“There wasn’t only the Li family in the village to begin with. Look at these—all of them are cultivation methods from the various families.”
Li Qiuchen pointed at the books on the shelf and said to Hong Yang, “Your family’s is definitely among them too, but I don’t know which one it is.”
“There are this many?”
Hong Yang stared at the bookshelf in surprise. Weren’t cultivation methods supposed to be extremely rare? Many people in the village cultivated, but even he couldn’t really say what exactly it was he himself practiced.
Don’t ask. If you ask, it was the Medicine Master’s blessing.
And yet Great-uncle’s house had actually accumulated so many manuals and secret arts? He hid them away and didn’t share them with everyone?
No!
He suddenly realized it wasn’t that he refused to share them with the villagers. These should have been the treasures of each family in the village, yet Great-uncle had collected them one by one.
As for how he had collected them… Thinking back to his parents’ suspicious deaths, fury surged through Hong Yang’s heart.
The hatred of a murdered father, the grudge of a stolen wife—if I don’t kill that old bastard, I swear I’m not human!
“Even with all these methods, do you think Great-uncle ever achieved anything through cultivation?”
Li Qiuchen asked calmly.
“He’s already like that…”
“Isn’t cultivating immortality supposed to be for longevity? If he really had succeeded in cultivation, why would he still scheme against the three of us? Why would he still need to devour Yingcao’s spiritual root? If you had money, would you skip wine and meat and keep thinking about digging up wild greens and gnawing on tree bark?”
“Uh, this…”
Hong Yang actually had no idea how to answer.
“Either there’s something wrong with these cultivation methods, or there’s something wrong with Great-uncle himself.”
I think both have problems, but saying that out loud doesn’t seem too good. It makes me sound like a pessimist.
Li Qiuchen looked at Hong Yang and said solemnly, “I think if Great-uncle himself is also a puppet, and he doesn’t know it, then everything makes sense.”
“Pinewood Village is like a pigpen. You, me, everyone here—we’re all piglets being raised in captivity. As soon as we start putting on fat, we get targeted. Great-uncle thinks he’s the one raising the pigs, but he holds all the cultivation methods of every family in the village, controls all the village’s cultivation resources, and even after living to a hundred and eighty years old, he still failed to cultivate into an immortal. He still has to worship the Medicine Master to extend his life.”
Hong Yang asked in a trembling voice, “Then the one raising the pigs… who exactly is it?”
Bai Yuheng very much wanted to know the answer to that question as well.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
His flying sword had already slain Great-uncle three times. He had sliced off who knew how many arms and heads, but with the support of the village’s formation, that old thing could always come back from the dead and appear before him completely intact.
As for Great-uncle’s cultivation… To be honest, it might be a bit hurtful to say, but Bai Yuheng truly couldn’t see any real cultivation in that old thing.
He was purely a rogue cultivator—a loosely assembled cultivation base that hadn’t even reached the Qi Refining realm.
But under the formation’s enhancement, his power and that of the other seventeen elders merged together, and his strength instantly leapt to the peak of the Qi Refining realm.
That still wasn’t worth mentioning. Bai Yuheng killed him instantly with a casual sword strike.
But when Great-uncle returned from his second rebirth, his body underwent a bizarre change. Countless eyes grew out of the surface of his skin, and every single eye could release a Qi Refining–level curse. When gathered together, they reached the level of Foundation Establishment, catching Bai Yuheng off guard and making him suffer a hidden loss.
And after his third rebirth, Great-uncle’s figure swelled once more, reaching over two zhang in height. Twisted, savage human faces emerged across his body, and countless tormented souls were forcibly fused together, raising his strength to the Golden Core realm—enough to clash head-on with Bai Yuheng without falling behind.
There was absolutely something wrong here.
Once Bai Yuheng realized that, he immediately changed his approach and uprooted the thirty-six ancient trees forming the formation in the village. But even so, the monster before him showed no decline in aura at all. There was no sign of its power weakening. It looked as though it intended to rely on the undying, indestructible advantage of a Medicine Master remnant to wear him down here alive.
“In truth, outside the village, there is another ancient tree—the real one.”
It was a peach tree.
Every time the village held a large-scale sacrifice, it followed a standard procedure. Great-uncle would lead all the villagers to that old peach tree, build an altar, burn the sacrificial text, offer the three sacrificial animals, praise the Medicine Master, break off peach branches, and pray for blessings and the dispelling of disasters for the villagers.
But what if the thing they had been worshiping, from beginning to end, was that peach tree?
After hearing Li Qiuchen’s explanation, Hong Yang felt his hair stand on end.
“How did you guess a secret that even Great-uncle doesn’t know?”
“I didn’t know at first either.”
As Li Qiuchen told the story, he continued looting the secret chamber.
The spiritual pills being slowly baked over a low flame in the pill furnace were naturally good things, and needless to say, so were the gold, silver, and jewels. It was just that taking too much would inevitably affect mobility, and it wouldn’t be safe either.
Rolling them into a bundle and carrying it on his back, Li Qiuchen glanced at the crayfish spirit beside him. “But at the time, another matter aroused my curiosity.”
“I went to the back mountain, gathered herbs beside the spiritual spring, met General Crayfish, and only after chatting with it did I realize there was something wrong with your parents’ deaths.”
There was no seal at the spiritual spring in the back mountain at all.
Nor had the crayfish spirit lost its freedom.
Beneath the spiritual spring was an underground river. It could come whenever it wanted and leave whenever it wanted.
