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

Chapter 300 A Lonely Man? An Old Man in a Lonely Nest!

Gazing at the deathly silent entrance to the Yin River, Xu Qing felt his heart, which had been dead for many years, begin to beat again.

The Yin River before us is like a treasure trove where countless skeletons are buried.

Xu Qing had no idea how much damage the old woman's wooden ladle had caused to the entrance of the Yinhe River in Tianjin.

Whether the powerful ghosts, witch priests, witch spirits, and ancient gods have been injured is another matter, but at the very least, his old neighbor, the Ghost King Duo'e, does not seem to be in a good situation.

Besides the Ghost King Duo'e, the skeleton soldiers led by the Eight Banners Marshal, the rebels who came to help the Yin Shi Dharma King, and Ji Lingzhou, Han Renshan and others who attempted to excavate the divine treasures, were all in the Yin River Ancient Road.

If this disaster were to affect everyone, Xu Qing couldn't even imagine how much of a bargain he would get!

However, he still needed to do some probing before collecting the body.

Xu Qing returned to the twin coffins, then took out four paper figures, equipping each of them with a tinderbox and a sturdy iron cannon.

Since we're visiting our old neighbors, we should bring some gifts, shouldn't we?
Xu Qing controlled four paper figures to disperse from four different directions around the Ghost King's Tomb.

When each paper figure arrived at the appropriate spot, Xu Qing manipulated them to take out a tinderbox and light the fuse of the iron cannon.

The tiny white wick, only an inch long, was activated at the slightest touch, followed by four thunderous booms that shattered the silence of the ancient Yinhe Road.

Even Xu Qing, who was twenty miles away, could hear the commotion coming from afar.

This iron cannon may not be very powerful, but its sheer scale is impressive.

After the loud noise, the Ghost King's Tomb remained deathly silent.

Xu Qing observed for a long time, but not a single ghost soldier came out to investigate the situation in the huge mausoleum.

After waiting for about half a cup of tea's time, Xu Qing finally saw a skeleton ghost slowly emerge from the entrance of the collapsed mausoleum.

The ghostly figure was dressed in neat armor, and looked like a ghost general.

But with that peek-out, head-turning-and-looking-back posture, where was the fierce ghost and valiant general of the past?
Xu Qing felt that if he were to use his Corpse Roar Technique to shout loudly at this moment, the ghost general would be so frightened that he would run back to his grave in a panic!

Seeing that there was no movement at the mausoleum, the ghost general mustered his courage and moved closer to the direction from which the loud noise came.

Xu Qing was secretly pleased to see this.

Alright! You're the one!

Before the crater created by the iron cannon, the patrolling ghost general picked up a blackened, broken tomb brick and sniffed it with a puzzled look.

There was no magical fluctuation, only an intense, fiery temperature like burning coals. The ghost general had never seen anything like it before, yet it seemed strangely familiar.

Suddenly, it remembered that many years ago, when General Ghost Altar was out on patrol, he had been seriously injured, and at that time, the blackened bones of his opponent had this smell.
In front of the pit, the patrolling ghost general was squatting in front of the pit, pondering something, when suddenly he felt a darkness before his eyes.

The patrolling ghost general froze for a moment, then slowly turned his head.

Behind it, ten tall, imposing, and menacing generals surrounded it.

Those monstrous warriors all had blue faces and fangs, with bloodshot eyes, and their height of over ten feet was even more intimidating than the Vajra guardian Buddha statues in the temple.

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The ghost general glanced at the huge pit behind it, then at the mad generals surrounding it. It had never felt so desperate in its life.

"To defeat the weak with superior numbers is an dishonest victory."

Before the ghost general could finish speaking, he was overwhelmed by the rampaging general's fists!

When the three ghostly flames in the eyes and chest of the ghost general were extinguished, the rampant general consciously retreated to the side, revealing the paper funeral procession that had been waiting behind him for a long time.

The paper effigy expertly tossed the skeleton into the coffin, closed the lid, and then carried the guest, carrying a funeral banner, in the opposite direction from the Ghost King's Mausoleum.

