Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 370: Adding fuel to the fire
The changes here seemed to please Xu Zhen, who immediately said, "I remember! How could I not remember? You said Mei Qiulu used to live somewhere? A mountain peak? Very steep? With cliffs?"

As he spoke, a scene appeared in the landscape. After he finished speaking, a mountain peak rose abruptly from the ground, covered with lush vegetation and with steep cliffs. Although it did not resemble the Nine Execution Peak where Mei Qiulu originally lived, it was still quite similar.

Li Wuxiang clapped and cheered: "Brother! That's right! You remembered! There's also Feihong Peak, Hujin Peak, Lingqiao Peak, and Dadong Peak—"

Xu Zhen stared wide-eyed into the distance: "Yes, yes, you mentioned it, and Feihong Peak, Feihong—Feihong—"

Another mountain peak rose abruptly from the plain in the distance, but it collapsed immediately, turning into a pile of rubble. Xu Zhen clutched his head, exclaiming, "No, no, I can't remember! Ouch, my head hurts so much!"

Li Wuxiang quickly went over to support him, massaging his shoulders and neck: "Ah, brother, you've really suffered to cultivate these supernatural powers. Don't rush, take your time. Look, it's already become quite a sight, hasn't it? Do you remember anything? I heard from the people of the Central Continent that after Taiyi's defeat and death, the Ninth Prince stayed in Mount Ling. Mount Ling is a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, piled high with bones. I wonder if your true body is really there—"

Xu Zhen covered her head and stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly said fiercely, "Shh!"

Li Wuxiang immediately stopped talking and remained silent.

The two stood in silence for a moment under the azure sky. Suddenly, Xu Zhen turned around and stared intently at Li Wuxiang. Li Wuxiang feigned fear: "Brother, what's wrong? Did I say something wrong? I..."

“I saw it,” Xu Zhen said. “I saw a little bit.”

"Huh? What did you see!?"

“Mount Ling, I really am in Mount Ling, little brother, you're right, I am the True Lord of the Wei River, my true form is in Mount Ling… but I can't see where I am? Something's wrong, the more I look, the more uncomfortable I feel… I feel like I'm being… being… oh no!” He cried out, then clutched his head, “I've been captured! I've been captured!!”

now it's right!

Xu Zhenzhen really saw it!
What he saw must have been the remains of the Ninth Prince's dragon body, who was entangled with Zhao Qi and the True Lord of Fate in Mount Ling!
Xu Zhen has been acting like the True Lord of Wei River these days, but Li Wuxiang is afraid that he might suddenly wake up someday—after all, he is a great demon whose cultivation is above his own, and if such a thing were to happen, it would be no fun!

Therefore, from day one, he had been subtly probing Xu Zhen. Seeing what was inside Mount Ling wasn't difficult; someone at the Nascent Soul stage like Xu Zhen could easily make contact with it if a thought arose in his mind. But before that, he needed to let Xu Zhen know where to look and how to think.

These days, Li Wuxiang often tells him about the rumors he heard about the Ninth Prince when he was in the Central Continent, and describes what the Spirit Mountain is like—he is instilling in him fragments of what the Ninth Prince is like now.

Today, at this moment, it's finally almost time. Xu Zhen went from only vaguely seeing a blood-soaked, crimson expanse in Ling Mountain to actually seeing the plight of the Ninth Prince's dragon remains—seeing "himself" captured!

Li Wuxiang rubbed his hands together with delight, his mind racing as he massaged Xu Zhen's shoulders—Xu Zhen was a great menace, and the Blood God Cult was a great menace too. Xu Zhen wanted him to remain his underling, but as for the Blood God Cult, he was already on their blacklist.

He kept thinking, "If only I could get both sides to beat the dogs out of their brains!"
Xu Zhen worships the True Lord of the Wei River, right? Then let him think he is the True Lord of the Wei River, just like today, where he finds himself captured and trapped by a bunch of demons and monsters!
This is the second layer of insurance, hahaha. If something goes wrong in a few days and I can't beat him, I can ask the Blood God Sect, Zhao Qi, and the True Lord of Fate for help—because Xu Zhen definitely wants to take back his dragon body in Mount Ling!

