Chapter 101

Li Xiangping sat quietly by the fire. The red firelight reflected on his face, turning it golden-red. His leather clothes were tattered, his expression was weary, and the hair on his legs was slightly curled from the heat, but he stared straight at the taro in the fire pit.

"Great King!"

A Huila still hadn't corrected his way of addressing him, and even led a group of Shanyue to influence Li Qiuyang and Chen Donghe, howling and calling him Great King.

"That Mu Jiaoman went to Witch Mountain. I wonder what he's planning!"

The leather armor on Chen Donghe's arm was broken, revealing a deep red wound. He was covered in mud and black blood, holding a map and thinking, tracing the routes and patterns on the map with his finger, his expression solemn as he said:

"Great King, you must be careful!"

"Well said!"

Li Xiangping laughed, silently gripping the translucent pearl at his waist, thinking to himself:

"He's likely gone to invite a Foundation Establishment cultivator. We can't drag this out any longer. I must get this thing home as soon as possible."

Li Xiangping had fought all the way to the far west. From the altar of a great clan, he had seen this transparent pearl. The Profound Pearl Talisman Seed in his Dantian acupoint jumped inexplicably, and he immediately understood that this item likely had an inseparable connection with his family's Dharma Mirror, so he took this pearl and kept it with him at all times.

Looking at the solemn Chen Donghe, Li Xiangping decided to tease him. He raised his head to look at him and said with a smile:

"Hey, He'er, do you fancy my Jingtian? Do you want me to go propose for you?"

Chen Donghe's handsome face turned red instantly. He lowered his head to look at his toes and didn't speak. Li Qiuyang, on the side, held his stomach and laughed heartily. Chen Donghe was so angry he kicked him, not daring to look at Li Xiangping.

Li Xiangping also shook his head happily and said with a smile:

"If Jingtian is willing, I naturally have no objections! But my Jingtian must be the primary wife!"

Hearing this, Chen Donghe felt a burning sensation on his face. He didn't know where to put his hands and feet, and stammered:

"I... I... will absolutely... not let Jingtian down..."

Everyone naturally burst into laughter, making Chen Donghe wish he could crawl into the ground. A Huila laughed until he coughed, cursing:

"We Shanyue just snatch them back to be our wives if we fancy them. We don't care about your mortal ways."

"Want to try?"

Li Xiangping raised his eyebrows and smiled, scaring A Huila into begging for mercy. Chen Donghe smiled lightly, finally jumping out of his embarrassment.

Li Qiuyang, beside him, was cautiously looking around, guarding against the eagle eyes in the sky. The look in his eyes as he lowered his head to look at Li Xiangping was filled with deep reverence.

Li Xiangping had led them out of too many desperate situations and brought them incredible victories. Just as the Shanyue believed Ga Nixi was the Son of Heaven's Mandate, the tribal soldiers following Li Xiangping also believed their family head was invincible.

Everyone's eyes were focused on Li Xiangping, but he suddenly put down the taro in his hand and froze in a daze.

The Talisman Qi of Avoiding Death and Prolonging Life, which had countless times flashed in his mind the direction of crises and risks, suddenly shone brightly. A strong sense of danger emerged. Li Xiangping vaguely saw himself kneeling on the ground, vomiting blood, surrounded by cries for help and weeping.

"I am going to die. There is no way to avoid it, no way to prolong it."

A chilling coldness rushed from his spine to the top of his head. Li Xiangping muttered, snatched the map from Chen Donghe's hand, picked up a still-hot piece of charcoal from the pit, closed his eyes to ponder for a breath, and drew on the map.

"Great King!"

Chen Donghe was shocked and didn't know what to do, only hurriedly kneeling on the ground, looking at him with worry.

After Li Xiangping finished drawing, he stuffed a translucent pearl into his arms and said in a deep, urgent voice:

"After I die, Mu Jiaoman will definitely return for reinforcements. You all follow this road to return home to the east!"

Before Chen Donghe could speak, he saw Li Xiangping gritting his teeth and saying in a low voice:

"No matter what, you must deliver this pearl to Li Tongya!"

"Everyone!"

Li Xiangping stood up, ignoring Chen Donghe who was still dazed, and said loudly:

"After I die, you all follow Donghe to return east. Do not linger here..."

Li Qiuyang and the others were at a loss, but saw Li Xiangping's voice getting quieter and quieter, sitting softly on the ground, and hurriedly said:

"Great King!"

"Family Head!"

