I made the entire cultivation world cry

Chapter 138 Insect Obsession (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

The next day, as dawn broke, mist shrouded the lake.

To capture the five escaped Blood Ginseng Babies, Shang Shixu and his group, who were slightly delayed, arrived at the shore of Blackwater Lake.

Through the vision of the Unmarked Eye, they could see Jiang Yi and his group arrive at the majestic palace gate of the Azure Emperor Palace and work together to break the five elemental restrictions on the gate.

Shen Puning rubbed the goosebumps that had risen on her arms, stared at the pale skeletons and twisted withered lotus floating on the lake, and whispered, "This fog looks eerie, and there are those kinds of corpses in the lake. How are we going to get across?"

Zhao Cangyun, with a red mark on his face from being struck by a bamboo sword, walked to the lakeside and declared domineeringly, "Slay as many as come!"

He thrust out a half-inch of blade light with his thumb, the chilling killing intent startling ripples on the water's surface.

Shen Puning wanted to laugh when she saw the marks on his face. He had fought with the Bamboo Swordsman all night and had been sent flying every time. He had even more of these marks on his body.

However, he was quite impressive. No matter how many times he lost, he persevered. He would shout "Let's try again!" and get up and rush in, like a tireless and energetic colt.

In their final exchange this morning, he was able to use his sword and saber techniques to fight the Bamboo Swordsman for over a hundred moves, and in the end, he even obtained an unnamed saber manual from the Bamboo Swordsman.

Shen Puning tried it herself, but she was just strong and didn't know many moves, so she couldn't last ten rounds.

Shang Shixu was a refined man and disliked this kind of fighting. Xin Wushuang couldn't perform well in a small space, so neither of them challenged him.

Shen Puning didn't know whether Jiang Yi could truly defeat the Bamboo Swordsman.

A cold wind swept by, and rustling sounds came from the lake.

Xin Wushuang silently took the longbow from his back, and three golden arrows were already nocked on the bowstring.

Jiang Yi asked Shang Shixu to be the captain and lead them, and the group all turned around to look for Shang Shixu.

The gentle and refined young man knelt among the withered lotus leaves on the shore, his jade-like fingers probing into the honeycomb-like holes in the skeleton, oblivious to the putrid liquid on his fingertips, his eyes filled with an excited smile that Shen Puning and Xin Wushuang had never seen before.

"It really is the exotic queen bee recorded in 'The Insect Compendium'..."

A small, blue, venomous insect, about the size of a thumb, was lifted up by Shang Shixu by its wing roots. Its abdomen was swollen like a glass bottle, and the poisonous mist flowing inside could be vaguely seen.

"Senior Brother Shang!" Shen Puning called softly.

Shang Shixu acted as if he hadn't heard anything, and lightly tapped the lotus stem with his jade flute, startling a swarm of insects that resembled a blood mist.

The glass bottle in his sleeve spun around, and the swarm of insects, like rivers flowing into the sea, were all collected by him.

"wonderful!"

Shang Shixu clapped his hands and chuckled, then his eyes lit up again as he lunged toward a floating corpse by the lake.

The moment he turned the corpse over, countless thread-like black worms crawled out of the rotting flesh.

Shen Puning felt a chill run down her spine, and Xin Wushuang also frowned. Weren't they afraid of being poisoned?

Shang Shixu was completely unafraid. He used his bare hands to entangle the filamentous black worms into a ball, holding the ball of worms as if it were a treasure, his eyes and brows filled with undisguised joy.

Zhao Cangyun sighed, "You have to get used to it. He becomes obsessed with strange insects."

The glow of the sunset illuminated his robes stained with putrid liquid, and the young man smiled gently, but at his feet lay piles of bare white bones that he had emptied.

A moment later, Shang Shixu stood up with satisfaction, only to find that everyone was looking at him when he turned around.

"cough~"

Shang Shixu clenched his fist and coughed to ease the embarrassment, then casually cast a cleansing spell to remove the dirt from his body.

"You don't need to worry. I have already investigated and found that this is exactly what I wanted."

Shang Shixu drew a white jade flute from his waist and raised it to his lips.

"Crossing this lake is effortless."

As the sound of the flute began, waves of deep sound rippled outwards.

Suddenly, a dense buzzing sound came from the withered lotus leaves, and countless poisonous bees took to the air like a storm, only to fall stiffly to the rhythm of the sound.

The dark shadows moving in the mist were struck as if by lightning and tumbled into the lake.

Countless nematodes crawled out from the floating remains of the Bone Woman, wriggling and fleeing to the sound of the flute. The gray mist dissipated like the receding tide, and the upper lake water gradually cleared, only the bottom remained pitch black.

As everyone stared in disbelief, Shang Shixu put away his jade flute and chuckled, "The Bone Woman relies on corpse threadworms for her actions, and the mist is formed from light-devouring midges. This piece of music is specifically designed to counter these kinds of insects, making them retreat in fear."

