Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 76: Immortal Body
The sky was clear, and the sunlight was transparent as the sun leisurely moved across the sky.
The small monsters on the ground shrieked incessantly, making people’s ears ache. The Arcane Arts was surrounded in the center, with thousands of severed heads on it—their mouths and eyes tightly closed, silent. The air was heavy with the aura of corpses, which was so dense even the noon sunlight couldn’t disperse it.
Perhaps due to the time, its movements carried the stiff sluggishness unique to corpses, slightly slower than in the morning.
The enemy is weak, and we’re strong. Once the words were spoken, Yin Ci no longer held back. Sword qi surged, a sinister aura pressed down, and the killing intent was no less than that of the half-dead Arcane Arts.
Shi Zhongyu was taken aback by the menacing aura, but she didn’t waste any time being startled. With the danger facing her sect master, she didn’t hesitate to assist Yin Ci with all her might, holding the tattered Green Maiden Sword and exerting all her strength.
Elder Chen finally nodded in approval. With his hands behind his back, he still had no intention of making a move.
Just as Shi Jingzhi started to relax, he immediately became restless. He believed in the importance of practical combat, and now being forced to watch the battle was more uncomfortable than having ants crawling all over the soles of his feet.
“Senior Chen, this junior will go and assist… Ah!”
He had just tentatively uttered half a sentence when he received a smack from Chen Qianfan.
Sect Master Shi took a sharp breath, his eye sockets sore from the hit. He touched his head and felt a quite prominent lump.
“Impetuous.” Chen Qianfan commented without reservation. “You finally got a good spot to observe, but you can’t analyze the battle situation properly. Just fighting, all you know is how to fight.”
Shi Jingzhi remained silent. He didn’t know what there was to analyze about that eerie thing on the other side. Although his attention was divided due to the matter of his ban, he had at least been staring and watching the whole morning, causing his head to go numb and goosebumps to repeatedly rise. The Arcane Arts always looked the same, repeating the same three moves like a set pattern.
Now that he had made a promise to his disciple, he felt infinitely confident and even raised his voice. “I watched it in the morning, and it’s already ingrained in my mind.”
Chen Qianfan gave him a sideways glance. “Oh? Let’s use that dead-faced boy as an example—if he were to strike the head of that corpse, how would the Arcane Arts react? How would the other corpses move? Come on, show me each and every detail.”
Shi Jingzhi: “…”
He suspected that this old man was just being difficult. The Arcane Arts was covered in unknown spells; how could anyone see through it?
Chen Qianfan chuckled disdainfully, not bothering to conceal the contempt on his face. “Youngsters are just youngsters. At least those two kids over there know what they’re doing, but you seem to have plenty of free time. I’ve said earlier that you coming along would be useless; why are you so clueless?”
“They need to figure out how to harm the Arcane Arts, turning themselves into a sharp blade. They can’t afford to be distracted. Since they’ve chosen to be the blade, they don’t have time to analyze the overall situation, and that’s where I, as the wielder of the blade, come in. Sharpening the blade doesn’t hinder the chopping work. It’s never wrong to study and analyze… Haa, I had hoped you would be somewhat useful, but it seems this old man was expecting too much. You’re utterly useless.”
Shi Jingzhi endured the taunt without showing any resentment.
He stood silently for a while under the evaluation of being “utterly useless” and then respectfully saluted Chen Qianfan. “This junior has learned from your guidance.”
Shi Jingzhi regained his composure. His amber eyes were glued to the Arcane Arts, and his gaze gradually became completely focused.
Chen Qianfan was slightly taken aback, and in the end, he raised his beard and revealed a less sarcastic smile.
Shi Jingzhi no longer allowed himself to be distracted by the matter of his ban, as his entire heart was devoted to the Arcane Arts. In his eyes, the thousands of ancient corpses would at times form orderly armies, and at other times, they would turn into chaotic flesh. Even the slightest movement under the sword qi would spread like ripples, leaving no trace to be found.
As Shi Jingzhi continued to watch, he gradually became fascinated. The horrifying corpses transformed into symbols that constructed puzzles, no longer able to evoke his fear.
If he attacked this area, it would retaliate. Three corpses would group together, and five corpses would scatter. Spells would come from the southwest, supported by the corpses…
“Crack!” “Ah!”
As Shi Jingzhi was lost in his thoughts, his head was suddenly struck by an unexpected heavy blow.
He felt as if this old man would beat him into a fool, but he couldn’t get angry. He clenched his teeth and said slowly, word by word, “Senior?”
“You should eat something. Your state just now was good, but it consumes a lot of mental energy. When you’re really on the battlefield, being too focused isn’t good—your mind needs to be sharp, but you also need to protect your body.”
