After the Great Dao Died

Chen Lingxi picked up a jade box.

It was only the size of a palm, flawlessly white, with a tiny silver clasp embedded right in the center.

He unfastened the clasp and opened the lid. Resting inside was an azure stone about the size of a fingernail.

The stone’s surface was as smooth as a mirror, and a trace of flowing spiritual qi was sealed within.

Chen Lingxi’s expression shifted, his eyes revealing his delight.

”The spiritual qi in this stone is incredibly abundant,” he said.

The qi inside this tiny stone was like a clear mountain spring—pure and docile. He only needed to refine it with his own qi to use it for his cultivation.

”And extremely gentle—as if it were born specifically for cultivation.”

Chen Lingxi placed the spirit stone back into the jade box, then picked up the second and third boxes.

Their contents were identical to the first. Upon opening them, he found another two fingernail-sized spirit stones, equally brimming with qi.”Three spirit stones.” Chen Lingxi closed the jade boxes one by one and tucked them away into his Vast Void Pouch.

’The qi within these three stones is even more plentiful than what’s inside a Gather Pill,’ he thought. ’With these stones and the Six Qi True Method, even if I cannot immediately lay out the Pure Wondrous Qi Pivot Array, the Qi Circulation 5th Floor is still within reach.’

Seeing his path forward, Chen Lingxi’s heart filled with joy. He shifted his gaze to the two stone boxes.

They were quite a bit larger than the jade ones, about a foot square and completely dark gray. He lifted the lid of the first box. It was lined with dark red velvet, with a talisman resting squarely in the center.

The talisman was no more than three inches long and two fingers wide. Its pale golden paper faintly shone with a jade-like luster, and countless intricate lines were drawn across it in some dark silver ink.

A few characters were written vertically down the center. The handwriting was lean and forceful, the brushstrokes cutting into the paper like a blade.

He suddenly narrowed his eyes as fragments of text flashed through his sea of consciousness.

In the complete text of the Six True Method True Formula, there was an appendix scroll titled ”Talisman Scripts.” It recorded the patterns and names of over four hundred talismans commonly used by cultivators, meant to help disciples identify them while traveling the outside world.

He carefully recalled those scripts, matching them one by one against the patterns on the talisman in front of him.

Finally, as if looking it up in a dictionary, he deciphered the true name drawn so solemnly upon it.

”[Heavenly Light Treasure Form Talisman.]”

”What miraculous use does it have?”

Chen Lingxi injected a sliver of qi into it.

The talisman was profound. Genuine information instantly flooded into his mind.

[Heavenly Light Treasure Form Talisman: Draws upon the light of heaven to bless oneself, forming a treasure form on the body. As long as the treasure form is unbroken, the physical body will remain unharmed.]

”It turns out I didn’t need to look it up in a dictionary at all,” he murmured.

A flash of pleasant surprise crossed Chen Lingxi’s eyes.

He opened the second stone box, which contained another talisman.

”This second one is much simpler.”

The lines on the second talisman were extremely simple and crude. With just a few strokes, they sketched out the shape of a coiled dragon raising its head.

Though simple, the dragon brimmed with spirit. Its head was held high, its eyes wide open, and its body coiled like clouds. A faint azure spiritual light flowed around it, making it look as though it might soar right off the paper at any moment.

Chen Lingxi injected his qi.

”[Dragon Qi Treasure Talisman.]”

[Gathers cloud qi into the shape of a dragon that obeys commands, just like a tamed spiritual beast.]

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath.

While these two talismans were powerful, they required an abundant foundation of qi to activate.

During the Absolute Perception in the Divine Chamber, Xi Mu had chosen to flee rather than use these two talismans. He must have been so severely wounded that his qi sea was nearly completely dried up, leaving him entirely powerless to trigger them.

More accurately, not only was Xi Mu powerless to trigger them, but the current Chen Lingxi was also incapable of activating them.

’I need to step into the Qi Circulation 5th Floor first,’ he silently noted to himself.

His thoughts then turned to Imperial Consort Chun.

’Several cultivators besieged Imperial Consort Chun... It seems Xi Mu originally had much deeper reserves, but he exhausted them all. He was left with only these talismans, which he had no strength to activate after being so heavily wounded.’

