The Quest for Immortality

Instructor Yan looked at Mo Hua’s Formation with some shock in his heart.

Mo Hua, on the other hand, was equally shocked as he looked at Instructor Yan.

The forthright-faced Instructor Yan, when deceiving someone, didn’t even blink an eye.

He not only lied and deceived Zhang Quan but also provided himself with cover, easing Zhang Quan’s concerns.

Indeed, one should never judge a book by its cover.

Mo Hua realized he had underestimated Instructor Yan.

But would Instructor Yan really help Zhang Quan set up the Expose Dust Formation?

Mo Hua was curious.

Inside the Corpse Walking Stronghold, if the Expose Dust Formation really were to be established, although he could still find a way to get in, it would become more troublesome.

Instructor Yan left to prepare the ”Expose Dust Formation.”

Mo Hua followed him and realized everything with a glance.

What Instructor Yan prepared was not the Expose Dust Formation at all, but rather a relatively obscure, and also not very useful, Earth Series Formation with five Patterns.

When this Formation was activated, it would indeed raise some dust, but it had no effect on revealing or concealing anything.

It looked similar but was actually nothing like it.

It was because most Cultivators in the Corpse Walking Stronghold were ”Formation Blind” that Instructor Yan dared to blatantly deceive them…

Mo Hua’s young face turned serious, and he concluded in his mind:

One must indeed read more, broaden one’s experiences, and learn more about Tao Cultivation knowledge.

That way, one can blatantly deceive others, and they won’t even notice.

Otherwise, if one were to be fooled like an idiot, they wouldn’t even be aware of it.

Mo Hua was a bit worried soon after.

What Instructor Yan was doing was risky.

If he was discovered and Zhang Quan became suspicious, or worse, held a grudge, Instructor Yan would have a hard time extricating himself and might even be in danger of losing his life.

Instructor Yan was taking this risk to protect him…

He needed to rescue Instructor Yan as soon as possible, then eliminate the Corpse Walking Stronghold, capture Zhang Quan, and steal his bell.

Mo Hua nodded his head, then again, without anyone noticing, he quietly left the Corpse Walking Stronghold.

After leaving the Corpse Walking Stronghold, Mo Hua found Bai Zixi nearby.

Bai Zixi was sitting under a stone, hugging her knees, her delicate hands fiddling with a twig, drawing something on the ground, and occasionally looking up in the direction of the Corpse Walking Stronghold.

When Mo Hua approached invisibly, Bai Zixi suddenly looked up toward the empty space and said with a melodious voice,

”Junior Brother?”

Mo Hua revealed himself, asking in confusion,

”Senior Sister, you’ve seen through my Concealment Technique?”

Bai Zixi shook her head, ”I guessed.”

Mo Hua clearly didn’t believe her but didn’t inquire further. Instead, his gaze shifted to the ground.

He remembered that Senior Sister was just drawing something on the ground.

The ground was covered with a layer of fine, soft soil.

What Bai Zixi was drawing were a series of smiley faces, each one next to the other, some with eyes but no eyebrows, some with mouths but no noses.

”Senior Sister, what are you drawing here?” Mo Hua asked out of curiosity.

Bai Zixi pointed at Mo Hua, ”You.”

Mo Hua was startled, ”Me?”

”Yes.” Bai Zixi nodded slightly, ”One face for every two hours, to see how long you would keep me waiting.”

Mo Hua was somewhat embarrassed. He had inadvertently spent a bit too much time inside listening and had forgotten that Senior Sister was waiting outside for him.

Immediately after, Mo Hua looked down at the little faces on the ground and muttered softly,

”I’m not that ugly, am I...?”

Bai Zixi’s eyebrows furrowed slightly with a hint of anger,

”You think my drawing is ugly?”

Mo Hua shook his head repeatedly, ”No, not ugly, not ugly.”

Bai Zixi was then satisfied and nodded before asking,

”Have you found out everything?”

Mo Hua thought for a moment and replied, ”I’ve found out some things, but since we’ve been discovered, we’ll have to make the first move.”

”Okay.”

Bai Zixi glanced at Mo Hua, wiped away the little faces on the ground, and then said, ”Let’s go.”

”Okay.”

