[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-lord-of-the-immortal-food":3,"chapter-lord-of-the-immortal-food-lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-729":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Lord of the Immortal Food",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2313852,4524,"Chapter 729: Stopping Yong Ji","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-729",729,"\u003Cp>Pei Ye extended his hand, and the water curtain parted at once, no longer requiring Li Xizhou to lift a finger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No scaled demons rushed forward to tear at the water veil.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The gnawing and scraping from all directions had nearly vanished; even when one or two appeared, Pei Ye no longer bothered to care.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“They’re all scattered. If they keep gnawing like this, will it drain you?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Because I have to keep replenishing it,” Li Xizhou said, her face still pale; she leaned back, gently plucking a strand of hair-thin softness from the water beside her, then letting it intertwine and converge in her palm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She drew water into threads, weaving them into Jiaoxiao .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye sat beside her, sword in hand, watching her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The faint scales along her temples were thin and shimmered with a soft radiance; Pei Ye raised his hand and lightly touched them. His fingers slid over something smooth yet resilient, like a few pieces of soft jade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou paused her hands and turned her head to look at him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s nothing—I’m just curious.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou lowered her gaze and resumed, the thin flow of water gliding through her palms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The day I saw you grow these, I thought you’d turn fully into a Jiaoren ,” Pei Ye said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So what if I turned fully into a Jiaoren ? I can always change back.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You’d be ugly.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“How is that any of your business?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye leaned against the stone wall and glanced sideways at her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou extended her wrist before him: “Make a small cut.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmm?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“A tiny blood wound,” Li Xizhou paused, “Don’t—don’t bite.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...” Pei Ye summoned a thread of true qi and carved a neat, fine incision; a slender thread of red drifted out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou pinched it with two fingers; the blood curled like a thread toward her, woven into the Jiaoxiao , infusing the finished ribbon with a faint, hidden crimson hue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye froze: “What are you doing?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I’m putting my share of the Shenxue  into it—it’ll be needed soon.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye stared down, expressionless, clearly unsettled by her self-harm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou glanced at him, thought for a moment: “You sent me so many messages through 【Qianxin Zhiyi】, but I never received any. I was in the place where the Shenlong  buried its bones—it’s almost another world.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye’s attention shifted; he pressed his lips together: “Oh, it’s fine—I didn’t send you many anyway.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mm.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The cave fell quiet for a while.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye shifted his leg and turned his head, indifferent: “If a message sent through 【Qianxin Zhiyi】 isn’t received at the time, it just vanishes, right?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It gets resent.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...Oh.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye stared at the water curtain, his face calm, but his ears flushed red.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Scales\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yaomenbeiquganzoule ， Sizhoudouhenanjing ， Lixizhouyeditoujixuzhizhujiaoxiao 。\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I want to tell you something,” Pei Ye changed the subject naturally. “About the Bǐnglù—I think I might reach Nine Lives.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou paused, not particularly surprised: “Aren’t those scaled demons outside enough for you to eat?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I’m not sure, but now whenever I get close, they scatter and flee—I can’t chase them, and I dare not stray far from you,” Pei Ye said. “I think maybe swallowing a few of the larger ones might trigger a change.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou thought for a moment: “Alright, I’ll note it down.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Time passed slowly; the spiritual realm had no day or night. Pei Ye transferred true qi to the woman three more times—that amounted to eight hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou remained seated, head bowed, legs pressed together like a Jiaorende  long tail; her woven Xiao  had vanished into the water, and Pei Ye had no idea how long it had grown. Then she stood, and tapped the boy lost in meditation over his sword scripture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye lifted his head.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Let’s exchange,” she said, extending her hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every vertical peak in the distance was a rib bone of the Shenlong .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From this angle, the spear planted in the ground was taller than the rib peaks. The spear was old; a cloth strip hung beneath its head, its shaft thick and rough, covered in countless small grooves—varying in length, thickness, and depth. A thousand marks, perhaps from eight hundred weapons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The remaining 99.9% of opponents had no right to leave a mark upon it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet the blade remained as sharp as new, evidence of its master’s diligent polishing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji thrust his spear beside it; his was newer, bearing few marks. The two straight spears stood side by side, both taller than the rib peaks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji sat down on a nearby stone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The space here neared collapse; narrow fissures grew in the air like frozen lightning, but black in color.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As if heaven and earth were a thin, brittle sheet of paper, something too heavy had pressed upon it, tearing the surroundings apart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a golden body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk sat in full lotus, hands in seal, a short knife hanging at his waist, eyes closed beneath a hundred-zhang tree.