As he pondered this, he stowed the two stone boxes away in the Vast Void Pouch, his gaze finally landing on the wooden case.

He opened it.

Inside lay a bed of ink-black velvet, and resting quietly upon it was a ring.

The ring was extremely small and thin. It was a solid dark silver without any decorative patterns, save for a black bead smaller than a grain of rice embedded right in the center.

Chen Lingxi picked it up, his expression shifting!

The progress of Absolute Perception in his mind suddenly spiked, leaping from 2% to 34%!

This was a much greater increase than the mysterious stone had given him!

”This is actually a treasure.” Overjoyed, Chen Lingxi pushed a strand of spiritual qi into it.

Immediately, his face changed!

His spiritual qi sensed the array formations within the ring.

Layer upon layer, the patterns were so intricate they made his scalp tingle. Every single line was linked to dozens of others, forming a labyrinth woven from spider silk. His qi could hardly move a single inch inside it.

Chen Lingxi withdrew his qi and exhaled a long breath of stale air.

”This is a truly extraordinary treasure. With my current cultivation at the Qi Circulation 4th Floor, I have absolutely no way to refine it.”

”I’m afraid Xi Mu hadn’t refined it either,” he muttered.

If Xi Mu couldn’t refine this ring even at the Qi Circulation 6th Floor, gaining complete control over it would require at least peak mastery of the Sixth Circulation Floor, or perhaps even the cultivation of the Upper Three Floors.

”There’s no rush.”

Chen Lingxi placed the ring back into the wooden case, closed the lid, and put it away into his Cosmos Bag.

If he ever had the fortune to reach the Sixth Circulation Floor or higher in the future, it wouldn’t be too late to refine it then.

Next, he took out another talisman.

”Xi Mu was clutching this talisman, preparing to use it against me, but he didn’t have time to activate it.”

It was barely an inch square. The surface bore only a few bright red drops—whether blood or crimson ink, he couldn’t tell—and there were no other scripts upon it.

”This one is strange.”

A wisp of qi seeped from Chen Lingxi’s fingertip as he tapped the paper’s surface.

The instant his spiritual qi touched the paper, a sudden anomaly occurred!

The few drops of fresh blood on the talisman abruptly flared to life. Rather than spreading outward, the bloody light shot straight into the center of his brow!

Chen Lingxi’s vision darkened in a flash, and then a scene violently exploded within his mind.

He saw a figure standing atop the clouds. The person had a graceful figure, though her face was blurred by the mist and impossible to make out clearly. He could only see her long dress fluttering in the wind, like an immortal dwelling above the clouds.

Spiritual qi surged around her, her aura so tremendously powerful it made his heart palpitate. Then, the figure in the vision pressed her hand down, and the entire sea of clouds instantly split apart. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had reached down from the heavens, fingers pressed together like a blade, slashing the boundless sea of clouds cleanly in two!

Where the clouds parted, a roaring tornado surged into the sky, sucking in the surrounding mist, rocks, and trees—everything was dragged inside and shredded to dust!

As the tornado swept past, the sky darkened and the earth dimmed; the radiance of the sun and moon was entirely swallowed up, leaving only that single figure standing high above the heavens!

”Xi Yu—”

The vision shattered, and Chen Lingxi snapped his eyes open.

He looked down at the dark red talisman in his left palm. The fresh blood on it was still slowly flowing.

”This talisman seals the might of one of Xi Yu’s palm strikes.”

Realization dawned on him. ”Xi Yu must have gifted this to Xi Mu, though it seems some of its power has been depleted.”

Even if more than half of its might was worn away when sealed into the talisman, the residual strength of such a strike was absolutely not something an ordinary Sixth Circulation Floor cultivator could block.

Xi Mu had likely kept this talisman as his final trump card, intending to activate it to save his own life at a critical moment. He simply hadn’t expected to fall into Chen Lingxi’s hands before he even had the chance to use it.

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath and carefully tucked the talisman into his robes.

This was different from the Heavenly Light Treasure Form Talisman and the Dragon Qi Treasure Talisman. Powerful as those two were, they required the cultivation of the Qi Circulation 5th Floor or higher to activate.

