Chapter 836

The reeds of Blue Duckweed Marsh turned iron-gray in the dusk; as Jian Fan's bare feet stepped over the marsh, the water surface didn't even ripple. The bronze bell hanging at her waist was stuffed with Kunlun cotton.

This was a little trick used by the ancient Calling Deer tribe to guard against hunters; now it is used to evade the Mystic Gate's Listening Wind and Discerning Qi Technique.

"Xu hour three quarters, Mystic Wind Dao." She lowered her head to examine the golden threads of fortune wrapped around her wrist; these fate threads gathered from all over were pointing northeast. Her fingertip lightly brushed the scale-like faint gold pattern under her left eye—this is the 'Heaven's Disdain Mark' left from over-devouring fortune, and also the price she has paid for living so many years.

At the edge of the marsh a transparent barrier suddenly appeared, with Xun trigram symbols flowing across the water curtain. Jian Fan took a bone hairpin from her hair; its tip was carved with a deer head entwined by thorns.

When the hairpin tip pierced the water curtain, those symbols suddenly twisted into the shape of panicked, fleeing little snakes.

"As expected, the boundary-breaking hairpin made by the ancient sages is still the most effective." A sneering arc curled her lips, and her figure merged into the strange fragrance beyond the water curtain.

In the Hall of Mortal Smoke, twelve white-clad cultivators sat cross-legged on platforms shaped like mulberry leaves atop a nine-zhang-tall bronze ancient tree.

Above their heads, the golden threads of fortune resembled early spring willow shoots, so tender they were almost translucent.

Jian Fan crouched in the tree's shadow; beneath her bronze mask, her pupils dilated slightly, and she could see strange red threads writhing at each cultivator's throat.

"Begin." The Sect Master of Mystic Wind Dao on the high platform waved his horsetail whisk, and twelve bronze lamps suddenly ignited with bluish-purple flames. Jian Fan's nails unconsciously dug into her palms—these were the 'Soul-Drawing Lamps' made from powdered Calling Deer horn; in ancient times, her tribe's essences had been burned away by this very flame.

When the first cultivator began to twitch, Jian Fan's eardrums caught the tense ringing of the fortune's golden threads. Those golden strands were being contaminated by the red threads inside the elixir, like a drop of blood falling into clear water.

She counted the intervals of the cultivators' spasms, and leapt onto the Foundation Establishment platform at the moment the seventh cultivator let out an anguished scream.

"Where did this monster come from!" The Sect Master of Mystic Wind Dao's horsetail whisk flung out three thousand silver threads, but only snipped off a dead branch. Jian Fan's true form had already appeared behind the youngest cultivator, her right hand pressing on his crown. The cultivator suddenly widened his eyes, his pupils reflecting a bronze-colored giant deer with nine antlers.

Surging fortune flowed through his meridians into his body, and the deer-shaped mark on Jian Fan's nape began to heat up. She saw fragments of this cultivator's memories: at six years old he was sent to the Hall of Mortal Smoke to test medicines, his back branded with the number 'Xun Thirty-Seven'; last month he personally shoved a fellow disciple who refused to take the medicine into the Bone-Dissolving Pool...

"I see." When Jian Fan loosened her grip, that cultivator had already turned into a desiccated corpse. The golden threads of fortune on the heads of the other eleven cultivators suddenly surged, stabbing at this intruder like a disturbed swarm of bees. She gave a light laugh, and the black fissure carved by her bronze ancient sword devoured the golden threads whole; faint distant deer calls echoed from within the crack.

"How dare you intrude into the Mystic Wind Dao's Hall of Mortal Smoke, thief—pay with your life!"

The Sect Master of Mystic Wind Dao finally unleashed his natal Accumulation Device—a copper mirror engraved with the Entrapping Beast Formation. The moment its light shone on Jian Fan's mask, the bronze surface suddenly sprouted dense cracks. The Sect Master stared in horror as the mirror reflected not a human face, but a giant deer head crowned with stars and moons.

"You... impossible!" His exclamation was cut off by the ancient sword. Jian Fan caught the falling copper mirror and saw the tiny inscription on its back: "In the third year of Shengqi, they obtained one female Calling Deer, took its horns to make three hundred mirrors, and bestowed them upon the eight Dao."

