And my lamplight can't penetrate it either."

At those words, something occurred to Chen Huangpi.

He quickly turned and looked upward.

Above was cyan mist — but just before, he had fallen roughly two steps from above and landed on the slab below. That was the position of the courtyard gate. Every entry into the Old Temple had a corresponding exit. But now every object was floating and scattered, positions completely scrambled. Looking out in any direction, cyan mist blocked all lines of sight — reaching a different exit would be next to impossible.

With that thought, Chen Huangpi reached one hand upward and felt around.

Then he went rigid.

The brass oil lamp asked tensely: "Did you find the courtyard gate?"

Chen Huangpi nodded and shook his head both at once, his face going completely pale.

He hadn't found the courtyard gate.

He had found a hand — cold, stiff, dead — wrapped in a rigid grip around his wrist.