Chapter 104

Surviving golden light flickered in Cheng Qian’s eyes. He seemed to have snapped out of his immense pain, grabbing Yan Zhengming’s outstretched hand without warning.

His entire body was still trembling. In addition to pain, an indescribable gloom tinged his features.

He shut his eyes. The next moment, Yan Zhengming abruptly unsheathed Shuang Ren for him from where it had been placed behind his back, then slashed a huge arc through the air at the nearby flower spirit, without lenience.

In this split second, the spirit had been wanting to dodge, but Shuang Ren was going at an extremely devious angle — if they dodged, that sword qi would inevitably effect the lotus.

Unable to avoid it, the spirit let out a loud shout. That bizarre cold-outside, hot-inside true essence instantly formed a barrier with them as the center.

It wasn’t clear whether this barrier was a technique or made from an artifact, but could hold up against even the astral wind of Da Xue. Upon meeting Shuang Ren’s swordwind, the crash sent a sky-shaking noise bouncing around Beiming’s depths.

Da Xue Mountain made an unbearable groaning sound, and the astral wind that had since calmed down began to well up restlessly again.

With another look, no leaf was beneath the Golden Lotus at all — there was clearly a bald patch!

So, it had been an illusionary technique.

Shuang Ren staggered as it flew out. Cheng Qian reached out to pull it into his hand.

At the same exact time, the spirit drew back a few steps, the originally-gray figure seeming to sway unsteadily.

This unforeseen incident unfolded very quickly, practically overwhelmingly. Yan Zhengming and the spirit started speaking nearly simultaneously.

“Xiao Qian, what are you doing?” Yan Zhengming asked, completely bewildered.

“Are you insane?! The Golden Lotus is the heart of Beiming!” the spirit roared, furious.

“The heart of Beiming… what does that have to do with me?” Cheng Qian hoarsely answered. His expression did not look any sort of better, eyes like ink, staring dead at the indistinct figure of the spirit with a complexion as sunken as water. “Quit acting. I dug out the Ice-hearted Fire you wield in Zhaoyang myself.”

Wait… Ice-hearted Fire?

“You’re saying… that this is Tang Zhen?” Yan Zhengming asked.

As soon as the name ‘Tang Zhen’ was out, green veins bulged out of Cheng Qian’s hand that was holding Shuang Ren. The tip of the sword lightly brushed against the ground, producing a tooth-hurting scraping sound.

Yan Zhengming felt his head swelling. “What is actually going on with you? Was that soul-painting just now?”

“Soul-painting that was bestowed by Zhenren Tang. It’s been resolved now, though.” Cheng Qian turned to him; when his frigid and remote gaze landed upon Yan Zhengming, it finally softened up. He gazed at him deeply, then suddenly whispered. “Thank you, senior.”

There seemed to be millions of words in that look. Yan Zhengming completely did not understand the reason for them, reflexively waving his hand. “No… no need to thank me. Wait, all of this is a mess! You’re saying that this moth is Tang Zhen, and he placed soul-painting on you?”

“His real body is the Soul-Devouring Lamp. I’m guessing that he’s only moving his primordial spirit using a ghost body that’s frozen in the Site.” Cheng Qian slowly turned to the ‘flower spirit’. “Only the true owner of the Soul-Devouring Lamp can place their spiritual consciousness into one of the infinite ghosts of the Lamp — isn’t that right, Brother Tang?”

Since he had said as much, the ‘spirit’ went quiet for a moment, then suddenly chuckled, slowly becoming clear in midair.

Inside white mist, the form of a lifeless young woman first appeared, one glance at her complexion and dulled gaze telling that she was a ghost, after which her figure gradually stretched out, facial features slowly distorting like they were paste. After several changes, she finally became Tang Zhen.

Having been exposed by him, all of his plans had nearly fallen through at the last second, but as his shrewdness went extremely deep, he did not let any of his annoyance show through to his face. “The so-called path of the ghost was originally just the path of the soul,” he said with a smile, hands behind his back. “If someone who cultivates the path of the ghost can only command a bunch of ghosts to bite their enemies apart, what is the difference between keeping ghosts and keeping dogs? It’s rather too shoddy.”

Yan Zhengming hesitated for a moment. “You are the Lamp… so what is Jiang Peng?”

Tang Zhen glanced at the bare, leafless Golden Lotus. “Well, there’s no harm in chatting with you two here. The ghost path is a wide-reaching route; if the soul and primordial spirit can be refined, can a corporeal body not be? People are much too constrained to formalities.”

