A whole day passed without a ripple of trouble!
Night fell:
The spirits ate meat or grass, rested briefly, then went back to work.
The human warriors also took the medicine Qian Xiuyue had prepared, adjusted their condition, and resumed their labor.
Lantern after lantern rose into the air, hanging overhead and bathing the vast construction site in brilliant light.
Qian Xiuyue invited Wang Quan. "I'm hosting a banquet in an hour. You must come!"
Wang Quan considered it. "Will it take long? I still need to harvest moonlight!"
Qian Xiuyue chuckled. "An hour at most. Just a chance for everyone to get acquainted."
"The rest of us need to harvest starlight to cultivate our arts, too!"
Wang Quan nodded. "Then that's no problem!"
Even with an hour's delay, he could still refine three strands of magical power.
It would hardly get in the way.
After Qian Xiuyue left, Wang Quan released his Paper People to dig a cave, slipped inside, then sealed it off.
Two doors appeared in his inner landscape. One represented the second-layer world corresponding to the Lower Court; the other represented the second-layer world corresponding to Seven Maidens Mountain.
Wang Quan did not want to take risks for now. His Yin Spirit pushed open the Lower Court's door and appeared directly inside its Great Tomb.
Night had only just fallen, and there were few people inside the Great Tomb.
Wang Quan surveyed his surroundings and stepped straight through the first door.
The scene changed:
The familiar town, the familiar old men and women.
Although there were two fewer old men and women today than yesterday, they still greeted Wang Quan with delight and kindly faces. "Brother, care to join us for a feast?"
Wang Quan slapped the case:
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Wisps of green smoke curled upward. One after another, Palace Maidens emerged from the smoke with paired sabers in hand, standing guard around him in dashing martial splendor.
"I don't like feasts!"
"I only like killing!"
The old men and women exclaimed, "Huh?"
The next instant, Wang Quan began reciting the People-Crossing Scripture.
Bili-bili!
Jili-gulu!
The People-Crossing Scripture contained a hundred verses in total.
Each verse consumed one strand of magical power.
As he finished reciting the first verse, a strand of magical power formed a line of scripture and landed on the old woman at the very front.
The next instant, the old woman screamed and rolled across the ground.
The other old men and women backed away in terror. "Cuihua, what's wrong?"
"Cuihua, why are you screaming so terribly?"
As more verses landed on the old woman, black smoke rose from her, while her appearance grew younger.
By the time the last few verses landed on her, the old woman had become an infant.
She wailed, then vanished into thin air.
At the same time:
The Great Tomb's main hall trembled slightly, and an empty strip appeared, no wider than a chive leaf.
Some Yin Spirit cultivators in the hall saw this and immediately rejoiced.
The larger the hall, the more scripture it could hold, and the greater its suppression of the Great Tomb would become.
This foothold would then be even safer.
Meanwhile:
On the Great Tomb's first floor, the other old men and women flew into a rage as the old woman died and her cultivation was extinguished:
They growled, their faces contorted, and rushed at Wang Quan. "Where did you put Cuihua?"
Snap!
Wang Quan snapped his fingers. The next instant, more than twenty Palace Maidens transformed from Paper People swung their paired sabers, hacking through them as easily as chopping melons and slicing vegetables.
Crash! Clatter!
Black smoke curled upward as the old men and women dissipated.
"I'm kindhearted. I sent her into reincarnation!"
"I'll come back tomorrow to send you into reincarnation!"
Wang Quan picked up his case and headed straight into town.
The Palace Maidens struck in every direction, slaughtering without restraint.
In barely fifteen minutes, the entire sprawling town was ablaze.
Amid the flames, Wang Quan seemed to hear a defiant growl.
The next instant, his Yin Spirit returned.
His Yin Spirit appeared in the main hall, where he found many excited Yin Spirits discussing its recent expansion.
Some Yin Spirits plunged straight into the third or fourth floors, or the fifth or sixth. Shortly afterward, they hurried back out and exclaimed excitedly, "The evil on these floors has weakened a little more since yesterday."
"It's a negligible change, but the weakening affects everything!"