It suddenly dawned on Shi Jingzhi. He had been completely absorbed and hadn’t moved for two hours. As he took a step forward, his head spun, and he immediately spat out blood. His legs were also numb and sore, and he almost couldn’t stand.
Chen Qianfan stayed in place and lit a fire, throwing a piece of excessively sweet brown sugar cake to Shi Jingzhi.
“Eat it, then take a break.”
“…Senior, have you ever fought against the Arcane Arts?” Shi Jingzhi respectfully sat by the fire.
Chen Qianfan stroked his beard and flipped through a thick record book. “A few times. When I was in my thirties or forties, I could still handle it, but when I got older, I couldn’t keep up. I could only cooperate with the juniors.”
Shi Jingzhi fell silent for a while, gazing at the heavy and ancient record book.
“Did you abandon your memories like this to become an immortal?”
“Although it’s true that I’m doing this for an immortal body, causality cannot be overlooked.”
Chen Qianfan casually took a bite of the sugar cake.
“Human beings are easily obsessed with the ups and downs of the past—forgetting all of that prevents sorrow. This way, when I become an immortal, I won’t suffer from the mundane world.”
“Of course, I won’t delete daily trivialities… Otherwise, I wouldn’t even remember who I am, which would be absurd.”
‘Perhaps people without object obsession are just like this,’ Shi Jingzhi thought to himself.
He made an effort to swallow the overly sweet cake. “Senior, are you certain about the existence of an ‘immortal body’?”
“In this world, few die of natural causes; most die from illness. If the internal organs don’t fail together, then I replace whichever part is failing with a magical artifact. Take Wei Chun, for example. She had a lot of problems caused by injuries when she was young. If I hadn’t replaced her internal organs, she wouldn’t have lived past forty.”
Shi Jingzhi felt a little regretful for a moment. He was a person whose entire body, including the meridians, was malfunctioning. Otherwise, replacing internal organs could be a way out for him as well.
“Immortal body… Senior, it seems to me that your method is more like dying of old age.”
“That’s why I’m still searching for techniques.”
Chen Qianfan lifted his eyelids and flipped through the thick record book again. He found a page and pushed it toward Shi Jingzhi.
“When I was young, I traveled to many places, but it’s a long story. Read it yourself… This is a secret legend I acquired. You’re in a precarious situation, so maybe you’ll find it useful.”
Unlike the brief notes from earlier, the text on that page was dense and filled an entire page. Shi Jingzhi had good eyesight, but he found it a bit difficult to read.
The young Chen Qianfan recorded the topic about an immortal body in great detail.
The immortal body was often related to the legends of immortals and Buddhas. Just like the current Shi Jingzhi, relying on his youthfulness, Chen Qianfan roamed the vast lands of Great Yun, searching for related clues.
He had been to the northwest city of Shafu. In the desert near the ancient battlefield, Chen Qianfan found a secluded village.
Usually, there were similar tales of gods and monsters in specific regions, and Chen Qianfan had long learned to separate fact from fiction. However, in that small village, he heard an unprecedented legend.
The village was tiny, and its inhabitants rarely interacted with the outside world. It was rare to encounter something extraordinary, but any elderly person could vividly recount the story, as if they were present.
Over two hundred years ago, the village was plagued by bandits and wolf packs. In one winter, the bandits who frequently raided suddenly vanished without a trace. The incident was strange, so the village elected the bravest young man to investigate the bandits’ lair.
He only found scattered, fleshless skeletons everywhere.
It seemed as if the bandits had been devoured by wild beasts, leaving behind only sticky, fragmented flesh. Among the gushing blood, there was only one survivor.
That person was young, dressed in tattered but luxurious clothes, resembling an immortal descended from the heavens.
Unfortunately, he was a fool.
He didn’t recognize or respond to any speech, standing there in a daze like a withered tree devoid of vitality. The young man assumed he was a slave captured by the bandits for their amusement, so he carefully fed him and brought him back to the village, where he was cared for alongside the man’s wife and children.
Even if that strange person couldn’t do anything, just watching him was pleasing to the eye. Not to mention that he had great strength, and once familiarized with the village, he could help with simple and heavy tasks.
But as the years passed, the strange person still couldn’t speak and didn’t want to interact with anyone. When he had no work to do, he would find an open space to sit and remain seated for half a day without moving.
The village elders said that his “heart was broken” and there was no cure for it. The village had a simple and honest atmosphere, so they regarded the strange person as an additional quiet scenery and didn’t disturb him.
Ten years passed without incident.
