Chapter 76: This Venerable One Meets That Guy Again

Chu Wanning had never been the kindly teacher type, and neither

was Mo Ran a five-year-old at his first lesson. A hammy question like this

didn't warrant a response, so Chu Wanning, lashes lowered, ignored it.

The haitang flower that he had sent off with a speed-boosting wind

spell quickly scouted the entirety of Peach Blossom Springs. Mere moments

later, a golden amulet drifted down from the sky into his hand.

"The Ancestral Abyss?"

They went to the Ancestral Abyss every day to pluck feathers from the

frenzied owls that roosted there. The feathered tribe said that the bottom of

the abyss was filled with roaring flames, and that anyone who slipped and

fell there—other than the demon owls, who had lived there since ancient

times—would be melted into nothingness.

Chu Wanning cast a concealment barrier on himself and Mo Ran to

avoid detection by the feathered tribe. When they arrived at the Ancestral

Abyss, they looked down. There was an eerie red light and no bottom to be

seen, but thousands of owls were perched along the walls of the steep cliffs.

The birds were asleep, their heads tucked into their wings, and they were

packed so densely that from this distance, they looked like countless dots on

the cliffside.

According to Chu Wanning's hypothesis, if the Zhenlong Chess

Formation had indeed been cast within the abyss, then all this talk of "fierce

flames" and "being burned until not even ashes remained" was likely a

fabrication.

"How can we be sure that the fire down there isn't actually dangerous?" Mo Ran stared at the uncanny light below as he murmured. "Looks real

enough to me."

"Throw something in first."

"I'll go grab a rabbit."

"No need." Chu Wanning leapt up with a flutter of his pristine robes

and disappeared into the forest of peach trees nearby. A moment later, he

fluttered back like an immortal exiled from the ninth heaven, a branch of

peach blossoms in hand.

Mo Ran understood. Peach blossoms were even more fragile than

rabbits, so if the peach blossoms could handle the supposed "fierce flames,"

then there could be no doubt that the fire posed no danger to people.

Chu Wanning ran a finger lightly down the branch as he mouthed a

spell, covering it with a soft layer of translucent blue light. He pointed

toward the abyss and said, "Go on."

The peach blossom floated gently down. One foot, two feet, ten feet, a

hundred.

Though the branch was too far away to see, the spell Chu Wanning had

cast allowed him to sense the condition of the flowers. He waited with eyes

closed for a good while before opening them. "The flowers are fine. Let's

go."

If Chu Wanning was certain, there was no need to say anything else.

Mo Ran leapt into the Ancestral Abyss alongside him. Both of them were

proficient in martial arts, and they nimbly arrived at the bottom with ease.

When Mo Ran laid eyes on the scene below, a shiver ran down his

spine even though he had mentally prepared himself.

He now knew the nature of the eerie red light.

Thousands of crosses stood at the bottom of the abyss. To every one

was bound a member of the feathered tribe, entirely naked and drenched in

blood. Within each of their mouths was stuffed a lingchi

19

 fruit, and these

were what emitted that piercing red light. From above, the collective blaze of

these thousands of fruits had easily been mistaken for flames burning deep

within the abyss.

Chu Wanning's face was terrible. Well-learned as he was, he

recognized this red fruit as a forbidden object—the very mention of it would

make any person in the cultivation world pale.

Placing this fruit into the mouth of a person on the verge of death

extended their last moment into three hundred and sixty-five days. In other

words, the victim would be denied release and instead be forced to suffer an

excruciatingly slow death. The instant cessation of their heart would be

stretched into an unending torment, thus the name: "lingchi."

As Mo Ran stared at the throngs of feathered tribe folk living in death,

dense as a forest, he murmured: "Soul-Locking Array."

If an individual were to use still-living humans as pillars in this array,

they could confine resentful energy within their victims and thereby prevent

that energy from leaking out. They could even conceal the energy of

thousands of souls trapped within a Zhenlong Chess Formation. No wonder

Mo Ran hadn't sensed the slightest bit of resentful energy, which would have

indicated the presence of the technique.

