Day and night tour

Chapter 498 Ancient Palace Swordsman

Danzi explained that the so-called "Ancient Hall of Returning Souls" is a temple-like space formed at many intersections of the Yellow Springs Road because the dead gather there day and night and are tainted by evil energy.

Why is there a "Returning Soul Ancient Temple" near Dongshi Street? It's simply because this is a funeral street. On ordinary days, funerals are held every day, with music and singing, and countless deceased people gather here.

Over time, this strange space will naturally form.

"This is the Ancient Hall of Returning Souls?" King Xishan asked, somewhat bewildered.

Zhou Xuan felt the situation was urgent, so he kept it brief: "Old Xi, don't ask so many questions. Just know that there are Zoroastrians in our East Market Street. They capture the souls of the dead and throw them into the fire pit to refine human pills."

"What?" King Xishan exclaimed in surprise.

Sister Cui felt a sudden darkness engulf her and was about to fall backward, but fortunately Zhou Xuan caught her quickly and said, "Sister Cui, don't be anxious. Refining pills isn't something that can be done in a flash; it takes time."

He helped Sister Cui up and said to her and Xishan Wang, "Old Xi, Sister Cui, according to the timeline you mentioned, Hua Zi hasn't been arrested for too long. You two go back to the restaurant and wait for me. I'll let you know if I have any news."

To further reassure Sister Cui, Zhou Xuan emphasized again, "Don't worry, it must be good news."

Following Zhou Xuan's instructions, King Xishan helped Cui Jie out of the purification shop.

On the way, Sister Cui grabbed Xishan Wang's sleeve as if it were a lifeline: "Third Brother, do you think Brother Zhou can really rescue Hua Zi?"

“The master is no ordinary man. Since he says he can save them, then he can save them. Sister, don’t worry, just wait.”

……

After Xishan Wang and Cui Jie left, Zhou Xuan turned around and called out, "Xiao Fuzi, the young master isn't an outsider, there's no need to sneak around."

It turned out that Xiao Fuzi had been busy in the kitchen, scaling the fish they bought that morning, so she could cook a pot of fish soup for the shop staff at noon.
He overheard Sister Cui and the young master talking about Hua Zi outside the hall—he immediately stopped killing the fish and hid in a corner to eavesdrop.
At this moment, Zhou Xuan called out to him, and he walked out with his head down, looking like a student who had done something wrong.

Zhou Xuan pressed down on Xiao Fuzi's shoulder and said, "Fuzi, don't worry. Young Master said he would bring Mu Hua back, and he will. Don't be discouraged."

"Yes," Xiao Fuzi replied.

Zhou Xuan then asked, "Do you know what you're supposed to do now?"

Xiao Fuzi shook her head.

"After you've finished cleaning the fish, remember to soak it in water with scallions and ginger for a while to remove the muddy taste."

After Zhou Xuan finished speaking, he gently pushed Xiao Fuzi, who became less nervous and went back to the kitchen to clean the fish.
Zhou Xuan flicked his sleeve, and a gust of wind rose up, slamming the wide-open door of the shop shut.

The shop door closed, and the stone temple appeared. Zhou Xuan was guided into the temple by the stone temple.

"You're here again?"

Danzi "Wujiang" raised his head and looked at Zhou Xuan.

“I want to go and see the hearth on East Market Street,” Zhou Xuan said.

"I already said I need to rest and recuperate. Come over tonight." Danzi shook her head.

Zhou Xuan pretended to be relaxed, walking around Danzi, and said, "I suddenly remembered something."

"whats the matter?"

"If you can't even get me into the small fire pit twice in a row, how can I believe you can take me into the large fire pit in Huangyuan Prefecture?"

"So, you've come to test my abilities?" Danzi asked.

Zhou Xuan nodded in agreement.

He actually came for Hua Zi, but Zhou Xuan was very shrewd in business and knew the principle that "wealth does not come to those who are impatient."

When you're in a hurry, you'll try anything and end up spending much more money than usual to do the same thing.

If Zhou Xuan were to tell Danzi at this moment that his friend had been captured and taken to the "Returning Soul Temple," then Danzi would demand a higher price.

Therefore, Zhou Xuan found an excuse to "test his skills" and had Danzi escort him into the ancient temple in the East Market Street.

"You people from Jing are really hard to please. Building trust with you is so difficult."

Despite his words, Danzi still inserted the fingertips of his right hand into his palm, dug out a piece of flesh, and stuck it to Zhou Xuan's brow.

The minced meat comes from the elixir, which is a highly effective human elixir.

"I brought you here tonight so that you can figure out during the day how to deal with the Zoroastrians when you've lost all your supernatural powers in the Temple of Returning Souls."

