Chapter 30: Fuyu has Crow (8)
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In this way, it also explained the eerie reasons behind Hong Chunfeng and others’ strange deaths.
But there was still one more thing: if Hong Chunfeng died under the control of the Lingyu Mountain puppet, then why did Wang Yu say that his enemies also died? What was going on?
Could it also be the work of the Lingyu Mountain puppet?
Was it a coincidence, or…?
Bai Chunsheng intended to press the Crow Puppet for more details. Mimicking Yan Yi’s manner, he grabbed the Lingyu Mountain puppet by the neck with one hand and demanded sternly, “Hong Chunfeng is dead, fine. But why did his enemies also die? Was it your doing?”
The Crow Puppet, originally feigning death with its eyes and mouth shut, reacted angrily to Bai Chunsheng’s accusation, “Don’t you dare accuse me…”
It was so infuriated that its feathers were about to stand on end. Bai Chunsheng was about to hear more when he noticed the Crow Puppet’s surprised expression, its mouth hanging open as if about to say something before abruptly stopping.
The Lingyu Mountain puppet closed its mouth again, looking somewhat fearful at Bai Chunsheng’s head.
But then its eyes shifted, seeming to confirm something. It resumed its earlier demeanor, cunningly stating, “His time was up; he naturally had to die.”
Bai Chunsheng sensed that something was amiss. He glanced upward to where the rafters bore a vivid depiction of a four-clawed black dragon.
Was this Lingyu Mountain puppet afraid of dragons?
It was rumored that dragons suppressed demons and evils, consuming them. Could it be that because the crow soul within this Crow Puppet was linked to demonic entities?
Bai Chunsheng found it somewhat amusing. Yan Yi asked, “What’s wrong?”
“You’ll see,” Bai Chunsheng replied, intending to experiment.
He gripped the Lingyu Mountain puppet’s neck with his right hand while slightly curling the fingertips of his left hand towards its head. A faint shadow of a dragon’s head began to appear on the back of Bai Chunsheng’s hand.
During his battle with Shen Yuying, Bai Chunsheng had naturally absorbed some of her qi. He now forced out this trace of dragon qi, creating a largely symbolic display.
The Crow Puppet, long closed off, was easily deceived by even a wooden-carved dragon, and now it was completely terrified. It had no energy left to distinguish between what was real and what was not.
Even Yan Yi’s Lingyu Mountain puppet on his hand started screaming in terror, “Don’t eat me, don’t eat me!”
Bai Chunsheng continued to press, “Then tell me why.”
Both Lingyu Mountain puppets spoke in unison, “It was Hong Chunfeng’s own doing.”
As they continued, the Lingyu Mountain puppet spoke with a self-righteous air, “Last month, he had a conflict with a maidservant. As soon as he got off the bed, he strangled her to death. I had been trapped in this Crow Puppet for so long, famished, and instinctively swallowed her soul.”
“Hong Chunfeng witnessed this scene and thought I was a demon. Delighted, he went on to kill his household servants to feed me. As a tool meant for Nascent Soul cultivators, killing a few Foundation Establishment cultivators was no difficulty for me. At that time, Hong Chunfeng was my master, so how could I refuse him?”
“However, he only had me for a limited time—just three years. As the deadline approached and he did nothing to restore me or inherit Changliu Mountain, I naturally had to kill him and seek a new master.”
It sounded reasonable. Thus, it meant that besides Hong Chunfeng, the other twelve people in his household were not killed alongside him but by him.
At the same time, those few enemies of his should also have died at the hands of Hong Chunfeng, who wielded the Lingyu Mountain puppet at the time.
No wonder those individuals also ended up dead. Besides Hong Chunfeng himself, who else could accurately identify his own enemies like that?
After saying all this, the Lingyu Mountain puppet said, “I’ve told you everything. Let it go…”
Its four small black eyes blinked rapidly, all filled with immense fear as they stared at the dragon qi swirling around Bai Chunsheng’s left hand.
Bai Chunsheng wouldn’t let it off so easily. He chuckled and continued, “You just mentioned Changliu Mountain. Where is it? How do you enter it, and whose legacy is it?!”
TheLingyu Mountain puppet grew impatient, “You tricked me!”
“I only said I’d let you speak, not that I’d let you go,” Bai Chunsheng replied. “Speak quickly!”
The Lingyu Mountain puppet flapped its wings restlessly in frustration, but being held by Bai Chunsheng rendered its struggles futile.
This time, it became cunning, refusing to easily divulge information about Changliu Mountain to Bai Chunsheng and Yan Yi.
Closing its eyes tightly, it resumed playing dead, perhaps its most practiced skill over the long centuries.
Yan Yi understood why Bai Chunsheng acted this way. Though he had frowned deeply from the beginning, he eventually handed Bai Chunsheng Shen Yuying’s storage pouch.
Now pushed to the brink where it couldn’t even pretend to be dead, the Lingyu Mountain puppet began to tremble uncontrollably at the scent of Shen Yuying’s dragon qi.
Bai Chunsheng suspected that in its past life, this Crow Demon’s soul must have been killed by a Jiao Dragon. Even after death, it couldn’t shake off its fear of the dragon. Otherwise, simply being a natural enemy couldn’t explain its profound terror.
After exploiting this weakness to interrogate it further, Bai Chunsheng unexpectedly learned that this artifact wasn’t even from the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm.
It originally hailed from the Azure Wave Spirit Realm, crafted and then traded among cultivators. Eventually, it found its way into the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm through a series of twists and turns, ending up in the hands of Hong Chunfeng.
The Azure Wave Spirit Realm lies far from the Middle Realms, accessible only through ascension or dimensional portals. It resembles the Water Abyss Realm but lacks its rich resources, serving as a gathering place for many dragon clans, primarily mixed-blood or lesser dragons.
