Do Not Believe in Immortals

Seeking the Dao in the Mortal World updated fastest!

After slowly finishing the wine in the flask, Qin Yi glanced at the moon dial in the courtyard, calculated the time once more, then turned back to the stove. The fire flickered slightly in the wind, and he immediately shielded it with care. He did not leave again, staring intently at the flames without blinking.

He did not know how long he had watched when the clay pot atop the stove trembled faintly. A glimmer of light appeared within, and a rich fragrance struck his nose. Qin Yi swiftly clapped the cover over it, and the fire went out at once.

Carefully lifting the pot's lid, he found a turquoise pill lying quietly inside. A faint radiance flickered around it, gone in an instant.

"Did it work?"

"It worked." Liusu's voice emerged again. "You claim to be without ambition, yet when you do something, you can endure the tedium. Alchemy is so dull—how can you sit so steadily, watching something that does not move?"

"Give me a game, and I can sit still even longer."

"...You treated alchemy as some kind of game?"

"More or less. It's leveling up, anyway..."

"Forget it." Liusu was utterly speechless. "The pills you made before merely cured illnesses caused by resentment invading the body. They were not antidotes. This one is a true Immortal Pill that can neutralize a hundred poisons with a single dose—of course, it is only a lowest-tier ninth-grade trinket, capable solely of treating mortal poisons, and even then it depends on the severity. Still, it means you have mastered the basics."

Qin Yi's face showed no reaction, but his heart churned.

Holding the pill in his palm, he could truly sense energy circulating within it, as though it contained countless profound mysteries that he could not distinguish.

After more than two months, he had finally refined his first Immortal Pill that surpassed the realm of "mortal-grade" products.

Without cultivating any technique, without a thread of spiritual power, without special medicinal herbs, special flames, or a special pill furnace, he had refined an Immortal Pill purely through an exquisite alchemical formula and control of the heat!

"Now you know I was not lying to you," Liusu said coldly.

Qin Yi went to the corner and picked up the Wolf Tooth Club. Its shaft was black as night, yet beneath the moonlight, a faint dark-red sheen seemed visible, like bloodstains lingering for ten thousand years. On second thought, it looked somewhat ferocious. He sighed. "Even without cultivation, one can set formations and refine Immortal Pills. The methods you taught me must be very advanced, right?"

"It is also because you are suited to them. You are the person most suited for cultivating immortality that I have ever seen." Liusu did not argue with him this time. Instead, she praised him. "With such comprehension, such patience, and such clear, Quiet Serenity, even many who call themselves practitioners cannot compare to you."

"Stop trying to persuade me to cultivate immortality every day. Staying alive matters most. Body Seizing is terrifying just to think about. Who would dare gamble on that?"

"You are simply too afraid of death." Liusu said coldly, "You did not dare eat a single pill I taught you to make before. Do not think I do not know what you meant by naming them 'Take This Date Pill.' And what do you intend to name this new pill?"

Qin Yi did not answer. He stared absently at the pill, then suddenly said, "You want to teach me cultivation so that I will be capable of helping you reshape your body in the future, right?"

Liusu replied irritably, "Right."

"When I said I would send you out to find another master, you refused. So many immortality seekers would worship you as a treasure. Why insist on locking horns with me here? Grinding away at me day after day, repeating the same old worn-out words—does that amuse you?"

Liusu said coldly, "For the past two or three months, you have guarded against me. But have I not been observing you as well? Though you are afraid of death and suspicious, your heart is kind. Others may not be the same. I am merely a wisp of remnant soul, without the power to protect myself. I too fear entrusting myself to the wrong person and being doomed beyond redemption for all eternity."

Qin Yi laughed. "A vicious artifact spirit like you is actually afraid of entrusting yourself to the wrong person?"

"I am not an artifact... Forget it." Liusu said as though nothing had happened, "It is precisely because I am this kind of... artifact spirit that I understand even better what happens when one encounters its own kind."

"That makes so much sense."

"Of course it does." Liusu said leisurely, "In any case, I endured millions upon millions of years in the mountains. I have plenty of patience. Since you are interested in alchemy and formations, one day you will not be able to resist cultivating with me... Honestly, if I told you to throw me away, could you bear to do it?"

Qin Yi's lips twitched, but he said nothing.

Liusu sneered. "Just like one of those little stories you told me, humanity's true nature really is to say it smells wonderful after all."

"Did I ever tell you humanity's other true nature?"

"What?"

"A repeating machine." Qin Yi put on a stern face. "It is fine if you do not understand. Just know that it sounds a lot like you."

Whoosh! Silver light flashed like a trailing ribbon as Li Qingjun's spear shot forth like a dragon, pinning a green python that had suddenly sprung out to the mountain wall. This girl dressed as a man possessed exceptionally fine martial arts; her cultivation had already entered the hall and reached the inner chamber.

