Lang Jiuchuan watched as Feng Ya defied all rules and gathered her remnant soul back together. She also watched as the force of the laws reflected back against his spirit-soul — the true laws of Heaven and Earth, vast in their crushing pressure, utterly merciless.
She watched as he endured the excruciating pain of his spirit-soul being torn apart, sending her remnant soul into the Nine Abyssal depths, then rushing toward the altar, summoning his ghost-power, seizing hold of those dark jade chains, and attempting to wrench them apart.
Feng Ya had refused to leave her upon that altar.
The moment he moved, the altar let out a sound like the click of a mechanism, and a powerful force surged up from beneath it, launching an attack toward Feng Ya.
It was the immense force of accumulated faith and vow-power, together with the energy of the dragon veins.
Feng Ya blocked the blow, but his spirit-soul had already been severely weakened by the backlash of the laws. He did not dare to resist with his full strength, fearing to lose more than he gained. With deep reluctance he cast one final look at Lang Jiuchuan lying upon the altar, left behind the words “there will be time yet,” and departed.
The memory broke off.
Lang Jiuchuan and Feng Ya returned to the present simultaneously. Both their expressions had grown somewhat unpleasant. They looked at each other, and each saw in the other’s eyes the storm raging within.
“Did you commit it to memory?” Feng Ya asked, steadying himself with a brief internal breath.
Lang Jiuchuan nodded. “It is not a formation I have ever seen before, but it shares something in common with the Destiny-Devouring Array — a family resemblance. It should be an ancient formation he sought out, either complete or in fragments, which he then supplemented and modified until it became what it is now: a Destiny-Devouring Dragon-Sealing Array. Furthermore, the altar is the eye of the formation — but the anchor is not an inanimate object; it uses a living sacrifice. From the attack you received when you attempted to take back my physical body, which I identified as the energy of the dragon veins, this formation was laid directly above the dragon veins. And beneath it must be the very core of those dragon veins.”
Feng Ya gave a cold snort. “If not for the fear of being caught by the force of those laws before I could save your spirit-soul, I would have fought that power to the end and taken back your physical body.”
“Things have their own order of priority. The spirit-soul was retrieved. A physical body — once it is gone, it is gone. There is no need to waste spiritual power over it.” Lang Jiuchuan seemed to be comforting him, and convincing herself in equal measure.
Though that was what she said, she would still have to retrieve those remains one day. The thought of them there was deeply revolting.
“I noticed the foundation of the altar was made from Netherworld dark jade, from which deathly Netherworld energy was seeping. Looking at how it was arranged, the positioning follows the reversed alignment of the circumferential star formations — it resembles an enormous cage, shaped like an inverted bowl.” Lang Jiuchuan closed her eyes, carefully revisiting the memory. “If I served as the living sacrifice at the eye of the formation, then while my spirit-soul was not directly sacrificed and destroyed, the greater part of my consciousness was forcibly stripped away, leaving only the purest essence of my spirit-soul. Let me think — if the formation itself is the lamp-oil, and my essential soul-force is the wick, and the dragon veins beneath act as the lamp-bowl, then what is being illuminated and nourished is…”
Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flew open. “He must have placed his own physical remains in the dragon veins, to be nourished by the dragon vein energy — just as you placed my physical body within that secret heart of the dragon veins. My essential spirit-soul serves as a wick, endlessly feeding merit and vow-power to nourish the dragon veins, ensuring the national fortune prospers, which in turn feeds back into him — perfectly stealing the nation’s destiny to enrich himself, while also deflecting Heaven’s law and karma. One scheme, multiple gains. A clever calculation.”
“Vile and malicious.” Feng Ya gave a cold snort.
Lang Jiuchuan’s lips twitched. She wanted to say: you did it too — hadn’t she also been nourished by dragon vein energy for a period of time before her rebirth and transformation? The difference was that he hadn’t gone to such lengths without any bottom line, neither laying formations nor stealing destiny. He had simply found a pure and undiscovered dragon vein treasure ground, utterly without ulterior motives.
Feng Ya said, “That place is not easy to break into. The Imperial Mausoleum already has grand formations set within it, and it is protected by the aura of the emperor and the energy of the dragon veins. If he truly concealed his remains there, that arrangement must have been in place for a thousand years already. Even if one can find them, there is no guarantee they can be retrieved or destroyed — for he would not let a plan so carefully laid be ruined at the end. Most importantly, this is one of his lifelines, the most crucial of all. If anyone disturbs it, he will know immediately. You ought to prepare yourself mentally.”
