Bewitching Incense

As Liu Xiaolou left the market, a chill ran through him. Only then did he realize that his forehead was covered in sweat. When the cool breeze brushed over him, he felt a shiver, but his tense mood relaxed as well. He was pleased to have saved two spirit stones.

Spirit pills were never something he was meant to have. Wasn't it better to accumulate more true essence?

Feeling as though he had picked up two spirit stones for nothing, Liu Xiaolou decided to celebrate. He had a new set of clothes tailored in town, bought some oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and medicinal ingredients, and spent over ten taels of silver. He packed everything into a large bamboo basket, slung it over his back, and hurried toward the mountains.

The benefits of advancing his cultivation were everywhere. A journey that had once taken nearly two hours now took about a quarter-hour less, and his steps were light, without the slightest fatigue.

On the way back, he casually caught a pheasant. Once home, he stewed it in a pot and filled his belly to his heart's content.

Big White Goose honked in the courtyard, locked in battle with the chicken bones. Liu Xiaolou lit an oil lamp, took out a small pill furnace, and set it over the flame to heat dry. At the same time, he covered the furnace with true essence, ensuring that no heat escaped and that it gathered ever higher.

He was not a pill master and knew nothing of pill refining. Nor did the Three Xuan Sect possess any pill-refining arts. What he was refining was a secret technique of his sect—Bewitching Incense.

When the pill furnace changed color and faintly reddened, it meant the heat within had reached the proper point. Liu Xiaolou fed the chunk of Pine Resin Essence into it. Before long, it melted into a thick milky-white liquid that settled at the bottom of the furnace, bubbles rising and bursting from it now and then.

At the same time, he took the required amounts of tiger penis, deer antler, cinnamon, cynomorium, epimedium, and other medicinal ingredients according to the formula. He ground them into powder with true essence and tossed them into the furnace. The Pine Resin Essence was yin, while these medicinal ingredients were yang. As yin and yang joined, they blended within the furnace like water and milk. The thick liquid gradually turned pale yellow, like amber.

Liu Xiaolou slowly lowered the furnace's temperature with his cultivation method, sending streams of true essence into it from time to time. He refined it through the entire night. By dawn, he had finally formed an incense cord. It was over three feet long and as thin as a bamboo skewer. Neither water nor fire could harm it, and it was soft yet tough. At first glance, it looked like a slender rope weapon fit for battle, and it could indeed be wielded as such, not much different from a low-grade magical artifact.

Its true use, however, was to be lit and used to smoke others with its bewitching fragrance. Those who inhaled it would have desire well up from within. At first, they would unknowingly become distracted and infatuated; after prolonged exposure, their heads would spin and swell until they fell asleep and could not wake. Even cultivators could easily fall victim to it if their minds were not steadfast.

The most wondrous part of this Bewitching Incense lay in the Three Xuan Dao arts fused into it—the higher the incense refiner's cultivation, the more solid his true essence; the deeper his attainment and the subtler his methods when casting it, the stronger its bewildering effect would become.

As for the victim, it depended on the circumstances under which they inhaled the Bewitching Incense. If they knew nothing of human desire, the incense would be useless. But if they were troubled by love, or already indulging in wild fantasies, its effects would be exceedingly pronounced.

In any case, after refining Bewitching Incense once more, Liu Xiaolou's means of self-preservation had greatly increased. Using his sect's technique, he wound the incense cord around his arm and concealed it beneath his sleeve. He could strike with it at any moment like a slender weapon, or activate it with true essence and assail others with fragrance. It could be released or withdrawn as he pleased.

Having finished refining the incense cord, Liu Xiaolou did not waste any time. He immediately took out the spirit stones and began consuming them. For a desperately poor Rogue Cultivator like him, unless they had some special purpose, spirit stones could never be kept for long. He sat in his room and cultivated day and night. In the blink of an eye, nearly a month passed, and the two spirit stones turned into fragments and dust, drifting down onto the muddy ground of the courtyard.

Big White Goose tried several times to peck at the spirit stones in his palm, but failed every time. Instead, it received several slaps that left it dizzy and disoriented. It could only pick up and eat the spirit stone dust that had fallen onto the mud, consoling itself as best it could.

