Chapter 111: Peach Stop, Eight Colds (Seeking the Moon)
The stall owner has a strange face, with his chin bent forward, forming an arc, like the sole of a shoe.
He rolled his eyelids and seemed not to want to pay attention to Ye Xuan.
After all, there are extremely few sword techniques that reach the sixth level, and most of the Zongzhen sword techniques of many middle-class sects of the righteous path are at this level.
It was normal for him to not be able to take it out, but when he did, it was Ye Xuan's turn to be surprised.
Seeing that Ye Xuan was still squatting in front of the stall looking at it, the stall owner replied impatiently: "Sixth Grade Sword Jue has not been available recently. If you want it, come back later!"
Shocked! What a loud tone!
It’s as if the Sixth Grade Sword Technique is just like mass-produced goods!
Ye Xuan calmly looked at this person and gave him a bragging and unreliable evaluation in his heart.
Although he has a few Bigu Pills at the moment, he can't even afford the lowest Sword Technique here, so he is just taking a look at it temporarily, and plans to refine a few furnaces of Bigu Pills himself in the future so that he can buy the Sword Technique and Thunder Method.
Ye Xuan was about to get up when a figure in the distance stepped onto the platform from the other end and strode toward the stall selling magic spells.
As he got closer, he realized that the man was as thin as a skeleton and his eye sockets were sunken.
His white hair was spread around his head like weeds, and he was wearing a robe whose original color could not be distinguished. He approached the stall, took out a jade charm directly from his bag, handed it to the stall owner, and said in a hurry:
"This is the seventh-grade sword art. Give me the Essence Return Pill quickly!"
His tone was very urgent, as if he would die immediately if he didn't have the Essence Rejuvenation Pill.
Ye Xuan also knew the medicinal properties of Jingyuan Huhua Dan.
This elixir contains billowing energy, and taking it can help practitioners whose energy and blood have declined regain a source of energy support and live an extra year or two.
In the past two years, if you are lucky enough to get a few pills of the 'Dragon Marrow Golden Pill' that Ye Xuan took, you can relieve the worry of Qi and blood decline.
If you don't get the precious medicine, you will have to wait for death when the time is up.
It is not difficult to refine this elixir, and its value is equivalent to two to three thousand Bigu elixirs outside?
But here, you can actually get a seventh-grade sword art?
Ye Xuan somewhat believed what the stall owner said was true. As he watched from the sidelines, he saw the stall owner casually checking the contents of the jade talisman before taking out a pill bottle from his arms and carefully pouring out a thumb.
The large jade-white elixir was handed to the old man with white hair and skeleton.
The white-haired skeleton old man eagerly took the elixir, swallowed it in one gulp, and sat down cross-legged to digest the medicine on the spot.
After a while, his flesh and blood seemed to be a little fuller. He opened his eyes, opened his mouth slightly, and looked at the sky blankly. After a while, he spoke to the stall owner in a hoarse voice: "The sword technique is a secret of our sect and can only be sold once."
"That's natural." The stall owner replied without raising his head, "All the magic arts here are only sold once.
Anyone who comes to buy it must make a deep oath not to spread the technique to outsiders before he can buy the secret technique he likes."
"Okay, okay." The white-haired old man said two good words in succession, stood up and left.
The stall owner watched the old man leave without saying a word.
Ye Xuan felt an unspeakable sadness from the words of these two people.
He suddenly knew that the world after Shenzhou Lake was still more dangerous than he had imagined. It would starve a cultivator with a seventh-grade sword art to the point where he could only take the Jingyuan Return Pill to die.
He had to exchange all his wealth for the elixir!
Otherwise, why not turn around and go back?
There is no way Aunt Qian and the others would settle in such a dangerous place, let alone deliberately fool me into going to such a dangerous place.
There must be a problem somewhere in this process——
Ye Xuan thought about it and thought that the only thing that might cause problems was the guiding jade cicada.
When he released the guiding jade cicada, that old face appeared in front of him...
Ye Xuan didn't know how to feel for a moment. The old man saved his life at the cost of his soul and regenerated flesh and blood. From now on, he would no longer be limited to low qualifications and be blocked in the road.
But in order to get me to go to the so-called Mahakala Tantric site, he actually resorted to such methods?
Fortunately, I reacted quickly and was able to reverse course and stop the situation immediately.
With this thought in mind, he stood up and walked towards the boatman, preparing to ask the boatman to turn the bow around and sit back on the original shore.
Passing by a stall at the corner, Ye Xuan saw that there were no goods on display at his feet, so he casually asked: "What are you selling here?"
"I sell information.
Whether it’s various information about the major sects in Ku Di, or some heavenly and earthly treasures, or even the place where high-grade Gangsha is bred, as long as you have the Bigu Pill, you can buy it from me." This person who sells information has a round figure.
