Chapter 336: Miasma and Fire |
Heading northwest from Dafeng Mountain for more than sixty li, you reach the sprawling Hengshan range. Big White pulled the cart along as it skirted the outer edge of the mountains. Liu Xiaolou sat on the cart, idly rubbing Little Black’s fluffy neck, his gaze fixed deep in the heart of Hengshan, lingering there for a long while before he finally looked away.
Six months have passed. Green Bamboo, who had stayed behind at Guangtian Altar to re-refine the formation disk, should have left by now, right?
And there was Sheng Han of the Qingyue Altar. Recalling the heartbreaking way she poured out her feelings, and that dazed, lingering look in her eyes as she turned to leave, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of melancholy.
For that reason, he found himself missing the mistress of the Qingyue Altar quite a bit too.She had deep cultivation, carried herself with real grace, and came with a wealth of experience... the perfect partner to cultivate the Yin-Yang Scripture with.
But in the end, it was nothing more than idle longing. Lost in these thoughts, the peaks of Hengshan faded into the distance behind them.
There wasn't any real hurry, so the cart rolled along at an easy pace. Whenever they hit a ditch or rough patch, Little Black would leap down and help push from behind. Those two beasts had been through a lot over the years and had grown sharper and more clever by the day. Most of the time Liu Xiaolou didn't even need to get off; only when the mountain path got truly brutal and there was no way for them to haul the cart through did he reluctantly climb down and walk.
They kept rolling along at that leisurely pace with nothing much else to do, so Liu Xiaolou buried himself in studying the Golden Serpent Gu technique he'd scored from the Yao village. After six or seven days of hard grinding over it, he finally felt like he'd cracked it. He tugged on the reins to swing the goose head around, pointed the cart due west, and not two days later they rolled up to the foot of the great Dehang Mountains.
By the time they arrived at the foot of the mountains, the sky was thick with stars. They followed a stream winding into the hills. After seven or eight li, twisting around a few bends, they finally came to a stop.
He'd been to the Dehang Mountains plenty of times before, and he knew a lot of spots in these hills well.
While Big White tended the fire, Little Black slipped into the woods. It was not long before it came back with a plump bamboo rat clenched in its jaws and tossed it to the goose. Then it darted back into the forest, returning with a second, then a third. The goose busied itself with the rats, skinning and cleaning them with its flat beak. Little Black skewered them on sticks and set them over the fire to roast.
Liu Xiaolou stayed seated on the cart the whole time, working a small knife over a gourd about a foot tall. When the rat meat was nearly golden and starting to char, he finally got up and walked over. He rummaged through his universe pouch and pulled out bottle after bottle, sprinkling pepper, salt, and other seasonings over the three bamboo rats. He even added a pinch of July Spirit Fragrance Seeds, a local specialty from Dafeng Mountain. Fourth Master Han had given him a large jar of the stuff, and just a little went a long way. The aroma was enough to make your mouth water.
As soon as the scent spread, Big White and Little Black pounced, each grabbing a rat and tearing into it with abandon.
Liu Xiaolou took his own share and dug in alongside the two beasts, eating with obvious relish.
The smell was truly rich and enticing. Wild animals from all around were drawn in by it, stirring up quite a bit of commotion. If this had been in the Wuling Mountains, powerful spiritual beasts would probably have charged in without a second thought. But the Dehang Mountains were dotted with Miao villages and had far fewer spiritual beasts. There were none especially formidable, and all of them were kept in check by Big White and Little Black. Not a single one dared come close to steal food, which spared Liu Xiaolou a whole lot of trouble.
When the moon climbed high overhead, he told Big White and Little Black not to wander off and to keep watch over the cart. Then he slipped away alone, following a narrow stream deeper into the valley. Amid the steady rush of flowing water, he stepped into a grove of peach trees.
It was early spring, and the peach blossoms were in full bloom, filling the mountains and valleys. Even in the middle of the night, everything before his eyes seemed washed in soft pink.
The ground was carpeted with fallen peach leaves, piled thick. Stepping on them felt soft, wet, and slick, almost like rotting mud.
He took out the gourd he'd finished etching earlier that day and buried it in the spot where the peach muck was thickest, leaving only the mouth of the gourd exposed. Then he sprang up into a peach tree, climbed to a branch about seven feet off the ground, and sat cross-legged there, eyes fixed on the gourd below.
