The burly giant cursed as he turned around and strode out of the shed.
Yu Xiaogang lay sprawled in the stinking manure pile, his bones aching as if several of them had been broken.
He looked at the wooden bucket full of minced meat in front of him, and the delight and superiority in his eyes vanished without a trace.
In their place came deep humiliation and helplessness.
That was right.
So what if he had found a cultivation technique? So what if he could draw spiritual energy into his body?
Here, he was still a slave who didn't dare even lift his head.
He could only grit his teeth, hold back his tears, crawl out of the manure pile, pick up a wooden stick, and obediently mix meat for that Black Wind Pig.
This sight left the viewers on the Douluo Continent with a complicated mix of emotions.
They were excited that he had found a new cultivation system, yet heartbroken by Yu Xiaogang's miserable circumstances.
This world of cultivation slapped you in the face, gave you a sweet date, then kicked you hard again. It was enough to drive anyone mad.
The scene on the Sky Screen slowly faded, leaving only Yu Xiaogang's back as he mixed the pig feed.
Then the setting shifted once again.
This time, the scene moved to that mortal city amid the swirling snow.
But the snow had stopped.
There was no moon in the night sky, only a fine, dense drizzle of cold rain.
The rain wasn't heavy, but it carried a chill that seemed to seep right into your bones.
In the backyard of the woodcarving shop.
Yue Guan stood bare-chested, holding an ordinary iron axe as he hacked forcefully at a thick log.
He was a Titled Douluo at level ninety-six. This ordinary cold was nothing to him.
He worked hard, each swing splitting the firewood into neat pieces.
He didn't even dare use a trace of Soul Power, afraid that the slightest fluctuation from him might displease the unfathomable Senior Wang inside.
After chopping a stack of firewood,
Yue Guan set down the axe and wiped the sweat from his brow.
He raised his head and peered cautiously into the shop through the half-open wooden window in the backyard.
A faint oil lamp burned inside.
Wang Lin sat beneath it, holding a carving knife and a fine piece of agarwood. His expression was utterly focused.
Yue Guan held his breath, his eyes fixed on Wang Lin's hands.
He had already tasted the benefits.
Seeing a wooden chrysanthemum during the day had helped him break through his bottleneck.
Now Senior Wang was carving something in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. This was surely a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity.
As the carving knife slid slowly across the wood,
shavings fell with a soft rustle.
Yue Guan gradually made out what Wang Lin was carving.
It wasn't flowers or birds, nor was it some beast or flying creature.
It was the likeness of a person.
More precisely, the outline of a woman.
Wang Lin carved very slowly, each stroke seeming to take all his strength.
Yue Guan widened his eyes, trying to discern the artistic conception hidden within the carving.
But this time, he saw no life force, nor any cycle of life and death.
Just as the woman's facial features began to take shape,
an indescribable sorrow suddenly welled up along the grain of the wood, like a river bursting through its banks.
The grief was too intense.
It was as if it had dyed the air around them a dull gray.
Standing outside the window, Yue Guan shuddered violently.
He felt as if someone had seized his heart in a painful grip, and a wave of sorrow surged from his chest straight to his nose.
"Drip..."
Tears welled uncontrollably in Yue Guan's eyes.
He didn't even know why he was crying. He just felt unbearably miserable, as though he had lost the most precious thing in the world.
He looked at Wang Lin beneath the lamp.
That terrifying senior who had effortlessly turned back time during the day, and who had remained unmoved even in the face of life and death.
At that moment, tears glimmered in his eyes too.
Those eyes, which had seen through the vicissitudes of time, were filled with reluctance, longing, and deep helplessness.
As the sorrow spread through the little woodcarving shop,
the cold rain outside suddenly changed.
Raindrops froze in midair, turning into ice crystals before transforming into great flakes of snow.
This was no ordinary snow.
It fell without a sound, carrying a bone-deep sadness.
It was as if the heavens had sensed the man's feelings and were weeping with him.
"A single thought stirred the celestial phenomena..."
Yue Guan knelt in the snowy backyard, covering his face with both hands as he wept like a helpless child.
His final thought was:
Who was this woman?
Who could make a mighty figure of this level wear such a heart-rending expression?
Beyond the Sky Screen, all the viewers on the Douluo Continent were stunned.
That sorrow had seeped through the screen, touching every one of them.
Countless people found their eyes reddening for no reason.
They suddenly felt an inexplicable anticipation toward this lofty, ruthless world of cultivation.
Behind those endless killings, there seemed to be a past that left one sighing with emotion.
