CHAPTER 561: CHAPTER 286: BROTHERLY AFFECTION, KUI BA’S CORPSE

The Landlord watched as the eldest son left, then called over a servant and asked, "Did the eldest son leave this morning?"

Everyone shook their heads and said they hadn’t seen him.

The Landlord fell into complete silence.

Within half a month, Mrs. Qin became haggard from the death of her son Gao Qin, and ultimately died of illness in bed.

Mrs. Yuan, the birth mother of Gao Yuanxing and a sister-like friend to Mrs. Qin, suddenly questioned Gao Yuanxing after Qin’s death, "Why did you harm your brother? Although Yuanlong is foolish, he would never harm Qin!"

Gao Yuanxing wanted to use his old trick again, but Mrs. Yuan slapped him directly on the face, "When you were young, you loved blaming Yuanlong for your mistakes. I am the mother of you both, how would I not know your characters? If I had known it would come to this, I shouldn’t have given birth to you!"

Gao Yuanxing became thoroughly furious upon hearing this and tore off his mask, frankly saying, "What if I killed him? I am the eldest son of the Gao family! I am your own flesh and blood! This family estate should have been mine, yet you favored a concubine’s child. Am I your son, or is that bastard your son?!"

Mrs. Yuan trembled with rage, "You know you are the eldest son, and you know the future estate is yours! The master and I treat Qin well because this estate isn’t his, that’s why we feel indebted and wanted to compensate him for you, why can’t you understand?"

Gao Yuanxing replied instead, "This estate is rightfully mine, what is there to be indebted about? That bastard shouldn’t have been in the Gao family in the first place!"

Mrs. Yuan’s vision blurred with anger, and she dragged Gao Yuanxing to the ancestral hall to kneel and apologize to Mrs. Qin.

Gao Yuanxing refused to comply, and in the struggle, slapped his own mother to the ground.

Gao Yuanxing watched the crying and fallen Mrs. Yuan but chose not to help her up.

By night, a sudden cry came from the ancestral hall.

The lady of the house had hanged herself!

And with the white cloth of the ancestral hall, she hung herself in front of Mrs. Qin’s coffin.

The Landlord, filled with grief and anger, wanted to take Gao Yuanxing to the authorities, but how could Gao Yuanxing agree?

If you won’t let me live well, then you won’t live either!

He killed the Landlord, but Gao Yuanxing still wasn’t appeased. Under the cover of night, he slaughtered everyone in the mansion, whether they were on night duty or sleeping, leaving none alive!

Afterward, Gao Yuanxing set fire to the place, making it seem that the family died in a nighttime fire.

The foolish Gao Yuanlong looked at the hellish scene before him, only crying and shouting.

Gao Yuanxing felt troubled, his gaze flickered as he looked at Gao Yuanlong. Although the fool was foolish, he trusted him the most, seeing him as his only relative.

Suppressing his burgeoning murderous intent, that night, Gao Yuanxing fled far away with his gold, silver, and foolish brother.

Along the way, although Gao Yuanlong was dull, he was not weak and repeatedly helped his brother drive away bandits and avert disasters.

One day, the two of them arrived at the Capital City, encountering an old Daoist from the Celestial Master’s Mansion, who took a mirror and reflected it upon Gao Yuanxing.

Goodness! He had four and a half shadows!

What a rare sight, how could there be half a shadow?

Master Lu calculated with his fingers and realized that Gao Yuanxing was "born with evil", inherently suited for cultivation.

Even just a few months after being born, Gao Yuanxing choked his brother Gao Yuanlong in the crib, causing him to be a fool.

It was Mrs. Yuan who discovered them in time and separated the two, saving Gao Yuanlong, but he retained only half his life. At that time, knowledgeable physicians said that Gao Yuanlong lost one human soul of the three, and would inevitably be foolish as he grew up.

Mrs. Yuan knew about this, and so did the Landlord, but they never told anyone or Gao Yuanxing about it. One reason was due to the ignorance of children, and the other was that the die had been cast, they didn’t want this affecting the child’s future.

Master Lu saw the fine child before him and thought the child’s future was limitless, and promising.

However, to have a brighter future, one must first clear the obstacles on the path ahead.

Master Lu displayed his saintly prowess in front of others, and his Daoist Techniques completely won over Gao Xingyuan.

About two years later, one day Master Lu suddenly called for his disciple, benevolently saying, "Ling Feng, do you wish to advance further?"

Advance further? Gao Xingyuan’s eyes shone bright, "I humbly ask for Master’s guidance!"

"I ask you, how many spirit veins do you currently have?"

"Four and a half."

"No, there is no half in the path of cultivation, four and a half is four. Your aptitude will yield some results in time, but it’s far inferior to those with five spirit veins."

Gao Xingyuan then asked, "How can I make up for the missing spirit vein, Master?"

