Chapter 200: From Baicao Garden to Sanwei …Study
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The information which Jiang Liuyue had given Devil Emperor Gua Pi was very valuable.
For the forbidden array to regrow the organs and the flesh onto the skeleton, there were a lot of limitations involved. In addition to the need for tens of thousands of vital essences to power the forbidden array, a crucial condition was that all these essences had to be absorbed by the array at the same time as soon as it was activated.
Hence, this would be an excellent opportunity.
This issue had been giving the old devil a headache, but now at last it had been resolved.
Jiang Liuyue pressed her lips together. “Whatever happens, it’s better for Lord Devil Emperor to be careful. After all, that Killer Taoist already has a Sage Body…”
“Sage Body? So what?! My body in the past had in fact just been shy of becoming a Sage Body. As long as I can restore the body, with a little refinement, it will also become holy. Will there be anyone in this world who can stand against me then?”
On top of the boundary support, the old devil in the stone ghost mask sneered. “Previously, that junior had a cheap advantage. But that’s of no consequence; everything is within my control… by the way, regarding the Three Auspicious Treasures which I asked you to look into, have you found out anything yet?”
“There’s still no information on the Golden Canopy Rope.” Jiang Liuyue shook her head. “However, rumor is that the Seven Stars Sword has fallen into the hands of Great Death-Courting Senior. Back at the convenience mart, there was an alchemist who had come to collect the souls of those deliverymen; that was one of this person’s underlings.”
“Hm, we’ll need to pay more attention to this matter.” The old devil nodded as he spoke.
In his mind, he was making plans related to gathering the Three Auspicious Treasures together. Previously, Immortal Zhenyuan had bade the world go look for these three treasures, but no one had ever successfully collected all of them.
The Purple Gold Gourd had in fact always been with Devil Emperor Gua Pi. As long as he could collect the remaining two, he would be able to see Immortal Zhenyuan’s august countenance with his own eyes.
Exactly what did the legendary Immortal Zhenyuan look like? This was one of the things that the old devil was curious about.
…
It had been several days since Bandit Evil had received the order from his shifu Old Antique to find his eldest senior brother. He didn’t know if it was because senior brother’s character had changed, but he felt that the latter had become more mysterious than ever; previously, as long as the floral underpants were hung up outside, senior brother would definitely drop in a few days later. Now, however, Bandit Evil felt that floral underpants were no longer his senior brother’s weakness.
Because Killer Taoist’s whereabouts were indeterminate, it had taken Bandit Evil several days to find the place where his senior brother had been most recently.
There was an old district in Jinghua city which had been set up when Huaxiu nation had just been founded and which housed many tube-shaped apartment buildings (1). On this day, a tall young man in a black long-sleeved shirt and jeans, and wearing a black peaked cap over his white hair, appeared in front of an old tube-shaped apartment building.
There was a saying that talent resided among the people; this wasn’t the least bit false.
The young man looked at this shabby tube-shaped apartment building in front of him with a nostalgic feeling. He and senior brother had been raised here before they had followed shifuon the cultivation path. They had no families and were both orphans. In the blink of an eye, so many years had already passed…
Standing in front of the tube-shaped apartment building, the young man’s heart was full of emotions.
When he entered the building, he saw how the residents lived their daily lives. Most of them were poor, ordinary people who weren’t cultivators. But according to Huaxiu nation’s annual survey, the happiness index was the highest for these ordinary people in these tube-shaped apartment buildings, far above even those cultivators who lived in luxury villa districts.
If one had to know, a lot of cultivators spent money like it was water and treated it like dirt, just like Immortal Toya and Third Saint, who had casually bought a house and a building each; with the wave of a hand, tens of thousands of yuan were spent in a flash. However, the vast majority of cultivators were plagued by feelings of emptiness and anxiety; in particular, when their realms reached a bottleneck, their worries would become increasingly obvious.
For a moment, the young man used his spiritual senses to search the apartment building, and he finally perceived a familiar aura in Baicao Garden behind the building.
He smiled faintly as he drew steadily closer. From afar, he saw an old wooden hut at the end of the path in Baicao Garden. The horizontal board above it was already cracked, and the words “Sanwei Study” could be seen on it in faint green ink. This was a public library which residents of the nearby tube-shaped apartment buildings could borrow books from.
A middle-aged man with slightly receding hair and several scars on his scalp sat at the door of Sanwei Study. He was leaning back in a bamboo chair as he read a newspaper. When the young man approached the study, he saw that the man was picking at his feet…
Pretending not to have noticed, the young man lowered his head as he slowly drew near, instantly concealing his aura.
With a whoosh, a slender, gossamer-like silver needle shot out from his fingers as he passed by the middle-aged man.
After a few silent seconds, the middle-aged man in the bamboo chair put down his newspaper, a silver needle in his mouth.
“Junior brother, it’s been a long time since we met… has your strength weakened?” The middle-aged man didn’t open his mouth, but relied on ventriloquism to speak.
The young man pointed at the other man’s feet. Realization dawned on the middle-aged man; he looked down at his feet and discovered that his flip-flops had already disappeared. When he looked up again, the young man was holding them in his hand.
Both individuals instantly laughed.
“Junior brother, the strength in your fingers has weakened quite a bit, but your pilfering skills have improved tremendously.” Killer Taoist smiled and stood up barefoot from the bamboo chair as he looked at the young man in front of him. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Master has entrusted us with a task, and I’ve been looking for senior brother for several days already… I never thought you would be reading here.”
“My informant is the manager of Sanwei Study, and he’s gone off to help me collect intelligence, so I’ve been helping him look after the place for the last two days,” said Killer Taoist.
Bandit Evil: “What intelligence?”
Killer Taoist: “I’ve discovered that there’s someone who’s been pretending to be me all this time!”
Bandit Evil: “…”
Killer Taoist: “I’ve been aware of this for a long time, and I’ve been looking for clues, but the brat who’s pretending to be me is pretty skillful… I haven’t been able to find out anything at all. There’s a rumor that someone pretending to be me went to investigate that incident with the missing deliverymen two days ago… this pretender better hope I don’t catch him!”
“…”
Bandit Evil: “By the way, senior brother… are you already immune to floral underpants? Previously, you would always show up whenever we hung the underpants out on the clothes rack.”
“Hey hey, does master really think he can use underpants to threaten me forever? As a top killer, I’ve already long overcome this weakness!”
Killer Taoist smiled slightly, then pulled down his pants. “Hehe… see? I’ve chosen to no longer wear them!”
Bandit Evil silently covered his eyes. “…” He felt like his retinas had been broken!
[0] This is the title of a famous essay written by well-known Chinese writer Lu Xun, and refers to places in his hometown of Shaoxing.
(1) These are apartments building where each level is simply made up of one corridor with rooms on both sides.