Wang Ping's thoughts were tangled like hemp, his face steeped in bitterness. The wine and meat tasted like wax in his mouth, without a trace of his earlier pleasure.
Had he known this trip to Qingshan County would be so dangerous, why would he have come here to suffer?
Wang Ping had clearly forgotten how much he had enjoyed eating, drinking, and making merry in Qingshan County. Now that he was being asked to risk his life, he naturally wanted no part of it.
But Zhang Qing had allowed these rogue cultivators to indulge themselves in Qingshan County, even shielding them whenever they caused trouble, precisely so she could make them risk their lives at this moment. How could she allow even one of them to escape?
In the end, every Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivator was forced to drink a bowl of fine wine.
Young Master Kongxu and Qiao Xuan had supplied that wine. Once they drank it, they would certainly die in two days unless those two gave them the antidote!
Their only chance of survival now lay in whether they could kill the demon in the Taiping River tomorrow. If they succeeded, they would naturally receive the antidote. If they failed, they would have no need for one.
They were being forced to fight for their lives, but did Wang Ping and the others have any choice?
Finally, Zhang Qing discussed the matter with the eight Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators again. They decided that Young Master Kongxu would take Wang Tianfang and Li Hao, both at the Foundation Establishment Early Stage, along with all the Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivators, and act together with Zhang Qing and Xu Xiao.
Meanwhile, Qiao Xuan, Wenren Jie, Qian Ming, and Han Li would hurry to East River Town overnight to make preparations, then begin the operation first thing tomorrow morning!
Wang Ping and the other Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivators waited anxiously until a quarter past the hour of the Rabbit. Zhang Qing glanced at Xu Xiao, who nodded, rose, and said, "Everyone, let's go!"
All the Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivators instinctively stood up. They watched Xu Xiao take out a brocade handkerchief, which expanded to ten zhang across with a wave in the wind. Only then did they realize they would be riding this handkerchief artifact to East River Town.
Xu Xiao took Zhang Qing aboard first. Young Master Kongxu then watched the rogue cultivators climb onto the handkerchief one by one, while he, Wang Tianfang, and Li Hao brought up the rear, clearly leaving the Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivators no opportunity to escape.
Once everyone was aboard, Xu Xiao guided the handkerchief into the air and flew toward East River Town.
Meanwhile, in the Taiping River outside East River Town, a mansion shrouded in a formation stood on the murky riverbed. Four large gilded characters above it read "Taiping River Palace."
Every part of the mansion had been modeled after the prefectural government compound. Yet there was no one inside, only a one-zhang-tall statue of the river god, with an azure face, protruding fangs, fins on its back, and a pointed fork in its hand.
A formation covered the entire mansion, and the river god statue was enshrined atop an incense altar.
The altar stood at the very center of the formation. Around it, red candles half a person's height burned slowly, feeding barely visible wisps of incense power into the river god statue.
Anyone who looked closely would discover that every one of those red candles was actually a child younger than six!
The children's flesh and bones had become red candles, their blood congealing into wicks. Twelve red candles stood at the formation's key points, sustaining its operation and supplying spiritual resonance.
Though this formation had been forged from human lives, a few threads of sanctity shone through its sinister strangeness.
The river god statue was much the same. Despite its azure face, protruding fangs, and terrifying appearance, its body was gilded, making it look solemn beyond measure.
All these strange things lay hidden on the Taiping River's bed, hundreds of zhang below the surface. No one had discovered them—or rather, anyone who had noticed something amiss was long dead.
Tracing the river back from here would reveal that its central stretch lay outside Dongjun Prefectural City, thousands of li away.
The eight-thousand-li Taiping River was divided into eastern and western reaches from this central point, from which its waters also flowed in every direction, connecting Dongjun's counties.
This was also the widest and deepest stretch of the eight-thousand-li Taiping River, reaching more than a thousand zhang in depth.
The Taiping River Palace here was even grander and more imposing. It looked as though it truly were the Dragon Palace, sacred beyond measure.