Ten years later, the young brave man from before had become a middle-aged man in his forties. His children had married and had children of their own, and his grandchildren were babbling. However, the appearance of the strange person hadn’t changed at all; not a single wrinkle or strand of white hair had appeared.
If it weren’t for the fact that the strange person had an exceptionally beautiful and otherworldly appearance, coupled with that muddled and idiotic look, people would almost have been fearful of him.
The climax of the legend was a wolf attack.
Every winter, the village would suffer one or two waves of wolf attacks. Usually, the villagers only needed to guard the outer walls of the village and keep the village gate locked. But that year, the wolf pack had a wolf demon leading them, and the wolf demon was cunning enough to command the wolves to breach the village walls.
People were filled with fear, and they all hurried back to their homes, tightly closing their doors and extinguishing their candles.
At that time, the strange person was carrying firewood towards the woodshed. The host took the opportunity to push him into the narrow woodshed and was about to lock the door after extinguishing the lantern—
“A cold wind swept by, and the flesh on the host’s right arm disappeared in an instant, leaving only a bloody arm bone.”
Chen Qianfan swallowed the sugar cake and spoke enthusiastically.
“I occasionally go back and read this legend. It’s quite exciting.”
Shi Jingzhi furrowed his brow; the strange person’s actions felt somewhat familiar. Considering this was old news from two hundred years ago, he continued reading obediently.
The host was severely injured and felt both angry and afraid, feeling as if his kindness had been rewarded with betrayal. He left the strange person behind, rushed to the main house, and tightly locked the door, only daring to look outside through the cracks in the window.
The strange person looked at his bloodied hands, revealing an expression of pain for the first time in ten years.
He stumbled out of the woodshed, right into the oncoming wolf pack.
The village didn’t have yards, and the moonlight was just right, allowing the neighboring houses to see everything clearly.
That extraordinary person was instantly pounced on by the wolf pack. His limbs were torn apart, and he was killed on the spot. However, the next moment, he swayed and stood up, his limbs fully restored—those wolves didn’t even have time to swallow the remains in their mouths.
With a flash of sword qi, the starving wolves were instantly skinned and dismembered, turning into a pile of bloody corpses.
That person exuded an extremely chilling killing intent as he advanced through the beast horde. Wherever he went, bones piled up like mountains, and blood flowed like rivers. The moonlight, as frosty as snow, turned red.
In the midst of the slaughter, for some reason, the strange person seemed to become more and more clear-minded, and his gaze grew increasingly desperate.
The wolf demon suffered a great loss and became furious. It rushed towards the strange person, performing a tragic spectacle of tearing a person apart in front of everyone once again.
But no matter how many times he fell, the person would always restore himself from the remains.
Under the bright full moon, blood-red fine roots rose into the sky like demonic creatures emerging from the abyss.
They continuously gathered and formed, mending the injuries. And the strange person, seemingly impervious to pain, charged forward countless times, leaving wounds on the enormous wolf demon. It was said that later, even when the wolf demon wanted to escape, the person caught its tail and forced it to stay.
Gradually, the faint light of dawn appeared, and not a single wolf from the pack survived.
The strange person’s hair was disheveled, his clothes tattered, and his body covered in blood and flesh. He stood quietly in front of the wolf corpses, gazing at the gathering villagers.
In a hoarse voice, he said something, but no one could hear it clearly. The host with the injured arm felt miserable, and the villagers, filled with indignation, threw stones at the strange person.
The strange person didn’t speak anymore. He allowed the villagers to throw stones at him, keeping his head down and bowing to the village. Then he stripped off the wolf demon’s fur, drenched in blood, and left.
In the end, the legend, like usual, said that the immortal or demon disappeared without a trace.
Shi Jingzhi furrowed his brow.
Chen Qianfan raised an eyebrow. “Did you also notice? Shafu is near the main stronghold of the Chigou Sect. This is a legend from over two hundred years ago, and a hundred years ago, the Chigou Sect produced Su Zhi, who became famous with the Bone Sweeping Sword technique. The Bone Sweeping Sword technique is very similar to the methods of that strange person. I’ve investigated it thoroughly, and this legend is probably true.”
“However, Su Zhi lived for ninety-nine years before his life came to an end. Perhaps that strange person was an ancestor of the Su Clan, and the immortal technique wasn’t passed down.”
Shi Jingzhi: “Two hundred years ago was the heyday of the Queen of Milan. So, Senior believes that the strange person is related to Milan’s techniques?”
Chen Qianfan didn’t avoid the topic; he extinguished the fire with a stream of urine.
