Liu Zhuang Xian

“Who’s outside the meditation room!” Mo Qianqiu pushed open his meditation room door. He had told his disciples long ago that he was going into seclusion and did not allow anyone to disturb him near his meditation room.

It was a boy of fifteen or sixteen years old, with a small pottery jar hanging on him that still had some spirit herbs growing inside.

When the boy heard Mo Qianqiu’s voice and turned his head, those spirit herbs also swayed. The porcelain bottle and pottery jar collided, seemingly striking the boy’s gentle spiritual energy, producing a crisp sound that carried a hint of refreshing joy.

“I am Liche from the Tailing Pavilion,” the boy said, tilting his head and smiling at him. “I knocked on your meditation room door, but you didn’t answer me.”

Mo Qianqiu then remembered that the Medical Lord Kunwu of the Tailing Pavilion had sent his junior brother to the Thousand Autumn Pavilion to fetch a medicinal ingredient, a type of scorpion unique to the Thousand Autumn Ruins.

He just didn’t expect Kunwu’s junior brother to look so young.

“Why did you knock on my door?” The agitation in Mo Qianqiu’s heart was still turbulent, but the boy’s calm spiritual energy soothed him, so his tone was much better than before.

“You’ve developed an obsession. Didn’t you notice that the Demon Lord Wangsha almost entered your meditation room with his primordial spirit?”

Mo Qianqiu was shocked. Wangsha was one of the Seven Demon Lords of the Demon Capital, all followers of the evil spirit Chaos.

He drew a sharp breath. If he had really been possessed by the Demon Lord, not only would he have lost nearly a thousand years of cultivation, but his elixir core might have been stolen as well.

Mo Qianqiu looked back at his meditation room and realized that a grand spell had been etched on the door by spiritual energy, forming a barrier that encompassed all four directions of life.

“This is…”

“This is our Tailing Pavilion’s grand spell against evil – the Tailing Purification Spell,” the boy answered.

Mo Qianqiu was stunned. Although he knew very well that a cultivator’s appearance did not reflect their true age, this boy was so young… Could it be that he had formed his core and entered the power at just over ten years old? So he would forever remain in the appearance of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old.

Since he was Kunwu’s junior brother, his cultivation level was naturally not to be underestimated.

“What kind of difficult problem did you encounter that made your obsession so deep that it even attracted Wangsha to want to devour your primordial spirit?”

Mo Qianqiu smiled, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to tell this boy.

“It’s because of the Myriad Phenomena Lock.”

“The Myriad Phenomena Lock?” The boy’s eyes lit up. “I haven’t seen the Myriad Phenomena Lock yet! Can you show it to me?”

Perhaps because he had been tired for too long, this boy’s expressions were lively and vivid. It was good to have someone to talk to.

Moreover, it had always been people from the Thousand Autumn Pavilion helping him unlock it. Now that an outsider had come to take a look, perhaps there would be a different perspective.

“Come with me.”

Mo Qianqiu handed the box to the boy, who sat cross-legged, hugging the box, and began to study it with great interest.

“My master told me and my two senior brothers that if we could open this box, we would find the method to break through to the ‘entering the power’ realm.”

Mo Qianqiu watched as the boy in front of him hugged the box, his face almost pressed against the lock, both adorable and amusing.

“But I know that the so-called method doesn’t exist at all. Everything is a cycle of cause and effect. How could it be locked by a mere Myriad Phenomena Lock?”

The boy tilted his head one moment, squinted his eyes the next, then tapped it, feeling the box all over.

“If master says there’s a method, then there must be one. If you can’t unlock the Myriad Phenomena Lock, just give it back to me.”

Mo Qianqiu reached out to take the box back, but the boy grabbed his hand.

“Wait, if I can open this box, how will you thank me?”

The boy propped up his knee with one hand, stretched out his neck to look at Mo Qianqiu, his eyes full of mischief.

“How do you want me to thank you?” Mo Qianqiu couldn’t believe that this boy could unlock it when he and his senior brothers had been trying for so long.

“Two conditions.” The boy held up his fingers.

“Let’s hear them.”

“First, call me master.”

“What?” Mo Qianqiu frowned. “The master of our Thousand Autumn Pavilion is on par with your senior brother Kunwu. Yet you want me to call you ‘master’? Are you trying to humiliate our Thousand Autumn Pavilion?”

“Is it that serious? I’ve been at the Tailing Pavilion for so long, and all the disciples of my senior brother Kunwu there call me ‘Little Martial Uncle’. Not one of them calls me ‘master’. I just want to experience being a master. How about… you call me ‘master’ when no one’s around?”

