Immortal-Making Method Within the Painting

Just as Zhou Can was preaching the Dao, inside a residence near the Treasure Gathering Pawnshop.

Li Yao curled up on the couch, coughing without pause. Every breath brought tearing pain, blood gushing from her mouth and nose and staining her collar red.

Trembling, she took out a jade bottle, poured out a flesh-colored pill, and swallowed it.

The coughing barely stopped, but her once jet-black hair had somehow turned gray and white.

"Once I take the Corpse Dew Life-Extending Pill, there will be no turning back. If I cannot enter the path of immortality, I will surely die within ten days."

She struggled to rise, only to hear footsteps halt outside the door. Zhang Qilin's figure lingered outside for a moment, yet he did not push the door open.

Li Yao's voice was hoarse. "Uncle Zhang, I can't hold on much longer. How are things at the pawnshop?"

Zhang Qilin gave no response.

Li Yao's expression darkened, and her tone became increasingly earnest. "Uncle Zhang, I seek the method of immortality only to prolong my life. Whether I succeed or fail, I will share this immortal fate with the senior members of the Chamber of Commerce who traveled with me. I will never break my word."

"Heh."

After a moment of silence, Zhang Qilin's chuckle finally came from outside.

"Uncle Zhang?" Unease swelled in Li Yao's heart. "Zhang Qilin?!!"

Suddenly.

A cloying, pungent fragrance drifted in through the crack beneath the door. Li Yao's head grew heavy, her eyelids drooping further and further as she realized it was a sleeping drug.

"Uncle Zhang, the Fuyang Chamber of Commerce has treated you well, hasn't it?"

"Indeed, it has."

Zhang Qilin's voice came through the door, carrying a faint tremor that was hard to detect. "But, Miss, I want to become immortal too."

"Miss, I know you have a way to restrain Zhou Can. But Zhou Can has already promised me that if I offer him three more people, he will pass on the method of immortality."

"You..."

Li Yao was furious and frantic. She began coughing violently, and the blood she had just managed to stop surged forth again.

"Miss, I don't dare kill you, nor am I as generous as you are, willing to share immortal fate." Zhang Qilin patted the door. "But once you breathe your last, I'll send someone to take you back to Salt Township. That will at least honor the bond between master and servant."

The medicine fully took effect. Li Yao's vision went dark, and she collapsed limply onto the couch.

Afraid that Li Yao might be feigning unconsciousness, Zhang Qilin directly locked the room door, then drove the carriage waiting at the mouth of the alley to the pawnshop's side entrance.

Upon seeing the carriage, the guards all stepped aside to clear a path.

Zhang Qilin suppressed his joy and put on an act as he told the guards, "Miss is unwell and urgently needs immortal fate. You four, come inside with me."

One guard looked hesitant and wanted to step forward to inspect the carriage, but Zhang Qilin stopped him with one hand.

"What are you dawdling for? If you delay Miss's affairs, can you bear the consequences?"

The guards did not dare say another word and followed Zhang Qilin as he drove the carriage into the pawnshop.

The pawnshop was pitch-black, but Zhou Can's preaching could faintly be heard, along with the rustling movements of several rats.

Zhang Qilin's breathing grew ragged. "Immortality... Zhou Can, you promised me!!"

The five hurried toward the Daoist temple.

"Long-winded and rotten. This Daoist has never seen anyone with such abysmal powers of expression."

Even Ren Qing, an immortal, had nearly been made dizzy by Zhou Can's preaching. Still, he had finally sorted through the threads and completed over eighty percent of the method of immortality.

That was already enough for him. After all, he would ultimately need to cultivate in tandem with the Daoist lineage of his previous life.

"The method of immortality Zhou Can cultivates is called... Immortal in the Painting."

As always, the means of initiation was bizarre. One had to use the blood of one's heart to inscribe an immortal talisman upon one's skin. As the blood dried, the body would gradually turn into a human-skin painting, while the excess internal organs, flesh, and blood would be squeezed out of the body.

By now, Zhou Can had become a human-skin painting and needed the heart's blood of living people to regain vitality.