Fatty is very different from most people here. I think I can make a living by selling information.
Ye Xuan nodded and did not take this to heart. He found the boatman and called out: "Shall we go?"
When I got on the boat, I told him to pay him a few more Bigu Pills and let him take me back.
Ye Xuan followed the boatman down the steps and returned to the boat.
The boatman still steered the boat around the platform three times upside down and three times forward. After a while of spinning, they had returned to the center of Shenzhou Lake.
There was a vast amount of water vapor all around, but the archway was still more than ten feet away, as if the boat itself had not moved.
Ye Xuan looked at the mist in the sky, feeling a sense of sadness in his heart.
He opened his mouth and said to the boatman: "Boatman, please send me back. I won't cross this lake."
Fortunately, he spoke in time, he thought in his heart.
If we really cross the lake, who knows what weird things will happen.
The boatman turned to look at him strangely, and said with a smile: "Go back? From the moment you step on this boat, you can't go back!"
"Can't go back?!" Ye Xuan was shocked!
Hard to accept.
The boatman turned back and sighed: "If you don't believe it, I'll just try it for you."
As he spoke, he shook the oars, turned the bow of the boat, and swam back towards the road.
The water is rippling, but the other shore is far away.
The boat was obviously swimming towards the other shore, but it was getting farther and farther away from the other shore. After reaching a certain distance, the sky and the earth began to spin.
Ye Xuan looked closely and saw that they were still in front of the archway, as if they had not moved just now!
How could this be?
His heart was in a mess. Thinking of the respectful look on that old face, he suddenly felt like he had been plotted by the other party. He couldn't help but cursed: "Gannian!"
I'm not willing to go to your sect's ruins to investigate, but you won't trick me like this!
I am not fully prepared yet, so there is no turning back!
Ye Xuan wanted to cry but had no tears, just like mourning his heir.
"What did you say?" Because of the strong wind, the boatman didn't hear what Ye Xuan just said clearly, so he asked instead.
How could Ye Xuan be in the mood to pay attention, he just sat on the boat and said nothing.
Seeing his situation, the boatman sneered and rowed to the other side, saying: "This lake is called Shenzhou Lake because it is difficult to cross with boats, flying swords and magic weapons.
When you come to the shore, it looks like a lake and a vast swamp, like a hole in the ground. But when you look at it from the other side, it is a long river that separates two worlds, like an endless crack in the ground.
In fact, it is the same regardless of lakes or rivers. Anyway, when you walk to the lake, you will reach the end of the boundary. No matter which direction you come from, southeast, northwest, you will reach this lake and wait for my boat to cross.
Once on the boat, there is no turning back.
Therefore, people who are born in a miserable place call this river the Wangchuan River."
Forgotten River!
"But that Wangchuan River?" Ye Xuan couldn't help but ask.
The boatman's eyes were misty, and he was silent for a while, then replied: "Who knows if it is the Wangchuan River? There is an archway on the other side, and the writing on it has long been difficult to see clearly.
If you can see it clearly, you may be able to know what the name of the Laoshizi River is."
He suddenly stopped shaking the oar, approached Ye Xuan, and whispered: "If you still have Bigu Pill, why not give me another one, and I will give you some advice.
If you are not familiar with the place, how about getting some local experience in advance and avoiding many detours?"
Ye Xuan hesitated for a moment and nodded: "Okay."
In this way, the boatman told Ye Xuan completely about the experience he had gained after living in the harsh land for countless years, in exchange for a Bigu Pill.
Ye Xuan briefly summarized what he said. There are three points in total that need to be paid attention to.
The first point is that the ten realms of suffering are distributed in a ring.
The boatman has been to the first three realms. The one close to the Wangchuan River is the extremely cold realm, the farther one is the scorching heat realm, and the farther one is the Tongue Mountain realm.
As the name suggests, the extreme cold environment is an extremely cold place. Living here will inevitably consume your energy and vitality every moment. You have to take in a lot of food to barely maintain your consumption.
A Bigu Pill that lasts for half a month in the outside world can last up to three days here.
Even so, the boatman still suggested that Ye Xuan had better find a secluded place to settle in the frosty environment. Although the bitter cold of the place would consume his energy and blood and make him starve to the point of becoming sallow and thin, the dangers involved are obviously more dangerous than the following nine.
The environment is much smaller.
Ye Xuan once asked the boatman, since it is so dangerous to go further in, why not settle on the Wangchuan River?
The boatman smiled strangely and asked Ye Xuan to look at the bottom of the lake.
Fifty percent of the people buried at the bottom of the lake were those who did not believe in evil and wanted to cross the River of Forgetting with their swords. The other fifty percent were cultivators who settled by the river and were dragged down to the bottom of the water without knowing it in the middle of the night!
The second point is to run non-stop immediately after getting off the boat and landing.
