Daoist Thieves (Part 2)

Gu Lingzi rambled on while Li Feng had already flipped through nearly half the alchemy manuals scattered on the ground. He could now be said to have a photographic memory, and with the spirit pills Zhao Yue'er had secretly given him, he read at an astonishing speed. Getting through this half of the manuals had taken no more than half an hour.

Li Feng's eyes were suddenly caught by a passage. Its general meaning was: "Medicinal ingredients of extreme yang can greatly stimulate a certain function in men. Thus, some cultivators who gather yin to nourish yang use certain medicines of utmost yang and hardness to stimulate the flesh before harvesting. Such pills have not been balanced through yin and yang; their aphrodisiac effect is sufficient, but the excessive fire energy severely ravages one's body. In the end, the vital energy gained from gathering yin is not enough to replenish what one's physical body has consumed."

Li Feng cheered inwardly. Damn, my ancestors are watching over me! Isn't this telling me how to refine the finest aphrodisiac? Ha, ha, ha! Although there's no detailed prescription, it seems Martial Uncle Gu truly doesn't know how to refine such pills. But as long as I understand the principle, with this young master's genius, can't I refine a batch of pills a hundred times stronger than Rejuvenation Pills? Heh heh, medicines of utmost yang and hardness... Little Cat's image suddenly surfaced in Li Feng's mind. Several miles away, Little Cat, who was dozing off, abruptly shuddered and instinctively clamped his hind legs tightly together.

Gu Lingzi carefully formed the final incantation seal and injected a stream of water-aspected energy into the pill furnace. Only then did he rise with a smile and say, "Speaking of pill refinement, setting aside how time-consuming it is, one must also pay attention to how the ingredients are matched. Generally speaking, the higher the quality of the ingredients, the better the medicinal potency of the pill. That is why pills with the same name—for example, Nine-Turn Dragon Tiger Pills—may sometimes be only third-grade earth rank, while others can reach second-grade earth rank. The reason lies in the materials."

"After all, ten-thousand-year Lingzhi Mushrooms are better than thousand-year ones, and thousand-year ones are better than eight-hundred-year ones. It's a matter of medicinal potency, isn't it?"

"And the accompanying materials matter as well—the quality of the pill furnace, for example. If one cannot use Samadhi True Fire to refine pills, then even the type of firewood used requires consideration."

Gu Lingzi wandered over to Li Feng's side. Seeing him engrossed in the "General Outline of the Dao of Alchemy" he had written, Gu Lingzi's brows danced with delight. Without caring whether Li Feng was listening, he continued, "If a cultivator wishes to refine pills, he must travel through countless mountains and rivers to gather herbs. Qingyun Flat, however, has been blessed by Heaven; ninety-nine percent of spirit herbs grow here, saving us immense trouble. Yet certain rare medicines still need to be actively collected. After all, herbs such as Candle Dragon Grass are naturally born spirit objects and can only be found in certain specific places."

Seeing that Li Feng had little interest in his words, Gu Lingzi tilted his head and thought for a moment. Then he suddenly said mysteriously, "But, Martial Nephew, I can also tell you about a forbidden method of pill refinement. It is truly forbidden. Never speak of it to anyone in the future. Even if you do tell someone, do not say that your martial uncle was the one who told you."

Li Feng's interest immediately rose. "Martial Uncle, what is this forbidden method?" His thoughts instantly veered toward certain matters of demons tussling in bed. He secretly laughed to himself. So this martial uncle actually likes that sort of thing. He's only pretending to be a gentleman in front of me.

Gu Lingzi chuckled a few times, looked around to make sure no one was present, then lowered his voice. "As for this forbidden art of alchemy, almost no one uses it, because it invites Heaven's wrath too greatly, and very few can succeed." Wearing a sinister expression, he said, "One captures a group of cultivators or accomplished demons, seizes their Nascent Souls or inner cores, or forcibly strips away their Golden Cores. Then one refines pills from these things combined with a batch of spirit herbs rich in cold yin energy. That would certainly produce a first-grade heaven-rank pill. If one is lucky, one might even refine the legendary immortal pill—a treasure which, once swallowed, lets one ascend to immortality in broad daylight."

