Chapter 99: with translation of chapter title

Not mentioning the disappointment and anger of the champion candidate on that side, Zhou Shuo had managed to break even, carrying the many things he had seized, and together with Chan Yinsha fled the wilderness in one go; for two days they did not stop, until they were far from the wilderness and reached a solitary island somewhere in the sea, where they finally halted.

"Where is this? Shouldn't we first return to Chuyun State?" Zhou Shuo looked at the desolate, uninhabited island and couldn't help asking; he was completely unfamiliar with the sea situation, only Chan Yinsha herself knew it, and this route was also led by her.

"This is a remote island I happened upon before; the corpse monsters you're carrying are too conspicuous, we can't directly return to Chuyun State, and you also killed Bi Shi Hua!" Chan Yinsha looked at the corpse servants following behind like a flock of birds, her eyes flicking slightly, and she accurately spotted Bi Shi Hua's corpse among those the corpse monsters were carrying.

"It's just his physical body; his divine soul has slipped away." Zhou Shuo looked at Chan Yinsha's gaze toward Bi Shi Hua and couldn't help spreading his hands.

"It's no big deal; a ghost immortal is hard to kill, just chopping off the flesh body is already difficult, so our transaction can be considered finished." Chan Yinsha looked at Zhou Shuo's spread hands, then at the golden light shimmering on his Qiankun Pouch, and couldn't help pressing her lips together; Zhou Shuo helped her kill Bi Shi Hua, and she helped Zhou Shuo seize the Qiankun Pouch—our agreement, spoken of, is fulfilled, yet she seems to have done nothing, and what is this relationship between us from start to finish?

"Yeah! Well, now that we've seized the pouch, should we take a look?" Zhou Shuo looked at Chan Yinsha's inscrutable expression and lifted the pouch glowing with golden light.

"Of course we should look; we had already agreed earlier that if the pouch contains the Great Chan Temple's Supreme Three Scriptures, they must be shared." Chan Yinsha's mind turned over many thoughts, a smile appearing on her face; although she still felt a bit muddled, her agreement with this guy wasn't yet complete—if the pouch truly held the Great Chan Temple's Supreme Three Scriptures, would he share them with her? Or would he use the pretense of sharing to ambush her?

In Chan Yinsha's mind, a multitude of thoughts sprang up instantly, among them the possibility of being ambushed by Zhou Shuo; this couldn't be blamed on her, for Zhou Shuo had appeared too suddenly—although they had exchanged many secrets, when she looked at Zhou Shuo she still saw only a haze, filling her with doubt and confusion.

"Alright, let's open the pouch together; we'll share the Supreme Three Scriptures, but I'll handle the refining and research of this pouch." Zhou Shuo looked at the girl smiling, yet her eyes held myriad emotions, and she felt no resistance—this had been agreed upon earlier, and securing the pouch also owed to her help.

Fine, no problem, let's go to the island's center. Chan Yinsha looked at the non‑resistant Zhou Shuo, set aside her miscellaneous thoughts; although she was full of doubt and confusion, she had little guard, or rather couldn't muster any, because after exchanging secrets with Zhou Shuo she couldn't see through him, while Zhou Shuo had already figured out her bottom line, leaving her defenseless.

Carrying their strange, differing thoughts, Zhou Shuo and Chan Yinsha arrived at the island's center; Chan Yinsha projected her thoughts to gather rocks and soil, preparing to build an altar, while Zhou Shuo attempted to study the Qiankun Pouch, extending his thoughts into it to sense the thoughts left by its previous refiners and the arrangement of those thoughts.

Zhou Shuo had long studied the Heaven-Shaking Bow and the Ultimate Arrow, and was very familiar with the refinement of magical treasures in the Yang God world; those treasures are all forged by infusing divine soul thoughts, and through long-term infusion of thoughts into an object, the arrangement of thoughts and the cultivation method that forms them determine the treasure's function and quality, while the vessel that bears the thoughts themselves is the treasure's embryo.

Take the Ultimate Arrow, for example: the arrow itself uses a thousand-year-old peach-wood arrow as its embryo; the inscriptions on it can, besides drawing out and pulling others' souls from thin air, using the souls as fuel to burn and convert into the arrow's kinetic power, also gather sunlight to transform into fire arrows; this ability to absorb souls, burn them into kinetic energy, and gather sunlight to create fire, all stem from the thoughts formed by the unique cultivation methods of successive patriarchs of the Peach God Dao inscribed on the arrow, and the arrangement of those thoughts.

Compared to the Ultimate Arrow, the Qiankun Pouch is far superior; it is itself a pouch made from the skin of a human immortal, serving as its embryo; the thoughts inside the pouch—whether infused by past abbots of the Great Chan Temple or some exalted master—are unknown, but Zhou Shuo can be certain of one thing: the thoughts within the Qiankun Pouch are all constructed by masters who have survived four heavenly thunder tribulations, for inside lies a minor thousand-world, and only a ghost immortal who has weathered four thunder tribulations can generate thoughts that create a world, possessing the ability to fabricate space.

"All right, the altar is already set up for you; you can begin the refinement." Chan Yinsha said to Zhou Shuo, who sat cross-legged on the open ground, continuously scattering the drawn talismans onto the Qiankun Pouch and letting them seep into it.

