Chapter Ninety-One: Found
Page 1 of 3
What is meant by beating an old master to death with a flurry of wild punches? What is meant by the Five Fireballs Holy Sect?
This is it: using force and momentum to overwhelm others.
Daoist Qingfeng had not lost unjustly. His primal vital energy was neither as strong nor as abundant as Chen Jin’s, so it was only natural that he was crushed beneath Chen Jin’s overwhelming force.
When Daoist Qingfeng struck the wall, he did not even cough up blood. He merely said, “Brother Daoist has prevailed. Please restrain your divine power.”
The giant hand of primal energy had not yet dispersed; it stood two men high, pushing straight toward Daoist Qingfeng.
Upon hearing that Qingfeng had admitted defeat, Chen Jin scattered the hand of primal energy.
However, that primal energy did not disperse into the world’s vital currents. Instead, it spread throughout the side hall.
“Brother Daoist’s cultivation runs deep. I imagine you are close to forming the Yellow Sprout,” Daoist Qingfeng said solemnly, straightening his posture.
He was taking Chen Jin to be a cultivator of the modern path.
It was unclear why Wu Liangkun had not explained Chen Jin’s true situation to him.
“I’m still quite a ways off,” Chen Jin replied without refuting him, offering only an ambiguous answer.
As for how Daoist Qingfeng chose to interpret that answer, that was his own affair. Clearly, he would only think Chen Jin was being modest.
Thud, thud, thud...
A burst of hurried knocking suddenly sounded at the door.
“Uncle Master Qingfeng, Uncle Master Qingfeng...”
It was a Taoist from the Grand Pure Palace. It seemed the commotion from their exchange of teachings had drawn people here.
“I will take my leave now. There are still many beautiful sights on Mount Lao waiting for me to admire,” Chen Jin said, cupping his hands. Then he leaped into the air, sprang up to a beam, and departed through the window between the beam and the eaves.
Once he had confirmed Chen Jin was gone, Daoist Qingfeng swept his sleeve. The knocked-upon door flew open at once.
A little Taoist who had been hammering at the door outside stumbled in.
“What is it?” Daoist Qingfeng asked with half-closed eyes.
“You... are you all right?” The little Taoist’s lively eyes darted around the room, but he found nothing at all.
“What could possibly be wrong?” Daoist Qingfeng countered.
“I heard some noise from your room just now, so I ran over to check,” the little Taoist replied with a crooked mouth.
“Go back and do your lessons properly. Do not miss the hour for cultivation. Go and invite the guests outside in,” Daoist Qingfeng reprimanded him.
Page 2 of 3
“Ah...” Chastened by the scolding, the little Taoist left the side hall looking like a frost-struck eggplant.
Then two more people came in.
They wore ordinary clothes, no different from common tourists, but Daoist Qingfeng knew they were no ordinary men. They were both from the Cultivators’ Association.
“He’s already gone,” Daoist Qingfeng said first.
That much could be seen with one’s eyes.
“He is much stronger than you imagined. Be careful. Do not provoke him. He may not kill people, but he can still make your lives worse than death. Be cautious, and when the time comes, the one who will be humiliated is still Wu Liangkun,” Daoist Qingfeng continued.
“Understood. Thank you for the guidance, Daoist,” the two replied with rather poor expressions.
“Mm.” Daoist Qingfeng nodded.
Then the two left, leaving Daoist Qingfeng alone.
“So now he really is gone,” Daoist Qingfeng said, feeling the lingering primal energy dissipating in the side hall.
...
By now Chen Jin had already left the Grand Pure Palace and sent Chen Lan a message in passing: “Saw him. Quite white, quite fat.”
Chen Lan quickly replied: “Huh? What else?”
“That’s all there was. Just that thing. Why?” Chen Jin answered.
“All right, all right,” Chen Lan replied helplessly.
“I still have other matters to handle. I’m not chatting anymore,” Chen Jin sent.
“Mm?! Mm.”
Chen Jin glanced at his phone, then put it away.
By now he had shaken off the tail, so he could move about Mount Lao at will.
However, there were still plenty of cameras on the mountain, so the chance of being found and followed again was high.
But Chen Jin was not without means. If he was tailed again, he would simply shake them off once more. It would only take a few minutes, and since he knew what they looked like, avoiding them would be easy enough.
Leaving the grounds of the Grand Pure Palace, Chen Jin walked into the wild forests of Mount Lao.
Every mountain has its untamed woods, and all the more so a great mountain like Mount Lao.
After wandering about for a while, Chen Jin soon found the ruins of his cheap master’s Daoist temple.
Page 3 of 3
Yet those temple ruins had truly become ruins. Now they were nothing but lush green trees and huge boulders, and Chen Jin only found the place by relying on a large stone in the center.
That great stone was somewhat special. True Man Cloud-Elephant often sat upon it to expound the scriptures. Of course, given True Man Cloud-Elephant’s laziness, he would only do this once every seven days. At ordinary times, if anyone sought him out, he could not be bothered to respond—not even half a sentence.
Because True Man Cloud-Elephant frequently lectured upon that great stone, Chen Jin remembered it very clearly.
Besides being the stone where Cloud-Elephant often sat, it had another strange quality.
Inside it was concealed the essence of a metallic rare stone. Chen Jin had heard this from Master Reaching Faith. That night, the two of them had been chatting aimlessly about anything under the sun and beyond, and Master Reaching Faith had told him about it.
He said the great stone was originally an unusual rock that had long been nurturing a stone spirit. Regrettably, that stone spirit had no fate to come into the world. Had it been two thousand years earlier, perhaps there would still have been a chance for it to be born. But with the coming of the Age of Fading Law, it was bound to lose its true spirit and dim its spiritual nature. In the end, it could only remain a stone.
After True Man Cloud-Elephant discovered the great stone, he also understood that the stone spirit within was unlikely ever to emerge. So he wanted to hasten its birth, to transform its inherent true spirit from earth into metal, hoping to use the sharp, cutting nature of metal to break the stony shell and make it into a true living being.
In the end, however, Cloud-Elephant also failed. The great stone only completed the transformation from earth-element to metal-element; it was still far too early to break its shell and be born. Soon after, Cloud-Elephant attained immortality as a celestial being and could no longer descend into the mortal world, so Chen Jin did not know what came after.
But the fact that the stone was still here already showed that it had not succeeded in becoming a living being. It had simply remained in its confused state until now.
Its true spirit may already have dispersed.
“A pity indeed,” Chen Jin sighed, though his words were nothing but crocodile tears.
The only thing on his mind now was using it to refine the tiger-tooth flying sword in his hands once more and increase its power.
“Your last wish... hm, I suppose you have no last wish. Nor any final regret.” It had never even been born, so where would it get any last wish or final regret?
Thus Chen Jin did not need to think about avenging it or anything of the sort. After all, what had killed it was this Age of Fading Law. Was Chen Jin supposed to avenge it by killing the Age of Fading Law itself?
As for how to remove it, Chen Jin already had a plan.
Like grinding an iron pestle into a needle...
No, that was not right. He would use the hand of primal energy to crush it directly. Otherwise, how would he have trained that hand of primal energy to be so vivid and lifelike? It had all been diligently cultivated by Chen Jin in that other time and space.
And just as Chen Jin condensed the hand of primal energy and prepared to strike—
Boom...
A sudden thunderous explosion rang out somewhere in Mount Lao...