The boy’s eager, expectant expression was strangely amusing.

Mo Qianqiu thought to himself that since the boy was Kunwu’s junior brother, he was actually of the same generation as the current Thousand Autumn Pavilion Master. It wouldn’t be a loss to call him “master” when no one was around. He could think of it as playing along with a child.

“Alright. What’s the second condition?”

Hearing that “alright”, the boy’s eyes practically lit up.

“The second condition is simple. In the future, if I’m in trouble, you must come to my aid.”

“You want to be my ‘master’, yet you need this disciple to protect you? Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Mo Qianqiu was now intrigued. He sat cross-legged opposite the boy, watching him fiddle with the box.

“Sigh… Although I have six hundred years of minor cultivation,” the boy held up six fingers, “but I’ve heard that the higher you go, the more dangerous the heavenly tribulations become… I’m afraid of death, so I’m content to stay at the ‘entering the power’ realm.”

Mo Qianqiu was shocked. “You’ve only been cultivating for six hundred years… yet you can already cast the Tailing Purification Grand Spell to resist a Demon Lord’s invasion?”

“I helped you block the Demon Lord’s primordial spirit. If the Demon Lord were right in front of us, wanting to take your elixir core, I would have no choice but to run away. As for our Tailing Pavilion’s spell against evil, do you know that all things carry yin and embrace yang, waxing and waning? For the spell against evil to be effective, the caster must not have any delusional thoughts. You’re lucky that I had no obsessions. I used the Purification Spell to absorb your obsession, but if I myself have no obsessions…”

“Then it’s like a clay ox entering the sea, having no effect on you.”

“Exactly. If it were an evil spirit that feeds on hunger, I wouldn’t be able to help you. I love eating the most and feel hungry every day.” The boy patted his stomach.

“Alright, in the future, if you’re in danger and within my reach, I will protect you completely, even through mountains of blades and seas of fire,” Mo Qianqiu replied.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that!”

“Now tell me quickly, how can the lock be opened?”

The boy nodded with a smile, pressing on the box and said, “The Myriad Phenomena Lock doesn’t actually lock this box, but your eyes and your heart. With your eyes and heart locked, you’ll never be able to open this box.”

As he finished speaking, the boy grasped Mo Qianqiu’s hand, guiding his fingers to press on the side of the box. A light spiritual energy flowed from the boy’s fingertips to Mo Qianqiu’s fingers. With a push, the box unexpectedly opened from the side.

Mo Qianqiu was stunned. “How… is it… like this…”

“Your master only told you to open the box, but never said the box was locked by the Myriad Phenomena Lock, right? You all struggled to open the box from the top, not realizing that the Myriad Phenomena Lock was just a distraction. The box was never locked. You only needed to infuse spiritual energy into the side of the box to break its spiritual seal, and it would open.”

At that moment, it was as if someone who had been lost for a long time and was about to wither away suddenly found the world opening up before them, gaining a new lease on life.

The boy raised his finger and lightly flicked Mo Qianqiu’s forehead.

“This must be the method your master wanted to teach you! You must not be deceived by appearances. Once you fall into obsession, you can no longer see the true Way.”

“The more I wanted to unravel it, the more I couldn’t. It turned out I was overthinking it, and the solution was actually so simple,” Mo Qianqiu sighed.

“Exactly, don’t let yourself be locked by your own obsession. How could the vast sky and sea truly be confined by a small Myriad Phenomena Lock? Go with the flow, and all methods will naturally come to fruition.”

Mo Qianqiu felt deeply moved. The principle the young man spoke of was something he had long known, but knowing and truly understanding were worlds apart.

At that moment, he truly “attained enlightenment.”

“Thank you for your guidance, Master,” Mo Qianqiu said with a smile.

That day, Mo Qianqiu brought the box to meet his master.

“Master, I have understood the principle you wanted me to comprehend. But I don’t know what’s inside the box?”

“Did you meet Liche from the Tailing Pavilion?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then you should give the seed in the box to him. He enjoys cultivating immortal plants and spirit herbs. Only he can make this spirit plant sprout.”

“Give it to him? Why?” Mo Qianqiu asked, puzzled.

“You and Liche have a predestined master-disciple relationship from a past life. Now that the fate has begun, you should use the item in the box to pay respects to him as your master.”

