Chapter 406

Time passed in the flow, and more than a week went by; during this week, Chen Zheng, with iron-blooded methods, swept through the big and small gangs of Aomen, after which Dongling beat a hasty retreat, greatly shrinking its controlled territory, and also dispersed many of its disciples.

After that week, a society called the Iron Blood Gang swiftly rose to prominence; behind this society, the shadows of the bigwigs of Aomen's various powers could be faintly seen. And Chen Zheng not only did not suppress this society, but actually, intentionally or unintentionally, lent it a hand.

This is an agreement tacitly reached between Chen Zheng and the various bigwigs, each side understanding its profound meaning. The Dongling gang, in Aomen, has penetrated the populace more deeply than the police; wherever Dongling's jurisdiction extends, there is no vice, no drugs. As long as protection money is paid, the gang will dutifully protect you.

Therefore, whether it be the police, the casinos and other major powers, or even street-side vendors, none wish for the Dongling society to disappear. For no one knows, once Dongling is eradicated, whether the second rising gang will be as unconventional as Dongling, and whether its leader will be as disinterested in money as Chen Zheng.

Thus, these powers are reluctant to see Dongling go, yet fear its unilateral dominance; consequently, the so-called Iron Blood Gang is what they have propped up to check Chen Zheng.

However, these matters are of little concern to us; we have more important things to do.

In the quiet passage of time, the day to set up the formation arrived unnoticed.

That night, being the day when the Tai Yin star, one of the fourteen chief stars of Ziwei, is at its zenith—all other stars hidden, only the Tai Yin exalted—Pangzi had already begun three days prior to lay out the formation at Chen Zheng's ancestral home, erecting inside the house nine two-meter-long pillars, and outside the pillars, twelve flags arranged according to Qimen.

These nine pillars and twelve flags each carry a meaning.

What the nine pillars represent are, respectively, Lesser Yin, Ending Yin, Heavenly Yin, Jade Yin, Profound Yin, Blood Yin, Metal Yin, Crimson Yin, and Tai Yin—altogether nine Yin.

The twelve flags represent the twelve earthly branches: Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu.

Zi is the Ink Pool, located due north; Wu is the Beacon Tower, located due south; Mao is the Jade Forest, situated due east; You is the Temple Bell, positioned near Xu-Hai, its sound echoing the Heavenly Gate…

The twelve flags are placed outside the nine Yin pillars, surrounding them with the power of Qimen Dunjia; the Yin energy of the Nine Yin Formation is strong, and lest it leak out, these twelve flags are needed to suppress it.

From the layout of the formation's heart to the formation of its eyes, Pangzi alone was responsible; I am not familiar with these formation matters, so I could only silently stand by to guard him.

Night…… at the end of the Hai hour, when the clock had slowly passed eleven, I and Pangzi stood, focusing our spirit and gathering our qi, in the courtyard of Chen Zheng's ancestral home, awaiting the appearance of the celestial Tai Yin star.

The Tai Yin star is one of the twenty-four first-rank stars of Ziwei, not part of the Northern or Southern Dipper, and in heaven it is the essence of the moon.

Both Tai Yin and Tai Yang are ultimate stars.

Tai Yang governs authority and nobility; Tai Yin governs yin and softness.

If a woman, in her luck year encountering the Joy God, would have the joy of pregnancy; and if within the Joy God the Tai Yin star appears overhead, then the child in her womb will be a girl. Conversely, if Tai Yang enters her destiny, then the child in her womb will be a boy.

Today Pangzi, on the ground, set up a formation using Tai Yin, with the remaining eight Yin as auxiliaries; its purpose is to harness Tai Yin's yin and soft qi to neutralize the yang killing qi within the yang residence.

What is borrowed is not the power of the mountains' and rivers' dragon veins, but rather laying out a formation on the ground to correspond with the heavenly bodies, borrowing heavenly momentum for earthly fortune, to dispel the killing qi.

But I cannot help feeling uneasy in my heart, after all, aside from being able to draw down the Tai Yin star's influence, the so-called eight Yin merely correspond in direction and have no orbital trajectory matching the heavenly bodies' motion; we merely borrow the Tai Yin's fortune to activate those eight stellar positions.

Therefore, in today's terms, these eight Yin stars are just knockoff goods.

This…… really no problem? I can't help but worry.

"No problem, absolutely no problem, you must trust Prince's experience and understanding of formations!" Pangzi bared his teeth, patted his chest, and said affirmatively.

I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, and silently thought to myself: "You talk as if you were very experienced, but in fact this isn't even your first time setting up a formation."

Seeming to see through my thoughts, Pangzi raised his head and snorted, proudly saying: "Some people are just that awesome; my formation talent, you can't envy… oh no!"

While he was speaking proudly, Pangzi's face suddenly changed; then, with both hands pinching his five fingers to calculate, his face turned drastically as he said: "Quickly go maintain the twelve flags, the Tai Yin star is about to appear."

At the same time, the dark, oppressive sky slowly revealed a glimmer of light; immediately a soft beam of light shone down from the heavens.

The moon, long hidden somewhere unknown, finally, beneath the cover of dark clouds, slowly revealed a corner.

