Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 300 Immortal Transmits the Law
Xue Baoping blinked, looked at the handful of salt in front of him, and pursed her lips: "You... I'm busy right now, I still have to go find someone."

"The person you need help with is the one you're looking for, named Li Wuxiang."

Xue Baoping's heart skipped a beat—he wasn't the kind of reclusive hermit Zeng Jianqiu had described! He had a very clear purpose!
She understood Li Wuxiang's current predicament. The Thirty-Six Sects treated him badly, as did the Six Departments of the Mysterious Sect; he was surrounded by enemies. If this person before her was a friend… why was he hiding his true identity? If he was an enemy, why was he asking her to help Li Wuxiang?
Maybe she thinks she's an easy girl to fool and is plotting to harm him?
"Don't panic," she told herself. "The more you panic, the calmer you need to be." Both Li Wuxiang and Zeng Jianqiu had said this.

She couldn't call Master Zeng over now. Master Zeng had suffered several serious injuries and hadn't fully recovered yet. She also couldn't scare him away; she wanted to see what he was planning to do.

She told herself to feign surprise and excitement: "Ah...you're Li Wuxiang's friend? You asked me to help him, why don't you go help him yourself? Oh, by the way, senior, what should I call you?"

A smile appeared on the face of the person opposite her. This smile made Xue Baoping feel uneasy, so uneasy that she began to feel disgusted—the smile seemed to say that he knew what she was thinking!
“My surname is Li, you might as well call me Master Li.” The man finally spoke, squinting at her slightly. “Why did I ask you to help him? Because you’re a smart person. A smart person would think, ‘Something’s not right with this person. Should I try to get some information out of him?’ Ah, don’t panic, this is a good thing. I like smart people.”

Xue Baoping shut her mouth and stopped talking.

The man stretched slightly and said, “Let me give you an example. Tonight, you and your Master Zeng have made enemies and are being chased. You two are running and running, and you see a farmhouse with lights on in the mountains, where a family of four is happily together—at this moment, would you and your Master Zeng run in to ask for some food and drink and to heal your wounds, or would you stay far away?”

“We will—” She had only said those three words when the man suddenly frowned, raised his hand, and said, “Wait, I misspoke. It’s not being chased, it’s fighting with people to a standstill. It’s not being chased. Okay, you can continue.”

This person seems a bit crazy...

She became more alert and tried to soften her tone: "We'll leave. Otherwise, that family will suffer."

"Ha." The man clapped his hands and pointed at her again. "Got it. Yes, that's how it is."

"What? What's going on?"

"Oh, I mean you understand what I mean."

"So, Senior, you don't want to show yourself because you're afraid of bringing trouble to Li Wuxiang?" Xue Baoping nodded. "Senior, I understand. You mean well. Alright, then who else do you want me to find? After I meet Li Wuxiang, I'll discuss it with him. I promise I won't tell anyone about you."

The man looked at her, then suddenly sighed: "Sigh, I say, you... sigh, you little girl, you're too clever for your own good. Alright, let's do this—little girl, look at me."

He looked at Xue Baoping and clapped his hands: "I'm a really good person. You trust me completely. I really won't tell anyone else anything."

Xue Baoping felt her heart suddenly clear—this Master Li was truly a good person, she knew it! Just as she knew Master Zeng was a good person, she truly would never tell anyone about Master Li's instructions! Not even if she died!
She immediately nodded: "Really! I mean it!"

Master Li didn't speak, but just looked at her with a smile. Then he clapped his hands: "Do you understand now?"

Xue Baoping was stunned for a moment, then suddenly sprang up, grabbed the flying sword in her hand, and stared intently at him.

Then she truly understood. Her heart pounded, she breathed a sigh of relief, put away her flying sword, and sat down again.

He had a way of getting himself into a trance, which would have been easier, but he didn't use it. That was the greatest kindness he could show.

"I... I really understand."

"Alright, the person I asked you to find for me is called Ninth Young Master. He's probably been here for a long time. How long has Li Ye been dead here?"

"Li... has been around for over three thousand years. He is the Eastern Emperor Taiyi."

"Wow, that's amazing. That Ninth Young Master lived more than three thousand years ago. Do you know him?"

Xue Baoping's heart raced again. But this time it wasn't from worry or panic, but from excitement—this Master Li was connected to the Taiyi events of over three thousand years ago, he must be an extraordinary figure… and she was involved in it all, involved in what Li Wuxiang was doing!

