The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1145 (Patreon)

Chapter 1145: Desert City

“Da Hu and the others…”

Memories rose unbidden—growing up together, wandering the streets, watching operas, shooting the breeze.

He thought of those three brothers stealing a brocade pheasant from an elder, roasting it, and gifting it to him.

He thought of Da Hu and the other two standing in front of him when he fought with others.

He thought of those three children shouldering life’s burdens, of their first trip to Great Black Mountain to hunt demons, and of the blood-soaked scene when they staggered home afterward…

Warmth and a faint ache mingled in Mo Hua’s chest.

Counting the years, it had been a long time since he’d seen the three brothers.

Seeing Mo Hua’s expression, the boatmaster asked, “Are you thinking… maybe you could join the Great Wilderness Sect?”

Mo Hua’s eyes flickered. “Could I?”

The boatmaster shook his head. “You’re strong by birth—got a bit of talent for body tempering—but you’re already past twenty. You’ve missed the initial window for cultivation. In terms of cultivation age, it’s not ideal.”

“And the Great Wilderness Sect—what kind of sect is that? It’s a fourth-grade sect directly under the Dao Court, one powerful enough to suppress the Great Wilderness imperial clan.”

“No family background, no superior spiritual root, no luck to your name—how could you possibly pass their mountain gate?”

“As for you…” The boatmaster studied him and shook his head. “Even if your body-tempering talent is fine, your spiritual root isn’t. With that root, there’s no way.”

Mo Hua smiled without taking offense.

Back in the Qianxue Prefecture, when he’d tried to enter sects, he’d been turned away from too many gates to count. He knew well that with his family and spiritual root, under normal circumstances he couldn’t step over the thresholds of those great sects.

Thinking of that, the “favor” the Great Void Sect had shown him felt all the more precious.

But suddenly, Mo Hua’s gaze changed. He realized a problem.

No family background, no superior spiritual root…

How were the three Hu brothers chosen and accepted into the Great Wilderness Sect?

The three of them, like him, were loose cultivators. Their spiritual roots were a bit better than his, but only a little—about mid-grade. With qualifications like that, the cultivation world was full of such disciples.

Why would a Great Wilderness Sect elder take them in?

A chill pricked at Mo Hua’s heart. Something felt off.

But he didn’t understand the internal situation of the Great Wilderness Sect and had little to base any guess on.

He turned to the boatmaster. The man had been drinking harsh swill, cheeks dark and ruddy, carrying an indescribable mix of carefree grit. Mo Hua’s heart moved. He asked:

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Worried about what?” the boatmaster said.

Mo Hua said, “If the barbarian troops of the Great Wilderness press all the way to Desert City, the fighting will engulf this region in an instant. The deaths will be countless.”

The boatmaster waved his hand. “Too far.”

“Too far? The war is too far away?”

“No.” He took another drink and said slowly, “We poor cultivators live day to day. Out here in the Sea of Sand, we might die any time. Sometimes we’re so tired we lie down on the bed and—just like that—we’re dead.”

“Today we can still breathe, but tomorrow’s sun—we may not see it.”

“So whether the barbarians come or not doesn’t change that we’re going to die. That’s why I say it’s too far to think about.”

“Not to mention…”

A strange, relieved look crept over his face.

“If the barbarians come, they’ll treat everyone the same—kill whoever they see. They’ll kill us poor folk, and they’ll kill those rich sons and daughters too.”

“We’ve got nothing. If we’re killed, at least it’s an end.”

“But those soaked in honey, basking in wealth every day—if they’re killed, that’s true despair.”

“Thinking about it that way, I don’t feel cheated. I even feel like I’ve earned a little.”

The boatmaster’s weathered face showed a smile that might have been numbness—or acceptance.

Mo Hua said nothing.

Wind and sand blew from afar, grit mixed in, raking his cheeks with a helpless, unavoidable pain.

Just then, the sandship shuddered.

The boatmaster jumped up at once and cursed. “Damn it, bad luck—what did we hit this time…”

He turned and shook his head at Mo Hua. “You see? Life’s like this—stumbling and tripping along. If the barbarians don’t kill us, the Sea of Sand will.”

He hurried to the bow to check. It seemed the ship’s bottom had struck a reef hidden in the sand. He exhaled in relief, then busied himself organizing people to inspect and repair—noise broke out all around.

