Pure Yang!

Chapter 525 The Fourth Generation of the Southern Zhang Family! Meeting Eighth Master with a Coffin
Winters are bitterly cold outside the Great Wall, and the northern lands are frozen solid.

A majestic and desolate mountain, with a zigzagging road that resembles a giant gray-white snake, winding its way upwards with difficulty.

In the deep mountains and forests, in the shadyest spot where the wind and snow raged, there was a hidden ancient building...

The building has a square outline, a flat roof, and old-fashioned iron-framed windows with green paint. Many of the windows are already blurred or broken. The walls are covered with dead vines, frozen by ice and snow, hanging stiffly like necrotic blood vessels and tendons.

It seems like a ghost forgotten by time, exuding the antiquity and heaviness of the 1970s and 80s. Beside the cement pillar at the entrance hangs a heavily rusted iron sign, almost completely covered by thick snow, with only five blurry characters barely discernible:

Natural Science Research Institute!!!
The wind and snow howled as they swept across the empty courtyard of the building, swirling up snowflakes on the ground, adding to the desolation and mystery.

Deep inside, a huge domed greenhouse is teeming with life.

Even the faint winter sunlight, after being gathered through the glass dome, becomes bright and warm, evenly scattering into every corner.

"That brat has already entered the pass."

Just then, a pure yet enchanting voice echoed among the lush flowers, plants, and strange rocks.

In front of an artificial hill stood a woman. She was tall and slender, wearing a well-tailored black leather jacket that accentuated her graceful curves. Her long, black hair was tied into a simple and neat bun at the back of her head, revealing her smooth and full forehead and her long, fair neck.

"The Zhang family..."

Suddenly, an old voice came from behind the craggy rockery. The lush flowers and plants swayed slightly, as if a figure was hiding there, fiddling with these inconspicuous green plants.

"Sui Sui, what was that young man's name again?"

After a brief pause, the aged voice rang out again, its tone calm, as if it were just a casual question, with most of its attention still on the green plants and vines.

“Zhang Fan!” Jiang Sui said in a deep voice.

That day, Zhang Fan dialed the number on the Nokia phone, and the woman in front of him answered.

“Yes, I remember now, this young man is…” The aged voice trailed off, then paused again.

"He is a disciple of Nan Zhang!" Jiang Sui reminded him.

“Oh, I remember now, Nan Zhang… he is a descendant of Zhang Nantian…”

"Zhang Nantian, he's quite a good young man."

The aged voice sighed, as if reminiscing or mourning.

Jiang Sui remained silent, but a strange light appeared in her bright eyes.

Eighty years ago, after the great calamity of Taoism, the incense offerings of Longhu Mountain were spread to the north and south respectively.

The first head of the Northern Zhang family was named Zhang Beiming.

As for Nanzhang...

The first head of the Nan Zhang family was Zhang Nantian.

After Zhang Nantian, it was passed down to Zhang Tiansheng, then to Zhang Lingzong, and finally to Zhang Fan.

This is the fourth generation of the Nan Zhang lineage.

"We can find some time to have him come over for a visit."

The aged voice rang out again, as if rippled by the passage of time.

Jiang Sui pursed her lips and couldn't help but say, "Dean, Zhang Nantian has been dead for many years."

At this point, Jiang Sui paused slightly before adding, "The entire Nan Zhang lineage is no more."

"Really? That young man died so young?"

"Time is such a ruthless thief!"

"What a pity... He even took my sugar pills back then."

An aged voice echoed softly, carrying a hint of sentimentality and sigh.

"By the way, where's my sugar pill?"

"Dean, you can't eat sugar anymore. You already have stage two diabetes."

Jiang Sui frowned slightly, a hint of worry in her clear eyes: "You should take your medicine."

As she spoke, her gaze fell on the bottles and jars on the small cart next to her.

"I'm getting old. It seems I'll be dying soon."

"Dean, what nonsense are you talking about? You're not even three hundred years old, how could you die?" Jiang Sui said unhappily.

"Everyone dies eventually, let alone an ordinary person like me. How could I possibly live to be three hundred years old?"

"I fell last year and was bedridden for two months. My health has deteriorated since then."

The aged voice became rambling, as if it were talking to itself.

Around the artificial hill, the air was thick with moisture, even more so than in other parts of the greenhouse, almost turning into a thin white mist that drifted slowly. In a daze, a figure appeared...

"Sui Sui, go and pick up that..."

"Zhang Fan!" Jiang Sui reminded him.

"Yes, if young people like that die out there, the world will lose a lot of its fun."

"After all, it has been many years since Zhang San that no one has practiced this alchemy method."