Twenty miles away, the paper figure procession entered the underground passage. Deep inside the passage, Xu Qing, who had been waiting for a long time, lifted the coffin lid, took out the remains, and waved behind him.

Upon receiving the instruction, the paper figures carried the empty coffin out of the passageway and continued to collect and excavate the scattered skeletons around the Ghost King's Tomb.

Xu Qing wasn't afraid of being discovered by the Ghost King Duo'e. He had previously suspected that the Ghost King's Tomb had suffered a calamity, and now his old neighbor's reaction confirmed it to be almost certain.

Furthermore, taking advantage of the moment when the paper figures were moving, he used the sword given to him by Zuo Zixiong to pinpoint the location of the Eight Banners Marshals and others.

Even if his old neighbor really did come knocking, he could use the "Divine Travel Book" to go to another neighbor's house to avoid trouble.

"The fact that the sword can sense Zuo Zixiong's location means that he did not perish in the Yin River."

Xu Qing thought about it and felt relieved. With the blessing of the nation's fortune, it wouldn't be difficult for the Eight Banners Marshal to protect Zuo Zixiong.

However, in comparison, the Demon King Duo'e seems somewhat shameful.

After all, when this ghost king encountered disaster, he chose to abandon his troops and flee on his own.

It is said that kings die for their country, and emperors guard the nation's gates.

However, the Demon King chose to return to guard the tomb entrance.

Deep within the tomb, Xu Qing reached out and touched the skeleton of the ghost general before him.

The pages of the "Scripture of Salvation" flipped rapidly, and the slideshow of the Skeleton Ghost General quickly came to a close.

Xu Qing saw the Ghost King Duo'e hiding deep within the mausoleum, not daring to take a single step out, and also saw the skeleton ghost soldiers lying haphazardly in various passages of the Ghost King's Mausoleum.

Without exception, the ghostly flames on the bodies of those ghost soldiers had all been extinguished.

Only the ministers and concubines with slightly higher cultivation levels within the inner perimeter of the royal palace managed to escape this calamity.

When Xu Qing's iron cannons roared throughout the royal mausoleum, the Ghost King Duo'e nearly hid under his desk in front of many officials.

It is evident how much psychological trauma the old woman's wooden ladle inflicted on this ghost king.

After learning about the interior of the Ghost King's Tomb, Xu Qing's expression turned strange.

The bad news is that the Demon King of Do'e was too cautious. Before the calamity arrived, he ran faster than anyone else and seemed to have suffered little harm, though psychological trauma is another matter.

The good news is that this ghost king is already very nervous and shouldn't show his face anytime soon.

In addition, Xu Qing also obtained some other key information from the ghost general.

That was the wooden ladle that the old woman had dropped, heading towards the Netherworld Gate guarded by Ghost Law, Witch Priest, and Witch Clan. To prevent problems with the gate, Ghost Law and Witch Priest took on most of the damage.

"Ghost Law was originally born from the Nine Netherworlds, yet it is so wary of the opening of the Netherworld Gate."

Recalling the immeasurable size of the Ghost Law's body and the unfathomable depths of its cultivation, Xu Qing dared not imagine just how powerful the Dharma Corpse the old woman spoke of truly was.

"When the Dharma Corpse appears in the world, all humans, ghosts, gods, and Buddhas are filled with dread."

As Xu Qing pondered the characteristics of the Dharma Corpse, a ridiculous idea suddenly came to him.

This kind of thing, which transcends the Three Realms and is not subject to the Five Elements, and should not exist in the first place, is very much like a zombie that has developed extremely high intelligence and has cultivated to the extreme.
Xu Qing forcibly suppressed this thought. If that were the case, wouldn't he also be universally condemned?

Thoughts turn.

Aside from their fear of the ghostly laws that would allow the Nine Netherworld Gate to open, the Eight Banners Marshal and the Yin Erosion Dharma King had much simpler thoughts. They were both driven by a sense of shared destiny, where one's fate was intertwined with the other's, and thus forced to take action.

Both actions are understandable, as they are for the sake of worldly struggles. If things sealed in the underworld were allowed to invade the world, both Dayong and Nancuo would be plunged into a greater crisis.

