I was forced to cultivate immortality when I just wanted to lie down

Chapter 167 Paper Figures for Funeral, Living People Rest in Peace

Xu Qing, the fox spirit from Qingqiu, had some recollection of her.

Thirty years ago, Jin Luo, the protector of the Tianxin Sect, met a simply dressed female immortal outside Luoyang. She was willing to give him some pointers, but Jin Wanshan was addicted to gambling at the time and wasted the opportunity.

The appearance of that female immortal was exactly the same as that of the fox spirit Hu Baosong met in Qingqiu two hundred years ago.

Even the clothes that had been washed until they turned white were exactly the same.

Hu Baosong has lived for over two hundred years. If that person is truly a fox spirit from Qingqiu, how many years has she existed?

Xu Qing felt that the other party was very likely to be a person who had survived the five hundred-year calamity, just like the White Fairy of the Hundred Herbs Cave on Yuehua Mountain, or even earlier.

Five hundred years of lightning disasters, one thousand years of fire disasters, and one thousand five hundred years of windstorms.
As far as Xu Qing knew, those who had cultivated for over 1,500 years and survived three calamities were true immortals on earth, walking in the mortal world. At this time, they only needed to wait for the celestial officials to guide them, and on the day when auspicious clouds and celestial music descended, they could be ranked among the immortals.

However, now that the path to heaven is cut off, even if someone survives for 1,500 years, there will be another 1,500 years to come. A cultivator may be able to survive the first round of tribulations, but may not be able to escape the second.

The fox spirit from Qingqiu claimed to be a half-immortal thirty years ago. Xu Qing estimated that she had about seven or eight hundred years of cultivation, or at most a thousand years.

As for the thousand-year-old ghost king in the Ghost King's Tomb...
Humans, demons, and ghosts cannot be lumped together.

Humans are born suited for cultivation. Learning to become an immortal requires at least five hundred years less hard work than other beings. If a noble or wise person learns to become an immortal, they require another three hundred years less hard work than ordinary people. Therefore, a person only needs to accumulate a thousand years of merit to achieve enlightenment.

The cultivation accumulated over these thousand years remains unchanged, still numbering 1,500.

Demons, on the other hand, are five hundred years behind in cultivation. Even the most intelligent among them need to wait twelve hundred years to accumulate enough cultivation to become an immortal, not to mention the numerous tribulations they must endure during their cultivation journey.

Ghosts are even worse. If a human needs ten years to cultivate for a hundred years, a ghost needs a hundred years to equal a human's ten years of cultivation.

Therefore, it is not surprising that a great demon who has cultivated for hundreds of years is chased and beaten by a human who has cultivated for only a few decades.

However, people's hearts are fickle and the world is full of distractions. Most people are obsessed with it and cannot transcend it. Therefore, those who can devote themselves to cultivation are far fewer than demons and ghosts.

After all, human lifespan is short, while that of demons and ghosts is long. Throughout history, countless people of extraordinary talent have wasted their lives on worldly affairs, thus hindering their spiritual progress.

Hu Baosong, driven by youthful ambition, traveled the world for decades. When he returned to Tianjin, his elderly father, who lived in a coffin shop, was on his deathbed.

Without the guidance of the fox spirit from Qingqiu, he might have missed even seeing the old man one last time.

After burying the old man, Hu Baosong drank heavily day and night, always carrying his wine gourd with him, neglecting his spiritual practice for nearly ten years. Until one day, as he lay drunk under a peach tree, peach blossoms brushed against his face, and he vaguely heard a familiar voice—

"Wake up, wake up."

In his half-dreaming state, Hu Baosong saw a woman in front of him wearing a peach-colored dress, whose face resembled his birth mother by about 70%.

Seeing that he had 'awakened,' the woman said to him, 'Your mother cultivated for hundreds of years without ever taking a single day off. Only when the calamity was imminent did she leave the mountain and form a marital bond with your father. Although your father's lifespan was short, it was never wasted. If they have spirits in heaven, how could they bear to see you squander your life like this?'

The woman's words struck Hu Baosong like a thunderbolt, jolting him awake. He looked in the direction of his dream, but apart from the peach tree and the peach blossoms in the yard, there was no sign of the woman.

A decade-long dream, then suddenly shattered.

Hu Baosong buried the wine gourd under a tree, gave up drinking, and began to travel the world.

At the age of 100, Hu Baosong, still in his prime, was plagued by romantic entanglements and began to have affairs with various women, including Yang Yingying, Cui Miaoyin, and Wei Sangu.
During this time, Hu Baosong would occasionally return to Linhe. He always liked to lie under the peach tree in the courtyard and pretend to sleep, but unfortunately, he never saw the woman he had met in his dreams again.

