The Tiger Demon Broke Off the Engagement, Ghosts Entered the Living World

Ao Ding and Wen Dan stayed in the cave abode for three days.

Wen Dan sat before the Water Dragon Wall, racking her brains the whole time. Yet the Dragon-Form True Seal was so profoundly mysterious that even with her flood dragon lineage, she could not comprehend its secrets.

Ao Ding, on the other hand, merely made a few rounds before the Water Dragon Wall during his spare moments from controlling the cave abode with the Cave Abode Suppression Pearl, and worked out quite a few things.

"Here, take this-"

The youth copied out a set of cultivation formulas and tossed it to Wen Dan.

"There are still things waiting outside. We can't stay here day after day."

"This is..."

"The first section of formulas from the Heaven-One Dragon Water Scripture... Oh, this is a dragon cultivation method. There's nothing about the six cultivation realms or the six True Person realms. It must be extremely ancient. From what it says, the dragon path has only five realms-"

"No, I mean-you can understand it?"

"I can't understand it either." The youth tilted his head, his face utterly innocent.

It was true. He really had not understood it. The Primordial Truth Mirror had tried to translate it, and the three children had scratched their heads without a word.

"Perhaps inspiration happened to strike, and I sensed something? Look closely at how these little dragons swim about-this describes the harmony between the dragon path and the water path, even using a dragon's body to open heaven and earth, with water giving birth to the three realms. It's nothing more than the approach of 'Heaven-One gives birth to water.' As for how I understood it... perhaps because I don't cling to things and keep an ordinary mind? You should know that none of the arts of the Dao can be forced. Pursue them with blind obsession, and you only drift farther and farther away."

After offering that casual answer, Ao Ding walked leisurely outside with the Suppression Pearl resting in his hand.

"All right, it's been three days. Time to check on He Xiao."

Wen Dan stared at the scripture Ao Ding had casually written down, carefully put it away, and followed him out.

Having entered the cave abode together once, Wen Dan's wariness had faded somewhat. Talking and laughing, the two headed toward White Great King's mountain.

"From what I see, the first of this dragon scripture's five stages corresponds to the immortal path's methods of Qi-Seeding, Mysterious Gang, and Jade Palace. If you cultivate it, you should be able to undergo a transformation and cultivate a dragon form."

"Mm. Once things here are settled, I'll return to Peach Blossom Creek and cultivate properly."

"Don't go unleashing floods-"

"Hmph! I'm a proper flood dragon, not like those unorthodox ones."

Flood dragon lineages possessed a unique bloodline gift. By stirring up floods and waves, they could open a waterway from a river to the sea... The moment they rushed into the sea, they could truly transform into true sea dragons. In the age of the Savage Wilderness, before the immortal sects arrived, destructive floods had run rampant across the continents, all because of flood dragons.

Now that the immortal path flourished and humans ruled the Central Wasteland, how could there be any room for flood dragons to wreak havoc?

Even after obtaining the Heaven-One Dragon Water True Scripture, Wen Dan had to dutifully contemplate its mysteries and comprehend its methods, not daring to overstep in the slightest.

The two arrived near Baifeng Mountain and gazed from afar at the true qi circulating within it, a mass of clear light rising into the sky.

"That tiger demon's aura is a little purer than three days ago. It seems the incomplete scripture has helped him improve."

"Improvement is good. If he's improved, he owes us a favor."

Over these three days, He Xiao had eaten and lodged with White Great King, reading and contemplating together, and they had achieved a little.

At first, White Great King had looked down on He Xiao a great deal. But He Xiao had summoned his courage for love and taught him to read, word by word. Together with the mental cultivation formulas Ao Ding had secretly imparted, He Xiao gradually won White Great King's approval, and he carefully pondered what He Xiao taught him.

It was not just cultivation methods. Sometimes, when chatting with He Xiao, listening to him quote the classics and vividly recount historical anecdotes and jokes from the human world, he could not help growing more interested.

White Great King might have been rash, but he was not stupid...

