Ghost Immortal

mid-September.

Li Feng sat on the edge of the bed in a side room of the mortuary, holding a shard of porcelain he had picked from the water seller's palm, examining it repeatedly in the sunlight streaming through the window.

"Junior brother, you've been staring at that broken piece of porcelain for three days straight. Aren't your eyes tired?"

Qiu Sheng poked half his head in from outside the door, holding two bowls of mung bean soup in his hands.

He placed one of the bowls on the small table next to Li Feng, then picked up the other bowl and gulped down several mouthfuls, letting out a long sigh.

"This awful weather! It's already September and it's still so hot. It's even harder to bear than the dog days of summer."

Li Feng put down the porcelain shard, picked up the mung bean soup, and took a sip.

He put the bowl down and looked back at the porcelain shards.

"The Gu Master is a great shaman from the Southern Frontier. His Gu techniques have been rampant in the Hundred Thousand Mountains of the Southern Frontier for decades. Why would he come to Qingyan City?"

Qiu Sheng was taken aback by the question, scratched his head and said, "Isn't it to find the descendants of the Phoenix bloodline to avenge her? Last time at the quarry, that female corpse was Gu Zhenren's lover. Our master and Aunt He sealed her in the mine for hundreds of years. Gu Zhenren came back to avenge her."

Li Feng shook his head and said, "That female corpse is already dead. Gu Zhenren could have simply left. Why did he stay in Qingyan City and cause us trouble time and time again?"

"Last time, at the crossroads south of the city, he released ghost puppets to ambush us. During the Ghost Festival, he set up the Six Ding Six Jia Formation outside the city to abduct ghosts. What was the reason for all of this?"

Qiu Sheng couldn't answer.

Li Feng held the porcelain shard between his fingers and twirled it in the light streaming in from the window.

The blue patterns on the porcelain shard deform with changing angles, resembling a living snake slithering across the shard.

"Bai Wuchang said that the people who died mysteriously were not killed by Gu worms. Gu Zhenren only raised Gu on the corpses. How did these people actually die? Who is the murderer? What is the relationship between Gu Zhenren and this murderer?"

Before he could finish speaking, hurried footsteps echoed in the courtyard.

Immediately afterward, the voice of the Four-Eyebrowed Taoist came from the direction of the hall, his tone carrying a rare urgency.

"Qiu Sheng! Li Feng! Come out quickly, your eldest uncle is back!"

The two exchanged a glance, put down their bowls at the same time, and quickly walked towards the hall.

In the hall, the Four-Eyebrowed Taoist was standing in front of the statue of the Three Pure Ones, holding a newly opened letter delivered by a flying sword.

Standing beside him was a burly middle-aged Taoist priest, dressed in a dark blue Taoist robe, with a palm-sized Bagua mirror hanging from his waist.

He looked travel-worn, with mud and withered leaves splattered on the hem of his Taoist robe, clearly indicating that he had rushed back.

It was Lei Jian, the senior disciple of the Zhi generation of the Maoshan School.

Lei Jian's face was gloomy. He was a man who rarely smiled, but he looked even more frightening at this moment.

His thick eyebrows were furrowed, his gaze was sharp as a knife, and he exuded a low pressure that made it hard to breathe.

"Grand Master Uncle." Li Feng and Qiu Sheng bowed in unison.

Lei Jian nodded without speaking, and took out a yellowed roll of paper from his sleeve.

The scroll was covered with an intricate map drawn in cinnabar, marking Qingyan City and the surrounding mountains, rivers, villages, towns, and cities within a radius of a hundred miles.

The annotations on the edges of the map, written in tiny characters, were clearly written by Lei Jian himself.

"I spent half a month investigating in southern Xinjiang. This place is called Wulao Peak. There are five peaks standing side by side on the mountain, which look like five old men standing side by side, hence the name. There is an abandoned ancient post road at the foot of Wulao Peak. It was the official road for transporting troops in the previous dynasty. It was abandoned for more than two hundred years and is now rarely visited by people."

Lei Jian pointed to a mountain valley about thirty miles south of Qingyan City on the map.

The four-browed Taoist priest leaned closer to examine the map, frowning as he asked, "Senior Brother, what's wrong with Five Elders Peak?"

"This is a big problem." Lei Jian took out a small cloth bag from his pocket, untied the red string at the top, and poured out several grayish-white fragments.

The fragments were only the size of a fingernail, with jagged edges and strange patterns on the surface.

Li Feng recognized the material of the fragments at a glance.

It was exactly the same as the broken porcelain shard in his hand.

"I found this by the ancient post road at the foot of Wulao Peak."

