Chapter 176: Silver Needle Tribulation Crossing

Silver snakes suddenly exploded in the night sky, striking Gongsan Pingbalang's landing spot with precision.

The Dongying warrior was flipped ten zhang by the lightning and plowed a deep trench before steadying his stance, yet he excitedly readied his twin blades: "Second blade!"

The moment the cold gleam flashed again, a giant Bagua Array appeared across the entire Miao Street district.

With Genyue Courtyard as the array eye, when Gongsan Pingbalang rushed to within five steps of Lin Yu, the 'Dui' hexagram pattern suddenly appeared beneath his feet.

He stabbed his twin blades into the ground to break the array; Zhang Song's pained groan came from the courtyard, his arms already a bloody mess.

"It's finally exhausted." Liu Jinyong slumped in the grand armchair, coughing up blood, his lapels soaked in scarlet.

Gongsan Pingbalang shook the blood beads from his blades and closed in on Lin Yu step by step: "Third blade: God-Slayer!"

With every step he took, the Immortal Crown behind Lin Yu's head shattered by one ring.

The first step fell, the fourth Immortal Crown burst apart, and the Eternal Life Divine Skill reached perfection; the second step shook, the third Immortal Crown disintegrated, and the blood-flame pattern on the brow of Lin Yu, whose black hair draped over his shoulders, shone brightly; the third step arrived, the invisible barrier shattered, and golden feathers of the Profound Bird covered his body, glowing.

When the twin blades pierced toward his face, a heart-wrenching howl suddenly exploded in the purple-lit night of Miao Street; the butterfly wings behind Gongsan Pingbalang turned into fluorescent debris, and his entire body convulsed violently as if electrocuted.

Lin Yu gripped the still-warm heart with five fingers and tossed it casually into a slop bucket at the corner of the street.

"This shell is still somewhat useful." The young man dipped his fingertips in blood and traced tadpole-shaped red incantations onto the other's bulging veins.

When the final stroke was completed, the Nihon man, who should have breathed his last, suddenly let out a beast-like roar, and the talismans all over his body sizzled like red-hot branding irons.

"Tell me!" Gongsan Pingbalang approached step by step, his charred flesh peeling, blood foam churning in his eye sockets, "What exactly is hidden in the 'Earth Medicine'? Why did the Three Pure Ones ancestors..."

Before he could finish, the flesh on his left arm suddenly carbonized and peeled away, revealing ghastly white bone. Lin Yu watched coldly as his enemy twisted and deformed in the talisman fire, eventually leaving only a jade-colored skeleton hanging with a jadeite pendant.

"President!" Yuzao Huimei's shrill scream pierced the night sky.

Just as Lin Yu was distracted, Jiulangzi turned into black mist and swept away the remains.

Amidst the roar of an engine, Lin Yu did not pursue; a crisp sound of shattering glass came from the back of his head.

The final Immortal Crown, shattered.

The young man staggered to support himself against the blue-brick wall at the alley entrance, looking at the safe and sound Li Lin in the distance with a relieved smile.

The night wind whipped up the ten-thousand-yuan banknotes scattered across the street; fifty million in cash shimmered with a cold light under the moonlight.

"Has the old thing watched enough of the show?" Wu Shuping flashed out from the shadows, the peach-wood sword in her hand buzzing and trembling. Qin Tai stroked the Buddhist beads on his wrist and chuckled: "When Heavenly Master Zhang slew the dragon back then, didn't he also let it churn the rivers and seas for three days first?"

A light sound of roof tiles came from behind the two.

"Senior Sister, calm your anger!" The Daoist surnamed Jiang jumped down from the rafters with a fawning smile, "I just wanted to see how much of Xuanyuan Hai's... this kid could use." Before he could finish, he was glared into silence by Wu Shuping.

The red light of the street corner surveillance camera flickered, recording the scene of banknotes swirling in the wind across the ground.

In a command vehicle three hundred meters away, a technician stared at the traffic signals that had suddenly returned to normal, cold sweat soaking his uniform.

The electronic equipment in the entire Miao Street had actually malfunctioned for the past two hours.

Jiang Taixu emerged from behind the door, leaning on a cane, his snow-white long beard trembling slightly with his steps.

The moment he saw Wu Shuping, the old man actually shrank his neck like a child who had done something wrong.

"Smack!" Wu Shuping's embroidered shoe kicked his knee without mercy: "It's only been two sixty-year cycles since the Penglai bloodbath, and you dare to vouch for the Jiang family's bane?"

