Zhou You looked at Chu Xiaoyao, wild with excitement and full of gratitude. It was all thanks to Xiaoyao pointing it out to him that morning.
A truth worked out for oneself was simply not the same as one that had been taught. Not only was it easier to understand, but the joy of the former far outstripped the latter!
Zhou You jabbed the skin beside a mosquito bite with a mechanical pencil and could faintly feel a change.
He shared the cultivation insight he had just gained with Chu Xiaoyao. Chu Xiaoyao secretly set down the floral water and nodded.
"Right. That was actually what I meant this morning. I didn't expect you to comprehend it so quickly."
Worried that Zhou You would notice the floral water, Chu Xiaoyao went on diverting his attention.
"This is actually also the cultivation method for a gu master's Body of Ten Thousand Poisons. That you could comprehend it on your own is quite something."
Sure enough, Zhou You and Nuomi were drawn in. "What is a gu master?"
"They are a group of immortal cultivators who live in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains of the Southern Border on the Hongmeng Continent. They cultivate by raising gu insects. Those gu insects carry deadly poison. A single mouthful of venom can kill a great city of a million people."
"Yet gu masters rely far too much on their gu insects, so their bodies are far too weak among those of the same cultivation realm. Once someone gets in close, they are entirely at that person's mercy."
"Because of this, gu masters let the gu insects gnaw on them. Ten thousand insects devour the body, poison is fought with poison, and through endless tempering they forge a Body of Ten Thousand Poisons."
"A Body of Ten Thousand Poisons can not only command ten thousand poisons, but also grants a vajra physique, peerless in close combat. They have no fear at all of those body-cultivator arhats of the Buddhist sects."
"Back then I was already invincible within the same cultivation realm, yet those three gu masters of the same realm who possessed the Body of Ten Thousand Poisons could actually contend with me. That shows the Body of Ten Thousand Poisons is no ordinary thing."
...
The United States. Headquarters of the superpower organization.
In a rare move, the upper ranks convened an emergency meeting. Every senior member at headquarters was required to attend in person. Those not at headquarters were to attend by video. No one was permitted to be absent.
The head of the Organization was a kindly old man, his hair and beard entirely white. His white beard covered his mouth. He wore a white lab coat with an ID badge on his chest, looking just like the laboratory directors commonly seen at a university.
His code name was Professor.
There were eight seats at the conference table. Aside from the Professor's, the other seven belonged to the Organization's seven "Kings," known collectively as the Seven Kings. These people held the Organization's power. They were kings in every sense.
Look closely, and one would find that most of the Seven Kings were black-haired, black-eyed people of Huaxia. People from this country were instead the minority.
In truth, the superpower organization had originally been an organization of Huaxia. Precisely because of this, the Organization knew all too well what Huaxia was like. Immortal cultivators, the demon race, vengeful ghosts... nothing short of a host of monsters and demons with more than a thousand years of history.
Although the superpower organization was a newly risen power, in combat strength the Organization feared no immortal-cultivation sect, including top great sects such as Mount Kunlun, Mount Longhu, and the True Martial Great Hall.
But immortal-cultivation sects had never stood alone. Sects were often on excellent terms and would join hands to suppress the Organization.
On top of that, if the Organization wished to research superpowers, it could hardly avoid experiments that violated heavenly principle and human decency.
They had also made many enemies in their early years.
With all these reasons piled together, the Organization decided it might as well move out of Huaxia and develop on the far side of the ocean.
Facts proved that developing on the far side of the ocean had been an extremely sound choice. Strange people were hardly few here either, but the pressure of competition was clearly weaker than in Huaxia.
Over these years the Organization had taken to the United States like a fish to water. Although the defection five years ago had set its growth back, its overall strength had leapt forward compared with its days in Huaxia.
The Seven Kings all guessed at why the Professor had summoned them.
At last the Professor revealed the answer, and his words shocked everyone.
"You should all still remember. Ten years ago the Organization chanced upon a passage of ancient text, suspected to concern the Human Dao supreme treasure. Nianshi and Lishi deciphered it day and night without pause, and now the ancient text has finally been cracked."
The Seven Kings stirred. They had long forgotten who Nianshi and Lishi were, but they knew of the Human Dao supreme treasure.
One of them could not help asking, "The whereabouts of the Human Dao supreme treasure are known?!"
The Professor nodded.