"Since you don't need this time to think, I'll just take you in."

Danzi muttered something, and the bits of flesh, like an insect, crawled into Zhou Xuan's body through his pores.

After Zhou Xuan left the stone temple, he once again experienced the eerie silence inside the ritual chamber, where the pendulum's swing frequency had slowed down.

He walked to the shop entrance with practiced ease and gently pushed the door open.

The burial chamber was still suspended in mid-air, and the old man wearing a leather apron was still burning corpses at the stove door of the fire tower.

Zhou Xuanli was still several dozen feet away from the old man.

"How do I get down? And if there are other Zoroastrians left, how am I supposed to deal with them?"

Zhou Xuan called out to his bone tooth and folding fan again, but still received no response.

He stood at the shop entrance, looking down, and saw a second person appear dozens of feet below.

This person—with a pig's head and a human body, his head resembling a wild boar's—was pulling a cart toward the old man tending the fire.

The vehicle was filled with fresh remains—hands, feet, thighs, and so on.

Zhou Xuan carefully examined the severed limbs, and none of them came from Hua Zi.

Mu Hua and Zhou Xuan look very alike, both in appearance and physique. If there were any of Mu Hua's severed limbs on that cart, Zhou Xuan would recognize them at a glance—he might not recognize others, but surely he would recognize his own hands and feet.
The pig-headed man dragged the cart to the old man's side, removed the severed limbs, piled them into a small mountain, and then pulled the cart away again.

"If Hua Zi isn't on this truck, we can't guarantee he won't be on the next one with the remains."

Zhou Xuan began to ponder how to get down to the ground and how to deal with the two people who had already appeared.

Without supernatural powers, Zhou Xuan would be no different from an ordinary person. Not to mention that there might be other Zoroastrian followers below him, just this old man and the pig-headed man alone would be enough to give him a hard time.

Zhou Xuan had a thousand thoughts running through his mind, but he wasn't anxious. The more urgent the situation, the more he needed to remain calm.

He decided to get to the bottom of things—first, he should figure out why supernatural powers couldn't be used in the "Temple of Returning Souls".

"The source of power for the disciples of the Jingguo Hall is incense offerings."

"And incense refers to the spirit of incense and the spirit of fire."

Fragrant Souls and Fire Spirits are essentially creatures that float in every inch of air in the Kingdom of Well, and there are a great many of them.

Thinking of this, Zhou Xuan suddenly had a clear understanding. He realized: "The Temple of Returning Souls may not be suitable for the growth of fragrant souls and fire spirits. There is no incense in this space."

If there is no incense offering, it is understandable that the disciples of the temple cannot use their supernatural powers.

Zhou Xuan became increasingly astonished as he thought about it.

What surprised him was not that there was no incense burning in the "Temple of Returning Souls".

What surprised him was the sense of powerlessness felt by the disciples of the temple after they lost their incense offerings and their supernatural powers.

After the disciples of Jingguo paid their respects at the altar and lit incense, it was as if they had acquired a new body, a body that could ascend to heaven and use various supernatural powers.

But once this "new body" is no longer under the disciple's control, feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and even fear will grow wildly in their hearts like weeds.

"No wonder the gods in the heavens are afraid of the Heavenly Fire Clan."

At this moment, Zhou Xuan became even more determined to use the power of "elixirs" to replace the source of "incense offerings".

However, this idea only lingered in his mind for a while before disappearing without a trace. His most important task at the moment was to find a way to save Hua Zi.

"Since there is no incense burning inside the Ancient Hall of Returning Souls, it means that any skill related to incense burning cannot be used."

"But... what if we apply the laws?"

Zhou Xuan knew very well that the laws of the gods did not require the blessing of incense.

If even gods rely on fragrant spirits and fireflies to unleash their supernatural powers, then the Heavenly Fire Clan is most adept at controlling fragrant spirits and fireflies.
The races in the sky have no need to fear god-level beings; they can simply descend to the mortal realm openly.

There is absolutely no power in the human realm to restrain the Skyfire Clan.

"That's right, the laws should be able to be used within the ancient temple."

Thinking of this, Zhou Xuan went to unleash his own laws.

Zhou Xuan comprehended the first realm's Law of Destiny and the third realm's Law of Stars from the nine laws of the Well Kingdom.

"The Law of the Stars - Flying Stars".

Zhou Xuan focused his mind and unleashed the power of the laws. His body immediately melted like a block of old ice, then transformed into countless shimmering specks, which were blown away by the wind in the ancient palace.

With the Flying Star Technique, as long as a single point of light reaches a certain location, Zhou Xuan's true form can descend using that point of light.

