Union Incense

Red Snake was deeply uncomfortable being hugged by humans. During the Black Dragon King's recent efforts to quell disasters and save people, Black Tortoise had been enthusiastic, while Red Snake had been most reluctant. The few times he had appeared before people, the Black Dragon King had brought him along.

His Dao Practice was not advanced enough. He could communicate with Shi Feiyang, but he still could not speak human language, though he understood what the girl was saying. He was thoroughly puzzled. The Dragon King she mentioned must be the Black Dragon King, right? But His Majesty never told me to receive anyone.

Before he could figure out what was happening, another bride came drifting down from upstream, and he went back into the water to rescue her.

There were four girls in all, the oldest nineteen and the youngest fourteen, shivering in the mud in their red wedding clothes. They gave Red Snake a headache. He reckoned he could not handle this himself. Since they say they're going to the Dragon Palace, I might as well take them to His Majesty. Even if there's been some misunderstanding, at least I saved them. His Majesty will surely praise me, and certainly won't punish me.

From the girls' tearful accounts, Red Snake learned that four people had entered the water, and all four had now been rescued. He waited no longer, breathing out core energy that formed a yellow cloud. A demonic wind rose from the cloud, and wind and cloud moved together, carrying him and the four girls into the air and straight toward Dinghu Peak.

At that moment, Shi Feiyang was not at the bottom of the lake. He was making incense on the summit.

Now, Red Snake and Black Tortoise mated once a year, always choosing the time when the Seven Lodges of the Black Tortoise reached the zenith. As Turtle and Snake joined in union, their core energy drew the energies of heaven and earth into union as well, causing the true essence of the Black Tortoise constellation to descend, which they then absorbed.

At such a time, the essence blood within Turtle and Snake became a medicinal substance.

There were Four Great Aphrodisiacs in the world of Mount Shu, and the one ranked second was called the Harmonious Bliss Lotus.

There was a female immortal of the orthodox Daoist tradition named Lu Rongbo, a granddisciple of Perfected Bliss, Li Jingxu. She had cultivated for a hundred years of Dao Practice yet still looked like a girl of eighteen or nineteen, and in a few more years she would have been able to achieve Ascension. Finding the Harmonious Bliss Lotus beautiful, she picked it to decorate her Cave Abode, only to faint after a single sniff. As she lay on a rocky mountainside, she conceived through communion with the Essence Qi of a spirit stone and gave birth to Shi Sheng, one of the Seven Dwarfs of Emei.

The Harmonious Bliss Lotus could make a person commune with a stone's Essence Qi, become pregnant, and bear a child—a glimpse of just how powerful its medicinal effects were. Yet it ranked only second. If it could make any ordinary stone impregnate a person, it would have ranked first. Since conception required a spirit stone nurtured by the Earth Veins for untold millions of years, it could only settle for second place.

Had Shi Feiyang not arrived, Xiong Manniang, one of the Three Maidens of Min Mountain, would have slain Turtle and Snake while they were mating, then used her flying sword, stained with their essence blood, to attack Zang Lingzi. The moment his Primordial Spirit touched it, he would have fallen into a daze, and both would have lost their chastity and ruined their cultivation.

Zang Lingzi's mighty powers needed no explanation. The crucial point was that he would then have been in Primordial Spirit form, essentially little different from a ghost. The essence blood of Turtle and Snake in union could affect Ghosts without physical bodies. Its potency worked not only upon material flesh, but also upon souls formed of consciousness, forcibly inducing humans and Ghosts to mate. And this was the Primordial Spirit of a Sword Immortal with such advanced Dao Practice as Zang Lingzi. Its place at the top was thoroughly deserved!

After obtaining Turtle and Snake's essence blood, Shi Feiyang carefully studied its medicinal properties. He did not intend to do anything wicked with it; he wanted to use it to aid his cultivation.

His two Inner Cores, one water and one fire, one yin and one yang, had originally been as incompatible as fire and water, repelling each other. The greater his magical power, the more energy the cores contained, and the stronger their mutual repulsion became.

By cultivating the Twenty-Eight Scripture and the Thirty-Seven Scripture, and combining them with the Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman on the rock wall, he comprehended the principles of old yin giving birth to young yang, Greater Yang giving birth to Lesser Yin, and yin and yang joining in intercourse. In essence, this was the union of heaven and earth, so he wanted to use Turtle and Snake's essence blood to help his cultivation.

