Seeking Help

Humans, yao.

The world was divided into utterly different parts.

Zhang Xuezhou had always thought yao were animals that had gained intelligence, and thus acquired abilities that set them apart from ordinary beasts.

But he had never imagined that yao could take human form, possess all manner of Techniques, and even rule over vast territories in the outside world.

It suddenly dawned on him why some people in Zhang Household Village had mentioned having their heads smashed by a young man in colorful clothes in their hallucinations.

Perhaps that was the Ten Yin Holy Son's human form.

"The people of Zhang Household Village can't cultivate a method of entering a realm to wear away the Ten Yin Holy Son's Qi, and it will take at least two years for his Yao Qi to dissipate. An investigation into the matter could very well lead back to Zhang Household Village!"

Having carefully sounded out the Lonely Rogue Person and obtained the relevant information, Zhang Xuezhou felt that he was not the only one at great risk; the people of Zhang Household Village were also in grave danger.

The many strange and wondrous arts available after entering a realm were beyond Zhang Xuezhou's understanding. Flight, for instance, was something humans desired most, yet such an ability was far from rare among great cultivators.

There were even more abilities for tracking and investigation, far surpassing the hunting dogs raised by Zhang Household Village. Some methods could even track someone over a thousand li.

Given how much Yao Qi remained in the villagers' bodies, it would be no surprise if they were tracked down.

If killing some great figure made for an irreconcilable feud, Zhang Xuezhou had no idea what sort of grudge eating that great figure would create.

And the Ten Yin Holy Son was not the only one they had eaten. There had also been a five-colored golden pheasant.

Since the five-colored golden pheasant had been able to contend with the Ten Yin Holy Son, Zhang Xuezhou felt that its background might not be simple either.

"There are countless chicken yao in this world. Who knows which coop or deep mountain might have a wild chicken blessed by fortune that became a yao? But famous chicken yao are few and far between. You should know that although yao have Divine Abilities, cultivation is several times more difficult for them than for us. The most famous one you mentioned would be Hu Ximei, the nine-headed pheasant spirit from a thousand years ago. That yao reached the True Self Realm, making her a great yao of the Ninth Realm, but she was born at the wrong time... Oh, one from the present day? That should be the Hairy Head Sun Star Official at the Heavenly Emperor's side. His true form is a golden pheasant, and he possesses great Law Power. He is the natural bane of many poisonous yao... Who is the Heavenly Emperor? The Heavenly Emperor..."

The Lonely Rogue Person held nothing back, telling him everything he knew and answering Zhang Xuezhou's questions one after another.

But the more Zhang Xuezhou asked, the colder his heart grew.

"They're all pretty formidable," Zhang Xuezhou said ruefully.

"Formidable hardly begins to describe them. They're the leading figures of major powers, with crowds of great cultivators and experts under their command. A casual wave of their hands could reduce the likes of us to ashes. They're beings beyond our reach," the Lonely Rogue Person advised. "You must keep a sense of awe in your heart. Only then can you live long after you start cultivating, and avoid following your senior brothers to their deaths!"

"Teacher never told me about that. How did my senior brothers die?"

"They got caught between clashing powers and died, that's how. Some people wanted them to save others, while others didn't want them to. In the end, the choice was to kill them and settle the matter once and for all!"

"That's terrible. Is the end always so miserable for people who learn to treat the sick and save lives?"

"When all's said and done, your teacher didn't have a strong enough backing, and he never managed to curry favor with a major power. Yet he still wanted to sit in his little corner and restore the Yin-Yang Dao Arts to their former glory. How could things in this world go so neatly?"

The Lonely Rogue Person talked freely, unwittingly opening up a new world to Zhang Xuezhou.

It was completely different from the one Zhang Xuezhou had imagined.

He had imagined a world built on agriculture. Even if there were cities far away, they would merely be cities in an agricultural civilization, only somewhat more developed than Zhang Household Village and far less advanced than the real world.

But through the Lonely Rogue Person's descriptions, Zhang Xuezhou realized that the world was vaster than he had imagined.

The construction of his dream world had transcended reality and even departed from any reference to it.

This was a world of immortals, gods, yao, Dao, and dynasties.

It must have been Duan Yu swallowing the Manggu Vermilion Toad in that book Dad wrote that sparked some thought in my mind and created this dream about yao. Doctor Ren's instructions for recuperation might correspond to the method of entering a realm, and my fruitless search for the key to the genetic arsenal might correspond to the strict rules governing cultivation Techniques. But this Heavenly Emperor...

