Sword Sect Outer Sect

Chapter 36 The Mystery of Khotan
"A Complete Account of the Immortal Path..."

He seemed to have glanced at it while searching for information on sword cultivators in the local history.

It was a story that sounded somewhat fantastical.

Song Yan did not rush to take out the jade slip containing the complete biography of immortals, but instead rummaged through Wan Songran's miscellaneous belongings, seemingly to verify something.

A black wooden token with a large "万" (wan) engraved in the center and two smaller characters below it, "颂然" (songran).

A book.

He finally found what he was looking for: a booklet on the rules and regulations for disciples of the Wan family.

However, it was very new; Wan Songran herself probably hadn't even opened it, but Song Yan picked it up and flipped through it.

"The Wan family..."

"Ancestral Nascent Soul Realm monk?"

"Wan Zhihong? His ancestral home is in the Central Region..."

They really are from the Central Region...

The Central Region of this continent is vast and boundless, yet it contains only one celestial court: the Great Tang Dynasty.

For a small, struggling nation like the Chu Kingdom, caught between the Central Region and the Southern Frontier, the Central Region, whether in the mortal realm or the cultivation world, is a prosperous and desirable place that everyone yearns for.

His gaze fell on the flute.

The flute was three feet and three inches long, and when held in the hand, it was no different from a short sword.

The flute is entirely black and red, with a black cloud carved at the end. There used to be some kind of decoration on the upper part of the cloud, but it has broken off from the black cloud, leaving only the flute body.

Above the black clouds on the flute body, two characters are carved vertically in ancient script. Song Yan had previously studied this ancient script to annotate some obscure parts of the Five Stars Pulse Diagnosis.

"Taotie."

For some reason, when he stared at those two words, it seemed as if a powerful and terrifying demonic aura rushed towards him.

Song Yan was startled and shivered, but found nothing unusual around him. He only saw that the snake baby Xiao He on the bed was wrapped in a small blanket and staring at Song Yan and the flute in his hand.

"What an eerie treasure..."

"Yanyan, what are you doing?"

They haven't contacted me in a long time.

"Oh, I'm reading an ancient legend..."

Song Yan then opened the Complete Record of Immortal Customs and carefully searched through its contents.

Finally, in one record, he found the legend that associated him with the Taotie flute.

"Secrets of Khotan City..."

Before anyone knew it, Xiao He transformed into a small snake and climbed onto Song Yan's neck, its tiny forked tongue gently touching the jade slip.

"I want to see it too! I want to see it too!"

An ancient secret, like a series of paintings, slowly unfolds before the eyes of a human and a snake.

Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a famous ancient city in the Central Region called "Tianhai".

In the city of Khotan, cultivators and mortals coexist harmoniously.

Here, cultivating immortality is more like a profession, a pursuit, rather than a lofty "immortal".

One year, a sudden and unexpected surge of monsters erupted in Tianhai City.

The cultivators worked together, but could only keep clearing out the demonic beasts. They couldn't figure out where these demonic beasts came from. They seemed endless, born from the shadows in the city.

Ordinary people simply could not withstand such a disaster, and even cultivators suffered many casualties.

Just when everyone was at a loss, a cultivator dressed in a mottled Taoist robe came from the south. He had a black and red flute hanging from his waist and called himself the Demon Summoning Taoist.

He saw the situation in the city and said to the people there, "I have a way that may resolve this strange phenomenon."

"However, the cost is quite high, and we will need your payment."

The people of Tianhai City were overjoyed and readily agreed, requesting the Taoist in the flower-robed robe to lend a helping hand immediately.

The man in the floral robe played the ancient flute in his hand, and a melodious flute tune began to play.

Monsters emerged from Tianhai City like a tidal wave, surging towards the man in the flower-robed robe in droves, stopping and watching him as if listening to the flute music.

The man in the flowery robe left the city playing his flute, accompanied by a horde of beasts that filled the city.

The matter seems to have been resolved satisfactorily.

But the story is far from over.

In the cultivation world, there are many different versions of what happened after this story, which can be roughly divided into two categories.

One of them is widely circulated:
The crisis of the beast tide was resolved, and the Taoist in the flower robe received the reward he wanted.

