Cultivating Immortality from the Book of Life and Death

Chapter 158 is here. (Third update!)

Returning to his residence, Zheng Que swaggered across the square, along the corridor carved into the mountainside, and back to the room that resembled a bridal chamber.

The inner room was empty, the bedding on the bed was still crumpled, and the red mandarin duck curtain was half rolled up and half closed, but there was no sign of Kulan.

Zheng Que didn't pay too much attention and immediately opened his satchel, dumping all the storage bags and soul-nourishing bags he had just looted onto the ground.

Next, he began to count the resources inside the bags.

Zheng Que first opened a pure black storage bag, inside which were twenty spirit stones, a bottle of [Yin-Clearing Pill], a dozen talismans, a few materials emitting a faint spiritual energy, and the rest were all miscellaneous items.

Zheng Que put the spirit stones in one pile, the Yin-Clearing Pills in another, the talismans and materials in yet another, and left the miscellaneous items untouched.

Next, he opened each storage bag one by one and sorted all the resources inside according to their categories.

It took Zheng Que about half an hour to take out all the items from the storage bags and sort them into categories.

After a quick tally, Zheng Que pondered for a moment. Excluding the treasure trove's harvest, the total number of spirit stones was just over seven hundred, which was much lower than expected.

The Jia siblings had promised that each of the rogue cultivators who participated in the mission would receive a reward of thirty spirit stones. This time, however, there were forty-one rogue cultivators participating. Not counting the reward for the Soul-Summoning Banner, the appearance fee alone was far more than seven hundred spirit stones…

It now seems that the Jia siblings never intended to give everyone spirit stones... or rather, from the very beginning, they never planned to let anyone return alive.

As for the pills, there are fifty Yin-Clearing Pills, one hundred and thirty Qi-Gathering Pills, as well as Yuan-Nourishing Pills, Qi-Clearing Pills, Barrier-Breaking Pills, etc.

Most of the valuable pills were ones he had just obtained from the treasure vault. The pills in the storage bags of rogue cultivators were few in number and of significantly lower quality.

Then there are talismans and various materials, the quantity of which is significantly higher than that of spirit stones and pills.

Besides the [Fire Tongue Talisman] and [Conceal Breath Talisman] that Zheng Que had used before, there were also [Wind Blade Talisman], [Water Rope Talisman], [Blood Explosion Talisman]...

The materials were varied, including medicinal herbs for alchemy, metals for casting, and materials for drawing talismans. He could now recognize most of the medicinal herbs, but he only recognized a small portion of the materials for casting and drawing talismans.

Next came ten dark coffins, eight of which were empty, the corpse puppets inside having perished along with their masters during the mission. Only two coffins contained a corpse puppet with the aura of the fourth level of the [Tongue-Pulling Hell].

It must be that the owner of these two corpse puppets died before he could even summon them when he met his demise...

Next are the jade slips that record cultivation techniques and spells.

There were more than a dozen jade slips, but after Zheng Que examined their contents one by one, he discovered that the cultivation techniques recorded on them were all duplicates—the [Seed of Life Technique], which he had already practiced. As for the spells, they were either [Ghost Control Technique] or [Spiritual Eye Technique]...

Only two of the jade slips contained techniques he hadn't yet learned: one was the [Corpse Nourishing Technique], and the other was the [Blood Skull Technique].

Among them, the [Corpse Raising Technique] was left behind by a rogue cultivator who practiced the path of corpses.

As for the Blood Skull Technique, he obtained it from a storage bag with the character "Jia" printed on it. Inside, there was also a very familiar magic boat. Clearly, this was the technique of the Jia siblings.

Besides that, the rest were mostly miscellaneous items, all of which Zheng Que put into a storage bag.

Of all the storage bags, only the Jia siblings' storage bag contained a magic boat; the other storage bags contained no talismans.

After organizing these supplies, Zheng Que quickly placed the counted spirit stones and pills into his two most frequently used storage bags, and then categorized and placed the talismans, materials, coffin, and jade slips accordingly. Next, he opened the first unfamiliar soul-nourishing bag.

It was empty inside; there were no ghosts or monsters inside.

Zheng Que continued to open the second and third soul-nourishing bags... Most of the soul-nourishing bags were empty, indicating that the ghost servants inside had been summoned before their master was killed.

He opened seven or eight soul-nourishing bags in one go and finally saw a ghost at the third level of the [Tongue-Pulling Hell]. Since its master had already perished, this blue-faced ghost servant immediately let out a roar and pounced on Zheng Que as soon as it appeared.

Zheng Que did not hesitate and immediately used the [Pure Yang Technique] to smash a punch into the ghost servant's head...

boom! !

The ghost servant, who was in the third level of the "Tongue-Pulling Prison," was instantly annihilated by Zheng Que, his soul scattered and vanishing into nothingness as a wisp of yin energy.

Zheng Que was not surprised by this scene. The ghost servants of ordinary cultivators are weaker than the wandering ghosts of the same realm. Moreover, his current cultivation level has reached the fifth level of Qi Refining. He can easily deal with the ghost servants of the third level of the [Tongue-Pulling Prison].

A moment later, Zheng Que opened all the soul-nourishing bags.

These soul-nourishing bags contained only five ghost servants in total. Since none of them were female ghosts suitable for cultivation, he killed them all on the spot.

Having finally sorted out all his gains from this adventure, Zheng Que nodded slightly. This adventure had finally brought him a small windfall.

It would be even better if we could get our hands on the ghost bride's dowry as well...

Thinking of this, Zheng Que picked up the jade slip that recorded the [Blood Skull Technique], read it again, and prepared to begin practicing this technique.

To practice this [Blood Skull Technique], one needs the skulls of the dead.

He happens to have two ready-made corpse puppets at hand, and he can cut off the entire head of one of the corpse puppets to cultivate.

So Zheng Que opened the coffin again and began cultivating step by step according to the description in the jade slip...

※※※

Step, step, step...

On the misty red rock beach, a bulky, large figure walked stiffly, step by step, treading on the scattered pebbles.

The butcher's "fierce spirit" was still surrounded by a fierce aura, but his expression was dazed and confused. A white talisman with black patterns was pasted on his forehead. At this moment, he mechanically took steps and walked in a certain direction.

Not far behind this "fierce spirit," a cold wind swept away the thick fog, and in a fleeting moment, a female cultivator wearing a veil and a light purple jacket appeared, her sleeves fluttering as she walked.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, the purple-clad female cultivator looked up at the foot of the stone mountain that appeared in the mist ahead.

Above the gate embedded in the mountain wall, the plaque originally bore the three characters "Shu Family Fortress," but the first character "Shu" was crossed out with a huge X, and next to it, a brand new character "Luo" was crookedly written in blood.

Luojiabao!
(End of this chapter)