Dug Out From Underground

"Fellow Daoist Fangfei, this poor Daoist must leave for a time—a few days at shortest, a month at longest."

Zhou Yi said this while pouring wine for the Peach Spirit.

The Peach Spirit loved wine, but had an abysmal tolerance for it.

At the Qi Induction into Body realm, both body and spirit had already transcended the mundane; ordinary wine was no different from plain water.

The Peach Spirit's cultivation was not shallow—deeper even than Zhou Yi's when he first entered the Innate Realm—yet one bottle of wine left it dizzy and dazed.

Its branches swayed, its divine sense hazy: Don't forget to bring wine...

Zhou Yi chuckled lightly: "Rest assured, I've arranged for someone to pour you a bottle every day."

"I truly envy you—long Lifespan, no calamities or tribulations, you won't die even in a thousand years."

His True Self's attributes were mediocre; his cultivation had dropped to Qi Induction into Body, and his Lifespan was the mortal limit of one hundred fifty years.

Once he reached Qi Induction into Body, Zhou Yi had no cultivation method to rely on. He could only refine spiritual energy by trapping it with his soul, making his cultivation speed excruciatingly slow.

Worse still, his True Self had abysmal talent—not even a first-grade spirit root—so his absorption of spiritual energy was agonizingly slow.

Slow on top of slow—let alone one hundred fifty years, even another hundred fifty wouldn't see him achieve anything in cultivation.

When the wine was finished, Zhou Yi bowed respectfully to the Peach Spirit: "Chi Xiaozi thanks Fellow Daoist Fangfei. In the future, I will surely find a Spirit Monster cultivation method to repay the kindness of your spiritual energy."

With that, Zhou Yi left Peach Blossom Mountain and found a cave nearby.

Sword Qi crisscrossed, sealing the cave entrance.

"Gateway to Myriad Wonders, enter the Other Self."

With a thought from Zhou Yi, one hundred points of Origin were consumed.

Searching for Other Self...

Other Self found...

Waypoint found...

Transmission cost: 100 Origin...

Traversing the myriad heavens...

Opening his eyes.

Zhou Yi felt his body shaking incessantly.

"Hm? Wasn't I in seclusion at Black Mountain? Could there have been a collapse?"

Zhou Yi extended his divine sense around him. It seemed to be a large box—three or four feet wide and tall, about a zhang in length.

"Why does it feel... like a coffin?"

A strange feeling rose in Zhou Yi's heart, but he wasn't overly shocked.

Calculating the time between the two worlds, over sixty years had passed in the world of A Chinese Ghost Story. An accident at his seclusion site wouldn't be surprising.

He checked the Other Self's attribute panel—sure enough, the age column read 82/150.

In Great Jing, the average lifespan was around forty. Living to sixty was already considered longevity. Zhou Yi's single seclusion had spanned the change of one or two generations.

"Sixty-two years, gone in a flash! Even if one held power over the court or wealth under heaven, what of it? All turned to bone..."

"Even if one were unmatched under heaven, what of it? A hundred years later, no different from the common mortal!"

As these thoughts struck, Zhou Yi's mind trembled. He quickly recited the Heart Calming Incantation to soothe his spirit.

Doubts about the Great Dao accompany a cultivator throughout their life.

From Qi Induction into Body to Refining Spirit and Returning to Void—until one had crossed the Three Calamities and Nine Tribulations and shared heaven and earth's lifespan—longevity was a mountain pressing down on every cultivator.

Zhou Yi listened quietly outside the wooden box. Aside from the continuous sound of leaping and landing, there wasn't a single human voice.

True Essence seeped out through his body. With a gentle tap, a round hole opened in the lid above.

In the deep blue sky, stars dotted the darkness—it was deep night.

Rocking and swaying, moving forward without pause—they were traveling through the night.

Zhou Yi pressed his palm against the lid, intending to push it open, but a heavy, gloomy energy neutralized his force.

"Oh?"

Zhou Yi grew curious. His casual press was no less than a thousand jin of force, yet he couldn't open a wooden lid three inches thick.

That gloomy energy was clearly similar to True Essence, but impure and mixed with Yin Sha and resentment.

He steadily increased his strength. At first, the gloomy energy could still offset it, until the force broke ten thousand jin.

Boom!

The wooden lid shot into the air, shattering mid-flight.

The leaping motion came to an abrupt halt, and a startled cry rang out from ahead.