Mo Hua stood on the deck, watching the rolling yellow sand flying across the sky, and the people trying to survive within it. He let out a quiet sigh.

The rest of the journey went smoothly.

The only accident was a large group of sand bandits, around twenty to thirty men.

The scattered bandits before had only been shadowing them and scouting.

When they reached a narrow sandy channel, more bandits swarmed in to surround them.

They spoke a few words, but there was no chance of a deal. The fight erupted at once.

For the boatmaster, it was a grueling and perilous battle.

The ship’s fate—and the lives of everyone aboard—were at stake. He didn’t dare relax, his hands and feet trembling.

Mo Hua, however, was calm.

The strongest among the raiders was only at mid-stage Foundation Establishment.

In the past, he could have slaughtered them all by himself.

But not now. He had to cultivate his heart, restrain himself.

So the bronze-skinned body cultivator Mo Hua, just like the other Qi Refining shiphands, picked up a staff and rushed in for close-quarters combat with the bandits.

Fist to flesh, legs like the wind, his staff danced impenetrably, beating the bandits until their faces were swollen and blue.

For once, Mo Hua experienced what it felt like to be a “body cultivator.”

Low-level as the battle was, he fought with a rare sense of ease.

Of course, he “stopped short,” channeling force into the bandits’ joints to cripple their meridians.

Afterward, the guards and shiphands finished them off.

After a fierce struggle, the bandits were annihilated.

The mid-stage Foundation Establishment leader was secretly bound by Mo Hua with the Water Prison Technique, and in the chaos Mo Hua used the Golden Blade Technique to cut both calves. The boatmaster, together with several Foundation Establishment guards, then surrounded and killed him.

And so the turmoil ended.

The boatmaster could not contain his joy.

When the bandits first appeared, he had steeled himself for a tragic outcome.

He had not expected a sudden reversal—a near-total victory, with not one of his people dead.

Truly, the heavens had sheltered them.

He ordered the bandits’ storage pouches collected and their vessels dismantled, then had the surviving bandits thrown into the Sea of Sand.

These ferrymen disliked shedding blood, but leaving bandits alive only bred future trouble. Tossing them into the Sea of Sand let the sands take their lives.

Then the boatmaster held a celebration.

It wasn’t grand—just the shiphands gathering together, each taking a few spirit stones, some dried meat, and a bottle of throat-scorching liquor.

These were counted as spoils.

The shiphands were delighted, faces flushed red in the firelight.

At the banquet, the boatmaster threw an arm around Mo Hua’s neck and praised his “valor” against the bandits.

“Young as you are, you dare to fight, don’t lose your nerve, don’t cling to life—very impressive.”

“Only one thing—your hand still isn’t ruthless enough.”

“More than once, your staff could’ve gone straight through and killed a man. But you didn’t.”

“At the line between life and death, that kind of hesitation is taboo. Next time, don’t go soft. When it’s time to kill, you must kill!”

“You’re young. You haven’t killed enough. That’s why…”

“Come on—drink!”

Mo Hua raised his cup with a helpless smile.

After a great battle and a post-disaster feast, the mood was bright and buoyant. The food and drink were poor quality, but everyone was satisfied.

The drinking didn’t last long, of course.

They were still on the Sea of Sand, danger on all sides. They were shiphands—and a ship had to sail.

The sandship moved on toward Desert City.

They had cut down the biggest bandit wave. As for sand-dwelling beasts along the route, caution would do. There shouldn’t be any more twists.

Though yellow sand filled the sky and the environment was harsh, spirits gradually lifted.

Through the blowing dust, the grand outline of Desert City had already begun to show, faint and vast.

But just then, the sandship stopped moving.

The boatmaster checked and was shocked to find a breach in the bottom of the ship.

Who knew where, along the way, they had struck a reef, or been pecked by a beast’s sharp bill, or perhaps damaged during the fight with the bandits.

The crack was small, so no one had noticed.

But the long voyage had taken its toll, and now, on the eve of arrival, the ship had failed.

They couldn’t move, and the ship seemed to be sinking, bit by bit.

There were no other sandships nearby to help.

Even if one passed by, with limited capacity, it couldn’t save everyone aboard.

Faces paled.

The boatmaster grew anxious despite himself, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. “Sure enough—any time your luck turns good, disaster’s waiting just behind.”

