Exploring the Underworld Mountain

Above the golden spear, dragons and serpents hissed.

But the moment Yu Zhensheng reached out, the unruly dragons and serpents actually left the golden spear of their own accord and coiled around the statue's arm.

That hand finally gripped the spear.

The golden spear was barely over a foot long, little different from a toy in someone's hand. Yet in the next moment, golden light surged and spiraled together.

Amid several crisp clangs of metal striking metal, the golden spear began to lengthen segment by segment, much like the Pilgrim's Golden Cudgel.

In merely a few breaths, it had grown to thirteen feet!

What a weapon!

A dragon's roar rang out, and killing intent surged into the heavens.

The shaft resembled the spine of a coiling dragon, its patterns like nine-tiered pagodas, and like thunder and fire whirling through the air, tempering the four hundred and twenty-seven characters of the precious edict's true words.

Every stroke and dot swallowed and spat golden light.

The spearhead was like karmic fire, creating the illusion of blazing golden flames. Even the ghostly Yin-Yang Road seemed to turn scorching hot.

Yu Zhensheng casually flourished the spear, producing a series of muffled crackles like rolling thunder.

He stood with spear in hand. The cinnabar mark between his brows was like an upturned fiery eye, adding three parts might to his bearing. His sinews stretched, his bones rose, and his presence was majestic—he truly looked like King Ma descending into the mortal world.

The blood-red lightning brewing in the night sky finally ceased.

A gigantic blood-red eye, like that of a god, slowly emerged. Its cold, profound gaze settled on Yu Zhensheng alone.

"Old man, you finally managed to extricate yourself. Are you truly going to get dragged back in for this brat who borrowed a corpse to return to life?"

"Think it through. This time, you may not leave alive!"

His voice was like thunder, echoing through the mountains.

Yu Zhensheng threw back his head and laughed. His voice was bold, his momentum like a rainbow. That figure with golden spear and white hair resembled Old Huang Zhong battling at Mount Dingjun, and also Zhao Zilong, a veteran general already seventy yet still requesting leave to charge onto the battlefield!

"I'm old, not dead."

"Even if I'm going to die, I ought to drag someone down with me, shouldn't I, Lu Pan..."

His voice paused. He raised his spear toward that godlike blood-red eye, treating the wind and thunder filling the sky as nothing. His words rang like metal, brimming with killing intent.

"This golden spear of mine was once stained with the blood of countless feral soldiers of the underworld. I truly want to find out... whether it can slaughter a true god?"

Zhou Sheng's heart jolted at those words.

Having fought feral soldiers before, he knew better than anyone how vicious they were. Had he not possessed the Startling Hall Wood and entered the state of Unity of Person and Role, he would have been the one to die.

Yet according to what Master had said, he had once killed many feral soldiers?

At that moment, he finally understood why the City God, Lu Bingyuan, valued his Master so highly and had tried every possible means to drag him into this.

Before Master's legs were crippled... just how powerful had he been?

"Yu Zhensheng, you were indeed once the most outstanding Ghost Opera Performer. For hundreds of years, no second Ghost Opera Performer has reached your realm. At the height of your power, even I had to show you some respect. What a pity..."

The judge's voice carried a trace of mockery.

"In that opera back then, King Yama tore out your leg tendons and crippled most of your cultivation. Now... how much of your former strength remains?"

Zhou Sheng turned to look, his gaze falling upon Master's crippled right leg.

Master's leg tendons had actually been torn out by King Yama?

No wonder that, with Master's medical skill, he still could not heal his own crippled leg.

Yet Zhou Sheng could not understand it. What opera had Master performed to enrage King Yama so greatly that he had torn out his tendons and broken his bones?

"How much strength I have left, you can try for yourself. If that doesn't work—"

A trace of madness seemed to flash through Yu Zhensheng's eyes. He laughed loudly. "I'll sing that unfinished opera from back then all over again!"

At those words, a distinct ripple appeared in the blood-red eye.

Was that... fear?

Zhou Sheng grew even more curious. What opera could make a lofty underworld judge change expression?

After a brief standoff, the eye in the heavens slowly faded away.

The judge's voice drifted faintly through the air.