Li Feng's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Seeing how tense he was, Gu Lingzi immediately laughed. "But this method is far too risky. Think about it—how easily can cultivators who have formed Nascent Souls be captured? Especially demons that possess inner cores; they are no easy opponents either... Still, even without a whole batch, a single Nascent Soul or inner core would be enough to refine a supreme-grade pill. Unfortunately, setting aside whether Heaven would spare you, if cultivators found out, the outcome would certainly be tens of thousands rushing over to strike you dead with Heavenly Lightning."

Gu Lingzi shook his head. "Therefore, very few people refine such pills. On the rare occasion that righteous cultivators do so, it is only because they happened upon one or two inner cores from demons that had not yet truly matured, and used them as ingredients... Sigh, thinking of it still fills your martial uncle with regret. Five years ago, a black tiger demon appeared deep within Mount Hua. It was grievously injured by the Heavenly Tribulation and, in its panic, fled beneath Mount Hua's main peak and indiscriminately harmed people. Those little fellows from the Mount Hua Sword Sect ended up hacking it to death... What a pity, what a pity. By the time I learned the news, it was already too late. A thousand-year inner core simply dissipated for nothing."

Gu Lingzi said angrily, "Those people from the Mount Hua Sword Sect were a pack of fools. Still, a few of them had some eye for valuables. Seeing how enormous that black tiger's body was, they took its bones, hide, tiger whip, and everything else up the mountain. They probably used them as medicinal ingredients. What a pity those things were nothing but a pile of trash."

The instant Li Feng heard the words "tiger whip," his ears pricked up. He stared unblinkingly at Gu Lingzi. Gu Lingzi merely shook his head and said, "What a pity, what a pity. A thousand-year inner core... An inner core acquired by chance like that is not taboo; one could safely refine it into a pill. Who would have thought? What a bunch of bastards... Well, Nascent Souls and inner cores are condensations of essence, energy, spirit, and the primordial energy of Heaven and Earth. The power contained within them is immensely strong."

Yet Li Feng no longer had the mind to linger. All his attention had settled on the thousand-year black tiger's tiger whip. Frowning, he thought, It's been five years. Is that tiger whip still in the Mount Hua Sword Sect? But even if it isn't, I won't lose anything by going. Suddenly, Li Feng wailed inwardly, I'm such a pig! The Mount Hua Sword Sect has been such a huge piece of fat right beside me for over three whole years, and I never even took a bite! It's decided. Tiger whip or not, I have to make a trip there. Heh heh.

How could Gu Lingzi possibly know what Li Feng was plotting? Seeing him space out, he asked with concern, "Martial Nephew, what is it?"

Li Feng seized the opening and groaned, "Martial Uncle, your alchemy is indeed marvelous, and your manuals are truly profound. Your nephew cannot fully comprehend them for the moment. How about lending me a few manuals, so I can return to my room and study them by candlelight tonight?" After three years of learning characters, Li Feng's speech had finally acquired a somewhat refined air.

Gu Lingzi's vanity was greatly gratified. In the entire Yiyuan Sect, only he had such a singular devotion to alchemy. His fellow disciples constantly urged him to rely less on the power of spirit medicines and focus on deepening his own cultivation instead. Those words had long worn calluses on his ears. Now that Li Feng seemed so eager for his alchemy, how could he not be excited? He repeatedly agreed at once, personally selected more than a dozen of his proudest works, and personally escorted Li Feng back to his room.

Once Li Feng saw Gu Lingzi leave, he stretched out his legs and kicked those scrolls to the foot of the bed. Sitting cross-legged on the meditation cushion in his room, Li Feng settled his breathing and simply waited for night to fall.

When the moon climbed to the center of the sky, Li Feng's two thief eyes rolled, and he immediately awoke from meditation. He sighed from the bottom of his heart. "Damn it, this circulation of inner breath is more accurate than a rooster crowing. It wakes me whenever I say it should wake me. Heh heh..." Lightly patting Little Cat, who had somehow slipped into his room, Li Feng quietly crept out. Little Cat seemed to sense that Li Feng was about to do something no good, and followed behind him with a secretive look on his face. The two moved down Qingyun Flat like a pair of ghostly shadows. Along the way, Li Feng also plucked several stalks of Illusion Mist Grass, which had an intense dizzying effect on ordinary people.

