Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 407: Fushan Yue’s Objective

The more devout among the crowd dropped to their knees on the spot.

No one needed to explain. Every resident of Fufeng City understood immediately and intimately that the Baoshu King was angry.

The supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Baoshu was normally even-tempered. And out of any given year, it spent eleven months in closed-door hibernation. For most of the city’s people, this was the first time they had ever felt the sensation that resulted from its wrath.

Prime Minister Tang had only left Mount Baiyun a half hour earlier. The moment the roar rolled through the city, he ordered his carriage to turn around and hurried straight back for an audience.

“My King, what has happened?”

“The spirit seed!” The lake on Mount Baiyun was no longer calm. Wind howled over the water, and waves pounded the shore in relentless sets. Even the Baoshu King’s magnificent crown of branches swayed violently in the gale. “My connection to the spirit seed has been severed without warning! How is that even possible?”

Prime Minister Tang chose his words with care, “Could it be that something has happened to the escort unit?”

“They should have reached the Gale Tundra by now.” The Baoshu King’s voice was still thick with fury. “Even if the seed were stolen, I should still be able to sense its general direction!”

It had taken thirty-six years of effort to nurture that seed. How could it possibly remain calm now that all that effort appeared to have been in vain?

“Could the spirit seed already be...” be gone? Prime Minister Tang dared not finish the thought aloud.

“No, it’s still alive.” The Baoshu King sounded puzzled now, as though the situation offended reason itself. “However, I simply cannot sense where it is.”

This doesn’t make any sense.

Within my borders, I should be able to sense the condition and location of every single tree sentinel, so how did my connection to this new spirit seed disappear out of nowhere?

“Send people at once. I want to know exactly what happened!”

* * *

Deep inside Mount Fengmo’s belly

With all the loose ends tied up, Fushan Yue dropped down into the crack where he had left the Chiyan envoy and began interrogating his captive.

“Where is the bribe that fatuous and self-indulgent ruler of Shanyu sent to Chiyan?”

The Chiyan envoy clenched his teeth and refused to speak.

Fushan Yue did not have the patience to wait. He had just finished searching every last fragment in the mountain’s belly, only to realize the spirit seed was already gone. It was clear that the ram rider had played him like a fool.

Having lost the spirit seed, he was naturally not in a good mood, and he decided to vent on the envoy. With a sharp yank, he snapped off the man’s ring finger. The envoy screamed as Fushan Yue stripped the ring from the broken-off finger.

...Hm? Not this one. This is just an ordinary ruby ring.

Fushan Yue broke off another finger and tried again.

This time, he got what he wanted.

He tipped the blood-smeared storage ring and poured out the contents. A heap of odds and ends tumbled forth and formed a small hill that was mostly composed of jars, bottles, and vials.

Meanwhile, the envoy from the State of Chiyan had already fainted from pain. Fushan Yue slapped him awake and demanded, “Which one is it?”

Still struggling to breathe, the envoy rasped, “My king treated you generously, so why would you... Ah!”

Fushan Yue snapped off yet another finger and sneered. “I’m not here to listen to you spout some nonsense. Next time I break something, it’ll be your neck. As for the medicine, I can always search for it at my leisure.”

The envoy could not endure any more pain. Trembling, he pointed at a small wooden vial. “That one! That’s it!”

The vial was only as long as a middle finger, crudely hand-carved, with a sprig of wintersweet etched along the side. Nothing about it looked impressive, except for one detail: the mouth was sealed with gold lacquer.

So plain? Fushan Yue eyed it suspiciously. “Is it real?”

“It’s real, it’s real!” The envoy sucked in painful breaths. “The Shanyu envoy gave me that at the Willow Lodge post office!”

Fushan Yue’s eyes shifted. “If they sent a gift, there should’ve been a letter too, right?”

“There is, of course, there is.” With shaking hands, the envoy managed to pull a gilded note from a stack of documents. The wax seal on the flap was pristine. “This is the letter from the ruler of the State of Shanyu to my king.”