"Auntie, calm your anger!" Jiang Taixu rubbed his lapels and smiled apologetically, "My good-for-nothing great-grandson is about to undergo the Thunder Tribulation; I can't let the incense line be broken, and besides, you are here to suppress Miao Street."

The conversation suddenly shifted, and he squinted toward the depths of the long street, "That Jiang family kid is quite the talent; I saw him doing odd jobs at a teahouse a month ago, and in the blink of an eye, he has entered the Land Immortal Realm."

Wu Shuping sneered and flicked her sleeves: "Watch your mouth, if you dare to leak the news of my coming out of seclusion." Before the words fell, Old Man Jiang had already turned into white smoke and fled.

On the tarmac of Huacheng Airport, Yuzao Huimei stepped in ten-centimeter high heels, dragging a suitcase half her height as she rushed into the private jet.

Jiulangzi locked the cabin door behind him, and the two worked together to push the suitcase into the cargo hold.

The moment the sandalwood coffin lid was lifted, the ghastly white finger bones suddenly twitched.

Yuzao trembled as she pieced President Gongsan's remains into the talisman array in the coffin; the second hand of her watch had just turned half a circle when a fingernail-scraping sound came from inside the coffin.

"President!" The two hurriedly lifted the skeleton-thin man and draped a dark-patterned kimono over him. The jadeite pendant glowed eerily between his gaunt collarbones.

"It's a pity the clue to the 'Earth Medicine' was still broken." Gongsan Pingbalang stroked the jade pendant at his neck, "Huimei, hand over the Huaxia business to a Newcomer, and you follow me back to Dongying."

When the cabin door opened again, the jadeite on Yuzao's chest was swirling with an eerie purple light.

Gongsan pinched her chin and chuckled: "This is the soul relic left behind by my wife upon her Ascension, known in the Profound Gate as 'Immortal Slough'; as long as the remains exist, one can borrow the relic to be reborn."

Outside the porthole, the waves of the Donghai swept past, and Gongsan stroked his newly grown pale skin.

Feigning death at the final moment, he had used his pupils to replicate Lin Yu's Six Divine Skills secret technique.

As the wing sliced through the clouds, he curled his lips at the heart fragment in the glass vessel.

In Maiyi Lane of Miao Street, the night grew deeper.

Wu Shuping walked quickly across the bluestone path, squatted down to check the pulses of Li Lin and Zhang Yuru, and ignored them after confirming they were unharmed. She bent down to shoulder the unconscious Lin Yu, and as her embroidered shoes stepped over the threshold, a bamboo scroll slid quietly from the young man's palm.

"Old thing, stop playing dead!" She kicked open the main hall door, facing Liu Jinyong, who was slumped in the grand armchair.

The old man's gray goat beard trembled, and a sharp light burst from his murky eyes: "The brat is still alive?"

"His life is tough enough." Wu Shuping laid Lin Yu flat on the bamboo couch, her brow furrowing as she placed three fingers on his wrist pulse, "What about you? You've pried into the heavenly secrets twice in two days; how much longer can this old frame hold up?"

The sound of Silver Needles piercing the air erupted, and thirteen fine needles accurately pierced the major acupuncture points all over Lin Yu's body.

Liu Jinyong gasped: "Silver Needle Tribulation Crossing? You are trying to..."

"Shut up!" Sweat beaded on Wu Shuping's forehead, "If you can move, go carry those two girls in."

Before the words fell, a sound of tearing silk suddenly came from the bamboo couch; black blood was seeping through the bandages on Lin Yu's chest at a speed visible to the naked eye.

At the base of the courtyard wall, Li Lin's eyelashes trembled slightly. She stared blankly at the weeds growing out of the cracks in the blue bricks, her fingertips touching the sticky blood scabs.

Her Memory was like torn book pages, leaving only the Nihon blade light and the corner of a kimono.

When her gaze fell on the bamboo scroll in her arms, her pupils shrank; the 'Earth Medicine' Visualization Diagram on the sheepskin scroll, with its ink still fresh, was glowing with a faint light.

"Like, too like!" An aged exclamation startled Li Lin into looking up abruptly.

The veins on Tang Yuanhui's hand, which was supporting the door frame, bulged, his gaze darting back and forth between her and the bamboo scroll.

A night owl hooted outside the alley, whipping up the talisman paper scattered all over the ground.

Li Lin stood frozen in place, the old man's words before her making her feel as if she had fallen into a fog.

In the family portrait she had clutched tightly since childhood, the faces of her parents and her older brother Lin Yu were already etched into her marrow; in the photo, her brows and eyes were identical to her father's, while her brother had inherited their mother's delicate features.