“You refined his body and soul together?” Yan Zhengming asked in astonishment.

“Incorrect. You’ve likely also heard that the ghost path is a form of the demonic path, Sect Leader Yan. One’s own hands cannot be stained with blood, else they’ll become a slave to murderous thoughts. I merely got close to him using our old acquaintance during his travels, then took this advantage to fan the flames. He was voluntarily refined by the Lamp, and now, he still believes that he’s the one controlling it.”

“Han Yuan said to me that the Bureau’s people had purposefully given him an alleged ghost cultivation method, and plotted for him to be drawn into the Lamp to become a ghost cultivator… It sounded strange to me at the time, because how could someone with strong vision like the Third Prince take a fancy to Jiang Peng’s aptitude? It was you the whole time,” Cheng Qian said coldly.

Even though Zhou Hanzheng had put Han Yuan under soul-painting way back when, that had been a personal grudge between them and him. At most, they held the Bureau that supported him in contempt. That was why when Wu Changtian later paid a visit, Yan Zhengming had only said that they would fight, not go about murdering him.

Had it not been for the blood debt of Jiang Peng’s murder of all of Han Yuan’s family, the latter would never have had such immense hatred for the Bureau, nor have ever cultivated into a demonic dragon for the sake of revenge, thus inciting great chaos in Nanjiang.

“It was you that misguided Han Yuan,” Cheng Qian went on.

Tang Zheng smiled lightly. “From Tong Ru to Gu Yanxue, has the Bureau ever done anything good? Even if I hadn’t been adding fuel to the fire, inferior people like that ‘Third Prince’ go looking for their own deaths. How could they have lasted for such a long time?”

Yan Zhengming suddenly recalled that when the Western Palace’s Bai Ji went to Azure Dragon Island to cause trouble, he had been acting in the name of searching for his grandson, and someone had stood out and said that there were ghost cultivators on the island. He had thought that that had been a pretext found by those indecipherable people to pressure Gu Yanxue, but now, it seemed like…

“Our martial grandfather nearly destroyed your Lamp, so you were hiding out near Azure Dragon Island all that time!” he suddenly said.

Those words were without beginning and end, but all three of them understood what they heard.

Tang Zhen did not deny it. “I finely studied the path of the soul. Over a hundred years ago, I was ordered by my seniors to serve another Senior on Mulan Mountain who was dying. I was young and full of energy at the time; after accompanying him to the end of his life, I had the idea to use a newly-acquired secret technique to pry into the vestiges of his primordial spirit remaining in his body, and incidentally learned some of his memories. That Senior had been a plant in the Bureau… and they were mulling over how to get rid of Tong Ru, whose limelight was too strong.

“I got too curious. At right that time, when I had just finished my training, I was stuck at the primordial spirit hurdle and needed to go down the mountain to gain experience. I gave noticed to my sect, then brought one of my junior sisters with me to Fuyao to watch the excitement.”

“And you didn’t expect that by coincidence, you wouldn’t be watching the excitement, but becoming the excitement yourself when you cuckolded the Yao King,” Yan Zhengming picked up.

Tang Zhen brushed off his vulgarity with a smile. “Indeed. I didn’t expect that to happen, and never returned — for many years, I rummaged all through the world for tiny clues of the Golden Lotus Leaf, after which I learned that it had to eat ‘influence’ to be born. Only when it inhales the soul of one that has collected worldwide influence will its flower finally fall and leaves be visible. Had Gu Yanxue not died back then, that ‘influence’ would have fallen upon him as this world’s number-one, but because of that idiot Jiang Peng, I was injured by Tong Ru, and met with the Bureau a step too soon.”

“So, Jiang Peng always wanted to inherit Beiming,” Cheng Qian said. “He really dedicated himself in want to give you fertilizer.”

Tang Zhen turned to him. “He does have that obsession. Unfortunately, due to the limits of his aptitude, he has no karmic connection to the title ‘Lord Beiming’ at all. Then, by happenstance, I came across you, whose soul was in the Spirit-Collection Jade. Our two fates in life were really too similar, so I meddled in your business for a time. Yet, the worldly spiritual object that the Jade is was different from the Soul-Devouring Lamp; you actually managed to refine a physical body by enduring heavenly tribulations. Cheng Qian, in your form, I saw my own hope.”