That gap sparked and landed right in his heart, burning him until his mouth was crooked and his eyes were blind. He had once used fire to roast the fat-as-a-pig tribal chief of the Shanyue tribe to death alive. Now, this kind of pain extended equally to himself.

"Great King!"

The world in Li Xiangping's eyes had already turned black. He couldn't see anything, only feeling someone throw themselves onto him, and hot tears falling on his face. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly, and he used his remaining strength to let out a low laugh:

"What a low-level method!"

Li Xiangping's long hair scattered, revealing sparse white hair. He had lived to the age where ordinary farmers would be dandling their grandchildren. In his life, he had never suffered any great grievances. Now, the only thing he couldn't let go of was the Li family, surviving in the cracks of many forces.

Dense black Qi emerged from the void, melting his gray-black eyes and causing his body to wither. Li Xiangping spat out a mouthful of black blood from his throat and said hoarsely:

"In this life, I've already lived enough!"

Many images flashed through his mind like lightning, finally slowly freezing on a winding river. A young boy had finished catching a green fish, suspiciously held up a tattered green-gray mirror, and the morning sun shone on his face, his smile brilliant.

The black Qi came fast and went fast, shriveling Li Xiangping's body. Just as it was about to escape back into the void, it saw gray light emerge from Li Xiangping's Rising Sun Mansion.

The black Qi paused, then poured into Li Xiangping's Rising Sun Mansion, throwing itself into that Talisman Qi like a starving ghost seeing a feast, and disappeared completely.

Only Li Xiangping's withered corpse remained kneeling on the ground. Pale white light emerged from his Dantian acupoint and gently escaped into the void. The people below were crying and screaming. A Huila shouted with his eyes splitting:

"Curse spell, it's a killing curse! Mu Jiaoman, you villain!"

"Family Head!"

Chen Donghe knelt before Li Xiangping, his face covered in tears. He lowered his head and cried for a while, his fists squeezing out blood. His ears were filled with sobbing. Li Qiuyang's eyes were slightly red as he walked over staggeringly.

"Buzz buzz buzz..."

Suddenly hearing a noisy buzzing sound of wings flapping, Chen Donghe froze, stopped his crying, moved a few steps on his knees with a sorrowful face, and leaned his ear against Li Xiangping's body to listen.

"Everyone be quiet!"

Chen Donghe frowned and shouted. The crowd's voices immediately quieted down. Seeing him listen to Li Xiangping's corpse for a while, he carefully laid him down.

Chen Donghe's trembling fingers slowly rested on Li Xiangping's pale-white corners of his mouth. He pursed his lips and applied light pressure. Suddenly, the noisy flapping sound grew louder. A Huila and Li Qiuyang on the sides looked stern and also lowered their heads to kneel and check.

"Buzz..."

Chen Donghe applied pressure, and a gray-black locust suddenly jumped out of Li Xiangping's mouth. It was covered in barbs, the patterns on its thin wings were like leaves. It hopped on Chen Donghe's hand for a while, flapped its wings, and flew away.

"This..."

"Locusts! So many locusts!"

The people below shouted. Before they could react, hundreds and thousands of gray-black locusts emerged from under Li Xiangping's corpse, buzzing and rising into the sky like a black storm, bumping around aimlessly, bumping into the few of them until they were in pain, forcing them to retreat repeatedly.

"Donghe... this..."

A Huila said in a daze. Chen Donghe retreated a few steps, his face still covered in tears. He carried Li Xiangping's Green Crow Bow on his back and looked at the corpse that had disappeared.

The locusts in the sky rose slowly. Chen Donghe gritted his teeth and said:

"Go! Don't let them catch you!"

————

Mount Lijing.

"Sigh."

A white pill flashing with white light suddenly emerged from the void and threw itself into the green-gray mirror on the stone platform, stirring up a burst of pale white moon radiance. A faint sigh sounded in the courtyard.

"Li Xiangping, you've been picking me up for twenty-five or twenty-six years..."

The child who caught fish back then was still vivid in his mind, but Li Xiangping in the west had already fallen. Lu Jiangxian's emotions were somewhat complex. When the words reached his lips, he didn't know what to say.

Lu Jiangxian felt his spiritual sense and magic power rising continuously. The information recorded in the Profound Pearl Talisman Seed slowly flowed into the mirror. Li Xiangping died because of a curse spell, and his cultivation was at the peak of Embryonic Breath, but the magic power surging from the Profound Pearl Talisman Seed greatly exceeded Lu Jiangxian's expectations.