Mo Ran could only shudder. Was the fake Gouchen from Jincheng Lake

truly the person who had orchestrated the events at Peach Blossom Springs?

Everything they'd seen at Jincheng Lake had seemed like the work of

someone who only knew the fundamental basics of the Zhenlong Chess

Formation—just enough to control the creatures of the lake. This time, while

the feathered tribe of Peach Blossom Springs had been a bit dumb and

emotionally stunted, they had been nigh indiscernibly different from their

original selves. They had even been capable of using the unique magic of the

feathered tribe. It was clear that the perpetrator's grasp of the forbidden

technique was now at least comfortably adept. Could the fake Gouchen truly

have become this proficient so quickly?

Chu Wanning walked into the center of the Soul-Locking Array, where

stood a crystal pillar.

A member of the feathered tribe was bound to this pillar as well, only

she was dead. The lingchi fruit in her mouth had long since withered, and her

body was in the beginning stages of decomposition. However, her identity

was made clear by the yellow robes she wore, which were embroidered in

golden thread with a phoenix, as well as by the star-shaped mark between

her brows.

"This is…"

Mo Ran startled. "That's the real Elder Immortal!"

"Correct." Chu Wanning looked at the forest of human pillars,

stretching out as far as the eye could see. "So many of the feathered tribe

were captured to use in the Soul-Locking Array," he said quietly. "At least

eight hundred, if not a thousand. The Elder Immortal certainly wouldn't have

tolerated this were she still alive. I thought it was odd earlier, when I

exchanged blows with her outside the pavilion, that she didn't even seem to

be as strong as the ghost mistress of Butterfly Town. If I'm not wrong…it

seems that the feathered tribe of Peach Blossom Springs has been

exterminated, and all those we met were merely walking corpses under the

control of Zhenlong Chess Formation."

Mo Ran stared in shock. Sure enough, Chu Wanning had come to the

same conclusion that he had. As soon as Mo Ran recovered from his shock,

he turned to leave, but Chu Wanning blocked his path with a wave of his

sleeve.

"Where are you going?" Chu Wanning asked.

"I have to go tell Uncle and the others. If this is the case, then this

place is terribly dangerous."

"Don't be too hasty." Chu Wanning shook his head. "Right now, we're

out in the open, but the enemy is hidden in the shadows. There are many

cultivators at Peach Blossom Springs, and we don't know who's pulling the

strings. Acting rashly might make things worse."

"Heh heh. Long time no see. Chu-zongshi is still so cautious."

A small giggle came from above them, but the effect of the sound was

no different from that of thunder striking the depths of the Ancestral Abyss.

Their heads snapped up as blood drained from their faces, only to see a

mangled child of the feathered tribe sitting on a branch sticking out from the

cliffside, kicking his legs. The dead child tilted his head, a pair of eyeballs

soaked in bloody tears rolling around in their sockets, and grinned brightly at

them.

"Zhenlong Chess Formation!" Mo Ran said, startled.

Chu Wanning cursed under his breath. "Another white chess piece."

"Eh heh heh, that's right, another white chess piece." The child

clapped gleefully. Terrifyingly. "What, did you think I would come here

personally? I'm not dumb."

"So you are that fake Gouchen from Jincheng Lake!" Mo Ran said.

"What do you want, you madman?"

"Heh heh, who do you think you are? Some no-name sproutling still

stumbling over foundations—you aren't fit to speak to me. Tell your master

to do the asking himself."

"You—"

Chu Wanning's slender fingers emerged from his wide sleeve with a

sweep to hold back Mo Ran, who was so pissed that smoke practically rose

from his head. With a lift of his eyelashes, Chu Wanning looked up and asked

coldly, "What are you trying to accomplish?"

The child continued to kick his legs. He was noticeably already dead,

but under the control of the forbidden technique, he moved nonstop, making

all kinds of gestures like a puppet on a string. "Oh, nothing much, really."