The Seven Kings erupted. The Human Dao supreme treasure had been found at last.
No wonder the Professor had called an emergency meeting.
That was a treasure of legend, with the power to command heaven and earth and to change the sun and sky. Missing for a thousand years without a trace, was it finally about to see the light of day again?
With the Organization's strength today, and the Human Dao supreme treasure besides, who could stand against them? Those top great sects, on seeing them, would have to weigh whether they could afford to provoke them!
"Let me go. I guarantee I can bring the supreme treasure back!" One King spoke first, seizing the opening. He wanted to set eyes on the supreme treasure before anyone else.
How could a prize like this go uncontested? At once another sneered in objection. "Your body's too frail. Let a body cultivator get close and you're dead. Better leave it to me."
"What did you say!" The first speaker glared at him. The other was not the least bit afraid.
"Stop fighting over it. Close combat is all you have to show. You can't even fly. If a cultivator fights you from the sky, all you can do is hop up trying to reach him. It would be a disgrace if word got out."
"What's so great about flying? Birds can fly too, and I roast them and eat them all the same."
The Seven Kings wrangled and fought for the chance, none giving way, until the Professor spoke to stop them.
"The supreme treasure will not be so easy to take. The ancient text also says that a ghost king named Zhenyue stands guard around the supreme treasure. I have already sent people to search the old records. So far, nothing has been found about the Zhenyue Ghost King."
"According to Nianshi and Lishi's investigation, that Zhenyue Ghost King ranks among the finest even of ghost kings. The host possessed by the ghost king has gained a ghost's abilities. Nothing like this has ever happened before."
The Seven Kings stopped contending at once and looked, as one, toward a burly man whose code name was Soul King.
The Soul King's special ability was soul capture. Among the Seven Kings, he was the best suited to deal with the Zhenyue Ghost King.
"Nothing but a ghost, and it dares call itself a king." The Soul King laughed with scorn. He had not expected a good thing like this to land on him. He was the bane of every kind of ghost. Zhenyue Ghost King or not, in the end it was only a ghost.
If one were speaking of a ghost king, he was the one most fit to bear the name.
"The sooner the supreme treasure is brought back, the better, before delay invites trouble. Soul King, get your things together and prepare to go to the airport."
"Yes."
...
Two old men walked out of Washington Airport, empty-handed, carrying no luggage at all. One of them sighed with feeling in pure, authentic Chinese.
"Finally back in our homeland."
The two old men were, of course, Wenchang True Lord and his friend Dong Yunzi.
Dong Yunzi had figured that he would be seeing new things wherever he went, so he might as well follow Wenchang True Lord out and take in the sights of a foreign land.
Dong Yunzi covered his face. He felt he never should have come out with him.
Fortunately, hardly anyone could understand Chinese.
The two old men were in no hurry to find a place to stay. They pointed at the street and commented on what they saw.
"There are actually this many Kunlun slaves on the street. Things have really improved. In my day they were all locked up in the manors."
"This thing called an airplane is truly fine. It can fly in the sky even without spiritual power."
"Emperor Zhuanxu had good reason to set down the rule of the divide between immortals and mortals. How long have we even been in closed-door cultivation? Mortals have actually built a society this flourishing."
"I hear there's something now called the internet. Young cultivators are all rather fond of it."
"Buildings these days are truly tall, nothing like our time. I'd reckon a thousand chi."
"It would take me getting serious to bring a building down in one strike."
"I could do it without getting serious."
"Then so could I."
A burly man of one meter ninety came down the road bristling with menace. The T-shirt on him was stretched as tight as a bodysuit, muscles bulging. Pedestrians who saw him knew they could not afford to cross him and, one after another, stepped aside, voluntarily opening a path.
The burly man brushed past the two old men, and Wenchang True Lord was bumped.
Wenchang True Lord frowned, displeased. The man had black hair and black eyes and looked to be of Huaxia. How could he be so ill-mannered, bumping into someone without a word of apology?
Forget it. It was rare enough to return to his old home to seek the path of the literary Dao. He would not hold it against him.
The Soul King thought himself a cut above others. Within the Organization he reigned as king. His ability worked not only on ghosts, but on the souls of the living as well. Who, at the sight of him, did not tremble?
All the more so now that he was the great man of merit who would bring back the supreme treasure. Being stared at by the old man with a look like that left him thoroughly displeased.
"Old man, what are you looking at!"
Chapter 24