Chapter 621: If Man Is Not Burdened by Form

Gently clutching the sheepskin scroll, Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi was in high spirits; if he had a choice, he would not want to fight with those Xuanjing Daozi for the chance to slay the Blood Phoenix.

'I hope the ritual on this sheepskin scroll is not too perilous...'

Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi glanced at the old man who had withdrawn from the small courtyard, felt satisfied, and then slowly unrolled the sheepskin scroll, only to find that before he could examine it closely, a wisp of pale white flame suddenly surged upward.

Boom!

A thunderclap exploded from the flat ground.

The old man outside the courtyard's pupils contracted; he suddenly reached out and grabbed Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi out. In the next instant, accompanied by a deafening roar, the entire small courtyard was instantly swallowed by raging flames.

A terrifying shockwave suddenly expanded, causing the entire isolated peak to tremble, with countless rocks and earth flying everywhere.

Boom!

At the moment the pale white divine fire shot up to the sky, Li Yuan also felt his vision go black; immediately after, in his perception, the light and shadow before his eyes shifted and flowed, then shattered with a crash.

"No!"

At the moment he was pulled back by an invisible strange force, Li Yuan heard a shout of shock and rage; the last thing he saw was Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi, his eyes spitting fire, furious to the extreme.

The roar dissipated, the light and shadow shattered...

It seemed to last less than one-thousandth of an instant; Li Yuan felt a moment of daze, and when he came to his senses again, he was already back on the gray stone platform, with a wisp of pale white halo glowing on the Listening Sound Wood Talisman before him.

"Truly, read and then burn..."

Li Yuan's body shivered; at the moment the sheepskin scroll burned, he had the illusion of being ignited himself, even feeling the stinging pain of being scorched.

"It's not an illusion!"

Li Yuan suddenly came to his senses, his spirit shaking violently.

Hanging conspicuously above the wooden talisman was a ball of pale white divine fire; its light was faint, yet more conspicuous than any light on the gray stone platform.

This ball of fire actually followed him here!

"So ruthless..."

Li Yuan's eyelids twitched wildly, filled with immense fear.

The flame unleashed by that sheepskin scroll was far more dangerous than he had imagined; if not for everything on the gray stone platform being frozen in stillness, he would likely have been burned to death on the spot by this flame that followed him like a shadow!

Whoosh~

While Li Yuan's soul was still unsettled, a dull and rigid voice came from the wooden talisman:

【It is said that among the various realms, there exist powers far more ancient than the Origin Divine Dynasty. Many years ago, a ritual suspected to belong to the ancient power 'Shi Huang Tian' spread throughout the San Yuan Realm, inciting countless heroes and prodigies to compete for it...】

【The You Jing is perilous; even gods cannot escape being invaded and driven mad, losing themselves. Gods who lose themselves are called Evil Gods, and all races unite to destroy them...】

【Under the will of the Xuanjing Daozi from various sects and schools, scholars in the San Yuan Realm, and even many neighboring realms, have delved into the You Jing to search for and track the traces of the Evil God 'Blood Phoenix'...】

【The Tianli Sect was among them. One of its Xuanjing Daozi, Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi, rode a Purple Cloud Carriage, entering and exiting the You Jing hundreds of times, searching for the Blood Phoenix for decades...】

【... Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi dispatched a 'Dao Protector' to a treacherous location within the You Jing... It is said that the master of that treacherous place is suspected to be related to those ancient powers...】

【The No-Birth Sheep, a strange and eerie beast born within the You Jing, neither alive nor dead...】

【Where human effort is finite, but the search for the infinite of heaven and earth is endless, that is the Tianli Sect. Its supreme powerhouses possess the ability to merge with the Heart of Heaven and search the ten thousand directions of the universe...】

【... It is said among the Human Race that entering the Dao and attaining truth grants five hundred years of life; uniting the Three Origins grants a thousand years; gods remain immortal for ten thousand years. Yet even for a Divine Emperor, lifespan has its limits; only by relying on incense offerings to Dun Ru You Jing can one exist eternally...】

【However, the You Jing is perilous; dwelling there for too long inevitably leads to losing oneself...】

【It is said that hidden within those ancient cave heavens that have vanished from the world lie great secrets of immortality...】

This time, the knowledge gained from listening to the Heavenly Sound was far greater than any previous time!

