The Forbidden Path to Immortality-Chapter 259

For once, Shui Die Lan was trying to offer some advice. Didn’t make a lick of difference, though. Li Xun’s face fell like a stone. He toyed with his robe, hands twitching, his face flipping from pale to red, all the signs screaming that he was anything but calm.

Shui Die Lan frowned, about to say something else, when Li Xun fixed his gaze on her. “Then why is Tianzhi fine?”

“She hasn’t reached the same level in her cultivation yet. And we don’t even know what’s going on with her right now! Anyway...”

She blinked, and suddenly Li Xun’s hand was on the Jade Bixie, yanking it away.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” She flinched, instinctively reaching to snatch it back. But Li Xun just twisted his body, letting her blow smack into his shoulder.

And she heard it. The sickening sizzle of flesh tearing.

“You idiot. If you can’t even let go of something as trivial as a name, what kind of Path are you even cultivating?!”

Shui Die Lan swung to snatch it again, but froze before she even moved. Li Xun’s expression stopped her cold. He should have been in unbearable pain; the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched like wires under tension. And yet… he smiled. Smiled. Then lifted a finger to his lips, motioning her to be silent.

“Listen,” he said.

Listen… to what? Shui Die Lan’s keen ears picked up nothing but the faint tear of flesh and the soft drip of blood hitting the ground. But Li Xun didn’t seem to think that was all. He shut his eyes, drew in a long, steady breath, and exhaled as if he were pushing all of the pain out of his body with it.

“You don’t hear it? But I do. It’s my muscles, bones, and meridians adjusting. The changes happening inside are incredibly subtle. Once I catch the key moment, everything will fall into place.”

His voice was trembling, and Shui Die Lan was convinced his had lost his mind. But then she met his gaze. It was steadier and calmer by the second. And that conclusion suddenly didn’t seem to hold.

Li Xun gave a crooked grin and slipped into fresh clothes. Not Spirit Bamboo’s, but Hundred Ghosts’.

Then he shoved all of Spirit Bamboo’s gear onto Nether One, hiding it away… but left one thing for himself: the Jade Bixie.

This item had saved him countless times. But right now it was the very thing hurting him, pressed so tightly into his palm that not a corner of it showed.

“No choice, I’ll have to use Hundred Ghosts identity,” Li Xun said with a helpless twist of his mouth. “But explaining it to the sect… that part won’t be easy. Think of an excuse for me, will you?”

There wasn’t a hint of pain on his face now. Not a twitch. Shui Die Lan watched him for a long moment before letting out a low snort. A crooked, mocking smile tugged at her lips.“Do I even need to think? Just tell them someone fried his own brain; should be convincing enough.”

Li Xun blew cool air over his tightly clenched fist, then shrugged. “Say what you like. But you said it yourself, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If I back off now, won’t I just pay a bigger price for the same thing later?

“And there’s more. I just realized things are worse than I thought. When I first climbed out of the Yin-Transforming Pool, my organs and meridians were at least holding together. But after fighting nonstop these past few days, the burning blood essence has flooded my body and blasted everything apart again.

“At this point, I probably can’t even muster the most basic Nether Qi, let alone use the Shadowed Bamboo, Rising Mist sword technique. Decades of cultivation, gone in an instant. If I give up now, tell me... what price could possibly be heavier than that?”

That bad? Shui Die Lan was genuinely startled. And now she finally understood why Blood Wanderer, back in the day, had abandoned this peerless demonic technique. And taken a completely different path.

With Li Xun laying out such solid reasons, she couldn’t really argue anymore. Still, she refused to let him off easy and muttered, “If you can really recover, that’d be great. Just… let’s hope this isn’t all in your head.”

“How so? I know my own body… go on, feel free.”

“Oh, got it!”

Sharing a laugh, the two flickered out of sight and shot into the sky.

What went down in the southwest corner didn't turn the Tongxuan Realm upside down. It only stirred things up in a smaller, localized way.

To the great surprise of those waiting for drama, when the Water Mirror Sect rescued their disciple and learned that Daoist Yu Lan had been placed under house arrest, they didn't leverage the moral high ground to demand her release from the West Alliance; they didn't even issue a strongly worded statement.

Even more absurd, the Western Alliance suddenly stepped forward on its own, formally returned Daoist Yu Lan, and even apologized for having “gone too far.”

While the whole Tongxuan Realm whispered about the situation with 'Umbral City of the Dark Sea', the West Alliance's representative, Sevenfold Sage, the Sect Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sword Sect, just laughed loudly: 'Treasure lands only the capable may inhabit them. The West Alliance is claiming Umbral City for good!'”

Each sect in the realm had its own reaction to that attitude. But someone nearing the Southeast Forest Sea simply shook his head and muttered, “Brutal.”

“What’s brutal?” Seeing Li Xun return from hunting and say something like that, Shui Die Lan looked confused. “Ran into some brutal beast?"

