Old Refining Spirit

The mournful sound of the suona, like scraping bones with rusty iron, drifted back and forth in the pitch-black wilderness.

Inside the swaying sedan chair, there was no scent of perfume or cosmetics that one would expect from a wedding; instead, there was a strong, pungent smell of cheap paint mixed with the stench of rotten, dead pork, constantly assaulting the nostrils. Li Xuangeng sat upright in the sedan chair, his hands tightly bound behind his back with rough hemp rope, and a piece of yellow paper soaked in water from a grave stuffed into his mouth.

His eyes were covered by an old white silk ribbon three fingers wide. In fact, even if the ribbon were removed, the sedan chair had no windows at all. This was because it was a paper sedan chair made of bamboo strips and underworld paper, meant for the dead.

Tonight is the year of Dingmao, the month of Guimao, and the day of Renzi. It's just past Hai hour, and about to turn to Zi hour. The Heavenly Stems Ren and Gui represent abundant water, while the Earthly Branches Zi and Mao are in a destructive relationship—this is an extremely yin and cold death formation in the Eight Characters (Ba Zi). Outside, the old matchmaker, with her shrill voice singing and laughing, walks lightly, her footsteps barely touching the muddy ground after the spring rain, not even splashing a drop of water. According to Taoist texts, this is called "feet not touching mud, mouth without saliva," indicating a drowned ghost who has been dead for at least seven days.

Any ordinary wandering Taoist priest, faced with such a deadly situation of a ghost marriage rife with evil spirits, would probably have had his Taoist heart collapse from fright long ago.

But Li Xuangeng didn't. He tilted his head back slightly, his Adam's apple bobbing gently beneath the white silk, making a very clear swallowing motion. He wasn't afraid; he was hungry, and also incredibly excited!

A shrill, grating laugh came from outside the sedan chair, a sound like a leaky bellows straining out of its throat. "Master Li, please bear with it. Miss Wang has been waiting for you for seven whole days. You must enjoy your wedding night to the fullest."

A gentle smile appeared on Li Xuangeng's lips. He didn't struggle; he simply moved his jaw slightly and slowly spat the stinking yellow paper that had been stuffed tightly into his mouth onto the ground.

Then, a muffled thud was heard. The evil-suppressing hemp rope, which was said to be soaked in black dog's blood and could firmly bind a tiger in the deep mountains, was broken effortlessly by him. With his long, pale fingers, he meticulously straightened the hem of his faded Taoist robe and spoke softly.

"Matchmaker, I can agree to this marriage. But I feel the betrothal gifts you've given are too meager."

Before he could finish speaking, and before the evil spirits outside could react, Li Xuangeng suddenly raised his foot and kicked the front door of the paper sedan chair to pieces.

A chilling wind swept in, carrying with it a flurry of paper money. This was a dilapidated inn in a deserted village, its courtyard adorned with pale white and crimson lanterns. The inn's doors were wide open, and all the guests in the courtyard turned to look. These so-called guests all had two thick, eerie red faces painted on, their eyes devoid of white, their pupils simply drawn with cheap black ink. The entire courtyard was filled with paper dolls.

In the very center of the courtyard stood a large, dark red coffin made of dark wood. Just as Li Xuangeng kicked open the sedan chair door, the coffin lid was violently overturned. A blood-soaked corpse, dressed in a tattered bright red wedding gown and covered in sticky green hair, stood upright in the coffin.

With a piercing roar, the green-haired, blood-soaked corpse's ten sharp, black fingernails, like steel blades, pierced straight towards Li Xuangeng's face, carrying a nauseating stench. The paper effigies filling the courtyard also let out eerie, cackling laughs, surging forward like a tidal wave.

Li Xuangeng neither dodged nor flinched, nor even assumed a defensive stance. He allowed the green-haired blood zombie's venomous fangs to bite down hard on his neck. With a crisp crack, the blood zombie's fangs, powerful enough to crush iron, shattered the moment they touched his pale skin.

