As the sun set in the west, the evening clouds blazed like a sky on fire. A flock of geese flew south, adding a touch of vivid beauty to the twilight scroll. From atop the walls of the Precious Medicine Workshop came laughter so deafening it was like thunder from the nine heavens, scattering the geese overhead out of formation.
After laughing heartily, Mu Wutian let out a strange chuckle. "Old dog, I heard your master has gone missing. Could it be that he had too many enemies and was quietly taken care of?"
Old dog?
The hunchbacked old man narrowed his eyes. Though a cold glint flickered in their depths, he said nothing. He knew Mu Wutian's origins well. With his cultivation and strength, he was simply no match for Mu Wutian. Even the two old men beside Mu Wutian gave him an immense sense of danger.
Life and death. Humiliation.
The hunchbacked old man did not care!
But he cared about Ye Tong, who was at a critical juncture!
"Coward..."
Mu Wutian snorted coldly through his nostrils and said grimly, "Back then, Poison Demon flooded my Jade Island and scattered Intestine-Piercing Medicine, destroying my hundred-acre medicinal garden. Today, I shall burn down Poison Demon's nest and destroy his means of livelihood. Do you have any objections?"
The hunchbacked old man's expression changed drastically, and a resolute aura erupted from his body.
The buildings could be destroyed if they had to be!
But!
Even if he died, he would protect the young master to the end.
The hunchbacked old man recalled all the care the young master had once shown him.
Poison Demon Huo Lanqiu was vicious and violent by nature. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he either beat or cursed the old man. Whenever the young master was present, he would protect him, even if the final result was that he himself would be beaten and cursed, subjected to Huo Lanqiu's even more brutal poison experiments.
The hunchbacked old man had no family. Not even following Huo Lanqiu for decades had given him the slightest sense of closeness.
However!
The young master was different.
His arrival, his concern, and the suffering he had endured for the old man in the past warmed his heart, making him certain that he had found the only family he would ever have in this life.
Mu Wutian revealed a look of disdain. With a flip of his hand, an exquisitely crafted blue-and-white porcelain bottle appeared in his grasp. As he removed the stopper, streams of medicinal liquid as thin as silver needles shot toward every corner of the courtyard. At the same time, Mu Wutian flicked his fingers, sending a cloud of phosphorus powder swirling through the air.
Boom...
The medicinal liquid touched the phosphorus powder, and flames suddenly erupted, like a surging tidal wave of fire. They spread at high speed, instantly setting ablaze every building touched by the liquid.
Everyone in the courtyard
was immediately trapped in a sea of flames.
Zhang Zhongying was in a foul mood, an exceptionally foul mood. Having come here today, she had first been humiliated by Ye Tong, then intimidated by the hunchbacked old man. Now, several people had appeared out of nowhere, treating her like an ant and even trapping her in the fire.
Zhang Zhongying was overcome with shame and fury.
Though she felt that Mu Wutian was no good man, she could not suppress the stifled rage in her heart. She angrily rebuked him, "Old bastard, setting fires at will is an unforgivable crime. Aren't you afraid of Cold Mountain City's laws punishing you?"
Old bastard?
The corner of Mu Wutian's eye twitched. The instant he swung his arm, a resounding slap rang out. This strike sent Zhang Zhongying flying seven or eight meters before she crashed heavily beneath the courtyard wall. A bright red palm print bloomed on her well-maintained cheek, and blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.
"Foolish child, you dare threaten me with laws? Hmph... That rubbish is dog shit in my eyes."
Zhang Pinsou's face darkened, but he did not act rashly. He looked toward the stunning girl, only to find her silently shaking her head at him.
Mu Wutian sneered, then turned to the hunchbacked old man and said in a deep voice, "I do not care whether that old demon Huo is dead or alive, nor do I care if he is playing some sinister scheme. In any case, I have vented my anger! Hahahaha..."
Amid a burst of wild laughter, Mu Wutian and the other two old men abruptly departed.
The hunchbacked old man narrowed his eyes, but secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
The world came in countless forms; where there was cause, there would be effect.
The cause his master had planted back then had borne fruit today in this humiliation.
