Chapter 169

Xu Qing had some impression of the fox woman of Qingqiu.

Thirty years ago, outside Luojing City, the Golden Luo Protector of the Heavenly Heart Sect met a simple-dressed female semi-immortal. The other party had the intention to point him in the right direction, but Jin Wanshan was addicted to gambling at that time and wasted an opportunity in vain.

And the appearance of that female semi-immortal was exactly the same as the fox woman Hu Baosong met in Qingqiu two hundred years ago.

Even the clothes, washed white, were exactly the same.

Hu Baosong had lived for more than two hundred years. If that person was really a fox woman of Qingqiu, how many years had she existed?

Xu Qing felt that the other party was very likely a figure who had survived the five-hundred-year disaster, just like the White Immortal Lady of the Hundred Grass Cave on Mount Yuehua, or perhaps even earlier.

Five-hundred-year thunder disaster, one-thousand-year fire disaster, one-thousand-five-hundred-year wind disaster...

According to Xu Qing's knowledge, those with cultivation exceeding one thousand five hundred years who had survived three disasters were land immortals walking in the secular world. At this time, they only needed to wait quietly for the immortal official to guide them, and on the day when auspicious clouds and immortal music descended, they could rank among the immortal class.

However, the road to heaven is now cut off. Even if someone survives one thousand five hundred years, there will be another one thousand five hundred years waiting. A cultivator might survive the first round of disasters, but might not necessarily dodge the second.

The fox woman of Qingqiu called herself a semi-immortal thirty years ago. Xu Qing estimated that the other party had about seven or eight hundred years of cultivation, at most around a thousand years.

As for the thousand-year-old ghost king in the Ghost King Mausoleum...

Humans, demons, and ghosts cannot be treated the same.

Humans are born suitable for cultivation. Learning to be an immortal takes at least five hundred years less effort than other species. If a noble or wise person learns to be an immortal, it takes three hundred years less effort than an ordinary person. Therefore, humans only need to accumulate a thousand years to attain the Dao.

The cultivation accumulated in this millennium remains unchanged, still one thousand five hundred.

The cultivation of demons is five hundred years worse. Even for the intelligent, it takes one thousand two hundred years to accumulate enough cultivation to become an immortal, not to mention having to go through several cultivation disasters in the middle.

Ghosts are even worse. If it takes ten years for a human to cultivate a hundred years of cultivation, it takes a hundred years for a ghost to equal ten years of human cultivation.

Therefore, it is not strange for a big demon with hundreds of years of cultivation to be chased and beaten by a human with decades of cultivation.

However, human hearts are changeable, and the red dust is chaotic. Most people are obsessed with it and cannot be liberated, so there are fewer people who can concentrate on cultivation than demons and ghosts.

After all, human life is short, and demons and ghosts live long. Throughout history, many talented and brilliant people have wasted their cultivation paths because of decades of worldly affairs.

Because of his youthful spirit, Hu Baosong traveled the world for decades. By the time he returned to Jinmen, his old father in the coffin shop was already on his deathbed.

If it weren't for the fox woman of Qingqiu's guidance, he was afraid he would have missed the old man's last look.

After burying the old man, Hu Baosong drank himself into a stupor day and night, his wine gourd never leaving his side, and his cultivation was wasted for nearly ten years. Until one day, when he was lying drunk under the peach tree, peach blossoms brushed his face, and he could vaguely hear a familiar voice coming—

"Wake up, wake up."

Between dreaming and waking, Hu Baosong saw a woman in a peach-red dress in front of him, whose appearance was seventy percent similar to his biological mother.

Seeing him "wake up," the woman said to him: "Your mother cultivated for hundreds of years and never took a day off until the disaster was approaching, only then did she come out of the mountain to form a husband-and-wife bond with your father. Although your father's life span was short, he never wasted it. If they have spirits in heaven, how could they bear to see you waste yourself like this..."

The woman's words were like a head-on blow, making Hu Baosong wake up suddenly. He looked for the traces in his dream, but besides the peach tree and the peach blossoms in the courtyard, where could he see half a woman's shadow?

Ten years of big dreams, waking up in a moment.

Hu Baosong buried the wine gourd under the tree, quit drinking from then on, and began to travel the world.

At the age of one hundred, Hu Baosong, who was still in his prime, was prone to peach blossom luck and began to leave feelings everywhere: Yang Yingying, Cui Miaoyin, Wei Sangu...

During this period, Hu Baosong occasionally returned to Linhe. He always liked to lie under the peach tree in the courtyard and pretend to sleep, but unfortunately, he never saw the woman he met in his dream again.

It was as if that day was just a dream he had inadvertently.

Another few decades passed. When Hu Baosong traveled to the Five Elders Temple, he met a female Daoist priest.