But this time, Zhou Xuan did not rush to descend. The countless points of light he transformed into took in the entire ancient palace space.

Zhou Xuan then saw that the entire East Market Street was visible above the space.

This ancient palace space is shaped like a gourd. The large fruit chamber of the gourd is the area where Zhou Xuan saw the fire tower.

Xiaoguofang truly resembled a temple—but not a proper temple or main hall; it was more like a wicked and licentious shrine built by mountain barbarians.

The outer wall of that small hall was inlaid with one human head after another, a dense and numerous mass.

Following Zhou Xuan's starlight, he drifted into the interior of the small hall, only to see that it was practically a slaughterhouse.

The stench of blood permeated the air. Hundreds of the dead, their hands pierced by iron hooks, hung from the ceiling of the ancient temple like human-shaped wind chimes suspended indoors.

The five pig-headed men randomly took down the hanging corpses and, with rusty pig-slaughtering knives, methodically chopped and hacked at them.

"Duh! Duh! Duh!"

A series of dull thuds followed one after another.
After carefully examining the five pig-headed men for a while, Zhou Xuan discovered that they were not monsters.

Five pig heads, with stiff faces and bloodshot eyes, but their eyeballs did not move when they looked at anything, clearly indicating that they were already dead.

"So these pig heads were actually headgear worn on their heads."

Zhou Xuan didn't know why these people were wearing this type of hood, and he began searching for Hua Zi's whereabouts.

Sure enough, Zhou Xuan actually found it—at the foot of the wall, there was a young man bound by white paper banners and strips of cloth. Who else could it be but Hua Zi?

"He really was kidnapped by the Zoroastrian disciples of this ancient temple."

Zhou Xuan pondered to himself.

Just then, the five pig-headed men who were chopping meat started talking to each other.

"Manager Liu, do you think that kid might have some kind of background?"

“That’s right. Over the years, we’ve only ever seen people walking from East Market Street to Shepherd Soul City. We’ve never seen a dead person walking from Shepherd Soul City to East Market Street.”

Everyone turned to Steward Liu for answers.

Manager Liu stopped what he was doing, glanced at Hua Zi, and said, "This kid has some spiritual energy, making him more suitable for refining human pills than ordinary dead people. However, his approach is the opposite, which may indeed be due to some hidden reasons."

"Then, shall we release him?"

"Why release him?" Steward Liu said, "Tie him up here first. If a master comes looking for him within seven days, return him. If no one comes looking for him after that long, then he probably doesn't have any powerful backers. Chop off his hands and feet and stuff him into the furnace to refine pills."

After he finished speaking, he continued with his work, while the dead body on his table screamed in agony.

Manager Liu gently patted the deceased and said with a smile, "Stop wailing. You are going to be refined into pills. We will send the pills to the heavens. For the noble people in the heavens, it will be their good fortune to eat you."

"Such good fortune is something we could never hope for."

"That's right, once refined into an elixir, it's eaten by nobles, then excreted like excrement and urine, falling back to the human world, where it can be reborn as a human, and who knows, it might even be born into a wealthy family."

“We disciples are also people with bitter fates. You dead people have a chance to change your fate, why don’t you cherish it? All you do is shout all day long, shout your grandpa.”

These pig-headed men, spouting sarcastic remarks without a care in the world.
Just then, a lazy voice reached their ears.

"Since you are so eager for the fortune of 'ascending to heaven after achieving immortality,' I, your humble Taoist priest, will gladly see you off."

Upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, everyone paused for a moment, then looked up sharply and saw a young man dressed in a black Taoist robe standing inside the ancient hall.

"You...who are you?"

Manager Liu reacted first, assuming a blocking stance with his sword, and stared at Zhou Xuan.

Zhou Xuan strode to Mu Hua's side and once again used the "Star Body" technique from the Star Law.

The celestial body made Zhou Xuan's body indestructible; he himself was a sturdy weapon.

In no time at all, he tore the strips of cloth off Mu Hua's body.

Mu Hua, freed from her restraints, called out, "Brother Zhou Xuan."

"Hua Zi, your sister and your third brother are waiting for you to come home."

Zhou Xuan said with a smile.

The two were chatting enthusiastically, but Manager Liu was a little flustered. He was flustered, not because the other person was called "Zhou Xuan".

Inside this ancient hall, they refined elixirs day and night, oblivious to the rumors circulating outside, unaware of who Zhou Xuan was.

What alarmed them was that none of the people who could reach the ancient temple were easy to deal with; they were far beyond the capabilities of these small-time believers.

