The abandoned cannon fodder girl's path to immortality

Chapter 268 Puppet Substitute

"Seizing the body of the Three Powers, the soul resides in the Three Origins."

"The body perishes and the main soul is injured, but the divine sense can follow the guidance of the soul threads and enter the secondary body..."

Chen Jinshu carefully perused the "Secret Record of Three Elements Body Seizure and Rebirth" and soon discovered this astonishing detail in the jade slip.

"Doesn't this mean that as long as a soul remains in the world, it can be possessed and reborn?"

"The container is dead, but the soul of its master remains..."

"Xuan Yinzi, you really aren't quite dead yet!"

Chen Jinshu's lips curled up slightly, and he let out a cold laugh.

Fortunately, there is a law in the cultivation world that a cultivator can only possess another body once in their lifetime, which means that Xuan Yinzi only has one chance to possess another body and be reborn.

Currently, only two containers recorded on the jade slip remain undamaged, and both have an erosion rate of over 50%.

Xuan Yinzi will likely choose one of them as his target for possession, but it is unknown which one it will be.

"Jinshu, this wood feels so comfortable!"

Qingheng transformed back into human form from her hairpin. Her small hands curiously reached out to touch the ancient soul-nourishing wood placed in front of her, but she was startled by the immense soul power contained within it and withdrew them.

"The conditions for the birth of the Soul-Nourishing Wood are special."

It has a great healing effect on the soul.

"Your spirit is damaged; this item will still be useful to you."

"Once I finish crafting the substitute puppet, I will give you a portion to help repair your soul."

“Okay!” Qing Teng nodded obediently.

Chen Jinshu buried the chill in his heart and then picked up the ten-thousand-year-old soul-nourishing wood in front of Qing Teng.

Then, with a flick of his sleeve, a puppet the same height as a real person appeared out of thin air and stood steadily in the center of the quiet room.

The puppet is made of thousand-year-old ebony, and its entire body radiates a dark and resilient luster.

In the center of the chest cavity, a small piece of Yin Marrow Jade with a restrained, eerie light was embedded, slowly pulsating and emitting a faint rhythm similar to a heartbeat; that was the puppet's "heart".

She pointed her fingers like a sword and cut off the core part of the Soul-Nourishing Wood.

Then she pulled out the Mysterious Female Treasure Furnace.

A surge of azure light erupted from the furnace opening, instantly enveloping the entire Soul-Nourishing Wood and refining it into a constantly shifting mass of liquid Soul Essence in the blink of an eye.

With her fingertips guiding the flow of the soul essence, it slowly seeped into the puppet's brow.

"Om!!"

The puppet's body shone with dark light, and its Yin Marrow Jade Heart Aperture throbbed violently, creating a profound resonance with the Soul Marrow between its brows.

The stiff face began to move and sculpt, the facial features gradually becoming clear, and in an instant, it transformed into another Chen Jinshu.

But those eyes remained empty and lifeless.

Seeing this, Chen Jinshu smiled slightly. He was just one step away from obtaining a puppet substitute.

She gritted her teeth, put her right index and middle fingers together, and pressed them hard against her forehead.

"Uh!"

The next instant, a strand of soul, thinner than a hair and containing her original consciousness, was forcibly peeled off.

The moment her soul strands left her body, her figure swayed, and her face turned deathly pale.

There was no time to adjust, so he immediately injected that wisp of soul into the soul marrow between the puppet's eyebrows.

"Dotting the eyes, awakening the spirit!"

The moment the soul threads entered, the puppet's empty eyes suddenly lit up.

It turned its neck slightly, its limbs still a little stiff, and its gaze fell on Chen Jinshu's face. The corners of its lips slowly curved upwards, and an unfamiliar yet incredibly real smile appeared.

"It's done." Chen Jinshu breathed a sigh of relief.

From that moment on, she had an extra life!

"From now on, I'll leave all the worries to you."

……

Three days later.

The restrictions on Meiyun Residence were triggered once again.

Liu Qingchen stood outside the door, his face filled with worry.

Chen Jinshu frowned slightly and then lifted the ban.

"Fellow Daoist Chen! Disaster is upon us!"

"The Yin Sha Sect's 'Crying Soul Flying Carriage' has passed Black Wind Ridge."

Within half a day at most, they will arrive at the market.

Leading the group was their Vice Hall Master of the Punishment Hall, the Blood Fiend Old Ghost! A Nascent Soul cultivator!

The "Crying Soul Flying Chariot" is a notorious weapon of the Yin Sha Sect. It is made from the skulls of ninety-nine Golden Core cultivators and driven by the resentment of living souls. Wherever it passes, a chilling wind blows and the wailing of ghosts can be heard for miles.