What's even more fun? Well, it's... oh right! A thought popped into Li Wuxiang's mind: he couldn't kill Xu Zhen, Xu Zhen was very useful!
The demons of the Eastern Continent worship the True Lord of the Wei River, who is a spirit deity under the command of Emperor Gouchen. Regardless of whether this is true or not, Xu Zhen believes it to be true. If he can't get the Ninth Prince's dragon remains out of the Blood God Sect on his own, then he'll go and ask Emperor Gouchen for help!
Let Emperor Gouchen fight the Blood God of the Blood God Cult! All I have to do is stir up trouble!
Li Wuxiang used his strength to push Xu Zhen onto the throne and sit down. Seeing that Xu Zhen was covering his head, Li Wuxiang squatted down and massaged his legs. He said with concern, "Brother, you said you saw who captured you? It would have been better if you hadn't said that. Now that you mention it, I suddenly remembered something that might be related to your true identity!"

Xu Zhen covered her head and looked at him: "What's wrong?!"

"Is that so? When I was at the Great Calamity Mountain, the Blood God of the Blood God Sect had already been born. At that time, Mei Qiulu took me to Mount Ling for a look, wanting to see where that Blood God was, but we found that it wasn't at Mount Ling, but in a place called Crimson Heaven, that place—"

"Is it just a bright, blood-red expanse with nothing in it?"

"Ah, yes, yes! It's like Mount Ling, but without the mountains of corpses and seas of blood. It's just a vast expanse of red! I only glanced at it and saw something—I couldn't see it clearly—it looked like a ghastly white..."

"A stark white skeleton? Does it resemble a dragon's body?"

Li Wuxiang said with a bitter face, "I really didn't see it clearly, so I can't just say anything."

"That's it!" Xu Zhen stopped covering his head, thought for a moment, and said fiercely, "Fine, I was wondering why the Lord told me a few days ago that he was trapped and had no choice but to... wait, no, no, if the Lord's true form was trapped, why has he never told me all these years and has only been manifesting in my mind? He even manifested himself at Dapan Mountain a few days ago—"

Because you came up with all of these yourself! You idiot!
As for the claim that he was "trapped"—Li Wuxiang did indeed hear the Ninth Prince speak to Xu Zhen in that way. However, the Ninth Prince at that time was someone Xu Zhen had imagined, and those words were all spoken to Xu Zhen by himself. Li Wuxiang also knew why the Ninth Prince, whom Xu Zhen had imagined, had said those things.

Think about it, Xu Zhen always felt he was the only one favored by the True Lord of the Wei River. One day, he suddenly discovered that Li Wuxiang had also spoken to the Ninth Prince. No wonder he was unhappy. To justify his displeasure, he tried to find a reason: Why did the Ninth Prince speak to others? There must be some reason! Why did he never let him see his true face? There must be some reason for that too!
That means they're trapped! They have no choice! That's why they've never come to see me!
Li Wuxiang immediately said, "Because the ruler is you, elder brother! You yourself are trapped, so you think you know it, so of course you won't tell yourself that you are trapped! I know why I was able to see the ruler—it's because you trust me, elder brother. You can't tell yourself, but you can tell me!"

Xu Zhen blinked, seemingly unable to grasp the meaning of Li Wuxiang's words for a moment. But Li Wuxiang couldn't let him continue pondering, so he slammed his fist into his palm: "Hey! So that's what happened! Brother, the Six Departments of the Mysterious Sect had no good intentions! I understand now why they sent you to the Central Continent, and why they made you teach the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique to the Blood God Sect—they took your true body! With the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique, they can refine your true body!"

"The Six Departments of the Mysterious Sect have killed two birds with one stone! They have both refined the spirit god worshipped by our Eastern Continent demon race and used the Blood God Sect to deal with the Taiyi Sect!"

Li Wuxiang grew angrier as he spoke, stood up and flung his arm away: "To hell with the Six Ministries of Mysterious Sect! Brother! We can't let them trap us—regardless of whether you are the Great Emperor Gouchen or not, invite the Emperor down and ask him to help you. We'll destroy the Blood God Sect first, then the Six Ministries of Mysterious Sect!"

Xu Zhen also stood up abruptly, his eyes wide and mouth agape, as if he were about to say something harsh. But after thinking for a moment, he sat down again and shook his head: "No. Maybe there's a misunderstanding? The Blood God Cult might not know that we in the Eastern Continent worship the True Lord of the Wei River. Didn't you forget before you remembered? I need to think about it some more, I need to think about it some more... I need to refine my supernatural powers first, and I need to go there again to take a good look."

Xu Zhenzhen is really difficult to deal with. She's been going crazy these past few days, how can she still know to "think about it again"?
He seemed to have immense respect for the Great Emperor Gouchen—he dared not overstep his bounds in anything related to him. It's strange, why was he so afraid of him?