The scene on the Sky Screen seemed designed to toy with the nerves of everyone on the Douluo Continent.
Just a moment ago, they had been immersed in that snowbound mortal city, feeling the deep affection and weary sorrow radiating from Shopkeeper Wang.
The next moment, the screen on the far right suddenly lurched and twisted violently.
The swirling snow vanished.
In its place was an endless darkness that made your bones feel cold just to look at it.
The enormous black hand, formed from tens of thousands of vengeful spirits, gripped Gui Mei, now refined into a puppet, like a torn sack and quickly withdrew into the depths of White Bone Canyon.
As the giant hand moved, the viewers on the Douluo Continent finally got a clear look inside the Soul Refining Sect.
The sky here was gray and gloomy, untouched by sunlight year-round.
The ground was blanketed in a thick layer of bone dust, crunching unpleasantly underfoot.
The surrounding cliffs were riddled with caves, and green Ghost Fire burned at the entrance of every one.
The black hand continued deeper into the sect, finally stopping in a broad Bone Plaza.
With a bang,
the hand dissipated into a cloud of black mist. Gui Mei's stiff body crashed heavily to the ground, scattering white bone dust.
An old, hunched man in a loose black robe, with a high hump on his back, slowly emerged from a mass of green Ghost Fire.
His face was covered in brown corpse spots, and he leaned on a cane made from a thighbone.
He walked up to Gui Mei, poked his shoulder with the cane, and parted his shriveled lips in a night-owl's cackle.
"How interesting. A body born with such a strong yin chill is a rare thing on our Vermilion Bird Planet."
The hunched old man was an ordinary elder of the Soul Refining Sect.
He bent down and reached out a hand, dry as a bird's claw, preparing to examine Gui Mei.
Just as his fingers were about to touch the center of Gui Mei's brow,
a voice, so old it seemed to come from the depths of time, suddenly rang out from the forbidden land shrouded in endless black mist at the far end of White Bone Canyon.
"Bring him to the back mountain."
The voice wasn't loud. It even sounded weak and feeble.
Yet the moment it rang across the plaza,
the hunched old man jolted in terror, and the bone cane slipped from his hand and hit the ground.
He didn't even dare pick it up. His knees buckled, and he dropped to his knees in the bone dust, pressing his forehead to the ground without daring to breathe.
"Y-yes... as you command, Ancestor!"
His voice brimmed with fear and reverence that came from the depths of his soul.
He scrambled to his feet, snatched up Gui Mei, lowered his head, hunched his back, and hurried toward the forbidden land deep in the canyon like a docile old rat.
Douluo Continent.
In the Pope Palace in Spirit City, everyone who had been lamenting Gui Mei's fate stared wide-eyed.
Qian Daoliu drew in a sharp breath, his white brows knitting tightly together.
"Ancestor?"
His voice grew unusually solemn.
"To make a sect elder so terrified, could the speaker be that old monster Vermilion Bird Master mentioned?"
Bibi Dong sat on her throne, gripping her scepter tightly.
She swallowed, feeling her heart beat faster and faster.
Even Vermilion Bird Master, who controlled the entire planet, was deeply wary whenever he spoke of this person. He had even avoided confronting him directly.
Just what kind of terrifying existence was this ancestor of the Soul Refining Sect?
In the scene,
the hunched old man carried Gui Mei into a vast cavern.
Hundreds upon hundreds of black flags hung from the cavern walls, each one filled with the shrill cries of wailing ghosts.
At the very center of the cavern stood a throne piled from countless black skulls.
An emaciated old man sat cross-legged upon it.
He was so thin that only skin clung to his bones. His sunken eye sockets and gray robe made him look like an empty clothes rack.
Half his body had even begun to rot, giving off the stench of a corpse.
If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, anyone who saw him would have thought he was a dried corpse freshly dug out of a grave.
This was the strongest cultivator in the Soul Refining Sect, the one whose name struck fear across the entire Vermilion Bird Planet.
Ancestor Duntian!
The hunched old man stopped more than ten zhang from the throne, not daring to take another step.
He respectfully laid Gui Mei on the ground, then knelt and kowtowed again.
Ancestor Duntian slowly opened his eyes.
There was no white in them, only two slowly spinning black whirlpools.
Deep within those whirlpools seemed to lie an entire hell, where countless living beings struggled and sank.
Ancestor Duntian's gaze settled lightly on Gui Mei.
It was only one glance.
