Chapter 23

On the spirit boat, Ying Sanliang touched here, looked there, his face full of the astonished expression of a poor wandering cultivator who had never seen the world.

“I’ve been jealous of this kind of flying artifact for ages. After all, a bonded sword moves as the heart wills it, but how does a spirit boat control direction?”

A hummingbird perched on Lu Yan’s shoulder, every tiny feather lifelike and distinct. Its black-bean eyes occasionally rotated once or twice. Lu Yan had his eyes closed, his divine sense linked to the hummingbird, while his index finger tapped rhythmically, bit by bit. No one knew what he was thinking.

Yuan Chi was too tall. Every time he entered the cabin, he hit his head, and yet he never learned his lesson. He bumped it again and again, and after each bump he would laugh with a “hehe.” In Houtu City, he was used to rising early to practice martial arts, so even on the spirit boat he held a long saber and swung it with vigorous force.

There were clearly only three people on the spirit boat, yet they had somehow created the feeling of demons dancing in chaos.

Lu Yan’s index finger stopped. He stuffed the hummingbird from his shoulder back into his storage pouch. At the moment, he was standing at the bow of the boat, enjoying the wind. The spirit boat was not particularly fast, and the breeze was just right. Lu Yan brushed a loose strand of hair at his temple behind his ear and said to Ying Sanliang, “If you’re that curious, I’ll give you a spirit boat once we reach Medical Valley. Divine Creation Sect has quite a few in stock.”

Ying Sanliang cupped his fists in both hands and moved close to Lu Yan. “Many thanks, little wealth-scattering boy!”

Yuan Chi finished a set of saber forms and wiped the sweat from his face with his shoulder, his spirits high as he gazed into the distance. He seemed to spot something and walked to the edge of the spirit boat, leaning out past the railing. “A bunch of… flying trees?”

“What flying trees?” Ying Sanliang’s figure flashed, and he appeared beside Yuan Chi. He shaded his forehead with one hand and identified them seriously for a while. “Huh. They seem to be people from Medical Valley?”

Lu Yan tilted his head. In the distance, an oval-shaped flying artifact was gradually approaching. A group of people dressed in brown Daoist robes stood atop it. The other side had also seen this spirit boat. The disciples did not know whether they were friend or foe, so after exchanging a few words among themselves, they sent out a representative to call over from afar.

“We are Medical Valley disciples, traveling on urgent business. May I ask where Your Excellency comes from?”

They really were Medical Valley disciples.

Medical Valley mostly had wood spiritual roots and earth spiritual roots. Wood elements were close to nature, and earth elements cultivated spiritual herbs, so their Daoist robes were also made to resemble the earth. If one was a personal disciple, the sleeves and collar would also have profound grass-and-tree patterns.

The people opposite them were only wearing brown Daoist robes, and there were many of them. From a distance, they really did look like flying tree stumps.

However, Lu Yan frowned. At this critical juncture, with Medical Valley about to hand over the position of master, why would so many Medical Valley disciples be traveling together?

Ying Sanliang enthusiastically waved a greeting. “This side has Lu Bupo of Divine Creation Sect and the young city lord of Houtu City. We were just on our way to Medical Valley to observe the ceremony.”

The two flying artifacts drew closer and closer. The Medical Valley disciple who had first called out saw Ying Sanliang’s face clearly. He could not see even the slightest trace of the rumored heavenly genius in him, and asked doubtfully, “Are you Martial Uncle Lu Bupo?”

Ying Sanliang hurriedly shook his head. “I’m just a guard. This person beside me is Yuan Chi, the young city lord of Houtu City, and the person behind me is Lu Bupo of Divine Creation Sect.”

Lu Yan stood up. His personal disciple token flashed through his hand, and he nodded. “At a time like this, where are you going?”

The Medical Valley disciples clearly saw the token and saluted in unison. “Greetings, Young City Lord. Greetings, Martial Uncle Lu!”

The disciple who had first called out showed a trace of anxiety and terror on his face as he answered, “A town in the mortal realm has developed a strange illness. Once someone falls asleep for three days, they die silently. A Medical Valley disciple went to investigate, but who could have known that through a moment of carelessness, he also slept for three days, and actually perished body and Dao alike. Not even his divine soul remained.”