But Li Wuxiang knew when to stop. These things couldn't be rushed; Xu Zhen had said "I'll think about it again" more than once. If he couldn't stir up trouble here, he'd find somewhere else to do it; he knew someone much easier to fool than Xu Zhen.

He sighed and said, "Alright, brother, think about it all you want. You can think about it here slowly. I'll go out and see how many of our demon soldiers have come today—if you figure it out, we'll take them to find the Blood God Cult!"

Xu Zhen waved his hand: "Go ahead, let me think about it."

After leaving the Myriad Transformations Cube, Li Wuxiang only wandered around outside for a short while before finding a secluded spot.

This secluded spot wasn't chosen randomly; it was located in a stone fortress in the northwest of Wanhua Fang. This stone fortress was the ant nest that Xu Zhen had seen in Maple Valley a dozen days ago. It was the very core of Xu Zhen's illusory realm, or rather, the eye of the formation—if this place was real, everything around it was real. If this place became fake, then everything around it would be like a giant building without a foundation, collapsing in an instant.

In the Central Plains, cultivators who set up arrays and protect the key points often entrust their mental energy to them. If the array is broken or the key point is damaged, the person who set it up will usually also be injured. Conversely, the key point is also the place where the power of magic and supernatural abilities is strongest, and it can provide Xu Zhen with extremely strong protection through his mental focus.

After visiting the Crimson Heaven where the Blood God resided once, Li Wuxiang never intended to go back a second time, because it was simply too eerie. But now, within this Illusory Realm of Delusions, he could give it a try—according to Li Ye, the Myriad Transformations Realm was considered a self-contained world, so Xu Zhen's Illusion Realm could also be considered a self-contained world. Separated by a layer of heaven and earth, and protected by Xu Zhen's divine powers, he could try to visit his old friend again.

He sat down atop the stone fortress and carefully called out in his heart, "Blood God, Blood God!"

The result was as he expected. The first time he used the name of the Blood God to summon Zhao Qi, the two easily established a connection. [Note 1]

But now, shouting again felt extremely difficult, as if there was an extremely strong barrier between him and Mount Ling, and between him and the Crimson Heaven where Zhao Qi was located—this must be the Illusory Realm of Delusion where he was now.

But he could still sense that there was something on the other side, elusive and unpredictable, like trying to grab something with a thick cloth over his hand—he could feel it, but couldn't exert any force.

Since he couldn't reach the mountain, he would summon it—Li Wuxiang released his spiritual energy, extending his aura over it, and shouted, "Blood God! Zhao Qi! Blood God!"

Something over there sensed him and suddenly pounced. A crimson world unfolded in his mind, but then seemed to collide with something and recoiled slightly.

Li Wuxiang saw it—but not as clearly as when he first went to the Crimson Heaven. It was more like looking through a hazy mist. What he had seen before was the shattered remains of the Ninth Prince's dragon body, filled with the flesh and blood of countless corpses, and held up like a puppet by strands of red thread.

But now, those red threads from some unknown place have multiplied, so much so that they've formed a large cocoon around the dragon's body. Through this blood-red cocoon, one can still see the Ninth Prince's skeleton, but its appearance has changed—it's curled up, like the skeleton of an infant encased in amniotic fluid. The flesh and blood have all turned into blood, which does indeed look like amniotic fluid.

As for its eye sockets... the right eye socket used to contain the face of the True Lord of Fate, with his eyes tightly closed, and it still does now. But the left eye socket used to contain Zhao Qi's face, and that's different now.

Zhao Qi's face changed; one eye became larger than the other, the larger one almost taking up half of his head, while the smaller one was nearly squeezed out. Zhao Qi's head now looked like it had only one eye, and was in the process of developing another eye!
This eye is the only thing that moves inside this blood-red cocoon.

It seemed to turn around with a gurgling sound, and Li Wuxiang heard Zhao Qi's voice in his divine sense. Before, his voice only carried a slight air of authority and pressure. But now, that pressure was much stronger, as if the entire crimson sky itself was speaking, yet the tone was calmer than before—

"Oh, it's you, Li Wuxiang. Have you come to your senses and want to become an immortal with me?"

Oh no! It looks like Zhao Qi is really going to become the Blood God!
But Li Wuxiang now felt that having too many debts didn't bother him, and that having too many lice didn't bite him, so he immediately said, "I've figured it out, I've figured it out a long time ago! But I can't become an immortal with you now, I've been captured! Blood God, for the sake of our friendship, can you save me?"

……

Note 1: See Chapter 297 for details.
(End of this chapter)