Chapter Seventeen: The Nether Abyss Tribulation
The fierce winds of the Nether Abyss, carrying phosphorescent flames, brushed against Lu Qingyang's cheek. He crouched behind a broken tablet overgrown with rotten bone flowers, using his fingertips to pick up half a piece of moldy Spirit Cake crumbs and put them into his mouth. Three zhang away, the Yin Corpse Pond gurgled and bubbled. The moment the thousand-year-old Yin deep flower at the bottom of the pond unfurled its petals, the qingmu spirit pearl in his sleeve suddenly grew hot, and a frosty phantom even condensed in the medicinal field within the pearl.
"Fellow Daoist, what a refined taste you have." A female Cultivator in purple robes emerged from behind a withered tree, her skirt hem, embroidered with the Hehuan Sect pattern, swept over the scattered bones on the ground. "This Yin deep flower requires the fresh blood of living people to nourish it. How about you and I..." Before she could finish, Lu Qingyang had already flung out three Exploding Flame Talismans. The sparks from the exploding Talismans splashed onto the pond's surface, startling over a dozen white-boned centipedes.
The female Cultivator giggled and conjured a red ribbon, but the boy's next action startled her, making her face turn pale—Lu Qingyang actually pulled out a ceramic chamber pot and splashed its foul-smelling liquid onto the roots of the Yin deep flower. The flower buds, which had been about to bloom, instantly withered, and a corpse puppet with a green face and fangs floated up from the mud at the bottom of the pond.
"Yin deep flowers rot upon contact with virgin boy's urine. Senior, haven't you read the 'Eastern Desolate Exotic Herb Records'?" Lu Qingyang shoved the spirit pearl into his pants as he fled. As the corpse puppet's sharp claws grazed his neck, he didn't forget to pick up the Storage Pouch the female Cultivator had dropped. The fifty Mid-Grade Spirit Stones inside the pouch clinked loudly, and he licked his canine teeth, cursing with a smile, "A Fairy of the Hehuan Sect doesn't carry rouge money when she goes out? How unrefined!"
The corpse puppet's roar shook down stalactites from the cave ceiling. Lu Qingyang twisted and turned, rushing into a dark river. The qingmu spirit pearl sensed the aura of the dragon blood grass floating in the water and condensed a hourglass phantom in his palm. Just as the corpse puppet's fangs were about to bite through his shoulder blade, the boy suddenly turned and threw out a jade bottle. The medicinal powder inside the bottle dissolved upon contact with the water, instantly freezing the entire dark river into dark ice crystals.
"This was refined from the urine of a three-legged golden toad..." Lu Qingyang slid across the ice towards the opposite bank, the runes on his boot soles glowing faintly. The corpse puppet frantically clawed beneath the ice. He took the opportunity to pull out the female Cultivator's rouge box, dipped his finger in the cinnabar, and drew the Taiyi Pavilion emblem on the rock wall. When the pursuing Elder of the Joyous Union Sect arrived, she only saw a mocking smiley face made of Spirit Stones on the ice.
The end of the dark river opened up, but Lu Qingyang was startled back three steps by the sight before him. Nine bronze coffins hung above a lava lake. The taotie patterns on the coffin lids were exactly like the rust on the qingmu spirit pearl. The dragon blood grass, which had been growing wildly in the medicinal field within the pearl, suddenly withered. The fine sand in the hourglass flowed backward, forming a vortex that forcibly pulled his consciousness into a memory fragment.
Three hundred years ago, on a blood moon night, the Taiyi Pavilion's Seven Elders set up the "Nine Coffins Soul Nurturing Array" here. Lu Qingyang saw his master, the Old Drunkard, in his youth through the spirit pearl's perspective—at that time, he was still a handsome medicine boy, trembling as he placed infant hearts into the coffins. When the seventh coffin began to seep black blood, a Dragon's roar was mixed with the lightning that struck from the sky.
"So that's how the spirit pearl came to be..." Lu Qingyang suddenly woke up, finding a bronze key in his palm at some point. The lava lake began to boil, and the nine coffins opened simultaneously. The corpse demons that crawled out all had the Taiyi Pavilion's Talismanic Incantation carved on their foreheads. He gritted his teeth, ground all the Spirit Stones into powder, and sprinkled them onto the spirit pearl. The rate at which the hourglass sand flowed increased a hundredfold.