"How will Medicine King Valley respond?"

Liu Qingchen's bitter smile deepened, and he waved his hands repeatedly:

What else can be done?
The Blood River Sect's demonic offspring presented him with the 'Nine Nether Heart-Eating Grass' as a birthday gift, clearly indicating that old grudges had not been resolved.

Why would the Valley Master and Elders wage a full-scale war against the Yin Sha Sect for the sake of an outsider like you?
Being able to block the attacks of Nascent Soul cultivators in the open is already the limit!
The Blood Demon Old Ghost's accompanying Golden Core cultivator is likely heading straight for your Meiyun Residence!

The market town is no longer a place to linger; delay could lead to unforeseen changes.

Fellow Daoist, you'd better leave quickly.

"Go? Where to?" Chen Jinshu frowned slightly. For a Golden Core cultivator, it was tantamount to suicide.

"Elder Liu is an outer sect elder of Medicine King Valley. He should know where in this Eastern Region one can escape the inescapable net laid out by the Yin Sha Sect?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Qingchen paused slightly, unsure how to respond. He then took out a token bearing the mark of Medicine King Valley from his storage bag.

"The Valley Master's decree: Xuan Yinzi has brought this upon himself, and Medicine King Valley should not interfere openly."

However, fellow Daoist's alchemy is exceptional, and he is destined to be associated with my valley.

This command can activate the 'Lingtai Palace' ancient teleportation array once.

The location of the battleground is unclear; though treacherous, it offers a glimmer of hope.

"The Valley Master said that the cost of activating the teleportation array today will be borne by the Valley. He only hopes that if Medicine King Valley is ever in danger of collapse, fellow Daoist, you will remember this small favor and lend a helping hand to the best of your ability!"

Upon hearing this, even with her resolute nature, Chen Jinshu felt a warmth rise in her heart when she heard that Medicine King Valley had activated the teleportation array for her.

"The Valley Master is very righteous, and I, Jinshu, have accepted your letter. If Medicine King Valley is ever in trouble in the future, I will do my best to help without hesitation."

"Alright! Let's not delay!" Liu Qingchen breathed a sigh of relief.

"One hour later, at the ancient array platform on the back mountain of Lingtai Palace!"
I will provide support outside the palace to draw away any potential spies.

The Valley Master has already secretly ordered his men to activate the array and warm it up; the token is the key!

After saying that, he turned and left without lingering, going to make preparations.

……

An hour later.

Lingtai Palace, one of the forbidden areas of Medicine King Valley, is located deep in the back mountain of the main peak.

The palace is magnificent.

The area was shrouded in layers of spiritual light, making it heavily guarded.

Liu Qingchen was already waiting at the entrance of a secluded path outside the palace.

Upon seeing Chen Jinshu appear quietly, without saying a word, he led her away from the guards at the main gate and around to a moss-covered cliff in the shade of the palace.

He made a hand seal and quickly tapped several inconspicuous dents on the rock wall.

The rock face rippled like water, revealing a dark portal just wide enough for one person to pass through.

"Hurry up! This door is not easy to maintain!" Liu Qingchen urged Chen Jinshu quickly.

Upon hearing this, Chen Jinshu immediately stepped inside.

Behind the door was not a palace, but a huge space carved out of the mountainside.

In the center of the space was an ancient platform, more than ten feet in diameter, built from a single, enormous piece of Void Stone.

On the surface of the array platform, countless profound and complex silver-white spatial runes were shimmering with an increasingly bright light.

A massive amount of energy was gathering at the core of the array, causing the entire mountainside to tremble slightly.

At the edge of the array platform, in nine recesses, were nine fist-sized, radiant with spiritual energy and dazzling in light.

The spiritual power contained within it far exceeds that of ordinary low-grade spirit stones by tens of thousands of times.

At this moment, the array was frantically extracting the light from these nine high-grade spirit stones, and their radiance was dimming at a visible speed.

This is the price to pay for activating the ancient teleportation array; it costs tens of thousands of spirit stones to activate it once.

Without further hesitation, Chen Jinshu strode into the center of the platform.

She held the token bestowed upon her by the Valley Master in her hand.

hum!
The token burst forth with a dazzling silver light, instantly resonating with the runes on the array platform below.

The entire platform shone brightly, and countless silver runes detached from the stone platform, forming a huge, rapidly spinning vortex of light that completely engulfed Chen Jinshu's figure.

"Wow!"

A beam of light shot into the sky.

The moment Chen Jinshu disappeared, she heard the voice of the Valley Master of Medicine King Valley.

"The purpose of setting up this formation today is not merely to help my young friend out of his predicament."