"Hmm, good, here we go." Zhou Shuo felt the Qiankun Pouch's interior stubbornly refusing to be probed, involuntarily drew a slight breath, then, following Chan Yinsha's words, sent the pouch onto the constructed altar, first calming his mind and steadying his breath, then bowing low in worship, devoutly flying his thoughts into the pouch as if paying homage to a god—this is the method of refinement: to offer blessings, to worship the treasure as a deity, and then achieve mutual sensing of divine thoughts.

As the worship continued, Zhou Shuo's thoughts flew into the pouch, and he soon sensed where the thoughts inside the pouch resided; those thoughts were not in the material but in the pouch's consciousness, each arranged into an obscure trajectory, each thought composing the trajectory being a four-square clear form, linked together by the obscure consciousness; Zhou Shuo explored the thoughts and their trajectories, preparing to drive them into motion together with Chan Yinsha.

"Right, Yinsha, we need to be careful; I just remembered that there are also some monks inside the Qiankun Pouch, sent in that day by the Witchghost Dao ghost immortal, and besides, there are likely many of the Witchghost Dao's own people as well." Zhou Shuo, while preparing to move the pouch together with Chan Yinsha, suddenly recalled that on that day the Witchghost Dao's Yu Wutong had sent those Great Chan Temple monks into the pouch together, so the pouch might not be safe.

"That does call for caution." Chan Yinsha, hearing Zhou Shuo's words, couldn't help but let her eyes flicker.

"Hmm, when the time comes, let my corpse servants go in first; furthermore, regarding the Great Chan Temple's monks, we should avoid killing them if possible." Zhou Shuo looked at Chan Yinsha's wavering gaze and couldn't help saying, "As for those wicked ones of the Witchghost Dao, never mind; the Great Chan Temple's monks are quite pitiful."

"I'll follow your lead." Chan Yinsha glanced at Zhou Shuo, nodded, then suddenly exhaled a breath, turning her thoughts into a yin wind that swept into the pouch; Zhou Shuo, seeing this, quickly followed, sending his own thoughts into the pouch to guide hers deeper inside, then began to drive the pouch's own thoughts into motion.

The Qiankun Pouch itself is merely an ordinary bag, its physical capacity only that large, but its space lies hidden within the inner minor thousand-world; as Zhou Shuo and Chan Yinsha's thoughts are infused together into the pouch, they prop up the pouch's vast thoughts like a heaven‑supporting pillar, then, following the trajectory, they turn it like a millstone.

Crack—crack—countless sounds of shattering rang out as Zhou Shuo and Chan Yinsha, foreheads beaded with sweat, drove their divine soul power to the limit; the mouth of the Qiankun Pouch lying on the altar suddenly burst open, exhaling a stream of clear light, just like the Witchghost Dao crowd that day, and that clear-light stream revealed a doorway, the other side of which was the pouch's true space.

"The expenditure of thoughts required—if we weren't ghost immortals, we probably couldn't even open the pouch." Chan Yinsha gazed at the opened clear‑light doorway, sweat streaming down her forehead; the true space inside the Qiankun Pouch has opening conditions, not anyone can just grab it and open it—without cultivation in the Dao, obtaining this pouch is like having a torn‑skin bag.

"Fortunately we are ghost immortals!" Zhou Shuo replied, simultaneously stirring his thoughts to set in motion the corpse servants he had subdued, lining them up to enter the space door summoned by the Qiankun Pouch.

"Go." Zhou Shuo directed the corpse servants into the doorway, greeted Chan Yinsha, then led the way inside, with Chan Yinsha following behind.

Upon crossing the clear‑light doorway, Zhou Shuo instantly felt a fresh vista: above him stretched blue sky and white clouds, beneath his feet lay an endless expanse of vast earth, yet this heaven and earth were somewhat strange—the blue sky and clouds seemed to hang low just a few hundred meters above his head, and the ground lacked any sense of solidity.

Everything was remarkably novel, yet Zhou Shuo had no mind to sightsee, for within the boundless vast space someone was already waiting for him—aside from the Great Chan Temple's monks, there were also some daoists dressed in black robes, each accompanied by a few corpse monsters, more or less; however, both groups had been driven together by his corpse servants, merely glancing at him and Chan Yinsha with eyes full of surprise, doubt, and fear.

"The Qiankun Pouch is already in my hands; what sort of people are you?" Zhou Shuo looked at the daoists and monks cornered by his corpse servants, stepped forward to announce the fact, and posed the question as if he already knew the answer.

"I am Li Ran, a disciple of the Witchghost Dao's Yu Wutong, willing to submit to the True Person's sect." Facing Zhou Shuo's spoken question, a daoist with a black beard instantly dropped to his knees, and following his action, the other black‑clad daoists also all knelt down, voicing their names in a clamor, expressing their intent to pledge loyalty.

"Yinsha, keep them under control." Zhou Shuo glanced at the Witchghost Dao crowd that had submitted on sight, flicked his mouth and tossed out several corpse‑restraining talismans, immobilizing their corpse monsters, then turned his head to address Chan Yinsha.

"I am the Silver Shark King; you will now obey me and move to the side." Chan Yinsha displayed the aura of a demon immortal, projecting her thoughts onto the Witchghost Dao crowd to drive them all to the edge, while Zhou Shuo himself walked up to the old and young monks.

"You are the Great Chan Temple's monks; send out a leader to speak with me." Zhou Shuo looked at the twenty‑four monks—the eldest in their forties or fifties, the youngest in their mid‑teens—all dressed in tattered clothes, their dark‑red faces silent and unmoving; he felt a faint sorrow, and setting aside their identities, they were merely a group driven from their homes.