When the corpse demon's sharp claws, which were the first to pounce, were only half an inch from his throat, green vines suddenly spread from Lu Qingyang's body. These ghost-faced vines, which had absorbed three hundred times the power of time, instantly twisted the corpse demon into shattered bones. He took the opportunity to leap towards the central coffin. The moment the key was inserted into the lock, a bronze altar rose from the bottom of the lake. What was sealed in the jade box on the altar was half a Jianmu Remnant Branch.
"Little thief, you seek death!" The Elder of the Joyous Union Sect arrived through the air, her Lifebound Treasure, a red ribbon, transforming into a monstrous wave of blood. Lu Qingyang, with a flick of his wrist, inserted the Jianmu Remnant Branch into his topknot and kicked over the eternal lamp on the altar. Where the lamp oil spilled, teleportation array patterns appeared on the ground. He grinned at the furious female Cultivator, "Senior's bellyband material is quite good. Perhaps another day..."
Before he finished speaking, the blue light of teleportation engulfed the entire cave. When Lu Qingyang opened his eyes again, he was in a bustling market. The Jianmu Remnant Branch in his arms had become an ordinary wooden hairpin, but the Storage Pouch he had taken was bulging with the Hehuan Sect's secret aphrodisiacs. He squatted in front of a pawn shop counter, labeling each aphrodisiac bottle with "All-Purpose Great Tonic Pills," and hummed a tune, calculating how many Spirit Stones he could scam.
Suddenly, a familiar smell of alcohol wafted from the alley entrance, making all the hairs on Lu Qingyang's body stand on end—the Ye family Disciple who should have been buried in the Nether Abyss was now leaning against the wall, holding a wine gourd. A section of white bone was faintly visible beneath his clothes, but the light flickering in his eye sockets was of the same origin as the qingmu spirit pearl.
"Fellow Daoist's feigned death technique is even more exquisite than our Taiyi Pavilion's Turtle Breath Art." The man flicked his finger, shattering the wine gourd. The spilled wine condensed into crimson seal script in the air. "Hand over the Jianmu Remnant Branch, and I will leave your corpse intact."
Lu Qingyang's hand, reaching for the poisonous vine powder at his waist, suddenly paused. He smelled a familiar rotten bone flower scent on the other person—the same poison used by the Black Heart Tiger when he ambushed them three years ago. As the crimson seal script rushed towards his face, the boy suddenly tore open his clothes and laughed loudly, "The Remnant Branch is in my Dantian! Come and get it if you have the guts!"
The qingmu spirit pearl burst forth with green light in response. The Jianmu Remnant Branch took root and sprouted in his Qi Sea. The vegetation within a ten-li radius wildly surged. The moment the Ye family Disciple was entangled by the ghost-faced vines into a green cocoon, Lu Qingyang had already scaled the city wall. He spat blood foam and slapped a speed Talisman on his leg, not forgetting to shove the Storage Pouch containing the aphrodisiacs into a dog hole. "For Elder Ye's enjoyment" was crookedly carved on the wall.
When he escaped to the mass burial ground, the Jianmu Remnant Branch suddenly flew on its own towards an unmarked grave. The tombstone cracked in response, revealing a rusty bronze box. Lu Qingyang rubbed the spirit pearl against the box for a long time, then suddenly kicked it fiercely, "It's another one of your Taiyi Pavilion's nested traps!"
The moment the box lid popped open, he was sucked into a Secret Realm space. The ground was littered with the corpses of Taiyi Pavilion Cultivators. Suspended on a central jade platform was a turtle shell, densely inscribed with the names of all the Disciples who had participated in the Nine Coffins Soul Nurturing Array over the past three hundred years. When the last name, "Ye Wuchen," appeared, Lu Qingyang suddenly felt a stinging pain in his Dantian—the Jianmu Remnant Branch was actually absorbing the essence of the spirit pearl's vegetation.
"So I was the ninth coffin..." He smiled bitterly and collapsed to the ground, his gaze finally fixed on a certain spot on the turtle shell. The Old Drunkard's true name was clearly listed, his birth date and time exactly matching the day he became a Disciple.