When one's skills fell short, one could only endure.
The hunchbacked old man coldly glanced at Zhang Zhongying, who was struggling to rise from the corner, and silently sighed at her ignorance. Then he turned and rushed toward the side courtyard. The blaze was growing fiercer by the moment, and it was already too late to put it out. What he had to do was ensure Ye Tong's safety in the side courtyard.
"Father..."
Zhang Zhongying's eyes were filled with venomous resentment. Yet the moment she spoke, Zhang Pinsou stopped her with a stern glare.
The stunning girl sighed softly and shook her head at Zhang Zhongying. Her pleasant voice rang out. "Yin Yang Old Freak Mu Wutian is a powerhouse at the top of the Sky Net Empire's food chain. Rumor has it that he has already broken through to the Innate Realm. He is both righteous and wicked in his actions, and he has long lived on Jade Island in the South Sea. If he wished, he could slaughter the entire Zhang clan in the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea. If he wished, he could destroy all of Cold Mountain City in a single day."
"What?!" Zhang Zhongying's expression changed wildly upon hearing this, and her body trembled violently. It was as though thunder roared within her heart. Deep regret surged through her like a tide, flooding her chest.
She knew the stunning girl's background and character, so she did not doubt her words in the least. Faced with such a terrifying existence, she had actually dared to speak so rudely. The fact that he had not killed her was probably already an immense stroke of luck, wasn't it?
The raging fire burned ever more fiercely.
Inside the side courtyard's room, Ye Tong sat cross-legged in a stone barrel, enduring excruciating agony. Following the circulation route of the Marrow Cleansing Poison Scripture, his Nian controlled the wisp of true qi within his meridians, guiding it slowly onward.
At this moment,
his muscles and tendons, bones and internal organs, were all coated in a gray-black substance. This substance contained potent poison. Every moment, the toxin corroded his body and destroyed his vital functions.
Every pore on Ye Tong's body had fully opened. The thick, ink-green Hundred Poisons Liquid contained extremely powerful toxins that bored into his opened pores thread by thread, strand by strand, like a woven net spreading layer upon layer and covering him in overlapping sheets.
The agonizing pain gradually began to lessen.
The toxin in the Hundred Poisons Liquid seemed to possess a cleansing effect. As time passed, the gray-black substance grew fainter and less abundant. Ye Tong's bodily functions also slowly began repairing themselves.
Heat
surged in from every direction, turning the room into a steamer. Sparks gradually rose into a prairie-burning blaze. Even buckets of ice-cold well water could only slow the spread of the fire. The Purple Coffin hanging from the rafters fell as its ropes burned through, crashing directly onto Ye Tong's head in the stone barrel.
A trickle of blood
slid down Ye Tong's face and dripped into the medicinal liquid. Within just a few breaths, threads of blood seeped into the Purple Coffin at the bottom of the barrel. The coffin suddenly erupted with dazzling black and white light. Black and white intertwined like two savage beasts, fighting and contending in the most primal of ways.
Pfft...
The falling Purple Coffin struck Ye Tong's head, and he immediately felt his soul sway. Within his sea of consciousness, the ball of light he had painstakingly suppressed for ten years seemed to receive some sort of summons and began expanding at astonishing speed.
Crack...
It sounded like an eggshell breaking, yet it boomed in Ye Tong's mind like an exploding thunderclap.
As the light burst forth, flowing images and all manner of strange words converged into streams, then rivers, before finally pouring into his sea of consciousness, intertwining and merging with his memories...
Time passed.
The Precious Medicine Workshop burned into ruins beneath a sky full of flames, while a choking stench of scorched ash rolled through the high heat. The bedraggled hunchbacked old man stared into the side room after the fire had been extinguished, at the youth sitting cross-legged in the stone barrel.
After a long while,
the hunchbacked old man slowly turned his head and looked at the stunning girl. Gratitude flashed through his clouded eyes. He nodded and said, "Thank you for your help. May I ask what this young lady is called?"
"Mu Qianlan."
Though Mu Qianlan looked somewhat disheveled and her face had been darkened by smoke and fire, her smile was gentle as spring. Her starlike eyes watched Ye Tong in the side room as she asked, "Is there something wrong with his body?"
