The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 346 Old Monster
Wu Chengyu knew that this trip was risky, so how could he be unprepared? He took countermeasures early on.

During this trip to Western Xia, he not only discovered that Western Xia had inherited Li Qiushui's legacy and cultivated a group of masters, but also that the martial arts of Lingjiu Palace had been completely seized by Western Xia. So, whether out of curiosity or a desire for the martial arts of the Xiaoyao Sect, he had to find out the reason behind it all.

This risk could have been avoided entirely; he could have simply turned and walked away. If he was determined to escape, no one in the world could catch him.

But sometimes you can't get what you really want without taking some risks. Especially after Wu Chengyu's experiences along the way, he has developed courage and boldness. He absolutely does not believe that he, a transmigrator, cannot deal with the Life and Death Talisman.

In the past, Wu Chengyu considered himself a gourmet. In his spare time from practicing martial arts, he would develop various new dishes and seasonings. When preparing the seasonings, he would inevitably use many different medicinal herbs. In the end, he obtained the seasonings and also the poison derived from them.

This poison is somewhat similar to the legendary mixed poison. Before, in Qianlong Cave, which is located in Shaanxi, I inevitably ate a lot of mutton. Over time, I ate all kinds of mutton, including hand-pulled mutton and roasted mutton, and I got tired of them.

Later, he wanted to create tendon noodles, which are made with lamb tendons. After being braised, they become tender, flavorful, and delicious. They can then be used as a topping for noodles, making it a famous dish.

But Wu Chengyu was not satisfied. He wanted to make the tendon into the shape of noodles, long and chewy, while also having the texture and flavor of braised tendon, creating tendon noodles that completely discarded the noodles.

The biggest challenge in this process is shaping the tendons. They must be thin, long, and not easily broken, like noodles. If the braising time is too long, the tendons will fall apart and cannot be shaped into noodles. If the braising time is too short, the tendons will not absorb the flavor at all and will be too tough to chew.

After repeated failures, he came up with the idea of ​​a food additive. With the guidance of bamboo slips and various formulations, he conducted countless experiments and finally created a shaping agent. After adding it, the tendons would become like noodles, which could achieve the effect he wanted, and it had no side effects on the human body.

However, this shaping agent was colorless and odorless. Wu Chengyu was not satisfied at the time and wanted to add flavor directly to this food additive so that braised tendons would not require much seasoning and the operation would be simpler. Who would have thought that no matter what seasoning was added, this additive was still colorless and odorless.

Until he added a unique herb from the Hidden Dragon Cave, whose scientific name he didn't know, but which the locals called "root-binding grass."

This herb is mainly used to soften blood vessels and promote blood circulation. Wu Chengyu didn't know what he was thinking at the time, but he just put it in casually. Who knew that the product he made would receive a serious warning from the bamboo slips.

This shaping agent itself is non-toxic and harmless to the human body, but if this root-forming grass is added, it immediately becomes a slow-acting poison with extremely unique effects.

People who take this poison will not feel anything, and even if they do not know martial arts, they can eat as much as they want without any problems.

However, if a master of internal energy, especially a top-level master, is poisoned by this, they will be in serious trouble.

It gradually disintegrates the body's meridians, making all the meridians in the body more vulnerable without the person realizing it, and at the same time, it produces a chemical reaction on internal energy.

After being poisoned, if one is a practitioner of internal energy cultivation, each time the internal energy circulates through the meridians, it stimulates the poison and accelerates the damage to the meridians. Moreover, the higher the level of internal energy, the greater the damage to the meridians.

If an ordinary expert is poisoned by this poison, they will gradually feel some blockage in their meridians, and from then on, their cultivation of internal energy will become powerless, their progress will be slow, or they may even stop making any progress altogether.

However, if a top-level expert is poisoned by this poison, their martial arts will not be affected when dealing with someone whose skills are far inferior to their own. But if they are dealing with a true master, their internal energy will surge and they will immediately have their meridians shattered when they use their full strength.

It can be said that this poison is extremely insidious and ruthless against true masters. After Wu Chengyu obtained this poison by chance, he never thought of giving it to anyone.

Of course, this poison also has weaknesses. It does not take effect quickly and the effect is produced very slowly after poisoning. According to the bamboo slips, it would take at least a month to take effect, but by then, even a god would be unable to save the patient.

Upon learning that he was to be placed under a death-or-death talisman upon entering the palace, Wu Chengyu immediately thought of this poison. He used the next two days to find these herbs and create the poison he named Burning Scripture Powder.

This poison has advantages: it is always colorless and odorless, and it can be poisoned not only by ingestion but also by burning; anyone who smells it will also be poisoned.

As for the methods of poisoning, he prepared many, and this candle was just one of them.

When Chen He was drinking and bragging with him, he once said that Princess Yuzhu had always been favored, so many things in Yangwu Guild Hall were the same as those used in the palace, such as the tables and chairs, the bowls and chopsticks, and even the candles, which were all from the palace.

So Wu Chengyu had a sudden inspiration. He remembered Cheng Lingsu's Seven Star Begonia in The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain, which existed in the form of candles. Once the candles were lit, the people around them would immediately be affected.

Therefore, Wu Chengyu had secretly mixed the Burning Sutra Powder into a candle and carried it with him. During the body search, he used the Eel Technique to move the candle around by moving his muscles, which finally fooled the guards.