“But I am clearly a disciple of the Thousand Autumn Pavilion. Master, have you heard about my agreement with Liche? Liche has a youthful nature, I was only…”

“He has enlightened you, so it’s not inappropriate for you to take him as your master. Once a teacher, always a teacher, and you will always be a disciple of the Thousand Autumn Pavilion. Go now.”

When Mo Qianqiu brought that box to find Liche, he had already left.

A hundred days later, during the great battle between immortals and demons, Mo Qianqiu looked up at the Sword Sea churning above the Wuyi Jingtian. As the world underwent a tremendous change and the four sword sects fell, his heart ached sharply.

He flew up on his sword to the Wuyi Jingtian and saw a silver spiritual light about to perish in the Sword Sea.

He had promised him that as long as he was within reach, he would protect him through any danger.

But Liche… in the end, he perished in a place beyond his reach.

The past was gone. Mo Qianqiu lowered his head to look at the seed in the box, gently touching it. “Liche, I hope this time you can at least fulfill some of your responsibilities as a master.”

In the icy world of the Northern Sea, the originally huge elemental spirit of the spirit beast Lie contracted and attached to its physical form.

The cold wind cut like a knife, and Lie Xin lay dying on the glacier.

The recent great battle had destroyed countless ancient ice mountains. Everywhere were teetering ice peaks, and a long, deep crack had split open on the ice plain.

“Yang Cang… as the Sword Master of Wuyi Jingtian… you should have guarded the Wuyi Sword Sea… yet you entered the mortal world… and even came to my Northern Sea to slaughter…” Lie Xin used his remaining strength to rebuke the invader who showed not a shred of reverence for the lonely cold land of the Northern Sea.

On the edge of a cliff high on the glacier, a tall figure appeared and disappeared in the wind and frost.

Shu Wuxi lowered his eyelids, and wherever his gaze fell, the glacier shattered.

Lie’s physical form was sliding on the ice surface, inch by inch about to fall into the black endless abyss.

“If you had given me your skin, you wouldn’t have to die, and I wouldn’t have had to slaughter,” Shu Wuxi’s voice penetrated through the raging wind and snow, falling into Lie’s ears.

It echoed like the voice of a demon from hell.

Lie Xin was suppressed by numerous sword formations. As wind, frost, snow, and rain fell into the formation, they were immediately absorbed by the sword formation’s power. Soon, Lie could no longer speak.

“My… my skin… what use would it be to you? If you don’t explain clearly, I won’t give it to you even if I die.”

It was an ancient spirit beast, with precious bloodline. Even in death, it absolutely could not be used for anything that would harm heaven and earth.

“I want to make a bone-clinging cold garment.”

A huge crash was heard as another ice peak collapsed under the pressure of the sword formation. Lie Xin was getting closer and closer to the deep crevasse in the ice.

“My fur and flesh are already things of extreme cold… You want to make my skin into a bone-clinging cold garment… Who do you intend to wear it?”

“Myself.”

After hearing this, Lie Xin burst into laughter.

“For yourself? You want to wear this bone-clinging cold garment yourself? Why?”

“To touch someone I can’t touch.”

“Since you’re not using it to harm others, then take it!”

With that, Lie Xin raised his paw and tore off the half-shed skin on his back in one go.

Instantly, spirit blood flowed out, flooding the ice plain like seawater.

Shu Wuxi crooked his finger, and that piece of skin came to his side. He held the edges of the skin with both hands, dripped a few drops of “Clear Night Falling from the Dark Sky”, and instantly the skin turned into a gossamer-thin silver veil, wrapping around his entire body.

Lie froze there. “I didn’t expect… you really meant it for yourself… Don’t regret it, without overwhelming passion you won’t be able to melt this bone-clinging cold garment.”

“I only hope the passion doesn’t burn too fiercely, melting this bone-clinging cold garment too early. Otherwise, I’ll have to come and skin you again.”

Shu Wuxi turned away calmly, waving his sleeve. Spiritual energy wrapped in endless wind and snow covered Lie Xin’s body, which was continuously bleeding spirit blood, pushing him away from the edge of the ice crevasse.

Feeling the power of the sword formation on his body starting to withdraw, Lie stomped his feet in frustration.

“Yang Cang — if you have the ability, just kill me! What’s this about coming to skin me again!”

“What do you mean by your passion burning too fiercely? My skin is a thing of extreme cold!”

“Wait! Where did your passion come from! Explain yourself clearly!”

Shu Wuxi’s figure had long since disappeared, leaving only Lie’s roars echoing endlessly.