This river palace was also covered by a formation, within which the true god of the Taiping River resided. The formation inside the mansion was divided into yin and yang, linking north and south.
The river god's true body sat at the center of the yang formation, while his statue occupied the center of the yin formation. Six candles surrounded each, likewise using children as wicks to draw in incense power.
Faint streams of pure incense power also flowed in from thirteen directions. The incense power from Dongjun's counties, together with that of Dongjun Prefectural City, was refined once more through the statue at the center of the yin formation before being poured into the river god's true body in the yang formation.
Sensing the time, the river god's true body slowly opened his eyes. "The hour has come. Those ants from Qingshan County are about to come to their deaths."
No one knew that the river god had once been a false-core cultivator whose might had shaken an entire region!
Now, however, his hair was gray, his body withered, and his back hunched. He looked like a gaunt man on the brink of death, with only a slight bulge in his lower abdomen giving off a glow.
Who could have imagined that he had once been the awe-inspiring master of a sect?
Remembering the rumor he had stumbled upon, how he had ventured deep into the ruins in search of a true Buddhist scripture and nearly lost his life, and how he had dragged his gravely wounded body back to his sect only for his subordinates to rebel and attack him, the river god seethed with fury.
It had all been a scheme by the sect's traitors. They had deliberately leaked word to him of a way to replace a false core with a golden core, hoping he would perish in those ruins. They had never expected him to return alive—and actually obtain the secret method!
Although he had escaped into the Taiping River and survived by chance after its waters swept him here, his sect had surely fallen into those traitors' hands by now. That was his sect. How could he accept it?
Fortunately, the true Buddhist scripture really did contain a Buddhist formation capable of seizing heaven's creative power and shedding the mortal body. It was this that had given the river god a chance to rise again.
Thinking of the state he had been reduced to, then of Dongjun's aristocratic clans, who obeyed in public but defied him in secret, their loyalties forever wavering, the river god's face twisted further. "A pack of ants, a herd of livestock! It would be one thing if you merely refused to serve this god willingly, but you dare play tricks before me! Once I recover my cultivation, I will make certain every last one of you dies without a place to be buried!"
"Once this god gathers fifty years of incense power from Dongjun's thirteen counties, I can reforge my body and transform the false core within me into an incense golden core! Then I will no longer be a false-core cultivator, unable to advance for the rest of my life and possessing a mere six hundred years of longevity. I will be a genuine Golden Core Realm True Person!"
"And with a superior golden core at that! Even the Nascent Soul Realm and Spirit Transformation will not be beyond this god's reach!"
"All you ants who plotted against this god—just you wait!"
From a spirited sect master to someone forced to languish on Dongjun's riverbed for forty-eight whole years, the river god had long since become twisted inside. He desperately yearned to see daylight again and avenge his humiliation.
Only two more years remained before he could completely shed his mortality and forge a superior golden core through incense power!
Whenever he thought of this, the river god could barely contain his excitement.
Wasn't the whole reason he had willingly spent so many years submerged here to attain the great path of the Golden Core Realm, then return openly and gloriously for revenge?
Only two years remained. He just had to endure for two more years!
He was a man blessed with tremendous fortune. Not only had he obtained a secret method that could overturn heaven and earth, but he had also survived calamity after calamity. This time, too, he would surely shed his mortality completely and transform his false core into a superior golden core!
Calming his excitement, the river god separated out a wisp of divine sense. Using the river god statue at the prefectural city as a hub, it reached the river god's mansion outside East River Town in Qingshan County in the blink of an eye.
His divine sense settled onto the one-zhang-tall river god statue. In mere moments, the stone statue came to life.
The incense power within the statue filled the river god with surging strength. Feeling that power within him, he smiled. "Once I deal with these ants from Qingshan County who dare rebel, and pass these next two years in peace, everything will be different."