Lei Jian laid the fragments out on the table, piecing them together to form an incomplete circle, about three inches in diameter, with about a quarter missing.

He looked up at the broken porcelain shards in Li Feng's hand.

"Put your piece up there."

Li Feng did as instructed and placed the broken porcelain shards at the gap.

The moment the porcelain shard was placed on the surface, the patterns between all the fragments automatically aligned, forming a complete pattern that turned out to be a vertical eye.

This eye has no eyelids, no eyelashes, just a bare eyeball with words on the pupil.

"mountain elf."

Lei Jian pronounced the word in a deep voice.

The four-browed Taoist priest's expression changed drastically, and he muttered, "The Corpse-Dissolving Immortal... this is the Corpse-Dissolving Immortal's summoning talisman!"

Qiu Sheng looked blankly at his master and his eldest grand-uncle's suddenly changed expressions, and couldn't help but tug at Li Feng's sleeve, asking curiously, "Junior brother, what is the Corpse Dissection Immortal? Is it very powerful?"

Li Feng shook his head; he didn't understand either.

Although he was a sports student in his previous life, after transmigrating, he studied a lot of Taoist classics. He was very familiar with all kinds of demons, monsters, spells and talismans recorded in the Maoshan Qi Cultivation Manual.

However, he had never seen the phrase "Corpse-Dissolving Immortal" in any ancient texts.

Lei Jian sat down in the chair next to the table.

His fingers traced the eye pattern, and when his fingertips touched the surface of the porcelain shards, the blue lines seemed to glow faintly, as if responding to his touch.

"The Immortal of Corpse Dissection is neither a demon nor a ghost."

Lei Jian solemnly said, "It is one of the oldest methods of achieving immortality in the human world, predating even the Five Arts of Taoism. In ancient times, the sorcerers of the Fangxian Dao believed that after a person dies, their soul leaves the body. If a perfect body can be found as a vessel, the soul can be reborn in the new body, thus achieving immortality. This process is called corpse liberation."

Qiu Sheng seemed to understand but not quite, scratching his head as he asked, "Isn't that just possession? What's the difference between that and the wandering ghosts we catch that possess people?"

"The difference is huge." The Taoist priest with four eyebrows shook his head.

"Possession by a wandering ghost is when a ghost forcibly takes over a living person's body. There will be a rejection reaction between the soul and the body. Before long, the body will rot, and the ghost will be burned away by the yang energy in the body. But corpse dissolution is different."

"Corpse dissection requires two conditions. First, a person with a Taiyin destiny is needed to perform the procedure. People with a Taiyin destiny have extremely heavy Yin energy and are born with a special connection to the underworld. Their destiny will automatically attract the surrounding resentment and Yin energy, forming a unique aura."

"The second step requires killing five people, each dying according to one of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. These five methods of death correspond to the five hells!"

He said with a serious expression, "The Frozen Prison corresponds to the crimes of greed and injustice, and the victims mostly die by drowning in cold water."

"Fire Pit Hell: Corresponds to those who commit adultery, and the victims are often burned to death."

"The Hell of Disembowelment: This refers to the death penalty for committing the crime of treachery, which is a cruel act of disembowelment."

"Heart-Gouging Prison (also known as Heart-Digging Prison): This is for those who commit the crime of filial impiety. The method of execution is heart-gouging."

"Tongue-Pulling Hell: This refers to the punishment for those who commit the sin of disrespecting the gods, and the death penalty is tongue-pulling."

Qiu Sheng exclaimed in shock, "Now that you mention it, those people who died mysteriously in the city correspond exactly to these hells!"

Lei Jian picked up the thread and continued, "The ways of death in the Five Elements and Five Hells will generate five different types of resentment. After these five types of resentment converge on the wielder, the wielder with the Taiyin destiny will also undergo a transformation."

"His soul will be forcibly separated from his body by the five kinds of resentment, and he will enter a state of suspended animation. In this state, his soul will no longer be bound by his body and can travel freely between the Yin and Yang realms."

"When the time is right, his soul will be able to find the 'immortal molt' that has been prepared in advance, which is a perfect body, and possess it to complete the final step of corpse dissolution and immortality."

Upon hearing this, a thought flashed through Li Feng's mind, and he blurted out, "Is it possible that Gu Zhenren is the one who wields the Taiyin destiny?"

Lei Jian and the Four-Eyebrowed Taoist looked at him at the same time, their eyes showing both approval and a hint of surprise.

They clearly hadn't expected that this young disciple, who had only been with the school for less than two months, would be able to grasp the core of the problem in such a short time.