Chu Wanning's voice dropped several degrees in temperature. "Then

why do you keep coming after my disciple?"

"I'm not planning anything too important. I just so happen to need your

little disciple's spiritual core to do it," the child said, beaming. "He has only

himself to blame for having such a fine core. It's even better than yours, and

by far. I noticed back at Jincheng Lake that he's a superb spiritual essence of

wood. If not for that, I might have been more interested in you, Chu-zongshi."

Mo Ran was about to gag—the child spoke in a young voice, but

greasily, and with such an adult tone. "If I'm ever so goddamn unlucky as to

get caught by you, I'll immediately self-destruct my fucking core," he

snapped. "So don't even think about touching me!"

"It's not like I want to touch you," the child continued in that

infuriatingly honey-sweet tone. "I'm only chasing you around because I have

to. All men love beauties, and your shizun is much prettier than you. I'd

rather touch him."

"You!" Mo Ran bristled. "Some ugly thing like you, hiding behind

white chess pieces all day long, too afraid to show your ugly mug—you think

you have any right to touch my shizun?"

The child rolled his eyes at Mo Ran, as if tired of acknowledging his

existence. He returned his attention to Chu Wanning. "Chu-zongshi, back at

Jincheng Lake, I advised you to leave things alone, but you wouldn't listen.

I'm so very hurt, you know."

"Now that this matter has come to my attention, even if you stopped

hounding Mo Ran, I would still intend to get to the bottom of things."

"Pfft, I knew you'd say that." The child was quiet for a moment, then

grinned again. "Why are you righteous zongshi types all so stubborn?" He

paused again. "Fine, since Chu-zongshi won't leave well enough alone, we'll

have to wait and see. I wanted to figure out which was stronger anyway: your

Tianwen, or my forbidden techniques."

Chu Wanning's brows furrowed. "Must you slaughter so many

innocents to further your ends?" he asked darkly.

"The people of the world are like the oranges from Huainan."20

"What do you mean?"

"Sour." The child started giggling. "Super sour. All these worthless

people are sour. I hate them, I want to crush them—step on them."

Mo Ran was at a loss for words.

Chu Wanning's voice filled with killing intent. "You truly are

irredeemable."

"Zongshi deems me irredeemable, but I think Zongshi is just as

incurable. Our justice differs at the root. Why sweat the small stuff?" The

child tilted his head to and fro. "Just think of our little spat as a game of

chess. You won the match at Jincheng Lake. As for this one here at Peach

Blossom Springs, since Zongshi has found the Ancestral Abyss and seen my

white chess piece—and I've run out of tricks by which to acquire your little

disciple—let's just say you won this one too."

He paused, then his eyes crinkled with a smile. In so doing, he

squeezed more blood from them. "You better watch out. You may have

protected him this time, but I wonder if you can protect him his whole life?"

Chu Wanning did not reply.

"As for the secret down here, I suggest you keep it to yourselves," the

child said, holding a red and gold feather between his fingers.

"Is that one of the golden feathers used as currency here?" Mo Ran

asked, alarmed.

"That's right." The child smiled. "These feathers have circulated

everywhere by this point. If the two of you keep quiet and leave of your own

volition, then nothing will happen. But if you don't behave and try to expose

me… These feathers are imbued with the resentful energy of the feathered

tribe. They won't kill those cultivators, but they would dissipate the better

part of their cultivation."

"You planned this from the start?!" Mo Ran said with anger in his

voice.

"Well, of course," the child said, incredulous. "Do you think everyone

is a dumb brute like you?"

Mo Ran fell silent.

He was so! Pissed! Off! He was willing to admit that he was rather

straightforward about the way he did things, and that he didn't know much

about schemes and strategies. However, being so overtly called out by this

little bastard made him really want to summon Jiangui and give him what for

—to teach him what it meant to be a real dumb brute.

"Chu-zongshi, I'm sure you know what's best for everyone involved.

Even if the others learned the truth, if their cultivation were greatly damaged,

I'm afraid they wouldn't thank you for your integrity."

