PS: Youngsters, hurl those Sanjiang votes at me!
At the very bottom of the great pit, an egg-sized, gem-like object emitting a faint azure glow suddenly appeared before Ye Zhen's eyes.
What was more, a short section of Stone Shoot was connected to the azure-glowing gem. At that moment, threads of azure liquid were faintly seeping from both the Stone Shoot and the azure treasure. Water stains from Marrow Spirit Liquid could even be seen seeping from the remaining bit of Stone Shoot.
Seeing this, Ye Zhen could almost certainly conclude that this egg-sized treasure emitting a faint azure glow was the source of the Marrow Spirit Liquid.
The effects of Marrow Spirit Liquid were already miraculous enough. How miraculous, then, must the treasure capable of producing it be?
Suddenly, Ye Zhen's expression changed sharply.
After the treasure that produced Marrow Spirit Liquid was exposed to the air, the glistening moisture on its surface gradually began to dry up. The remaining section of Stone Shoot lost all its moisture in an instant, turning into a pile of fine sand that fell away. Only the egg-sized azure gem remained, slowly shrinking like a wrinkled egg.
Its moisture was vanishing, and its radiance was slowly withdrawing. In the blink of an eye, the gem that had seemed like a divine object and emitted a faint azure glow became an utterly ordinary pebble.
Ye Zhen grew anxious and hastily buried the Marrow Spirit Pearl beneath the sand and soil again. "Marrow Spirit Pearl" was the name Ye Zhen had given this miraculous gemstone that could produce Marrow Spirit Liquid.
Yet no matter how hard Ye Zhen tried, no matter how much sand and gravel he piled over it, the Marrow Spirit Pearl remained devoid of all radiance and moisture, showing no sign whatsoever of recovering.
After waiting for a full two hours, Ye Zhen completely gave up hope that the Marrow Spirit Pearl would recover. Moreover, he could not wait any longer. In another hour or two, dawn would break.
He could only take the Marrow Spirit Pearl with him.
Ye Zhen believed that this Marrow Spirit Pearl was absolutely an extraordinary treasure, one that surely possessed uses he did not yet know about.
The Marrow Spirit Pearl was extremely heavy in his hand. It was hard to imagine that an egg-sized azure stone could weigh as much as a watermelon-sized rock. However, what truly made Ye Zhen feel that the Marrow Spirit Pearl was extraordinary was another discovery.
Just now, when the Marrow Spirit Pearl had entered his hand, Ye Zhen, still unwilling to give up, had a sudden idea and tried sending a thread of True Essence from within his body into it.
Something terrifying happened.
The instant a thread of True Essence thinner than a hair entered the Marrow Spirit Pearl, it became like a powder keg that had been lit. A terrifying, violent force abruptly surged out from within it.
Ye Zhen's thread of True Essence was instantly blasted to pieces by the violent force inside the Marrow Spirit Pearl. Even the aftershock of that retaliatory force caused considerable damage to the meridians in his palm.
Strangely enough, the moment the thread of True Essence Ye Zhen had sent in was utterly destroyed by the Marrow Spirit Pearl, the violent force inside it that had left him shocked and frightened instantly calmed down, as tranquil as an ordinary stone.
Afterward, Ye Zhen felt lingering fear.
Fortunately, he had been cautious and sent in only an extremely thin thread of True Essence. Had he casually sent in a wave of True Essence, the aftershock of the Marrow Spirit Pearl's violent retaliatory force would have shattered his arm at the very least.
If things had gone slightly wrong, taking Ye Zhen's life would have been easy.
"This Marrow Spirit Pearl is absolutely an incredible treasure. I must keep it safe. It may come in handy someday!"
After putting away the Marrow Spirit Pearl, Ye Zhen looked at the great pit Gu Duozhi had split open and felt somewhat melancholy. The Marrow Spirit Liquid, with its immensely wondrous effects, was gone just like that.
Yet what was lost in the east might be gained in the mulberry trees of the west. Perhaps this Marrow Spirit Pearl was an even more extraordinary treasure?
Before leaving, Ye Zhen had to deal with Gu Duozhi's corpse, at least bury it. Of course, before burying him, Ye Zhen would not lightly let go of Gu Duozhi's valuables.
Gu Duozhi did not carry much: a bottle and a half of Condensing True Pills, a Human-tier Low Grade cultivation manual called Lesser Heavenly Star Sword, one hundred gold leaves worth one tael each, and, most valuable of all, ten Blackwater Bank Silver Notes worth one thousand taels apiece.
Other than that, there was the long sword he carried and the Identity Jade Token representing Gu Duozhi's status as an Outer Disciple.
In the end, after careful consideration, Ye Zhen took only the bottle and a half of Condensing True Pills and the hundred gold leaves.
As for the ten thousand taels in Silver Notes, Ye Zhen compared them carefully and found that they were no different from the Silver Notes in his possession. Their markings were all identical, and even the serial numbers were random and disorderly. Only then did he tuck them into his clothes.
As for the most valuable Human-tier Low Grade cultivation manual, Lesser Heavenly Star Swordplay, as well as Gu Duozhi's personal long sword, Ye Zhen honestly buried them together with Gu Duozhi's corpse.
Ye Zhen was wise enough to know what could be touched and what could not. Earlier, Gu Duozhi had said that his room contained pills worth ten thousand gold, perhaps even more valuable treasures, but the foolish thought of going to Gu Duozhi's room never arose in Ye Zhen's mind.