Mo Hua thought a moment, then said, “Boss, how about I take a look at the bilge?”

The boatmaster glanced at him. “You…”

“I know a bit of arrays,” Mo Hua said softly. “Maybe I can patch it for now.”

“You… know arrays?” The boatmaster was still incredulous.

A body cultivator, learning arrays? Did a body cultivator even have the head for that?

Mo Hua nodded. “I have to eat. So I learn a little of everything.”

The boatmaster didn’t know what to say.

Arrays—could you pick them up just to “make a living”…?

But there was no other way now. And along the way he had taken quite a liking to Mo Hua and knew he wasn’t the sort to boast idly.

“Alright. Go have a look,” the boatmaster sighed.

Mo Hua nodded and descended to the hidden compartment in the bilge where the array was drawn.

The boatmaster went with him.

Others wanted to come too, but the boatmaster stopped them.

Ordinarily, no outsiders were allowed into that hidden space; it was to prevent the sandship’s core array from leaking.

At the hatch, the boatmaster used a jade key to open the secret door.

The sandship’s core array lay revealed before Mo Hua.

He looked and nodded slightly.

There was one thing he didn’t say:

He had made the breach himself.

He wanted the ship to halt so he could come down and repair the array—

And, by the way, verify whether the array he had deduced by Heavenly Mechanism Calculation had any flaws.

He hadn’t exactly done it with malice.

This sandship had been used too long, beset by too many hardships. Even if he hadn’t touched it, after two or three more voyages it would have failed anyway.

Better to break it now—and fix it for them.

Otherwise, if it failed in the next trips when he wasn’t around, the boatmaster and all aboard might sink into the sands and die.

It was hard for loose cultivators to live—but far too easy for them to die.

Mo Hua sighed lightly and focused.

The sandship’s internal array lay fully exposed to his eye.

He spotted, in a wind-worn corner of the old array diagram, a small line of annotation.

It recorded the name of the array that let the vessel traverse the Sea of Sand: Level Sands Array.

He memorized the name, scanned the formation once, and said, “Boss, don’t worry. I know this one, a little…”

The boatmaster didn’t quite believe it, but he had no other choice. “Then I…”

“I’ll need a bit of time,” Mo Hua said.

The boatmaster nodded and left him alone to work, standing guard at the door.

That was the rule.

In the Great Wind Ferry, when clan arrayists drew arrays, no one was allowed to watch—lest the patterns leak.

The boatmaster knew the rule.

Even though Mo Hua was just a hired hand, anyone who could draw arrays had to be treated with respect.

He wasn’t worried Mo Hua would sabotage the ship.

They were all on the same vessel. If they died, they’d die together.

Mo Hua took the time of a stick of incense to redraw the ship’s array, then closed the hatch and said to the boatmaster, “Done.”

The boatmaster blinked. “Already?”

Mo Hua nodded. “Try sailing.”

Still doubtful, the boatmaster did as he said. He raised the sail and set spirit stones. The sandship, mired in the Sea of Sand, suddenly flared with light, leapt like a fish from the sand, and raced forward—faster than before.

The boatmaster was stunned—and overjoyed.

The shiphands and passengers all broke into grins.

With good wind, the boatmaster focused on the helm. Less than an hour later, the sandship rode the gusts to Desert City.

Desert City’s walls towered, vast and imposing.

Near the ferry dock, dozens of sandships lay moored, large and small.

The boatmaster’s was among the most inconspicuous.

But to him it was life and death—virtually all his livelihood.

Only when they truly berthed and left the endless sands behind did the stone in his heart finally drop.

At that moment, he suddenly remembered something. He searched the crowd for a long time, but Mo Hua was nowhere to be found.

He asked around; no one had seen him.

That thin, slight youth with the handsome face and bright eyes seemed to have “evaporated,” leaving no trace behind.

The boatmaster stared, bewildered.

The shiphands looked at one another.

“Now that you mention it—after the little brother finished drawing the array, he was nowhere to be seen.”

“He couldn’t have slipped and fallen into the Sea of Sand…”

“Don’t talk nonsense…”

“Then where is he? How did he just vanish?”

“Could it be…”

The boatmaster’s face hardened. “No one mentions this. Anyone who does won’t sail with me again.”

The shiphands fell silent at once.

