"I'm definitely human, definitely not a monster! I lived in Xujiaping. I have a father and mother, and both my parents are human. My father is named Xu An, and my mother is named Tian Ruijun, from Tianjiaping,"
Xu Ying muttered in a low voice. "I still remember the way to Xujiaping and Tianjiaping. I'm definitely human..."
Listening to his incessant muttering, the snake demon Yuan Qi was somewhat puzzled as well: "If he really is human, then why could he cultivate my demon race's cultivation technique and fist technique? It's clear he isn't made of that much human, but rather has more demon in him."
Putting the matter out of his mind, Xu Ying walked while circulating the Taiyi Guiding Technique to draw in the solar essence.
As he had cultivated the Elephant-Strength Bull Demon Fist to the sixth level, the tempest of light particles formed by the sunshine with every breath grew increasingly pronounced. With each breath he drew, the motes of light flooded into his body!
Xu Ying channeled Thunder Sound body tempering and Great Sun body tempering, refining away the residual true yang qi and blood in his body to heal his physical injuries.
However, he had not opened the Mud Pill secret depository, so he could not rapidly heal wounds like the Nuo masters Ding Quan and Wei Chu.
Moreover, in his battle against Huang Siping, he had nearly been disemboweled, leaving a deep wound on his chest that exposed the bone. Even after the injury healed, it would leave a shocking scar!
Xu Ying sighed and mused silently, *If only I had a method for seeking the dragon to locate the spot and opening the secret depository, how great that would be...*
Opening the Mud Pill secret depository and achieving an undying body truly was something to envy!
"Besides, my skin would definitely get a lot fairer. Maybe in the future I could make a living off my looks."
The youth's heart was filled with unrealistic daydreams. He said to Yuan Qi, "Godfather said wealthy women in the city like fair-faced youths. The year before last, when we had no food, he wanted to sell me to a woman in the city, but my skin wasn't fair enough so I didn't sell. The kid next door from Jiang Shouzheng's family fetched a good price and lives quite well in the city."
Yuan Qi fell silent for a moment, then asked, "Don't you find that pitiful?"
Xu Ying's smile was utterly innocent. "In times like these, just staying alive is good enough. He eats better than me and dresses warmer than me."
He genuinely seemed envious of that child who had been sold.
In the riverbed at the foot of the mountain lay enormous skeletal remains, a single finger of which was taller than Xu Ying.
Walking beside the colossal skeleton, Xu Ying and Yuan Qi crossed the riverbed through its ribcage. Man and snake halted and looked up at the thick ribs, both struck by a surreal, bizarre sensation.
"Is this one of the entities that attacked the ruined temple from the surface of the Nai River last night?" Xu Ying muttered.
It was unknown whether this skeleton belonged to a god, a demon, or some other creature. Struck dead by the great bronze bell, its corpse had fallen into the Nai River, which melted away all its flesh and blood.
As they passed by the bones, they heard a peculiar sound, like thousands of people whispering in hushed voices.
Yuan Qi said, "Gods enjoy offerings and sacrifices, taking a century to cultivate dharmic power and three centuries to temper a sixteen-foot golden body. This is definitely a god; that whispering is the work of the god's incense qi. Incense qi is a god's dharmic power. Even though this god is dead, its incense qi hasn't completely dissipated."
Xu Ying sized up the skeleton, awe washing over him. "How many years would a god this massive take?"
Yuan Qi shook his head. "A sixteen-foot golden body takes three hundred years. This god's skeleton is thirty to forty zhang tall; it would probably take ten thousand years of worship and sacrifice to cultivate such a formidable golden-bodied god. But I've read so many books, and they say recorded history only spans three thousand years. Where could a god with ten thousand years of worship have come from?"
Xu Ying gazed at the flickering golden patterns on the skeleton, his mind equally filled with questions.
They pressed on, passing through the mountain forests of Anzi Ridge, and encountered another corpse in the riverbed.
This corpse was even more gargantuan, blocking the center of the river channel. It had no lower half, only an upper torso.