He discerned what that human cultivator intended and lay silently on his thousand-year cold jade bed, pondering.

They're deliberately bringing me benefits so I'll break off the engagement myself?

Frankly... a fox and a tiger marrying sought no more than two things: power and desire.

Could anyone really expect true love between them?

What a joke to tell a lord Mountain Lord with eighteen demon concubines.

He did not care whether Tu Qing'er married him, whether she was chaste, or what romantic experiences she had before marriage.

But-he could not lose face.

As the king of a mountain, losing face meant losing authority, and demon spirits might dare challenge his power.

Still... they haven't approached openly, and they've used this incomplete scripture to demonstrate their worth.

Could a human cultivator capable of producing such an incomplete scripture be anyone ordinary?

I could find an excuse to extricate myself... After all... he really has taught me a few things. If I failed to repay that kindness and outsiders learned of it later, I'd lose face as a great king too.

Besides, there was also the matter of the flood dragon maiden's dignity and that of another cultivator behind this.

"Enough!"

After deliberating over and over, the tiger spirit suddenly leaped up.

"Let them have their way!"

Seven more days passed, and the Tu Household received a document.

The handwriting was sloppy and clumsy, but it was White Great King's own.

"Breaking off the engagement? Why has he broken it off?"

Several large foxes in human form gathered in the Tu Household.

Fox demons liked to appear before the world in human form, partly with the intention of pleasing the exalted immortals of the various sects.

If they habitually carried themselves in human form, they would not reveal a beastly bearing at a crucial moment and displease cultivators.

"I heard White Great King has made progress in his cultivation and wants to enter seclusion for a while. He's worried about holding our cousin back, so... so the marriage is canceled."

"Seclusion? Cultivation? However clever he is, could he possibly revert to his ancestry in a single step and transform into the celestial immortal beast, the Flying Heaven Jade Tiger?" The old man in padded clothes leaned on his cane and angrily hammered it against the floor.

"I heard that tiger spirit recently found a teacher to teach him to read. Only afterward did he learn that the teacher had... had some connection with our niece?"

"Foolish, utterly foolish! What background could a mere frail scholar have? What talent? He actually hired him as a teacher? What does a stupid tiger need to learn reading and writing for? Does he want to curry favor with the human exalted immortals too?"

Old Tu seethed with anger.

The marriage he had worked so hard to arrange had fallen through, just like that?

The Tu Household would lose face!

"That isn't necessarily so. Someone Qing'er has taken a fancy to surely can't be too bad," an old woman said softly. "Since the engagement has been broken off, why not grant the girl her wish? It's only a hundred years at most-what harm could it do?"

"Yes, yes-" Several old fox women had accepted Tu Qing'er's money long ago and kept putting in good words. "If he can win scholarly honors, our Tu Household can also take the opportunity to accumulate wealth in the mortal world, making it easier to select talented humans and fund them in advance."

Under everyone's persuasion, Old Tu's expression softened somewhat.

But he still could not swallow his pride, leaving matters at an impasse for the moment.

Peach Blossom Creek.

The youth sat on a bamboo raft, playing a board game with an armored maiden of the water folk, human above the waist with a flood dragon's tail below.

"With things at this point, we've overcome one obstacle-what do you intend to do about the other two?"

"The remaining two hurdles amount to those fox demons looking down on the scholar's standing. Then we just need to give him some standing."

Ao Ding smiled and casually placed a piece.

"I'll find him a background and someone to back him up. But as for the other matter-"

"Leave it to me!" Wen Dan thumped her chest and agreed.

She too wanted to resolve this matter as soon as possible, so she could begin cultivating Dragon Shedding without any lingering concerns.

That night.

Ao Ding found a spirit acupoint nearby and summoned Green-Eyed Ghost.

"Oh-did you learn that our meat stew has completely sold out and decide to think of something?"

"Don't we still have the 'disguise rouge' business? Besides, without ingredients, I can't cook anything."

"Hmph-right, what did you want me for?"

"To borrow a few ghost skins."

