thenovelthief #262 - Little Immortal, Wan'er is here to show her respect
#262 - Little Immortal, Wan'er is here to show her respect
The cave was dim, the candlelight inadequate.
The sound made both the butler and Master Zhang tremble, and the master and servant huddled together.
One short and fat, the other thin and tall, the scene was quite comical.
Xu Chengxian couldn't help but smile. The darkness didn't affect his vision, so he hadn't paid attention before.
Now, with a wave of his horsetail whisk, a flame rose from the candlestick in the butler's hand, floating to the oil lamps on the cave walls, lighting them all.
With a few 'poof, poof, poof' sounds,
the cave lit up.
Master Zhang and the butler could finally see clearly that there were several wooden memorial tablets placed in the corner.
They had all fallen to the ground.
They wanted to go over and take a look but didn't dare, so they looked at Xu Chengxian.
"Immortal Master, what was that just now?"
"A soul-summoning array," Xu Chengxian said casually. "It has already been broken by me. By the way, those wooden tablets are spirit tablets, from your family."
"My family's?" Master Zhang jumped up when he heard this.
He thought they looked familiar!
He rushed over to take a look and, sure enough, they were his family's ancestral tablets!
These were clearly the tablets placed in the ancestral hall, so how could they be here?
"They were intended to harm your grandson," Xu Chengxian said. "There are cinnabar-painted talismans on the back, so don't take them back. Take some paper money and ingots, burn them in front of the ancestral坟墓, and find someone to invite new tablets to enshrine."
"Now let's see if this Old Taoist Qi has any good stuff on him."
After defeating a monster, of course, you have to loot the corpse.
Although he didn't defeat the monster, he could loot the corpse.
As he spoke, he reached out and pointed, and a white light entered Old Taoist Qi's chest.
In the next instant, the white light flashed, and a cloth bag was pulled out from within.
With a wave of his horsetail whisk, he dissipated a wisp of black smoke emanating from the cloth bag. Opening it, he saw a rolled-up triangular black banner and a fragmented booklet inside.
"This is...?" Master Zhang's eyes narrowed.
"Cultivation methods," Xu Chengxian smiled. "Unranked, and incomplete."
The handwriting looked like it had been secretly copied.
He waved his hand and destroyed it. This thing was a scourge if kept.
"No wonder he practiced for decades and still didn't achieve Qi Induction."
Qi Induction doesn't mean introducing spiritual energy into the body.
It means guiding the spiritual energy introduced into the body along the meridians and acupoints, completing a full cycle of cultivation, and finally refining the spiritual power into one's own mana, storing it in the dantian.
"Even outer sect disciples who newly join a cultivation sect must achieve Qi Induction within three years, reaching the first level of Qi Refining. Even servants who don't enter Qi Refining within ten years will be kicked off the mountain," Xu Chengxian chuckled. "What do you think?"
Thanks to Yunzi's friendly intelligence, allowing his Big Brother to confidently play the role of a proper human cultivator.
"However, this guy actually has a decent magical artifact on him."
As he spoke, he waved his sleeve, and a bead floated out of the bag.
"This is...?"
"A Water-Repelling Bead, a counterfeit of a counterfeit."
After confirming that there were no other tricks on the item, Xu Chengxian held the translucent, water-blue bead in his hand.
It was a crudely crafted item, barely qualifying as a low-grade magical artifact.
It should be worth some low-grade spirit stones.
But for an Old Taoist Qi who could only manipulate a small amount of spiritual energy and cast a few incomplete spells to have such a thing was interesting.
Even more interesting was that there was an aura of water-attribute magic hidden inside the bead.
"There's a water-attribute spell imprinted inside," Xu Chengxian squinted. "Old Taoist Qi has a backer?"
Judging from the magical power contained in the Water-Repelling Bead, the water-attribute spell imprinted within, once activated, should have some power.
"What!" Xu Chengxian's words were understated, but Master Zhang's face turned pale with fright, and his heart pounded wildly.
He couldn't afford to offend Old Taoist Qi, nor could he afford to offend Xu Chengxian.
The former wanted his family's life, the latter wanted his wealth.
It was better for the latter to simply kill the former, weighing the lesser of two evils.
Originally, he thought that his plan to use a tiger to devour a wolf only required him to worry about the tiger turning around and eating him, but he didn't expect that there was a strongman behind the wolf!
This was the end!
This was the end!
"What are you afraid of?" Xu Chengxian smiled confidently. "I'm here, I'll protect your family's safety."
He wouldn't dare to boast if it were anything else.
He sensed a demonic aura on this Water-Repelling Bead!
The water-attribute spell was imprinted during the artifact's creation.
The demonic aura outside the bead came from an eighth-order demon beast.
Simple deduction revealed that this demon beast should have given the bead to Old Taoist Qi.
Wasn't this a coincidence?
The lowest cultivation level among his family was above the eighth order.