As he spoke, the one-zhang-tall river god statue, azure-faced and fanged, strode down from the incense altar. Ignoring the red candles made from children within the formation, he held his pointed fork and walked proudly out of the mansion.
By a quarter past the hour of the Dragon on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhang Qing had already taken control of East River Town with all the cultivators.
Looking at the river god's chief officiant, a decrepit old man draped in black robes, Zhang Qing reassured him gently. "Please rest assured. This River God Grand Sacrifice will surely end with that demon's death."
"For now, please begin the rite and summon that demon up."
Every year at the River God Grand Sacrifice, the chief officiant presided over the rites and presented the three sacrificial offerings and six kinds of livestock. He led the entire county's gentry and the townsfolk in kowtowing to the river god statue in East River Town. Only afterward would they offer incense by the river and present six pairs of young boys and girls.
Although it was not yet time for the River God Grand Sacrifice, the demon in the river had always remained muddleheaded, making no move except during the annual sacrifice. Beginning the rites now would surely draw it out as well.
The river god's chief officiant did not refuse. He nodded and said hoarsely, "Then let us begin."
Soon, the three sacrificial offerings and six kinds of livestock were brought forward. The chief officiant led East River Town's townsfolk and gentry in kowtowing to the river god statue inside its temple and presenting the offerings.
Zhang Qing, Xu Xiao, and the rogue cultivators watched the vast sacrificial ceremony attended by more than ten thousand people, every face utterly grave.
Wang Ping and the other Qi Refining Realm rogue cultivators looked especially grim, their faces so dark they seemed ready to drip water. Had their lives not already been held in someone else's hands, why would they have come to this accursed place?
The ceremony had only just begun, yet these rogue cultivators, who spent year after year walking the line between life and death, could already clearly sense that something was wrong.
That inexplicable sense of wrongness was an instinct born from their years of struggling to survive. Their bodies were warning them that something was wrong!
But they had no choice now. They could only suppress their unease and watch the River God Grand Sacrifice proceed, step by step.
After the chief officiant led East River Town's gentry and townsfolk in kowtowing at the river god temple and presenting the three sacrificial offerings and six kinds of livestock, Scarlet Blossom Fruit offerings were brought out, along with six pairs of monkeys bound with ropes. These were clearly substitutes for the six pairs of young boys and girls.
The monkeys seemed even more terrified, but their mouths had been sealed shut. They could only stare wide-eyed as the dense crowd adorned them with flowers and red ribbons, then pushed them onto a bamboo raft and sent them into the river.
As the bamboo raft neared the center of the river, the chief officiant led the people in kneeling once more. His dry, hoarse voice rang out along the bank. "Send forth the flowers and red ribbons, welcome the river god!"
Suddenly, the monkeys on the bamboo raft began struggling wildly, as though they had sensed something.
A whirlpool abruptly appeared on the previously calm river surface. As it grew larger and larger, an aura of danger gradually spread outward.
East River Town's gentry and townsfolk were already kneeling with their foreheads pressed hard against the ground, not daring to look up. The rogue cultivators Zhang Qing had brought were pale, their faces filled with fear.
The aura spilling from the whirlpool grew ever stronger, climbing until it was unmistakably at the Purple Mansion Realm!
The river god was about to appear!
Here is today's second update. I promised six thousand characters, and six thousand characters it is! Gentlemen, won't you give me a hearty wave of support?
Gentlemen, Lin Yuan heard that today's continued readership is crucial—it determines whether this book gets further recommendations. Without those recommendations, this book of mine might have no future. Please be sure to read all the way to the final page today and give Lin Yuan a little boost in continued readership. Please! (Bows ninety degrees.)
PS: A quick explanation. I originally wanted to add another chapter today, but then I looked into why books in the new-release period post two chapters a day, and why four thousand characters a day is more suitable. As you all know, my chapters start at twenty-seven or twenty-eight hundred characters, so I can't add another update today. But consider this a chapter I owe you, gentlemen. I'll make it up as soon as the new-release period ends.
(End of chapter.)
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