Fushan Yue snatched it, tore it open, checked the signature and seal first, then skimmed the contents. Under his breath, he muttered, “So it really is...”

He rolled the little vial between his fingers, pulled the stopper, and took a sniff.

Inside was a pale red liquid. A strange, exquisite fragrance rushed up into his face, and with it came an overwhelming impulse to throw his head back and drink it down in one gulp.

The urge was fierce, almost on par with imperial nectar.

So it really is this thing.

He had gone through hell for it. Plans had gone sideways from the very start on Three-Heart Plain, but now everything had finally swung back into place. His true objective was finally in his hands.

Fushan Yue relaxed, then asked the envoy, “Do you know what this is?”

The envoy shook his head blankly. “No. I was only ordered to bring it back.”

“Then you’re useless.”

Crack!

With a crisp twist, Fushan Yue snapped the envoy’s neck.

Almost at the exact same moment, his left hand went light.

The vial had been plucked from his fingers.

Fushan Yue jolted in shock. His left hand curled into a claw and whipped backward in a reflex strike.

He moved so fast the air itself tore, making a ripping sound, though it was nearly swallowed by the constant roar of wind in the Wind Demon’s territory.

However, the thief was faster still. A blurred figure slipped back in a single beat, landing at the very outer edge of the cave. One more step, and the other party could jump straight down into the mountain’s belly.

“It’s you.” It’s the ram rider from earlier. Fushan Yue’s rage spiked. “You already stole the spirit seed, and now you want to steal my things too?”

Unforgivable!

“This is yours? Not the State of Chiyan’s?” He Lingchuan mimicked Fushan Yue’s earlier gesture, lifting the vial to his nose and sniffing.

Fushan Yue had pulled off one brutal move after another, killing the E’ling envoy on Three-Heart Plain, then releasing the Wind Demon in Gale Tundra to massacre the Baoshu escort unit.

All for a vial this small?

But then again, He Lingchuan was the same kind of person. If an opportunity presented itself, he did not let it go.

He had used Mountain Monarch Bo’s snakeskin to conceal himself, and also invoked the divine technique Stubborn as Stone to suppress his aura. With the gale outside serving as cover, that was how he had slipped past Fushan Yue’s senses.

Now that he had gotten hold of the vial that held what Fushan Yue had worked so hard for, he could not help but feel that the distinct and slightly sweet scent coming from it was oddly familiar. He Lingchuan’s brow furrowed, trying to figure out what it was.

But unlike Fushan Yue, he felt no urge to drink it down.

Fushan Yue sprang to his feet. He pointed at the dead envoy and spoke slowly, each word cutting, “Give it back, or your end will be worse than his.”

He stalked forward, step by measured step, like a leopard preparing to pounce. Anyone who had seen him fight would not doubt the weight behind that threat.

He Lingchuan lifted a hand. “Wait.”

His expression had turned strange because he finally remembered where he had smelled that fragrance before.

“You’re a ba, aren’t you? What do you want with this?”

Over the past few days, He Lingchuan had been entering the dreamscape to research at the Literature Pavilion and consult experts at the Hall of Inquiry, trying to identify exactly what kind of creature Fushan Yue was.

He looked perfectly human, yet his monster energy was immense, and he liked to drink the blood essence of humans and monsters alike.

There was indeed a creature that fit those traits. Strictly speaking, it was not a monster at all, but rather an aberration.

He Lingchuan came to the conclusion that Fushan Yue was most likely a ba[1], which was born when a dead person transformed by chance into a malignant revenant, able to walk the world without fearing sunlight.

The conditions for a ba to form were harsh. Even in the Ancient Era, they were rare. As for the current era, well, you could probably put one in a museum.

He Lingchuan had not expected his luck to be this outrageous, picking a fight at random and ending up with a genuinely rare ba as an enemy.

Fushan Yue kept coming. He Lingchuan tilted the vial outward, just slightly. “One more step and I pour it out.”

Below them yawned the fissure. No matter how capable Fushan Yue was, he could not retrieve the liquid once it was gone.

