68 Finding a Way to Freeload EXP
Thirty years ago, a young boy was born into the family of Zhang Sancai, a fisherman.
His father was a down-and-out Scholar with some literary talent but nothing remarkable. In order to make a living, he had to resort to fishing and ferrying.
His father was talented and named him Wuji. He hoped that he would grow up to be a man that was born in the world without any taboos to his name.
Zhang Wuji, burdened with the weight of his father’s unfulfilled dreams, poured himself into his studies with an unrelenting fervor to obtain scholarly honors. He passed the Elementary Scholar examination in his ninth year, but failed the Imperial Scholar examination every time afterwards.
He then started a family but continued on the path of imperial examinations. At the same time, like his father, after starting a family and starting a career, he also gradually placed his hopes of passing the Imperial Examination on the next generation.
He had a sister named Wu You. Her personality was indeed as her name suggested. She was naive and innocent. She often helped him grind ink and copy books. Influenced by him and their father she became extremely well read and loved to read extensively. She was talented in literature and was even more outstanding than him, her brother.
It was a pity that women could not take the Imperial Examinations. As such, his sister could only recite poems by the river for fun. However she led a very carefree life.
The family was not rich, but they were happy until his father ferried a rich scholar across the river one day…
His younger sister, Wu You, happened to be on the ship. Her original naivety had turned into a flaw, when she was immediately infatuated after a few words from the scholar, Song Hu. The scholar was also talented in literature. The trip on the ship that day caused his younger sister to secretly fall in love with Song Hu.
Coincidentally, that rich young master was also interested in his sister, Wu You. He often appointed his father to ferry him across the river and every time, his sister would follow him.
As the young master of a rich family, Song Hu was not only handsome but also talented and rich, hence his family did not have much objections to the two of them being together.
Even if Wu You could only marry into the rich family as a concubine, it was still a good outcome for her.
However it was from then on, that the misfortune which will destroy his family began.
After a while, as the two of them became more affectionate, the rich young master would often invite his sister, Wu You, to go on ‘outings’. After a few times, her stomach became swollen with pregnancy.
He and his father were furious. How could a woman’s chastity be destroyed so casually? They immediately went to the Song family where the rich young master was and asked Song Hu to marry Wu You to preserve her reputation as much as possible.
Who would have thought that Song Hu, who had been flirting with his sister all this while, would suddenly turn against them and even berate them for making a fuss? To add fuel to the fire, he even gave them a sum of money and sent them away to settle the problem themselves.
But how could the pair of father and son, who had studied books on morality and sageness all their lives, tolerate this? The second time they came to demand for accountability, not only were they barred from seeing Song Hu, they were also beaten up by the eldest son of the Song family.
This caused his parents to become egregiously injured, coupled with their extreme anger and despair, they lost their will to live and died overnight upon returning home.
Given his stubborn nature, he could just accept the outcome of the situation and wanted to go to the government to seek a fair and just explanation. But who would have thought that the Song family had relations with the government and upon catching wind of his complaints, directly assassinated his family in secret?
His sister who had foolishly gone to look for Song Hu, too seek him out, was cruelly drowned in a well.
He and his 10-month pregnant wife were also thrown into the river, both tied up inside of separate sacks. If he had not been strong enough to break free, he would have perished like his poor wife.
Upon surviving, he began on the path of revenge and vendetta. Originally, it was very difficult for him who had nothing to come up with any form of revenge to avenge his family. But in his wildest dreams, he was actually blessed with an immortal root which a passing master specializing in poison from Miaojiang took a fancy to. The master then taught him the art of voodoo that he could utilize to finally exact his revenge.
After obtaining voodoo and poison techniques, he used poison to stimulate his body’s potential and his cultivation level increased rapidly.
The title of Hei Duzi was given to him when he finally became a master of poison .
Other than entering the Dao of Poison, he also encountered a fortuitous opportunity that had benefited him greatly. This happened when he entered the Thousand Poisons Mountain Range to refine poison, he had encountered danger and chanced upon an ancient cultivator’s cave abode.
This ancient cultivator was a powerful Gu Master. Just by relying on the treasures he obtained from the outsides of the abode, he managed to cultivate the body of The Jade Cicada and also got rid of the aftereffects of using poison to stimulate his body. He then refined himself into a Gu Corpse and his cultivation improved greatly in a short year.