In the past, he had been stuck in the village, with little chance to leave, and more than ten years had passed as he whiled away the time. Now that things had changed, Zhang Xuezhou kept pondering where those changes had come from.

He could find corresponding reasons for some of the changes, but for others he struggled to find a connection.

Among all his thoughts, there seemed to be no experience that could have given rise to the Heavenly Emperor and the like.

Without such an experience, the creation of a dream would be a castle in the air, impossible to construct at all.

It was like the many obscure things on the internet: without a relevant hint, most people would never search for the corresponding keywords in their entire lives, nor would they come across the related content.

The dream world that has confined me seems to have undergone some strange changes. Once there's a little more money in my secret stash, I must have a proper talk with Doctor Ren!

Zhang Xuezhou felt that he was changing in reality, and the world in his dreams was changing too.

It was like a spear and a shield: as he sharpened his spear, the dream world's shield grew thicker.

That made him somewhat worried about his schizophrenia.

If continued treatment in reality caused one side to wax as the other waned, his illness would take a favorable turn, and he would eventually escape the dream that had confined him for more than ten years.

If things in the dream world continued to deteriorate, even causing him to die and turning it into a nightmare, his mind would most likely descend into madness and disorder. He might even be imprisoned forever in a world of darkness, becoming a vegetable in reality.

Zhang Xuezhou swallowed.

For him, surviving in the dream world was something he had to do.

The Ten Yin Holy Son, the Hairy Head Sun Star Official, the Heavenly Emperor, General Li of the northern frontier, the Great Han Dynasty...

They were all exalted, top-level powers, and Zhang Xuezhou wanted nothing to do with any of them.

"Your teacher seems to be coming back!"

As Zhang Xuezhou pondered possible solutions to his problems, the Lonely Rogue Person rose happily. What he said made Zhang Xuezhou's heart clench.

In Zou Bugui's eyes, Zhang Xuezhou was one of the Ten Yin Holy Son's people.

In the eyes of Zhong Rang, the Lonely Rogue Person, Zhang Xuezhou was Zou Bugui's student.

These were two utterly opposed false identities. Once the two men met, Zhang Xuezhou's cover would surely be blown.

Having schemed to take Daoist Kongxu Zou Bugui's method of entering a realm, he hoped he would not be beaten to death.

"Tea..."

Zhang Xuezhou's lips parted. He was just about to call out, then burst into tears and mention his outstanding aptitude while asking to become his disciple, hoping to bluff his way through, when an urgent shout came from outside the temple.

"Daoist Zou, are you there? Please open the door quickly! I'm Li Jiao, an attendant official of the Flying Feather Army. Two of my brothers have been injured by the Golden Toad Dharma King. Please use your arts to save them, Daoist Zou!"

Outside the temple, the knocking came in rapid succession, seemingly from someone who had arrived through the air.

"The Golden Toad Dharma King?"

The Lonely Rogue Person's expression changed, and he sprang to his feet.

"He must have come specifically to track me down. The Flying Feather Army just happened to take the blow for me while they were on patrol. Beat the little one and out comes the old one. These second-generation yao hold a fucking grudge! I only wanted to take a little golden toad venom..."

The Lonely Rogue Person cursed under his breath, clutching his chest. Beneath his clothes were three golden threadlike marks.

But compared with the power of the Golden Toad Dharma King's attack, the golden toad yao he had encountered before had been a mere small fry.

He could suppress the golden toad poison in his body for ten days to half a month before it flared up, but few could suppress the Golden Toad Dharma King's poison. Not even great cultivators were immune to dying from it in an instant.

Attendant official was a post for a close attendant. Only a close attendant of an emperor or General Li was entitled to call himself one. Such people possessed extraordinary strength, at least at the Divine Ability Realm or higher.

But even such an important figure had now been forced to come urgently seeking Zou Bugui's help.

The Lonely Rogue Person looked left and right. One moment he wanted to wait for Zou Bugui's pills to save him; the next, he feared the Golden Toad Dharma King would pursue him here and dispatch him with ease.

He stepped back twice, his expression shifting between light and shadow, plainly torn between leaving and staying. Zhang Xuezhou, meanwhile, finally felt the anxiety hanging over him subside.

Zou Bugui had not returned to the Nine-Foot Daoist Temple, and no one looking for the Ten Yin Holy Son had come either.

What was more, the people outside belonged to the Flying Feather Army, in which his father had once served.

Although those who had come were injured men from the Flying Feather Army, Zhang Xuezhou somehow finally breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that friendly forces who maintained the peace had finally arrived.