CHAPTER 567: CHAPTER 289: UNDYING ARTS

"These things, old man, it’s better not to show off, they’re just outdated anecdotes."

"..."

The old woman lifted her head and re-examined the newborn deity before her.

This newly born deity in the mortal world seemed far more complicated than it appeared.

"You do know quite a bit, so I won’t have to waste much breath... Have you heard of the Three Corpses legend?"

"Three Corpses?"

Xu Qing’s heart tightened; he was always sensitive to the word "corpse."

Suppressing the peculiar emotion in his heart, Xu Qing said calmly, "I’ve never heard of it."

The old woman chuckled, as if she had anticipated this. She straightened up again and explained, "If one wants to become immortal, one must eliminate the Three Corpses. In the teachings of cultivation, the upper corpse is Peng Ju, who loves ostentation; the middle corpse, Peng Zhi, who loves taste; and the lower corpse, Peng Jiao, who loves lust... but these are only appearances."

"In ancient times, when heaven and earth were united with man, then heaven, earth, and man were divided into three talents. During this division, even the Celestial Beings had three corpses to be cut. What do you think they cut off?"

"It’s the evil corpse, the dark corpse, and the resentful corpse."

"Nowadays, the place where the Nine Netherworld imprisons, the source of trouble in the Netherworld, comes from here."

"Who is the Celestial Being?" Xu Qing caught the key issue. This question was equivalent to asking who is the true mastermind behind this great calamity."

"..."

The old woman was silent for a moment, a strange expression on her face, "The Celestial Emperor, the ancient gods, Yanluo King, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, the World Honored One... they were all Celestial Beings."

Xu Qing finally understood why the Celestial Emperor wanted to cut off the connection between yin and yang, to sever the path to heaven.

If the Netherworld were truly controlled by the Dharma Corpses of these people, what could others do about it?

"What does what you say have to do with Xuan Yu?"

Having seen some truths behind the fog, Xu Qing wasn’t particularly moved.

This issue was too large, beyond the thinking scope of him, this small zombie. Instead of worrying about the concerns of the heavenly beings, he’d rather think about how to attract more guests and pamper more corpses.

However, what the old woman said next was like a celestial fire meteor smashing into the lake, stirring up a massive wave in Xu Qing’s heart in a brief moment.

"Xuan Yu is the seventy-seventh candidate for calamity I have chosen. Before this, seventy-six people failed to pass the test."

"The Celestial Emperor long understood that with every age of great calamity, there would be someone to face calamity. He blocked the yin and yang, severed the path between immortals and mortals, also intending to protect the calamity candidate."

Xu Qing didn’t know why, suddenly felt a profound unease, the old woman’s words seemed to carry a confinement, once he heard them, he could no longer remain uninvolved.

To prevent this situation, Xu Qing resolutely interrupted, "I don’t believe this, what you tell me is of no use, I only know you cost my friend a life, you must repay it, nothing more!"

The old woman looked at Bao Sheng Niang Niang, who was reckless, seemingly ready to disperse her incense and fight to the death, and finally sighed.

"Let me finish speaking, then you can deal with me as you will. Until then, I can still hold on."

As she spoke, the old woman pulled out a wooden ladle from her sleeve, inside which a thick liquid of incense swayed back and forth, each drop representing countless merits of incense.

"These are the incense accumulated through generations, perhaps unknown for how many ages, only to have half a ladle consumed in just a short millennium under the influence of the Five Filthy Evil Worlds."

Xu Qing looked at those merit incenses and suddenly remembered what Xuan Yu had mentioned, the old man who often descended the mountain to aid the world.

But to Xu Qing, no amount of merits the old woman had could change the fact that she was an old hag.

The old woman sighed deeply, got up, and pinched an incense stick, inserting it into the incense burner.

"I have only offered incense to others twice in my life, you are the third."

Xu Qing squinted: "Who were those two people? Are they still alive now?"

"Dead, but not completely, for death is not the end."

"..."

"Get out! I don’t owe you this incense!"

Bao Sheng Niang Niang was furious, angrily kicking over the incense burner.

The old hag awkwardly dodged the cloud of incense ash spreading everywhere. In her life, she had never met someone who dared to be so rude to her; even those two didn’t dare to treat her like this.

"I won’t bicker with a youngster like you. You just need to know that the people I seek to bear calamities are without exception pure-hearted and full of vitality."

"In the old lands of Qingqiu, I used a secret method to cut off one tail of the nine-tailed white fox, blocking one of her life paths, so she would never be confused by the three corpses and simultaneously jump out of the Three Realms, not within the Five Elements, and no one can see her true origin."

"There were also the Undying Folk, the Wu Clan... They had similar experiences, all for the purpose of cultivating individuals to endure calamities, for the sake of a grand plan."

Xu Qing interrupted the old woman’s self-pity and bluntly asked, "And if you found the wrong person, wouldn’t they have suffered in vain?"