The Taoist stayed in Khotan for several days. A meticulous cultivator followed the Taoist in the flower-robed robe as he was about to leave.

He discovered that the beast tide in the city was actually orchestrated by him, solely to seize the city's cultivation resources. He returned to the city and told the cultivators, who were furious, and the cultivators of Tianhai City pursued him relentlessly.

In the end, the Taoist priest in the flower robe was mortally wounded and died.

Another version, which is less common, is completely different from the previous one:
The crisis of the beast tide was over, but when the Taoist in the flower robe wanted to receive his due reward, the cultivators in the city went back on their word and refused to pay him.

Enraged, the Taoist in the flower-robed robe played his flute, and the spirit beasts, demons, and even mortals in the city suddenly went mad and began to kill each other.

However, the cultivators of Tianhai City outnumbered and attacked him en masse. The Daoist in the flower robe fled all the way, but in the end, he was seriously injured and died.

"..."

Song Yan pondered.

Two stories, completely different versions.

"Yanyan..."

"Ok?"

"Tell me, which one is the truth?"

"..."

Song Yan shook his head, indicating that he didn't know either.

However, he did not dwell on whether the two versions of the story were true or false.

Instead, they reassessed the value of this taotie flute.

"If this ancient flute is indeed the one from the ancient legends, then the Taoist in the flower-robed man in the secrets of Khotan is very likely the ancestor of the Wan family, Wan Zhihong."

Could this flute be... a genuine artifact from the hands of a great master?

In the world of cultivation, magical artifacts and talismans are distinguished as genuine, imitation, and counterfeit.

Taking magical artifacts as an example, genuine artifacts are naturally spiritual treasures or original treasures crafted by master craftsmen.

The power, ease of operation, and other aspects of magical artifacts and treasures are the most outstanding.

Counterfeits, as the name suggests, are products made by less skilled weapon refiners or disciples of genuine weapon refiners, imitating the originals.

It's lacking in some aspects, but overall it's good and has a relatively high cost-performance ratio.

Counterfeits, on the other hand, are things made by novice weapon refiners to fool people. They are generally useless and are only used to deceive uninformed cultivators and swindle them out of spirit stones.

Song Yan believed from beginning to end that any so-called "treasure" in the hands of a Qi Refining disciple, no matter how miraculous its effects, was at best a counterfeit.

But if this is true...

Magical artifacts used by Nascent Soul stage cultivators!!!

In Song Yan's eyes now, this flute is not a flute at all.

It is an inexhaustible source of spiritual stones!

It was sold at an auction in Lingyuanze Market for a few hundred spirit stones to a bunch of clueless fools.
Absolutely impossible!

We need to find a big buyer!
Having made up his mind, he put the precious flute aside.

The remaining pills and talismans were sorted out by Song Yan, and he kept only those that he could use for his cultivation.

Those that are not needed will be put together with the magical artifacts that were just sold. Those that can be displayed will be sold together with Granny Qin later.

If it's something that can't be done in the open... then wait for the night market.

It is worth mentioning that among Wang Xi's belongings was a bottle of Qi Condensation Pills.

The Qi Condensation Pill's spiritual energy and efficacy far surpass those of the Yellow Sprout Pill; this is a pill that only cultivators in the late stage of Qi Refining would take.

Having completed everything methodically, Song Yan began to make plans.

"Right now, the most lacking things for cultivation are spiritual artifacts and one's natal flying sword."

One can strengthen the Dao Seed under the Zhendao Sword Mansion, and the other can not only strengthen it, but is also one of the most important offensive methods for sword cultivators.

It can be said that one's natal flying sword determines whether a sword cultivator is powerful.

"Let's restore our spiritual power level to the fourth level of Qi Refining first."

Whether it's a natal flying sword or the fusion of supreme spiritual objects, both require at least the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

Only after recovering to the mid-stage of Qi Refining can one regain the ability to protect oneself.

Song Yan sat cross-legged on the stone bed, gradually clearing the chaotic thoughts in his mind, and slowly began his cultivation.

Only Xiao He remained, holding the jade slip, deep in thought at the table.

Which one is true?

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(End of this chapter)