“Matters can be accomplished by human effort.” Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes were sharp. “If nothing is done, then when he brings his scheme to perfect completion — soul reuniting with body — he will be even more difficult to deal with. That will be his original form, nourished by dragon vein energy for a thousand years.”
Even if this course of action left her covered in wounds, she would have to make that journey. Playing an unpredictable game was the only way to throw his scheme into disorder.
To do nothing was to be truly led around by the nose.
Feng Ya did not try to dissuade her. She had her own fate to walk — just as this plague of corpse-poison: to save one person was a virtue, to save all the people of the world was a duty. When the matter fell on her shoulders, it was her responsibility, and her Dao as well.
He seemed to find what he was about to say somewhat difficult to bring up. “When I went there that day — so as not to disturb the formation and alert that old ghost, hindering me in what I needed to do — I used the rat’s path.”
“Oh.” Lang Jiuchuan startled. “What did you say?”
The rat’s path — something like a dog-hole, was that?
Feng Ya’s expression was deeply ill at ease. “There was a yellow weasel that had dug a burrow through to the deep interior of Dayu’s Imperial Mausoleum.”
Lang Jiuchuan said, “You, a full-fledged ghost immortal…”
“Said nicely, it is immortal — but in truth it is a ghost, a spirit-ghost. Imperial aura carries righteous energy by nature, which is unfavorable to me. What is more, I am not a cultivator of the mortal world. To meddle in mortal affairs — if I had not managed to bring you out, I would have been shredded by the force of the laws of Heaven and Earth first, and then you would have been in grave danger.” Feng Ya said calmly. “Before I found you, I could not afford to take risks.”
Of course he could have gone in openly by force, but that would inevitably have drawn Tantai Wuji — and a battle between the two would have wasted precious time. By the time everything was settled, Lang Jiuchuan’s soul would most likely have fully dissipated. In that case, what would be the point of winning?
So long as the green mountain remained, there would be no shortage of firewood. There would be time yet.
Lang Jiuchuan offered no particular words of thanks — that would have felt forced. She simply asked with obvious interest, “Where is that rat’s path? And the old monster never discovered it — has the creature achieved spiritual awareness?”
“It truly has achieved spiritual awareness, and even received a title, which I granted as repayment for the favor owed.” Feng Ya said. “It was born near the Imperial Mausoleum by nature, and knowing the mausoleum to be a land of excellent geomantic energy, its intention was simply to absorb a little of the destiny it could reach, and so it dug the burrow. Concealed by the earth vein energy, bit by bit — like ants moving house — it quietly and secretly drew off small amounts of destiny to assist its own cultivation.”
Even without the earth vein energy as cover, it was a mountain sprite and wild spirit of that area. As long as it was not recklessly greedy, it would not attract too much attention. Especially since the rat’s path wound nine times and turned eighteen curves — who would think to notice all the twists and turns beneath the ground?
Feng Ya continued with a mocking edge to his voice: “Tantai the old ghost, clever as he is across a lifetime, with every last scheme calculated out — and yet he never calculated that a spirit-creature would be picking food right out of his own pocket. One must laugh.”
“There is also the factor of his arrogance. He was so confident his scheme was perfectly laid that he refused to believe a hundred careful plans might have one flaw. And it is often what seems most trivial and inconspicuous that becomes the greatest variable causing a chess game to shift.” Lang Jiuchuan said. “So it was always destined that his ‘lamp-wick’ would escape. That too was an inevitable variable.”
Feng Ya suddenly found himself puzzled. “If you were the wick, and your spirit-soul detonated itself to escape, then of course your essential soul-force was cut off. How is it that he never noticed? How could he have allowed you so much time to be reborn and reconstituted, rather than dragging you back?”
Lang Jiuchuan was stumped by the question as well.
It was a fair point — the altar had been set up by his own hand, and the soul-consciousness had been stripped away by his own hand. As for the essential spirit-soul, once Lang Jiuchuan escaped, how could he not have known at all?
A flash of clarity lit her mind. Her expression grew complicated. She sighed softly. “It was the faith and vow-power from the living shrine at Pangi…”