In this season, earth glow steamed upward, and showers of light drifted across the wilderness. Even the heavy, dark clouds in the sky had become visible. Spring thunder began to rumble, casting faint flashes of lightning in the distance.
With a sudden rush, a large crowd of people—men and women alike—swarmed around Qin Ming, surging into the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace, every one of them wound tight with tension.
"What's the rush? Spring thunder is only just stirring; there's still time before it truly explodes. How the heavens unfold depends on the earthlight." The seventy-two-year-old Old Man Zhao had indeed come. He had once declared at Zuixia Pavilion that he would stake his life this year in the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace, hoping that a withered tree might put out new green.
"You lot are simply too young. You never enter the fire fields, never watch the earth glow, never heed the solar terms. Although the rain of light steaming up to the surface from the dormant underground Fire Springs has stirred the celestial phenomena, it's still missing the final heat."
A group of old men walked in. Incredibly, every one of them had donned burial shrouds ahead of time, casting a grim pall over the young and able-bodied inside the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace, who felt it was horribly unlucky.
"Don't fret. We'll certainly have to wait. Everyone still has time to write their last wills, and while we're at it, have something to eat and drink. Don't shortchange yourselves before moving on. You can even take the time to ponder whether you truly want to go die."
Led by Old Man Zhao, the dozen or so old fellows not only wore burial clothes and fine jade, but also hung their favorite everyday trinkets on themselves, prepared to "take them along."
"Are you planning to use the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace to cremate yourselves?" A stubble-faced burly man spoke up. He clearly lacked a gentle temper and felt offended by their talk.
"Flaring up already, young man? This old fellow bears no ill will. Going by past experience, it's a blessing if even one person survives every few years. We're most likely bound to keep each other company on the road to the Yellow Springs, so why not get acquainted early and build some goodwill?"
The younger men could only stare blankly. As harsh and unpleasant as his words sounded, they were undeniably true.
"Had I known, I would have decked myself in gold and silver beforehand too," a young man sighed. "That way, if I died here, at least I wouldn't have shortchanged myself."
Just then, an elderly man with scarcely any teeth left asked someone outside the hall, "Has my golden-thread nanmu coffin been carried up yet?"
The younger crowd in the palace fell utterly speechless. These old fellows had probably even arranged their funerary goods and burial plots.
"No need for formalities, everyone! Come, have some wine and food together. We're 'death companions,' all in this together," another old man called out cordially, having already ordered servants to bring in plenty of fine wine and sumptuous dishes.
The young crowd remained quiet. They felt nowhere near as open-minded as these old men, who seemed to view life as one long dream, ready to embark calmly on the distant journey and serenely draw the curtain on this lifetime.
"You've prepared your shrouds and coffins, knowing full well there is little hope. Why come here to suffer? Wouldn't it be better to spare yourselves the lightning strike and keep your bodies intact?"
"How can one know without trying? What if it works? In this world, nothing you do is foolproof. Who doesn't want to be that 'one'?"
The crowd sat down. A careful count revealed sixty-nine people in total, roughly the same as in past years. The group of death companions let down their guard. Young and old, men and women, they all began to eat and drink, and some even started rambling about their pasts.
Qin Ming kept glancing outside the golden palace. Where on earth had the corpse retriever Xu Sheng found for him run off to? He better not bungle the important business. Qin Ming had a sinking feeling the man wasn't very reliable.
"Young brother, you still look quite young to me. Why come to gamble with your life so early?" an old man asked.
At this moment, Qin Ming's long black hair hung loose, veiling most of his face, which was intentionally dirtied. Even so, the old man could still sense that he was very young.
Qin Ming sighed. "I had no choice. Far away, a thousand-year-old colossus watches me with cold eyes, and I have no idea what it intends to do to me. If I don't elevate my life level as quickly as possible, I won't be able to grasp my own fate."
In any case, they would soon be separated by life and death; it didn't matter what he said now.
"Lad, you're only fifteen or sixteen, aren't you? Even younger. Why did you come?" Old Man Zhao asked a wooden, dull-looking youth beside him.
The youth, named Qian Cheng, said blankly, "They say I'm simple. They're always bullying, beating, and scolding me, forcing me to do chores for them. I don't want to get kicked or slapped across the face anymore. Grandmother passed away anyway, leaving me all alone. I came here to try my luck."