It was as if that day was just a dream I had unintentionally.

Decades later, when Hu Baosong visited the Wulao Temple, he encountered a female Taoist priest.

At that time, the female Taoist priest stood under the tree in front of the temple, picked up a leaf, and blew on it.

Sunlight filtered through the dappled shadows of the trees, making the female Taoist priestess appear as if she were a fairy descending to earth.

Hu Baosong felt that he had probably met his true love.

At that time, Hu Baosong was dressed in white and carried a sword. His speech and behavior, cultivated over a century, were even more composed and unrestrained. The female Taoist priest had never descended the mountain before, so how could she be a match for this fox spirit?
The abbess of the Five Elders Temple was a white-haired, youthful-looking female Taoist priest. After returning from visiting friends, she saw through Hu Baosong's true nature at a glance. However, her disciple Zichen was already deeply entangled in a love affair and could not be moved by her words.

After much deliberation, the old Taoist priest finally summoned Hu Baosong to his side, intending to have him put on a Taoist robe and become a disciple of the Five Elders Temple.

The story of the wild fox visiting the temple was originally a beautiful tale, but Hu Baosong stubbornly insisted on staying. He believed that as the only direct descendant of the Hu Yang family, he could not be like a common person and marry into the temple as a live-in fox son-in-law.

It should be noted that after his mother gave birth to him, she did not allow him to take his father's surname, but rather his mother's surname, Hu.

His mother did this so that the Hu Yang clan would not be extinct.

How could he now become a disciple of the Five Elders Temple and adopt a different name?

That night, Hu Baosong found Master Zichen and wanted her to come down the mountain with him so that they could become a carefree couple who envied no immortals.

Zi Chen agreed, but when Hu Baosong arrived at the agreed place, Zi Chen did not show up as scheduled.

Hu Baosong arrived outside the Five Elders Temple and knocked on the door to ask for clarification. At that time, Zi Chen was inside the door.

With only a door separating them, Zi Chen made his point clearly.

It was said that the abbot was old and she could not abandon him for her own selfish desires.

Zi Chen said a lot, and when she could no longer hear any sound outside the door, she opened the door, only to find that Hu Baosong had disappeared.

At the entrance, only a lone leaf fell from the tree, just like the leaf she caught when she played the flute in front of the temple.

As soon as Zichen closed the temple gate, Hu Baosong's figure suddenly appeared from the side of the mountain path.

He glanced at the temple gate. A gentle breeze swept by, scattering the fallen leaves across the ground. Only a trace of melancholy remained before the deep and quiet Taoist temple.

After that, Hu Baosong continued to travel the world, during which time he met some female confidantes. However, he would always take out half of the jade ring in the shape of a heart-moon fox late at night and admire it alone.

The jade ring was left by Hu Baosong's mother. It was originally a pair, but the other one is at the Wulao Temple.
When he was around two hundred years old, Hu Baosong returned to Jingxia Street. By then, his coffin shop had been taken back by the government and rented or sold to others.

Hu Baosong was startled. Ignoring the shopkeeper and the staff's attempts to stop him, he rushed into the courtyard. He only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the peach tree was still lush and green.

After that, Hu Baosong produced a house deed that had been stored for two hundred years, claiming that he was the great-grandson of "Hu Baosong" and that his ancestors had lived here for generations.

The shopkeeper didn't care about any of that. Now it was the Yong Dynasty's era, and old property deeds from the previous dynasty wouldn't be of any use.

Hu Baosong remained silent for a moment, then exchanged the house deed for two hundred-tael silver notes.

That same day, the shopkeeper and he drafted a contract. After the government officials came to verify its authenticity, they brought Hu Baosong the official contract and a temporary warrant the following day.

The eloquent old fox, coupled with his ever-effective money offensive, managed to regain control of his mansion in just two days.

However, when everyone left, he looked at his own yard and couldn't help but laugh at himself.

"I have to pay to get into my own home."

After returning to Linhe and running the shop for about two or three years, Hu Baosong had nothing to do one day, so he went alone to the Yinhe Ancient Road and looked south.

On this very day, heavenly fire suddenly descended outside the Ghost King's Tomb. At this time, the yang fire sealed the tomb, and all the ghosts hid inside the tomb, not daring to show their faces.

Hu Baosong had never seen a celestial fire spread across a group of graves. However, just as he was marveling at the sight, he saw an old man with an iron shovel emerge from the graves that had just been scorched by the celestial fire. It seemed that he had just finished digging the graves.

Seeing that the celestial fire had deterred the ghosts from venturing out, the old man turned and ventured deep into the Ghost King's tomb, where he stole one of the twin coffins from the tomb of Princess Yan Ning, the Ghost King's daughter.