The temperature in the entire cavern plunged below freezing. The black flags hanging from the surrounding stone walls froze in place, and the ghostly wails within them abruptly ceased.
"Heh..."
Ancestor Duntian opened his mouth, with only a few teeth left, and let out a harsh chuckle.
"That sly old fox Vermilion Bird Master has grown bolder."
"He even dared to let his disciple play such an inelegant illusion trick right under my nose."
Ancestor Duntian's voice sounded like two rotten planks scraping together, dripping with scorn.
He slowly raised his right hand, little more than skin stretched over bones.
From more than ten zhang away, he gave a gentle squeeze toward the space between Gui Mei's brows.
"Shatter."
At that airy little word,
a dazzling burst of white light suddenly erupted from the center of Gui Mei's brow.
The Puppet Mark that Liu Mei had planted with the Thousand Illusions Heartless Path crumbled before this invisible force like paper, shattering into countless tiny specks of light before vanishing completely.
At the very moment the mark was crushed,
far away, on Vermilion Bird Mountain,
inside a luxurious red cave abode,
Liu Mei, who had been resting with her eyes closed on a soft couch, jerked upright.
Her beautiful eyes flew open, streaked with bloodshot terror.
"Pfft!"
A large mouthful of blackened blood sprayed from Liu Mei's mouth, splattering onto the expensive white fox fur before her with a sizzling hiss as it ate away at the pelt.
Clutching her chest, Liu Mei tumbled off the soft couch and onto the floor.
Her once snow-white face visibly aged. Several distinct crow's-feet appeared at the corners of her eyes.
"Who was it? Who broke my Heartseal Mark..."
Liu Mei's whole body convulsed with pain, and her voice trembled so badly she could barely speak.
Just then, someone shoved open the stone door to the cave.
Vermilion Bird Master strode inside.
The mighty figure who controlled the planet wore a face so gloomy it looked ready to drip water.
He glanced at Liu Mei, who lay on the ground spitting blood, and snorted.
"You useless thing. What a disgrace!"
Vermilion Bird Master flicked his sleeve and turned his gaze toward the hazy gray sky beyond the cave. His teeth ground together.
"Old Monster Duntian..."
Vermilion Bird Master clenched his fists, then slowly relaxed them. Deep wariness and helplessness flickered in his eyes.
He knew that his little attempt to send someone to probe the other side had been seen through on the spot—and that the other party had even taught his disciple a harsh lesson from afar.
But he didn't dare show even the slightest temper. He could only swallow his anger.
The audience on the Douluo Continent stared at the scene, dumbfounded.
In the main hall of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
Ning Fengzhi held a folding fan in his hand, but for a long while he didn't move it even once.
"What an overbearing method..."
Ning Fengzhi swallowed, feeling a chill run down his back.
"From an unknown distance away, he casually crushed the mark on Gui Mei and made that lofty Liu Mei suffer such severe backlash."
"Just how terrifyingly powerful is that old monster called Duntian?"
Sword Douluo Chen Xin stood nearby, his expression more solemn than ever.
He looked at the half-dead old man seated on the Skull Throne in the projection.
"Fengzhi, did you notice?"
Chen Xin's voice sounded a little hoarse.
"Vermilion Bird Master knew full well that Duntian had hurt his disciple, yet he didn't dare utter a single threat."
"That means that in that world, this ancestor of the Soul Refining Sect is a true overlord—even the planet's ruler wouldn't dare provoke him lightly!"
After seeing Liu Mei treat human lives like grass, everyone had assumed she was quite a formidable figure.
But in front of Ancestor Duntian, her methods seemed as laughable as children playing house.
One layer pressing down on the next—there was always a higher mountain beyond the mountain.
The waters of the Renegade Immortal World ran so deep, they were enough to drive anyone to despair.
The scene cut back to the underground cavern of the Soul Refining Sect.
After crushing Liu Mei's mark, Ancestor Duntian withdrew his withered right hand.
With the Puppet Mark's control gone, Gui Mei's eyes cleared for an instant.
But he would rather never have woken up at all.
When he saw the terrifying old man seated on the Skull Throne and felt the surrounding resentment, so chillingly oppressive it seemed to seep into his bones, Gui Mei's entire body tensed.
He opened his mouth to shout, only to find his throat blocked by something. Not a sound escaped him.
Ancestor Duntian looked at Gui Mei on the ground and shook his head, unimpressed.
"This innate ability to merge with shadows really does make him a fine prospect."
"But alas, he doesn't even have a spiritual root, and his soul is far too weak."
Disappointment threaded through the Ancestor's words.