An oily-faced, fat red-robed Daoist, four feet tall and four feet around the waist, stepped out from behind a bamboo tree. He stared blankly after Little Cat and muttered, "Eh, how strange. I was only in seclusion for ten years—how did Little Cat get so much fatter? He's nearly got this Daoist master's bearing... Eh, where did this little fellow come from? His method of circulating energy does seem to belong to our Yiyuan Sect, but in the middle of the night, why isn't he meditating in his room? What's he going out for?... Hmm, there must be a good show. If I, Chi Chengzi, don't go take a look, wouldn't I be a complete pighead?"

A faint red glow enveloped Chi Chengzi. He transformed into a phantom invisible to the naked eye and followed far behind Li Feng.

Li Feng swept like the wind to the foot of Mount Hua's main peak and instructed Little Cat, "Be good, Little Cat. I'm going up to find something. If someone chases me down, help drive them away, understand? I'll bring down lots and lots of delicious things." Hearing there would be good food, Little Cat nodded again and again, drool dripping from his mouth.

Behind them, Chi Chengzi stared dumbfoundedly at the drool at the corner of Little Cat's mouth and wailed inwardly, Heavens! Little Cat, I was the one who carried you up the mountain. I never realized you were this gluttonous! How come now your drool is pouring out like a tide? Wuwuwuwu, poor Little Cat, you've been led astray.

While Chi Chengzi wailed, Li Feng had already circled toward the small path leading up Mount Hua's main peak. From halfway up the peak onward, black-clothed disciples of the Mount Hua Sword Sect were patrolling the mountain at night. It seemed they had already treated Mount Hua as their private property. Li Feng followed five patrolling disciples around a small path and proceeded for more than ten li, leaving Mount Hua's main peak far behind. Only then did he arrive at the place where the Mount Hua Sword Sect had founded its school.

It was a level stretch of ground within a mountain hollow, packed with buildings and containing at least thirty large courtyards. More than a dozen black-clothed men could be seen wandering around while yawning. They too appeared to be sword sect disciples patrolling at night to guard against thieves.

Like a feather, Li Feng drifted into the largest courtyard on a gust of night wind. Along the way, he casually gave two patrolling disciples a punch each, knocking them unconscious on the spot. This fellow, who had been a thief since childhood in Suzhou Prefecture, quickly deduced which tall building should be the residence of their leader. He activated a Heavenly Escape talisman. Moon-white light flashed over his body, and Li Feng immediately vanished.

Chi Chengzi's jaw nearly dropped. He stammered, "Heavenly Escape... a Heavenly Escape talisman? Impossible! That's the treasure Junior Sister likes using most to play tricks on people. How could it be on this brat? This is trouble. How am I supposed to find him now?"

Soon, however, Chi Chengzi had no need to worry, because a faint white mist enveloped the entire courtyard. Li Feng had evaporated Illusion Mist Grass with True Essence, transforming it into a spreading fog saturated with narcotic potency. After waiting roughly half an incense stick's time, Li Feng appeared sneakily at the window of the tallest pavilion. Floating in midair, he brazenly tore off the room's window, peered inside for a while, then immediately flipped in.

Chi Chengzi stuck out his tongue and exclaimed in astonishment, "No way? He's stealing?" He darted over, carefully poked out one eye, and peeped at Li Feng's actions.

Li Feng swaggered over to the old man on the bed and searched him for a while. Apparently finding nothing good, he immediately began rifling through the bedside cabinet. After finding several keys, Li Feng contentedly gave the sleeping old man several hard knocks on the head and began wandering around the room. Before Chi Chengzi could even make out Li Feng's movements, Li Feng had already gleefully opened a hidden door, revealing more than a dozen keyholes.

One secret compartment after another was opened. The first thing Li Feng took out was a black object, as thick as a child's fist and over a foot long. He sniffed it carefully and examined it closely before finally whispering, "Wonderful! It's exactly the same shape as Little Cat's whip. Heh heh, the tiger whip of a thousand-year tiger demon. Good stuff." He untied a large cloth sack from his waist and quickly tossed the tiger whip inside.

Then Li Feng stuffed deed after deed to various properties, stack after stack of silver and gold banknotes, gold ingot after gold ingot, a box of jewelry, and two or three items that seemed to be secret manuals into the sack. After circling the room once more, he uprooted even the purple-gold paperweight from the desk and stuffed it into his bundle, as though pulling weeds up by the roots.

Chi Chengzi's mouth opened wider and wider. In the end, his jaw made a soft click. He had opened his mouth too forcefully and dislocated it himself. In a panic, Chi Chengzi promptly slapped his own jaw and set the joint back in place.