After his body was upgraded to the Iron Skinned Gu Corpse a refined body that was comparable to the body of a cultivator from the perfected Connate realm and his cultivation level had reached the late-stage Qi Refinement, he left the Thousand Poisons Mountain Range and returned to Silken City to take revenge.
During this period of time, he also joined the Sky Demon Cult and aligned his plan of revenge with the flow of Sky Demon Cult’s operation, and in the process managed to obtain quite a bit of help to fulfill his revenge.
Originally, everything had gone smoothly. But who would have thought that the Song family would produce a cultivation genius that would completely ruin his plan to exterminate the Song family entirely at the very last moment?
After absorbing all of Hei Duzi’s memories, Song Shi sighed as mixed feelings churned in his heart.
Without him, Hei Duzi would have been the standard protagonist. He would have risen to prominence after his revenge and vendetta and would have gone on to become a master of both poison and Gu in the future.
What a pity. Unless the other party was powerful enough to seal his powers, he would definitely lose when he encountered an immortal like him.
From the perspective of a third person, he pitied this guy. However, from the perspective of an involved party, not to mention how vicious Hei Duzi was, Song Shi would still choose to kill him even if he was a holy being.
After returning to reality from Hei Duzi’s memories, Song Shi’s eyes quickly regained their clarity. Other than the shining light of rationality in his eyes currently, they had become even more profound.
He looked at the alms bowl and the jade cicada’s corpse on the ground and muttered, “To fuse the soul with external objects is equivalent to cultivating a treasure body. It’s very rare in the Qi Refinement realm. It’s comparable to being a genius who broke through the eleventh or twelfth level of Qi Refinement. This guy was quite powerful.”
Standing up and looking at the alms bowl Dharma treasure, Song Shi did not touch them. Instead, he made a hand seal.
The alms bowl shook and the dim light on the surface dissipated, revealing the empty space inside. A seven-colored centipede was entrenched inside.
“The seven-colored centipede, the fabled king of poison. This was also Hei Duzi’s trump card. It’s a pity that he didn’t have time to release it before he died.”
Song Shi glanced at The Jade Cicada, which had landed ten feet away from the alms bowl. If only he had given the other party just one more second just now, Hei Duzi would have been able to release his treasure.
“I was so close to experiencing the feeling of being poisoned to death!” Song Shi said regretfully as the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
“However, after failing to possess me, I devoured him instead. This fellow’s memories have become a part of my knowledge base!”
Song Shi chuckled. From now on, he was no longer a noob cultivator!
Through browsing through Hei Duzi’s memories, not only did he learn many methods of Gu and poison, he also grasped all kinds of basic knowledge that a normal Qi Refinement cultivator should have.
“This is how I can create opportunities for myself. As long as someone possesses me, I’ll devour them in return, then I’ll obtain rich memories for doing nothing.”
Song Shi felt that he had found a way to gain EXP for free, except that there probably wouldn’t be many people who would resort to possessing him, unless they were forced to a dead end like Hei Duzi.
“I’m so looking forward to the next person who possesses me. I haven’t completely experienced the feeling of being possessed yet.”
As he was thinking about these strange thoughts, the fog around him suddenly began to fade, and the sounds from outside gradually came in.
A fluctuation came from the formation plate controlled by his divine sense.
Song Shi was stunned for a moment. “The power of the spirit stone has been exhausted. If I had waited for a little longer, Hei Duzi would have had a chance to escape.”
He kept the alms bowl, picked up the broken jade cicada shell and threw it into the alms bowl.
The seven-colored centipede’s tentacles feelers as it woke up from its slumber. It emitted an excited fluctuation and rushed over to devour the empty shell crazily.
It had no idea that it was eating its original owner. The more it ate, the more excited it became.
After sealing the alms bowl, Song Shi turned around and made several hand seals at the unmoving corpses of the Gu Corpses, condensing multiple fireballs and throwing them out.
The flames burned and turned all the corpses into ashes.
Destroying corpses was a basic skill that Song Shi felt immortal cultivators should have.
From his point of view, the first reason was because he couldn’t casually leave such dangerous ‘trash’ lying around like that and the second reason was to avoid his enemies using tactics such as the jade cicada to escape like Hei Duzi.
After doing this, he walked towards the array disc. The Array Formation Power was becoming weaker and weaker. The surrounding fog dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye, revealing Liu Ruxue and the others.
Liu Ruxue and the others were able to see Song Shi and the raging flames around him, but all the enemies had disappeared.