"Gu Feiyu once mentioned that after the Wuji Sect captured me, the ageless immortal, their supreme sect master personally ventured into the Netherworld to steal the Stone of Three Lives, costing the lives of many of their top experts."
Xu Ying had raided several tombs in succession before finally discovering the stone in a grand tomb, bringing him no small amount of joy. He had no real greed for the other treasures of the Wuji Sect; the only thing he had truly set his heart on was this Stone of Three Lives.
Back then, the sect had used this very stone to trace his memories all the way back to the Fengshan ceremony on Mount Tai, which was how they uncovered the secrets of that ancient imperial rite!
Xu Ying had currently unsealed his memories only as far back as the lifetime when Xu Fu set out to sea. The Dao character for "imprisonment" deciphered by Xu Fu could only unlock things up to that point; anything older remained sealed.
That was why Xu Ying had sought out the Stone of Three Lives, hoping to see whether it could awaken even earlier memories.
The stone lay inside the coffin of Li Renjie, the former sect master of the Wuji Sect, pillowed beneath the corpse's head.
Sect Master Li Renjie had possessed vast divine abilities in life and remained extraordinary even in death. With his head resting on the Stone of Three Lives, his corpse was actually still dreaming. A halo of light projected above his forehead, playing out scenes from his past and present lives.
His face was ruddy, and he even seemed to be breathing faintly.
"Fellow Daoist Li, when you were alive, you captured me and subjected me to all manner of inhumane experiments in pursuit of immortality. Today, I've come to rob your sect's ancestral tombs. Consider it tit for tat."
With that, Xu Ying reached out and slid the Stone of Three Lives from beneath Li Renjie's head.
The instant the stone was removed, the halo above Li Renjie's forehead blinked out.
Xu Ying's heart leaped, instantly knowing something was wrong. A sinister chill swept over him as a hand shot out and clamped tightly around his wrist. Inside the coffin, Li Renjie surged upright, his black robes snapping wildly. His face contorted into a ghastly snarl: "Give it back!"
Startled, Xu Ying barely had time to react before Shi Yuqing unleashed the Bright Moon Wheel beside him. Sword light slashed down from the wheel, striking Li Renjie's wrist!
"A zongzi!"
Startled and thrilled, the bronze bell slammed into Li Renjie's temple with a deafening gong!
At the same moment, Yuan Qi cried out in delight, "It's a corpse!"
The giant snake opened his maw wide, spitting out a torrent of heavy treasures to suppress Li Renjie!
They were beside themselves with excitement. Having followed Xu Ying on tomb raids for so long, they had never encountered an undead corpse until today.
Only the purple immortal plant remained nonchalant, thinking, *A zongzi? I'm an immortal plant rooted on graves. Suppressing corpses is my specialty.*
Li Renjie ignored their attacks completely, his gaze locking onto Xu Ying with sheer astonishment. "It's you, ageless immortal! The insect I turned into flesh elixir back then dares to scheme against me!"
Shi Yuqing's sword light struck Li Renjie's wrist, only to shatter inch by inch. When the bronze bell collided with the sect master's forehead, it was hurled backward by the rebound!
The numerous heavy treasures Yuan Qi hurled down failed to harm Li Renjie in the slightest, clattering noisily against his skull amidst showers of brilliant light!
Xu Ying rallied all his cultivation and activated his Crimson Palace cave-heaven. With his strength surging exponentially, he wrenched his wrist free from Li Renjie's grip and traded a direct blow with him.
Xu Ying staggered back from the shock wave, his heart sinking. *This founder of the Wuji Sect was probably one of the most formidable beings of his era! What an immense foundation of cultivation!*
By drawing upon the Crimson Palace cave-heaven, Xu Ying possessed enough power to crush Tao Danyang, yet against Li Renjie, he was the one driven back!
*Is he truly dead? How can he still wield dharmic power?*
Just as the thought crossed his mind, Li Renjie lunged forward, shouting, "Give me back the Stone of Three Lives!"
He reached out to grab it, but his hand suddenly withered at terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, his arm dried into desiccated bone, and the nails on his five fingers grew wildly.