It’s not hard to understand why the Lingyu Mountain puppet fears the Jiao Dragons so intensely now.
If it originated in the Azure Wave Spirit Realm, it likely lived as a slave under the dominion of Jiao Dragon clans from birth to death, even beyond. Its reverence and fear of dragons were ingrained into its very being, becoming instinctual.
Changliu Mountain is a living mountain, elusive in its whereabouts, and its legacy lies within its depths.
It could appear on the sea, at the base of cliffs, in mortal cities, or vanish into the sky.
Changliu Mountain could manifest in any remote corner of the Azure Wave Spirit Realm.
While one clue resides within the Lingyu Mountain puppet, even it doesn’t know what this clue truly is or how to find it.
According to the Lingyu Mountain puppet, it knows not who created it, only that such legacies are scattered in many places.
Many years have passed, and perhaps the rightful heir of the legacy has long since passed away, yet the mystery of Changliu Mountain remains unsolved.
This legacy is enough to make countless hopeless cultivators yearn fervently, still hidden in some remote corner of the Azure Wave Spirit Realm.
The Lingyu Mountain puppet declared, “Let me be clear upfront: falling into your hands means the trial of inheritance has begun. If within three years you fail to unravel the legacy of Changliu Mountain, death is inevitable.”
After a moment of thought, it added, “That’s the law.”
“Hmm.” Bai Chunsheng remained unfazed, covering the Lingyu Mountain puppet’s eyes with his hand. “I’ll be waiting.”
Moments later, the Lingyu Mountain puppet in his hand hung its head like a real crow, appearing either dead or asleep.
Yan Yi’s Lingyu Mountain puppet mirrored the same demeanor.
Bai Chunsheng remarked, “I’ll seal these two things away for now. As for Changliu Mountain… we’ll discuss it another day.”
He wasn’t recovered yet; the prospect of the Changliu Mountain inheritance seemed exceedingly harsh.
While enticing in theory, it currently offered him nothing practical. It couldn’t help him regain his Dao Stage, nor could it aid in reclaiming the Ten Thousand Demon Sect. Whether he could inherit it at all seemed as elusive as grasping for the moon in water.
It wasn’t the time to waste on studying this.
Yan Yi’s thoughts diverged slightly from Bai Chunsheng’s, but fundamentally, they shared the same concerns. He worried this might be a trap in disguise.
The path of cultivation was long and arduous, with only a handful capable of making history. In an era where few had transcended the Tribulation to achieve Elder status in many years, the Tribulation Crossing Stage was already the highest realm a cultivator could aspire to.
Moreover, this was the Mortal Realm, where even Nascent Soul cultivation was considered remarkable. They had barely spent two days in the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm—how could they possibly be so fortunate as to effortlessly stumble upon a clue to transcendence?
Yan Yi looked up at the ceiling adorned with the carving of a Jiao Dragon.
The Lingyu Mountain puppet’s fear of Jiao Dragons did seem plausible. The presence of the Jiao Dragon woodcarving in the Fuyu Mansion could indeed be nothing more than a simple coincidence without any hidden agenda.
He squinted, his expression darkening with suspicion.
As Bai Chunsheng had said that day, the combination of these two aspects seemed a bit too coincidental.
Yan Yi believed in causality, not coincidence.
Using the tribulation inheritance as bait sounded ambitious, but to both him and Bai Chunsheng, it wasn’t a big deal.
If it wasn’t intentionally designed, then it was meant to be.
If he hadn’t lost his memory, if Bai Chunsheng hadn’t been pursued by the Water Abyss Realm due to Bai Jianghan having failed her tribulation, they wouldn’t have ended up together in Yunhai Small World. If Bai Chunsheng hadn’t suffered bloodline damage, they wouldn’t have come to the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm.
The only difficulty was that the place they arrived in the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm was randomly chosen by the two of them, full of uncertainties and possibilities. Setting up such an arrangement would take at least a few years… How did they manage to anticipate it so accurately?
If any link in the chain had been missing, neither he nor Bai Chunsheng would have appeared at Fuyu Mansion.
Such an elaborate trap took time and effort to set up. If Bai Chunsheng were to ponder over it, he would surely find it unnecessary. Anyone with such power and ability to speculate about fate could kill him as easily as cutting vegetables.
Since defense was futile, it was better not to defend at all.
Yan Yi was different; he was confident that he would eventually achieve the status of a venerable figure.
If someone went to such lengths to scheme against him, that person must be formidable indeed, knowing early on that he would become a significant figure.
Seeing Yan Yi deep in thought, Bai Chunsheng waved his hand in front of him and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
Yan Yi glanced at Bai Chunsheng seriously and said, “Let’s head to Yusheng Sect soon to help you recover. I suspect there might be trap here. It’s best to leave early.”
Upon hearing Yan Yi’s words, Bai Chunsheng turned around and grabbed a cold chicken leg from the table.
Muttering reluctantly, Bai Chunsheng said, “You were clearly thinking about something and yet still said you don’t know anything.”
“Too bad, since Hong Chunfeng died because of the Lingyu Mountain Puppet, we can’t hand it over. The path to Yusheng Sect is cut off. Shouldn’t we leave this afternoon?”
“Do we have to disguise ourselves as menial disciples to get in? That’s really beneath us. I don’t want to,” Bai Chunsheng muttered to himself.
“Damn it, if it weren’t for the higher sect officials inspecting the lower sects regularly, checking their memories for anomalies, we could just swagger in and snatch their Fire Spirit Stones and take their Admission Tokens.”
Bai Chunsheng had an idea. He clapped his hands and said, “Good idea. Let’s do it tonight.”
Huge shoutout to @_nyanmaru_ on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.
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