At this time, Lu Xiaochan was sitting cross-legged on the couch, with that Chang Yan rib bone placed on his lap.

“So boring! When will Brother Wuxi come back!”

Lu Xiaochan pulled hard on the Immortal-Locking Ribbon on his wrist, but there was no response at all.

That old trickster Kunwu said that as long as one was bound by the Immortal-Locking Ribbon, from the highest heavens to the depths of the earth, Shu Wuxi would know where he, Lu Xiaochan, was.

“But why is it that Shu Wuxi knows where I am, yet I can’t know where he is?”

At this moment, Qingyao pushed open the door, brought in the meal and placed it on the table. After setting it down, he immediately knelt before Lu Xiaochan’s bed.

“Respected Martial Uncle, Qingyao was possessed by an evil spirit and almost harmed you. Please punish me!”

“Get up, get up! For a cultivator to be possessed by an evil spirit is a bit embarrassing! But you’re very lucky, you didn’t lose your elixir core!”

“Qingyao’s cultivation is insufficient, perhaps that evil spirit disdained to take Qingyao’s elixir core.”

“Oh, is that so! Then in the future, you shouldn’t cultivate too diligently,” Lu Xiaochan said very seriously.

“What?” Qingyao raised his head to look at Lu Xiaochan.

“If you cultivate too diligently, your elixir core and spiritual energy will become more and more abundant. Then the next time you’re possessed by an evil spirit, you definitely won’t be able to keep your elixir core!” Lu Xiaochan looked at Qingyao as if he were looking at a fool.

Suddenly, he was hit on the head by an immortal fruit.

“You brat, don’t corrupt our pavilion’s disciples! It’s bad enough that you don’t work hard yourself, but you dare to corrupt others!”

It was Kunwu who had entered, carrying a plate of freshly picked fruits in his hand.

Just then, a thunderbolt flashed across the sky above the Tailing Pavilion, striking directly into Falling Star Lake and hitting Kunwu’s spirit beast, Jiuyao.

Kunwu turned around in shock, closed his eyes to spread his spiritual energy, and sent his consciousness out of his body. He saw countless black evil spirits gathering outside the Tailing Pavilion, like rolling ink blotting out the sky. He said, “Not good! The evil spirit that possessed Qingyao was just a scout for Demon Lord Luli! Now that he knows you’re here, Xiaochan, he has gathered a large number of evil spirits to attack!”

“Me? Does he want my elixir core?” Lu Xiaochan thought, wondering how he had become such a hot commodity.

Kunwu grabbed Lu Xiaochan off the couch. “Take the Chang Yan rib bone…”

“You want me to take the Chang Yan rib bone and leave the Tailing Pavilion?” Lu Xiaochan grabbed Kunwu’s sleeve, “Don’t be silly! If the evil spirit army surrounds your Tailing Pavilion, how can I escape? Do you have a dog hole for me to crawl through?”

Kunwu slapped his thigh. “The Thousand Autumn Pavilion Master warned me before that Demon Lord Luli wouldn’t give up easily. I didn’t expect him to be so bold as to gather evil spirits to attack in broad daylight!”

“Then hurry up! Call that… that Thousand Autumn Pavilion Master back to save us! He seems very powerful!” Lu Xiaochan said while constantly pulling on his Immortal-Locking Ribbon.

Brother Wuxi! Come back quickly!

That demon lord or whatever is going to eat me like Tang Monk’s flesh!

“At this time, Mo Qianqiu has probably returned to Dongxu! Even if he rushed here, he couldn’t break through the barrier of evil spirits in such a short time! However, if there’s external help, I can perform the Tailing Purification Spell inside the barrier. With attacks from both inside and outside, we should be able to dissolve this mass of evil spirits.”

At this moment, Ziqiao and the others also arrived.

“Master, the barrier of evil spirits is too heavy! We can’t send out our signal for help!”

Kunwu raised his head, seeming to sense the thickness of the gathering evil spirits.

“All disciples, listen to my command! Form the spell! Even though our Tailing Pavilion is not a sword sect, we can’t let the Demon Lord look down on us! Repel the evil—”

Regardless of their level of cultivation, all the disciples in the Tailing Pavilion put down what they were doing and stood ready.

They sat cross-legged on the spot, closed their eyes and concentrated. Countless Tailing Purification Spells were cast, rising upwards, gathering together, interweaving into a giant spell that forcefully suppressed the evil spirits that were about to crush the Tailing Pavilion.