A look of terror seized Li Renjie. His face wrinkled and rotted, white hair sprouted, and his flesh shriveled away. Before he could even reach Xu Ying, the living man had transformed into a mummified corpse.
His Primordial Spirit disintegrated, his cultivation collapsed, and surging vital qi poured out in all directions.
From the ruined Primordial Spirit, only Li Renjie's ghost remained. Shrieking in agony, it reached toward the Stone of Three Lives in Xu Ying's grasp, only to be dragged down into the Netherworld by an unseen force, vanishing without a trace.
Xu Ying, Shi Yuqing, and the others exchanged stunned, wary glances. Just a moment ago, Li Renjie had been in peak condition, wielding terrifying power that comfortably suppressed all of them combined.
Yet the next instant, he had perished in a flash, his Primordial Spirit disintegrating into nothingness.
Xu Ying possessed the ancestral method of the Crimson Palace cave-heaven, Shi Yuqing wielded the heirloom treasure of the Sword Sect, and though Yuan Qi lacked deep cultivation, he commanded a mountain of artifacts. Above all, the bronze bell was formidable enough that three to five ordinary Ascension-stage Qi Refiners would struggle against it.
Even joining forces, they had been held down by Li Renjie. The man's strength had been truly unfathomable.
For such an entity to die abruptly in the span of a breath was deeply unsettling—and occurring inside an ancient tomb, it felt all the more bizarre.
"He wasn't an angler, yet he survived until now. It must have been the work of the Stone of Three Lives."
Shi Yuqing's eyes brightened. "Have you ever heard the legend of the Pillow Immortal?"
Xu Ying shook his head.
Shi Yuqing explained, "A Pillow Immortal uses the Stone of Three Lives as a pillow to enter slumber. Their Primordial Spirit and physical body remain preserved within the cycle of three lives and three worlds woven by the stone. Even when their lifespan expires, they attain immortality within the dream, like an immortal dwelling inside a pillow. That is why they are called Pillow Immortals!"
Xu Ying asked, "You mean Li Renjie pillowed himself on the Stone of Three Lives before his death, turning himself into a Pillow Immortal?"
Shi Yuqing nodded gently. "Over three thousand years have passed since his era. Though he could deceive time for a while, once he lost the Stone of Three Lives, time reverted him to his true state, causing his death and the dissolution of his Dao."
By pulling the stone from beneath his head, Xu Ying had shattered the cycle of three lives. Li Renjie had awakened to reclaim it, but it had already been too late.
Time had claimed his life after all.
Composing herself, Shi Yuqing said, "We just brought about the death of a dream immortal."
Xu Ying shook his head. "A pseudo-immortal at best. No different from Nuo immortals, clinging to unorthodox tricks to drag out their lives."
He walked out of Li Renjie's tomb, put away the broken wooden door, and washed the Stone of Three Lives with clear water. Intricate, wondrous patterns surfaced across the stone, embodying an alien Dao that was exceedingly difficult to decipher.
Yuan Qi said, "Ah Ying, lend me the wooden door for a bit. I'll go search the Wuji Sect's archives for some scriptures."
Passing the wooden door to him, Xu Ying said, "Lord Bell, go along and lend a hand so nothing dangerous happens."
He hesitated briefly before adding, "Master Grass, you go as well. If you run into any zongzi, you take care of them."
The bronze bell chimed in agreement and departed with Yuan Qi and the purple immortal plant.
Having washed the stone clean, Xu Ying lay down and rested his head upon it. "I must trouble the sect master to stand guard for me."
Shi Yuqing sent the Bright Moon Wheel drifting above the hill. Night had fallen, and the wheel hung in the sky like a radiant moon, shedding a cool, quiet glow.
Xu Ying directed his divine consciousness into the Stone of Three Lives, and within moments, he sank into deep slumber. A beam of light projected from between his brows, manifesting the myriad scenes of his dreams.
In the dream, Xu Ying yawned, stretched, and awoke to find himself in a lifetime from four thousand years ago.
The rumbling rattle of carriage wheels echoed in his ears.
Startled, Xu Ying realized he was seated upon a ceremonial float, flanked by a massive procession as they arrived at the foot of Mount Tai.
The iron cavalry of the Great Qin marched under fluttering banners.
