Every Sip and Every Peck

Desperate to survive, Yao Suxiu heaved a washbasin-sized stone over to Lei Qu'e and raised it high. "Daoist Lei, may you have a smooth journey to the next world. I'll burn plenty of paper money for you afterward!"

He slammed the great stone down with all his strength, intending to smash Lei Qu'e's head in a single blow and save his own life. Suddenly, Bai light blazed before his eyes. Before he could react, his body had been severed in two.

Lei Qu'e formed a Sword Art with his fingers and exhausted the last shred of True Essence in his body to send his Flying Sword slashing upward, cleaving through Yao Suxiu and the stone alike. The great stone split cleanly in half, while Yao Suxiu was cut in two from his ribs through his chest.

After unleashing that strike, Lei Qu'e went limp, golden stars swimming before his eyes. He lay slumped there, unable even to summon back the fallen Flying Sword, much less draw it into his body. It could only flicker and ring incessantly on the muddy ground.

Black Tortoise said happily, "Yao Suxiu is dead. Now you can let him go, can't you?"

Red Snake snorted coldly, slithered down from Black Tortoise's back, and hurried toward Lianjin Creek. "You old turtle bastard, you're always so eager to help humans. Sooner or later, you'll die at their hands!"

Black Tortoise retorted indignantly, "All you do is curse me to die at human hands. Little do you know that someday, you'll need a human to save your life!"

He was no ordinary tortoise either, but an innate mutant with a bloodline from the primordial age. The markings on his shell naturally formed the River Diagram and the Eight Trigrams. Until then, however, he had relied entirely on instinct to grope his way forward, never finding the door to true understanding—not until he met Shi Feiyang.

Shi Feiyang was well versed in the arts of numerology and had carefully studied the patterns on his shell. They contained not only the River Diagram, but also the True Forms of the Five Sacred Mountains and the star charts of the Four Symbols, sharing quite a few similarities with the Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman beneath the waters of Dinghu Peak. Thus, he had taught Black Tortoise a great deal about numerology. Uniquely gifted in this field, Black Tortoise had made tremendous progress in understanding the numerical principles of heaven and earth in a very short time.

For the second time, he hoisted Lei Qu'e onto his back, brought the Flying Sword along as well, and carried him north.

Lei Qu'e lay limp on his shell, needing to muster considerable strength even to speak. "Thank you for saving my life, Brother Tortoise. If I, Lei Qu'e, survive this day, I will surely repay you generously."

Black Tortoise crawled cheerfully onward, wagging his tail. "You'll definitely survive. That stupid snake has already withdrawn the poisonous qi from your dantian. Of course, I'm not asking you to repay me. If you ever encounter my snake brother again, just remember today's kindness and refrain from hunting him down to the bitter end. That will be thanks enough."

Lei Qu'e said nothing. He panted heavily and rested for a long while before suddenly asking, "Did I truly save you five hundred years ago, Brother Tortoise?"

"No, I made that up to fool him." Black Tortoise grinned. "But I did see you when you were little. Your hometown isn't here—it's over in Jiulijing. You were such a tiny, mischievous thing, running all over the mountains, raiding birds' nests, digging up mouse holes, and even throwing snake eggs at squirrels. Once, you accidentally ate some pokeberries and fainted on the ground. You were about to breathe your last when I cleared the poison from you and took you home."

"Ah..." Lei Qu'e gasped. "You actually know that my hometown is Jiulijing! When I was a child, I did once eat some wild berries by mistake and lie unconscious in the woods for half a day. When I woke up, my clothes were soaked through with sweat. My grandmother said an enormous tortoise had carried me home. I never imagined you were the one who saved me. Now you've saved me again today. After owing you my life twice, I truly don't know how to repay you."

Black Tortoise thought nothing of it. "I don't help others for repayment. And not just humans—any cat or dog, any flower or tree, if I take a liking to them, I hope they'll live well. I'll take you back to Whitewater Abbey now. Since you've already become a Sword Immortal's disciple, work hard at your cultivation and live a good life. As for me, I'll roam freely among the mountains and waters. We can forget each other amid the rivers and lakes."

Tortoise and man vanished happily into the dense forest.

