Wei Yuan searched the corpse of the dead dharma idol monster for a long time, but found nothing. Its body was dry as withered wood, and its armor had weathered over the endless years, turning as brittle as porcelain. As for the weapon in its hand, it appeared to have been a sabre, but the blade had already worn away, leaving only a hilt in its grip.
The only thing of any value was its skeleton. Cool and slick to the touch, its nature had likely been altered by prolonged soaking in yin qi. Aside from that, the core of its entire being seemed to be that ball of yin qi.
Wei Yuan found the woman, and the two returned to where they had discovered it. Here lay a small, natural raised platform, upon which sat a stone chair. According to her, the monster had sat in this chair right until they broke in.
The woman had only found a stone tablet incised with writing; there was nothing else of note. Midday was drawing to an end now, and Wei Yuan sensed yin qi surging from deep underground, accompanied by the faint stirring of a terrifying presence. Thus, he led the woman out of the divine temple.
Over the past few days, Wei Yuan had tested them deliberately, discovering that once midday passed, the undead monsters experienced a sudden surge in power. Their speed doubled outright, and they could leave the temple to roam the forest. Certain particularly formidable undead monsters even manifested a shield of magic power around themselves, requiring Wei Yuan to empty half a magazine to dispatch just one.
By now, Wei Yuan had very few flying swords left on him. Judging that there was no need to take further risks, he slung the dharma idol monster's corpse over his back and returned to the village with the woman.
Returning to the village this time, Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation possessed vastly increased spirituality. He suddenly sensed a faint fluctuation about a li away, subtly altering the world's laws across this region. The sensation was somewhat like a boundary stone, yet not entirely identical; it did not transform the environment as thoroughly as a boundary stone would.
Back at their dwelling, Wei Yuan resumed work to replenish his flying swords. Surprisingly, the Dao Foundation warrior that had developed spirituality quickly learned the technique for crafting flying swords and began producing them within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.
Its speed at forging flying swords was only slightly slower than Wei Yuan's. Moreover, Wei Yuan discovered that its understanding of the nature of matter matched his own down to the finest detail, meaning the flying swords it crafted were not inferior by even a hair.
Furthermore, it knew no fatigue or boredom, doing nothing but forging flying swords over and over, seemingly capable of continuing until the end of time. Dao power was Dao power; one portion would never magically turn into two.
However, Wei Yuan had a ceiling on his Dao power, and replenishing it once expended took time. Crafting these launchable flying swords was essentially a way to store up unused Dao power in advance, only to unleash it all in a single burst when needed. This allowed Wei Yuan to pour out firepower far exceeding his normal realm at a moment's notice, so he placed immense importance on it now.
Yet with this enlightened Dao Foundation warrior, Wei Yuan suddenly realized he no longer had to lift a finger himself. His rate of Dao power recovery was fixed, and a single Dao Foundation puppet forging swords was enough to consume it all.
And so Wei Yuan found that a night without kneading flying swords was actually... a little empty? Recalling the contents of Xu Wenwu's profile, Wei Yuan felt even more guilty: idling away like this, could it be damaging his karmic blessings?
As Wei Yuan was zoning out, the woman returned and said, "The village elder wants to see you."
Wei Yuan was taken aback. "There really is a village elder?"
Having lived through incidents like the Paper Bride, the Nether Cold Realm, and the Arhat True Blood Pure Land, Wei Yuan had become somewhat paranoid. Early on, he had even suspected that this village did not actually exist at all and was merely a figment of the woman's imagination.
Now that the village elder wanted to see him, Wei Yuan naturally wanted to learn more about this enigmatic village. For the shadow in the moon to have specifically opened a passage leading here, an earth-shattering secret might well be hidden in this place.
The woman took Wei Yuan by the hand and led him along a full li of uneven mountain paths, finally arriving before a compound with three rooms. Several other houses stood around this courtyard, their interiors all lit with lantern light.
Wei Yuan entered the main hall, sensing an old woman seated in the seat of honor, flanked on either side by an elderly man. A painting hung on the wall of the main hall, though Wei Yuan could not perceive what was depicted on it.