"The feedback of the Profound Pearl Talisman Seed seems to be related not only to cultivation but also to ethereal things like Qi luck and incense. He snatched Ga Nixi's Qi luck and snatched the Shanyue's incense."

Lu Jiangxian's mirror surface was colorful, and the Taiyin Profound Light also wandered on the mirror body. Its power could already kill peak-stage Qi Refining cultivators. The increase in the magic power limit allowed him to release five Taiyin Profound Lights in a row. If he encountered a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he could also block it, though he would need three days to recover afterward.

"The black Qi of that curse spell was originally a type of magic technique transformed from Talisman Qi. It was swallowed in one gulp by the Talisman Qi in Li Xiangping's body. I wonder what kind of mutation occurred."

"That pearl, though."

Outside the courtyard

Li Tongya was explaining sword techniques to Li Xuanling in the courtyard when his heart suddenly trembled, and he stopped his movements abruptly.

"Father, what's wrong?"

Li Tongya frowned, feeling somewhat uneasy. He waved his hand and said in a low voice:

"It's nothing."

But he thought to himself:

"The array on Mount Lijing still needs to be set up sooner. Without an array to rely on, my heart always feels empty."

"Clang!"

There was an explosive sound on the window, causing Li Tongya and Li Xuanling to turn their heads to look.

Li Xuanling walked over cautiously, opened the window, and saw a thin, gray-black locust that had crashed to death on it. Its upper body was smashed to pieces, sticking to the window. He picked it off suspiciously and turned to look at his father.

Li Tongya's spiritual sense had already seen it clearly. He felt inexplicably sad and took the locust to look at it carefully.

"Huh."

Under the scan of Li Tongya's spiritual sense, he saw that there was not a trace of monster Qi on this locust, but rather a faint sense of familiarity.

"I'll go into the mountains tomorrow to inquire about Xiangping's whereabouts."

He shook his head, threw this thought to the back of his mind, waved his hand to throw it out the window, and said softly:

"Don't be distracted. Read this 'Profound Water Sword Technique' carefully."

But then he heard a burst of noise. Li Xuanxuan walked in happily, holding a swaddled infant, and said in a low voice:

"Uncle!"

Li Tongya raised his eyebrows, his face also showing a bit of joy, and asked:

"The child is born? Is it a boy or a girl?"

Li Xuanxuan had married a woman of another surname with spiritual apertures the year before last. That woman's talent was not high, and she was only at the first level of Embryonic Breath, the Xuanjing Wheel, to this day. Li Xiangping had also pointed out several mortal women with good looks to be his concubines. Now, this was the first direct descendant.

"It's a boy!"

The smile on Li Xuanxuan's face couldn't be hidden. He tightened his hold on the child, and Li Tongya smiled:

"This is the first third-generation descendant of our Li family. Have you thought of a name?"

"According to the generation, it should be Yuan!"

Li Xuanxuan laughed heartily, mumbled to the child for a while, and replied:

"Let's call him Li Yuanxiu."

"Li Yuanxiu..."

Li Tongya nodded and smiled, looked at the child, and said silently:

"Not bad, not bad."

"How many children have your concubines given birth to?"

Seeing Li Tongya suddenly speak, Li Xuanxuan raised his head and replied:

"One son and one daughter, but they are only three or five years old."

Li Tongya was thoughtful and said in a deep voice:

"From now on, for the direct line of the Li family's main branch, if a child of a concubine has no spiritual apertures, the branch will be demoted to a minor branch. Those with spiritual apertures will be returned to the main branch along with the direct descendants. If a minor branch has no spiritual apertures for three generations, they will be demoted to a collateral branch. If they have spiritual apertures, they will return to recognize their ancestors and become the main branch."

Li Xuanxuan was stunned, then nodded, puzzled:

"The Ye family now has over two thousand people. If those with spiritual apertures are returned to the collateral branch, how should they be handled?"

"Stop at the minor branch."

Li Tongya pondered for a few breaths and replied.

Li Qiuyang was now a collateral branch of the Li family. If the direct descendant he gave birth to had spiritual apertures, he could be returned to the minor branch. If he gave birth to a direct grandson with spiritual apertures, he could not be returned to the main branch.

"This ensures that everyone in the main branch is from Grandfather's line..."

Li Xuanxuan nodded. Seeing Li Tongya's uneasy expression, he said:

"Uncle, why is this?"

Li Tongya opened his mouth, his expression somewhat weary, and said in a deep voice:

"I am still worried about Xiangping. I will take advantage of the night to go to the west. You all watch the house."

(End of chapter)