Cheng Qian’s face was blank.

The other sighed. “Counting on Jiang Peng to be Beiming is too unrealistic. When you said to me in Mingming Valley that you were willing to tread through fire for me, I then plotted on guiding that ‘influence’ over to you. Unexpectedly, after the Immortal Binding Platform, you didn’t hesitate to injure yourself and couldn’t bear to watch your senior brother die… tch. In the end, humanity’s calculations are inferior to the Heavens’.”

Yan Zhengming smiled fakely. “Ah. That’s really unfair to you, for your latrine filled with flower fertilizer to accidentally get occupied.”

Tang Zhen was unconcerned. “No need to say it’s unfair. Astral wind covers this Site; since you’ve entered, you’re not getting out without the protection of the Ice-hearted Fire. Do you want to be trapped here together with him, or will you obediently sacrifice your soul so that I happily retrieve the Leaf? I can guarantee that I will bring your precious junior out of here with all his pieces intact.”

Cheng Qian stared at Tang Zhen with a complicated expression. Before Yan Zhengming could answer, he suddenly interjected, “Are you working so hard to get the Leaf for our junior sister? If you admit to that much, Tang Zhen, I’ll forgive you.”

Hearing this, steam came out of all of Yan Zhengming’s orifices as he glared at Cheng Qian. What? You promising to ‘tread through fire’ for someone else behind my back aside, he’s set off so much crap! How could you randomly forgive him with one deceiving sentence?! There’s no logic! This Tang guy has to have drugged you with some kind of enchanting potion!

Tang Zhen also appeared to be a bit astonished, soon after which he smiled. “Yes. It’s for her.”

Cheng Qian stared into his eyes — only then could he see that within those eyes that always seemed to be as warm as spring, there had only been a pit of madness.

“Since it’s for her,” he enunciated, “then dare I ask what her name is, what year and month she was born on, and when the first time her yao form showed up and took to the skies was?”

Tang Zhen’s face was like a mask. He was not angry at getting seen through, constantly watching him with an impenetrable smile. “My young friend, let’s not pretend to affectionately beat around the bush. I will tell you the truth; only beings that are born in the morning and die by evening, like mortals and insects, will think about having generations of offspring. After achieving the Dao and ascending, the world will be unchanging, all the living things in it like one mass. What would it matter if any of them are related to you by blood?”

“Oh, I get it now. You want to use the Leaf to wash away the Lamp’s sins, pull through the heavenly tribulations, and ascend to immortality.”

“No. Enduring the tribulations would only refine my a half-immortal body like yours,” Tang Zhen earnestly corrected. “I want those millions of souls — do you remember what I told you before? With your current form, if you could spend your entire life purely cultivating beside that ice pool, you would have eternal life. Ghosts are to me what the cold qi of the ice pool is to you.”

The tribulation of millions of resentful ghosts had stemmed from Tong Ru. Who it would respond to was something everyone had countless guesses about.

Some had said that it would respond during the military calamity of Prince An’s armed rebellion, some had said that it would respond during the war calamity of the Nanjiang demonic dragon, and some had said that the Celestial Divination Bureau would reach too high…

No one had expected that it would respond to Tang Zhen.

Yan Zhengming suddenly remember that Li Yun had told him that people like Zhenren Muchun would have disturbances in their psyche after escaping from the Soul-Devouring Lamp. That was saying nothing about Tang Zhen… who had completely integrated with it.

The Lamp had long worn down his humanity. His sweetheart and beloved daughter he had once risked his life for were now likely no more than poorly-acquainted strangers to him.

“Eternal life…” A weird expression showed on Cheng Qian’s face, somewhere between mocking and bitterly smiling. He suddenly reached out to grab the lotus. “I’ll complete you. I’ll pick this Leaf and give you your eternal life—“

Yan Zhengming panicked. “Careful, don’t touch—“

Tang Zhen disapproved, thinking to say the ‘influence of the world’ did not belong to Cheng Qian, so he would not be luring the Leaf out — but, as soon as Cheng Qian reached over, the petals of the lotus all withered for reasons unknown, and a tiny, thumb-length leaf was seen majestically growing out of the lotus’s base!

In the midst of Tang Zhen’s shock, the Leaf furled up delicately — it didn’t get the time to open up, as Cheng Qian mercilessly plucked it off and gripped it in his hand.

And yet, the Golden Lotus could not devour his soul.