Every medicinal substance had its toxicity. Used correctly, it was medicine; used incorrectly, it was poison. Even an immortal pill would kill a mortal the instant it entered their mouth, while a deadly poison, when matched to the right ailment, could fight poison with poison and heal injuries and illness.

He spent quite a few days devising a formula, then weighed it carefully and made several rounds of additions and reductions before finally settling on it.

Its chief ingredient was Turtle and Snake's essence blood, supplemented by twelve medicinal substances that strengthened the heart and nourished the kidneys, six yin and six yang, along with a little sap from Immortal's Couch, all refined together. This preparation could not be swallowed directly. Instead, it was made into sticks of incense. Lighting one during cultivation filled the air with an exceedingly faint, sweet fragrance. Breathing it in promoted the circulation of energy and blood within the body, bringing it into a state of union: heart and kidneys communed, energy and fluids communed, spirit and energy communed, heaven and humanity communed. Everything that had originally stood opposed would begin to resonate through its energy...

In this state, the most important thing was to harbor not the slightest lustful desire. The moment such a thought arose, it would erupt like a flood, immediately surging beyond all control and draining away all the vital energy of the heart and kidneys, harming the body rather than benefiting it.

Shi Feiyang had gained a dragon's body while retaining a human soul. When he saw beautiful girls, his dragon body did not react; when he thought of pretty little female dragons, his heart remained unmoved. Thus, he could keep his mind as still as water amid the fragrance without losing his senses, guiding his two Inner Cores to generate true yin and True Yang and bring them into union. Cultivating this way, he gained all the benefits and suffered none of the harm.

That day, he had made a fresh batch of one hundred sticks of Union Incense and placed them under the blazing sun, using magic to draw the energies of heaven and earth into them.

While he was refining them, Red Snake flew up to Dinghu Peak with the four brides.

Shi Feiyang was most displeased at the sight. "These girls were getting married, and you snatched them from their weddings? What are you trying to do?"

Frightened, Red Snake hurriedly explained that he had rescued the four from the stream while catching fish.

Shi Feiyang then questioned the four girls. At last, they had seen the legendary Dragon King. He truly was enormous and long; a single finger was almost as thick as their waists, and when he opened his mouth, he could swallow them like spring rolls.

They had been weeping and sobbing, convinced that Yao Suxiu was using public authority to settle private grudges and trying to kill them. Now, faced with the Dragon King himself, they immediately changed their minds. They believed everything Yao Suxiu had said and done was true, and that the Dragon King really did wish to take wives. They stopped crying and knelt in a neat row, paying their respects to their Dragon King husband with the courtesies of new brides.

Shi Feiyang was bewildered by their behavior. He told them to get up and asked what was going on.

One of the bolder girls said, "Wasn't it you who wanted to take wives and had Temple Keeper Yao arrange the ceremony? At first, we thought we would surely die once we entered the water. We never imagined you really would send General Red Snake to bring us here." She craned her neck to look down into the lake below. "Your Dragon Palace is down there, isn't it? Temple Keeper Yao has visited several times. He said the Dragon Palace was full of rare treasures. We thought it was beneath the stream. We never expected it to be here inside Dinghu Peak..."

They were actually growing impatient to enter the Dragon Palace and have a look.

After questioning them and learning the full story, Shi Feiyang flew into an uncontrollable rage. Someone down below was actually using his name, not merely seizing the opportunity to rake in money, but also taking human lives. Such crimes deserved ten thousand deaths!

Without explaining anything to the girls, he gathered a great mass of cloud and mist, swept up Red Snake and all four girls, and flew diagonally down from Dinghu Peak. In a single dive, he arrived above the Dragon King Temple.

Yao Suxiu and the others were feasting on the bank. With the Dragon King taking brides, he had managed everything, representing both the brides' families from the village in sending them off and the Dragon King in receiving them. After sending the brides away, he had laid out a continuous banquet in front of the Dragon King Temple, inviting everyone to eat and drink their fill.

Suddenly, a black cloud descended from the sky and loomed over the Dragon King Temple. Red Snake landed first, dropping behind the temple before raising his single-horned head high and climbing onto its roof.

"General Red Snake has manifested!" everyone cried. Just as they were about to put down their bowls and chopsticks and kneel beside the tables, four small clouds carrying red figures drifted gently to the ground. They were none other than the girls who had been thrown into the river earlier.