Chapter 329: Accident |
Liu Xiaolou didn't know a thing about Golden Serpent Gu technique, but he was curious about how she'd fused phantoms with flames. If he could figure out that trick. If he could actually learn how to bind a phantom to fire, wouldn't that mean he could do the same with his leopard phantom? And if he pulled that off, wouldn't the leopard phantom finally gain a solid, physical form?
He only hesitated for a split second before agreeing to Shaman Xia's request. After all, she'd only seen him use the bone flute to seize souls. She hadn't witnessed the full set of secret techniques for snatching, nurturing, and strengthening souls. What she was asking for was just the soul-seizing part, so trading it away wasn't a bad deal at all.
Since Shaman Xia was the one who made the proposal, she naturally began teaching first.
“My Golden Serpent Gu is metal born within fire. Fire tempers metal. Metal shapes the soul. When metal and fire work together, the phantom takes form within a vessel. One breath as the foundation, held and contained from all directions…”
Golden Serpent Gu technique place the greatest importance on fire. The fire pit in Shaman Xia’s wooden tower looked ordinary at a glance, but in truth it had been taken from a bolt of heavenly lightning thirty-eight years ago. That was why it was so lively and responsive.
“Tempering metal with fire” did not mean literally smelting metal. It meant refining the hidden metal essence concealed within the flames, then shaping it into a vessel capable of holding a phantom . Only a vessel forged this way could truly merge with fire, allowing metal and flame to support and strengthen each other.
There isn’t much theory behind Gu techniques. What matters most is hands-on practice. Whether you fully understand it or not doesn’t really matter. You just follow the steps and do it. So teaching it isn’t hard. What’s hard is keeping at it and raising the Gu over the long haul.
Once she finished explaining, Liu Xiaolou taught her the Soul-Seizing Melody from the Secret Methods of Serpent Gu
How to craft the instrument used to summon souls. How to play the melody. How to draw a soul out of a body, and so on. Again, there was no grand logic to explain. It was simply a method, nothing more.
The night passed like this. By the next afternoon, most of Feng Yuanfa’s injuries had healed, and what remained was just a matter of time. Shaman Qiu brought him back to the wooden tower. The moment she saw Liu Xiaolou, she asked, “Fellow Daoist Li Mu, how did it go?”
Shaman Xia, standing to the side, said calmly, “I lost. From now on, I’ll follow Qingyuan Mountain’s orders.”
Liu Xiaolou cupped his hands in greeting. “I only won by the slimmest margin, really. If Brother Feng hadn’t worn down Shaman Xia’s power beforehand, I might not have even managed that much.”
Feng Yuanfa already knew that Shaman Xia had conceded the day before, but he’d been too focused on healing to get the full story. Now that he heard the details, he let out a long breath of relief. He was overjoyed, and also grateful that Liu Xiaolou had spared his pride. He immediately returned the gesture. “This is all thanks to you, Daoist Friend.”
At that point, Shaman Xia also told them about something that had happened a few days earlier. An executive from the Maling Sect had arrived in South Water. “It was Ma Kunpeng, an inner-sect steward. He didn’t demand that we obey orders the way your Qingyuan Sect did. He only asked whether any Qingyuan Sect disciples had shown up nearby, and then he left.”
“I’ve heard of that steward,” Feng Yuanfa said. “But what he’s really up to is hard to judge.”
Liu Xiaolou advised them, “No matter what, it would be best for Shaman Xia to lie low for a while. Ideally, you should move the villagers out and come back in three to five months. Otherwise, if real trouble comes, there won’t even be time to run.”
Shaman Xia shook her head. “Thank you for the concern, but our Yao village has stood here for a thousand years. Generation after generation have been born and raised on this land. King Pan will surely protect his people. And now we have the protection of the Qingyuan Sect too. The immortal masters of Qingyuan Mountain surely wouldn't just stand by and watch our village fall into ruin, would they?"
Feng Yuanfa waved his hands widely. "Of course, no need to worry, Shaman Xia. The second you get any news, just send someone to let me know; I'll be right over there on Yunmen Mountain!"
Shaman Xia asked, “Immortal Master Feng, you’re stationed at Yunmen Mountain? Does that mean the other immortal masters of the Qingyuan Sect will be arriving soon?”
Feng Yuanfa smiled. “In any case, don’t worry. We won’t let the Maling bandits push your Yao village around.”