The old woman’s eyes were neither sad nor joyful as she said, "The Nine Netherworld’s people under the Yan Luo King have dedicated all their cultivation to protect the Netherworld, bringing a glimmer of hope for the Nine Netherworld. On the Heaven-Reaching Road, dozens of immortals and gods disregarded the Celestial Emperor’s decree, thus returning to the ruin."

"If the Form Corpses are not eradicated, they will sink eternally, and this world will always remain under the influence of great calamities. As a deity, are you willing to stand by and watch the world and all its beings suffer such tribulations?"

The old woman seemed to understand people like Xuan Yu and Xu Qing very well. As long as you do good deeds, you are pure-hearted, and you will willingly shoulder the responsibility of saving all beings and dedicate everything.

Old PUA!

Xu Qing despised such beings who stood on moral high ground to bind others, thinking about how the mistakes made by heavenly beings were irrelevant to a common civilian of the Jin Sect like him.

"Finished talking?" Xu Qing observed coldly, never fully believing the old woman’s words.

"Finished, then let’s talk about Lady Qing Qing."

"Lady Qing Qing?"

"Your cat, yet you ask me its name?"

"..."

The old woman still reminisced about her little matters: "That cat has a childlike nature, only concerned with petty family affairs, can’t achieve great things. It was in desperation that I mistakenly took it as a solution to save the world."

Hearing this made Xu Qing furious: "You old thing, if you have the ability, go open the Heaven-Reaching Road yourself, let those heavenly beings come down and solve the matters. Why should others sacrifice themselves to become the calamity-bearer?"

"Calamity-bearer sounds nice, but isn’t it just finding someone to take the fall!"

"Don’t talk nonsense to me! That cat is the protector consecrated in our Bao Sheng Temple. By doing these things, you are my enemy. As long as you live, I won’t believe a word of yours!"

Hundreds of thousands of incense offerings suddenly fell, and the old woman’s expression changed. The green incense fire in the ladle fused with the red incense fire of the Bao Sheng Temple, instantly making a sizzling sound.

The old woman’s incense was unusually strange, seemingly with the power to dissolve everything, while Xu Qing’s incense was full of vitality, a kind of vitality that brings new life from the sprouting of all things, the first cry of a newborn.

The two forces entangled together, continuously dissolving and rebirthing, and the incense of both was being rapidly consumed.

Seeing this, the old woman was not angry but delighted. Looking at the thick vitality before her, what nine-tailed demon fox or Nine-Life Profound Cat were not qualified anymore!

In a world of great calamities, with a deity capable of gathering the merits of human reproduction, how could they still fear those Form Corpses?

Form Corpses inherently are extremely yin and evil fallen beings, symbolizing death, while the incense of Bao Sheng Temple just happens to suppress this kind of energy.

As long as the deity before her could grow, consolidating the slender hope left by the Nine Netherworld’s people in the mortal realm, perhaps they could break the current situation and use that item to expel and suppress those Form Corpses in the extremities of the ghost world.

The old woman, somewhat pleased, said: "In the vast world, among all beings, this old body has wandered this land for a thousand years, finally reaping some rewards."

"Little girl! The nurturing scripture you sent away is a treasure. You need to go to the Government Office and retrieve that book."

Upon hearing the old crone’s address, Xu Qing’s face darkened further, this old thing can’t spit out ivory from a dog’s mouth!

"To deal with three kinds of Form Corpses, one must understand the art of immortality, otherwise no matter how many lives one has, it’s not enough. That nurturing scripture, even if you don’t retrieve it, when merit is complete, it will return to your hands."

Finishing this, the old crone, in front of Xu Qing, tossed the incense fire in the ladle outside the Bao Sheng Temple, clearing the sky of the entire Jin and Tianjin area, even dispersing the influence of the Five Filthy Evil Worlds for quite a while.

Then, Xu Qing heard a sound of something piercing through the air from above the dome.

Outside Bao Sheng Temple, under Ziyun Mountain.

Xu Qing’s true form opened his eyes and saw a water ladle carrying a tail flame of incense fire descending towards Jin Sect with a world-destroying momentum.

Xu Qing’s eyes widened, barely having time to think, he almost instinctively activated the Divine Travel Celestial Scripture to teleport to Linjiang County, while the incense of the entire Cat Immortal Hall formed a barrier covering a city, attempting to withstand that unknown omen.

Simultaneously, the red incense fire of Bao Sheng Temple covered a radius of twenty miles. One could imagine, when that meteor of incense fire falls, the accumulation of Xu Qing for these years might be consumed entirely.

However, when the massive shadow of the water ladle struck toward Jin Sect, there was no sound at all. Xu Qing waited for a while before reeling back the incense fire with suspicion.

Inside Bao Sheng Temple, the old woman sat cross-legged on a futon, having exhausted her incense fire, and there was no longer any lifeforce.

This old lady is still terrifying!