"As I'm sure you heard earlier, when you were eavesdropping,

I wasn't planning to alarm them to begin with," Chu Wanning said coldly.

"For the time being."

"For the time being? Ha ha, so Zongshi was planning to tell them later,

then. Although there'd be no point in doing that either." The child beamed.

"Once these people leave, I'll destroy Peach Blossom Springs, just like I did

Jincheng Lake. Good luck getting anyone to believe you with no evidence."

Chu Wanning's gaze was icy. "I'm impressed that you have the nerve to

call Mo Ran a dumb brute when you conduct yourself thus."

Chu Wanning's derision washed right over the child. He got up and

twirled in place a couple times, at which point a flame flared to life at his

feet and slowly burned through his flesh and bones. "Why don't you save that

for when you catch me? Chu-zongshi, out of respect for your character, I'll

remind you one last time: stay out of this. If you still refuse to listen, then

we…will certainly meet again…"

The flames exploded and roared into the sky.

The feathered tribe child who had been used as a puppet was burned

into nothingness. A translucent white chess piece fell from the sky, spun a

couple times on the ground, and stilled.

For a while, there was nothing but silence.

Mo Ran knew the perpetrator wasn't spouting empty threats, but he

also didn't want to take this sitting down. So at length, he asked, "Shizun, are

we really going to leave like this? Do you have any other ideas?"

"Best not take any chances for now. Let's depart Peach Blossom

Springs first." Chu Wanning's expression was dark as well. "If he went to the

trouble of erecting a Soul-Locking Array to prevent anyone from noticing his

use of the Zhenlong Chess Formation, he still wants to keep things under

wraps—at least for now. I will send word to the sect leader to take Xue

Meng and Shi Mei and leave as soon as possible, without alarming the

enemy. As for you…"

Chu Wanning paused. "Both times, he was after you. This time around,

he planned to frame you with the hopes of isolating you from help. There's no

need for you to do anything further with regard to this matter; the sect leader

will step in and take care of it."

"What should I do, then?" Mo Ran asked. "It wouldn't be right to make

others take care of my mess while I sit on my hands and do nothing."

"What are you trying to prove at this juncture? It's obvious what that

man is after. The tree spirit at Jincheng Lake fell, so he's looking for a

replacement. You are a spiritual essence of wood, suitable for his purposes,

but if he can't get to you, then he'll go for the next best thing and look for

some other substitute." Chu Wanning paused again. "And once he finds that

something, it will be another massacre. He must be stopped."

"That's not wrong, but Shizun, it's not like spiritual essences are all

that easy to find. If he wants to find a substitute, he'll have to…" Mo Ran

suddenly stopped talking and lifted his head. He stared at Chu Wanning for a

while. "If that little bastard wants to find other spiritual essences, he'll have

to check sect by sect. Even so, cultivators don't expose their spiritual roots

for any old reason. They only do so when choosing a new weapon or a

refinement crystal, in order to check their compatibility. So the simplest way

to test for a spiritual essence would be to sell weapons and spiritual stones.

Which means, if we keep watch on the weapon markets near the sects in the

coming days, we'll have a pretty good chance of sniffing the bastard out."

After Mo Ran had said all this, he realized Chu Wanning was looking

at him thoughtfully, and he couldn't help but second-guess himself. "Uh…I

guess?"

"It's a good guess," Chu Wanning said slowly. A moment later, he got

the feeling that Mo Ran was a little too informed, and his eyes narrowed in

suspicion. "Mo Ran. Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Wh-what could I possibly have to hide from Shizun?" Mo Ran said,

but the hairs on his back stood on end, and he felt as if Chu Wanning's eyes,

clear as glass, were staring right through his reborn body and directly at the

soul cowering within.

A moment passed in silence, and Chu Wanning thankfully didn't press

the subject. Lowering his eyelashes, he said, "Starting now, you will come

with me to covertly investigate the major sects. For the time being, we will

not be returning to Sisheng Peak."