If Medicine King Valley ever suffers a calamity of destruction, I hope my young friend will remember the kindness shown to us by offering incense and lend a helping hand.

"This junior will remember the great kindness of the Valley Master."

As soon as Chen Jinshu finished speaking, the next second, a burst of intense light erupted.

boom!
An unexpected and violent suction force instantly engulfed Chen Jinshu. Before anyone could react, the others were caught off guard.

"Not good! It's spatial turbulence!" The Nascent Soul elder, who was secretly stabilizing the formation, cried out in alarm.

Standing at the edge of the formation, Liu Qingchen was blown backward by the violent gale, his face pale.

As the intense light dissipated, only residual energy remained inside the Lingtai Palace, along with a few high-grade spirit stones at the core of the formation, their spiritual power exhausted and reduced to dust.

Spatial turbulence swallowed up some of the teleportation power, making teleportation increasingly uncertain.

Liu Qingchen stared at the empty center of the formation, cold sweat beading on his forehead, and murmured:
"Shattered Star Island or... the Netherworld Continent?"

These two places are where the Medicine King Valley teleportation array frequently sends people.

Now that they've encountered spatial turbulence, it's unknown where Chen Jinshu will be transported to.

……

Trapped in the Sky Sea, Shattered Star Island Reef.

The sea breeze whipped up dark green waves, which crashed violently against the black rocks, shattering them into pale foam.

The sky was pale gray, with low-hanging dark clouds.

A few oddly shaped, thorny black shrubs on the island seem to be the only living things on this desolate coast.

The next instant, space abruptly distorted, cracking open with an irregular gap.

Pfft!
A figure was spit out in a disheveled state, crashing heavily onto the shallow beach of the island.

At this moment, Chen Jinshu's face was as pale as paper.

The surrounding environment made her feel a sense of unfamiliarity.

"Where is this?" Chen Jinshu quickly stood up and communicated with the Mysterious Female Treasure Furnace in his sea of ​​consciousness.

After confirming that all the key items were there, I breathed a sigh of relief.

She never expected that the teleportation array would cause spatial turbulence.

Her gaze swept across this desolate land.

The rocks are slippery and covered with sharp shell fragments; a slight misstep could result in cuts and lacerations.

Mist rises from the distant sea, occasionally revealing huge, island-like shadows that flash and disappear within it.

"Not a good place."

She whispered something, her beautiful brows furrowing.

The immediate priority is to find a stable base to stay in, recover from injuries, and figure out where this place is.

With a slight thought, a figure identical to her appeared silently beside her.

However, those eyes were somewhat empty and lifeless, which was the substitute puppet that had been created at great expense.

"This place is dangerous and unpredictable; I need to recover as soon as possible. Go and scout it out for me." Chen Jinshu said succinctly, a wisp of spiritual light from his fingertip entering the puppet's brow, leaving a faint trace of divine guidance.

"Search for spiritual energy fluctuations, investigate traces of human habitation, and confirm the location."

If you encounter a market town, trade cautiously in exchange for a map and information about the area. First and foremost, conceal your whereabouts.

The puppet nodded slightly, its movements stiff yet incredibly swift.

It had no life, was unafraid of miasma, ignored the terrain, and transformed into a gray shadow that was difficult to see with the naked eye, disappearing in the blink of an eye into the depths of the fog-shrouded island.

Chen Jinshu then mustered his spiritual energy and found a sheltered spot, partially surrounded by huge reefs.

The reef walls were damp, cold, and covered with salt frost.

She set up several simple warning and concealment restrictions, and the light flashed and disappeared in an instant, her aura completely vanishing without a trace.

A moment later, the puppet possessed by Chen Jinshu moved among the jagged rocks and damp moss and lichen.

The island is much larger than imagined, and its terrain is unpredictable and undulating.

After traveling at a brisk pace for half a day, in the thinner fog ahead, they finally sensed noisy voices and mixed spiritual energy fluctuations.

A simple settlement nestled beside a natural deep bay appeared at the edge of the view.

It must be a nearby monks' market, for the sign outside the market reads: Black Reef Market.

Chen Jinshu controlled the puppet to conceal all its aura, transforming it into a low-level rogue cultivator, and slowly entered the market.

"A crayfish that has just been taken out of the water!"
The carapace is intact, and the demon core has not been removed! Exchange it for a body-tempering pill or thirty spirit stones!

"The poison sac of the Bone-Eating Sea Anemone, a low-grade third-tier item!"
Fellow Daoists who practice poison refining, don't miss this!

"Buy 'Shattered Star Iron' ore!"
Bulk discounts available! Don't bother if you're a dishonest or unscrupulous business owner!