Ren Qing lifted his eyes and studied Zhou Can. This man's aptitude was truly dreadful. Merely entering the Immortal-Making Method Within the Painting had already brought him to the brink of collapse; he was only a hair's breadth away from madness.

"Immortal in the Painting emphasizes passing the fake off as real. What kind of technique does it need to be cultivated alongside?"

Ren Qing pondered every step of Immortal in the Painting, when suddenly inspiration flashed through his mind.

"If it succeeds, perhaps it won't be limited to passing the fake off as real—it may turn the false into truth!"

He had already made up his mind and began considering how to escape the illusion.

Yet before he could act, Zhou Can's preaching came to an abrupt halt. His venomous gaze swept over everyone in the temple before finally settling on Ren Qing.

"You!"

Zhou Can pointed at Ren Qing and grinned savagely. "Stand up and tell us—how much more heart's blood from living people does your master need?"

Ren Qing remained unmoved, secretly communicating with the Black Rat Dao Child.

Zhou Can merely assumed Ren Qing had been frightened senseless and continued speaking to himself. "Do you know? When Three Incense Lady first entered my dreams to impart the Dao, your master was so terrified that I knelt on the ground and didn't dare raise my head. I nearly missed my immortal fate."

"It was Three Incense Lady who did not give up on your master. At first, her teachings in my dreams lasted days. Later, they became months, and after that, years. Hahaha."

"Whenever your master woke from a dream, it took me a long time to remember who Zhou Can was."

Ren Qing smiled without saying a word, nearly unable to stop himself from applauding. The scene before him had far too much of that psychiatric-hospital flavor. He himself had even been fortunate enough to take the stage and give a lecture, receiving an enthusiastic welcome from quite a few fellow cultivators.

Zhou Can stared blankly at Ren Qing for several breaths, then rose from the high platform.

"Die! All of you, die!!"

With his skyward howl, the entire Daoist temple began to turn unreal. Its dazzling colors rapidly faded, becoming the black and white of an ink-wash painting.

Everyone felt the blood draining from their bodies, their heartbeats slowing sharply.

Yet Ren Qing was not flustered in the slightest. If anything, he was a little eager to give it a try.

The Immortal in the Painting ultimately still relied on divine consciousness to cast its spells.

Honestly, to Ren Qing, Zhou Can was not even as much of a threat as the martial artists present.

"Heh heh."

A brilliant glimmer blossomed between Ren Qing's brows.

The moment Zhou Can sensed Ren Qing's divine consciousness, an indescribable gulf drowned his Dao heart.

"I spent decades comprehending the Dao in my dreams, yet you only took a single hour? Why..."

Before he could finish, he was interrupted by an overwhelming radiance.

Ren Qing no longer restrained his divine consciousness. Radiance erupted from within him, instantly bursting through the Daoist temple and tearing the black-and-white illusion full of holes.

A waning moon slowly rose behind his head. Clear moonlight spilled down, shattering the surrounding scenery inch by inch.

With every step he took, the clear sound of the Great Dao rang out. Unlike Zhou Can's deranged ramblings about the Dao, it seemed born from the resonance of the Heavenly Dao itself.

"Y-you... who are you!!"

Zhou Can froze as if struck by lightning. His legs went weak beyond his control, and the terror in his heart was a hundred times stronger than when he had faced Three Incense Lady.

What kind of divine being was this?

What kind of divine being was this, ahhh!!!!

Everyone's memories of Ren Qing began to blur.

Zhou Can opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood. In his terror, he hurled everything within reach at Ren Qing while stumbling backward again and again.

Ren Qing cursed under his breath as the Iron Body Art blocked several chunks of rubble.

Bang.

The ground beneath his feet collapsed. Black Rat Dao Child had already dug the tunnel directly underneath him.

Ren Qing had no intention of lingering, and he had also sensed outsiders about to arrive. Still, he had Black Rat Dao Child stuff the Ascension Record into Su Huo's hands.

At Su Huo's age, it was fundamentally impossible for him to even begin the painting ascension method.

After Ren Qing left, the phenomena brought by his divine consciousness vanished as well.

Black Rat Dao Child also filled the tunnel back in, truly working tirelessly without complaint.