"Two months from now will be the Ghost Festival."

Yu Zhensheng's expression changed slightly.

"This time, I'll spare that brat for now. When the Ghost Opera of the Ghost Festival comes, let's see how you protect him then."

"Oh, right. I nearly forgot..."

"You used your own life as collateral for him, buying him three years. If he dies during the Ghost Opera of the Ghost Festival, then you, Yu Zhensheng..."

"Will fall into my hands. Then, under the judge's brush, let us see which level of hell suits you..."

The voice gradually receded, and the mist dispersed with it.

Everything around them returned to calm. As that terrifying pressure vanished, Zhou Sheng let out a long breath and only then realized his back was already soaked with sweat.

He looked toward Master and saw him still standing straight with spear in hand. Admiration immediately rose within him.

As expected of Master. He was always so composed and unruffled. Zhou Sheng truly still had much to learn.

"Quick, quick, come give me a hand!"

Yu Zhensheng said urgently, "I ran too fast earlier and threw out my back!"

Zhou Sheng: "..."

He stepped forward to support Master and helped massage his waist. He could faintly hear bones crackling.

"Old. I really am old..."

Yu Zhensheng shook his head with a smile, a trace of loss in his expression. He sighed. "Lian Po is old—can he still eat his fill?"

"If this had been twenty years ago, it would never have gotten away today!"

As he spoke, he handed the golden spear to Zhou Sheng.

The instant Zhou Sheng touched the spear shaft, his hand scalded as though he had gripped a red-hot iron rod.

He cried out in pain and instinctively released it. Golden light then flowed forth, and the thirteen-foot spear rapidly shrank before flying like a swimming dragon into the hand of the Emperor Huaguang statue.

The thumb-thick dragon-serpent also crawled down from the statue's arm, coiling around the golden spear once again before rapidly petrifying.

Seeing Zhou Sheng's astonished expression, Yu Zhensheng smiled faintly.

"Brat, now you understand why this statue is the supreme treasure of our Yin Opera lineage, don't you?"

"The statue itself is merely a vessel. What is truly formidable is the Patriarch's golden spear!"

"But this spear is exceptionally overbearing. Ordinary people cannot subdue it. With your Dao cultivation, using it would be no different from courting death. That is why I never taught you the method of borrowing the spear before."

Yet Zhou Sheng paid no attention to the miraculous golden spear. Instead, his gaze settled upon Master's right leg.

"Master—"

"As you can see, my right leg is indeed crippled, and King Yama personally tore out its tendons."

"Master, can it truly not be healed?"

Zhou Sheng's heart clenched. As a fellow Ghost Opera Performer, he understood all too well what that meant.

Through the coming of cold and heat, through diligent cultivation and bitter training.

How much sweat had to be shed, how much suffering endured, how many beatings taken to forge such skill?

The toil and sweat of countless years, all lost in a single day.

"Over these years, I have tried every method imaginable. I even specifically visited ghost physicians among the Hundred Schools of the Underworld. But the best result was only being able to walk without difficulty. Once I engage in strenuous activity, it returns to how it was before."

Zhou Sheng fell silent.

Seeing his disciple's grief-stricken appearance, Yu Zhensheng instead appeared quite composed. He shook his head with a smile. "Being able to keep my life was already the Patriarch's blessing. As for this leg..."

His expression was somewhat complicated, but his voice remained light.

"Gone is gone."

"Who told me to choose that opera back then? I only lost a leg, but those old companions who performed alongside me... not a single one walked out alive..."

Yu Zhensheng's expression became extremely complicated. There was desolation, remembrance, guilt, and hatred, but also an indescribable resolve.

Zhou Sheng had never seen Master so shaken before.

"Master, what opera was it?"

Hearing the question, Yu Zhensheng remained silent for a long while, as though he had fallen into some distant memory. Only after a long time did he slowly speak.

"Exploring the Underworld Mountain."

"The one who taught me this opera was not your grandmaster, but... Lord Bao in the illusion."

Thanks to reader 20211107124643167 for the five-hundred donation to Zhou Sheng's character, and thanks to E Nan for the one-hundred donation. Hearts!