Chapter 74: The Path to the Yellow Springs
The sun shone hot and bright in the dome of heaven. It was noon, so the sun was right in front of the face of the god above. The dazzling light made it difficult for mortals to even look up.
The god behind the sun seemed to surpass space and time. It didn’t matter whether it was day or night. It didn’t matter whether one was dreaming or not. It didn’t matter if you talked about the past or the future. That god was always there. Hē witnessed the transformations to the world below. Hē witnessed all life and death. Hē witnessed the brutality and chaos that hē had brought to the world. Even the burning sunlight seemed more vicious because of that god. It was like the sunlight was more evil, as though it didn’t want the current season to leave quietly, the way it should according to the way of nature.
Instead, the sun beat down onto the lands below, and filled every corner of the Seven Blood Eyes capital city with devastating heat. Even standing in the shade of a tree, or beneath the eaves of a building, it would seep in. Not even the sea breeze could dispel it. It was like a poison that had seeped deep into the bones and marrow.
It was like... something on the hem of Xu Qing’s daoist robe.
Although that hem seemed ordinary, if you looked closely, you would see traces of powder on it. Like the vicious heat that seeped into heaven and earth under the influence of the god’s broken face, that powder sent something deep into Xu Qing’s flesh and blood. It was moving very quickly, and it seemed ravenous.
From the moment it appeared until it seeped into him, only a few breaths worth of time passed. Xu Qing looked calmly down at the hem of his garment, then headed toward his berth.
The powder had been placed on his garment by the young merman during their fight. Virtually any other person would probably have been unaware of what happened. After all, the poison was colorless, odorless, and in some respects, didn’t even count as a poison. But Xu Qing was skilled in the dao of medicine, and could already think of seven or eight different types of medicinal items that could behave in this manner. It would take some analysis for him to determine which it was. That said, his clashes with the young merman made Xu Qing’s killing intent even more intense than before.
It’s about time to do some fish-killing.
Back at his berth, he stepped onto his dharmaboat and activated the defenses, separating himself from the outside world. Everything became quiet.
He sat down cross-legged, and ripped the hem off his daoist robe. After looking at it closely, he performed an incantation gesture with his left hand, causing a small fireball to appear in his palm.
The Seaforming Scripture relied on water. However, it was common for magic cultivators to master a number of different techniques, for backup if nothing else. Even the jade slip with the technique description had introductions to other techniques.
After summoning the fireball, Xu Qing sent it toward the ripped hem of his garment, causing it to catch fire.
Hissing sounds rang out as it burned, causing a thin smoke to billow up.
The flickering flame illuminated Xu Qing’s eyes as he closely watched the fabric burning. The flames were red, and they burned through the material very quickly, turning the gray fabric into crumbling bits of ash. Within the space of a few breaths of time, it had been completely burned up.
Xu Qing looked at the ash and sniffed the smoke.
It’s made from the blood of ghostlonging horseshoe crabs. It’s a poison, but at the same time, not a poison.
The medicinal codex Grandmaster Bai had left with Xu Qing talked about ghostlonging horseshoe crabs. They lived in the depths of the sea, and were quite rare. Xu Qing had two of them in his possession, but hadn’t found any complementary medicinal ingredients, so he hadn’t done anything with them.
That said, he knew that their blood could be used to create an incredibly effective medicine. But if prepared in a different way, then in accord with the polarity of yin and yang, the blood’s aura would become something loathsome to a wide variety of mutant beasts.
It also has the characteristics of morningstar grass. Xu Qing closed his eyes to think. When he opened them, their black recesses glittered with incomparable coldness.
Grandmaster Bai’s codex didn’t explain what happened when you mixed those two types of ingredients. However, based on Xu Qing’s understanding of medicinal principles, he knew that adding the latter would amplify the loathsome quality of the mixture. A small amount of that mixture would cause mutant beasts to shy away. But a large amount would attract them with killing intent.
If you put that mixture onto a person, it would seep into their aura, and invade their flesh and blood. It wasn’t a poison, so it didn’t cause the symptoms of poisoning to appear. In fact, the mixture could be considered nourishing. As a result, it wasn’t something easy to detect. But once it was in the body, getting rid of it wasn’t easy. It was something that could stick around for years.
Xu Qing had experience with a loathsome substance that would attract mutant beasts. The first time he fought with Squad Thunderbolt in the forbidden region, Savage Ghost had a bottle in his sack that contained something like that. And Savage Ghost’s little bottle was like nothing compared to the substance that had been put on Xu Qing’s daoist robe. In fact, they were as different from each other as heaven and earth. [1]
Here in the sect, being infected with an aura like this wouldn’t be very dangerous. But out on the open sea.... Xu Qing knew that if he went out to sea with this aura on him, he almost certainly wouldn’t come back alive.
It was an incredibly devious way of killing someone. It left behind no evidence, and was vastly more sinister than the venom of a viper. Furthermore, it would work even if a lot of time passed. Someone other than Xu Qing, without his understanding of the dao of medicine, would probably die without any idea of who had killed them.
But I wonder if you have what it takes to spot my little poison trap! Xu Qing thought.
Though the young merman had poisoned him, the truth was that the mantis was stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Xu Qing had also poisoned the young merman!
Similarly, it was an undetectable poison that served as a mark. The difference was that the merman’s mark would attract the loathing of mutant beasts in the sea, while Xu Qing’s mark was a symbol of death for people who walked on the land.
Face expressionless, Xu Qing collected the ashes of his burned garment, then opened his bag of holding and looked at the medicinal pills he had inside. Then he glanced at the surrounding medicine cabinets. He wasn’t extremely skilled in dispelling poisons. Besides, the aura he was infected with wasn’t actually a poison, so the powers of regeneration provided by the violet crystal wouldn’t be much help.
However, what he was good at was dealing with being infected by poisons. Therefore, he took out some poison powders and pills. The pills he consumed in quick succession, then he scattered the powders and inhaled deeply.
A violent tremor passed through him, and beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. However, he remained seated in a cross-legged position, feeling himself burning up from the inside. Meanwhile, the killing intent in his heart fermented, like the calm before a storm.
The poison inside of him burned at his organs, bones, flesh, and blood. He couldn’t extrude the aura of the ghostlonging horseshoe crab and the morningstar grass. So instead, he would eliminate them with poison, then use his powers of regeneration to regenerate himself. The process took about four hours.
Around evening time, he slowly opened his eyes, which were completely bloodshot. The poisons within him had been driven out, and along with them went the aura of the ghostlonging horseshoe crab and the morningstar grass. After inspecting himself, he looked at the sun outside.
“Soon enough, I’ll be able to have a good night’s sleep,” he murmured. Standing, he straightened out his clothing and closed his eyes.
Eventually, the sun seemed to be moving out of the way for the moon to take its place. Then evening turned dark, and the moon rose. The stars in the sky were like fireflies in a graveyard, hardly enough to provide much illumination.
It was a good night for killing.
Xu Qing opened his eyes. Quietly placing his iron skewer in his sleeve and his daggers in his boots, he checked to make sure he had all of his poisons ready. Then he left his dharmaboat and sped off into the night.
The moonlight shone down coldly as he sped through the city like the wind, his eyes as cold as a lone wolf’s.
The icy sea breeze hit him, rustling his garment and lifting his hair. However, it couldn’t purge the city of the unique scent of the marker he’d placed on his target.
Eventually, the sound of the wind in his ears became something like a call to death.
He was going to be doing some killing tonight.
1. The event with Savage Ghost happened in chapter 14. ☜