Su Yan stood at the bow, gazing at both banks. The mountains on either side of the Nai River quaked constantly as the netherworld kept invading the living world. New mountains emerged from the other realm, squeezing against the original land, the force staggering.
The tower ship sped across the water, faster and faster. Mountains flashed past. Su Yan's heart tightened. "This ship will cover a hundred li in no time."
The farthest he'd ever been was about a hundred li. Now, on this vessel, he felt uneasy. "If she doesn't send me back, will I even know the way? I heard some people sell children..."
Inside his mind, the great bell sneered. This kid would be sold by some demoness and never even know it! She must have some scheme, who knows what she sees in Su Yan.
Su Yan didn't know what it was thinking. He asked the coffin girl, "What is Visualization?"
The great bell was furious: Brat, you ask my enemy instead of me! If you'd asked me, wouldn't I have answered? Wait, he did ask me, and I forgot to tell him, only explaining how to look inward. Careless. She got there first.
The girl stood at the bow, her form striking. "You don't know Visualization? Of course, the qi cultivator lineage has dwindled to almost nothing by your generation. It's understandable you wouldn't know. Even by my generation, much had been lost. The great villain's influence was simply too vast."
She paused. "Visualization is establishing an image in the void to stabilize spirit sense. Establishing an image in the void means using spirit sense to visualize a manifestation of the Great Dao, to tame the mind-monkey and tether the will-horse. When you visualize, you create something from nothing, refining falsehood into truth, cultivating magical arts and divine powers—only then can you attain the Dao."
Su Yan's heart stirred. "The method of Visualization sounds similar to Inner Realm."
The girl was puzzled. "What Inner Realm?"
Su Yan took out the scroll. "This nuo master technique, the Mud Pill Inner-Realm Cultivation Method, says that Inner Realm is a manifestation of the Great Dao, but cultivated using the power of the Mud Pill Secret. Inner Realm also creates something from nothing, refining falsehood into truth, and can be cultivated into magical arts or divine powers!"
He unrolled the text, and a strand of hair fell onto the page. Su Yan looked up—the girl had somehow come to his side and was leaning over to read.
Her hair fell onto his shoulder.
Her skin was snow-white, her neck long and slender, the black hair making her seem even fairer. She didn't smell like a corpse at all. Instead, there was a faint, pleasant fragrance that made him want to inhale deeper.
This was the first time Su Yan had been so close to her. His mind wandered. He slowly turned the pages so she could see clearly.
The girl was very focused. Su Yan stole glances, feeling her profile was even more beautiful than her front. Her lashes fluttered occasionally, her eyes like gems, her nose delicate and straight, her lips pink and tempting as cherries.
Su Yan felt his heart race and quickly looked away. "The ghost girl is not only polite, but also very pretty."
He was still a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy. Seeing a beautiful girl—even if she might be a ghost or a zombie—made his mind wander.
Inside Su Yan's mind, the great bell sneered. Brat doesn't even know Visualization, sees a pretty girl and his mind-monkey runs wild. Too little discipline. He's probably already naming their children!
Even so, it worried about being discovered by the girl. Silently, the bell's mouth covered the chaotic primal egg. If I cover the Mud Pill Secret, the demoness will think I'm a chaotic egg and won't discover me.
The girl quickly finished reading the Mud Pill Inner-Realm Cultivation Method. She closed the text, thought for a moment, and said, "It is indeed rather crude. The Inner Realm in this book is an incomplete method. Cultivating it would lead you astray, wasting your life for nothing. Extremely insidious. Don't cultivate it."
"Waste my life?" Su Yan's heart chilled.
The Mud Pill Inner-Realm Cultivation Method was a technique the Zhou Clan passed to their disciples. How could such a massive flaw exist without the Zhou Clan knowing?
"The flaw in the book definitely wasn't left by the Mud Pill Palace's master. So it could only be that the Zhou Clan deliberately taught this incomplete method to their own disciples!"
Cold sweat beaded on Su Yan's forehead. The Zhou Clan used these disciples to do their bidding, then used this technique to waste their lives. Their intentions were vicious!