The characters on the wooden talisman flowed like a waterfall; at first, Li Yuan silently recited and chewed on every word, but later, he could only scan them quickly, committing them to memory first.

Ancient powers, Shi Huang Tian, Sacred Sects, Xuanjing Daozi and Divine Sons, Tianli Sect, Shan Xuan You Men...

There was so much information that Li Yuan took a long time to digest it all.

【... Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi was extremely shocked and enraged; he rode the Purple Cloud Carriage to Dun Ru Xu Kong, while his Dao Protector used Gu Gu Shentong to search the four directions of the void, with killing intent surging...】

"... That sheepskin scroll actually included even me while I was in the Listening Sound state."

Glancing at the ball of pale white fire above the wooden talisman with full apprehension, Li Yuan shifted his gaze to the very bottom of the talisman; that was the greatest harvest of this Listening Sound session.

A ritual suspected to belong to some ancient sect...

【If man is not burdened by form】

"And then?"

The flowing characters and voice on the wooden talisman vanished; Li Yuan was stunned for a moment, flipping through it up and down:

"That's it?!"

Truly just one sentence!

Li Yuan flipped through it back and forth for a long time; his suspended heart finally died. Just like the sheepskin scroll, the only thing on the wooden talisman regarding that ritual was this one sentence.

"If man is not burdened by form, what form is 'form'? Changing form? Transforming form? Or what form..."

Li Yuan was speechless in his heart; his disgust for riddle-solvers climbed to a new height, but he had no choice but to calm his mind and digest what he had gained from this Listening of the Heavenly Sound.

In fact, apart from this ritual consisting of only one sentence, there were also some gains from this Listening of the Heavenly Sound, which could be considered satisfactory.

After a long time, Li Yuan had digested what he gained from the Listening Sound and looked at the pale white divine fire on the wooden talisman: "It cannot be said to be just one sentence; this ball of fire must be related to that ritual!"

Daoist Li was very certain.

Regarding various rituals, he also had a certain understanding.

Regardless of what ritual or sacrifice, fundamentally, it is a method of communicating with some existence using divine patterns as a medium and the You Jing as an intermediary; the Offering is the price of the communication medium and the thing used to please that existence.

In other words, a sacrifice must have an Offering!

"How is this fire used? Don't tell me it intends to burn me as an Offering?"

Li Yuan's thoughts wandered for a long time without yielding any leads; the excitement of learning about the ancient faction's ritual gradually cooled. He exited the Soldier-controlling Space and took out the Tongji Orb. After a thorough search, he found quite a bit of intelligence related to that Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi and the Tianli Sect.

The Tianli Sect is one of the three great Holy Lands of the 'Tianfang Realm'; it venerates the 'God of Heavenly Reason.' In both status and strength, it slightly surpasses the five great Grotto-heavens of Tian Shi Yuan.

Shan Xuan Xuanjing Daozi is one of the nine contemporary Xuanjing Daozi of the Tianli Sect, a peerless prodigy with hopes of contending for the position of Holy Son. And the people he mentioned—'Ying Ying Shan Xuan Long,' 'Fa Huan Fa Huan Yi Tong,' 'Feng Feng Wu Ding,' 'Phoenix-er,' and so on—are all without exception outstanding figures of the caliber of Holy Land Xuanjing Daozi or great clan heirs.

Some of these Xuanjing Daozi came to slay the Evil God Blood Phoenix, while others came to hunt prodigies of rival sects.

The moment Li Yuan searched, he turned up a great heap of love and hatred, all manner of twists and turns—more spectacular than any storyteller's novel.

"Shihuang Heaven."

【Based on the All-Realm Tongji Laws, certain search results are not displayed】

"……"

After tossing and turning for quite a while, Li Yuan gave up helplessly. As for thoroughly searching 'if a man is not burdened by form,' he hadn't even considered it.

Toward the Tongji Orb, he always kept a measure of wariness; truly important things, he would never expose even a trace of.