Hu Baosong looked at the old man running with the coffin on his back and felt inexplicably amused.

The old man was quite interesting. After seeing Hu Baosong, he hesitated for a moment before coming up to greet him.

"I recognize you. You're Manager Hu from the coffin shop on the street."

"Oh, who are you?" Hu Baosong pretended not to recognize him.

"I am Liu Youdao, greetings, fellow Daoist." Both old men were lonely and had no relatives. Ever since their encounter at the Yin River, Liu Youdao often bought wine and sought out Hu Baosong to chat.

As for what happened next, Xu Qing no longer needed to watch, because he saw his own reflection in Hu Baosong's memory.

"Young man, are you here to ask for a coffin, or to place an order?"

"Please provide two coffins. They don't need to be too luxurious, but preferably spacious, warm in winter and cool in summer, and well-ventilated."

The revolving lantern ended, and the Salvation Sutra gave the corpse an evaluation: top-grade Earth element. The reward was a coffin that could allow the living to sleep forever.

Dynasties rise and fall, beauties turn to bones, the landscape remains unchanged but the people are all gone.

This immortal coffin can preserve the appearance of the living. When the coffin is opened, the person sleeping there will look exactly as they did in life, and their lifespan will remain the same.

Xu Qing stared at the coffin in front of him, which was covered with longevity patterns, and felt a tightness in his chest for a long time.

You know what's going on here. Why didn't they give it to him sooner or later? Now that Old Hu is gone, they've given him this thing instead!

For him now, this is no different from taking off his pants to fart.

Xu Qing thought for a moment, then sighed and carefully placed the coffin of immortality into the miniature garden.

Keep it safe for now; you never know when you might need it.

After putting the coffin away, Xu Qingfu looked at Hu Baosong, who was smiling inside.

"This old man"

Shaking his head, Xu Qing closed the coffin lid, placed two coffins over it, and then put it into the same small garden.

The ancient Yinhe River is lined with numerous graves.

In an inconspicuous, desolate grave, a young man dressed in a wedding gown and draped in a white fur coat emerged from the tomb.

A cold wind howled outside the tomb, and Xu Qing took a deep breath of the unique atmosphere of the Yinhe Ancient Road.

This place is isolated from the world, devoid of human life, only the dead sleep.

Ordinary people cannot find the entrance to the Yinhe Ancient Road. If one accidentally enters, it is even more difficult to get out alive than to enter.

Xu Qing knew the dangers here, but when he set foot on this land again, he felt surprisingly at peace.

He vaguely felt as if he had returned home.

Xu Qing became wary. As the saying goes, a gentle land is a hero's grave. This Yin River may seem like a feng shui treasure land suitable for zombies to retire in, but it may actually be a pig-slaughtering scam that has existed for thousands of years. It is just waiting for outsiders to become addicted and unable to extricate themselves before the hidden butcher's knife comes down.

It should be known that throughout history, how many great men have tried to open up a path to heaven on the Yinhe Ancient Road, only to end up as weeds in these tombs?
Suppressing the strange feeling in his heart, Xu Qing rearranged the small grave in front of him and then released the paper figure funeral procession.

After doing all this, Xu Qing returned to the unremarkable tomb and began to gradually test the distance at which the paper figure could be controlled.

Inside the tomb, Xu Qing held the map passed down from Hu Baosong's ancestors, like a general controlling troops in a military tent, remotely directing paper figures to carry the coffin deep into the Yinhe Ancient Road.

Occasionally, ghost soldiers patrolling the Ghost King's Tomb would block the way. The leading ghost spirits would not force their way through, but instead would scatter paper money and other valuables along the way as tolls.

Knowing the rules, the ghost soldiers would naturally make way for the goodwill they received. However, if they encountered greedy ghosts blocking their way, the thirty-two coffin-guarding spirits would not be to be trifled with.

However, the funeral procession was still on the outskirts of the Yinhe Ancient Road. If they wanted to go any further, they would have to take a detour.

Paper cranes scout the route in advance, while paper figures carry funeral processions with white paper lanterns bearing the words "Ghost soldiers are sending off the dead; the living must retreat."

After traveling about two hundred miles, Xu Qing's connection with the paper figure suddenly became weak.

Inside the tomb, Xu Qing frowned slightly as he looked at the tomb marker that was already visible in the distance on the map.

The Yinhe Ancient Road is like an invisible, dry riverbed, running through the north and south of Dayong. The location of the Populus euphratica Mausoleum is very close to Tianjin, but even so, it is still nearly 500 miles away.