Only the Demon King of Calamity retreated in the face of battle, choosing to abandon his demon soldiers and preserve his own strength.

After all, the loss of the ghost soldiers is a minor matter, but the damage to one's own foundation is a major matter, which is no different from a subject dying for his ruler.

Xu Qing finally understood why the Demon King Duo'e had been able to exist at the entrance of the Yin River in Tianjin for thousands of years.

"A thousand-year-old tortoise, a ten-thousand-year-old turtle. This old turtle is quite adept at hiding its head."

Through this section, Xu Qing suddenly recalled Liu Youdao's theft of the Twin Coffins. At that time, the Ghost King Duo'e had secretly entered Tianjin once with the help of the Twin Coffins, but he was locked by the Heavenly Fire Calamity as soon as he showed his face.

Since then, the Ghost King Duo'e has never left the Yinhe Ancient Road again, and he has no longer inquired about the lost twin coffins or his missing daughter, Princess Yanning.

At this moment, Xu Qing looked at the vast Ghost King's Tomb again through the perspective of the Chuling Paper Doll.

What's standing before us, the Ghost King's Tomb, is no longer a grand tomb; it's clearly just a buried turtle shell!
"The Red-Clothed Cult's incense offerings have been wasted."

While controlling the funeral procession of the straw spirits to collect the corpses of the ghost soldiers, Xu Qing continuously performed rituals to send back the white skeletons to the afterlife.

After the remains outside the Ghost King's Tomb had been collected, he manipulated the paper figures of straw spirits to carry the coffin, scatter paper money, and enter the passageway of the Ghost King's Tomb to begin moving the burial remains inside.

The Demon King Duo'e was an emperor during the Southern Wan Dynasty a thousand years ago, and the number of palace servants and soldiers buried with him was in the tens of thousands.

These corpses were enslaved by emperors in life, and will be driven by ghost kings in death.

Deep within the Ghost King's Tomb, there is a bronze mother cauldron containing incense ash, the very source of the eternal damnation that haunts the dead.

That cauldron was originally a cauldron for the state, but after being buried in the Ghost King's Mausoleum, it became the source of imprisonment for all those buried with it.

However, the cauldron's function was as useless as paper in the face of the Scripture of Salvation.

For every ghost soldier's corpse that Xu Qing performed rituals to help them pass on to the afterlife, a true spirit would be separated from the bronze mother cauldron. Once he had cleared all the passages to the Ghost King's Tomb, only the Ghost King and some ministers and concubines would remain.

In the days that followed, Xu Qing used the Yin energy accumulated over thousands of years in the Ghost King's Tomb to condense one Yin Yuan Pill after another.

During this period, Xu Qing worked three days on and one day off, returning to Tianjin every three days, firstly to perform rituals for the corpses obtained from the mortuary, and secondly to handle affairs of the Cat Fairy Hall and Baosheng Temple.

After about a month, Xu Qing had completely cleansed the corpses in the Ghost King's Tomb passageway.

He also had nearly ten thousand Yin Yuan Pills in his possession.

On this day, Xu Qing, having tasted the sweetness of the funerary, once again dispatched the Chuling Funeral Procession to delve deep into the tomb chamber, lift the coffin lid, and move the corpses inside.

Among the corpses were officials, eunuchs, and concubines.
Meanwhile, deep within the Ghost King's Tomb.

The Demon King Duo'e, dressed in an ochre-yellow dragon robe, asked the Ghost Master, "My dear minister, how many days are left before the Bronze Mother Cauldron restores the state?"

The Ghost King had never experienced such a desolate royal tomb. Without the clamor of the ghost soldiers, he really felt that something was missing.

The Ghost Master hesitated for a moment and said, "When the incense ash in the bronze mother cauldron is plentiful, it takes forty-nine days to restart it. Now, more than fifty days have passed since the cauldron was restarted. Logically, the royal tomb should have returned to normal."

As the emperor and his ministers were talking, the concubine sitting next to the Ghost King Duo'e suddenly began to fade.