Mo Hua nodded his head and looked at the ground one more time before leaving.

One more smiling face remained on the ground, its lines simple, the strokes natural, and the smile sketched at the corners of the mouth, innocent and pure.

Just looking at it made one’s heart overflow with joy.

Mo Hua couldn’t help but wonder, what was Senior Sister thinking while drawing these little faces?

What expression did she wear as she drew them?

Was it like these little faces, also with a smile at the corners of her mouth?

What did Senior Sister look like when she smiled?

Mo Hua was a bit distracted.

”Junior Brother?”

Bai Zixi turned her head and saw Mo Hua standing still, so she called out to him.

”Oh.”

Mo Hua came back to his senses, squinting his eyes as he smiled, and with a movement technique, quickly followed her.

After leaving the Corpse Walking Stronghold, Mo Hua found Situ Fang.

Bai Zisheng had already informed Situ Fang of the situation.

Situ Fang said, ”I’ve written back to the Clan and informed Elder Jin about this matter too. The Clan has also agreed to the eradication of the Corpse Walking Stronghold…”

”This will be under the name of the Taoist Court, but in fact, the people we’ll use are from my Situ Family.”

Mo Hua nodded.

The Taoist Court’s forces were unreliable, and to eradicate the Corpse Walking Stronghold, the Taoist Court’s manpower would definitely be insufficient.

But the Situ Family…

Mo Hua then asked, ”How many Cultivators will the Situ Family deploy?”

”Over two hundred,” Situ Fang replied.

Mo Hua was surprised, ”That many?”

South Yue City was only a little Immortal City, and Situ Fang was there only for training, yet she was able to mobilize so many Cultivators.

And these were not ordinary Cultivators, but those skilled in battle, ready for the eradication mission, proficient in Taoist Skills.

Situ Fang explained, ”I utilized my father’s connections.”

Mo Hua wondered, ”Isn’t this... a bit of an overkill?”

”That’s over two hundred cultivators, not too bad, right...” Situ Fang said.

”No,” Mo Hua thought for a moment and then spoke more frankly:

”This matter doesn’t actually benefit the Situ Family much, does it...”

Clans have vastly different family traditions.

Some clans are undoubtedly profit-driven, exploiting and bullying others with their power.

But there are also families with upright traditions, whose members loathe evil—should any family member deviate from ancestral teachings and make a mistake, they would be severely punished.

In more extreme cases, they would be expunged from the family records and expelled from the clan.

Even if the Situ Family is particularly upright in its conduct, it’s unlikely they would mobilize so many people for something as unrelated as the Corpse Walking Stronghold in South Yue City.

Situ Fang hesitated briefly and decided there was no need to hide the truth, and thus she said to Mo Hua:

”It’s not of much benefit to the Situ Family, but it’s beneficial to me.”

Mo Hua was somewhat puzzled.

Then Situ Fang explained:

”The status of a clan’s disciples isn’t determined solely by their cultivation or talent.”

”Cultivation through personal experiences is actually a form of assessment.”

”Whoever performs well during these experiences, achieves great merit, and makes significant contributions is more valued, and their future status within the clan will also be higher,”

”This time, it was my father thinking of my future, who used his connections to mobilize some clan manpower.”

”Eliminating the Corpse Walking Stronghold—if I can earn merit in this, the Situ Family will bypass the Taoist Court’s officials in South Yue City and report directly to the Taoist Court.”

Of course, this is only part of the reason.

Situ Fang glanced at Mo Hua and the other two.

The willingness of her father to agree was, to a certain extent, influenced by Mo Hua’s three’s presence.

A Formation Master with boundless prospects and two children from great clans—even if not consciously courting their favor, it was necessary to cultivate a good relationship with them.

Thinking of this, Situ Fang said with a bit of shame:

”So, I do have a personal interest in this matter...”

Mo Hua nodded in understanding, but did not mind. Instead, she said confidently:

”As long as we can eliminate the Corpse Walking Stronghold, we are doing a good deed. It’s only right to benefit from a good deed.”

”Uncle Zhang Lan once told me that in this world, some people do bad things and reap benefits, only to be admired; while some who do good, and receive some benefits in return, end up criticized...”

”That’s definitely not right.”

