Beyond the small door lay a collection of numerous artifacts. Yin Shangren enthusiastically introduced Li Fan to each one.
"These are the bones of a Vedic fish. This species went extinct 3500 years ago. It took me tremendous effort to acquire this skeleton. They say Vedic fish were exceptionally intelligent, capable of mimicking human speech. Eating their flesh would allow one to understand the language of fish. Who knows if it's true or not?"
They came before a lifelike, coiled giant serpent that stretched over a thousand meters.
Yin Shangren excitedly continued, "This is a Congyun Sea Serpent. They normally lurk in the deep sea, burying their bodies in the sediment. I had to search through a good half of the Congyun Sea to catch one this long! Preserving it as a specimen took me no small effort."
Then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he added, "According to my research, the serpent itself isn't the actual creature. They harbor a mysterious parasite inside them, an extremely tiny worm. Even a Dao Establishment cultivator would struggle to detect it with divine sense. Yet, it is precisely these tiny worms that control the massive sea serpents! Truly unimaginable!"
As they continued walking, the sheer variety of specimens left Li Fan astonished.
The two stopped before a pair of human skeletons placed side by side.
Pointing at the two skeletons, Yin Shangren asked with some pride, "Fellow Daoist, can you discern any differences between these two human skeletons?"
"Differences?" Li Fan swept his divine sense over them. They appeared to be the remains of ordinary mortals. Both were male skeletons, just differing in size and height. But if asked about fundamental differences...
After studying them a while longer, Li Fan shook his head. "My eyes are unrefined; I cannot see a distinction."
Yin Shangren laughed heartily. "Don't feel bad! I'd wager that within the entire Congyun Sea, aside from me, no other cultivator could detect the difference between these two skeletons!"
He pointed at the two skeletons, leaned close to Li Fan, and spoke in an extremely hushed tone: "These two men... they aren't the same kind of people."
"Not the same kind of people?" Li Fan was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
Yin Shangren gestured with his hands as he pondered, but seemed unable to find the right words to describe it. After struggling for a good while, he suddenly clenched his fist, his face a mask of frustration.
"It's a feeling, you understand? They're clearly both human, but these two humans... they lived in different eras, in different regions. They might look quite similar, and I dug both out from the bottom of the Congyun Sea, but there's an extremely peculiar boundary that marks the difference between these two skeletons..." Yin Shangren spoke mysteriously, rambling for a long time without managing to articulate anything concrete.
Giving up the struggle, he continued forward, coming to an abrupt halt before an empty display pedestal.
He pointed at the vacant pedestal, his face pale and his finger trembling uncontrollably. His lips moved, but for a long moment, not a single word emerged.
"Fellow Daoist Yin, what's wrong?" Li Fan couldn't help but ask.
"My... My treasure! Where is it?" Yin Shangren was aghast.
The dog following behind him let out a whimper, its ears drooping. It sneaked a glance upward, then quickly huddled at Yin Shangren's feet, trembling.
Seeing this, Li Fan thought of something.
He tentatively asked: “Fellow Daoist Yin, this treasure of yours... it wouldn’t happen to be a bone, would it...”
Yin Shangren was overjoyed, nodding repeatedly. “Yes! Have you seen it?”
Li Fan’s expression turned odd. He led Yin Shangren back to the entrance of the square building.
When Li Fan first arrived, the dog had crashed headlong into him, and the thing it was carrying in its mouth had fallen to the ground.
At the time, Li Fan saw that it was just a bone and assumed it was the dog’s toy, so he hadn’t bothered to pick it up. He never would have guessed that this bone was actually a treasure of Yin Shangren’s.
He watched as Yin Shangren picked up the bone with a pained expression, carefully wiping the drool from its surface. He gazed at it with the look of a man beholding his dream lover, admiring it meticulously while stroking it with tender affection.
The sheer intensity of that look sent a shiver down Li Fan’s spine. He coughed lightly, snapping Yin Shangren out of his reverie.
Li Fan couldn’t help but ask, “Fellow Daoist Yin, where did this bone originate from? What makes you treasure it so?”
Yin Shangren clutched the bone tightly in his hand, as if afraid of losing it again. Staring at the bone, his expression grew distant. “This... this is a remarkable treasure. I could lose every other item in my collection, but this... this is even more precious to me than my own life.”
Hearing this, Li Fan grew solemn. Genuine curiosity flickered in his eyes as he looked at Yin Shangren questioningly.
“I assume you are familiar with Immortal-Mortal Miasma,” Yin Shangren said. “At first, the Immortal-Mortal Miasma only spread among mortals. It had no effect on us cultivators whatsoever. It was only later, after a cultivator was somehow infected by it, that it began to spread among cultivators.”
Li Fan looked at the white bone in Yin Shangren’s hand. “You mean to say...”
“That’s right. This rib belongs to that very first cultivator who was infected by the Immortal-Mortal Miasma.” Yin Shangren giggled, once again stroking the rib as if it were a priceless treasure.
But then, noticing that Li Fan showed no signs of shock or excitement, he turned confused. “When you look at it, don't you feel your whole body tremble with inexplicable shock and delight?”
Li Fan shook his head repeatedly.
“Ah, it is a true pity that you cannot appreciate its value, Fellow Daoist,” Yin Shangren sighed.
“The infection of cultivators by the Immortal-Mortal Miasma is one of the most significant events in history. Its impact on the current structure of the cultivation world is second only to the Great Reformation itself.
“And the remains of that first poor soul who was infected—how immense must their research and commemorative value be?”
“Aren’t you curious to know how a mortal plague could possibly infect a cultivator? If we could uncover the origin of this mutation, perhaps we could eradicate the Immortal-Mortal Miasma at its source!
“When that happens, I will be remembered as a great figure by the entire cultivation world!”
For a moment, Yin Shangren seemed lost in his own fantasy.
After a while, seeing that Li Fan’s face remained utterly impassive, he let out a long sigh, looking like a master disappointed in his most hopeless student.
“You don’t understand. This fellow, Su... Su something-or-other. Never mind. Every single bone from that unlucky wretch’s skeleton is priceless, fought over by countless cultivators. I was extremely fortunate to acquire this single rib.
"Of course, the most precious of all is his complete skull, preserved at the headquarters of the Myriad Immortals Alliance."
Yin Shangren's eyes grew distant with longing, a line of drool nearly escaping the corner of his mouth.
Li Fan couldn't comprehend such peculiar fascination and only shook his head repeatedly.
Just then, Yin Shangren seemed to snap back to reality. "Eh? I just realized, what brings you here so unexpectedly, Fellow Daoist?"