Li Feng looked around. Seeing that there was truly nothing else worth taking, he pulled out the Vermilion Bird Crescent and, with a thoroughly black heart, pried the two pieces of green jade set into the backs of the Grand Tutor's Chairs in the room. Only then did he leap contentedly out the window.

Afterward, faint white mist continuously rose from courtyard after courtyard within the Mount Hua Sword Sect. With bloodshot eyes, Li Feng did not spare even the last copper coin on the lowest-ranking Mount Hua disciples. He swept everything into his sack, which was a full zhang long. From the slightly higher-ranking Mount Hua disciples, he pulled out every hairpin that was not made of copper or iron. From the more important disciples, he took every tiny pearl set into their sword hilts. From Mount Hua swordsmen of still higher standing, he tore off all the fine jade and gold pearls embedded in their belts...

The black shadow flashed again as Li Feng burst into the Mount Hua Sect's important kitchen. Rows of air-dried chickens and ducks vanished into his sack, along with two jars of fine wine.

Because of Gu Lingzi's passing sigh, Mount Hua suffered a devastating plunder from top to bottom.

Li Feng ran off happily, humming a rustic tune. Before leaving, he even stuffed all the clothes of nearly a thousand Mount Hua disciples into the latrine pit. He had come only one fire short of burning down the entire Mount Hua Sect. Chi Chengzi stood in the deathly silent heartland of the Mount Hua Sect, which resembled a ghost domain, and raised his head to the sky with a miserable howl. "Three Pure Ones above, is this truly a disciple of our Yiyuan Sect? Heavens, he's more vicious than the fiercest bandits this Daoist master has ever seen... Heavens, the future of the Yiyuan Sect is without light..."

Early the next morning, just as Li Feng and Little Cat were happily dividing their spoils in a secluded spot on Qingyun Flat, the entire Mount Hua Sect was thrown into turmoil. Seeing the wealth he had accumulated through decades of effort swept away in one stroke, the old sect master of Mount Hua was overcome by raging heart-fire. A lump of phlegm blocked his airway, and he died on the spot. The naked Mount Hua disciples discovered one by one that even their last bit of wealth had been stolen clean away. Suspicion turned them against one another, and they fought viciously. After the internal chaos, more than a hundred were dead or wounded. Seeing such a miserable scene before them, Mount Hua's elders were horrified and hurriedly dispatched trusted men to scour the mountain for suspicious clues...

In the end, everyone concluded that it had to be an inside thief. After all, no one could possibly have stolen so much beneath the noses of more than a thousand Mount Hua "experts."

Thus, Wei Ziqun's Third Senior Brother, who had been responsible for this month's patrol duties, immediately became the scapegoat. Wei Ziqun gathered a group of people and expelled him from the sect... Afterward, the Mount Hua Sect launched a vigorous campaign to rectify its conduct. Every disciple was lectured repeatedly and warned that ill-gotten wealth must never be taken. The only thing that pained Wei Ziqun, who had assumed the position of sect master, was that they had not recovered even a single copper coin.

The only ones who knew the truth, aside from the accomplices Little Cat and Li Feng, were Chi Chengzi. Having no intention of revealing this matter that disgraced the sect's reputation, the first thing Chi Chengzi did after returning to the Yiyuan Sect was set up more than a hundred layers of restrictions outside his Alchemy Room and study. He then kept all his important magic treasures on his person, including a golden relic pagoda standing four feet tall.

Seeing the newly emerged Chi Chengzi behaving so strangely, Xie Yuezi and Gu Lingzi naturally had a good laugh at his expense. Chi Chengzi, meanwhile, secretly glanced at innocent-faced Li Feng and continually warned himself, No matter how unsightly it is, I absolutely cannot leave these things in my rooms. This brat... Hmm, though if our Yiyuan Sect ever needs to steal the manuals of another sect, wouldn't it be... Amitayus Buddha, sin, sin. Three Pure Ones above, this disciple did not mean it.

Li Feng narrowed his eyes and kept flashing an utterly innocent smile, but inside he was plotting. Hmm, the Mount Hua Sect probably won't have much left to squeeze for the next three years. Within three hundred li around Mount Hua, what other good sects are there to rob? Who would have thought the Mount Hua Sect's total wealth exceeded two million taels of silver? Tsk tsk, a large sect really does bring in money... Hmm, Xi'an Prefecture seems to be near Mount Hua, doesn't it?