Master Lu chuckled and shook his head, "Silly disciple, you must comprehend it yourself, how can I help you?"

Leaving the Celestial Master Hall, Gao Xingyuan pondered deeply, and suddenly had an epiphany!

"My father is dead, my mother is gone, a bastard brother is also gone, so I have three shadows, plus my own makes four, and the remaining half is my brother Yuanlong’s..."

"I asked Master how to supplement the missing shadow, he called me a silly disciple, telling me to comprehend it myself."

"Silly disciple, silly...Yuanlong?"

Gao Xingyuan had a moment of enlightenment, he felt lighter, and even his steps seemed quicker.

"Yuanlong is my brother. For more than twenty years, we have been brotherly and friendly. I am reluctant to see him leave. I must find a way to keep him with me forever."

Gao Yuanxing had many ideas. At the time, the Celestial Master’s Mansion was in contact with the Yin Corpse Sect. What was the Yin Corpse Sect? It was a renowned sect capable of refining the dead into ’living’ zombies.

His foolish brother was already foolish, and if he became a zombie after death, he would only be more obedient.

Ha! I’m really clever!

Gao Yuanxing set out to execute his plan, applying to visit the Ancient Yin River Dao while facilitating scholarly exchanges between the two sects.

The two brothers of the Gao family were identical twins, and now their shadows fused into one person. It could be said that Gao Yuanxing was the ’fate owner’ of Gao Yuanlong.

Such an experimental subject was a once-in-a-thousand-years rarity, and the Yin Corpse Sect even discovered a loophole in zombie cultivation through it. Gao Yuanlong, even if he went through tribulation, still relied on Gao Yuanxing’s fate.

This meant that even if Gao Yuanlong underwent the Golden Armored Corpse tribulation, he wouldn’t face divine lightning, at most suffering sun or yin lightning tribulations.

Gao Yuanxing sent Gao Yuanlong to the Yin Corpse Sect for nearly twenty years, during which no one knew how much suffering his brother endured.

In any case, when he left the Yin Corpse Sect, Gao Yuanxing had an extra Golden Armored Zombie by his side.

Xu Qing, after watching Spirit Wind Daoist’s revolving lantern, thought to himself.

The Golden Armored Corpse artificially bred by the Yin Corpse Sect was still inadequate, and couldn’t even withstand one of his axe strikes...

If Gao Yuanlong could still move, he would probably jump up and scold Xu Qing, pointing at his nose.

You, a Hidden Corpse, and I, a Golden Armored Corpse, the gap is wider than the Golden Science Champion Scholar and a beginner in the elementary school. A Hidden Corpse defeating a Golden Armored Corpse is like cracking a melon seed.

What use was that outer shell?

However, when Xu Qing stitched together Gao Yuanlong’s corpse, he found that the physical strength of this Golden Armored Corpse was significantly weaker than when he was a Golden Armored Corpse himself.

He was confident that even at the same level, Gao Yuanlong would still be no match.

"The Yin Corpse Sect’s raising of zombies still isn’t competent. To raise zombies well, one must first become a zombie, otherwise, they’ll always remain an outsider."

The revolving lanterns of Gao Yuanlong highly overlapped with those of Gao Yuanxing, the only part of interest to Xu Qing being the one or two decades of transformation he underwent in the Yin Corpse Sect.

Xu Qing learned of the exact location of the Yin Corpse Sect in the Shadow River, and he also saw the zombie army hidden by the Yin Corpse Sect.

What surprised Xu Qing the most was the corpse of Kui Ba buried beneath the Yin Corpse Sect’s grounds.

The site occupied by the Yin Corpse Sect thus became the best place for nurturing zombies in the Ancient Yin River Dao.

"The corpse of Kui Ba..."

Zombies are corpses transformed into monsters, but is that Kui Ba buried beneath the Yin Corpse Sect’s grounds really just a corpse?

Besides Kui Ba, Xu Qing also heard tales of the Gods’ Ruins in the Yin Corpse Sect.

The last time he heard of the Gods’ Ruins was in Qianzhou, from the Golden Science Champion Scholar Lu Xiu, who spoke of the Great Emperor of Literature and the two children, Heavenly Deaf and Earthly Mute.

Now what he heard was the divine name of the Lord of the Mystical Altar of the Dragon and Tiger.

The Kui Ba’s corpse and the Gods’ Ruins...

Xu Qing vaguely felt some connection between the two, but he had no way to verify it.

These secrets, sealed for thousands or even tens of thousands of years, are likely sparsely known even to the Celestial Master’s Mansion.

After the consecration of the two bodies, the incomprehensible script symbols in the Sutra of Salvation increased, and Xu Qing also received rewards for the consecration.

A Heaven-grade lesser division technique.

An Earth-grade superior static scripture.