With the aid of these two spirit stones, Liu Xiaolou broke through the first acupoint of the Hand Jueyin Meridian—the Tianchi acupoint—in one stroke. Spiritual power transformed into true essence and accumulated within the primal pool of the Tianchi acupoint.

Calculating the days, he found that compared to when he had been at the Qi Refining second layer, his absorption and refinement of spirit stones had improved as well. In the past, one spirit stone could sustain his cultivation for half a month. Now, it seemed to save him a day. The effect of improving his cultivation was indeed quite obvious.

Sadly, his spirit stones were already gone. These blissful days of cultivation could only come to a temporary halt. Now he had to ponder what to do next.

As he was thinking, he suddenly slapped his forehead, turned on his heel, and hurried away. He went to the Bamboo Forest and cut down two long bamboo poles, then carried them to the banks of the Wu Chao River.

He split the bamboo poles into six sections, tied them tightly with long grass, hastily made a crude bamboo raft, jumped onto it, and drifted downstream.

The spirit fields of Goose-Goat Mountain should have reached harvest time. He had shut himself away in bitter cultivation and forgotten this important matter. He did not know whether he could still make it in time!

Goose-Goat Mountain was territory of the Zhanglong Sect, a Renowned Great Sect of western Hunan, and lay adjacent to the blessed land of Zhanglong Mountain. A remaining branch of a Spirit Spring within the blessed land of Zhanglong Mountain had opened an outlet at Goose-Goat Mountain. Though no Spirit Spring water leaked out, spiritual power seeped through from there, enveloping a Mountain Hollow of more than two thousand mu. Zhanglong Mountain had thus opened spirit fields there, and much of the spirit rice they produced contained spiritual power.

Ling'er, Wei Hongqing's former fiancée who had broken off their engagement, had married Zang Qianli, an inner sect disciple of the Zhanglong Sect.

And it was the Zang family that managed the spirit fields of Goose-Goat Mountain for the Zhanglong Sect.

Every late autumn, when the Goose-Goat Mountain spirit fields ripened, the Zang family hired a group of Rogue Cultivators to rush the harvest. They also paid the assisting Rogue Cultivators with some spirit rice, making it a fine source of income for the many Rogue Cultivators of western Hunan.

On one side was brotherly affection, on the other the hunger in his belly. Liu Xiaolou had originally wavered over whether to give up this opportunity, but since his brother had run away, he could not concern himself with brotherly affection for the moment.

He traveled downstream along the Wu Chao River, passed Wu Chao Town, then went another dozen li. Liu Xiaolou abandoned the raft and went ashore, striding toward the northeast. After hurrying through the night and crossing more than ten mountain peaks, he finally arrived at Goose-Goat Mountain at dawn.

To the north of the Mountain Hollow stood dozens of houses, large and small. This was Goose-Goat Mountain Manor, where the Zang clan lived. South of the manor ran a small stream over a zhang wide. The more than two thousand mu of paddy fields cultivated along its banks were the Goose-Goat Mountain spirit fields.

When Liu Xiaolou arrived, he saw wisps of mist rising from the stream and drifting toward the spirit fields on both banks. This mist was the spiritual power leaking from that branch of the Spirit Spring. It seeped out with the stream, steamed up every morning, and nourished the surrounding land.

He dearly wanted to rush over and take a few refreshing breaths, but this was strictly forbidden at Goose-Goat Mountain. If everyone came to breathe in a few mouthfuls of spirit mist, what would be left to nourish the spirit fields? Thus, the manor had erected a long fence to enclose and protect the fields.

The fence could be pushed down with a shove or leaped over in a bound, but it represented the majesty of the Zhanglong Sect. No one dared cross that line, and Liu Xiaolou was no exception. He could only follow the fence to the manor and request an audience with Zang Baili, the manor's steward.

While waiting outside the manor for his arrival to be announced, he saw quite a few Rogue Cultivators streaming out from within. Each carried a sickle and wore a bamboo basket on their back as they headed down into the spirit fields.

Damn it. It looked like he had still arrived too late.