"This way, the Zhou Clan's nuo methods wouldn't leak out. Even if they did, what leaked would be a method that hastened death. The Zhou Clan used this to maintain their position!" he thought.
The girl continued: "Although the Inner Realm in this book has enormous hidden dangers, the concept of Inner Realm is excellent, not inferior to qi cultivator techniques. Judging from this crude method, Inner Realm might not only be used to cultivate arts, but could also be a method of subtle transformation."
She frowned slightly, puzzled. "Have qi cultivator techniques been eliminated? But I don't think Inner-Realm Subtle Transformation could surpass qi cultivator techniques. What caused the extinction of qi cultivators?"
She had been imprisoned for thousands of years. Everything about the present felt alien to her.
Su Yan asked, "Miss, what is Inner-Realm Subtle Transformation?"
The girl said, "From this text, the purpose of nuo masters cultivating Inner Realm is to forge a minor immortal realm within their own bodies, eventually hiding their form within it, achieving immortality. But this method is too shallow. It doesn't explain how to achieve Inner-Realm Subtle Transformation."
Su Yan's eyes shone. Forge a minor immortal realm inside the body, hide and transform within it, never dying or being destroyed?
Wasn't that an immortal?
The Mud Pill Palace master's inheritance didn't sound so terrible after all.
"Then how is Inner Realm cultivated?" Su Yan suppressed his excitement and asked.
The girl was displeased. "You and I are fellow travelers. Your inheritance is no weaker than mine. Why learn Inner-Realm Subtle Transformation?"
Su Yan was stunned. After a long moment, he came back to himself. "My inheritance is that strong? Wait, what inheritance do I have? The Grand Unity Daoyin Art?"
He was somewhat lost. The Grand Unity Daoyin Art only had the Qi-Gathering stage guidance. There was no follow-up.
Suddenly, the tower ship traveled west, and by the latter half of the night, its speed gradually slowed. Su Yan had no idea how far the ship had traveled along the Nai River. It had to be at least two or three thousand li.
"Is this Huaihua or Tongren? No, Huaihua is west of Yongzhou, Tongren is only a few hundred li from here."
He didn't know where the ship had gone. He was just a village boy. The farthest places he knew were the nearby prefectures around Yongzhou.
Su Yan looked ahead. The Nai River suddenly split into countless tributaries here, spreading like the veins of a leaf, dispersing in all directions into boundless darkness.
Along the tributaries' banks, ghost fires flickered. Looking into the distance, for a hundred li in every direction, ghost fires dotted the land like stars—a ghost realm.
It was said the Nai River guided ghosts into the netherworld, sparing them wind and sun.
When people first died, their souls left their bodies and became ghosts. A slight breeze could tear them apart, a hint of sunlight could scatter them to nothing. Even the yang energy of living humans could assault them.
Only by entering the netherworld were ghosts safe.
Su Yan looked around, but it was the deep of night and he couldn't see far. He could only see boundless ghost fires.
"Why are there so many ghost fires here?" he whispered.
The ship slowed, entering the main channel among hundreds of tributaries. Ghost fires flickered on both banks, and faintly, villages and towns could be seen.
Probably because of the night, no human presence was visible.
The girl opened the upright black coffin, lifted the lid, and rummaged inside. She took out a whip two or three zhang long and handed it to Su Yan. "Stay on the ship. When it stops, set it on fire. After the ship burns, take this whip and strike upward. Keep striking until you're exhausted."
Su Yan examined the whip. It was an ordinary whip, woven from thin hemp rope. At the tip hung a golden-yellow tail hair, from some animal's tail.
"This will send the god away?" Su Yan was doubtful.
The girl smiled, her eyes like crescent moons, very alluring. "Naturally."
Su Yan let out a long breath and smiled. "Leave it to me. You can rest easy."
The girl wasn't so sure. "This ship was refined by me three thousand years ago. Ordinary fire can't ignite it. I'll give you a flame as well."
Behind her, the girl's Primordial Spirit extended its right hand, thumb and ring finger touching. At the fingertips was a faint flame, which she brought before Su Yan.
Su Yan didn't know how to receive this flame. But the Primordial Spirit's right hand reached into his Realm of the Subtle, thumb and ring finger parting, and the flame floated quietly in the air.