"As expected of you, Lao Shang!"

Zhao Cangyun whistled, pulled the black dragon from his arms, and casually tossed it away.

"Jade Serpent, grow bigger quickly!"

Pfft!
The jade snake, still half asleep, sank to the bottom of the lake. After a while, the lake surface burst open with waves, and a fierce and huge black dragon rushed out of the water, roaring and spitting dirty water all over Zhao Cangyun.

Zhao Cangyun wiped his face. "It's not good to be so angry so early in the morning. Calm down."

Shen Puning, holding Xin Wushuang's arm, suppressed a laugh. Compared to the group in front of them, they really seemed to be on a picnic.

As the morning sun pierced through the clouds, the group boarded a public dragon-shaped carriage and crossed the lake.

*
"Did you hear anything?"

Just as they were about to enter through the crack in the open palace gate, Zhang Jinling suddenly asked Qin Yunyan and Zhang Jincheng.

Qin Yunyan listened for a while, then shook her head. Zhang Jincheng also didn't hear anything at all.

Intuition prompted Zhang Jinling to glance at Jiang Yi, but Jiang Yi had already entered the palace gates and showed no signs of anything amiss.

The area was shrouded in mist, making it impossible to see down from the mountain. The mist had a certain impact on consciousness, and Zhang Jinling thought she was hallucinating.

The moment they stepped through the palace gates, they felt as if they had entered another space, and daylight instantly turned into night.

A jagged crack stretched across the night sky, tearing out traces of the Milky Way. The celestial sphere, like a giant jade moon, hung in the center of the square. On its hundred-foot-diameter disc, celestial runes slowly rotated with the jade wheel.

The broken jade beam is stuck diagonally in the base of the astronomical instrument, and the statues of the gods of the four seasons carved on it have been cut in half, which is extremely ominous.

The plaza is laid out in the shape of a Bagua (Eight Trigrams), and the ground, paved with a piece of green jade, is covered with spider web-like cracks. Strange mist seeps out from the cracks and permeates the surroundings.

Occasionally, starlight and moonlight are refracted by the astronomical instrument into dense fog, where they suddenly condense into afterimages of people, which flash by and disappear without being seen or discernible.

Eight jade pillars with coiled dragons stood according to the eight trigrams. Among them, the Zhen and Li pillars were broken and collapsed. The dragon reliefs that should have been solemn now had their eyes rolling around wildly, just like the eyes in the jade bamboo forest, which was very eerie.

The white jade railings at the edge of the square are mostly dilapidated, and only half of the "Hundred Herbs" relief on the railing is left.

Several large halls on the east side have completely collapsed, and half of a cauldron is stuck in the ruins, with red magma-like liquid constantly gushing out of the furnace mouth.

The exterior wall of the west pavilion is covered with blood-vein-like vines, and twisted and deformed black runes float between the window frames, leaping and dancing in the air like jellyfish.

Jiang Yi followed Qin Yunze forward slowly. When they arrived below the Heavenly Timing Instrument, they immediately saw a huge pill cauldron, ten feet tall, lying on the ground on a high platform in the distance.

"Found it! The Cauldron of Creation and Longevity!"

Qin Yunze was so excited that he couldn't help but laugh. This cauldron and the Azure Emperor's inheritance were their ultimate purpose for coming here.

grumble!
Hongli jumped up from Jiang Yi's shoulder, her front paws gripping Jiang Yi's head as she stretched her neck, her eyes flashing with a sharp light, the only reflection of which was the cauldron.

Jiang Yi also recognized the cauldron; it was exactly the same as the relief on the half of the jade. The other half of the Shang Dynasty jade must have been collected, and they could be combined to form a jade plaque.

This cauldron is made entirely of celadon jade. The body of the cauldron is engraved with coiled dragon patterns and strange runes. The handles are decorated with peach blossoms, and the legs are shaped like three blue phoenixes holding pearls in their mouths. However, one of the blue phoenixes is broken, and the pearl has become dull.

At this moment, the entire cauldron was grayish in color, and the dragon eyes in the coiled dragon pattern were filled with blood vessels that swirled wildly. Inside the cauldron, there was a hidden flow of starlight, and the remaining pills turned into blood-tumor-like fleshy lumps that kept throbbing and releasing bluish-purple miasma.

When they looked up again, a foot-long scroll was floating horizontally above the alchemy cauldron, with several huge seal characters in front of it.

The Green Emperor's Longevity Classic

Jiang Yi's pupils widened in shock. She hadn't expected the games here to be so exciting, with everything given away right from the start!

Qin Yunze was a step ahead of Jiang Yi and couldn't help but run over.

At this moment, the seal script on the long scroll, like startled butterflies, scattered in all directions, trailing their ink-black tails, and disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only a blank brocade.

Everyone, including Jiang Yi, was dumbfounded. It was the first time they had ever seen a cultivation technique where the characters could move on their own.

How to deal with this?
(End of this chapter)