Ying Sanliang sucked in a cold breath. “Perished body and Dao alike?”

“Yes. Even soul-summoning arts couldn’t find anything at all. After this happened, Martial Uncle Kongqing immediately rushed to the town to try to develop an antidote,” another disciple continued. “Now, every Medical Valley disciple who can leave has left. Even if we already have a medicinal pill that can treat the illness later, we truly don’t have enough manpower.”

Lu Yan formed a hand seal with one hand and controlled the spirit boat to change direction. In a low voice, he said, “I’ll go with Medical Valley. Ying Sanliang, Young City Lord, I’ll give you another spirit boat. You can go to Medical Valley first and wait for me there.”

“Brother, that’s not very decent of you.” After his shock faded, Ying Sanliang said freely, “Since I sold myself to you for one hundred and fifty years, even if you climb a mountain of blades or descend into hell, I have to protect you.”

Yuan Chi scratched his head and carried his great saber behind his back. “I’m going with Bupo.”

Lu Yan held his forehead. “Hey, you two…”

The Medical Valley disciples were overjoyed. With the help of this Little Martial Uncle from Divine Creation Sect, perhaps things would immediately take a turn for the better.

Lu Yan welcomed all the Medical Valley disciples onto the spirit boat and spoke with them. “Is your Martial Uncle Kongqing still in that town?”

“Yes. Martial Uncle Kongqing said that if the strange illness is not eliminated, he will not accept the valley master’s seal.”

Generally speaking, major events in the cultivation world required divination in advance. For example, Medical Valley’s handover of the master’s position had begun divination a year ago, and they had only calculated this one perfect day with the right timing, location, and people. Who could have known that, at the last moment, such a major situation would arise?

At this point, there were still twelve days until Medical Valley’s master handover.

Lu Yan controlled the spirit boat and slowly arrived at the destination according to the Medical Valley disciples’ directions.

Looking down from above, a small town was surrounded by an isolation array. Whether in the houses, in front of the shops, or atop the city towers, every lamp was lit. The white glare stung the eyes and inexplicably made one’s heart beat faster, producing an indescribable fear.

Even Yuan Chi, who was missing one aperture, said, “This place feels really uncomfortable.”

More than uncomfortable.

Lu Yan’s lashes trembled faintly, hiding the look in his eyes.

This place made him feel oppressed. It was not emotional oppression, but an oppression acting upon the divine soul.

This town was called Baiqiu. It was a small county town, and most of the residents bore the surnames Bai and Qiu. Meng Ke stood inside the isolation array. With just one more step, he could walk out, but he did not move.

Lu Yan controlled the spirit boat to descend. The families living at the edge of the isolation array all poked their heads out through the gaps in their windows, their gazes burning as they watched the spirit boat descend from the sky. In low voices, they cried, “Immortals! They’re immortals!”

“We’re saved! We’re saved!”

Meng Ke looked exceptionally haggard. He had broken through to Nascent Soul not long ago, and yet he had been worn down to this extent. It was clear how exhausted he had been, body and mind, during this period. He had been waiting for Medical Valley’s disciples to arrive, but when he looked up, he saw a familiar person. “Bupo? Why are you here? Go back, quickly!”

Lu Yan naturally understood the concern in Meng Ke’s words and said, “Senior Brother Kongqing is being far too disloyal. If I stay out of this now, wouldn’t that force me into injustice?”

“You know perfectly well that isn’t what I mean.” Meng Ke rubbed his temples. “You’re not a medical cultivator. If something happens to you, how am I supposed to explain it to Divine Creation Sect and my martial uncle?”

Meng Ke was not the Medical Valley Master’s disciple. He was the eldest disciple of one of Medical Valley’s elders, and the Medical Valley Master had shamelessly forced another person’s disciple over to personally teach him.

Lu Yan took out the Buwang Brush. “Divine Creation Sect’s repair department is still inside. If you keep wasting words, I’ll break the array myself.”

