Many sacred statues were enshrined in the Main Hall of the Immortal Ascension Taoist Grounds.
These statues depicted the Founding Patriarchs of the various practitioners' lineages within the Immortal Ascension Taoist Grounds.
At its founding, the Immortal Ascension Taoist Grounds could only have been called a "ragtag mob."
That was not deliberate disparagement. Their inheritances were poor and their strength meager. Without the Yin-Yang Arts inheritance Luo Xianshen had given Wu Jinluan and Feng Huaigu to elevate their abilities, coupled with Wu Jinluan's own quick thinking and exceptional cunning, the Immortal Ascension Taoist Grounds could never have attained its current standing.
Among the many statues was one particularly unusual figure: a slender body topped, astonishingly, with a head of pure gold!
The head looked very much like Old Gong, only considerably younger and not nearly so disheveled.
This head was Old Gong's golden effigy!
The Immortal Ascension Taoist Grounds had made it especially for him.
Wu Jinluan was not alone in the Main Hall. Two exceptionally beautiful women stood around an offering table, upon which lay a skin-and-bones corpse whose vital essence had been completely drained.
The two women danced gracefully around the offering table.
Then a horrifying scene unfolded.
Their appearances changed rapidly. Their bodies became bare white skeletons, while garish makeup appeared on their exquisite faces: pitch-black eye sockets, stark-white eyeballs, and thick rouge. Their beauty vanished, leaving only chilling horror.
As they danced, the flesh on the corpse atop the table shriveled rapidly, and streams of gray aura flowed into their nostrils.
By the time the two women returned to their original appearances, only a bare white skeleton remained on the table.
Wu Jinluan nodded slightly, his eyes full of satisfaction.
"Have you seen enough?"
"Still not coming out?"
He abruptly turned to stare at the golden