As the precarious sense of pressure lessened, Lu Xiaochan thought that indeed, this was an orthodox immortal sect. Even though the Tailing Pavilion practiced the harmless medical arts, it didn’t mean that the numerous medical cultivators lacked the ability to vanquish evil and uphold righteousness.

But suddenly the number of evil spirits doubled, pressing down heavily. The many medical cultivators resisted with all their might.

Spiritual energy surged around Kunwu, and his thick spiritual pressure rose upwards like a giant roc entering the clouds. Not only did it reinforce the Tailing Purification Spell of all the disciples, but it also began to refine the evil spirits entering the spell, continuously strengthening the power of the great spell, even reversing the initial defensive stance to one that threatened to engulf this mass of evil spirits.

Lu Xiaochan’s perceptive eyes saw this great battle of spiritual power clearly.

He saw how the spiritual power above the Tailing Pavilion grew exponentially, and how the evil spirits continuously increased.

The two forces were evenly matched, and for a time it was hard to determine the victor.

“Xiaochan, can you see any trace of Demon Lord Luli?” Kunwu asked.

Lu Xiaochan squinted his eyes. Within the thick black evil energy, he saw a chaotic flow constantly converging, as if a rift had opened in the sky.

“In the northeast direction!” Lu Xiaochan pointed.

Kunwu sneered, “To catch the thief, first subdue the king! A proper Demon Lord should stay in the Demon Capital. Since you’ve come swaggering to my Tailing Pavilion, I might as well refine you to boost my cultivation!”

Lu Xiaochan became nervous, knowing in his heart that the Demon Lord’s sudden attack was related to his stay at the Tailing Pavilion.

If Kunwu really couldn’t suppress Demon Lord Luli, then letting Lue Li take his elixir core would be better than the entire Tailing Pavilion suffering disaster.

But… since they were evil spirits and demonic path, would they really stop just because he willingly offered his elixir core?

“Old trickster! Do you have any spell-casting methods here?”

Lu Xiaochan thought that if he had a moment to ignite his elixir core, he could use the hundred years of spiritual power Shu Wuxi had given him. If not now, when?

“Light the incense and learn it yourself!”

As Kunwu finished speaking, spiritual energy surged around his body, and another great formation broke through the air, directly entering the clouds – the Tailing Sky-Piercing Spell.

Lu Xiaochan jumped down, lit the incense burner on the table, and thought: Quickly show me which spell can give Demon Lord Luli a taste of his own medicine!

The smoke curled up, transforming into a book.

Originally, Lu Xiaochan’s perceptive eyes could only see the spiritual energy of living beings. But the scriptures in the Tailing Pavilion, having been perused by countless medical cultivators and Medical Sages, had absorbed their spiritual nature, allowing Lu Xiaochan to see the text formed by this spiritual energy.

It turned out that the “Tailing Sky-Piercing Spell” was derived from the Sky-Piercing Sword Formation of the Wuyi Jingtian.

The Sky-Piercing Sword Formation was not a spirit-binding formation, but a killing move, so naturally, the Tailing Sky-Piercing Spell derived from it was a great spell for killing and refining evil spirits.

“Junior brother, if you want to cast a spell, you must clear your mind of all thoughts. You absolutely cannot have any distracting or evil thoughts!”

“I understand! If the Tailing Pavilion’s evil-repelling spell is to refine and dispel evil thoughts, the caster himself must be free of evil thoughts!”

Lu Xiaochan gripped the edges of the table with both hands, looking very seriously at the page of the “Tailing Sky-Piercing Spell”.

The battle between Kunwu and Demon Lord Luli grew more intense. The wind and clouds changed, and the Demon Lord’s evil pressure bore down. The entire Tailing Pavilion seemed to feel its doom approaching, trembling amidst the clash of spiritual powers.

Countless medical cultivators, their souls shaken by the Demon Lord’s evil energy, spat out fresh blood.

The Tailing Purification Spell that was restraining the evil clouds grew weaker and weaker.

Some evil spirits even managed to dart inside.

Ziqiao led his fellow disciples in casting spells to refine the evil spirits while also supporting the Tailing Purification Spell above their heads.

“Why hasn’t any sect come to our aid after so long?” Ziqiao’s back was covered in cold sweat.

“It’s not time yet! These so-called righteous sword sects all want to see how much strength our Tailing Pavilion has left after the great battle between immortals and demons! They want to watch the Demon Lord deplete our Tailing Pavilion’s strength, and then make a righteous appearance to vanquish evil! So that our Tailing Pavilion will be endlessly grateful to them!”