A faint poisonous vapor spread out. She frowned and waved it away.

Li Qinglin seemed utterly confident in his sister's ability. He did not intervene, instead carefully observing the terrain in the mountains. Clouds and rosy mists curled through the hills, drifting over the place where the two stood. They were thin and did not impair vision much. He reached out and made a grasping motion, but the mist seemed to avoid him and dispersed instead.

"Qing Jun, after entering the mountain, have you felt uncomfortable anywhere?"

"I feel a chill seeping from my scalp to my marrow, and my skin is tingling..." Li Qingjun hugged her arms and shuddered. "It is like hearing the sound of two gun barrels scraping against each other..."

Before she finished speaking, a bone-chilling sensation suddenly arose, as if even their scalps were about to explode. The two turned to look and saw a wild boar covered head to toe in crimson leap from behind the rocks. Its tusks gleamed coldly, each over a foot long. Even from several yards away, they could smell the rank stench billowing from its bloody mouth.

Li Qinglin raised his spear as well.

Roar! The wild boar charged at them at tremendous speed, kicking up a cloud of sand and dust.

The two split to either side. The boar braked sharply, its hooves stamping a pit into the ground.

Just as Li Qingjun was about to thrust her spear, Li Qinglin's spearhead had already arrived from the other side. A dazzling, fierce gleam stabbed brutally into the boar's skull and pierced straight through. The boar struggled and squealed, yet did not die at once. Its tusks still tried to hook upward as though alive, their shape bizarre beyond measure.

Li Qingjun gave a soft shout and leaped gracefully into the air. Her spear drove straight into the boar's mouth. After struggling for a moment, the beast finally fell silent.

They had dispatched the savage beast in the time it took to chop melons and slice vegetables, yet neither felt the least pride, as though it were only natural. Looking at the boar's corpse, Li Qinglin suddenly smiled. "The villagers below this mountain are quite formidable. With such savage beasts in these hills, they still live so carefree. Qin Yi even lives right at the mountain's foot. Is he truly not afraid of death?"

Li Qingjun hesitated. "Could there really be some skilled cultivator hiding in these mountains, protecting the villagers...?"

"No." Li Qinglin's answer was as decisive as nails driven into iron. "There are no immortals in this world!"

As though answering his words, low sobbing rose from the thin mist on every side. Resentment seemed to coil around their hearts, impossible to shake off.

Li Qinglin listened to the sobbing without being moved. After pondering for a moment, he said, "I think these clouds and rosy mists are not Immortal Qi at all. They may instead be condensed from resentment and malevolent ghosts. This wild boar likely became like this after being affected by some filthy thing..."

At least half his judgment was correct. The clouds and mist were resentment, but the boar's mutation had nothing to do with them.

Li Qingjun asked curiously, "Then why are they such a bright red color, looking so ethereal and immortal?"

Li Qinglin said indifferently, "Who decided that red clouds look immortal? What color is blood?"

"Uh..."

"That is why this mist avoids me. I have fought on battlefields, and the Baleful Intent on me may be stronger than this resentment, which has lingered without anything to depend upon for millions of years and is about to disperse."

Li Qingjun trusted her brother deeply. Hearing this, she said, "Then perhaps many people died here millions of years ago?"

"I do not know. In any case, it looks close to dispersing completely." Li Qinglin took out Qin Yi's pill and weighed it in his hand, shaking his head with a smile. "The so-called poisonous miasma in the mountains is actually just resentment invading the body. The pills made by those third-rate Fangshi are instead more effective than proper Antitoxin Pills... This is the secret behind Qin Yi's claim that one pill can cure a hundred poisons."

Li Qingjun's eyes widened. "You... You came here for..."

"There may be ghosts and demons in this world, and there may be arts for catching ghosts and banishing demons, but there can be no true method of immortality. Otherwise, so many emperors have obsessed over it—why has not one of them achieved immortality? You and I have accomplished martial cultivation, and extending our years and preserving our lives is already no small feat. We can even destroy demons and ghosts. Why seek some immortal?" Li Qinglin declared resolutely. "Dong Huazi merely uses third-rate arts to deceive Father Emperor into cultivating the Dao and throws our court into disorder. I will simply bring a Fangshi back to expose his tricks."

"So you came here specifically for Qin Yi!" Li Qingjun stamped her foot. "You claimed you were accompanying me to seek immortals, but you only wanted to verify the rumors and find out whether he was the person you needed!"

Li Qinglin turned to look at her and repeated himself once more. "There are no immortals in this world."

Li Qingjun ran down the mountain in a huff. "I will expose that Qin swindler's true face right now! Let us see whether you intend to bring home a fraud no different from Dong Huazi!"

Li Qinglin watched her descend the mountain, shook his head with a smile, then looked up at the clouds and mist in the hills. He continued strolling toward higher ground.

He wanted to see the strange tiger Qin Yi had said would not chase people.