"I do not know."

"It's alright, we'll ask you, Li Wuxiang, when the time comes. No rush, just call me when you find it—you, make three small mounds of the soil in front of you."

Xue Baoping did as instructed.

"Then when you need to find me, just rub some soil together like incense—remember, you can't use real incense, using real incense is not a good thing, and I will be unhappy—and say in your heart, Master, it's done!"

Whether it was her imagination or not, Xue Baoping felt that he had that slight smile on his face again when he was transmitting this incantation.

Perhaps he was born with a love of laughter.

So she repeated what she had said. Master Li shook his head: "Master, you can say it however you like, but you can't just say 'you've got it done' carelessly. You have to learn slowly with me, you must learn it correctly—press your throat down, don't use your mouth to make the sound, lower it and use your throat to make the sound, slowly learn with me—you—"

"have--"

“Ga de De”.

“Ga de De”.

Xue Baoping sensed that this wasn't her usual way of speaking, nor did it resemble any dialect she had heard on her journey with Master Zeng. Instead, it sounded more like a unique way of uttering a spell. Fortunately, the spell wasn't long, and she memorized it after learning it twice.

"I won't come right away if you call me; it'll take at least a day or two. So don't call me unless it's urgent. Okay, now what do you want to learn?"

Xue Baoping was stunned for a moment: "Huh? Master Li, didn't you say you were going to teach me the art of turning illusion into reality?"

"Yes, which of these talisman techniques do you want to learn? I'll only teach you one type first."

"...What are they?"

"Everything."

Xue Baoping felt that this Master Li didn't speak as clearly as Master Li Wuxiang and Master Zeng. They explained things very clearly when they taught her, but this Master Li spoke vaguely—he said everything? Well…

"Then I want to learn how to bring the dead back to life. Do you have any?"

"Yes, there is. But..."

She guessed he wanted to say something like, "But your cultivation level isn't high enough yet." But what she heard was, "Your cultivation level isn't high enough. If you bring someone back to life, you've only brought them back to life. All your previous cultivation is gone; you're just a mortal now. Do you really want to learn that?"

"Is it okay if someone has been dead for a long time?"

"You need to have your soul intact—that's all you can do for now anyway."

He's either lying, or... he's not human!

Xue Baoping felt a slight tingling sensation all over her body... She wanted to find him to chant a spell, that he could use talismans to bring people back to life, and that he was still fighting someone, whose surname was Li...

“You are… the ancestor of Ranshan, the True Lord of Fate, the Kitchen God—” Xue Baoping felt she had to work very hard to say the last three words as if they were true, “Li Jiaotu!”

Master Li paused for a moment, then nodded: "Ah, yes, yes, I am Li Jiaotu."

Xue Baoping frowned at him, then shook her head: "You're not."

Master Li sighed: "Are you going to learn or not? I'm leaving."

"Learned it!"

"Okay. When you want to perform the ritual, just find any piece of paper, draw a little person on it, and say 'Master Li,' and that'll do. But it can't be used casually; it can only be used on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month. It won't work at other times. If you want to see me, it's best to do so within these two days."

"that's all?"

"Yes, that's it. But there's one thing you need to remember." Master Li's expression turned serious. "If you accidentally let it slip one day, the talisman technique I'm passing on to you will no longer work. By 'no longer work,' I mean that everyone you've saved with this talisman will turn back into a piece of paper and can never be saved again."

Xue Baoping's expression tightened upon hearing this, and she nodded: "I'll remember."

As soon as she finished speaking, she heard the rustling of leaves. Zeng Jianqiu returned, empty-handed: "Didn't find anything. It was too dark to look. We'll try again tomorrow during the day—"

He noticed Xue Baoping's gaze, immediately stopped talking, and held the flying sword in his hand: "What's wrong?"

What's wrong? Master Zeng is standing right next to Master Li, but he seems not to see him!

She saw Master Li smile, put his index finger to his lips, and then disappear without a trace.

Zeng Jianqiu glanced at where she was looking, then strode over to her side: "What's wrong? What are you looking at?"

"I...I just now, I..." Xue Baoping racked her brains and finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, "I think I just saw Emperor Taiyi. He passed on a talisman to me."

She noticed Zeng Jianqiu's expression; he must think he was possessed. So she simply said, "That talisman can bring people back to life."