Zhou Yi sat up from the wooden box and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that he was, indeed, inside a coffin.

The Red Coffin appeared to be made of some precious wood.

The four coffin bearers were equally bizarre, each over ten feet tall, clad in bronze armor, with green faces and fangs, their fingernails over a foot long.

Zombies!

Zhou Yi instantly recognized the bearers—they closely resembled the zombies of legend.

Looking ahead, he saw an old Daoist in black-and-white robes, holding a Bagua in one hand and a bell in the other.

When the old Daoist saw Zhou Yi sit up, terror flashed across his face. He quickly grabbed a Talisman from his robes and began chanting.

"Fix!"

The old Daoist waved his hand, and the Talisman shot through the air, sticking to Zhou Yi's forehead.

"Phew! Good thing I fixed him..."

Before he could finish, Zhou Yi reached up and casually peeled off the Talisman.

"What's this?"

At Zhou Yi's question, the old Daoist rolled his eyes and fainted.

"Decades pass, and this is the mental fortitude of cultivators now?"

Zhou Yi leaped out of the coffin, landing right beside the old Daoist. He fished a crumpled piece of paper from the man's robes.

On it was recorded the "Corpse Driving Art," complete with hand seals and the required ritual tools.

There was also a stack of Talismans and some bottles and jars of odds and ends.

"Corpse driving... This old fool wanted to turn me into a zombie! Good thing I came back, or my feigned death would've become real!"

Zhou Yi snorted and raised his foot to stomp on the old Daoist's head.

For sixty-two years without pause, he had absorbed Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy. Since he had no Divine Sense to refine it, ninety-nine percent of that energy had gone into nourishing his physical body.

Now, Zhou Yi's raw physical strength far surpassed the True Essence within him. A single stomp carried over a hundred thousand jin of force.

The old Daoist, who had been unconscious, rolled away like a donkey, then kowtowed on the ground, begging for mercy.

"Aiyo! Spare me, Lord Zhou! Spare me, Sword Saint! This poor Daoist truly didn't mean to steal your corpse—I was forced into it! Sword Saint, have mercy! If you've risen as a corpse, don't bite me—go bite those bastards from the Heavenly Corpse Sect!"

Tears and snot streamed down his face; it was a pitiful sight.

Zhou Yi examined the Corpse Driving Art and found it was an incomplete technique, only a tiny fragment of a larger manual.

"Talk. How did you dig me up? What's this about the Heavenly Corpse Sect?"

The old Daoist looked up and saw that Zhou Yi's complexion was ruddy and his thoughts clear—no signs of a corpse transformation. He couldn't help but sigh in relief.

A living man could still be reasoned with; zombies only understood that human flesh tasted bad.

"This poor Daoist is Nanshanzi. I usually have no incense money, so I survive by grave robbing. About a year ago, the Heavenly Corpse Sect came to me and ordered me to steal your tomb on Black Mountain..."

Nanshanzi glanced up, and seeing no anger on Zhou Yi's face, dared to continue: "This poor Daoist refused at first, but the Heavenly Corpse Sect poisoned me with corpse venom and threatened to turn me into a Walking Corpse if I didn't obey."

"Black Mountain is crawling with Chen Family guards. I used the art of mountain-watching and vein-probing to dig a tunnel from ten li away and stole you from your secluded meditation site."

To prove he wasn't lying, Nanshanzi bared his shoulder, revealing a ring of purple tooth marks that constantly emitted a stench of decay.

"What's the deal with these zombies?"

Zhou Yi patted the zombie's body with interest, producing a thumping sound.

The Bronze Armor the zombie wore was extremely tough. A palm strike that could crush iron into paste only left a shallow mark; a heavy, yin energy absorbed most of the force.

He turned a strand of True Essence into a flying sword and lightly traced it across the zombie's bronze armor, splitting open a foot-long gash.

Beneath the armor was purplish-black muscle. When he cut through that, black, foul blood oozed out.

Nanshanzi was dumbstruck. The Bronze Armored Corpse was a secret treasure of the Heavenly Corpse Sect—not only endlessly strong and tireless, but also Indestructible Vajra, impervious to water and fire.

He had once witnessed a famous martial master being torn apart and devoured by a Bronze Armored Corpse.

"Sword Saint, this is the Bronze Armored Corpse the Heavenly Corpse Sect lent me to dig you out..."

Nanshanzi's back grew more and more hunched.