"Ghost... skins?"

"Do you have any vicious ghosts who've committed offenses, or any ghosts you want beaten to death? I can help you skin them."

Was Return to the True really just that layer of skin on a ghost?

Green-Eyed Ghost was speechless.

Only after Ao Ding urged him repeatedly did Green-Eyed Ghost ask in return, "What do you want ghost skins for? The painted-skin art? You want to use painted skins to expand the beauty market?"

After spending so much time with Ao Ding, Green-Eyed Ghost's speech had taken on a touch of the human world.

"No, no, no-I want to help someone get married."

Ao Ding briefly explained his plan and He Xiao's experiences.

"We need to find the scholar a backer. That's difficult in the human world, but how hard could it be in the underworld? We'll say-a Ghost King arose among his ancestors. Hearing that his descendant was being bullied in the human world, he specially returned to the living world to back him up. So I want to impersonate a ghost."

After listening, Green-Eyed Ghost laughed heartily. "Why go to all that trouble? I'll just make the trip myself."

"Well... there's no need to trouble you. Just give me a few ghosts, and I'll peel off a few skins..."

"Hmph! I don't think you want to borrow ghost skins-you're planning to experiment with the Great Skin-Peeling Method, aren't you?"

Ao Ding fell sheepishly silent.

After cultivating the Northern Yin Hell Method for so long, his hands really had begun to itch.

Those stone mills, mountains of blades, and so on looked bloody. But used well, the skin-peeling art could strip off a perfectly clean skin without spilling a single drop of blood.

"I want to try how many layers I can peel off with my current cultivation-perhaps I can even peel away the soul?"

Green-Eyed Ghost chuckled but said nothing.

This fellow was usually quite honest and kind, yet when it came to cultivation, he had a measure of curiosity and obsession.

I'd have to be mad to hand ghosts over for you to skin!

Besides, if after the skin and hair, sinews and bones, flesh and blood, you could peel away the two layers of the soul as well, heh... wouldn't you be nearly a Ghost King?

"There's no room for discussion." Green-Eyed Ghost's tone was stiff, and he flatly refused to let Ao Ding experiment with the Northern Yin Dharma. "I'll come to the human world. When the time comes, I'll help you put on a show."

Green-Eyed Ghost had already awakened Manas Consciousness and was a genuine Ghost Marshal-level being. He had a thirty-percent chance even of forcing his way into the human world; now that Ao Ding was there to provide a fixed location, it would naturally be easier.

Soon, the Ghost Gate opened wide. Yin winds rolled, and eight balls of ghost fire surrounded a palanquin as it slowly flew out. Three hundred balls of ghost fire followed behind, each bowing to Ao Ding and kowtowing in thanks.

The hungry ghosts under Green-Eyed Ghost had been enlightened and ritually delivered through Ao Ding's efforts, and owed him a debt of compassionate salvation.

"Come, there's no time to lose. Let's go propose the marriage now."

"No rush, no rush-who goes to propose marriage at midnight? Let's wait until dusk to scare the foxes!"

"Wait a day? This sunlight... doesn't trouble me, but these ghosts can't withstand it."

"No matter. Go to my immortal abode. I only obtained it recently."

Ao Ding invited the company of ghosts into the immortal abode.

"A place of plague demons and pestilence ghosts?"

Green-Eyed Ghost saw through the mysteries of this place at a glance.

"A Yang Abode erected over a yin acupoint? Who devised such a vicious feng shui arrangement? Ah-the corpses are all still here? Are they waiting for them to rise as demonic corpses in the future?"

"You see it that way too?" Ao Ding briefly explained the origins of the Plague-Dispelling Dao, then pointed toward the back. "But I feel this cave abode has something of a smokescreen about it. Take a look at that Water Dragon Wall. Can you see anything?"

Green-Eyed Ghost also possessed a pair of dharma eyes. When he examined it with Manas Consciousness as well, his expression changed slightly.

"Something's wrong! There's something behind that Water Dragon Wall! It looks-it looks like a heart! A living one!"