Chapter 476: The Fighting Diagram

The best practice target was still Zhang Quan's ancestral portrait—the Zhang family's group of zombie ancestors.

Mo Hua had now fully mastered his spiritual-narrative assassination techniques.

Aside from Zhang Quan's hypocritical ancestral spirit, none of the other "figures" in the portrait—whether disciples seated below or elders seated above—were a match for him.

Zhang Quan's own ancestor likely wasn't a match either.

But according to the iron-zombie elder Mo Hua had "consumed," Zhang Quan's ancestor had lived long, was cunning, and possessed many tricks; Mo Hua dared not grow overconfident, so he needed to proceed slowly and not rush things.

The current question was: where was the portrait?

Mo Hua rested his small chin in his palm, lost in thought.

He himself had returned the portrait to Zhang Quan.

Then it should be on Zhang Quan's person?

Where would Zhang Quan keep it? Carried on his person? Or built a new altar to enshrine it?

Or perhaps… he gave it to Lu Chengyun?

Mo Hua remembered that when he pulled out the ancestral portrait, Zhang Quan's expression had been excited, and Lu Chengyun's gaze had revealed a hint of greed.

The ancestral portrait was an object of contemplation.

Spiritual awareness was the weak point of array masters, and objects of contemplation could enhance spiritual awareness.

Any object of contemplation—no matter what it depicted, whether righteous or evil, good or bad—held immense allure for array masters.

Lu Chengyun could not possibly have remained unmoved.

And having conspired with Zhang Quan for so long, he surely must have seen this contemplation portrait before.

He simply couldn't forcibly seize it, since Zhang Quan was indispensable for corpse cultivation, and the portrait was Zhang Quan's own ancestral relic.

Mo Hua thought for a moment and decided the only option now was to follow Zhang Quan.

See if the portrait was still on him.

If it was, find where he hid it.

If it wasn't, find out who he gave it to.

Mo Hua had mastered the Twelve Patterns of the Ling Shu Array; his current spiritual awareness was at the peak of Twelve Patterns, just one step away from Thirteen Patterns.

But that one step was the threshold.

To cross it would require more time—or some stroke of fortune.

At the peak of Twelve Patterns, spiritual awareness was already very strong.

Concealment was also much harder to detect.

If he were to follow Lu Chengyun, he'd need to be cautious.

Following Zhang Quan, however, required virtually no effort.

But he had to choose the right timing: avoid Lu Chengyun's spiritual awareness, and be careful to evade the Xian Chen Array and Xian Ying Array within Shi Dian.

The Xian Chen and Xian Ying Arrays were manageable—the problem was Lu Chengyun.

Lu Chengyun's spiritual awareness was strong, he understood arrays, and he was suspicious by nature.

Fortunately, after Mo Hua completed the core of the Ten Thousand Corpses Array, Lu Chengyun had grown slightly more trusting of him.

And ever since Mo Hua had seen the Ling Shu Array diagram, feigned "shock," and said things like "It's too hard," "I don't understand," and "I can't learn it," Lu Chengyun's vigilance toward him had greatly diminished.

He no longer periodically probed Mo Hua with his spiritual awareness, nor remained on guard.

Mo Hua's freedom of movement had thus increased.

For the next four or five days, whenever Mo Hua had free time, he concealed himself and shadowed Zhang Quan, gradually learning his routine.

Zhang Quan's routine was highly regular, and his activities were clear-cut.

Most of each day, he spent building the Ten Thousand Corpses Array.

The Ten Thousand Corpses Array required vast quantities of corpse coffins, all of which Zhang Quan himself forged, then had other evil array masters—or Lu Chengyun—inscribe with evil arrays before placing them within the array.

Low-tier arrays were drawn by other evil array masters.

Higher-tier ones, such as the iron coffins for iron zombies, were inscribed personally by Lu Chengyun.

And the coffins themselves were entirely Zhang Quan's responsibility.

He had once run a coffin shop; making, forging, and nurturing coffins was his old trade.

Zhang Quan also made regular patrols through Shi Dian.

He checked whether the wooden and iron coffins within Shi Dian had issues, whether the zombies had undergone corpse transformation, lost control, suffered insufficient corpse qi, or shown any other abnormalities.

In short, since he dealt with corpses all day, everything he did revolved around zombies.

Zhang Quan had his own Shi Shizhong.

This Shi Shizhong was somewhat more spacious, but its furnishings were far inferior to Mo Hua's.

Around the room were arranged all manner of corpse-cultivation tools.

The air inside carried the stench of decaying corpses.

Zhang Quan had been cultivating corpses daily for so long that he no longer noticed the odor, and didn't care.

In his Shi Shizhong, Zhang Quan either slept, sat in meditation, or raved like a madman—his mental state was alarming, and no one could guess what he was thinking.

Sometimes he muttered to himself, flew into violent rages, or screamed hoarsely.

He appeared mentally unhinged.

Mo Hua watched, deeply puzzled.

"Could it be that all this corpse cultivation has eaten away his brain…?"

Mo Hua mentally scoffed.

But after thinking again, he felt it wasn't that simple.

This looked more like the gradual loss of humanity after demonic corruption…

He didn't know whether he was still human, didn't know what he was doing—only wicked thoughts filled his chest, his mind brimming with filth.

Zhang Quan would go berserk for a while, then calm down a bit; after several rounds of this, he would finally settle, though his gaze would grow a touch more savage.

Every so often, Zhang Quan would also take out a picture book to look at.

At first, Mo Hua was very excited.

He even thought Zhang Quan had taken out the Patriarch's portrait.