"This... Sigh! Child, leave this place. You can come to my home, and I'll arrange a job feeding horses for you," Old Man Zhao said.
"No," the wooden youth Qian Cheng said. "When someone takes pity on you, that goodwill always runs out over time."
Qin Ming looked at him in surprise, feeling that he wasn't simple at all.
"The spring thunder is already rumbling—why hasn't it struck yet? This is pure torture!" a fierce-looking burly man said. He had tattoos on his face, looking like a convict.
Noticing the strange looks from others, he spoke up, "Stop staring. I'm a death row convict, sent here to take the thunder. If I survive, I won't be beheaded."
"A medicinal human... thunder meat!" an old man muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?" the burly man demanded.
"Nobles do this every year. They send condemned prisoners in, so at least some trace of heavenly light lingers in them, and then they feed the corpses to mutated beasts."
"Not all of them go to beasts either. Those with good teeth and a savage appetite might even eat it themselves."
Upon hearing that, the fierce man felt his stomach turn. He sank onto the ground, realizing this was far worse than waiting for the executioner's blade!
Now, splendid—first he had to be struck by lightning, and afterward he would either feed mutated beasts or end up in an old noble's belly. It was simply too wretched.
"No, I'm not doing this! I want out of the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace!" he shouted, leaping to his feet.
"What are you yelling about? Your family already took the money, and your son has entered the academy. You think you can back out now?" someone walked over from the distance and called out.
The burly man slumped back down in dejection, motionless and silent.
Clearly, he was not the only one. A dozen or so people in the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace wore the same ashen look of despair, all of them sent here by nobles or wealthy magnates.
After eating and drinking his fill, Qin Ming once again plunged into the black sea of emotions to fish for treasures. Even if he found nothing, it didn't matter, as he discovered that these "terrifying waves" served to temper his mental willpower.
"Hm?" Once he stopped obsessing over gains and treated this resonance as a form of cultivation, an unexpected surprise came: he encountered a powerful surge of fluctuations.
Within the pitch-black sea of emotions, a young man roared, his entire body bursting with faint silver radiance.
"I refuse to accept this! I endured two spring thunders! In the third year, I was even stronger—am I really to die here instead? Why is the otherworldly heavenly light descending with the thunder and fire so concentrated this time?!"
In the scene before him, the young man's hair stood on end. He was circulating a strange thunder force, struggling against the corrosion of the heavenly light.
All around him, corpses littered the ground—some charred black, others scorched red, and some torn apart by the heavenly light, like a corner of purgatory.
"What a shame... I only mastered the burst force; it cannot yet be called true thunder force! How I hate this! The sect's cornerstone miraculous art was already about to be opened to me, yet in my reckless haste for a swift breakthrough, I ruined my own brilliant future!"
All of this had been his thoughts in his final moments, when he was already immobilized and completely incapable of escape.
The young man had felt regret and self-reproach, but at the very end, he cast aside his negative emotions. Burst force erupted like arcs of lightning from every pore of his body as he went all out to resist the heavenly light.
"I will endure it!"
And then, he exploded, dying a gruesome death.
Qin Ming felt as if he had experienced it firsthand, his hairs standing on end. It was simply too bloody and tragic.
Afterward, he began practicing that burst force inside the golden hall. This force method was exceptionally potent; from it, one could evolve the renowned thunder force.
Qin Ming was astonished. Burst force was actually a composite force method, fusing several kinds of heavenly light force. Its destructive power was immense: driven into a giant beast's body, once it detonated, it would blast apart a huge swath of flesh and blood.
"Xiao Qin, it's not too late to back out now." Xu Sheng arrived, clearly in disguise and looking entirely different from his usual appearance. He had brought along the corpse retriever who had nearly overslept.
Qin Ming shook his head and whispered that his condition had never been better, and that he had already initially developed the Sun family's hammer force and whip force.
He had already laid his cards on the table with Xu Sheng earlier. After all, the corpse retriever had to be instructed that once Qin Ming endured four strikes of heavenly light, he had to drag him out of the golden hall immediately, dead or alive.
Spring thunder rumbled, emerging in the distance.
After two more days of waiting, true lightning finally began to flicker across the sky above this area. A light drizzle pattered down, earth glow steamed across the wilderness, and heaven and earth shone brilliantly, almost like broad daylight.
Many people arrived on Mount Chixia, knowing that every year around this time, once the spring thunder erupted, people would queue up here to court death.
