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 danger-ous?” 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 lingchi19 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.”