Zeng Jianqiu turned around, frowned, looked around, and then reached into his clothes.

Xue Baoping knew what he wanted to touch—a talisman for calming the mind and exorcising evil. She stood up and pressed Zeng Jianqiu's hand down: "Master, don't look anymore, I'm really not possessed. It's just that someone suddenly sat down over there just now. He didn't say he was the Taiyi Emperor, I guessed. But he said that there are too many dead people in the world now, which is bad, so he gave me a talisman and told me to save more people. He even cried when he mentioned the dead."

Zeng Jianqiu looked at her carefully: "What does that person look like?"

"It's blurry, I can't see clearly. But if it's real, I think it must be Emperor Taiyi, right?"

Zeng Jianqiu took a step back, scratched his head, and rubbed it. He didn't think Xue Baoping was possessed, but her words sounded like incoherent ramblings. He could only ask, "What kind of spell did you learn?"

"I can't put it into words. I know it in my heart, but I just can't say it."

These words brought Zeng Jianqiu a slight sense of relief. Some cultivators encounter spirits who impart teachings, which is different from external evils entering the body; it's simply using the hands of mortals to cultivate merit. These are mostly spirits and wild gods from the sacred mountains, who know the dangers of the human world and don't want to show themselves.

But that was then. These days, the world is in chaos. Not the fighting and turmoil caused by starving people, but the fact that along their journey, they discovered that many spirits in the sacred mountains wanted to be born and seize offerings.

Some possessed cultivators to establish cults, while others simply possessed demons in the mountains and fields, committing even more brutal acts.

The person Xue Baoping mentioned, who asked her to save more people and even cried? It doesn't sound very bad.

The teachings they convey can only be understood intuitively and cannot be spoken of, indicating that they do not yet wish to gather incense offerings in the world like other spirits and wild gods.

But he was still uneasy... When external evil enters the body, it can initially bring benefits, making people think it is a righteous god.

Just then, Xue Baoping said, "Master, why don't we set off tonight and go down the mountain to look for someone?"

She pointed to the sky and said, "The spell that person gave me can only be used on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month. Today happens to be the first, so I want to see if it works."

Zeng Jianqiu nodded: "Alright."

It's not that no one can bring the dead back to life, but it involves the power and authority of the Dao, which is probably beyond the capabilities of cultivators in the mortal realm. That thing boasted to Xue Baoping, and Zeng Jianqiu feared that what it brought back to life wasn't human, but something else entirely. He needed to see for himself before making any decisions.

The two extinguished the fire, swept away the embers, and poured some water on it. On their way down the mountain, Zeng Jianqiu wanted to ask more questions, but after only a few words, he realized Xue Baoping truly believed in that thing, so he stopped talking. He was afraid that continuing to press the matter would displease the thing and put Xue Baoping in danger as well.

From here, walking another twenty li or so down the mountain leads to Fuguo. Zeng Jianqiu had been to this place three times and knew that during the Ye Dynasty it was called Fuguo County, which was later mistakenly renamed Fuguo. It used to be a large city, but later became a small town. From Fuguo, walking northeast for more than three hundred li will take you to Quyao. After passing Quyao, and walking for another half a day, you will reach Pingshan City, the largest town near Dajie Mountain.

He had initially assumed that Fuguo, like many of the villages and towns they had passed through on their way there, would be reduced to dark ruins. But as they walked at the foot of the mountain, they saw lights there, and these lights weren't from a fire. It seemed that many people were gathered there, doing something—either refugees who had been stranded there were besieging wealthy households to seize their food, or perhaps, like the wealthy households they had only seen once among the hundreds of villages and towns they had passed through on their journey, were voluntarily distributing food to help the needy.

However, as he got closer, he realized that it was neither.

Outside Fuguo Town, there were already large groups of starving people, and looking inside, all he could see were densely packed heads. Everyone was squeezing into the town, and he heard them saying that there was food inside, and that a sect called "Blood God Cult" was distributing food to relieve the disaster, and that they would also select followers to take to Dajie Mountain to teach cultivation techniques.

The two didn't react much when they heard "Blood God Cult," but when they heard "Great Calamity Mountain," they immediately exchanged a glance, leaped from the rooftops, and ran straight towards the town center.

There are countless sects in the world that dare to call themselves "religion." But none have ever dared to call themselves "religion" at the Great Calamity Mountain Dojo before!
(End of this chapter)