Suddenly, an old yet upright figure slowly emerged from the lush vegetation, the surrounding branches and leaves swaying gently without any wind.

……

Linji Province, Liangcangtun.

After passing the Blackwater Hills, we traveled 800 li along the way, where the population became increasingly sparse, and finally arrived at this village that had been almost forgotten by the outside world.

This place is remote and desolate, surrounded by snow-covered fields and barren mountains. There are only twenty or thirty households in the village, with low and sparse houses. Except for the fixed market day every month, there are hardly any outsiders. It is so quiet that time seems to flow exceptionally slowly here.

"Sect Master, another six hundred miles ahead is the Changbai Mountain region."

Wang Tao parked the car in the snow outside the village, without driving it in, to avoid the engine noise attracting unnecessary attention.

He followed behind Zhang Fan, looking puzzled as to why they had stopped in a place like this.

"in case!"

Zhang Fan's gaze swept over the desolate village before him, his eyes calm, his voice low but carrying a sharp wariness.

Good fortune comes from the mind, misfortune arises from divine awareness.

Since killing Fan Lingzhou, a vague sense of oppression had risen in his heart. He could feel that this last stretch of road would not be easy.

It was just getting dark.

The last rays of sunlight struggled to sink behind the distant mountains, and the village was quickly swallowed up by the deep twilight and silence.

"It's so quiet under the bright sun, with the sounds of chickens and dogs everywhere," Zhang Fan remarked as he walked through the village.

Right now, every household has its doors and windows tightly shut, with only occasional lights visible and no human voices to be heard. The only sound is the intermittent barking of a large dog, torn apart by the cold wind, coming from a courtyard not far away, which only serves to highlight the stagnant silence and desolation.

"Follow me."

Zhang Fan walked straight ahead, traversing the dirt roads in the village where the snow had not yet been cleared.

Finally, we stopped in front of a lonely courtyard house in the most remote corner at the far end of the village.

This courtyard was more dilapidated than the surrounding ones, with mottled earthen walls and a crooked wooden door.

"Um!?"

As soon as he reached the door, Wang Tao frowned.

A pungent smell wafted faintly from inside the courtyard and entered the nasal cavity.

The smell was like long-dried cured meat, rancid and greasy, or like a corpse preserved in formaldehyde, mixed with a cold, fishy odor of chemicals—it was extremely unpleasant. He instinctively looked up, and in the dim moonlight, he saw a large rooster with black feathers and red claws hanging conspicuously on the lintel of the dilapidated courtyard gate…

The rooster's neck was broken, and the blood had long since dried, congealing on its black feathers and dark red claws. The corpse swayed gently in the biting wind, casting an eerie and unsettling shadow.

"This is... the art of corpse refining!?"

Wang Tao's face showed surprise.

The places where masters of corpse refining live often need to avoid yang energy and gather yin energy, so they usually set up some special methods.

Some people will find a dry well nearby, fill it with black dog blood, and then seal it with yellow mud. In this way, they will forcibly introduce the yang energy of the surrounding area into the well to suppress it, creating a situation where yang is weak and yin is strong.

Others would hang a large black-feathered, red-clawed rooster upside down at their door, letting its blood drain out, and then expose it to the moonlight for seven days, using its remaining extremely yin and deathly energy as a catalyst and barrier for evil spirits.

"I never imagined there would be a master cultivator in a place like this!?" Wang Tao exclaimed in amazement.

Who would have thought that a master of corpse refining was hidden in this inconspicuous village?

However, the cold weather outside the pass makes corpses less likely to decompose, and in the past, many experts in corpse refining did indeed "venture into the Northeast" to improve their skills.

However, with the current trend of cremation, there are fewer and fewer people following this tradition, and many have turned to other paths.

"Boom...boom...boom..."

Zhang Fan did not explain, but stepped forward and knocked on the mottled wooden door.

The knocking sounded exceptionally clear in the quiet night, even a little eerie.

After a while, just when Wang Tao thought no one was inside...

“Squeak…ah…”

The wooden door slowly, reluctantly, opened a crack, emitting a sickening, rotten, grinding sound.

Through the crack in the door, Zhang Fan saw an old man standing there, wearing a tall black leather hat and a strangely styled dark cotton robe that looked like a shroud at first glance.

"Who are you looking for?"

The old man in the black hat peered warily through the crack in the door, his voice dry and hoarse, like sandpaper being rubbed.

"I'm here to pick up the goods!" Zhang Fan whispered.

As he spoke, he raised his hand and quickly drew a twisted and eerie talisman pattern on the thick layer of dust on the earthen wall next to him with his fingertips.