Many rushed to witness this "spectacle," most just to join the bustle, though some nobles were waiting for their "thunder meat" to be carried out.
Inside the Mountain God Temple, it was once again packed to overflowing, everyone watching the lightning over Mount Chixia.
Finally, spring thunder descended, detonating above the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace. Across the bright metal tiles, arcs of electricity intertwined with blinding brilliance, and balls of thunder-fire rolled across the roof—a terrifying sight.
Most terrifying of all was the otherworldly heavenly light descending alongside the lightning. Blindingly luminous, it could penetrate structures and sink straight into the mountain itself.
The construction of the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace was exquisite. It could conduct electricity and weaken the lightning, but it could scarcely hold back the otherworldly heavenly light.
The union of heavenly light and thunder-fire birthed an extraordinarily rare spiritual substance, which was swept along and crashed down into the golden palace.
Qin Ming saw with his own eyes that after the first wave of thunder-fire and heavenly light, half the people collapsed. Some had blackened faces and lay motionless, while others had turned bright red, looking thoroughly cooked.
Qin Ming shuddered inwardly. He truly felt the violent fury of the heavenly light; once it entered his body, it flowed like boiling water, threatening to scald him alive.
With a deafening boom, when the second wave of heavenly light crashed down, scarcely anyone remained standing in the golden palace. Qin Ming saw seventy-two-year-old Old Man Zhao explode.
When the third wave of heavenly light arrived, Qin Ming was racked with agonizing pain. He let himself collapse to the ground, not wanting to stand out, as everyone else had already fallen. In any case, lying on the floor still allowed him to receive the heavenly light and spiritual substance.
Far outside, people had already begun hauling their ropes, and weeping drifted in from those who realized their kin inside the palace hadn't held out.
When the fourth wave of heavenly light descended, the interior of the golden palace turned into purgatory. Some corpses that hadn't been pulled out in time were torn apart by the heavenly light. Right next to Qin Ming lay Old Man Zhao's thigh, along with another elder's severed arm, their shredded burial shrouds burned beyond recognition.
The otherworldly heavenly light was indeed terrifying, posing a genuine threat even to Qin Ming. At the same time, he sensed the dense spiritual substance flowing into his body.
He channeled the technique from the silk book to regulate his physical state and circulate the heavenly light for his own use; this otherworldly heavenly light could fuse with the heavenly light born from his own body.
Suddenly, Qin Ming realized something was wrong. The fifth wave of heavenly light had already crashed down, so why was there still no movement from his corpse retriever? He saw half the torso of Old Man Liu, who was also a third Newborn, being dragged away, yet he was still lying here.
What was that corpse retriever doing? Qin Ming felt like cursing!
Next, the sixth wave of thunder-fire and heavenly light, mixed with rare spiritual substance, crashed down. Qin Ming flared with rage—did that bastard really want to send him to his grave?!
He had reached the end of his endurance and prepared to leap up and bolt.
A perfectly living man couldn't just let himself get killed by an unreliable corpse retriever. At worst, he would simply stop keeping a low profile.
In the distance, someone called out to Qin Ming's corpse retriever, "Brother, the rest of us have already pulled our employers out, intact or in pieces. We did our duty—why haven't you moved yet?"
"They can't survive anyway, so sooner or later makes no difference. Still, might as well haul him out to keep him from getting blasted to bits. Wouldn't want the deceased's family making trouble and shorting my pay." The corpse retriever finally went to work.
By this point, Qin Ming was about to sit up. Even if he didn't want to play the walking corpse, he had no choice now—as soon as he got outside, he was going to chop that corpse retriever to pieces!
Just as he was about to get up, the special rope bound around his waist tightened, and he began to be dragged outward. He gritted his teeth and endured it!
Right after, he felt the urge to curse again. Why was the dragging so sluggish? Had the fellow not eaten? He dearly wanted to slaughter that corpse retriever.
When the seventh wave of thunder-fire and heavenly light came down, Qin Ming was caught by a sliver of its trailing glow, but he was finally dragged clear of the grand hall.
He immediately circulated the secret art of Harmonize with Light and Dust and played dead.
Qin Ming breathed a sigh of relief. With such concentrated spiritual substance entering his body, his fourth Newborn breakthrough should be well assured—and he would recover the memories he had lost.
Chapter 72