The moon star is none other than the Tai Yin star. When that soft and harmonious light shone down, I had already walked to the altar outside the formation.

At the center of the altar stands a large oil lamp; this lamp is the formation lamp of the twelve flags, intimately connected with them—if the lamp goes out, the twelve flags lose all efficacy; if the twelve flags lose efficacy, the nine Yin qi will leak out. The area of several li around this ancestral home will be affected: lightly, poultry, livestock, and people will be influenced by the Yin qi, falling seriously ill; heavily, they will be exterminated.

Therefore, when the Tai Yin star showed a corner, I had already gathered all my essence, energy, and spirit, guarding before the altar, tightly holding the oil lamp.

On that side, beside Pangzi had appeared three large copper mirrors, each exactly his height.

The copper mirrors serve a filtering function; the Tai Yin star's yin and soft qi is too intense, and if poured directly into the Nine Yin Formation, it might cause the yin qi to explode instantly, at which point even the twelve flags might not be able to suppress that eruptive force.

Thus Pangzi could only use the copper mirrors as a transfer medium, filtering the Tai Yin star's yin and soft qi through them, then slowly feeding it into the formation.

When the moon fully emerged from the clouds, a pallid, yin-cold white light slowly shone upon Pangzi's body; at the same time, the copper mirrors' light flickered, slowly transmitting that white light into the Nine Yin Formation.

The nine yin pillars of the Nine Yin Formation are all forged from sunken wood, their material of superior quality, the best substance for bearing yin qi.

Slowly, the atmosphere inside the room changed quietly, from hot to cool; immediately after, the copper mirrors' light shone broadly, and the yin and soft qi instantly turned into yin cold. The room's temperature plummeted in an instant, cold as if it were dozens of degrees below zero in the Arctic.

Every celestial star possesses its own dignity; when the Tai Yin star sensed that Pangzi was borrowing its qi, in an instant the star's dignity burst forth, and that yin and soft qi instantly turned into an extreme cold qi.

At this moment, Pangzi was like jelly frozen in an icebox, his whole body covered with a granular layer of frost, his sturdy frame shivering in the icy wind.

At this time, the twelve flags surrounding the nine pillars trembled slightly; under the opposition of this extreme cold qi, the flagpoles already showed weakness.

Seeing that the twelve flags were about to detach from the ground and fly out, I hastily bit my fingertips, activated the formula, tightly pulled up the wick, and poured my heart's hot blood into it to stabilize the twelve flags' formation.

On that side, the stiff Pangzi barely managed to steady his posture, then quickly pulled out his familiar wine gourd from beside him and took a big gulp of hot wine.

The wine in the gourd is specially blended for Huaguang's fire technique; besides being usable for casting spells, it can also bolster yang qi and dispel yin cold.

After taking several more gulps of hot wine, Pangzi again pinched his Seal Finger, chanting the incantation to steady the copper mirrors, and slowly transmitted the yin qi into the nine pillars.

Slowly, the yin qi inside the room grew ever heavier, while the pressure I faced at this moment increased as well; the wick in my hand felt as if it weighed a thousand jin, like a massive stone slowly sinking.

Thus I had no choice but to bite my tongue again, exhaling a mouthful of hot breath containing true yang saliva onto the wick; the wick's flame flared, and as the pressure eased, I exerted force with my right hand, slowly pulling the wick upward.

Within the formation, the yin-cold qi, conveyed by the copper mirrors, slowly entered the nine pillars; outside the formation, I controlled the twelve flags to suppress the nine Yin pillars, keeping the yin qi within a certain range and preventing it from leaking out. As long as we continue like this, the formation's success is merely a matter of time.

However, just as the formation had come back under our control, the grand courtyard suddenly emitted a barely audible crack; I and Pangzi turned toward the source of the sound, and our faces involuntarily changed.

All we saw was that the nine pillars inside the formation, forged from sunken wood, had actually developed slight cracks; the sound came from those fissures.

This is sunken wood, you know—wood that soaks in water for thousands of years without rotting; yet under the corrosion of this yin qi, it has actually produced cracks.

My heart clenched; I anxiously looked toward Pangzi. We had made all preparations, but we had not anticipated that the yin cold within the formation had already exceeded the bearing capacity of the sunken wood.

"Never mind it, just hold the formation!" Pangzi, drenched in sweat, even though his legs trembled, still clenched his teeth.

Even if I were more anxious, I could only helplessly suppress the impatience in my heart and quietly watch the situation evolve.

But, with the first cracking sound, the house filled with crackling, numerous barely audible fractures; the nine sunken-wood-forged pillars all simultaneously developed cracks.

The Tai Yin star in the heavens, its light grew ever more brilliant; the nine Yin pillars stood towering, on the verge of breaking apart.

If the nine Yin pillars break, the yin cold trapped within the formation will surely surge outward in all directions; Pangzi, located within the formation, will inevitably be the first target of that yin cold, and will certainly die suddenly from the cold attacking his heart. By then, the twelve flags will no longer be able to suppress the instantaneous explosive force; once the formation collapses, aside from the two of us each suffering harm, it will surely also bring disaster to the innocent populace within a ten-li radius.

The situation leaves no room for optimism; it has starkly come to a life-and-death juncture.

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