They rested at the Desert City dock for a few days but did not enter the city. Poor loose cultivators like them weren’t allowed inside; besides, they had only a few spirit stones between them. There was no point going in.

Their job was to bring others to Desert City.

A city like that was no place for them to stay.

A few days later, they picked up a few scattered fares and returned the way they’d come to the Great Wind Ferry.

Perhaps because the ship was steadier—and faster—the return trip went strangely smoothly.

Back at the ferry, the boatmaster still couldn’t set his mind at ease. He invited an old master who handled repairs for the shipping guild to inspect the vessel.

The old master had worked there for a hundred and fifty years—stubborn but trustworthy, much respected.

He dismantled the boatmaster’s ship, looking disgusted. He grumbled about this piece being aged and that piece weathered. Not until he saw the array did he suddenly start and stare wide-eyed.

“Where… where did you get this array?”

The boatmaster’s expression changed. He asked quietly, “How is it?”

He’d never drawn a single stroke of array lines in his life; arrays were a mystery to him.

The old master took a deep breath, his voice trembling. “This is… a second-grade high-tier formation. Many large sandships in the guild don’t have arrays as good as this. Take good care of it. If nothing goes wrong, it’ll feed you for fifty or sixty years.”

The boatmaster’s scalp tingled. He stood there, stunned.

He tried to picture Mo Hua’s face, but for some reason it had gone fuzzy. He couldn’t even quite remember what the young man had said…

“I… met a master, didn’t I…” he murmured, shaken.

“What?” the old master asked.

“Nothing,” the boatmaster said.

The old man didn’t press. He only warned:

“I’ll take this secret to the grave. You mustn’t spread it either. You know what happens to the man who ‘holds a jade and invites his ruin.’”

“Yes. Thank you, Master,” the boatmaster said quickly.

The old master nodded, gave a few more reminders, and left.

The boatmaster remained, staring a long time at the profound, crisp array lines etched into his ship.

Toward evening, he made a special trip to the tavern.

For once, he splurged on half a bottle of good wine. He walked to the edge of the Sea of Sand. Facing the boundless desert, he poured out the precious wine—something he’d never have wasted on any other day—and whispered:

“I have no way to repay the little brother’s great kindness.”

“With this thin wine, I wish him… smooth sailing from here on.”

A stranger to Mo Hua, the boatmaster sent his wish into the distance.

…

At that time, the “little brother” blessed by the boatmaster was quietly doing odd jobs inside Desert City.

As soon as the ship berthed, Mo Hua hid his presence and slipped ashore.

After that, he found a chance to blend into Desert City.

The city truly lived up to its name as a fourth-grade immortal city. It was simply enormous.

Because it stood on the edge of the Great Wilderness, it was the only great city for ten thousand miles around. Its walls were higher, its footprint larger. As far as the eye could see, palaces and pavilions in the rugged style of the Great Wilderness layered toward the horizon without end.

It was nothing like the Qianxue Prefecture.

Qianxue was a fifth-grade prefecture, but it crammed in too many great clans and sects. Land was tight, so its immortal cities were exquisite in design but small in scale—nothing like the “lavish breadth” of Desert City.

For that reason, Desert City truly was like a great desert—you couldn’t see its edges.

Finding one “big tiger” in this city was like fishing a needle from the sea.

What’s more, Mo Hua was puzzled. Desert City was a city of cultivators. Would a place like this really allow demons to enter—especially a powerful tiger demon?

Aside from the big tiger, he also wondered whether he should try the Great Wilderness Sect to ask after the three Hu brothers.

He thought it over and let the idea go.

His identity was special now, his fate fierce. If he got close to them, he might drag them down.

Besides, the brothers came from poverty; life in the Great Wilderness Sect couldn’t be easy.

Mo Hua could only keep up his disguise and keep searching within Desert City.

He looked for traces of the big tiger while quietly inquiring into the state of the war between the Dao Court and the Great Wilderness, and the clashes between Dao soldiers and barbarian troops.

After several days, Mo Hua had a rough understanding of the current war in the Great Wilderness.

And he picked up one lead on the big tiger:

“The Beast-Fighting Arena.”

Rumor had it that below Desert City lay a vast underground arena where demon beasts battled.

Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying the ride through Desert City, please consider supporting on Patreon—every little bit keeps this translation going and means the world to me. And if you have a moment, dropping a rating or review on NovelUpdates really helps more readers find the series.

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