Although Ye Xuan has been the only one to cross the river in the past six hundred years, there can be no one on the bank waiting to kill him, an outsider. But staying on the bank for a long time will inevitably attract the attention of other people in the extreme cold area, and they will try to come over then.
Ye Xuan may not be able to withstand the autumn wind.
The third is that in most areas of the Bitter Land, it is impossible to grow crops or raise livestock, and the livestock will also turn into all kinds of weird and unimaginable monsters.
The vitality of heaven and earth here is also extremely thin. It is extremely difficult to maintain life here. You must not have unrealistic ideas such as 'you can succeed in cultivation here'.
Those places where crops can be grown and livestock can be raised are all controlled by powerful forces - if one can reach the realm of enlightenment, one can seek refuge with those forces and become a dog for others, which is also a way to survive.
The boatman's introduction was not without details, which made Ye Xuan feel that his Bigu Pill was worth it.
He thought about it on the boat and decided to follow the path given by the guiding jade cicada.
It is absolutely impossible to turn back now. Since we can't resist, we should quietly accumulate in the hope of breaking through the situation one day.
The only basis for breaking the situation is the path pointed out by the old man.
Since he regards me as a venerable person and the last descendant of the Mahakala Tantric Sect, and has sacrificed himself to fulfill my life, there is no way he can trap me into death!
Ye Xuan now had to believe the old man.
The boat approached the ferry, and there were already several wooden steps in front of it.
Ye Xuan greeted the boatman, walked up the wooden steps, walked along the plank road, and soon stepped onto the shore.
There is still an archway on the shore. If you step over the archway, the world will immediately change.
The scene in front remains unchanged, but looking back, the lake turns into a rolling river. The water is churning, the sound is like a ghost crying, and the water is muddy yellow, just like the legendary Huangquan!
Ye Xuan raised his head and looked at the mottled words on the archway.
I remember the boatman said that the words on the archway were no longer legible - at first glance, the words on it were indeed mottled and difficult to read, but under Ye Xuan's gaze they became clear, and suddenly changed into the word "Taozhi". Looking at it again,
Also known as "Eight Cold Hells".
Ye Xuan rubbed his eyes, and the words on the arch continued to be mottled, as if it was just his eyesight.
But he looked at the archway for a long time, concentrated his eyes, and clearly saw different words twice, how could he be wrong!
Taozhi Mountain is the entrance to Hades and the Gate of Hell according to Taoism.
The Eight Cold Hells are one of the eighteen hells in Buddhism.
How are the two involved?
Ye Xuan's heart sank.
At this time, a gust of wind blew across the body, and even cultivators like Ye Xuan, whose energy and blood were as strong as a divine furnace, felt a hint of coldness.
Extreme cold realm, eight cold hells...
He raised his eyes and looked around, and all he could see was the vast mountains and forests, covered with ice and snow, all pale, with no human beings in sight.
But there may be people in the mountains and forests who have gotten the news and are rushing here.
Gotta leave quickly!
Ye Xuan released the guiding jade cicada, which spun around in mid-air and pointed to the southwest.
Without hesitation, he ran wildly, turning into a black shadow and soon blending into the vast snowy field!
The only advantage here is that the vitality is thin, and flying with a sword is an extremely luxurious thing. Even a major practitioner in the Refining Realm would never dare to do this unless in a critical moment.
This is tantamount to giving a small chance of survival to a young cultivator like Ye Xuan who can only rely on the strength of his feet!
Huhu——
The wind blew in my ears, like ghosts crying and gods howling.
Ye Xuan ran for eight hours at a stretch. It was not until the sky turned completely dark that he felt the chill all over his body getting worse.
He is the first person in so many years to be able to run for eight or nine hours relying only on his energy and blood.
He leaned against a tree to rest for a while. The chill was getting deeper and deeper, sapping his energy at any time. It was almost pervasive.
So he took out the tiger cassock from the magic bag and put it on him.
This cassock has become a magic weapon. After being baptized by the light of the Great Sun Buddha, it will no longer provoke external demons, and it will not make people feel cold all over the body when it is worn.
With the tiger cassock wrapped around him, something unexpected happened to Ye Xuan immediately.
His whole body was emitting a hazy white light, forming a circle behind his head, like a shrinking sun. There was still a little bit of red in the core that was radiating outwards, making the whole body warm. No matter how cold it was here, Ye Xuan was content.
!
Under the illumination of this white light, Ye Xuan even felt that the dirty energy in the thin vitality around him was being refined and turned into pure vitality that could be directly absorbed.
As soon as he thought about it, his energy and blood suddenly released.
The halo of light at the back of the head instantly expanded to a distance of five feet. Within this five feet range, all the filth and impurities were purified!
Wonderful!
Ye Xuan instantly withdrew his energy and blood, only maintaining the aura behind his head, and ran wildly again!