This was just one of his alternative methods. There were three similar things, but when he was led into this side hall with no windows and only candles that could be lit, and the candles were exactly the same as those in the Yangwu Guild Hall, he was overjoyed.

So he used the moment when the guards were relaxed after he left the calligraphy and painting to extinguish the candles by blowing wind. Then, with great speed, he switched the candles with the ones he had brought, and managed to place them on the candlesticks without any flaws.

Of course, he took the antidote early on, but everyone in this side hall would inevitably be poisoned, and the higher their internal strength, the more severe the poisoning would be.

For those with similar internal strength, such as Princess Yuzhu and Wu Qianyu, the impact would be minimal; at most, their martial arts would be harder to improve in the future. However, since their master's martial arts were superior to that of the Fire-Worker Monk, the effects of the Burning Scripture Powder would undoubtedly be maximized. After everything was arranged, Wu Chengyu returned to his seat. After another short while, he heard footsteps outside.

It was the sound of two people's footsteps. One was Princess Yuzhu's, her footsteps were heavy but she always stopped herself in time. The other was Wu Qianyu's, her footsteps were so light that they were almost inaudible, but they could not escape Wu Chengyu's ears.

But just then, Princess Yuzhu's words were heard: "Master,..."

Wu Chengyu didn't even have the mind to listen to what she was saying. He immediately felt a chill. Princess Yuzhu's words meant that there were three people outside at the moment, but Wu Chengyu's extraordinary hearing could only detect two. Their mentor had arrived, but he had managed to deceive Wu Chengyu's senses.

Generally speaking, only those at the level of the Five Greats or above can do this, but to be able to deceive Wu Chengyu's hearing at such close range is something even Hong Qigong would find difficult to do.

The reason why Hong Qigong was able to follow Wu Chengyu without being discovered outside of Hongxiuzhao was that Wu Chengyu's cultivation level was too low at the time.

Wu Chengyu is now at the level of the Subtle Realm, while Hong Qigong's lightness skill is not particularly advanced. Therefore, at such close range, Hong Qigong cannot escape Wu Chengyu's ears.

To deceive Wu Chengyu, three conditions must be met.

First, his lightness skill is no less than Wu Chengyu's, at least in terms of lightness.

Secondly, one must possess sufficiently high internal energy cultivation, and the internal energy cultivation must be of a sufficiently advanced level, at least at the divine level.

Third, it can only be achieved by reaching a state of profound subtlety, and only by reaching this state and maintaining it over a long period of time.

Therefore, Princess Yuzhu's mentor was a master of subtlety who had reached the pinnacle of both internal strength and lightness skills. Wu Chengyu felt that he might even be more unfathomable than the Five Greats.

But he didn't have time to think much. He immediately stood up and then saw Princess Yuzhu bowing and leading the way. A person dressed in white with a full head of white hair walked in. He ignored Wu Chengyu and walked to the bedside on his own, slowly lying down on it.

Only then did he slowly look at Wu Chengyu, his gaze deep and unfocused, as if he were looking at her, yet also as if he had no focus at all, or perhaps he simply didn't take Wu Chengyu seriously.

Wu Chengyu was also somewhat bewildered. He looked at the newcomer, this top expert who had been hiding behind Princess Yuzhu, and made judgments in his mind.

First, there's the gender—male or female? At this moment, the other person was lying on their side, so Wu Chengyu couldn't see their Adam's apple. However, Wu Chengyu couldn't tell whether the person was male or female at all; their temperament and aura were extremely strange.

Then there's his age. Although his hair is completely white, his skin is as smooth as jade, making him look nothing like an old man. Time has created a great sense of disharmony in him.

Most importantly, this person was simply too beautiful. Her eyes were like crescent moons, holding the depths of autumn water, and her eyebrows resembled distant mountains. She possessed both heroic spirit and delicate beauty. Just a glance between her eyes and brows was enough to give Wu Chengyu goosebumps.

Wu Chengyu could only see his eyes, completely ignoring everything else.

Compared to him, Wu Qianyu, this incredibly beautiful cross-dresser, is like a buyer's show versus a seller's show—a completely different story, even worse than the Pinduoduo version.

This was an incredibly beautiful monster whose age and gender were indiscernible, but Wu Chengyu quickly determined that it was an old monster.

He was certain that this monster had lived for countless years, because he could smell an old man's scent on it, the kind of scent only an extremely old person would have. This was a natural phenomenon; no matter how high one's martial arts skills were, living too long would result in this old man's scent.

Wu Chengyu had only ever smelled this old man's scent on one person: the Taoist priest Zhenxiang, the founder of the Quanxing sect, who had lived since the Northern Song Dynasty and was over a hundred years old. Therefore, the monster in front of him should be a figure from the same period as Zhenxiang.

Judging from the timeline and the fact that the other party practices the Xiaoyao Sect's martial arts, this guy should be a figure from the Tianlong era, at least over a hundred years old, and still alive today.

This guy can't be Xu Zhu, right? Impossible. Everyone knows what Xu Zhu looks like. When he took over the Xiaoyao Sect, he was constantly criticized for being too ugly and unworthy to be a disciple of the Xiaoyao Sect.

At this moment, the old monster on the other side finally spoke, and it was a woman's voice, which Wu Chengyu could tell.

"Why is the guy you found so ugly and so dejected?"

Wu Chengyu received the same treatment as Xu Zhu, but was also described as dejected.

(End of this chapter)