The concubine's remains had been kept in a coffin for a thousand years, her beautiful body, though seemingly ordinary, was formed from a condensed soul.

When she felt her body gradually disappearing, yet was powerless to stop it, the concubine immediately showed an expression of extreme terror.

"My beloved concubine!"

The Demon King Duo'e suddenly stood up, left his throne, and silently took a step back.

However, the Ghost King's hand reached out to his favorite concubine, showing that he still cared a great deal about the concubines in the royal tomb, whose deaths would reduce the number of concubines in the palace.

The ghostly concubine initially cried out for help in a panic, but as her body emitted a shimmering white halo that began to dissipate, the translucent concubine suddenly let out a soft moan, emitting an ambiguous gasp.

They seem to be enjoying themselves very much?

On her deathbed, the concubine suddenly revealed a relieved smile. She looked at the emperor and said with a sense of understanding, "Your Majesty, my time has come, and I am about to be reborn. I hope Your Majesty will take care."

"Reincarnation?"

Startled, the Demon King Duo'e suddenly realized what was happening and roared angrily:
"My beloved concubine! I command you not to be reborn. You are my concubine, and I command you to return! This is my decree!"

Fear of reincarnation, fear of losing his imperial majesty, the Ghost King Duo'e finally suppressed his inner fear. He reached out to grab the Ghost Consort, but grasped at empty air.

Despite his millennia of cultivation, he was completely unable to keep the other party from leaving!

Upon hearing the king's call, the beautiful concubine did not turn around; she merely murmured softly.

"A thousand years, Your Majesty has kept me here for a thousand years, are you still not satisfied?"

The concubine's words faded and became clear again: "If one cultivates good deeds in this life, one may be transformed into a phoenix in the blue sky or a golden boy in the Jade Pool. It is better than being imprisoned in decaying bones!"

After speaking, the concubine's body became as light as a feather, and as she became ethereal, she drifted away on an unknown journey home.

The Ghost King was both shocked and furious, but before he could do anything, the Ghost Master who had been assisting him in the palace began to fade away.

In the Ghost King's Tomb, military generals must use their own skeletal remains to fight for the king, while civil officials, like the concubines in the tomb, have their remains hidden in coffins, their bodies formed from the condensation of souls and spirits.

The Ghost King looked at the Ghost Master, shocked, but he spared no effort in trying to use his thousand years of cultivation to keep the old minister in front of him.

"My dear minister, are you also going to abandon me?"

The Ghost Master looked at the Ghost King Duo'e and smiled again, as if he were seeing himself in his old days.

Countless images of his past life flashed before his eyes. Just before the Ghost Master's figure disappeared, he finally looked directly at the king in front of him.

"Your Majesty, I have served Your Majesty for a thousand years. During this time, I have devoted myself to assisting in the governance of the country, but I have been so oblivious to the fact that the dynasty has been gone for a thousand years."

"Today, the time has come for this old minister. The underworld proclaims that my soul will return to the void and be reborn in another realm. This is the cycle of destiny, which cannot be defied by the emperor."

"In the past, Your Majesty promoted me from humble beginnings, bestowing upon me great honors and generous rewards, a favor akin to giving me a second life. Yet, life is like the tide, with its ups and downs. Now, recalling the past, I realize the entanglements of fate, the interplay of fortune and misfortune."

Master Gui sighed softly, then smiled with relief: "The bond between Your Majesty and me should have been exhausted a thousand years ago. This thousand years of companionship is enough for me to repay the duty between ruler and subject."

"Now that my karmic obstacles have been cleared, I shall depart in liberation. As I prepare to leave, I hope Your Majesty will not linger in this mortal world, nor be bound by personal feelings. If Your Majesty were to be greedy and insist on keeping me here, it would disrupt the natural order and diminish my merits."

“My words today come from the bottom of my heart, and I hope Your Majesty will remember them.”

"Your subject departs."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Ghost Master vanished without a trace, just like the Ghost Queen.

"Do not--!"

The Demon King Duo'e's eyes widened in fury, his whole body trembled, and the intense emotions surging within him could not be calmed for a long time.

(End of this chapter)