"Sit," the old woman said, her voice gentle and peaceful.
Once Wei Yuan took his seat, the old woman said, "It has been many years since I last saw an outsider of the human race. So long that it spans from my earliest memories all the way to now, as I stand on the edge of the grave."
Wei Yuan bowed in salute. "I could never forget the kindness of saving my life. Might I ask, Elder, where this place is?"
"The Old Ancestors' legends say that far, far to the south lies the kingdom of our human race. If you hail from there, then we are to your north. As for how far, exactly, I do not know."
"What races live around here?"
"To the east are the Liao Clan, and to the west are the Shamans. But they are very far from us. Moreover, this is deep in the mountains where there is nothing of value, so they do not come here."
Before long, Wei Yuan learned the history of this village.
Counting two dynasties back from Great Tang, there had been a short-lived Haotian Dynasty. Haotian had lasted for a mere seven hundred years, making it an exceptionally short-lived dynasty in human history.
At the time, the Haotian Dynasty was already in its twilight years. The emperor appointed a mysterious Qi Refiner as Grand Heavenly Master. The Grand Heavenly Master divined numerous karmic luck nodes across the mortal realm, whereupon the emperor secretly dispatched multiple teams to karmic luck nodes throughout the land to suppress them, seeking to salvage the state fortune of the dying dynasty.
However, many of these karmic luck nodes required venturing deep into the domains of other races; consequently, every team had received a suicide mission.
The ancestors of this village were one such team. Braving immense hardships, they journeyed for over thirty years to reach the far northern lands, finally arriving at the karmic luck node spoken of by the Grand Heavenly Master and discovering the divine temple hidden deep within the mountains.
When the party set out, they had all been young; the two dharma idol spouses were under forty years old back then. Yet by the time they traversed the alien domains and reached their destination, the weight of the years had left its mark on them. They settled here to multiply and thrive. Their descendants were bound to guard these karmic luck nodes generation after generation—this was the mission of this displaced folk.
Leaving the human domain caused human cultivators to age at an accelerated rate, reducing their lifespans to a mere twenty to thirty percent of normal. Furthermore, because they were deep in alien territory, they dared not use boundary stones; they could only bring along fragments of boundary stones to make their surroundings slightly less harsh.
Over seven thousand years had passed since the fall of the Haotian Dynasty.
Wei Yuan asked, "What is actually inside these karmic luck nodes? And what purpose does your living here serve?"
The old woman replied, "I do not know what is inside either. My grandfather once guessed that this might be a convergence point of earth veins. As for what purpose living here serves, that is even less clear. We only know our ancestors' duty was to remain here, settling down and multiplying. In these mountains, living mortals must dwell. If there is a specific reason, perhaps only the Grand Heavenly Master of back then knew."
Wei Yuan's thoughts stirred, sparking a few hypotheses.
During his studies in the Theory of Karmic Destiny, his teachers had once explained that certain bloodlines were born in response to Heaven. To put it plainly, their births were influenced by some unseen great fortune of heaven and earth. The bloodlines of such people often had unique functions: one was to suppress geomantic fortune, forcibly reversing the fortunes of a state, delaying the onset of certain disasters, or nurturing bizarre entities that did not belong to this world.
According to the old woman's account, the ancestors of this village must have all possessed special bloodlines, dispatched to garrison this karmic luck node to turn the dynasty's fortunes around. However, during centralized instruction at the Palace of Grand Beginning, many esoteric secrets handed down from ancient times had been taught, meaning Wei Yuan's cohort of disciples possessed knowledge and insight far surpassing those of earlier eras.
Connecting this with the undead monsters appearing in the divine temple, Wei Yuan arrived at another conjecture: perhaps, generation after generation, they were using their own bloodline as an offering in hopes of giving birth to something.
According to what his instructors taught in class, methods like this resembled the blood sacrifices of the Shamans. No matter how grandly dressed up in words, whatever was being nurtured was almost certainly nothing good, and whoever laid out such a scheme was hardly a benevolent soul.