But this blood talisman, which sealed the power of Xi Yu’s strike, didn’t need much qi to trigger. The Fourth Circulation Floor was probably enough.

”A very rich haul.”

Chen Lingxi put all these treasures away.

Three spirit stones, two talismans, one mysterious ring, a blood talisman containing Xi Yu’s palm strike, plus Xi Mu’s Vast Void Pouch...

’I spent nearly a year painstakingly using Vision Roaming and Absolute Perception to search for fortunate encounters, yet my total gains pale in comparison to killing a single cultivator,’ Chen Lingxi sighed internally.

He stood up, a glimmer of light flashing in his eyes.

There was still one more profound treasure hidden deep within the body of the Baosu Marquis Estate’s young mistress—a treasure that even Crown Prince Ying Chi hadn’t noticed, that Commandery Princess Yunhe hadn’t touched despite harvesting qi day and night, and that Lin Longyue herself was completely oblivious to.

On the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Imperial Consort had yet to enter Yuanjiang Prefecture.

The long streets had already been cleared, and armored soldiers stood guard with lances in hand.

She had not even arrived, yet Yuanjiang Prefecture was already completely prepared.

Crouched in the shadows of a roof ridge, Chen Lingxi was just about to enter the Baosu Marquis Estate to see Lin Longyue.

Right at that moment, he saw a green-curtained carriage trundle out of the Marquis Manor. The beast pulling it was a chestnut steed belonging to the Baosu Marquis Estate, waiting peacefully on the street.

”That is Lin Longyue’s carriage.”

Chen Lingxi raised an eyebrow.

A short while later, someone walked out from the side door. She was actually fully dressed up today, her slender figure perfectly accentuated. Her dark hair was pinned up at the back of her head with a silver hairpin, making her look quite charming.

It was none other than Lin Longyue.

She boarded the carriage alone. The curtains were lowered, and the carriage rumbled into motion, heading toward the outskirts of the city.

Chen Lingxi trailed far behind it.

The carriage exited the city gates, followed the official road all the way west, and then turned onto a side road.

The willow trees lining both sides of the side road had lost all their leaves, their bare branches shivering in the wind.

At the end of the road lay the banks of the Yuanjiang River. The terrain here was gentle, with the mountains at its back and the water in front. The scenery was delightful, which was why many nobles had built their private manors here.

Courtyards with white walls and dark tiles loomed faintly among the withered winter trees, looking like an ink wash painting drawn with overly pale strokes.

The carriage stopped in front of one such private manor.

Lin Longyue stepped down and was ushered inside by a man who looked like an estate manager.

Chen Lingxi hid himself in an old locust tree outside the manor. Using its lush branches for cover, he peered into the courtyard.

The manor was not particularly large, containing only three main courtyards front to back, but its interior was built with extreme elegance.

An exquisite rockery piled with Taihu stones stood gracefully. A thin layer of ice had formed over the winding pond, and several wintersweet shrubs on the bank were in full bloom.

The doors to the main hall were thrown wide open, and quite a few people were already seated inside.

Chen Lingxi vaulted silently over the courtyard wall and arrived at a narrow side corridor. Pushing the Hidden Edge Method to its absolute limit, his figure became like an invisible shadow plastered right outside the window paper.

He cast his gaze through the gaps in the window lattice, getting a perfectly clear look at everyone inside the hall.

Sitting in one of the side seats was a young woman in her early twenties.

She was extremely tall, her back and shoulders as straight as a spear. Dressed in a dark martial outfit, she wore only a single silver hairpin in her bun, with no other ornaments.

A long saber hung from her waist, devoid of any decorations. She wasn’t particularly delicate or beautiful, yet she gave off an indescribably striking, heroic aura.

It was the Prefecture Lord’s daughter, Chu Linzi.

Commandery Princess Yunhe was seated in the position of honor to Chu Linzi’s right, still sporting her usual languid look.

Today she wore a pale yellow dress and held a copper hand warmer. The lid of the warmer was carved into the head of a suanni lion, with wisps of sandalwood smoke escaping from its mouth and nose.

With her head tilted slightly and a faint, almost imperceptible smile playing on her lips, she was listening to the person beside her speak.