Chapter 85 · Dust Tribulation Scroll · Taiyi Ashes Remnant Record
Lu Qingyang staggered, leaning against the broken screen wall of Taiyi Pavilion. Fresh blood seeped from between his fingers, tracing a divination pattern on the green jade bricks. The Spiritual Qi tide caused by the self-detonation of a Nascent Soul Cultivator had not yet subsided. When he examined his Dantian, he found spiderweb-like cracks on the surface of his Golden Core—forcing the third stage of the Tai Xu Yu Qi Art was, after all, overreaching his cultivation level.
"Daoist Lu, you certainly made this servant hard to find." Liu Sanniang of the Hehuan Sect arrived gracefully, her bare feet treading on ripples in the Void Realm. The silver bells at her waist shattered the shards of glazed tile splashing three feet away. "We agreed to explore the Taiyi Pavilion's scripture library together. Why did you monopolize Immortal Master Yuxu's personal notes?" The crimson serpent rope coiled around her fingertip suddenly straightened, transforming into nine red-scaled pythons spitting venom.
Lu Qingyang wiped away the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. The twelve Profound Ice Talismans secretly held in his sleeve had already been activated: "Fairy Liu, what are you saying? When did Mr. Lu make such a vow with you?" He suddenly tore open his blood-stained front lapel, revealing the dark purple Tai Xu Yin Yang Seal over his heart. "If you want the Jade Slip, why don't you try if your Hehuan Sect's Enchantress Art can break the Restriction laid by that old ghost?"
A muffled thunder-like tremor came from deep within the clouds. The last fragments of Taiyi Pavilion's mountain-protecting formation began to collapse. Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to crush a teleportation Talisman, but in the instant of spatial distortion, he caught a glimpse of the strange smile on Liu Sanniang's lips. When the sweet, pungent Qi wind filled his nostrils, he found himself plummeting to the edge of a cold pond deep within Taiyi Pavilion's Forbidden Land. The Xuan Du Jade Slip in his arms was seeping Chaos Qi, staining the pond water black.
"Junior, how dare you trespass into the Dragon Transformation Pool!"
A hundred-foot water column suddenly shot up from the bottom of the pond, and three Nascent Soul Stage ink Dragons lunged, baring their fangs and claws. Lu Qingyang cursed his bad luck, throwing out the wine gourd at his waist, which sprayed an amber-colored Spiritual Liquid—this was a thousand-year-old stone marrow, purchased with three hundred High-Grade Spirit Stones. It ignited into sky-burning purple flames upon contact with water. While the ink Dragons thrashed in pain, he stepped on the Qingming Sword and shot straight into the sky, only to see nine soul 引魂 lamps hanging in the sky, clearly the Ghost Spirit Sect's Soul Restraining Grand Formation.
"Lu Qingyang! You stole my sect's supreme treasure, the Falling Treasure Copper Coin. Today, you shall pay with your life!"
As the Ghost Spirit Elder's withered palm struck down, three thousand Yin souls transformed into chains, entangling the Qingming Sword. Lu Qingyang suddenly bit his tongue, spitting out his Lifebound Essence Blood to activate the broken bronze compass in his arms. This item was a fake he had picked up for twenty Low-Grade Spirit Stones in the East Sea market, but at this moment, it erupted with astonishing clear light, tearing open a gap in the pervasive Yin evil.
"Old ghost, take this!"
He threw out three rust-covered square-holed coins. The coins grew to the size of carriage wheels against the wind, and with a clanging sound, they actually knocked down two of the soul 引魂 lamps. The Ghost Spirit Elder's beard and hair stood on end in anger. Just as he was about to activate his Lifebound Treasure, he saw Lu Qingyang suddenly pull out half a moldy osmanthus cake: "Catch!"
The Nascent Soul Cultivator's instinct made the old man wave his sleeve to block, but the Devouring Spirit Gu hidden within the cake had already burrowed into his Meridians through the cuff. Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to escape on his sword, not forgetting to turn back and taunt: "A three-hundred-year-old Nascent Soul Great Power is afraid of an osmanthus cake? If that gets out, it'll cause half of Fengdu City to collapse from laughter!"
As the biting wind whipped snow particles against his face, Lu Qingyang finally collapsed in front of a cave on an unnamed barren mountain. He tremblingly reached into his Storage Pouch, only to find that his remaining fifty Spirit Stones had turned to dust—that fake compass earlier was an endless pit for Spiritual Qi consumption. While he was pounding his chest in frustration, the Xuan Du Jade Slip in his arms suddenly floated up on its own. The Chaos Qi rising from its pages projected a star map onto the cave wall.
"That old man Tai Xu tricked me!"
Lu Qingyang suddenly erupted, forming hand seals. Seventy-two Spirit Sealing Talismans fluttered like butterflies. But the star map moved like a living thing, finally settling on the position of the seventh star of the Big Dipper. He stared at the gradually solidifying golden light spot, his eyes a complex pattern of greed and vigilance: "Tianquan Secret Treasure... it's worth these injuries."