“Nothing like that.” Li Xun dropped a roe deer onto the ground, then handed her a few of the fruits she liked. Shaking his head, he repeated the news he’d just picked up from a rogue cultivator.

Shui Die Lan wasn’t very interested in these matters. She listened while yawning, unwilling to use her brain on it. Only at the end, driven by a bit of curiosity, did she ask, “You mean the Western Alliance is being brutal? What’s so brutal about it?”

“Not just brutal... sly,” Li Xun said. “Sending Yu Lan back like that is downright devious. If you ask me, that Daoist woman has a tight mouth. Even someone like Luo Mosh would have a hard time prying anything out of her. So instead, they just make a show of it and put everything out in the open.”

He gently flexed his wrist to ease the pain in his heavily injured left hand. “Those who don’t care about Umbral City won’t think twice. But anyone with even a hint of interest... what’s the first thing they’ll suspect?”

“Suspect? Oh, right. They’ll think Yu Lan must have already figured out the location of the city and handed it over to Luo moshi in exchange for her freedom!”

“Exactly. And even if we take ten steps back, say Daoist Yu Lan didn’t give the Western Alliance any information, didn’t even figure out the exact location... things are already out in the open. Anyone who wants a piece of this will have to either trail after the Western Alliance’s forces... or head straight to the Water Mirror Sect in Langya Heaven and ask them directly! Isn’t their grand Water Mirror Assembly happening soon anyway?”

Shui Die Lan clicked her tongue twice. “Brutal indeed! Even if they were in the dark to begin with, once this gets out, the pressure from the entire Tongxuan Sect world will force the Water Mirror Sect to calculate the location of the city... And frankly, whether they succeed or fail, they’re not going to have a peaceful day ever again!”

“And that’s not all,” Li Xun said as he began skinning the roe deer. “Trouble is probably heading for the Southeastern Forest Sea too. I don’t believe for a second that Luo Moshi, in a situation like this, will bother covering for us anymore. He won’t even need to say much; just let a bit of news slip, and that’s enough. That’s problem number one.”

Li Xun tossed a token, and Shui Die Lan recognized it at once. A Flying Soul Decree from the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect.

Getting this thing now could only mean one thing: the sect had already found out that Hundred Ghosts had secretly broken free and slipped out.

“We’ve been exposed! They must’ve caught some rumor, then noticed something was off when they came to talk to me. And look at what they wrote... so meaningful, right? ‘Master and disciple as one, fear no hardship; alone in the world, be cautious and stay safe.’ Haha! Fear no what? Stay safe how? Like I don’t already know?”

Shui Die Lan chuckled, then clapped her hands to pull Li Xun’s attention back. “Want to know what kind of ‘hardship’ they’re talking about? I was going to let you finish your meal in peace, but since we’re on the topic... here, take a look.”

She pulled something out from behind her. Li Xun froze the moment he saw it.

It was a bird with gray feathers and a white beak. He couldn’t even tell what species it was, its whole body had gone stiff, claws rigid, long dead.

Since Shui Die Lan had brought it out just to show him, it was obviously no ordinary dead bird. Li Xun examined it closely and quickly noticed something. “This thing’s a vessel, isn’t it? Something used to carry a spirit?”

“Exactly. This is the famous Death-Messenger Bird. Ring any bells?”

Death-Messenger Bird? He had heard of that. Li Xun clicked his tongue. “Falling Feather Sect? Those people really don’t know when to quit.”

"Well?" Shui Die Lan smiled at him, raising an eyebrow. "What d'you say? You never take a beating for nothing, do you? Nearly getting pulped by them can't have felt good. Want to get even?"

“Coming for me, huh?” Li Xun actually felt pretty self-aware, until he thought about it again. “Wait… something’s off. Aren’t you one of Falling Feather Sect’s targets too? And honestly, by any measure, you rank higher than I do.”

“What’s the point of splitting hairs between us now?” Shui Die Lan said shamelessly. “Since we’ve already seen the Death-Messenger Bird, they definitely know we’re together. By now they’ve probably prepared every trick they can think of.

“But the moment I wiped out the spirit riding on that bird, I also told them I’ve figured out their game. That should mess up their plans a bit, and buy us some time. The real question is… with one of us injured and the other still recovering, what exactly are we going to do next?”

Li Xun rubbed his chin and started surveying their surroundings.

This was a hilly stretch in the eastern part of the Tongxuan Realm, technically under the Huayan Sect’s control. But those monks, reciting sutras and fasting all day, cared little for worldly possessions. So sect cultivators and rogues came and went here as they pleased.

The two of them stood on the shadowed side of a small hill. Winter had stripped these eastern slopes bare, far colder and drier than the southwest. The trees were all skeletal now, and with the gray light of the day, only twisted branches remained, casting eerie, restless shadows across the ground.

Still, Li Xun was anything but unsettled. “I’m not sure what rumors are circulating by now,” he said, “but one thing’s certain. Falling Feather Sect definitely won’t let us just stroll into the Southeast Forest. So… how about we poke around a little and test their response?”