The paper doll funeral procession is still at least halfway to reach the Populus euphratica Mausoleum. In other words, unless Xu Qing personally goes to the location where the paper dolls are now, it is impossible to control the paper doll procession to reach the Populus euphratica Mausoleum.

After hesitating for a moment, Xu Qing once again controlled the palm-sized paper crane to patrol the surroundings. Once he was sure there was no threat, he then controlled the paper tiger to dig a hidden burrow nearby.

After setting up his lodging, Xu Qing walked out of the tomb, mounted his dappled horse, and followed the path cleared by the paper figures. Before long, he arrived at the burial site dug by the paper tiger.

After swallowing two Corpse Nourishing Pills and restoring his Yin Qi and magical power to their peak, Xu Qing once again controlled the funeral procession to explore deeper into the area.

When Xu Qing was a hundred miles away from the Populus euphratica Mausoleum, he suddenly heard a commotion of people and horses. Before the paper figures could retreat, he saw yellow sand swirling in the distance. After the sand settled, dozens of paper lanterns suddenly appeared on the dimly lit ancient Yinhe Road and rushed straight towards the paper figure procession.

The clatter of hooves and the clanging of weapons and armor filled the air. As the paper lantern drew nearer, a burly general with a long beard and a broad face appeared before Xu Qing.

The man scanned the area, but his gaze did not fall on the paper figure. Instead, he looked towards the north and shouted, "I am the Marshal of the Eight Banners, ordered to pursue and wipe out the remnants of the Yin Shi Fa Wang's forces. Who are you? Have you been harboring any bandits?"

Xu Qing pondered for a moment, then manipulated the paper figure to scatter paper money. The paper money, like leaves in the wind, quickly pieced together a line of words.

"They borrowed the road for the funeral procession and did not encounter any bandits."

Upon seeing the handwriting, the man who claimed to be the Marshal of the Eight Banners did not doubt its authenticity. He reined in his horse, turned around, and shouted to the dozens of riders behind him, "The bandits are not here. We will search elsewhere and make sure to wipe them out!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the yellow sand in front of him swirled up again, and before long, the sandstorm was swept eastward.

"These soldiers come and go without a trace; they must also be non-human beings."

Because of this little incident, Xu Qing became even more cautious on the rest of the journey.

Fortunately, the journey was uneventful, and after about half an hour, Xu Qing finally saw the so-called Populus euphratica Mausoleum.

The Populus euphratica Mausoleum is less a mausoleum and more an abandoned site, similar to the Qingqiu Cave.

There were only ruins and desolate tombs here. Xu Qing manipulated the paper figure to search for a long time before finally finding the entrance to the cave recorded by Hu Yangshi.

Following the method described by Hu Baosong, Xu Qing controlled the paper figure to move back and forth around the underground passage along a specific path. Gradually, a thick gray-white fog began to emerge from the underground passage. The paper figure picked up a white paper lantern, and one by one, ghostly green flames lit up. After passing through the thick fog, the true tomb of the Hu Yang family appeared before Xu Qing's eyes.

The ancient tomb was covered in thick dust, and no one had entered for who knows how many years. Xu Qing wanted to control a palm-sized paper crane to fly in and explore, but he found that the paper crane had only flown into the tomb passage for a short time before losing contact.

Left with no other choice, Xu Qing dug a pit on the spot and buried Hu Baosong's coffin in the outer chamber of the tomb.

Like a fox returning to its den, Hu Baosong has finally fulfilled his long-cherished wish.

Following the map of the Populus euphratica mausoleum, Xu Qing controlled the paper figure to wander around, and during this time he discovered many murals depicting the Populus euphratica clan fighting against various demons and monsters on the Yinhe Ancient Road.

Those murals are ancient, spanning at least several thousand years.

After leaving the Populus euphratica Mausoleum, Xu Qing controlled the paper figure to travel north. However, after traveling about fifty miles, he stumbled upon a mass grave.

At the highest point of the cemetery, there is a main tomb with a simple stone tablet on it, inscribed with the words "Tomb of Marshal Deng Shan of the Eight Banners".

"Deng Shan."

Xu Qing wrote down the name.

After passing through the chaotic graveyard and traveling no more than two hundred li, the paper figure deliberately took a detour of more than ten li when it passed the cave where Xu Qing was located, and returned directly to the outer perimeter of the Ghost King's Tomb.

After delivering the paper figure to a safe location, Xu Qing emerged from the cave and remounted his dappled horse.

On the endless expanse of yellow sand dunes and desolate graves, Xu Qing reined in his horse and looked back at the location of the Populus euphratica tomb.

Although he is an immortal being in the mortal world, he cannot hold back a soul that dies young.

Only a few will be able to stay with him until the end.

(End of this chapter)