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Why did Pei Ye enter?” Yong Ji gazed into the distance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk did not open his eyes or speak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Shenjing  has been sealed for four days. On the first day, I went to Xiting Xin to test him—he had no clue at all,” Yong Ji continued, not expecting a reply. “By then he had already met Li Jian. Li Jian and his group shouldn’t have had any way to enter the Shenjing ... yet he suddenly, inexplicably, appeared inside.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Again, he meets someone inexplicable at an inexplicable moment,” he said, voice cold. “They all deserve to be torn to pieces.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yong, you always struggle to control your anger.” The monk did not open his eyes, speaking softly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then it must be my nature,” Yong Ji closed his eyes briefly; his wounds had not healed, but the bleeding had stopped. Multiple punctures and cuts did not seem to affect his condition—he had lost little of his blood qi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Most likely, Princess Jinyang left a door open,” the monk said. “Perhaps she understands the Shenjing  better than we do.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji said nothing. He glanced at the faint golden thread on the stone—it still stretched toward the distance, pointing to the mountain he had just left, meaning the woman was still there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In terms of circumstance, adding one more Nine-Life Pei Ye would make no difference. If Li Xizhou could bring someone in at will, that person should have been Li He or Li Jian.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye’s entry felt more like “only Pei Ye could enter.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The female bird would be killed by two snakes in her nest; the male bird would dive down, unable to save anything, only adding another meal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the spiritual realm, he was no match for 【Bai Shui】—the moment the four directions closed, that heart-sword technique had already been forced out of him. Had he not lost the initiative just now, he wouldn’t have suffered even this much injury.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji did not underestimate the boy’s strength—he was likely one of the few who truly understood his real power, and he was willing to admit he lost in skill and combat. But in the spiritual realm, facing 【Bai Shui】’s divine authority, facing the hardest-to-kill northern cultivators, he had almost no chance of victory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To defeat himself was already an unsolvable puzzle—let alone the monk.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One Nine-Life, one grievously wounded—what storm could they stir?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Li Xizhou had already given him too many surprises.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So failing to kill her as planned had ignited his fury. A faint unease clung to his heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the start, Yong Ji never imagined she would appear in the Shenjing .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, the Shenjing  was nearly under control; under the Seven-Day Feast, obedient scaled demons multiplied, gathering like a river, and the two tree-dwelling water lords had been lured away and were nearly subdued.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji had already used this to locate 【Bai Shui】.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Altogether, there were now two Tianlou inside and outside the spiritual realm, able to enter and exit at will; the two water lords could also be used.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were nearly ready to welcome the enemy Tianlou’s forced entry—then seize 【Bai Shui】, seal the Shenjing , and fight on home ground, a battle Yan Wang was not afraid of.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The north could afford to lose two Tianlou. Could Li Xizhou and Li Jian afford to lose theirs? And were they even loyal subordinates fighting for you?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Northern Frontier can afford to lose two Heavenly Towers—Li Xizhou, Li Jian—can you? Are they truly subordinates who die for you?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, Yong Ji assumed the Immortal Platform had skipped this round—I wanted the underwater, you wanted the surface; after seven days, we’d reset the formation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So Zhao Lingjun stayed above to delay, while the Water Below Chan General was sufficient to hold the ground.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But then two subtle things happened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, the Shencheng  fell faster than expected—cleared within days. Zhao Lingjun’s condition was severely drained, and his attempt to assassinate Pei Ye failed. He was not under Yan Wang’s command; at this point, he withdrew, leaving behind millions of controlled scaled demons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So they were forced to touch 【Bai Shui】; the Water Lord’s succession ritual began, sealing the Shenjing .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had they waited longer, their control over the Shenjing  would have been more complete.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Second, Li Xizhou had somehow already entered this sealed Shenjing .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji knew Zhang Mengyuan’s assassination had failed, but only upon seeing Li Xizhou did he realize she had entered Luoshen Palace and then come to the Shenjing .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Knowing nothing of the Shenjing ’s interior, she had dared to leap in alone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And due to Yu Sicong’s failure, they had almost no knowledge of what lay within Luoshen Palace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She moved here as if she were born to it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had suddenly taken the Shenlong ’s true blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this point, Yong Ji had lost all ability to predict Li Xizhou’s intentions; he could not guess what she intended to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Shenlong ’s true blood was the ladder to inheriting 【Bai Shui】. Since he could not meet the inheritance conditions, he could not draw the true blood into his body, so he forcibly extracted 【Bai Shui】.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou met the inheritance conditions, so she took the Shenlong ’s true blood... but the 【Bai Shui】 within it was already gone—what use was it to her now?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji had never wanted to rule this Shenjing .\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He only wanted 【Bai Shui】 itself—to take it back north. Afterward, let Li Xizhou reign over this crumbling, dying Shenjing  as she pleased—it had nothing to do with him. But now they were still within this Shenjing , and 【Bai Shui】 had not yet fully separated from the Shenlong ’s body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So Yong Ji faintly sensed an overlooked struggle—he thought he had already controlled the Shenjing ; his imagined opponent had always been the enemy’s Tianlou. He had also longed to meet the rumored new face of 【Ming Quan】.