Xu Ying was merely one among countless sacrificial offerings, held up high to await the ascent up the mountain, where they would be offered to the six Nuo Ancestors.
*I've already awakened this memory. Why is the Stone of Three Lives digging it up again?*
Xu Ying was puzzled, but knowing little about how to control the stone, he could not force it to unlock his still-sealed memories and had to bide his time.
"Qinglou, look. That person is a wandering, unkillable ghost of the mortal realm," a voice called from the roadside.
Sitting atop the carriage, Xu Ying looked back upon hearing the words and caught sight of Qinglou as a young girl. A middle-aged woman held the little girl's hand, gazing at him from amidst the crowd lining the road.
Their eyes met, then parted.
He looked back ahead as the sacrificial procession began its ascent up Mount Tai.
The scenes of the Fengshan ceremony grew increasingly vivid.
When Xu Fu deciphered the Dao character for "imprisonment" to unlock his memories, many gaps had remained. Though Xu Ying had traced his recollections back four thousand years, significant pieces had been missing; now, the Stone of Three Lives was gradually filling them in.
In the sky of his memory, the six Nuo Ancestors appeared, coming to blows in their struggle to claim Xu Ying. The martial prowess they displayed transcended the era; even the mightiest Qi Refiners of Great Qin lagged far behind them.
Even across space and time, the divine abilities they unleashed wreaked terrifying devastation around Mount Tai, tearing the skies asunder, toppling mountain ranges, and raising catastrophic floods!
Their techniques shattered the void and crashed down from the heavens into the earth, stirring up earth, water, wind, and fire across the region like an apocalypse.
The destruction was so immense that the participants fled in panic, disrupting the grand sacrificial rite.
A few peculiar figures seized the chance to strike amidst the chaos, snatching Xu Ying away. They were the monitors who preceded Beichenzi, and their intervention prevented any of the six Nuo Ancestors from obtaining him as a sacrifice.
At that moment, another ancient memory unsealed.
It was a morning three thousand two hundred years ago, at the foot of Mount Jiuyi. Xu Ying was herding a flock of sheep past a stream where a young maiden sat, combing her wet, lustrous hair.
Xu Ying sat by the water, watching her quietly until she turned and offered him a radiant smile.
That afternoon, when he drove the sheep home, his mother told him she had arranged a bride for him and that he would meet her the following day.
Xu Ying assumed it was the maiden by the stream and spent the entire night tossing and turning in excitement.
The next day, his parents took him to meet a girl with a dirt-smudged face. Her family were refugees fleeing a famine, and unable to feed her, her parents wished to place her into a good household.
It was not the girl from the stream, and Xu Ying felt deeply disheartened.
"You look so familiar, as if I've seen you in a past life," the dirty-faced girl giggled, speaking to him.
Looking into her eyes, he felt as though he had tumbled into them, never to climb back out.
He married her, and they shared a tender, loving life together.
When she washed the grime from her face, she was not exceptionally beautiful, yet he adored her dearly.
Whenever Xu Ying grazed his sheep by the stream after that, he never saw the other maiden again.
Hidden corners buried across his countless lifetimes were now being uncovered one by one by the Stone of Three Lives.
Throughout the span between three and four thousand years ago, he had frequently crossed paths with that maiden by the stream.
Gradually, these hidden pockets grew fewer, until the stone finally began stretching his memories further back into antiquity.
Lifetime after lifetime was turned over, but most were ordinary existences: drinking Meng Po soup, having his memories wiped, receiving new ones, and starting life anew. After living a dozen or so years, he would be forced to drink Meng Po soup again, have his memories wiped, receive new ones, and begin anew once more.
He had cycled through reincarnations in this manner, mediocre for the vast majority of them. Across a hundred lifetimes, only one or two versions of himself managed to grasp cultivation methods, only to be discovered before achieving anything great, ending in failure.
As he traced further and further back, nearing the limit of what the Stone of Three Lives could reach, Shi Yuqing suddenly shook him awake.
Xu Ying opened his eyes, about to ask what had happened, when Shi Yuqing pressed a finger to her lips, urging silence. Only then did he realize he was no longer where he had been, but hiding behind a divine statue inside a temple.