The flesh on the corpse had not been completely melted away by the Nai River; chunks of flesh still clung to the massive bones.
Seen from afar, the flesh on the white bones was still writhing sluggishly.
Just as Xu Ying and Yuan Qi were about to walk past, a flock of wild birds flew across the sky, forming a dense, dark cloud over the riverbed. Suddenly, the flesh on the white bones shot outward with a whoosh like a frog's tongue, latching onto the entire flock and dragging them down into the riverbed.
The birds shrieked, feathers flying everywhere, but silence soon returned, leaving only bird bones and feathers strewn across the ground.
Meanwhile, the flesh on the corpse surged and roiled, visibly thicker than before.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi felt their hair stand on end. They held their breath and hurriedly skirted around the edge of the riverbed.
Suddenly, the colossal corpse snapped its head up. Hollow eyes "looked" toward Xu Ying and Yuan Qi. Its head resembled a mountain of flesh, with fleshy tendrils writhing and crawling across it.
"Run!" Xu Ying barked urgently.
One person and one snake sprinted for their lives, while the half-corpse crawled furiously on its two arms at astonishing speed, tearing down the riverbed in hot pursuit!
After chasing them for a while, the corpse lost their trail and finally gave up.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi fled frantically, unconsciously arriving at Mount Jian. Seeing that the monstrous corpse hadn't followed, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Look at Mount Jian!" Yuan Qi urged.
Xu Ying looked up and saw that a huge chunk was missing from the peak of Mount Jian, as if some giant monster had taken a bite out of the mountaintop.
However, with piles of shattered rock littering this side of the mountain, it looked more like something had smashed into the peak, gouging out a gap.
"The world is getting more chaotic by the day," Xu Ying said, shaking his head.
Ahead lay a wide mountain stream, babbling gently, about three or four zhang across. The water was crystalline, revealing the stream bed below. It was the dry season now; once the rainy season arrived, mountain torrents would sweep down from upstream, turning the stream treacherous.
Yuan Qi went to the other side of the stream to hunt, while Xu Ying stripped naked, jumped into the water, and washed off the blood and grime before washing his clothes.
Before long, he put the soaking-wet clothes back on and mobilized his qi and blood. Steam billowed from his entire body, and within moments, he had dried his clothes completely.
Suddenly, Yuan Qi's alarmed cry rang out. Xu Ying hurried over to find the woods in complete disarray, littered with shattered and snapped trees. Waves of heat rolled out from the forest, growing hotter with every step forward.
Xu Ying took several dozen more steps and saw that the trees ahead were flattened entirely, all broken in the same direction!
Amid the fallen trees floated a great bronze bell, taller than a person, hovering two feet above the ground. Various bizarre patterns on its surface flared and dimmed erratically.
As the patterns flickered, the great bronze bell rose and fell in rhythm.
Stranger still, as the bell floated upward, it gradually expanded by a ring; as it sank, it shrank considerably!
It was as if it were breathing.
Yet on the side of the bell was a deep palm print, over three inches deep, nearly punching clean through the metal!
Judging from the palm and knuckles, it belonged to a woman's hand, slender and delicate.
Xu Ying couldn't help recalling the female ghost in the coffin from last night, thinking, *From the looks of this palm print, it was probably struck by that pretty female ghost.*
Around the palm print, strange patterns intertwined, flaring brightly one moment and collapsing the next, as if a terrifying power within the imprint was wreaking havoc on the internal structure of the great bronze bell.
Even more peculiar, Xu Ying got the distinct impression that the great bronze bell was using a strange breathing and respiration technique to draw out its own potential and combat the terrifying force in the palm print!
It was healing itself!
Not far off, the snake demon Yuan Qi clamped his jaws around a black wild pig weighing ten-odd jin, already dead of venom, while another black wild pig was pinned beneath his coils, still alive.
Snake and pig stared with wide eyes, looking at the great bronze bell in terror.
"How could this bell be here? I thought it was dragged into the underworld. Could the gap in Mount Jian have been smashed by it?"
Xu Ying crept forward cautiously, reaching out a hand from afar, and whispered, "Is it injured?"