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But another immense, undeniable force came from the Shenjing  itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So Yongji subtly sensed a kind of resistance he had overlooked—he thought he had already mastered the mirage, and his long-assumed adversary had been the other side’s Tianlou, but he still very much wanted to see the new face of the legendary [Ming Quan].\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But another undeniable, immense power came from the mirage itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For most of the time it was dead, but Li Xizhou pried it open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he saw that unbreakable jiao silk, Yong Ji felt this way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was this unease that drove him to kill Li Xizhou, and sent him to the Western Court to test Pei Ye.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because every problem could be brutally solved with killing. He happened to carry a piece of lin blood, and used it to corner Li Xizhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But another subtle accident—she left Pei Ye yet another small opening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She clearly couldn’t bring just anyone in; otherwise, she could have brought in two or three Tianlou, and with Zhao Lingjun absent, they could have swept everything clean.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But even if she could bring only one person, why would that person be Pei Ye?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had already made this choice in advance—would she now regret it?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Adding a greenhorn like Pei Ye, could he stand against these two spears from the Northern Frontier?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he first left, he had a disagreement with the monk—he believed they should stay behind; a few hours later, when the scale demon gnawed through the jiao silk, whoever was inside—whether one or two—could simply be killed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the monk believed they should return to control heaven and earth; the mirage realm was still sealed, so no matter how they tried, they couldn’t escape—controlling this realm was the foundation of invincibility.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His spear was larger, and Yong Ji obeyed him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk extended a hand glowing with golden light; Yong Ji touched it, recited a Buddhist sutra, and calmed his inner restlessness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He sighed softly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some aimless little feelings, two lambs awaiting slaughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But then the monk suddenly opened his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A light, swaying flower grew upon the ground between them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I am barely clinging to life—why does the prince sigh?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji whirled around—the woman stood several zhang away, her face still pale, hair loose, her robe stained with a large patch of faded red.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji looked down—the line of lin blood on the stone remained clearly far off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji squinted at her: “Come to deliver yourself to death? Or are you playing an empty city ruse?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eight zhang was but a single step.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji twisted, raised his spear, stamped the ground, and lunged forward—the spear pierced the woman’s figure in an instant… but he touched nothing; suddenly, he found himself once again eight zhang away from her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk stood up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You are inside the Jiao Pavilion; I am outside it. All your passion is wasted, Yong.” Li Xizhou raised his hand, and gentle streams flowed over it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Countless thin, beautiful jiao silks flowed through this space—dozens of zhang, hundreds of zhang—flowing past, countless dreamlike, delicate flowers sprouted from the pale red threads, their stems bound by silk ribbons, and in an instant, the ground was covered in quiet, radiant blue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk gripped the spear beneath the stone; black lightning spiderwebbed rapidly across the surroundings, groans of unbearable strain rose from heaven and earth, yet layer upon layer of long, slender jiao silks unfurled.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Twelve silk ribbons drifted like twelve clear streams, as if hanging from the heavens, encircling the center like a flower, yet tethering the four corners of the world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In moments, Yong Ji within the jiao silk was no longer visible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monk silently regarded the woman; Li Xizhou, pale-faced and bowed, still bore a thin red line on his wrist, and looked up at him with a calm, faint smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—Weaving an old palace of the Luo Goddess.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Left behind by Wei Qingju, the mirage blood that had grown for sixty years. In life, Wei Qingju’s use and understanding of it surpassed imagination.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xizhou inherited little, and she had too little time\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>to learn.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But weaving a Jiao Pavilion was something every jiao person did naturally—not much harder than weaving a flower garland.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wei Qingju left her mature skill and abundant bricks and stones.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji stood alone and still within this realm woven by jiao silk, his spear gripped tightly in hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Here, it was silent and vast, with no hiding places, nothing to harm him. He had hunted Li Xizhou for days, yet this was the first time he entered the interior of the jiao silk curtain—truly isolating all outside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yong Ji could not discern the woman’s purpose in this act. He tilted his head up—only a few more hours, and the monk would truly control heaven and earth within the mirage realm. If he wished to delay, he should have trapped the monk inside—why lock himself here? What meaning did it hold?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then he suddenly turned his head, squinting slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A ragged boy, head bowed, sword in hand, walked slowly out from the other end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His hair hung loose, his feet bare—he raised his gaze and fixed his eyes on him from dozens of zhang away.\u003C\u002Fp>",2705,"2026-06-20T13:17:12.150Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","b9a191d64f6efedd11abf2c0c536e4a9136935a5821b24b507f1bec216d32ae0","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-730","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-728",771,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Flord-of-the-immortal-food-cover.jpg"]