Meng Ke had an awful headache. At present, he was not certain whether this strange illness was contagious. He could only temporarily use an isolation array to seal the area and prevent anyone from entering or leaving. He allowed a few familiar Medical Valley disciples inside to help, while the others scattered to various regions to observe whether the same strange illness had appeared elsewhere. If it had, they were to report back immediately.

Lu Yan and the other two finally entered Baiqiu City.

Ying Sanliang was nearly blinded by the white light filling the entire city. These lamps had been invented by Divine Creation Sect’s Bupo Little Martial Uncle. They used spirit stones to power arrays, were cheap, and stayed bright for a long time. After improvements, their brightness and color could also be adjusted.

“I call this strange illness Huangliang,” Meng Ke said as he led the group toward Divine Creation Sect’s repair department in this place. After Medical Valley arrived, the person in charge of the repair department had first offered up the shop to serve as a temporary shelter and pill-refining site, while also helping settle the mortals. “There are no warning signs. People can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Once they sink into sleep, no method can wake them, until they die on the fourth day.”

As Lu Yan passed through the streets, he saw people sitting dazedly on thresholds, staring fixedly toward the lamps and refusing to look away even as tears streamed down their faces. Some forced their eyes to stay open, and some used pain on themselves to fight the instinct to sleep.

The tiny wish to survive had almost solidified into reality, spreading throughout the entire city.

“Immortal, save my granddaughter! She’s only five. She’s only five years old!”

An old woman fell to her knees before Meng Ke with a thud. In her arms, she held a small child with two round little bun-like hair knots. The child slept very peacefully, her soft lips curving upward as if she were having a beautiful dream.

Meng Ke helped the old woman up, but the old woman somehow found strength from nowhere and clutched Meng Ke’s sleeve tightly. She knew this was an immortal, an immortal who had rushed over after the strange illness broke out specifically to save them. “Please save her. I’ll set up a longevity stele for you, pray with Buddhist lamps for you, kneel through scripture recitations for you. As long as you save her, even this old woman’s life can be taken in exchange!”

The old woman did not understand cultivation. She did not understand that Buddhism, Daoism, and medicine were three different systems.

Meng Ke crouched down powerlessly and placed his fingers on the little girl’s pulse. The heartbeat belonging to a child was beating normally, just as she appeared from the outside. She was merely asleep and would wake after a while.

“The pill is useless…” Meng Ke murmured.

His voice was very soft, yet it made everyone present who had enough cultivation to hear it feel so pained they almost shed tears.

Especially the few Medical Valley disciples. This was their martial uncle, Medical Valley’s next valley master. Originally, he should have accepted the Medical Valley master’s seal in glory, under the eyes of ten thousand people and the gratified gazes of his elders, then held up the sky for Medical Valley.

But now, he had shouldered the fate of the entire city, perhaps even the mortal realm, and because of a single pill, his back had nearly been crushed.

Lu Yan covered his eyes with spiritual energy. Aside from being able to deconstruct arrays, he had discovered more uses for this pair of eyes. He could see the little girl’s blood flowing through her body, the beating of her heart, and even her soul.

It seemed as if there was no problem… No, that was wrong.

Lu Yan swiftly took out the Buwang Brush. An intricate rune took shape beneath the brush, and then Lu Yan tapped this rune onto the space between the little girl’s brows and barked, “Stabilize!”

The few people present did not understand runes. Meng Ke only saw a streak of golden light sink into the child’s brow, and Lu Yan’s sudden shout startled him for an instant. “Bupo?”

Suddenly, the little girl, who had already fallen into deep sleep, moved her finger.

Meng Ke was still holding the child’s wrist, so of course he could detect this tiny movement. His body stiffened, and he subconsciously held his breath.

The little girl turned over lightly in the old woman’s arms. With the hand that was not being held, she rubbed her eyes and called out in a soft, delicate voice, “Grandma.”

Whoosh.

Everyone’s gaze focused on the little girl.

In the eyes of the people struggling against sleep, a light brighter than the lamps burst forth all at once, and they could not help edging one step toward the little girl.

Then they looked toward Lu Yan with even more fervent and urgent gazes.

The old woman released the hand that had been clutching Meng Ke’s sleeve tightly. Her rough, wrinkled arms encircled the little girl in her embrace, and a single tear quietly fell onto the little girl’s face.