Fushan Yue froze. “That thing is useless to you. But for me, it’s the key to a breakthrough.”

“The key?” He Lingchuan only looked more puzzled. “You’re a ba. Even if you’re borrowing external aid, shouldn’t your breakthrough still depend on blood?”

“Of course.”

He Lingchuan frowned. “So you do know what this is?”

Fushan Yue did not answer.

He Lingchuan immediately tipped the vial a little more.

Fushan Yue’s jaw tightened. At last, he spat, “There are legends that a few true dragon eggs still exist in the world. The liquid in that vial was drawn from one. It’s fetal blood and bone marrow.”

He Lingchuan’s voice went weirdly flat. “Wait, you’re saying this is dragon marrow? As in the dragon marrow in ‘dragon marrow and phoenix liver’ dragon marrow?”

“Yes.”

“And you plan to drink it to boost your cultivation?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He Lingchuan rubbed the side of his nose, visibly fighting the urge to laugh.

Fushan Yue’s eyebrows lifted sharply. He was already thinking about how to kill the other party as soon as he got his hands on the vial when He Lingchuan abruptly asked, “I heard that the ruler of the State of Chiyan is also a ba. What’s your relationship to it?”

The State of Chiyan was the youngest vassal monster state in Beijia’s history, and it was only about 150 years old. It had also set the number of Beijia’s vassal monster states at thirteen.

Historically, the number rose and fell. But for the past two centuries, it had stayed at thirteen.

Fushan Yue did not answer.

And then, in the next heartbeat, He Lingchuan pulled the vial back, calmly re-stoppered it, and tossed it back to him.

The move stunned Fushan Yue into silence. “What are you doing?”

Who in the world would just throw dragon marrow back to someone else?

“I wish you good luck.” He Lingchuan sprang backward and dropped straight into the mountain’s belly.

Fushan Yue rushed to the edge and saw him swing away on a grappling hook toward a high cliff, clearly intending to mount the cliff ram and bolt downhill.

But before He Lingchuan could reach the ram, a figure surged up from the terraced fields below and slammed toward him.

It was a blast of brutally concentrated wind energy.

He Lingchuan happened to be passing the mouth of a small cave. The gale hit him full-on, tossing him straight inside. He nearly smashed his face into the stone wall.

However, his reaction was lightning-fast. He yanked a Wind Lion Lord statue from his storage ring and slammed it hard onto the ground like an anchor.

The wind around him weakened instantly.

He turned his head, and there, unmistakably, was the Wind Demon.

Its body had actually shrunk again, and it was now barely taller than a man. It looked from the statue to He Lingchuan, then let out two furious roars, clearly displeased with him.

It had intelligence. It knew Fushan Yue had been forced to yield while the vial was in He Lingchuan’s hands, so it had waited. Only after He Lingchuan returned the vial did it come to seek revenge.

He Lingchuan patted the Wind Lion Lord statue twice. “You want to break the rules? Think carefully. I’m not like that escort rabble. Let’s keep out of each other’s way.”

The Wind Demon hesitated again, circling the Wind Lion Lord statue twice. Its reluctance was almost visible.

This was nothing like its earlier murderous ferocity.

Even so, He Lingchuan did not let his guard down. Facing the Wind Demon’s true body like this, would the statue still work?

The Wind Demon circled twice more, as though making up its mind.

Am I really going to back down just because of a little stone stump?

These stumps have long since left the place they were meant to protect. Following old rules, clinging to broken rules from thousands of years ago, is there even still a point to that?

It suddenly threw back its head and let out a sky-splitting roar, then charged.

The Wind Lion Lord statue began to tremble and shake violently, as though someone were beating it with clubs.

Then came a sharp crack.

The statue split.

Watching from a distance, Fushan Yue shook his head.

The Wind Lion Lord statues really did have the power to ward off wind and suppress evil forces, but every divine technique had limits. It could restrain ordinary gales just fine, but against the Wind Demon itself...

1. See latter part of thoughts/note section. ☜