Chapter 49: Inner Demon Tribulation of the Mortal World
When Lu Qingyang stepped onto the jade steps and entered the illusion, the clarity talisman on the sole of his boot scorched three-inch marks into the stone slab.
Hehuan flowers rustled down across the city, but were shredded into dust by an invisible Sword Qi before they could touch his shoulder.
The newly condensed seven-emotion Dao patterns on the surface of his Golden Core flickered, reflecting the scent of powder wafting from the red-gabled buildings and painted pavilions on both sides of the long street—a scent infused with the sweet, metallic tang of Nine-Turn Soul-Confusing Powder.
"This illusion is even more elaborate than the Drunken Immortal Pavilion," he remarked, flicking a gilded wind chimes hanging from the eaves.
Indigo Gu blood seeped from the cracks in the bell, coiling into a 'Binding Silk Curse' on the green brick ground.
Su Li's Puppet Silk wrapped around a falling Hehuan flower petal, and as the silver needle pierced seven inches into the curse, the entire long street suddenly curled and folded like a faded ancient painting.
Yinghuo's silver bell cord shredded the alluring miasma that rushed towards them, and chensha stones pierced through the Painted Skin Puppets attacking from the mist.
Nine jade-boned Puppets, clad in shimmering robes, leaped from the Star-Picking Tower; the silver bells on their wrists were engraved with Taiyi Pavilion's unique green lotus pattern, but their clappers were half a lover's finger bone.
"Ye Wuchen's Gu-raising skills have improved," Lu Qingyang said, using his sword-finger to part the cloud-like hair of one Puppet, prying a rice-grain-sized lovesick Gu from its skull.
"This Gu worm could fetch a good price on the black market..."
Before he could finish, the Three Lives Stone in front of the Matchmaker's Temple suddenly cracked.
The ancient Hehuan root, sealed within the stone, burst forth from the earth, its gnarled roots transforming into thousands of red luan birds that swarmed towards them.
Lu Qingyang leaped up, treading on the shattered remnants of a collapsed plaque; the array patterns on his boot soles reacted with the love poison, searing a fragment of the 'Supreme Forgetfulness Art' into the air.
The Dao patterns on his Golden Core suddenly erupted, burning the love-threads entanglement around his ankle into green smoke.
"Kan Palace in position, Li Fire burns evil!"
Yinghuo's chensha stone array repelled the red luan phantoms, and Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to dart towards the core of the illusion.
The qingmu spirit pearl reflected a gilded makeup box on the top floor of the Drunken Moon Pavilion; among the hundred beauties depicted in relief on the box's surface, the hand gesture of the woman painting eyebrows was strikingly similar to Ye Wuchen's array-breaking finger technique.
He scoffed, shattering the copper lock: "Such exquisite Puppet techniques are wasted in this pile of rouge and powder..."
What surged from the box was not hairpins, but solidified thousand-year-old lovesick poison.
The moment the poisonous mist touched the qingmu spirit pearl, three hundred Inner Demon Tribulation phantoms suddenly appeared on the surface of his Golden Core; each phantom's Dantian was entangled with Taiyi Pavilion's love-locking chains.
Su Li's Puppet Silk abruptly tightened: "Love poison has entered his marrow!"
"Entered my marrow?" Lu Qingyang shattered the silk threads wrapped around his wrist, his eyes streaked with crimson blood.
"To cure the Heartless Gu back then, I chewed off three fingers of the Hehuan Sect Master..."
His voice abruptly cut off as he suddenly stared at the dressing mirror—what was reflected in the mirror was not his current face, but a withered skeleton painting its eyebrows, the tip of the charcoal brush stained with a Golden Core Cultivator's heart blood.
As the midnight drum sounded, the entire illusion began to collapse.
Lu Qingyang leaped onto the rolling tiles, soaring towards the collapsing core; the qingmu spirit pearl reflected the Reincarnation Mirror in the Void Realm.
The mirror surface was inlaid with three hundred tear-shaped blood marrow drops, each drop containing a twisted fate—a red-clad bride's veil concealed pale bones, and a scholar's marriage certificate bore the Taiyi Pavilion's Seal.
"Qian Palace inverted, Kun Earth suppresses souls!"
The moment the chensha stone shattered the mirror's Seal, the blood marrow transformed into weeping blood azaleas that lunged forward.
Lu Qingyang ran his fingers along the sword's edge, drawing a blood talisman in the Void Realm with his vital essence.
The talisman patterns touched the fragments of the Reincarnation Mirror, unexpectedly piecing together half of the 'Mortal World Tribulation Map'.
In the map, the Matchmaker held not a red thread, but a poisoned love Gu.
As the rooster crowed at dawn, Lu Qingyang used his sword to pry out half a broken jade from the mirror's core.
What was sealed within the jade was not memories, but a secret record of Taiyi Pavilion's chief disciple's marriage alliances with seventy-two aristocratic families.
When he shattered the last mirror fragment, a cinnabar-colored love-pattern suddenly appeared on his neck—the pattern was identical to the totems on the Hehuan banners fluttering in the city.
As the morning light pierced through the illusion, Lu Qingyang stood by a desolate marriage well.
At the bottom of the well floated a female corpse clutching a pipa, the little finger of her right hand missing a section.
He caressed the warm finger bone in his embrace, narrowing his eyes at the morning glow in the sky: "The Hehuan Sect's annihilation six hundred years ago is indeed quite interesting..."