From outside came an old woman's voice: "Even an emaciated camel is bigger than a horse! An old woman like me is a Nuo Ancestor after all; even injured by scoundrels, I am still a Nuo Ancestor!"
Xu Ying nearly cried out, *Nuo Ancestor Nuo Peng!*
The voice belonged to Nuo Ancestor Nuo Peng. Though lacking deep breath, her aura remained overwhelmingly powerful!
Xu Ying and Shi Yuqing met each other's eyes, neither daring to breathe too loudly.
"So this is Mount Tai, where Zulong once offered sacrifices to us. What nostalgic memories."
Nuo Peng's voice carried closer, followed by the creak of the temple doors opening. Though Xu Ying and Shi Yuqing heard no footsteps, they knew she had entered.
The crone coughed twice as she approached the divine statue, sneering, "Rebels are being worshipped here too? Heaven truly has no justice... *cough, cough, cough!* These mortal Qi Refiners are lawless, daring even to wound me! Just because I made fools of them? Hehe, and ate a few..."
She broke into a violent fit of coughing, vomiting a mouthful of blood.
Shi Yuqing gave Xu Ying a questioning look. Xu Ying shook his head, lowered his face, and began kneading his features.
Shi Yuqing was startled. In just a few breaths, Xu Ying's appearance transformed completely: his face grew gaunt, his nose flattened, his eyes narrowed, and his skull tapered to a point, making him look like an entirely different person.
*His skin's just a bit dark, though,* Shi Yuqing mused.
Xu Ying reached out, pinched Shi Yuqing's cheeks, and gestured for her to stay still.
Shi Yuqing's eyes widened as his hands worked across her face, pinching and reshaping it. Not knowing what he was doing to her, her heart hammered wildly.
Just then, the divine statue flew into the air with a rushing whoosh. The crone Nuo Peng stood before them, sneering maliciously, "Did you think I wouldn't notice you hiding here? You wretched pair, state your names!"
Xu Ying immediately pulled Shi Yuqing behind him and declared loudly, "I am Gu Feiyu, Sect Master of the Wuji Sect! This is my humble wife, my little lady. Old hag, I saw you at Mount Kunlun tricking people into ascension with fake immortal pills, all to harvest the immortal herbs inside them!"
Nuo Peng had a squat, dwarfish frame and a terrifyingly decrepit appearance. She cackled shrilly, and the immortal qi within her condensed into two massive serpents, one black and one white. Flanking the pair, the serpents coiled around Shi Yuqing and Xu Ying, hoisting them into the air and presenting them before her.
"The immortal pills were genuine pills; I merely added a little extra ingredient."
Nuo Peng parted her lips to reveal her few remaining yellowed, blackened teeth, chuckling, "Those little brats have been hunting me down, trying to seize my Mud Pill Palace cave-heaven. Since you're the master of the Wuji Sect, take me to your sect's immortal artifact! I intend to contact the Wuji Sect's immortals in the Immortal Realm!"
Shi Yuqing felt her scalp prickle with dread. "Why does the Nuo Ancestor wish to see our sect's immortals?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"Why?"
Setting them down, Nuo Peng sneered, "To report to the Immortal Realm, of course! Back then, for the sake of the Immortal Realm and to capture that Great Villain, I slashed my own cultivation to descend to the mortal world! The net of heaven has large meshes, yet nothing escapes; that villain was finally brought to heel, but we ended up stranded in the lower realm, forced to rely on his cave-heavens to refine immortal medicine just to scrape by!"
Xu Ying's heart jolted with shock. *I am that Great Villain!*
Nuo Peng snarled viciously, "Now that I've been pushed to the brink, if those bastards up above don't offer me some rewards, aren't they afraid I'll spill all the 'virtuous deeds' they committed back then? Lead the way!"
Her voice turned shrill. "Take me to your Wuji Sect's immortal artifact!"
Xu Ying and Shi Yuqing exchanged a glance and braced themselves, walking toward the golden hall of the Wuji Sect on Mount Tai. Internally, he thought, *An immortal artifact? How would we know where an immortal artifact is hiding...*
He blinked, thinking further, *Besides, even if we find it, that artifact won't recognize me as Gu Feiyu.*
Chapter 267