Volume Two, Mortal Realm, Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Enigmatic Puppet Chest

Interesting. Utterly interesting.

The immortal with crane-white hair and a childlike face gazed down at the waves crashing against the cliff below and said it twice, his pupils gleaming faintly with greedy light. He turned to look at Yi Yi, whose face was tinged with uncertainty, and smiled faintly on his ruddy old features.

"This time, Master will go down the mountain with you. And not only Master—my other children will come along as well."

"Even Master’s treasures will be coming too?" Yi Yi lowered his head, a clear flash of shock and fear passing across his face. "Could that Sword Sacrificer really be that formidable?"

"Not entirely for the Sword Sacrificer. But it is indeed part of the reason. He is not as simple as the outside world claims, and certainly not someone a minor cultivator who has only just entered the Sea-Spanning realm can contend with."

"In the year of the Yongjing sword sacrifice, and in the years since, quite a few cultivators have died by his hand, both openly and in secret. The Office of the Watch simply sealed the matter away so the foolish masses would not follow suit."

Ling Chen gave a faint, cold smile.

"Though he is but a mortal, not entering the Sea-Spanning realm means he still does not count as one of the immortal path. Among your senior and junior brothers, only you have truly touched the lowest threshold of immortality. To you, he remains a considerable threat. I can only make the move myself."

A trace of mockery slipped briefly across Yi Yi’s lowered face, unseen by others, yet his body bowed even lower as he replied in a respectful and resonant voice.

"It is all because we disciples are dull and cannot relieve Master’s worries. In the end, Master himself must sweep away these demons and monsters with his great power."

"It is enough that you understand. From now on, you must devote yourselves more diligently to cultivation."

Ling Chen’s expression remained calm, but his tone unconsciously rose with pleasure, clearly quite satisfied by the praise of his great realm.

"Now go and bring out my children. Especially the eldest. Be careful not to hurt him, nor let him hurt you."

The smile on Ling Chen’s face faded as he issued the order to Yi Yi in a cool voice.

"You have followed me for nearly fifty years. You should know how to do it."

"I understand, disciple." Yi Yi bowed respectfully to Ling Chen, then faced him and slowly retreated step by step before finally turning away.

Once his back was to Ling Chen, as he walked along the suspended stairway by the cliff, the dutiful, wooden expression on Yi Yi’s face was instantly replaced by disgust and disdain.

"Curse it. He still dares blame me for my low cultivation. If not for the fact that he has been trapped in the Sea-Spanning realm for fifty years without advancing a single step, constantly suppressing my own realm so my cultivation could not enter Sea-Spanning as well, I might already be in the great Transcendent Unity realm today."

Malice flashed in the otherwise wooden face of Yi Yi.

"If I had not brought him the Emperor-Born Body, how could he have broken through Sea-Spanning and reached some so-called great Transcendent Unity realm? The irony is that such a precious constitution as the Emperor-Born Body only bought him a false Transcendent Unity realm."

His expression darkened as he descended the stairway and skirted the cold cliff wall for a long while. At last the view opened before him into a sheer rock face.

Reaching the base of the cliff, he pressed a hidden mechanism in the wall. A deep, rumbling crash shook the entire massive cliff. A section of what had seemed a single stone wall moved inward, and Yi Yi stepped into the pitch-black darkness within.

The enormous cliff continued to tremble. As Yi Yi advanced, one stone door after another rose up before him.

This seemingly solid mountain had long since been hollowed out. The interior space was interlaced in all directions, vast and deep.

Passing through one stone gate after another, Yi Yi ventured ever deeper. The smell of blood in the air grew thicker and thicker, and faint cries seemed to echo from the surrounding darkness.

Even though Yi Yi had walked this path many times before, he still felt a faint chill of dread, the hair at the back of his neck standing on end.

He fixed his gaze on the darkness ahead and kept moving forward, fear lingering in his eyes.

"Ling Chen’s talent is dreadful indeed. He only managed to open one hundred and eight acupoints, far below the Office of the Watch’s standard of two hundred and eighty proper acupoints, yet he became a Sea-Spanning cultivator in just a hundred years. As for ruthlessness of heart and trickery of methods, I am no match for him."

"Especially this art of puppetry. I have no idea where he learned such a terrifying and strange technique."

"On the surface, this spell greatly violates the regulations of the Office of the Watch. Though the Office of the Watch in Canglan County now belongs to him, letting him cover his own crimes is one thing."

"But there are still risks involved. He would never use it lightly. Yet now, in order to deal with just one or two mortals, he has actually brought out all this baggage. Is that Sword Sacrificer really so powerful, and why does he value that... strangely dead corpse so highly?"

"What else is there that I do not know?"

Yi Yi reached the final gate. The heavy door was carved full of all sorts of bizarre runes. Muttering to himself to distract his overly frightened mind, he pulled the last switch.

With a thunderous groan from the massive stone door, a stench of blood ten or a hundred times stronger than before surged out to meet him.