The snake demon Yuan Qi was frantic. Lowering his voice, he hissed, "Don't do anything stupid! You'll get yourself killed!"
Xu Ying summoned his courage and inched forward bit by bit.
Yuan Qi cried, "Xu Ying, get back here! You haven't left an heir for the Old Jiang family yet! If you die, the Jiang family line ends with you!"
Xu Ying's palm drew closer to the great bronze bell.
Suddenly, the great bronze bell froze, no longer rising and falling, nor expanding and contracting.
Yuan Qi gasped and held his breath. Xu Ying also felt as though the great bell had grown a pair of eyes that were staring at him, watching to see what he intended to do.
The temperature of the surrounding air spiked drastically. The fallen trees baked until they crackled and popped, splintering continuously.
Xu Ying didn't move a muscle.
After a moment, the great bronze bell resumed its rising and falling, expanding and contracting, focusing entirely on dealing with the palm print on its surface. Evidently, it decided Xu Ying posed no threat.
Xu Ying felt the ambient temperature drop significantly. He stealthily shifted a step forward and continued extending his hand.
The great bronze bell paused again; Xu Ying froze.
The hearts of both the snake demon Yuan Qi and the black pig leapt into their throats.
The great bronze bell resumed its rhythmic bobbing and breathing. Xu Ying gently rested his hand against the bell's surface, stroked it, and smiled with satisfaction.
Yuan Qi hissed in a whisper, "You risked getting smashed to death by a giant bell just to pet it?"
Xu Ying smiled. "We only survived the course-change of the Nai River last night thanks to it. Now that it's injured, of course we should pet it to comfort it. The dogs and cats at my house always calm down when I pet them like this."
Yuan Qi actually found some twisted logic in that. Yet just as Xu Ying turned his head, a loud *dong* rang out as the great bronze bell plummeted from midair and slammed into the ground!
Startled, Xu Ying whipped his head back around to see the surface of the bell trembling violently. The patterns on its sides were completely deranged, flickering wildly and twitching from time to time.
The sight looked just like someone mortally wounded and drawing their last breaths!
"Get back here quick!"
Yuan Qi's voice went shrill and raspy as he yelled, "It's dying! When it blows up in a second, it'll splatter you head to toe in blood!"
Seeing this, Xu Ying couldn't be sure whether the violently shaking bell would explode or not. He hurriedly walked toward Yuan Qi.
He had only taken two steps when the sound of the bell scraping and knocking against the ground came from behind him. Xu Ying looked back to find the bronze bell still behind him, having dragged itself two steps forward. It was still twitching convulsively, as though gasping its last breath.
Xu Ying took a step forward; the great bronze bell dragged itself forward by one step.
Xu Ying took another step forward; the great bronze bell twitched and slid forward by one step.
Xu Ying quickened his pace, and behind him, the bell clanged and scraped, tailing right at his heels.
"You've been scammed!"
Yuan Qi cried in a hushed, shrill squeak. "You petted it, so now it's extorting you! It's gravely injured and can't protect itself, so the moment you touched it, it pinned itself on you! Didn't I tell you never to help an old lady across the street?"
Beside him, the little black pig nodded repeatedly in profound agreement.
Xu Ying took to his heels, while behind him, the great bronze bell clattered, banged, and crashed along, trailing plumes of smoke and kicking up clouds of dust, clinging obstinately to his heels!
Xu Ying darted between two side-by-side trees; behind him, two resounding cracks echoed as both trees crashed down in neat succession!
Xu Ying leapt over a boulder as tall as two or three men; the next instant, the boulder was ground into powder. Clanging noisily, the great bronze bell remained hot on his tail, utterly inseparable.
Xu Ying circled back. Yuan Qi and the little black pig watched his backside, where the great bell was still dragging along the ground, clattering and banging about.
The youth stopped, his face blank, two streaks of tears rolling down his cheeks.
"I've killed men and slain a god, and now I'm wanted by both the City God and the government. With this giant bell tagging along behind my backside, practically screaming for everyone to see and hear me, I probably won't last half a day." Xu Ying tilted his head toward the sky to keep his tears from running into his mouth.