”Humans have selfish desires, so Sister Situ, you don’t need to take this matter to heart.”

Situ Fang was taken aback by the words and felt somewhat relieved; she then said in surprise:

”Zhang Lan has said that to you?”

Mo Hua nodded vigorously, trying to salvage Zhang Lan’s image:

”Uncle Zhang isn’t always lazy and frivolous, sometimes he makes a lot of sense...”

Situ Fang hesitated.

Are you actually praising him, or putting him down...

Afterward, Situ Fang thought of something and frowned:

”It’s just that I don’t know how strong the Corpse Walking Stronghold really is... Whether these two hundred cultivators from the Situ Family can eradicate it or not.”

Mo Hua thought for a moment and said, ”It’s a bit of a stretch.”

Situ Fang quickly asked, ”How do you know?”

”I went in and saw it for myself; I even counted how many coffins were inside,” Mo Hua said matter-of-factly.

Situ Fang was taken aback and then sighed helplessly after a long pause:

”You’re really bold.”

And quite capable, too.

Being able to infiltrate a mountain stronghold of corpse cultivators and gather detailed intelligence.

Situ Fang looked at the young Mo Hua with increasing disbelief.

Mo Hua, unaware of Situ Fang’s thoughts, counted on her fingers as she listed the strength of the Corpse Walking Stronghold:

”I’ve got everything figured out...”

”In Corpse Walking Stronghold, there’s only one Foundation Establishment cultivator, Zhang Quan.”

”But there are four or five Iron Corpses.”

”These Iron Corpses are slightly less powerful than Foundation Establishment cultivators, but with skin as hard as iron, they won’t be at a disadvantage in a real fight.”

”Besides, there are not too many living beings in the stronghold, just over two hundred.”

”Some of these are bandits, who bully the weak and fear the strong, and are easy to deal with.”

”The rest are corpse cultivators...”

”Corpse cultivators who refine corpses are average in both their cultivation and Taoist skills, just like Zhang Quan, but the tricky part is that they can control corpses...”

”Once corpse cultivators control the corpses, even if one person only controls two or three walking corpses, the stronghold’s power can double or even triple, which poses a significant problem.”

”In addition, there are formations in the stronghold—although...”

Mo Hua was about to say ”not very clever,” but then remembered that these formations were created by Instructor Yan.

Instructor Yan had the capabilities of a First-Grade Formation Master, and in a usual Second-Grade Prefecture, such mastery of formations would be considered quite exceptional.

So Mo Hua modified her statement, ”Although... the formations are quite troublesome. With the formations’ enhancement, the entire stronghold is easy to defend and difficult to attack. A direct assault will definitely lead to many casualties...”

...

Mo Hua laid bare the entire foundations of the Corpse Walking Stronghold.

Situ Fang’s mouth hung open, unsure of what to say.

If she didn’t know Mo Hua, she might have suspected that Mo Hua was the ”Camp Leader” of the Corpse Walking Stronghold.

What has this child Mo Hua done?

How could she have such clear intelligence on the Corpse Walking Stronghold?

But certainly, this must relate to Mo Hua’s cultivation technique or Taoist skills, and Situ Fang felt it would be better not to inquire.

For Mo Hua’s sake, it was safer the less people knew, including herself.

Immediately after, Situ Fang furrowed her brows again.

Calculating this way, to eradicate the Corpse Walking Stronghold was not just ”a bit of a stretch”—the chances of victory were very slim.

Even with the addition of the Taoist Court officials from South Yue City, it still wouldn’t suffice.

And even if they were to win, it would likely be a Pyrrhic victory, with an unknown number of Situ Family cultivators dead or wounded.

Situ Fang felt distressed.

These cultivators had been mobilized through her father’s connections.

Even though they were all in the Qi Refinement Realm, the life of a Qi Refinement cultivator is still a life.

One day, they too might reach Foundation Establishment, or even cultivate into a Golden Core, and become a valuable asset to the clan.

If they were all to be lost in the Corpse Walking Stronghold...

Situ Fang’s brow remained furrowed, but then, seeing the relaxed look on Mo Hua’s face, she asked with curiosity:

”Do you have another plan?”

Mo Hua’s eyes brightened as she nodded with a radiant smile and said, ”Yes, I do!”