As for Shi Feiyang, he knew nothing of what Turtle and Snake had done afterward. He did not care in the slightest whether Yao Suxiu lived or died, and simply continued refining the Union Incense. Once he succeeded, he used it in his cultivation. Sure enough, it helped his Gods and qi resonate and his water and fire unite, making his cultivation many times faster.

That day, he lay coiled atop the Crouching Dragon Stone, with the faint fragrance of Union Incense drifting through the air.

His Gods and thoughts were blissfully entranced, utterly free of stray thoughts. Keeping his spiritual awareness turned inward, he simply let his two Inner Cores attract each other and revolve around one another. As they spun faster, they formed a Taiji Diagram, generating vast quantities of true yin and True Yang qi.

Suddenly, a woman's voice sounded beside his ear. "Dragon King, please save my son... Dragon King, our little Third has been missing for days. We still haven't found him alive or seen his body. Please, show us mercy..."

Shi Feiyang's heart jolted, and he came to his senses. Tilting his head, he listened intently, but could no longer hear anything.

What's going on? Could my power have increased enough that I'm beginning to encounter demonic obstacles? The alchemical scriptures say that inward contemplation can easily give rise to inner demons. Hallucinations of sight and sound are all Demonic Illusions. I mustn't fix my attention on them or exert myself against them. I should simply ignore them.

While studying the Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman a few days earlier, he had vaguely divined that an ordeal awaited him. He supposed this must be it and resolved to hold firmly to his true self at all costs. Otherwise, once he suffered qi deviation, the consequences would be unthinkable. Cultivators in Mount Shu who suffered qi deviation often ended up paralyzed down one side or stiff all over, bedridden for decades at a time. He could not let himself end up paralyzed on this stone!

He resumed cultivating and soon heard the woman's pleading again. Before long, men's voices, elderly people's voices, and a child's sobbing joined in. "Grandpa Dragon King, my little sister is gone, boo-hoo... I took her out to play... I don't know how, but a gust of wind carried her away... Boo-hoo, my mother hasn't eaten for two days, and my father beats me too... If we can't find my sister, I won't be able to go on living either..."

At first, Shi Feiyang treated them all as Demonic Illusions and ignored them outright. But the more he listened, the more something felt wrong. There were more and more voices, and they sounded so real.

Could these be real events rather than Demonic Illusions? Were people truly pleading with me?

He stopped cultivating and sprang into flight, passing through the lake waters to reach the summit. Clinging to a rocky peak by the shore, he looked southwest. Sure enough, he saw many people kneeling and bowing in his direction at the site of the old Dragon King Temple. They were the ones pleading so earnestly.

Gazing into the distance with his keen eyesight, he saw that a new temple had actually been built on the old Dragon King Temple's site. It was larger and finer than the original, with a great incense burner of Pure Copper standing out front. Judging by the thickness of the accumulated incense ash, it received plenty of offerings on ordinary days.

Many villagers were kowtowing and pleading before the hall. What he had heard earlier were not demonic illusions. Rather, as his power increased, a divine ability had arisen naturally. The villagers prayed with wholehearted sincerity there, and their entreaties found an answering resonance here, allowing him to hear them within his heart.

He conjured a bank of mist with his core qi and rode the cloud diagonally through the air toward them.

The moment they saw him coming, the villagers cried to heaven and beat the earth, crawling on their knees and kowtowing as they wailed and pleaded. "Dragon King, save us! Please save our children! Dragon King, show us mercy!"

He asked the villagers, "What exactly happened? Whose children have gone missing?"

The villagers clamored over one another to say that their own children were missing, recounting what had happened in a babble of voices. One said his little daughter had vanished in the brief moment he turned away while working the fields. Another said he had taken his son up the mountain when a black wind suddenly swept through; after it passed, his son was nowhere to be found.

Shi Feiyang tallied them up. Eighteen children had gone missing in all. Every boy was eight years old, and every girl was seven. Their disappearances were all bizarre, unlike the work of wild beasts or human traffickers. He casually asked for the birth dates and hours of several children. Sure enough, their Eight Characters followed a distinct pattern. He could be almost certain that an unorthodox cultivator was responsible.