But he soon realized it wasn't.

It wasn't a single picture, but a picture book.

The book contained men and women, unclothed, fighting each other in all sorts of positions.

The worst part was, he didn't just look once—he looked at it whenever he had the chance.

Mo Hua was deeply disappointed, and a little frustrated that Zhang Quan was such a lost cause.

Where's your visualization portrait?

Where's your Laozu Sect?

Staring at this sort of trash all day, you've even thrown your ancestors to the wind.

If I were Zhang Quan's ancestor, I'd surely curse him for being unfilial and hang him up for a beating.

After Zhang Quan finished looking at these unsuitable-for-children picture books, he would occasionally fly into a rage, tear the book to shreds, and curse like he was suffering qi deviation:

"This godforsaken place, not a single woman."

"And I can't even get out…"

"His mother…"

His eyes were crimson, bloodshot, his expression so ferocious he looked like a jiangshi.

Mo Hua's brow furrowed slightly, and he gradually understood.

Cultivators of demonic arts slowly lose their humanity.

Zhang Quan cultivated the Corpse Dao, spending all his time with corpse cultivators, corpses, and jiangshi; his nature twisted, wicked thoughts bred, he craved human warmth, needed to vent his depraved desires.

On ordinary days it was still manageable, but once he was alone in private, the depraved desires would spread.

That's why he so often haunted the brothels.

Not only because he was a lecher.

But also because the demon-corrupted nature of his mind drove him to it.

And the female cultivators of Hundred Flowers Tower naturally fell victim to his cruelty.

According to what Qing Lan said, quite a few female cultivators were tortured to death by Zhang Quan.

Hundred Flowers Tower was run by the Lu family, and Zhang Quan did Lu Chengyun's bidding, so these tragically dead female cultivators naturally ended up as nothing more than forgotten cases.

Born poor, fallen into the dust, humiliated to death, and without even a grave to rest in…

Mo Hua glanced at Zhang Quan with cool indifference, and snorted coldly in his heart:

"I'll slaughter you sooner or later!"

Zhang Quan in Shi Shizhong suddenly felt a chill run through his heart.

He immediately stood up and looked around.

"Who?"

"Who's there?"

Zhang Quan released his divine sense; the surroundings were empty, not a soul in sight.

But that chill, and the feeling of being watched—Zhang Quan knew it well.

"Is it that little brat?"

Zhang Quan, who was at Foundation Establishment, looked a little panicked.

He had been "haunted" by Mo Hua into a trauma.

Once that little brat set his sights on you, he clung like a bone-attached leech—you couldn't shake him off.

He looked around again, checked the formations, and saw that the Image-Revealing Formation and the Dust-Revealing Formation hadn't been triggered, only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Must be me overthinking…"

"This is the Corpse Mine, and Lu Chengyun is here. Even if it is that little brat, he shouldn't be able to stir up any trouble."

"No matter how capable he is, he can't treat this Corpse Mine like his own backyard, going wherever he pleases."

"The formations in the Corpse Mine were all personally laid by Lu Chengyun—they're not like the ones in Walking Corpse Stronghold…"

The mere mention of Walking Corpse Stronghold made Zhang Quan's heart ache.

That had been his nest, built up over decades, with considerable power—yet somehow it had been wiped out in one fell swoop.

Later, Zhang Quan had faked his death, been rescued by Lu Chengyun, and even snuck back once.

But he saw that inside Walking Corpse Stronghold, every secret room, mechanism, hidden door, and secret passage had been discovered, and everything inside had been scoured clean.

Scoured clean!

Like locusts had gnawed through it—not even a coffin lid left for him.

Whoever could do all this—he didn't need to think to know who it was.

Mo Hua's smiling face surfaced in his mind again.

Zhang Quan's blood rushed to his head once more, and he hurriedly warned himself:

"Don't think about it, don't think about it…"

Think too much, and you'll die of rage sooner or later.

Zhang Quan calmed his emotions and regained a sliver of reason.

But because he now had worries, he didn't dare do anything else, so he simply sat cross-legged on the bed to regulate his breathing.

Mo Hua watched for a while longer, then shook his head.

Zhang Quan did have a "diagram," but his "diagram" was not the one Mo Hua wanted.

Moreover, it was very likely that the Patriarch Diagram was not in Zhang Quan's hands.

If it really were in his hands, he would at least have found a place to enshrine it, and when he had the time, burn some incense and pay his respects.

He wouldn't be like he was now, looking at pictures of people fighting without clothes whenever he had nothing to do.

Then where exactly was the Patriarch Diagram?

In Lu Chengyun's hands?

Or was it still in Zhang Quan's hands, just enshrined in some place he didn't know about?

Mo Hua suddenly thought of the altar above the Ten Thousand Corpses Formation.

He had no idea what was enshrined on it.

A yellow cloth covered it, so he couldn't make out the details.

Could Zhang Quan have enshrined the diagram on that altar too — the one that was gaudy and extravagantly lavish?

"I need to go take a look…"

Mo Hua deliberated.

Regardless of whether the Patriarch Diagram was on that altar or not, he had to find a way to sneak into the Ten Thousand Corpses Formation again when no one was around.

With Lu Chengyun watching during the day, it was hard to pull any tricks.

Only when no one was around would it be convenient to investigate.

Look at the formation, deduce the complete array patterns of the Ten Thousand Corpses Formation, check the corners to see if anything was hidden, and see exactly what was enshrined on the altar…

"But how do I get in?"

Mo Hua furrowed his brow, thought for a while, then his eyes lit up slightly.

The Spirit Pivot Formation…

(End of chapter)