And the reason it had stayed here—
“Of course it was because the roots of that peach tree taste incomparably delicious.”
Seeing Hong Yang look over, General Crayfish chuckled. “All that talk about spiritual roots—that old wild peach tree is the true spiritual root! It has at least three thousand years of cultivation. The peaches it bears are immortal fruits that can extend one’s life when eaten.”
“Huh? Peach trees actually grow peaches?”
Hong Yang was deeply shaken.
The Northern Frontier was cold, and peach trees rarely bore fruit to begin with. Even if they did, the fruit never grew large, at most reaching the size of an egg. That was why they were also called wild peaches.
And in Hong Yang’s memory, that old peach tree at the village entrance seemed never to have borne fruit at all. Many children in the village, himself included, didn’t even know what a peach was.
“How could it bear fruit willingly? It stores all the nutrients inside its own body. It only eats and never gives anything back, not even the slightest benefit to any of you.”
The crayfish spirit laughed strangely. “It covets my body, and I covet its body too. If it weren’t always using its roots to tempt me, why would I, a dignified great general of the aquatic race, hole up in that pond behind your village?”
Hong Yang asked in confusion, “Then why didn’t you say so before?”
“Before? Who knew whether you little brat could keep your mouth shut? If you went back to the village and blabbed, and that old wild peach heard it and raised its guard, how would we still scheme against it?”
“You’re still thinking of scheming against it?”
Hong Yang looked at Li Qiuchen.
That Sword Immortal outside was already trapped in a bitter battle. What could they possibly do?
Li Qiuchen listened to the movements outside and said to the crayfish spirit, “I think it’s about time. Let’s go over now.”
The entirety of Pinewood Village was a pigpen.
All the people, all the trees, were puppets.
The old peach tree’s eyes and ears were spread throughout the village. Every movement of every person was under its surveillance.
But now, its eyes and ears were no longer useful.
Bai Yuheng’s repeated battles with Great-uncle had already turned the village into ruins.
The appearance of this cultivator had not been part of Li Qiuchen’s plan.
Even now, after he had already beaten Great-uncle’s brains out, Li Qiuchen still did not factor his combat strength into the calculation.
Because the root problem in Pinewood Village did not lie with Great-uncle.
And even now, he still had not discovered where the true problem was.
Could this guy be some second-generation young master from a major cultivation clan out on tempering experience?
If Bai Yuheng heard that, he would definitely cry injustice.
What family’s second-generation young master didn’t go out with an entourage before and behind him? Even at worst, they would have personal magical treasures. Look at me—what do I have?
The Bai family had specialized in the path of sword cultivation for generations, relying on no external objects. They refined flying swords from their own feathers, wielding them as naturally as their own arms and fingers, with tremendous power.
In the eyes of sword cultivators, there was nothing in the world that could not be cut down. If you couldn’t defeat someone, don’t look for reasons or excuses. The only problem was that your sword wasn’t sharp enough.
Of course Bai Yuheng could also tell that the old thing before him was no cultivator at all. At most, it was something like a tomb guardian beast or a guardian spirit. The true Medicine Master remnant was still hidden behind the scenes and had yet to show itself.
But where exactly was that thing? I’ve already turned the whole village over once.
Sometimes, a person’s thoughts would wander into a blind spot.
His attention had been focused entirely on the thirty-six ancient trees within the village. He had not noticed at all the unremarkable old peach tree outside the village.
At this very moment, an altar had already been set up beneath the old peach tree.
Because sacrifices were held every year, the foundation of the altar had never been dismantled. It was nothing more than stacking a few stones, setting up several planks, and placing an incense table on top—that was enough to complete it.
Guan Damu knelt before the altar, trembling as though he had been frightened out of his wits, muttering the divine name of the Medicine Master.
“Great merciful and compassionate Lapis Medicine Master, save us from suffering and disaster. Great merciful and compassionate Lapis Medicine Master, save us from suffering and disaster…”
All of a sudden, he heard someone whisper softly beside his ear.
“Thus have I heard.”
That voice, neither male nor female, sent a shiver through Guan Damu’s entire body. He involuntarily raised his head and looked over, then froze on the spot.
He saw clusters of tender pink buds blooming on the old peach tree before him. One peach blossom after another grew and opened at a speed visible to the naked eye. Petals fluttered and danced, and faint Buddhist chanting could be heard in midair. Barefoot celestial maidens held pipas in their arms and sat upright amid the clouds.
It finally couldn’t restrain itself any longer.
Bai Yuheng had just forced back the monster Great-uncle had become when, all of a sudden, illusions filled the sky before his eyes. Countless disheveled, enchantingly beautiful immortal maidens descended from the heavens, surrounding him completely. The air was filled with an ambiguous, intoxicating fragrance.
“Evildoer! How dare you disturb my sword heart!”
Bai Yuheng had stepped into the Golden Core realm through the path of the sword and had experienced hundreds of battles large and small. His sword heart had long since been tempered until it was incomparably firm. Even when facing such illusions, he was completely—
Why is there a blonde demoness too?
How can a human figure grow like that?
Could this fiend have stuffed two watermelons into her clothes?
At the instant those surging waves rushed toward him, a trace of hesitation and confusion appeared in the mind of Bai Yuheng, who had been single since birth.
Although he reacted in time, in a clash between experts, it was often that single instant where the slightest error led to a thousand-li deviation.
Countless giant hands formed from tree roots burst up from the ground, seized his body, and dragged him forcefully underground.