!

"This ball of fire…"

Li Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly; he could sense the pallid divine fire on the gray stone platform, and merely a slight sensation made his heart palpitate.

He had a strong premonition that the moment this fire left the gray stone platform, it would instantly set him ablaze.

"This fire must be the key to this so-called ritual, but it's far too dangerous."

Li Yuan had not the slightest intention of drawing fire upon himself. His thoughts shifted, and already fell upon the silent bronze coffin not far from the wooden tally.

"Should I go ask that noble person again?"

The notion turned over in his mind, and Li Yuan gave up on it. From their last exchange, he felt his judgment of this person had been somewhat off, and for now he did not wish to disturb them too much.

To converse with such a favored son of heaven, one needs chips to bargain with—at the very least, one must first break through the first heaven of the Zang Guan Mi Jing, right?

"A law-ring expert at the Origin Divine Son level…"

Recalling the scene of his crushing defeat last time, Daoist Li genuinely felt the difficulty. Since proudly receiving the tally from the heavens, this was the first time he had found himself so stymied at every step.

Eight Directions Temple, Zang Guan Mi Jing…

Not a single path could be pushed forward.

"Is this a bottleneck?"

His thoughts wandered until his spirit grew somewhat weary. Li Yuan put away the Tongji Orb, stood up, took a stance, and slowly began pushing the Dragon-Tiger Grand Stake.

His irritable mood instantly settled.

……

……

The sky brightened; the sun rose in the east.

Before the mountain gate of Sishan, a number of menial disciples were sweeping away accumulated snow and broken ice, their gazes occasionally drifting to the wooden-faced Xin Xin Wenhua beneath the memorial archway.

"He's here."

At a certain moment, Xin Xin Wenhua's heart stirred; he looked up and saw a man in a crimson great robe, shaped like a youth, striding forward.

"Greetings, Dao Master Fang."

Xin Xin Wenhua cupped his hands in salute.

"Mm?"

Fang Fang Sanyun's gaze was crimson, his voice cold and hard: "Sishan sent only you to greet this old man?"

"……"

Xin Xin Wenhua inwardly groaned, but did not dare show it on his face, only growing more deferential: "Reporting to Dao Master Fang, our Dao Master left the mountain several days ago and has not yet returned. It is truly not a slight…"

"Not yet returned? I'm afraid he simply doesn't dare to face this old man, yes?"

Fang Fang Sanyun gave a cold laugh, too lazy to make things difficult for this junior, and flung his sleeve: "Where is Li Yuan? Bring him to see this old man!"

"Reporting, Senior, Junior-brother Li is hosting a banquet in the mountain and awaits your arrival."

Xin Xin Wenhua kept his head slightly lowered.

"Heh~"

The corner of Fang Fang Sanyun's mouth twitched; he flung his sleeve and strode off. How swift were his legs—even without activating his Spirit Phase, he was no comparison for Xin Xin Wenhua. The latter only felt his vision blur, and that crimson robe was already gone.

Whoosh!

A gale howled, blowing the courtyard gate open.

Fang Fang Sanyun strode through the gate, swept a glance, and saw that surnamed-Li lad busy in the kitchen, smoke rising from the stove, with the faint aroma of wine and meat.

"Senior Fang."

Hearing the sound, Li Yuan came out carrying a spiritual fish and smilingly invited him inside.

"You…"

Looking at the all-smiles Li Yuan, Fang Fang Sanyun, who had intended to make trouble, felt his very face twitch.

"You've come in such haste that many things had no time to be prepared; I hope Senior will forgive any lack in hospitality."

Li Yuan's manners were thorough, his attitude very low-key.

Fang Fang Sanyun's lips moved, but he was forcibly dragged inside by Li Yuan.

The main hall held a great table, laden with all manner of delicacies—two or three dozen varieties of spiritual fish and spiritual beasts alone, and several jars of fine spiritual wine.

"None of that!"

Fang Fang Sanyun's eyelid twitched; ignoring Li Yuan's overtures, he produced a small crimson seal with a flip of his hand.

"The Huo San Mei Yin is here. How do you plan to take it?"

(End of this chapter)