The gentle smile on Li Xuangeng's face vanished, replaced by a cold indifference as if he were looking at inferior ingredients. He slowly raised his right hand. In that instant, his originally long, pale fingers split open from the fingertips all the way to the wrist, transforming into a gaping maw filled with fine, sharp teeth. Dark, karmic tendrils surged wildly from the shadows of his Taoist robe. This bizarre and terrifying appearance made him look even more like an indescribable monster than the evil spirits filling the courtyard.

He grabbed the blood corpse's head, without any Taoist steps or incantations, only an absolute, crushing physical exorcism. With a hiss, the abyss's maw, like a meat grinder, tore the hundred-year-old green-haired blood corpse, skin and bones, into pieces, and the stench of black blood that splattered everywhere was all swept into his sleeve by his karmic tendrils.

The next second, a completely emotionless mechanical voice rang in Li Xuangeng's mind.

[Ding. Detected a century-old corpse's resentment, meeting the refining standards. The Creation Furnace has been activated. Refining successful, obtaining ten Pure Blood Qi Pills.]

Behind Li Xuangeng, a phantom image of a huge, ancient bronze furnace, its body entirely dark gold, flashed across the void. He slightly opened his mouth, and immediately a pill emitting a crimson light shot out from the bronze furnace in the void, landing directly in his stomach.

As the pill entered his stomach, an extremely vast and violent warm current instantly flowed through his limbs and bones. His previously somewhat frail body now emitted a roaring, surging blood sound. This seemingly effortless strike directly increased his cultivation level by ten years.

The paper effigies that had been frantically rushing forward in the courtyard froze in place after witnessing the horrific sight of the blood corpse being swallowed whole in an instant. Their painted features twisted into expressions of extreme terror.

Li Xuangeng's split right hand instantly closed, restoring its original well-defined knuckles, and all the jet-black tendrils retracted beneath his Taoist robe. He pulled a clean white silk handkerchief from his wide sleeve and carefully, slowly, wiped each of his slender fingers clean. Only after confirming that not a speck of dust remained under his fingernails did he casually toss the handkerchief onto the messy wreckage.

The blind Taoist priest tilted his head, his face beneath the white silk still gentle and handsome, a compassionate smile returning to his lips, but his voice was as cold as the deepest ice in the deepest hell.

"The meat is too tough; some of it gets stuck in my teeth."

He turned slightly to face the trembling paper effigies in the courtyard and asked gently.

The deathly silence in the courtyard lasted only a brief moment.

"Kill him! He's all alone! Tear him apart, drain his life force! Charge!!!"

The old matchmaker, hiding in the shadows outside the courtyard gate, let out a piercing scream. This sound seemed to be a signal; the dozens of paper effigies that had been frozen in place suddenly attacked in unison. Thick, sticky blood oozed from their eye sockets, drawn with cheap black ink. Their paper arms, like sharp steel blades, carried a chilling, corpse-like aura as they stabbed at Li Xuangeng's vital points from all directions.

Faced with this terrifying sight of demons dancing wildly, Li Xuangeng did not retreat even a single step.

"Qimen Dunjia, the Five Elements' mutual generation and restraint. Paper belongs to wood, corpse oil belongs to fire, wood and fire generate each other, which is originally an excellent yin-fire formation." Li Xuangeng smiled and slowly twirled the string of prayer beads of unknown material on his left wrist. "It's just a pity that it met me."

The moment his words fell, an invisible pressure that sent shivers down one's spine suddenly emanated from his eyes, which had been covered by white silk! It was the high-dimensional gaze brought about by [Absolute Reason] and the Eye of Truth.

Li Xuangeng no longer revealed the terrifying abyss, but instead transformed his palm into a blade and charged directly into the group of paper effigies.

There were no fancy sword techniques, no complicated Taoist arts.

"Sizzle—!"

His pale hand pierced the chest of the paper effigy at the forefront with the ease of cutting tofu. With a flick of his wrist, he pulled out a black bead formed from corpse oil and resentment.

"Ding! Slaying a low-quality paper demon yielded a wisp of incomplete Yin energy. Due to its low quality, the Creation Furnace refused to refine it!"

The system notification in his mind made Li Xuangeng frown slightly.

"This is utterly inferior; it doesn't even qualify as firewood. Is this the kind of garbage your inn tries to fool this humble Taoist priest with?"