Yi Yi peered inside. A vast blood pool spread before his eyes, and upon its surface floated a giant palace made of wax.

Though not large, the palace was exquisitely intricate, with carved beams and painted rafters, winding corridors and twisting paths, like the most splendid chambers of a noble household.

Tiny figures moved about the waxen palace, walking and running. At the sound of the door opening, countless pairs of small eyes glowing with a dim yellow light turned toward him. The faces beneath those eyes were pale waxen masks, some crying, some laughing.

The little figures running through the wax palace stared at Yi Yi for a moment, then seemed to lose interest. Their small waxen faces turned away again, and they resumed their activity among the halls and courtyards like a swarm of lively, playful children.

Yi Yi’s nerves eased somewhat. His gaze searched among the tiny figures, but after a while he still could not find the one he wanted to see.

A slight frown creased his brow as he thought over the matter, but in the instant his attention wavered, a hand pale as jade and stained with thick blood suddenly seized the hand he had pressed against the stone door.

Yi Yi’s pupils contracted instantly to needlepoints...

...

Carrying an ancient box engraved with intricate golden patterns, Yi Yi walked around the foot of the cliff, ascended the suspended stairway along its side, and after reaching the summit, respectfully presented the wooden box before Ling Chen, who stood at the cliff’s edge.

Ling Chen slowly turned his head and looked at Yi Yi, whose face was deathly pale, then asked in a calm voice:

"Has Da Da been fed?"

A deep trace of fear and resentment flashed in Yi Yi’s eyes, making his already pale face even whiter. Yet he still answered Ling Chen slowly.

"Yes. Fed. The spiritual blood of a Sea-Spanning cultivator should satisfy Da Da."

Though his words remained outwardly humble, they carried a hidden thread of displeasure and resentment.

"Good. They are all inside the box, then?"

A faint, cold smile flickered in Ling Chen’s eyes, yet as though he had not noticed the resentment and dissatisfaction in Yi Yi’s tone, he continued calmly to the next topic.

"Yes. Master’s few treasures are all in the Heaven and Earth Box." Yi Yi replied softly, looking down at the box in his hands. His eyes were filled with a dense, inextinguishable fear.

"Then take it with you. When Da Da and the others are hungry, they will come to you for food themselves."

The detachment on Ling Chen’s face gradually faded, and with an amused look he openly watched Yi Yi’s hands begin to tremble violently.

"Yi Yi, a false True Essence realm is not the same as the Sea-Spanning realm. Since you have advanced into Sea-Spanning, it seems your mind has begun to wander a little. Master is very concerned."

"Let Da Da teach you how to remain vigilant at all times, how to remain at every moment..."

A kindly smile appeared on the old face that no longer seemed ruddy at all. Ling Chen spoke gently.

"To remain afraid."

His words were tender, yet like a venomous snake softly winding around a person’s throat.

The hand with which Yi Yi held the ancient wooden box shook even more violently, and he lowered his face deeply.

"Let us go."

Ling Chen glanced at him indifferently, then drifted down from the cliff top first.

Yi Yi stared tightly at the box in his hands, then cast a fearful glance toward Ling Chen’s retreating figure. Still clutching the box as though it might bite him, he too floated downward, following Ling Chen step by step.

An old man with a gentle, detached face, white robes billowing, bearing the bearing of an immortal; and a wooden, dull-witted man who held a box and absurdly stared at it instead of watching his path—thus the two traveled together toward that side where a great storm of snow seemed to be sweeping more and more people and things into its whirl.

In the blood-soaked night, beneath the ink-black sky, Ye Mingke carried the military saber in his hand upside down and, clad in blood from head to toe, advanced step by step.

Broken armor lay strewn at his feet.

He did not know how far he had come, only that fewer and fewer dared stand in his way.

So long as one was ruthless enough, even so-called glory, wealth, interest, and justice would sometimes shrink back in fear and refuse to go forward—would they not?

At last, the armored soldiers were slain to rout and fled in all directions, but Ye Mingke felt no joy at all, not even relief. He merely stood amid the heap of corpses and looked past the scattered crowd toward the pale, thin, tall immortal.

He knew him to be an immortal. These cultivators shone in his perception like flames, as though they would devour the weary spirit in him that was already sinking toward darkness.

And yet he felt not the slightest fear. The handsome face half-lowered and smeared with blood suddenly burst into wild, unrestrained laughter.

The pale-faced immortal faced this youth who seemed to have killed his way straight out of hell, and in his eyes there was actually a trace of fear toward this mortal.

Ye Mingke could sense the immortal’s tension. His dark eyes, half-hidden behind loose hair, lifted slightly. He cast a cold look at the immortal, the curve at the corner of his mouth widening into something sharp and mocking.

"The one I killed before had an aura very much like yours."

He spoke coldly, his voice filled with bone-deep chill, echoing through the wind and snow.

"Only you? Guess... in how many breaths will I kill you?"