"He is all right."
The hunchbacked old man neither denied nor confirmed it.
Mu Qianlan could tell that the hunchbacked old man did not wish to discuss the matter further, and she did not want to force him. She glanced toward the courtyard gate in the distance, where Zhang Pinchao and Zhang Zhongying stood watching without helping to put out the fire. Suppressing a trace of disappointment in her heart, she changed the subject. "Could you answer a question for me? Why did Yin Yang Old Freak Mu Wutian suddenly appear, only to set a fire and leave at once?"
The hunchbacked old man asked, "You mean to ask why he did not kill us outright, and instead merely set a fire before leaving? Hehe... He was afraid!"
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of this old servant's master..."
Time.
It seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, yet it also seemed to flow through countless eras.
This... was Ye Tong's most unreal sensation.
The scenes in his mind finally froze on a day from his memories. Deep within a mountain range stretching ten thousand miles, towering mountains and vast rivers stood amid tiger roars, ape cries, and coiling dragons. A hundred-zhang rift in the azure sky slowly closed.
His eyelashes trembled.
He slowly opened his eyes. An expression that seemed both joyful and sorrowful appeared on his pale, delicate face, making him look especially strange. A language unlike that of this world drifted from between his slightly parted lips.
"I am..."
"Ye Tian..."
"Ma Yi Divine Physiognomy..."
"Shattering the Void..."
"Since that is the case, I will be Ye Tong first!"
His memories had fused, with Ye Tian taking the lead. Yet for some unknown reason, Ye Tong's youthful disposition had been preserved.
This was a new world, a world of cultivation a thousand times more wondrous than Earth. Therefore, he needed to be reborn with Ye Tong's identity and step into this world.
After a long while,
his arms slowly rose. Between his palms was the Purple Coffin that had fallen into the medicinal liquid. As his fingers gently stroked it, the black and white flowing light winding around it burrowed into his palms, then seemed to have a clear destination as it easily entered his sea of consciousness. In the end, the black and white light merged into one, forming a book.
The book had four pages in two colors. The upper two pages were white, while the lower two were black.
"Book of Life and Death!"
He had succeeded in transcending the tribulation, yet while crossing the void, he had triggered spatial turbulence. The layers of space became chaotic, and his body was destroyed in the violent spatial currents. Only a wisp of divine consciousness had come here. What he had not expected was that the Book of Life and Death had survived as well.
Ye Tong tossed aside the Purple Coffin and slowly stood from the stone barrel. After a relatively intact fleece garment covered the crisscrossing scars on his body, he tied its sash and said calmly, "If you have seen enough, wait outside."
Outside,
Mu Qianlan's pretty face reddened. Realizing that she had just seen a youth's body in its entirety, she immediately turned away with that shy embarrassment. No one but herself knew how fast her heart had raced in that instant. Yet after only a few breaths, her heart quieted again, leaving her feeling weighed down.
"Those wounds on his body..."
"How could they be so terrifying?"
"What exactly had he gone through? How much pain and torment had he suffered?"
Once Ye Tong was fully dressed, he entered the courtyard and calmly asked the hunchbacked old man, whose face was full of concern, "Who was it this time?"
The hunchbacked old man respectfully replied, "Yin Yang Old Freak Mu Wutian."
Ye Tong curled his lip and snorted. "Coward."
Hearing this, the hunchbacked old man chuckled. "Mu Wutian insulted this old servant in precisely the same way earlier."
Ye Tong said disdainfully, "That old bastard may have done every evil under heaven, but he also planted seeds of fear in the hearts of those enemies. They only dare make a clamor here, destroy a few things to vent their anger, yet they never dare harm our lives. Those cowards are simply fated to be bullied."
The hunchbacked old man smiled bitterly. "Young master, the Precious Medicine Workshop has been destroyed. What should we do?"
Ye Tong turned to look north, where the ten-thousand-mile mountain range lay. It contained countless natural treasures, but also endless dangers. Only after quite some time did he say calmly, "If it's destroyed, then so be it. It is time for us to go out and take a walk. Before we leave, I will first go see that little girl..."
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