"This flame is a Pure Yang Fire I found, born from heaven and earth. It can aid your cultivation."
The girl disembarked and drifted away, her clear voice carrying from the distance. "Wait half an hour, then set the fire and strike the whip. Then you can leave. This place is dangerous. Don't linger. After I finish my business, I'll find you and send you back to Wuwang Mountain!"
Su Yan watched her go, feeling warm all over. That Pure Yang Fire radiated waves of yang energy in his Realm of the Subtle, actually having a similar effect to Thunder-Sound Body Tempering and Great Sun Tempering—it could refine the physical body!
What surprised him more was that his vital energy, passing through the flame, grew increasingly pure!
"Even vital energy can be refined!"
Su Yan was amazed. He tried refining his spirit sense. To his joy, his spirit sense was also strengthened, becoming more resilient and pure!
"If I can use this fire to refine my body, spirit sense, and vital energy, my strength will definitely surge!" Su Yan stood at the bow, facing the netherwind on the Nai River, brimming with ambition.
The great bell flew out from behind his head and said darkly, "A-Yan, what will you name your children?"
Su Yan was puzzled. "Children? What children?"
The great bell sneered. "You and that demoness were so intimate. You never thought about having children with her?"
Su Yan's face turned red. "How could I? And how are children made?"
"Using your—stop!" The great bell realized and quickly shut its mouth.
Then Su Yan saw on the left bank of the Nai River, in the night, an emaciated man in ragged clothes leaning on a wooden stick, struggling out of the jungle.
Behind him, the jungle shook, and more elderly and women in tattered clothes emerged, also leaning on sticks, struggling forward.
More and more people came from the jungle, men and women, old and young, helping each other along, all silent.
By the ghost-fire light of the Nai River, their clothes were torn, revealing shocking boils and sores that attracted flies buzzing around them.
Su Yan looked in the direction they came from. A vast tide of refugees stretched for li, like an unending black dragon.
"Who are they..." Su Yan murmured.
The great bell's voice was heavy. "They are plague people. Infected with plague."
Su Yan looked farther. There was the place where ghost fires filled the land for a hundred li. The plague people must have come from there.
"Where they came from, there was likely flood, war, or famine," the great bell said lowly. "I've hung on that stone mountain for three thousand years. I've seen this many times."
It had hung in the desolate mountain temple for thousands of years, witnessing countless floods, wars, and famines, corpses everywhere, unburied. Every time, plague followed.
The tower ship continued forward unhurriedly. More and more plague people appeared on both banks of the Nai River, in mountain villages and towns.
The plague people struggled forward, walking along the riverbank to some unknown destination.
People kept falling, their bodies twitching a few times, then still.
But the others paid no heed, continuing on with vacant eyes, like walking corpses.
"A-Yan, this should be the source of the Nai River's diversion."
The great bell spoke heavily, "Someone killed wantonly here to rescue the demoness, creating a plague outbreak. A-Yan, this demoness had you help her this time with ill intent, she definitely has some scheme!"
Su Yan still stood at the bow, staring blankly at the plague people.
He had cultivated the Heavenly Eye, and through it, the world was different.
In the sky, thick meat-colored tentacles floated silently, hanging down.
These flesh-colored tentacles were incredibly agile, stretching from the depths of another space, their source invisible.
They reached behind the plague people, splitting into countless fine tendrils that plugged into the boils on these emaciated people's bodies, slowly writhing, sucking.
Su Yan looked into the distance. Ghost fires dotted the land, and in those places, countless tentacles also reached from another world, descending from the sky into the darkness below.
Meat-colored tentacles came from another world, interweaving, filling the dark sky, blocking out the stars. They split into more tendrils, swelling and shrinking, sucking the life force from the plague people.
This scene was incredibly real, and incredibly unreal.
This was what his Heavenly Eye saw!
Su Yan moved his gaze with difficulty, his adam's apple bobbing. "Heavens..."
As far as his eyes could see, the entire dark sky was completely covered by writhing red flesh, stretching to the horizon.
Some inconceivable creature enveloped the sky, dropping countless flesh-colored tentacles toward the people of the western lands.