And Da Hei immediately understood and began to interrogate Old Taoist Qi, asking who his backer was.
"Then I'll thank you in advance, Immortal Master," Master Zhang thanked him with a bitter face.
He didn't know that Xu Chengxian was already thinking about striking first. At this moment, he felt a mix of emotions.
One wave hadn't subsided, and another had risen. How could he be so unlucky!
"Immortal Master, what should we do next?" He raised his head, put on a smile, and looked at Xu Chengxian with a pleading expression. "The matters in my family haven't been settled yet, and now this has happened. What if the other party finds out that Old Taoist Qi is dead? This..."
"Isn't it just a haunting?" Xu Chengxian waved his hand. "I'll arrange it for you. How about this, you go and notify the people of Songjia Village to gather in the open space in front of your house in half an hour."
"Ah?" Master Zhang was stunned.
"Ah, what?" Xu Chengxian raised his hand and patted him on the shoulder. "Old Zhang, you can rest assured that I'll handle things. I guarantee that you and your partner will resolve your differences, shake hands and make peace, and work together to create brilliance again."
"This..." Master Zhang's mind was muddled by these words.
"Don't 'this, this, that, that.' The matter of this world is that it's good for you, good for me, and good for everyone. Go and call people. I'll go over in a while," Xu Chengxian impatiently waved his horsetail whisk, chasing Master Zhang and the butler out.
"Master?"
That meant, Master, what should we do?
Should we call people or not?
"Aiya!" Master Zhang slapped his thigh, gritted his teeth, "Just do as the Immortal Master says!"
When a man dies, his bird faces the sky; if he doesn't die, he'll live for ten thousand years.
There was no retreat to speak of at this time.
Based on Old Taoist Qi's behavior, whoever was behind him was not a good person.
"If this guy dies in my place, the person who comes will definitely use the opportunity to question and blame, and completely devour the Zhang family."
Who would be polite when they could bully the small and take advantage of the weak?
Moreover, once they made a move, they would do it cleanly and thoroughly, leaving no hidden dangers.
He had seen such methods countless times.
At that time, his daughter's words would come true: losing both money and people.
"Now, I can only cling to Immortal Master Xu's thigh first," Master Zhang thought in his heart. "If he can withstand it, I'll follow him. If he can't withstand it, it's not too late to sell him out."
In addition, it would be best to pull in this group of bastards from Songjia Village.
There were also clever people among these bastards. As long as they knew that Old Taoist Qi was dead, but there was still someone behind him, they should know what to do.
"Master Zhang."
At this moment, Xu Chengxian's smiling voice suddenly rang in his ear.
"...Ai?"
Master Zhang's body trembled.
He thought, could this Taoist priest hear what I'm thinking in my heart?
"I just forgot to tell you to prepare some of your family's grain. After we've negotiated later, I'll give the villagers some food as compensation first."
"...Ai? Ai! Yes, yes! I'll go prepare it right away!" How could Master Zhang dare to refuse!
After responding, he lifted his robe and ran home.
He was afraid that if he walked too slowly, Xu Chengxian would hear his inner thoughts again!
"Master?"
"Master, wait for me, Master!"
The butler was confused. Seeing the master run, he quickly followed.
...
Inside the cave.
"Hmph, old fellow," Xu Chengxian heard the hurried footsteps and couldn't help but snort.
He knew that Master Zhang wouldn't be honest.
But it didn't matter, as long as he listened.
Then he raised his head and looked at Da Hei, saying: "Alright, you've asked almost everything, so send him to be reincarnated."
He had even revealed his collusion with demons, so it was clear that he had revealed his bottom line and there was nothing else to hide.
"This evil person, you're still sending him to be reincarnated?" Da Hei turned his head.
"Otherwise? I'm not a garbage collector," Xu Chengxian was too lazy to waste a trace of magic power. "Send him to the Earth God Temple, and wait for the Yin messengers to take him away at night."
The implication was to let Da Hei run errands.
Then he stepped towards the inside of the cave.
There was an alchemy furnace inside, and he wanted to see if it could be used.
As a result, when he got close and scanned it with his divine sense, he couldn't help but turn black.
What was this thing?
It was piled with bad luck and filled with Yin energy.
Then he waved his hand and opened the lid of the furnace.
A puff of black smoke rose, smelling fishy and foul!
"...Damn it!" Xu Chengxian cursed inwardly. Don't look at this alchemy furnace as just an ordinary mortal object, it had done a lot of evil.
It was really unlucky.
He turned around and walked out, saying as he walked: "Miss Zhang Wan, you can come out now. Let's talk outside, it's too smelly here."
"...Yuck!"
Zhang Wan, who had been熏to the point of almost vomiting by the fishy and foul smell, finally couldn't help but dry heave.
Then she walked out of the shadows.
The two arrived outside the cave.
She looked at Xu Chengxian resentfully and saluted: "Little Immortal Master, Wan'er greets you."