Suddenly, the great bronze bell behind him floated up silently, rotating slowly as it shrank smaller and smaller. Then, with a *swish*, it darted into the back of his head!
Seeing Yuan Qi and the little black pig staring in horror at the space behind him, Xu Ying whipped around. Finding no trace of the bronze bell, he was overjoyed. "I finally shook off that dead weight!" he laughed.
The tip of Yuan Qi's tail pointed at Xu Ying's head. Stammering, he was just about to speak when the toll of a bell suddenly chimed in his mind. Yuan Qi shuddered, his tail going limp.
"Yuan Qi, you caught two wild pigs. I think this one is remarkably spirited and intelligent—why don't we let it go?" Xu Ying suggested, eyeing the little black pig pinned beneath the snake demon.
Yuan Qi said, "This black pig died from my venom. My poison has no antidote; if you eat it, you're a dead man. This live one is venom-free. Are you sure you want to release the live one?"
Before long, both little wild pigs were roasting over a bonfire until golden and glistening with grease. Dripping fats fell onto the flames, filling the air with the fragrant scent of pine smoke and roast meat.
Having eaten and drank their fill, Xu Ying and Yuan Qi continued toward Mount Wuwang.
"Xiao Qi, for some reason, whenever I shake my head, I hear a bell ringing."
Xu Ying shook his head, looking puzzled. He cocked his ear for a moment and said, "I think I'm hallucinating."
Yuan Qi kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, not uttering a word.
Xu Ying shook his head again, and once more heard the chime.
"Stop shaking it! Keep that up and your head's going to fall off!" Yuan Qi worried inwardly, terrified that if Xu Ying shook too hard, the bell would smash his skull open from the inside.
Not only did Xu Ying frequently hear the tolling of a bell, but he also felt his qi and blood running low. Before walking very far, he grew short of breath, though he assumed it was merely because his injuries hadn't fully healed.
Yuan Qi watched this unfold, frightened out of his wits. In just a short while, Xu Ying had grown gaunt and haggard, his complexion sallow and his eyes ringed with dark circles, looking as if a female ghost had drained him dry over three hundred bouts!
Suddenly, a voice resonated in Xu Ying's mind like the chiming of a grand bell: "Youth, do you know what internal observation and visualization mean?"
Xu Ying started and asked hurriedly, "Who? Who's speaking?"
Yuan Qi froze, glancing all around. "Someone spoke? Why didn't I hear anything?"
In Xu Ying's mind, the voice drawled lazily, "Your qi and blood cultivation is clearly sufficient, and you have reached the pinnacle of the Qi Harvesting stage, yet you do not understand internal observation and visualization, leaving your cultivation unable to advance further."
Xu Ying looked left and right but saw no one. He asked tentatively, "May I ask Senior, what is internal observation and visualization? How does one observe internally? How does one visualize?"
The voice continued leisurely, "The so-called internal observation and visualization: internal observation means finding sufficiency within. In the Qi Harvesting stage, gathering the essence qi of the sun is taking from without—harvesting essence qi to replenish qi and blood. Internal observation, on the other hand, is observing within, observing inside one's own body, opening the Realm of Xiyi to perceive the five viscera and six bowels—an extraordinary spectacle, mystical and wondrous. At that stage, the Five Qis Face the Origin; by harmonizing the five qis and transforming them into primordial qi, one attains the great completion of the Qi Harvesting stage. Only after achieving great completion in Qi Harvesting can one behold the mysterious pass of the human body and march toward the next realm."
Xu Ying was baffled. "Senior, the next realm you speak of doesn't match the realms of a Nuo master. Could you be speaking of the demon race's method of cultivation?"
Hearing Xu Ying muttering, Yuan Qi hastily looked over, only to see Xu Ying speaking furtively to thin air. The snake wondered inwardly, *What's wrong with Ah Ying?*
The voice asked in confusion, "What is a Nuo master? I am speaking of a Qi Refiner! Are you not a Qi Refiner?"
Chapter 10