After a little more than two hours, a thin mist started creeping over the ground. It was the same color as the blossoms filling the valley. This was the famous Night Peach Miasma unique to the Dehang Mountains. It formed when the nine-petaled peach blossoms in this valley fell to the ground, rotted into mud, and released their vapors. Anyone who inhaled it would feel intoxicated, easily fall into hallucinations, and be left numb from head to toe.
The Miao folk of the Dehang Mountains never dared set foot in this valley on ordinary days. Beneath the thick layer of peach-petal mulch lay the dried bones of countless people, birds, and beasts.
Perched on the branch, Liu Xiaolou gathered his true qi. With a gentle sweep of his sleeves, he guided the pink miasma from all directions, driving it into the open mouth of the gourd.
Over the past few days, he had carved energy-gathering talismans into the gourd. It was nothing fancy, not some exquisitely crafted magical tool, but it worked wonderfully for collecting miasma. Once the poisonous fog flowed into the mouth of the gourd, it would sink to the bottom and slowly build up in weight. It settled, piled up, and grew heavier layer by layer. In this way, the gourd could hold a large amount of miasma, and inside it the energy would naturally compress and refine itself.
After a little over two hours, the Night Peach Miasma gradually thinned out and vanished. Liu Xiaolou capped the gourd, slipped back to the hollow outside the valley, and started slowly refining it with his true qi.
After refining it for an entire day, at the same hour that night, he went back to Peach Valley again. Once more, he used the gourd to gather miasma, then left the valley and continued refining it.
With each round of refinement, the Night Peach Miasma inside the gourd became a bit denser and a bit purer. When he held the gourd in his palm, he could already feel that it had gained some weight.
At the same time, he spent several days searching through the peach grove. Eventually, he found a peach tree that had been struck by lightning. He cut off the section that had been scorched black by the strike, chopped it into several pieces about a foot and a half long, and carved formation talismans into each one, just as he had with the gourd.
Whether it was the gourd or the lightning-struck peach wood, the formation talismans carved into them all contained several strange, twisted symbols. These markings came from the Shaman Xia of the Nanshui Yao village and were part of the secret gu-refining technique that the Nanshui Yao people had passed down for generations.
That day, he climbed back up to the summit, cleared out every last miscellaneous tree on the hilltop, and left only five peach trees standing. Each one spaced six or seven zhang apart from the next.
After days of hustling through all these preparations, on the morning of the ninth day, Big White and Little Black were jolted awake by rolling peals of thunder. The two beasts lifted their heads and stared up at the sky. Thick black clouds piled heavy over the mountaintop, pressing down low. A faint chill prickled at their noses.
Little Black bounded off with a couple of quick leaps, vanishing into the trees without a trace. No telling where it went or what it was off to do.
Big White did not bother with it. Gripping the wooden cart in its beak, it dragged it a few more feet deeper into the hollow to keep the bedding from getting soaked by the rain that was about to fall. Then it flapped its wings and flew up to the top of the cliff, standing at the edge with its long goose neck craned high, facing the direction where the thunder was the loudest.
As it waited in anticipation, Big White’s eyes swept across the surroundings. Suddenly, it noticed a man appear on a mountain peak several hundred zhang away.
It was Liu Xiaolou. He too was staring up at the sky, waiting and hoping for the heavenly lightning to descend.
Rumble… rumble…
The thunder rolled on and on, growing thicker and louder by the minute. Then, in one sudden moment, the rain finally started to fall. Light and scattered at first. After falling for half an hour, urged on by the increasingly dense thunder, the rain grew heavier and more violent, until it felt as if the sky had split open.
Spring rains this heavy were rare. Liu Xiaolou could not help but feel a surge of relief and excitement. He'd entered Wulong Mountain at the age of eight, and in all his memories, there had never been rain this heavy or thunder this loud in the third or fourth month of the year. And yet here it was, in the great mountains of Dehang. It was as if his wishes had come true.
Usually, the heavier and harder the rain falls, the louder and fiercer the thunder that follows. Judging by the sheer force of this downpour, the thunder about to break loose was pretty much screaming to be unleashed. It had Liu Xiaolou practically buzzing with anticipation!
Almost the instant the rain turned into a roaring deluge, several earth-shaking cracks of thunder exploded right overhead. Liu Xiaolou instantly snapped to readiness, pulled out one of those lightning-struck peach wood segments, and gripped it firmly in his palm.
wNo sooner had he pulled out the peach wood than a blinding bolt of thunder slammed down from the sky, smashing into the old peach tree off to his right and setting it ablaze in a roaring burst of flame.
Heavenly thunderfire had arrived.