When Ye Zhen was young, he had especially enjoyed reading novels and biographies at home. There were far too many examples in those stories of people with money but no life left to spend it.
In the end, Ye Zhen stared at Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token in his hand, unsure how to handle it.
Every Outer Disciple possessed an Identity Jade Token. This token was extremely wondrous: it could record an Outer Disciple's Sect Contribution Points and resonate with the Heaven and Earth Ranking. It was said to possess many other mysterious uses as well.
Ye Zhen did not know what other wondrous functions the Identity Jade Token had, so he did not dare dispose of it rashly. A slight mistake could concern his very life.
Within the Qi Yun Sect, those who murdered fellow disciples would be shown no mercy!
After pondering for a long time, Ye Zhen suddenly remembered some gossip he had heard in the dining hall. It was said that an Outer Disciple who had usually been rather solitary had died in the back mountains for half a year. His corpse had even decayed before anyone discovered it.
In the end, it was only through the remaining Identity Jade Token that the Outer Disciple's identity had been confirmed.
If that gossip was true, it meant one thing: an intact Identity Jade Token did not notify the sect whether its holder was alive or dead.
Once that point was confirmed, Ye Zhen needed to confirm only one more thing before he could conceal news of Gu Duozhi's death for a time.
After carefully removing every trace from the Cliff Secret Cave, Ye Zhen took Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token and silently left.
Ye Zhen left Hundred Pine Peak without alerting anyone. When he reached East Arrival Peak and saw Gu Duozhi's brightly shining name on the Earth Ranking, he finally let out the last breath he had been holding.
Once an Outer Disciple died, as long as the Identity Jade Token remained, their name would not disappear from the Earth Ranking. That way, Gu Duozhi's death would not be discovered by the sect in the short term.
The later the sect discovered it, the safer Ye Zhen would be.
The next day, Ye Zhen informed Steward Liu of East Arrival Peak, then left the Qi Yun Sect with a bundle on his back and set out for home.
The Qi Yun Sect was located in the Qi Yun Mountain Range, roughly four thousand li from Jincheng County in Wuan Commandery, Ye Zhen's hometown. The roads were rugged, and even at the fastest pace, traveling on foot would take a month. It would be an enormous waste of time.
Fortunately, the small town below the Qi Yun Sect sold Thousand-Mile Horses that crossed mountains as though walking on flat ground. Spending two thousand taels of silver, Ye Zhen bought a white Silver-Horned Horse with a single horn growing from its head to serve as his mount.
Silver-Horned Horses were horses that possessed an exceedingly faint Monster Beast bloodline. After ten thousand years of human propagation on the True Profound Continent, people had gradually tamed these immensely strong Silver-Horned Horses that crossed mountains as though walking on flat ground.
However, Silver-Horned Horses were not only expensive to purchase, but costly to feed as well. Their daily fodder cost nearly one tael of silver, something ordinary people simply could not afford.
Of course, to the current Ye Zhen, that was nothing at all.
Ye Zhen hurried along during the day, but he still set aside time to cultivate in the mornings and evenings, not daring to relax in the slightest.
One day, Ye Zhen rode his Silver-Horned Horse to the banks of the Blackwater River, which wound on for countless li. Looking at the river's ink-black waters and surging waves, Ye Zhen's heart suddenly stirred, and he threw Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token, which he had carried for several days, into the ceaselessly rushing Blackwater River.
The dangerous object he had carried for four or five days drifted away into the distance after Ye Zhen tossed it into the Blackwater River, bobbing and sinking along with the ink-black water.
At times, a wave smashed it into the riverbed; at times, it struck hidden reefs along the undercurrent; at times, the current hurled it against the riverbank. Finally, amid countless collisions, cracks slowly appeared on Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token.
Two days later, a wave swept over it, and Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token finally shattered into countless fragments, flowing away with the Blackwater River.
Almost at the very instant Gu Duozhi's Identity Jade Token shattered, his name on the Earth Ranking at the Qi Yun Sect's Heaven and Earth Cliff flashed rapidly before vanishing from the Earth Ranking.
Ye Zhen's name flickered slightly on the Earth Ranking before taking first place. Hong Bao, whom Ye Zhen had once beaten down to third place, climbed back to his former position as second.
Sensing something, Steward Liu of East Arrival Peak stared at Gu Duozhi's vanished name. After rushing to Gu Duozhi's residence to inspect it and make inquiries, his expression changed drastically, and he hurried toward Qi Tian Peak, the Qi Yun Sect's main peak!
"What? Gu Duozhi, first on the Earth Ranking, died unexpectedly? He was a disciple this old man had taken a liking to."
In an instant, the Qi Yun Sect's main peak was shaken. Several True Disciples who had not shown themselves for a long time, including Fan Chuyu, the True Disciple of Spirit Sword Peak, descended the mountain together!
PS: Pig Three was fortunate enough to board Sanjiang's grand airship, but Sanjiang has one very important metric: Sanjiang votes. If Pig Three takes first place in Sanjiang votes for the week, Pig Three can enter the Sanjiang Hanlin Academy.
I ask all brothers and sisters to lend Pig Three a hand and cast Pig Three a Sanjiang vote.
A reminder: Sanjiang votes are claimed from the upper-right corner of the Sanjiang category page. After claiming one, you can cast it!
Pig Three bows here in advance to all brothers!
Before you continue