At that time, the female Daoist priest was standing under a tree in front of the temple, holding a leaf and blowing it by her lips.

The sunlight shone through the mottled tree shadows, making the female Daoist priest look like an immortal descending to the world.

Hu Baosong felt that he had probably met true love.

At that time, Hu Baosong was dressed in white and wielding a sword, and his conversation and behavior from a hundred years of cultivation were even more calm and unrestrained. The female Daoist priest had never been down the mountain before, so how could she be a match for this fox demon?

The master of the Five Elders Temple was an old female Daoist with white hair and a youthful face. After the old Daoist returned from visiting friends, she saw through Hu Baosong's background at a glance. However, at this time, her apprentice Zichen was already deeply trapped in a love tribulation, and she was definitely not something that could be moved by a few words.

After thinking about it, the old Daoist finally called Hu Baosong to her and wanted him to put on a Daoist robe and worship under the Five Elders Temple.

A wild fox worshipping in a temple would have been a good story, but Hu Baosong was stubborn. He believed that he was the direct descendant of the Hu-Yang clan, so how could he be like a worldly person, living in the temple as a son-in-law?

You must know that after his mother gave birth to him, she didn't even let him follow his father's surname, but followed her mother's surname, Hu.

His mother did this so that the Hu-Yang clan would not be cut off.

Now, how could he worship under the Five Elders Temple and take another family's name?

That night, Hu Baosong found Daoist Priest Zichen and wanted her to follow him down the mountain, from then on to be a pair of carefree lovers who only envy the mandarin ducks and not the immortals.

Zichen agreed, but when Hu Baosong arrived at the agreed place, he didn't see Zichen arrive as scheduled.

Hu Baosong came to the outside of the Five Elders Temple and knocked on the door, wanting to ask clearly. At that time, Zichen was inside the door.

The two were separated by a door, and Zichen spoke clearly.

She said that the temple master was old, and she couldn't abandon the old temple master for her own selfish desires.

Zichen said a lot of things. When she could no longer hear any sound outside the door, she opened the door, only to find that Hu Baosong's figure had disappeared.

At the entrance, only a lonely leaf drifted down from the tree, just like the leaf she caught when she was playing the leaf in front of the temple.

When Zichen closed the temple door, Hu Baosong's figure suddenly flashed out from the side of the mountain road.

He looked at the temple door. At this time, a breeze blew, scattering the fallen leaves all over the ground. In front of the deep and quiet Daoist temple, only a trace of melancholy remained.

Since then, Hu Baosong continued to travel the world. In the middle, he met some confidantes, but he would always take out half a jade ring in the shape of a heart-moon fox in the middle of the night and enjoy it alone.

The jade ring was left by Hu Baosong's mother. It was originally a pair, but the other one was at the Five Elders Temple...

When he was about two hundred years old, Hu Baosong returned to Well-Bottom Street. At this time, his coffin shop had been taken back by the government and rented to others.

Hu Baosong was startled. Ignoring the obstruction of the manager and the clerks, he rushed into the courtyard. Only when he saw that the peach tree was still lush did he breathe a sigh of relief.

After that, Hu Baosong took out the house deed that had been stored for two hundred years, claiming that he was the great-grandson of "Hu Baosong," saying that his ancestors had lived here.

The manager didn't care about these. Now it was the world of the Yong Dynasty. The old house deed from the previous dynasty wouldn't work.

Hu Baosong was silent for a moment and exchanged the house deed for two one-hundred-tael silver banknotes.

That day, the manager drafted a contract with him. After the government came to verify his identity, they brought Hu Baosong the official deed and temporary tooth plate the next day.

With the eloquence of an old fox, combined with the silver money offensive that worked every time, in just two days, Hu Baosong regained his residence.

But when everyone left, he looked at his own courtyard and couldn't help but laugh at himself.

"I returned to my own home, and I actually had to spend money to get in..."

Returning to Linhe, he ran the shop for about two or three years. One day, Hu Baosong was idle, so he went to the Yinhe Ancient Road alone and looked toward the south.

It was also on this day that heavenly fire suddenly descended outside the Ghost King Mausoleum. At this time, the Yang fire sealed the tomb, and all ghosts hid in the tomb, not daring to show their heads.

Hu Baosong had never seen the scene of heavenly fire spreading over the graves. However, just as he was marveling to himself, he saw an old man holding an iron shovel, who seemed to have just finished digging a grave, emerge from the graves that had just been scorched by the heavenly fire.

Seeing that the ghosts were afraid to go out because of the heavenly fire, the old man turned and went deep into the Ghost King Mausoleum, stealing one of the twin coffins stored in the tomb of Princess Yanning, the daughter of the Ghost King.