The little girl opened her eyes. Seeing the tears in her grandmother’s eyes, she said softly and sweetly, “Grandma, don’t cry. I dreamed of an immortal. The immortal told me to come back, so I came back.”

“It’s good that you came back. It’s good that you came back…” The old woman wiped her tears and shuffled on her knees to Lu Yan, setting the little girl down from her arms. “Nannan, look. This is the immortal who saved you. Quick, kowtow to the immortal. Thank you, thank you from this old woman…”

The little girl raised her head in a daze. Beneath the dazzling lamplight, she could barely see Lu Yan’s features, yet it invisibly added a layer of radiance to him.

He was like the Buddha in a temple, like the sun high above, gradually overlapping with the immortal who had woken her in her dream.

The little girl thought this, and so she said it. “Big brother, you’re just like the immortal in my dream.”

Lu Yan turned his feet aside and did not accept the bow. He reached out and rubbed the little girl’s bun-like hair knots. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine from now on.”

After soothing the people in the city, Meng Ke and Lu Yan quickened their pace and headed to Divine Creation Sect’s repair department, which was temporarily serving as the shelter.

The disciples of the repair department had all graduated smoothly from Neverfall. Their cultivation levels were not especially high, but they each had a particular skill. Some had unique insights into arrays and runes, some were clever with their hands and could repair and make all kinds of tools, and some had a head for business and were very quick-witted.

This strange illness in Baiqiu City had broken out suddenly. After the Medical Valley disciple in the city was the first to perish body and Dao alike, Medical Valley had reacted swiftly, laying out the isolation array and analyzing pill formulas in one smooth sequence. The repair department naturally could not sit and wait for death. They did not understand medicine, but they were extremely efficient at lending a hand, rushing here and there. Only when they saw their Little Martial Uncle did they remember: oh, right, they still had not sent a message back to the sect.

Without saying much, Lu Yan greeted the repair department disciples and directly followed Meng Ke to the pill-refining area. Inside the room was a pill furnace. Meng Ke had moved in an entire wall of medicine cabinets, stocked with all kinds of medicinal pills.

Meng Ke displayed the pill formula he had previously refined and said, “This is the pill formula I developed based on the symptoms. Before you arrived, I had already given it to everyone in the city. I thought it would be effective, but who knew it would have no effect at all?”

“No, it’s not that it had no effect.” Lu Yan only knew the barest surface of medicine, but he could roughly see that the pill formula’s main effects were stabilizing the soul and strengthening the body. This direction was completely correct. “I don’t know whether Senior Brother Kongqing noticed this, but the rune I drew just now was a Soul-Stabilizing Talisman.”

In folk legends, when people were badly frightened, they would lose part of their soul and needed to rely on certain things to call the lost soul back.

“I was never clear why perishing body and Dao alike would happen here.” Lu Yan’s expression was calm, and his eyes looked bottomless, as if they held an abyss. “Just now, I understood. After a person falls into dream-sleep, their three souls and four spirits gradually leave the body, as if they had lost their soul, until they slowly disappear.”

That was why Lu Yan had shouted after stabilizing the soul. His purpose was to call back the souls and spirits that had not been gone for long.

Once the soul and spirits were gone, the body would naturally pass away.

Why could the souls not be summoned?

Because the souls were the first to disappear!

Meng Ke was the successor personally taught by the Medical Valley Master. With this reminder, he immediately reacted. He spread the pill formula across the wall, took out a brush, and began revising and reducing it. “Right… It should be like this. Replace this with Soul-Returning Grass, then replace these two with herbs to ease the medicinal effect of Soul-Returning Grass. It can’t be too strong, or a mortal body won’t withstand it… Right, right, right. This should work!”

Lu Yan leaned against the wall.

The human race was both the toughest and the most fragile race.

The fate of the human race concerned the fate of the entire cultivation world.

Over there, Meng Ke finished revising the pill formula. Sweeping away his exhaustion, he hugged Lu Yan fiercely. “Bupo, thank goodness I let you in!”

Lu Yan, who had been deep in thought: “…”

Why did that sound a little off?

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