Chapter 74: This Must Be My Human Calamity!

The sun blazed high, it was afternoon; Feng Xue was happily eating a Qi-nourishing meal prepared by Liu Yunxi, replenishing his weak modern human body, while at the same time, the non-initiated Xuan cultivators of Lu Cheng County were suffering greatly.

If last night had been a full-city mobilization of all initiated Xuan cultivators, then now, as the seasoned masters who had stayed up all night began to grow drowsy, these young apprentices were forced to take up the task and begin their work.

“Check every detail thoroughly!” Master Chen knew this matter was of utmost gravity; he had slapped a Wakefulness Talisman on himself to stay alert and supervise these unreliable youngsters.

For this top-five master of the county, the young apprentices sent by various families dared not utter a single word, merely carrying compasses, holding tortoise shells, gripping divination rods, summoning paper figures, and searching along the city’s perimeter.

Master Chen sat on a bamboo chair and couldn’t help yawning, yet his mind was pondering the feng shui of the surroundings.

He had been initiated for over a hundred years and had surveyed feng shui for the surrounding areas many times; he knew the Kunshan region inside and out, and exactly where auspicious burial spots lay.

But he understood even better the truth that seas can turn into mulberry fields: a feng shui treasure spot from nearly a century ago was not necessarily the same two hundred years prior, and a good burial site from two hundred years ago was not necessarily still in its original state.

“Still, Lu Cheng has stood for at least a thousand years; the city’s environment should be fine. I previously asked the County Magistrate to check the county annals—if there are no major tombs nearby, the risks likely lie only in Crab Lake and Ma’an Mountain.”

Master Chen sighed. The so-called Ma’an Mountain was not the Ma’an Mountain five hundred li away, but a small hill not far from Crab Lake, which was twice the size of Lu Cheng; it stood less than a hundred meters tall, named for its resemblance to a horse saddle—a tiny place, yet home to several auspicious burial spots, where several local families buried their ancestors, three of which he himself had selected.

“But if the problem truly lies in ancestral graves, this will be hard to handle…” Master Chen pinched the bridge of his nose; the fatigue from sleeplessness and the stimulant of the Wakefulness Talisman gave him a headache, yet just then he spotted a familiar figure and immediately rose to his feet:

“Miss Deng! What are you doing here?”

“Master Chen, no need to rise! You’re my elder, rest easy. I have little experience in spell duels and couldn’t help before, but searching for lost objects or people is my specialty—I can’t just stand by while everyone works, can I?”

The speaker was a young woman, no more than early twenties, with a proper face, yet her long hair faintly gray, giving an unnatural air of age.

She was one of Lu Cheng County’s five top masters. Though her age—barely over twenty—was even younger than the grand-disciples of the other masters, her family’s ancestral spirit had been passed down for hundreds of years. But as a spirit-medium, she served demonic spirits, a heretical path; neither the City God Temple nor any Daoist monastery or Buddhist temple would allow her near, which was why she had not attended the daytime talisman-placement ceremony.

Yet as an officially registered Xuan cultivator of Lu Cheng, she could not do nothing; upon hearing Master Chen was making a major search, she volunteered to come.

Master Chen had not wished to rely on a spirit-medium, but now that Miss Deng had come to him of her own accord, it was another matter.

He weighed it in his mind, then said:

“Very well. I searched all night yesterday and am truly exhausted. This matter is complicated—I’ll explain it to you in detail…”

Master Chen laid out his suspicions. Miss Deng had initially thought this was merely about a runaway ghost, perhaps a red-robed vengeful spirit at worst, easily handled by her Gray Ninth Grandfather. But upon hearing it might involve a demonic cultivator’s residual soul, she immediately grew serious and nodded firmly:

“As for locating dragons and selecting burial spots, I’m no match for Master Chen, but if we’re searching for ancient tombs and old corpses, I do have some experience.”

With that, Miss Deng formed a hand seal, stood on one foot. Though her connection with her ancestral spirit made such gestures unnecessary, her lifelong habit still compelled her to shake her head vigorously.

As her gray hair swayed with her motion, her posture gradually grew strange. Master Chen, seeing this, silently stepped back several paces, and suddenly understood:

“So you’re planning to use treasure-hunting methods to find a grand tomb? That makes sense—if there truly is an ancient corpse hard to trace, its identity was likely high-ranking, and its burial goods would be plentiful… Too bad those tomb raiders I caught last month were already beheaded; otherwise, asking them might have been faster!”

…

As the Xuan cultivators worked in tense haste, beneath a patch of seemingly ordinary dead rocks on Ma’an Mountain, a pair of cloudy eyes suddenly opened, crimson light illuminating the cramped space. After several minutes of silence, it finally seemed to adapt, its fingertip twitching gently—

“Jia Chen year, 12th month, 14th day… Much earlier than expected. Is this the [Dragon-Snake Rising from Land]? No, wrong—this spot’s malevolent energy remains full. But if not this, why did I awaken early?”

The figure continued to move its fingers, and a faint metaphysical sensation arose—

“[Heavenly Punishment] manifesting malevolence? In conflict with the Rat? What nonsense! This isn’t even the Tai Sui position—even if it were a Rat Demon…”

The figure suddenly froze. Its sluggish thinking, dulled by over a century of slumber, began to recover—and it recalled something:

“Ah yes, Lu Cheng had a Gray Immortal… But I’ve slept nearly two full cycles—how could I be in conflict with it?”

The more it thought, the more wrong it felt. It finally climbed off the white jade bed, instinctively looked down—and oh, it understood.

“This is too coincidental! If I’d just slept seven more months, I’d have completed my cultivation perfectly—even entering Yi Si year, I could have shed my demonic embryo. But I was awakened at the end of Jia Chen year… Yes, this must be my human calamity!”

The figure, as if finally awakening, rose from the white jade bed—then immediately lowered its head again—

For no other reason than it had hit its head.

Looking up at the low “ceiling” of the tomb, it sighed faintly, then pushed itself up from the jade bed with stiff limbs, using its own Qi to replace the earth’s malevolent energy and recharge the Pot Heaven Sack, unused for two hundred years, while pondering its next move.

Cultivators always face calamities, but unlike in novels, these are not simple thunder and fire—they arise from countless coincidences: a snake suddenly slithering out to swallow your treasure pill just before completion, or a military invasion striking the city precisely as your Yin Spirit transforms into Yang. Demonic cultivators carry heavy karmic debts, so their calamities are often more complicated.

Two hundred years ago, he had already reached Grand Master level. Seeing no future for demonic cultivators, he scoured ancient texts and devised a method to transmute Qi into malevolent energy, turning purity into turbidity. After a century of refinement, he calculated that on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month in Yi Si year (Zhongyuan Festival, when the Ghost Gate opens and Yin energy peaks), a lunar eclipse would occur. He timed it precisely, splitting his spirit and body, sacrificing his centuries of cultivation, paying the price of slumbering two full cycles to shed his demonic embryo, forming a Yin-Malevolent Ghost Body, and switching to Corpse Demon cultivation.

But now…

“Seventeen days remain until Yi Si year. Should I hide?”

The demonic cultivator frowned, then decisively abandoned the idea. If karmic causes could be so easily avoided, he wouldn’t have resorted to this near-suicidal method of transformation. In his centuries of cultivation, he had seen too many counterexamples—each one thinking, “Just a few more days,” “Just a few more hours,” “Just hold out till dawn”—yet the closer they got to the limit, the more they failed at the final moment.

“Enough. Let me go see what the world looks like after a hundred years!”

(End of Chapter)