After taking their leave of the South Water Yao village, Feng Yuanfa led his group back toward Yunmen Mountain. Before they had even gone far, he could no longer wait. He wrote a letter on the spot and had an outer-sect disciple of the Qingyuan Sect hurry back to deliver the news. At the same time, he said to Liu Xiaolou, “The Maling bandits are almost certainly planning to make a move around the South Water area. Otherwise, Ma Kunpeng wouldn’t have come to the village himself. That man holds a fairly high position in Maling Mountain. He’s known for being capable and getting things done, one of their core stewards. His cultivation isn’t strong, limited by his natural talent, but he’s extremely important when it comes to managing affairs. You should know that Maling Mountain even spent two Foundation Establishment pills on him, but he failed both attempts. The fact that he came here at all means Maling Mountain has already set its sights on South Water.”
“So what do we do next?” asked Liu Xiaolou.
“What else is there to do?” Feng Yuanfa said. “We search everywhere for news and do everything we can to track down the Maling bandits.”
With that, he sent out the remaining seven people in the group.
He had been to the South Water Yao village many times and knew the terrain inside and out. That was exactly why the sect had assigned him to gather information here. He stationed the seven men at seven key points, laid out how they would pass messages under normal conditions and how they would signal in an emergency, and quickly put together a basic surveillance net over the area.
That left Feng Yuanfa and Liu Xiaolou as the main force. They stayed on standby, ready to move out from Yunmen Mountain at a moment’s notice to back up any of the scouts.
By the time evening rolled around, the two of them had made it back to the summit of Yunmen Mountain. Almost at the exact same moment, they both dropped into a crouch and started creeping forward from opposite sides toward a dirt slope on the southwest side of the peak.
That slope was where Feng Seventh and the nephew from the Feng family had hidden before. Now, however, there was a faint but unmistakable smell of blood drifting from it.
When they drew closer, the two of them swung around at the same time and flanked the back of the dirt slope. There they saw Feng Seventh and the nephew lying behind it, both unconscious. Next to each of them was a patch of mud soaked dark with blood.
Liu Xiaolou leapt up onto the slope and scanned the area, then made a wider sweep around it. He wiped at a few spots beneath several trees and pressed his foot into patches of soft ground. Then he turned back and came down the slope, saying to Feng Yuanfa, “There’s nothing here. No real tracks.”
Feng Yuanfa nodded. He took hold of Feng Seventh’s wrist with one hand and the nephew’s with the other. After a moment, both men slowly came to, each of them letting out a long, heavy breath.
When Feng Seventh woke up, his face was full of guilt. “Brother, the big goose was taken. It was probably a few spiritual leopards.”
“Not the Maling bandits?” Feng Yuanfa asked, surprised. “Explain it properly.”
Feng Seventh said, “I didn’t see any Maling bandits. It was a pack of spiritual leopards. I saw one of them clearly. Its whole body was jet black, and it was small and stocky. It looked like a young one. It suddenly came out of nowhere and went straight for the big goose. While I was facing it off, I don’t know how, but the nephew got hurt. When I turned to help him, the spiritual leopard attacked me from behind…”
The Feng nephew couldn’t give a clear account at all. He only remembered being struck hard on the back of the head and blacking out on the spot.
Feng Seventh, however, was certain that just before he blacked out, he saw a black leopard carrying off the big goose and heading down the mountain to the east.
After checking their injuries, Feng Yuanfa found that both had taken a heavy blow to the back of the head. Each had a gash about an inch long, clearly caused by some kind of blunt object. That made him think there had to be more than one spiritual leopard involved.
There was also another possibility. Could it have been a spiritual beast tamer raising spiritual leopards? If that was the case, then whoever attacked them had most likely set their sights on that white goose.
When it came to raising spiritual beasts, the most famous group was, of course, the Weiyu Soaring Crane Sect. But they were thousands of li away. There was no way it could be them. So who else in Lingnan had families or sects that kept spiritual beasts?
Or could it have been an out-of-town rogue cultivator recruited by the Maling bandits?
After comparing notes for a bit, they figured out it had happened just about two hours ago. That wasn't too long; at least there was still a decent shot at tracking the bastards down!
Liu Xiaolou stepped forward and volunteered. “Let’s split up. I’ll follow whatever arrangements Brother Feng makes.”
Feng Yuanfa thought it over briefly, then made a firm decision. “All right. Fellow Daoist Li Mu, you head southeast and investigate. I’ll go northeast. We’ll track for six hours.”
He handed Liu Xiaolou a talisman. “If you find anything, activate this to signal me, and I’ll come immediately.”