The sounds of hawking and bargaining rose and fell.

Most of the cultivators wore old clothes and carried the blood and violence left by battles.

Occasionally, a cultivator dressed in a relatively neat robe would walk by, often accompanied by several imposing guards who would warily scan their surroundings.

Chen Jinshu's gaze swept over the strangely shaped sea creature materials and bizarrely colored ores on the stall, finally stopping in front of a relatively clean stall.

The stall owner was a thin old man, and his stall displayed some common medicinal herbs and a few jade slips.

"Do you have the jade tablet with the map?" Chen Jinshu asked calmly.

The old man squinted, his cloudy eyes scanning the puppet up and down, and exhaled a puff of smoke:
"Newcomer? Sea map of the area surrounding Shattered Star Island in the Trap Sea, fifty low-grade spirit stones."

Includes markings for major ocean currents, known animal lairs, and nearshore islands.

He picked up a dusty jade slip and shook it.

The puppet didn't haggle and simply tossed over a small bag of spirit stones.

The old man weighed it in his hand, grinned, and tossed the jade slip over.

However, the moment the puppet took the jade slip, three cultivators wearing greasy leather armor surrounded it, their eyes greedily fixed on the inconspicuous storage bag at the puppet's waist.

"Friend, are you new here and don't know the rules?"

"The land fee for Black Reef Village is one hundred spirit stones. Pay it and I'll guarantee your safety."

The puppet's empty eyes swept over the three without any emotion, and it simply put the jade slip away slowly.

"No."

"Hey! You're asking for it!"

The skinny man next to the bald man grinned maliciously and thrust his dagger straight into the puppet's back!
puff!

The dagger struck precisely.

There was no sound of flesh tearing apart, only the piercing, sharp sound of metal rubbing together.

The three men's expressions changed drastically.

"Weird...monster!"

The bald, burly man let out a strange cry and turned to leave.

The puppet did not pursue, nor did it linger; it turned and walked out of the market.

Its figure quickly disappeared into the thick fog.

……

Half an hour later.

"Trap Sea... Shattered Star Island..."

Chen Jinshu opened his eyes, took the jade slip, and immersed his consciousness into it.

A vast and treacherous seascape unfolded in my mind, with countless marked red dots representing known sea monster lairs, dangerous undercurrents, and spatial rift areas.

"Shattered Star Island" is like a lone grain of sand in the deep sea, located on the outer edge of the Trap Sea.

"As expected... it is a perilous and dangerous place."

She muttered to herself, her brow furrowed.

The jade slip contained limited information, only marking a few smaller deserted islands nearby and a small gathering place for cultivators called "Trident Reef," without any information on teleportation arrays leading to large landmasses or known cultivation worlds.

"Jinshu, are we going to stay in this cold and noisy place forever?"

Qingheng transformed back into human form, hugged her little arms, and looked at her pitifully, her little face scrunched up.

"temporary."

Chen Jinshu stood up. After a short period of recuperation, his injuries had stabilized and his spiritual power had recovered by more than half.

She looked into the depths of the island, where the terrain was higher and the fog was thicker, but a faint yet relatively stable aura of cold, damp earth veins could be faintly felt.

"This place is not a place to stay for long, but we need a stable base for now. My stand has detected ley lines deep within the island, so we may be able to create a temporary cave dwelling."

She dispelled the restrictions, and with Qingheng in tow, followed the guidance of the earth veins sensed by the puppet, stealthily making her way towards the central area of ​​the island.

A moment later, Chen Jinshu stopped in a depression backed by a sheer cliff.

Before us was a cave entrance half-hidden behind jagged rocks, barely wide enough for one person to pass through sideways.

A chilling, biting wind slowly blew out of the cave, carrying with it a rich and pure spiritual energy of both water and yin attributes.

"This is it."

A glint of light flashed in Chen Jinshu's eyes.

This cold, dark cave is the perfect place to nourish her Yin spiritual field and allow her to resume her cultivation.

With a flash of fire at her fingertips, she burned away the poisonous vines hanging at the cave entrance and stepped inside first.

The small hands of Qingheng released a soft, emerald-green glow, dispelling the darkness and dampness of the cave.

The cave winds downwards, and after walking no more than a hundred steps, it suddenly opens up into a bright and spacious area.

A natural grotto, about ten zhang square, came into view.

Countless sharp black stalagmites hang from the cave ceiling, while the ground is relatively flat.

Deepest within, a dark, icy pool lies silently, its water as black as ink, radiating a chill that can freeze the very soul.

The pure, cold spiritual energy originates from this pool.

"Great place!" Chen Jinshu nodded in satisfaction.