Suddenly, a sound of rushing air came from outside the cave. The clear crane-cry of the Nine Flowers Mountain Disciples' standard Flying Sword was clearly audible. Lu Qingyang shoved the Jade Slip into a secret pocket in his trousers with the back of his hand—this was a trick for hiding things he had learned from street ruffians. The purple-robed Cultivator leading the group pointed his sword at the barrier, righteous and stern, and shouted: "Devil Head! The slaughter you caused in Taiyi Pavilion..."
"Fellow Daoist," Lu Qingyang suddenly lifted his robe to reveal a corner of his secret pocket, "do you want to search me?"
The Cultivators immediately turned red-faced and retreated, the leader's sword incantation becoming unstable. Seizing this opportunity, Lu Qingyang suddenly threw out five smoke bombs—inside which was mixed the Hehuan Sect's specially made Drunken Immortal Powder. When the poisonous mist dispersed, only his wild laughter echoed on the barren mountain: "The prominent righteous sects have thicker skin than a city wall's corner, but unfortunately, their courage in their pants is smaller than a sesame seed!"
At midnight three days later, Lu Qingyang squatted in a dilapidated temple, gnawing on a roasted chicken. His greasy fingers traced the newly revealed ancient script on the Jade Slip, and he suddenly narrowed his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the broken tiles onto the words "Tianquan Secret Treasure requires the blood of a Profound Yin virgin as a guide." He licked the grease from his lips and pulled out a silk handkerchief embroidered with twin lotus flowers from his embrace—an item he had pilfered from Taiyi Pavilion.
"Liu Sanniang, oh Liu Sanniang..." He examined the Hehuan Sect's mark secretly embroidered on the corner of the handkerchief against the moonlight, smiling like a thieving fox. "Your blood, Mr. Lu will surely take it."
Outside the temple, a strong Yin wind suddenly arose. Amidst three thousand ghostly wails, a hundred white bone skeletons appeared. Lu Qingyang calmly threw out a toilet-shaped Magical Artifact. This item was a treasure of Immortal Master Yuxu that he had found in a latrine, specifically countering Yin evil and defilement. As the skeleton army turned to dust in the golden excrement rain (Note: actually Purifying Golden Soup), he had already escaped into the clouds on his sword. In the Storage Pouch dangling at his waist, the Tai Xu Yin Yang Seal was subtly resonating with the Xuan Du Jade Slip.
A hundred miles away, a soaring water column suddenly erupted from a mountain stream. The Sword Tomb, which had been dormant for three hundred years, appeared in response to the calamity. Lu Qingyang, however, turned his sword light directly in the opposite direction—that phenomenon earlier was clearly a diversion. Sure enough, after flying twenty miles, the Treasure Seeking Rat in his arms suddenly struggled violently, guiding him to land on an inconspicuous rocky beach.
"This is the real deal." He kicked away a large rock shaped like a turtle, revealing a hidden green jade box underneath. The Sword Qi that erupted the moment the box opened cut off half a strand of his hair, but inside lay not a divine weapon or Sharp Weapon, but half of a leftover osmanthus cake, identical to the one he had used to trick the Ghost Spirit Elder in Taiyi Pavilion.
Lu Qingyang stared at the familiar tooth marks on the cake, and suddenly his hair stood on end. Liu Sanniang's silver bell-like laughter came from above the Nine Heavens. The Hehuan Sect's specially made Seven Emotions Bewitching Immortal Tent had already covered a ten-mile radius. He slapped the Jade Slip into the green jade box with the back of his hand, using the immense repulsive force between the two supreme treasures to break through the barrier. Behind him came the beauty's exasperated shriek: "Lu Qingyang! You will die by greed sooner or later!"
"To die beneath a peony flower—" He drew a long streak of escape light in the sea of clouds, not forgetting to throw a flying kiss back, "—one must first pluck the peony, mustn't one?"
As the morning sun stained the seventh mountain peak red, Lu Qingyang finally collapsed in an inn in a Mortal town. He stared at the slowly moving projection of the Tai Xu Yin Yang Seal on the rafter, and suddenly dug out a recording Jade Slip from the sole of his boot. The embarrassing antics of various sects he had casually recorded near the Sword Tomb yesterday should fetch a good price in the black market—especially the scene of the Nine Flowers Mountain's chief Disciple wetting his pants in front of the skeleton soldiers.
"Innkeeper!" He pushed open the window and shouted, "Bring three jars of Zhuyeqing, watered down! Mr. Lu just loves the taste of this short-measured stuff!"
The waiter behind the counter, who was in the middle of watering down the wine, was so startled he dropped a wine jar. The entire street heard Lu Qingyang's deranged laughter. And in the Heaven-rank room on the third floor, a mysterious person wearing a bamboo hat was just finishing the last stroke with a cinnabar brush on the fake Xuan Du Jade Slip.