His tone betrayed a hint of anger at having his meal interrupted. The next second, Li Xuangeng unleashed his full power. His figure, bathed in the crimson lantern light, transformed into a white phantom.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sounds of bones breaking and paper tearing mingled together. With each strike, a paper effigy was instantly pulverized by the violent true energy. In just a few breaths, dozens of paper effigies were slaughtered, leaving only severed limbs and burning paper scraps flying everywhere.

"Enough! Where did this mad Taoist priest come from, daring to ruin my business!"

Suddenly, the dilapidated wooden door of the main hall burst open. A colossal creature, nearly three zhang tall and covered in dark green blisters and tumors, crashed into the center of the courtyard. It was a giant mutated toad, with several human faces, twisted in pain, even sewn onto its back.

This is the mastermind behind the scenes, the "River God" worshipped in the river section under the jurisdiction of Qingping County.

"Mortals! Why do you not kneel before me, the god! I am..."

"The soil floats and the water is abundant, the stench is overwhelming." Li Xuangeng interrupted the River God's roar without any politeness. He tilted his head slightly, sniffed lightly, and his tone even carried a hint of surprise. "So it's just a mutated toad that ate a hundred years' worth of rotting flesh in the mass grave. Although it doesn't look very appealing, it can barely be considered a highly nourishing medicinal ingredient."

"You're courting death!" The River God roared in fury, and the fleshy tumor on his back suddenly burst open, spewing out large swaths of green poisonous miasma, accompanied by an extremely piercing, eerie murmur that could instantly drive anyone mad.

If it were an ordinary person, just inhaling a trace of the poisonous miasma or hearing half a utterance of delirium would immediately cause them to lose all their sanity and grow the same tumors all over their body, turning them into a monster.

But Li Xuangeng possessed the passive immunity of "absolute rationality." The poisonous miasma blowing across his white robes didn't even cause a crease; the maddening babbling was no different from the croaking of frogs by a summer pond to him.

"Noisy."

Li Xuangeng's smile vanished instantly. He suddenly bent his knees and sprang forward, the bluestone slabs beneath his feet cracking inch by inch. He appeared above the River God's head in an instant, like a cannonball!

"What?!" A look of extreme terror flashed in the River God's turbid compound eyes.

"I've heard that a toad's inner core can cure all poisons," Li Xuangeng's gentle voice boomed above the River God's head. "I'll lend you your demon core to help me prepare a good potion!"

He stomped his right foot with tremendous force, like Mount Tai crashing down, and stomped hard on the River God's head. The enormous impact shoved the head of this centuries-old demon into the mud.

Immediately afterwards, the dark gold phantom of the [Creation Furnace] reappeared in the void! The enormous suction force was like a black hole, directly pulling the River God's huge and twisted body into it.

"ah--!!!"

The agonizing screams echoed in the furnace for only half a second before abruptly ceasing.

"Ding! The century-old aquatic mutant has been killed. The Creation Furnace has completed purification!"

"Obtained [Water Spirit Creation Pill] x1!"

"Gained the rudimentary form of supernatural power: [Aura Observation] (can see through all karmic obstacles and pretenses in the world)!"

A round golden pill, shimmering with a deep blue light, fell into Li Xuangeng's hand. Without hesitation, he tilted his head back and swallowed it. In an instant, a stream of azure true energy flowed across his body, washing away the bloody stench that had just stained it.

The courtyard returned to deathly silence.

Li Xuangeng slowly turned around. Directly in front of him, in the shadows behind the large red coffin, huddled a thin, ragged girl, trembling all over. She was the "bride" who was originally to be sacrificed to the River God.

At this moment, the girl covered her mouth tightly, staring at the blind Taoist priest in front of her, dressed in white, who had crushed a monster with one foot and swallowed it whole. The fear in her eyes was a hundred times more intense than when she had seen the River God earlier.

Li Xuangeng leaned down slightly, and that gentle, compassionate smile returned to his lips.

"Don't be afraid, young lady. That evil spirit has already been exorcised by this humble Taoist priest." His voice was gentle, as if the extreme one-sided massacre that had just occurred had never happened. "It's almost dawn. Do you know... how to get to Qingping County?"