However, these pig-headed disciples did not recognize Zhou Xuan, but almost all the dead people who were hung up as wind chimes knew Zhou Xuan.

These deceased people may not have come from East Market Street; they were just passing through this place on their way to the underworld when they were captured by Steward Liu and his men. However, they were almost all from Mingjiang Prefecture in their previous lives.

How could the people of Mingjiang Prefecture not know Zhou Xuan?

They cried out desperately, as if they had seen a savior, "Master, Master, save us!"

"We were just traveling normally to Shepherd Soul City, we didn't offend anyone, and then we were arrested."

"They impaled us with iron hooks, and then they were going to cut us up and put us in the furnace to burn. Sir... save me..."

“We’ve gone to Shepherd City. We’ll accept being reborn as a good or bad person, but we can’t die here.”

The cries for help from inside the ancient hall came one after another, shaking the hall with a loud rumble.

Manager Liu was even more surprised. He thought to himself, since so many people knew Zhou Xuan, Zhou Xuan must be a very important person.

He hurriedly clasped his hands in a gesture of apology, his fists gripping the knife between them.
“Sir, we brought your friend in because he was lost. Now that you’re here, you can just take him away without saying a word.”

"I'm going to take them all with me."

Zhou Xuan gestured towards the dead figures on the cave ceiling.

"That's probably not going to work."

"What's wrong with that? If you die, they can leave, right?"

Zhou Xuan approached the group of pig-headed men with a smile.

Seeing Zhou Xuan's fierce and menacing appearance, Steward Liu immediately hardened his heart and said, "Master, if you insist on pushing us too far, then we will fight you to the death."

"Bring on whatever tricks you have."

Zhou Xuan strode forward.
Manager Liu immediately swung his sword and slashed at Zhou Xuan, a powerful strike landing on Zhou Xuan's back.

The strike seemed to have missed, but Manager Liu spun the knife in his hand again, and the force of the strike that had missed actually rolled back towards Zhou Xuan, like a heavy snowfall sealing off a mountain, making it impossible to avoid.

Zhou Xuan didn't even consider avoiding it; his celestial body was indestructible.
He stood alone amidst the myriad sword strikes, none of which could break through his defenses.

After the force of the blade dissipated, Zhou Xuan was unharmed, and Steward Liu immediately sighed.

His strike, which pierced through his own divine power, couldn't even break through the Great Master's defense, which only proves one thing—the gap between him and Zhou Xuan is too vast.

The difference between the two is like that between a human and an ant.

Zhou Xuan coldly replied, "Without incense offerings in the Ancient Hall of Returning Souls, how can you use the methods of a mortal sect?"

"That last strike of yours was the Flowing Wind and Returning Snow Technique—one of the Sixteen Techniques of Wuwen Mountain. Are you from Wuwen Mountain?"

"Do you know about Wuwen Mountain?"

After hearing Zhou Xuan's words, Steward Liu had no intention of "making friends" with him. His voice was trembling with sobs, and he felt quite ashamed of "disgracing his family."

Zhou Xuan asked Steward Liu, "Do you know Tan Pei?"

Tan Pei was the catalyst for the Wuwen Mountain calamity. This chivalrous swordsman killed the "Linming Young Master" who was causing havoc on the world.

It was precisely because of this incident that Bai Yujing and Di Zi sent Mr. Ye and the Supreme Master of Dunjia to Wuwen Mountain to capture the person.

“That’s the most courageous swordsman in our mountains… in our mountains… we naturally know him.”

Manager Liu lowered his head and mumbled something.

Zhou Xuan sneered: "Tan Pei of Wuwen Mountain is full of chivalry, unlike you useless cowards who run here as disciples of the Zoroastrian sect, intercepting the dead to refine pills. Today, I, Zhou Xuan, in the name of Wuwen Mountain, will cleanse the sect."

This time, Zhou Xuan was filled with murderous intent, but the five stewards, including Manager Liu, did not retreat.

Especially Steward Liu, who asked, "Master, your skill is superb. Just that one strike showed who was superior. The five of us, plus the old man tending the fire outside, were no match for you."

But I just want to ask, what right do you have to use the name of Wuwen Mountain to kill us?

Before Zhou Xuan could answer his question, several of the hanged dead spoke up.

"Last night in Mingjiang Prefecture, the Master comprehended the seventeenth sword technique of Wuwen Mountain—the Ten Thousand People Return to Origin Technique."

"He is the butcher of Wuwen Mountain, and the officially designated successor of Wuwen Mountain."

"The butcher returned it to the master and passed on the sword spirit of Wuwen Mountain."

The crowd chimed in, leaving Steward Liu speechless...

(End of this chapter)