The Palace of Grand Beginning held a clear definition of good and bad.
So-called "good" meant that which benefited the propagation and flourishing of the human race, or aided in humankind's growth and strength. That was the Greater Good. There was also a "Lesser Good"—that which assisted the Palace of Grand Beginning's own Dao path. "Bad" was simply the reverse.
Naturally, Wei Yuan did not voice this aloud, nor did he probe further. Matters like this needed only patient observation; various clues would inevitably reveal themselves in time.
After speaking for a long time, the old woman was visibly weary. She said, "Young master, I see that your karmic luck is extraordinary and your skills remarkable. In the future, you should have a chance to return to the ancestral lands of humankind. Once you leave offspring in our village, I still have several ancestral treasures left in my possession. When the time comes, I shall gift you several suitable items to assist your return to the human domain."
"Many thanks, Senior."
The old woman added, "There is one more matter. Once you return to the human domain, could you speak to the current Haotian Emperor on our behalf, asking him to release our clan from its duty, or else send replacements? Our people can barely carry on; even with the offspring you leave behind, our line will die out within a century. Yet in these mountains, living people must dwell."
Wei Yuan said, "The Tang Son of Heaven sits upon the throne now. The Haotian Dynasty perished seven thousand years ago."
"Oh. Then asking the Tang Son of Heaven for an imperial pardon will serve just as well. So long as the co-ruler of humankind issues the decree, it makes no difference."
Wei Yuan gave a wry smile. "Great Tang is vast, and the Son of Heaven resides high above. How could someone like me meet him so easily?"
The old woman said placidly, "It matters not. Do all that is humanly possible and leave the rest to heaven's will. We have lived here for thousands of years and long since abandoned any hope of returning alive to the human domain. It is only that I have grown old, and suddenly I do not wish for my descendants to be like us, withering away until death in these savage snowy mountains. Were it not for the legends that the village elders are required to memorize, I would have thought the so-called mortal world was nothing more than this solitary village."
"If Senior has the time, you could write down the whole story from beginning to end so that I may present it to the Tang Son of Heaven upon my return."
The old woman smiled kindly. "The young master is testing this old woman. Very well, there is still plenty of time, so I will go back and ponder it. After so many years without writing characters, I have nearly forgotten how."
Generation after generation, the village had passed knowledge down by word of mouth, learning and recognizing characters without recording anything of consequence in writing. Passing down to the present day, only several dozen people remained in the village, most of them elderly and frail.
Finally, the old woman handed Wei Yuan a pale cyan luminous pearl and said, "This pearl was brought over by our ancestors back then, nurtured within the body for over a century. Within it lies pure yang vitality-blood; keeping it on your person can fend off the yin chill of these extreme northern lands. If you plan to descend into the temple, having this with you will make things easier."
Wei Yuan accepted it and swept it with his divine sense, only to be instantly scalded by the vitality-blood stored inside. It was like touching a branding iron, causing him to recoil at once. The vitality-blood contained within this single pearl was likely comparable to a dharma idol cultivator's entire lifetime of cultivation.
"Senior, this is far too precious."
The old woman laughed softly and said, "Once you leave behind offspring, the entire village will be theirs in a dozen or so years. Consider this pearl an advance payment for your services."
"Then I shall accept it." Wei Yuan stowed the precious pearl away, then left with the woman to return to their dwelling.
Night had deepened now. The sky was bitterly cold, but inside the house a hearth fire blazed merrily, warm as spring.
The two lay down as usual, but Wei Yuan refused to sleep. The hand resting upon the woman began to wander.
"Go to sleep!" The woman shoved him with a backhand, only to graze somewhere she shouldn't have. Scalded by the heat, she snatched her hand back in fright. She turned her head, just about to scold him, but Wei Yuan was lying right behind her; the moment she turned, their lips met.
The blaze in the hearth flared up abruptly, as though about to ignite the entire cottage! Only after a very long time did their lips part.
Wei Yuan's low voice sounded: "Tonight I settle the debt—no sleep!"
Chapter 359