"I wonder whether the great general on the tenth floor has been weakened too!"
One Yin Spirit laughed. "Perhaps before long, the fellow who mastered the People-Crossing Scripture will weaken this Great Tomb until it collapses!"
"Then we'll be able to open up other buildings."
All the Yin Spirits were excited.
The more groups of buildings in the second-layer world that corresponded to the first-layer world, the more stable and secure this foothold would become.
Every Yin Spirit hoped Wang Quan could weaken the Great Tomb as quickly as possible.
As for whether weakening the Great Tomb until it vanished completely would affect their harvesting of gloom sand, they did not care in the slightest.
There were simply too many buildings like the Great Tomb in the second-layer world.
As long as everyone worked hard, they could obtain gloom sand anywhere.
Just then, a Yin Spirit called out, "Is the fellow Daoist who mastered the People-Crossing Scripture here? Could you open up a little more space? I happen to have a line of Daoist scripture I can inscribe."
Among the crowd, an idea stirred in Wang Quan's mind. "I've run out of magical power."
"If you provide magical power, I can keep using the People-Crossing Scripture to expand this hall's foothold for everyone."
The Yin Spirits laughed awkwardly. "When we run out of magical power, we go back to the first-layer world to replenish it too."
Wang Quan smiled. "Then, if I have time before dawn, I'll come in and continue expanding it."
"If I don't come, it means I don't have time!"
"Oh!"
Under the envious and jealous gazes of the many Yin Spirits, Wang Quan's Yin Spirit returned to his body.
Not long after he left, several cultivators arrived with their physical bodies.
These cultivators carried boxes and looked around. "Everyone, hang up a banner. When the fellow Daoist with the People-Crossing Scripture arrives, ask him to wait a moment. We'll provide secret medicines that replenish magical power and ask him to help expand the hall."
The many Yin Spirits were stunned.
They had never dreamed that these cultivators, who could bring their physical bodies here, would value Wang Quan so highly.
They were even willing to provide him with secret medicines to replenish his magical power for free.
Just then, one Yin Spirit said quietly, "That fellow Daoist just left!"
The cultivators who had arrived in their physical bodies were disappointed and regretful. "If we'd known to come fifteen minutes earlier, we'd definitely have met him."
"Alas, a whole night's wasted!"
The cultivators beat their chests and stamped their feet, bitterly frustrated.
A Yin Spirit nearby said, "That fellow Daoist said he might come again around daybreak!"
"But we can't say for certain whether he will!"
The cultivators who had arrived in their physical bodies brightened at this. "Then there's a fifty-fifty chance he'll come."
"Everyone, shall we wait here?"
"Yes, we must wait!"
"Every evil being he clears away permanently gives us a better chance of victory."
Before long, they asked the other Yin Spirit cultivators to help hang banners in the hall, inviting Wang Quan to assist them.
By then, Wang Quan had already reached the mountaintop.
Though the mountaintop was noisy and chaotic, with spirits and warriors working everywhere, Qian Xiuyue had still cleared out an open space.
Tables, chairs, benches, fine wine, delicious dishes, and even medicinal meals giving off an unusual fragrance.
When everyone saw Wang Quan approach, they hurriedly waved to him.
They were all from the same intake and had once studied scriptures together in the Scripture Repository.
Although they had not seen one another for a year or two and had grown somewhat distant.
After a few cups of fine wine, everyone became familiar with one another again.
Before long, a cultivator harvested starlight and turned it into beautiful women and young men who danced.
Someone else pointed at a wine jar, transforming it into a potbellied man who slapped his belly like a drum to liven up the gathering.
All these wonders were just as Zhao Hongyi had described to them back then.
Only, Zhao Hongyi was absent from this banquet, and its organizer had even broken with her.
For a moment, Wang Quan was filled with wistful emotion.
Just then, Qian Xiuyue opened her mouth and breathed out a beam of starlight. It shot into the sky, stirring and drawing in the surrounding starlight before bursting with a thunderous crash like fireworks.
Brilliant starlight shone upon them all.
Before you continue