The old man in the black hat's expression shifted slightly, a glint of light flashing in his eyes. He quickly pulled out a yellow talisman from his pocket. The talisman was also decorated with patterns drawn in cinnabar, but it was only half-drawn and clearly incomplete.

hum...

The moment he took out half a talisman, the half-line pattern on the earthen wall trembled slightly.

The dust on the wall seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, rising up in a flurry and mimicking the trajectory of the patterns in the air, flying precisely towards the half-talisman in the old man's hand as if it were alive.

In an instant, the gray stains on the wall and the cinnabar on the talisman met perfectly, as if they were one!
"puff!"

With a soft sound, the two talismans that had been combined into one in the old man's hand spontaneously combusted without fire, igniting a faint blue flame before quickly turning to ashes.

Seeing this, the old man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and the wary aura around him lessened. He said no more and opened the courtyard gate completely.

"Follow me." The old man in the black hat turned around and led the way.

Wang Tao frowned even more deeply, the pungent smell becoming even stronger. In addition to the previous odor, there was an indescribable strange smell, like a mixture of various herbs and some kind of putrid substance.

What was even more unsettling was that he could hardly detect any sign of life in the old man in the black hat who opened the door; it was as if the person standing there was just an old, living shell.

"This……"

As Wang Tao stepped into the courtyard, he raised an eyebrow, feeling as if he had entered an icebox, even colder and more biting than outside.

A glance around revealed that the ground in the yard was uneven, dotted with many mounds of earth, each about thirty centimeters high, irregularly shaped, and covered with frozen snow and withered grass.

At first glance, there are about thirteen or fourteen such mounds scattered in the courtyard, like a disorderly graveyard.

"This old man... he's not raising a corpse in his own yard, is he?!"

Wang Tao couldn't help but tug at Zhang Fan's sleeve and mutter in a low voice.

The old man in the black hat seemed to hear it, his steps faltered slightly, and his withered body swayed slightly, as if he were casting a glance over out of the corner of his eye.

Zhang Fan seemed oblivious and continued to follow behind him.

"Is this gentleman also a disciple of Maoshan?"

The old man in the black hat visibly trembled, shrank his neck, and said coldly, "It's not like that anymore."

"People like me..."

"Not worthy!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Fan's gaze sharpened slightly, and he remained silent.

He followed the old man in the black hat, straight through the eerie courtyard, and arrived at a lower house in the backyard that was almost half-buried in the ground.

"What you want is inside."

The old man in the black hat pushed open the seemingly heavier wooden door, and a chilling aura mixed with the smells of dirt, rotten wood, and strong herbs rushed out.

The room was dark, with no lights on. By the faint moonlight filtering in from the doorway and the reflection of the snow, a black coffin could be seen prominently displayed in the center of the room.
Wang Tao's doubts deepened, and he could hardly contain himself and ask questions.

Zhang Fan remained silent and walked a few steps to the coffin.

A few days ago, he took a huge risk and contacted Shang Changle through various channels, asking him to use his connections to send this "treasure" that he had hidden in a secret place in Yujing to the area beyond the Great Wall.

"Just in case, this thing can save your life in a critical moment!"

Zhang Fan murmured softly, gently pushing open the not-yet-nailed coffin lid. Inside lay a figure, none other than Zhao Jiexuan!
……

At the foot of Changbai Mountain, snow and wind swirled everywhere.

The biting north wind whipped up heavy snowflakes, emitting howls like the wailing of thousands of demons, transforming this land into a chaotic, roaring, pure white mountain realm.

However, in the heart of this raging blizzard where visibility was less than ten steps, a figure sat quietly cross-legged on the snow.

He wasn't particularly tall or imposing, yet he was as immovable as a rock and as steadfast as a pine tree, unmoved by the roars of the surrounding heaven and earth.

Even more strangely, within a radius of several feet centered on him, the originally raging wind and snow seemed to have become much "docile".

The snowflakes stopped slapping around randomly.

Even the fierce wind seemed to become gentle and continuous.

This is the profound mystery of the Celestial Master realm...

The human heart is the heart of Heaven; when thoughts arise, the environment changes.

"King Huofa, what are you doing here?"

Just then, a thunderous roar suddenly came from the deep mountains shrouded in wind and snow.

The sound rolled on, piercing through the wind and snow, causing the snow accumulated on the surrounding pine branches to fall in a rustling sound.

hum...

Suddenly, King Hofa opened his eyes and slowly got up.

The moment he stood up, the surrounding wind and snow stopped, the world became empty, and all sounds ceased.

"I have been entrusted by General Jiang to come and pay my respects at the mountain..."

King Hofa paused, his tone still calm, yet carrying an undeniable weight.

"Greetings, Eighth Master Ji!!!"

(End of this chapter)