Hu Baosong looked at the old man running with the coffin on his back and felt inexplicably amused.

That old man was also interesting. After seeing Hu Baosong, he hesitated for a moment, then came to him and greeted him.

"I recognize you. You are Manager Hu of the coffin shop on the street..."

"Oh, you are?" Hu Baosong pretended not to know.

"I am Liu Youdao, met a fellow Daoist."

Both old men were alone and had no relatives. After that meeting at the Yinhe, Liu Youdao often bought wine and looked for Hu Baosong to chat.

As for the things that happened later, Xu Qing didn't need to continue watching, because he saw his own figure in Hu Baosong's memory.

"Is the younger generation here to request a coffin or place an order?"

"Request two coffins, don't need them to be too good, preferably with more space, warm in winter and cool in summer, and good ventilation..."

The revolving lantern ended, and the Scripture of Human Deliverance gave an assessment of the corpse: Earth-grade, high quality. The reward was a coffin that could let the living sleep forever without dying.

The rise and fall of dynasties, the beauty and the bones, the mountains and rivers remain unchanged, but people are all different.

This "Never-Old Coffin" can keep the living's appearance unchanged. When the coffin is opened, the person sleeping will be just like they were in life, and their life span will remain the same.

Xu Qing looked at the coffin carved with longevity patterns in front of him and felt stifled for a long time.

You say this matter is handled, not given early or late, but now that Old Man Hu is gone, it actually gave him such a thing!

This thing is no different from taking off pants to fart for him now.

Xu Qing thought for a while, finally sighed, and properly put the Never-Old Coffin into the Box Garden.

Keep it well for now; maybe it will be useful one day.

After putting away the coffin, Xu Qing looked again at Hu Baosong, who had a smile on his face in the coffin.

"This old man..."

Shaking his head, Xu Qing closed the coffin lid, put on two layers of coffins, and then put it into the Box Garden as well.

Yinhe Ancient Road, graves standing in great numbers.

In an inconspicuous small grave, a young man wearing a wedding dress and a white fur coat walked out of the grave.

Yin wind whistled outside the grave, and Xu Qing took a deep breath of the unique atmosphere of the Yinhe Ancient Road.

Here, it is isolated from the world, with no living breath, only the sleep of the dead.

Ordinary people cannot find the entrance to the Yinhe Ancient Road. If they accidentally enter, it is more difficult to walk out alive than to enter.

Xu Qing knew the danger here, but when he set foot on this land again, his heart was surprisingly stable.

Vaguely, he even had a feeling of returning home.

Xu Qing became vigilant. As the saying goes, a gentle village is a hero's grave. This Yinhe looks like a geomantic treasure land suitable for zombies to retire, but it might be a slaughter trap that has existed for ten thousand years, just waiting for outsiders to be addicted to it and unable to extricate themselves, and then the slaughter knife hidden in the depths will fall.

You must know how many experts throughout history have wanted to open up a road to heaven on the Yinhe Ancient Road, but in the end, didn't they all become wild grass in these graves?

Suppressing the strangeness in his heart, Xu Qing rearranged the small grave in front of him, and then released the paper-doll funeral team.

After doing all this, Xu Qing returned to the unremarkable grave and began to test the distance the paper dolls could be controlled step by step.

In the grave, Xu Qing held the map handed down by Hu Baosong, just like a general manipulating soldiers in a military tent, remotely commanding the paper dolls to carry the coffin deep into the Yinhe Ancient Road.

Occasionally, ghost soldiers patrolling the Ghost King Mausoleum blocked the way. The leading straw spirit didn't force its way through, but scattered paper treasures and Yin wealth along the way as road-buying money.

The ghost soldiers who knew the rules received the benefits and naturally gave way. If they encountered greedy ghosts blocking the way, the thirty-two coffin-guarding straw spirits were not vegetarians either.

But in the end, the funeral team was still on the outskirts of the Yinhe Ancient Road. If they wanted to go deeper, they could only take a detour.

Path-finding paper cranes explored the path in advance, and the paper-doll funeral team carried white paper lanterns, with the words "Yin soldiers escorting the funeral, living people retreat" written on them.

After walking about two hundred miles like this, the connection between Xu Qing and the paper dolls suddenly became weak.

In the grave, Xu Qing looked at the mausoleum sign that was already visible in the distance on the map and frowned slightly.

The Yinhe Ancient Road is like an invisible dry riverbed, running through the north and south of the Great Yong. The location of the Hu-Yang Mausoleum is very close to Jinmen, but even so, there is a distance of nearly five hundred miles.

At the moment, the paper-doll funeral team still had at least half the distance to go to reach the Hu-Yang Mausoleum. That is to say, unless Xu Qing personally arrived at the location where the paper dolls were currently, it would be impossible to control the paper-doll team to reach the Hu-Yang Mausoleum.