The marsh suddenly shuddered violently, and the Foundation Establishment platform began to tilt. As Jian Fan leapt into the air, she caught a glimpse of Chu Shanhe's reflection in the shards of the copper mirror. The Sect Master of the Mystic Gate was standing before a star chart, performing divinations, with a lamp stand carved from deer horn beside him.

"I found you." She crushed the last shard of the mirror, and the waters of Blue Duckweed Marsh suddenly surged entirely into the earthen fissure. When the distress flares of Mystic Wind Dao rose, Jian Fan was already standing on a cliff a hundred li away, her fingertips entwined with twelve blood-stained threads of fortune.

The night wind blew away the ribbon binding her hair, revealing the glowing deer-shaped mark on her nape. Around it appeared ancient incantations—the very passage Chu Shanhe had been divining on his star chart. Jian Fan suddenly broke into a violent cough, spitting out blood beads wrapped in fine golden star dust—the backlash from over-devouring fortune.

She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and took from her sleeve a tortoise shell etched with runes. This was a sage's relic unearthed last month in the Kan Dao region; the back of the shell recorded the eye of the Eight Dao Lock-Soul Grand Formation. When her fingertip brushed over the two characters 'Xun', the shell suddenly grew hot, projecting a topographic map of Blue Duckweed Marsh.

"So the formation's eye lies beneath the Foundation Establishment platform..." Jian Fan narrowed her eyes; the distress flares of the Mystic Wind Dao observatory happened to illuminate the cracks on her mask. Those cracks formed a strange smile, exactly matching the expression carved into the deer head on Chu Shanhe's lamp stand.

From deep within the marsh came a dull thud, as if some colossal thing were stirring awake. Jian Fan untied the jade slip from her waist and carved a thirty-seventh vertical mark upon it. On the back of the slip appeared a fuzzy map; of the eight points of light, three had already turned dark red.

When the final stroke was finished, she suddenly turned her head westward. The night sky there showed an abnormal distortion, as if someone were stargazing through a water curtain. Jian Fan swiftly formed seals, and twelve bronze phantom mirrors appeared around her—this was the ability she had just gained from devouring the Sect Master of Mystic Wind Dao.

In the phantom mirrors appeared Chu Shanhe's shocked face; the star chart in his hand was cracking. At the instant they locked gazes across the distance, Jian Fan deliberately let her mask slip halfway, revealing the scale-like golden patterns on her jaw.

"Calling Deer..." Chu Shanhe's voice came through the mirror, but Jian Fan sliced it apart with a single sword. She replaced her mask, discovering a mulberry leaf stuck to the back of her hand—coming from that bronze ancient tree in the Hall of Mortal Smoke. On the leaf's reverse side, written in blood, were the tiny words: "The recipe for the Human Origin Pill lies at the Departing Dao Hall of Mortal Smoke."

Jian Fan crushed the mulberry leaf and suddenly laughed aloud. For the first time in three thousand years, she felt the threads of fate weaving themselves according to her will. As night mist drifted over the cliff, her form turned into streaming light heading toward the Departing Dao region, her bronze ancient sword carving a lingering black trail behind her.

The Myriad Dao Mountain Range, within the Mystic Gate.

Chu Shanhe drew a deep breath, about to move, when he saw a figure standing in the doorway.

"Is it you?!"

The disheveled daoist shook his head: "The time has come."

Chu Shanhe's expression shifted, and he hastily rose, clasping his hands: "True Daoist, you have struggled to suppress mortal fortune with the aid of the Hall of Mortal Smoke—are you really just going to stand by and watch..."

"This is what I owe her." The disheveled daoist waved his hand, then suddenly began to sing a mad, theatrical tune, making Chu Shanhe's head throb.

Are you really going to just sit by and watch the Hall of Mortal Smoke be destroyed in an instant?

Chu Shanhe felt torn inside, yet upon seeing the mad daoist at the doorway, he dared not step a single foot out of the main gate.

Perhaps even all the Great Vehicle Stage cultivators of the Nan Ting Mountain Region, and those two sages as well, have been warned by him.

What on earth does the True Daoist intend to do?