“Mm, that peculiar effect—I’ve only seen it in the Milan techniques. Even if that person didn’t use the Milan techniques, it must have inspired him… Kid, if you don’t get the Shirou, trying this path wouldn’t be bad either. I happen to be in need of an assistant.”
Shi Jingzhi absentmindedly responded.
He had personally witnessed the condition of “recovering with blood-colored fine roots”. In the forbidden area, when he shattered the unfinished flesh idol, it had recovered in the same way.
And as a “descendant of the Su Clan”, Yin Ci was also investigating the flesh idol. Could this be a coincidence?
The battle in the forbidden area that day kept repeating in his mind. Shi Jingzhi sat on the cold snow, but his back was covered in a layer of sweat—the movements of the flesh idol became more and more familiar as he recalled them, so familiar that it made him uncomfortable all over.
Shi Jingzhi lifted his gaze and looked towards the Arcane Arts not far away.
The same.
Compared to the flesh idol, the Arcane Arts appearance was even rougher, and it possessed evil techniques that the flesh idol didn’t have. It also needed to devour external objects to replenish its energy. But the way their bodies moved was exactly the same.
When was the Yongsheng Imperial Celestial Shrine built? It also seemed to be over two hundred years ago, during the same era as the Arcane Arts.
What happened in this land two hundred years ago? If the Arcane Arts was a cursed artifact, then what was the flesh idol?
Shi Jingzhi felt a chill run down his spine, and his breathing became difficult.
“…Senior, if we chop off the head of the Arcane Arts, will it regenerate?”
Chen Qianfan sneered. “How could such a good thing happen? It was originally much larger than this. Another corpse doesn’t randomly grow when one of them falls.”
But just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Chen Qianfan had to add another comment.
“The head is completely dead, and the meridians aren’t connected. Vital qi can’t flow through. How can it regenerate? If you really want to restore the flow of vital qi, you need a whole piece of living flesh.”
For example, using monsters to corrode living people, turning them into living meat paste, and patiently collecting them.
Someone… or rather, “something” had already done this.
Shi Jingzhi remained motionless.
He sat between the vast heavens and earth, feeling icy cold all over. His flesh and skin felt as thin as paper, and the cold wind blew through his bones. The giant idol in the forbidden area appeared before his eyes once again, weighing him down so heavily that he couldn’t even lift his head.
Shi Jingzhi gritted his teeth, and a taste of blood slowly filled his mouth.
For the first time, he realized how unfamiliar the world before him was.
The flesh idol was related to immortals, and the Shirou was also related to immortals. Currently, the flesh idol was covered in a layer of gold, making it look beautiful and worthy of worship. The belief in the Shirou immortality spread widely, causing people in the martial world to fight for it endlessly.
But could this belief in “immortality” also be a thin layer of fragile gold?
At this point, he didn’t think that the immortals in the legends were as kind and amiable as they were portrayed.
But even if he doubted, Shi Jingzhi couldn’t just let go of that glimmer of hope. It was as if he was tied by countless threads named “desire”, and he had no choice but to walk the path that had already been predetermined.
This feeling was simply nauseating.
If it weren’t for A’Ci being by his side this time, he would have chosen to erase his memories and continue his enthusiastic and ignorant pursuit of survival.
Not long ago, he still had some fear and hesitation about breaking the remnants of the ban. In this instant, that struggle was completely suppressed by determination. Shi Jingzhi couldn’t wait to take action now, digging out that “immortal qi” from his mind.
He was determined to break this ban.
Chen Qianfan didn’t know what was on the young man’s mind. He waved his hand at Yin Ci and Shi Zhongyu, calling them to come over.
“It’s getting late, and the yin qi is heavy at night. Dealing with the Arcane Arts won’t be easy. The effects of the Breath-Halting Pill are also about to wear off. Let’s go back for now and come back tomorrow.”
As he spoke, Chen Qianfan swiftly recorded the day’s observations, and then deftly removed the memories. The entire process was smooth and natural, flowing like eating and drinking.
With no opponents left, the Arcane Arts indeed didn’t leave and continued to wander in place.
But just as the group was about to disappear from view, it slightly lifted its enormous head and turned towards the direction they were leaving.
In an instant, the thousands of severed heads on its head simultaneously opened their eyes. Thousands of cloudy eyeballs, slightly protruded, reflected the figures of the four people in the snowy field.
Thousands of lips were tightly sealed shut, and the Arcane Arts remained as quiet as ever.
The author has something to say:
Kushan Sect’s special way of dealing with a san check*—
*Sanity check.
Sect Master Shi: *deep inhale*. Disciple.
Demonic Lord Yin: *deep inhale*. Shizun.
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