After hesitating for a moment, Xu Qing controlled the palm-sized paper cranes to patrol the surroundings again. After confirming that there was no threat around, he controlled the paper tiger to dig a hidden burrow nearby.

After setting up a foothold, Xu Qing walked out of the grave, turned over and mounted the five-flower horse, and traveled along the path opened by the paper dolls. Not long after, he arrived in front of the burrow dug by the paper tiger.

After taking two corpse-nourishing pills and restoring his Yin energy and magic power to their peak state, Xu Qing controlled the funeral team to explore deeper again.

When he was a hundred miles away from the Hu-Yang Mausoleum, Xu Qing suddenly heard the noise of people and horses. Before the paper dolls could retreat, he saw yellow sand rolling in the distance. After the sand fell, dozens of paper lanterns suddenly appeared on the dim Yinhe Ancient Road and rushed straight toward the paper-doll team.

Horse hooves stepped, and the sound of weapons and armor clashing rang out. As the paper lanterns approached, he saw a burly general with a long beard and a broad face come to Xu Qing.

The man scanned the area, but his gaze did not fall on the paper dolls, but looked far to the north, shouting: "I am the Marshal of the Eight Banners, ordered to pursue and suppress the remnants of the Yin-Erosion Dharma King. Who are you, and have you hidden any bandits?"

Xu Qing pondered for a moment, then controlled the paper dolls to scatter paper money. The paper money was like wind-blown leaves, and in an instant, it pieced together a line of handwriting.

"Borrowing the road to escort the funeral, no bandits encountered."

After the person who claimed to be the Marshal of the Eight Banners saw the handwriting, he didn't doubt the truth, reined in his horse, turned around, and shouted to the dozens of cavalry behind him: "The bandit soldiers are not here. Let's go search elsewhere. We must wipe out the bandit soldiers!"

As the words fell, the yellow sand in front of him rolled up again. Within two breaths, the sand and dust blew toward the east.

"These soldiers come and go without a trace; they must also be transformed from non-human things."

Because of this little episode, Xu Qing became more and more careful on the subsequent journey.

Fortunately, the journey was safe and sound. About half an hour later, Xu Qing finally saw the so-called Hu-Yang Mausoleum.

The Hu-Yang Mausoleum is not so much a mausoleum as it is an abandoned ruin like the Qingqiu Cave Heaven.

There are only ruins and desolate graves here. Xu Qing controlled the paper dolls to search for a long time before finding the entrance to the burrow recorded by the Hu-Yang clan.

According to the method Hu Baosong said, Xu Qing controlled the paper dolls to move back and forth along the burrow passage according to a specific path. Gradually, gray-white thick fog began to emerge in the burrow. The paper dolls lifted the white paper lanterns, and one by one, ghostly green fires ignited. After passing through the thick fog, the real tomb of the Hu-Yang clan appeared before Xu Qing's eyes.

The dust in the ancient tomb was heavy, and no one knew how many years it had been since anyone entered. Xu Qing wanted to control the palm-sized paper cranes to fly in and explore, but found that the paper cranes lost contact shortly after flying into the tomb passage.

Xu Qing had no choice but to dig a hole on the spot and bury Hu Baosong's coffin in the outer chamber of the tomb.

Foxes die with their heads toward their home hills. Hu Baosong finally fulfilled his wish.

According to the tomb map instructions of the Hu-Yang Mausoleum, Xu Qing controlled the paper dolls to wander around. During this period, he discovered many murals of the Hu-Yang clan fighting with all kinds of monsters and ghosts on the Yinhe Ancient Road.

Those murals were ancient, with an interval of at least several thousand years.

After leaving the Hu-Yang Mausoleum, Xu Qing controlled the paper dolls to travel north. However, after walking fifty miles away, he bumped into a mass grave.

At the highest point of the grave, there was a main grave with a simple stone tablet on it, with the words "Tomb of Marshal Deng Shan of the Eight Banners" written on it.

"Deng Shan..."

Xu Qing remembered this name.

After passing through the mass grave and traveling no more than two hundred miles, when the paper dolls passed by the burrow where Xu Qing was, they deliberately took a detour of more than ten miles and returned directly to the outskirts of the Ghost King Mausoleum.

After sending the paper dolls to a safe area, Xu Qing walked out of the burrow and mounted the five-flower horse again.

In the yellow sand pile, on the endless desolate grave soil, Xu Qing reined in his horse and looked back at the direction of the Hu-Yang tomb.

Although he is an immortal guest in the world, he cannot bring back the short-lived souls he meets on the way.

In the end, only a few can accompany him to the end.

(End of chapter)