Dongxuan Spiritual Realm

Chapter 23 Others are greedy, I am afraid

Yang Qisheng was horrified when he heard what Mingyi Zhenren said about "calamity".

I have just started practicing and have been practicing for less than half a month. I don’t even know where my own cave is. You, old man, want me to help the earthly immortals share the devil’s calamity?

How could I have done such a thing?

Mingyi Zhenren then told him, "Whenever you refine an elixir, whether it's an internal or external one, when it's about to mature, it will impact the primordial spirit, nourish the seven emotions, and give rise to the six desires, thus conjuring up all sorts of demonic realms. Your uncle Wutou is a deviant, and by nature he's very strong-willed. He firmly believes in fighting poison with poison and demon with demon, making this demonic calamity even more severe. This time, he's not asking me to protect him, but I'm insisting on helping him."

I will share his Dan Qi with him when his elixir is complete. Although this will affect the final quality of the elixir, it will alleviate many of his tribulations and prevent him from failing at the last minute. I will give you some of the Dan Qi later. Once the Dan Qi enters your body, it will stimulate the demonic heart. The inner demon will attract the outer demon, and together they will activate, transforming into a demonic realm. Although this demonic realm is infested by outer demons, the root cause lies in the inner demons transformed by your own seven emotions and six desires.

It will target the most vulnerable parts of your memories, past and present, extracting memories of greed, anger, ecstasy, and fear, then combine them with time and space to create a world that feels both real and illusory. External objects will then be useless, including your Flying Sword of Condensed Evil and your Golden Light Talisman. Only the Five Talismans of Internal Cultivation will be your only reliance. But the most crucial thing is your own cultivation of your mind and character.

The Immortal finally said earnestly, "If you can successfully overcome this tribulation, it will greatly benefit you in setting up the furnace to refine evil spirits, setting up the cauldron to refine the inner energy, and collecting herbs to refine elixirs in the future. If you fail, not only will your vitality be severely damaged and you will become seriously ill, but the things you most desire, fear, and resent in the demonic realm will become your inner demons, appearing to haunt you at the most critical moment of your cultivation. If you are not careful, you will go astray. Therefore, you must give it your all and never slack off."

The more Yang Qisheng listened, the more he felt that his master really thought too highly of him.

We had just met officially, and he had already arranged such a dangerous test for himself.

Didn't he say he valued his disciple? Why did he seem to be afraid that his cultivation would go too smoothly—forcing himself to create a calamity even if there wasn't one?

It's simply a matter of eating without suffering!
Isn't he afraid that if he's not careful, the "good seedling" he has been secretly observing for many years will be killed in the calamity?

Of course, he could also understand the intention of Mingyi Zhenren: good steel needs to be polished a lot, and it will become sharp after being hammered and tempered a thousand times.

Since the master believes that I can do it, I must do it. I cannot let the master down, and I cannot damage my foundation and let my path to immortality be cut off here.

What is the Earthly Immortal Demonic Tribulation? It sounds scary. As a newbie who has only been practicing Taoism for thirteen days, I must go through it and break through the realm of demon cultivation!

A sense of heroism rose in my heart, and I felt more confident, even my back straightened a little.

He closed his eyes and concentrated his mind, gathering the five energies in his chest and condensing them into the Five Spiritual Treasure Talismans. He then stored the five talismans in his heart and combined them into the Spiritual Treasure Gold Talisman.

Soon, he entered a state where his body was as empty as the sky and as deep as a valley.

In Taoist practice, the body is the world, and the outside is space. The heart is the sky, the kidneys are the earth, the liver is the sun, and the lungs are the moon, forming a universe unto itself.

The body is empty, the consciousness retreats, and the primordial spirit begins to dominate the world...

Suddenly, he seemed to smell a faint fragrance, like orchids in a valley. Just as he was about to sniff it carefully, the fragrance immediately turned into a musty smell.

The musty smell of dead wood and fallen leaves that had been soaked in rain for a long time blew towards me on the wind.

The wind was not strong, but very eerie, blowing from the forest at the bottom of the valley at night.

Yang Qisheng opened his eyes and found that it was already night in the sky. It was pitch black with no stars or moon.

He was in the middle of a sparse forest.

Where is this place?

The surrounding scenery was all the same, just dark woodland.

He randomly chose a direction and soon saw a dilapidated stone tablet with three large, weathered and broken characters on it: Lanruo Temple!
Lanruo Temple, these three words evoked Yang Qisheng's long-forgotten memories.

His two lives combined would be equivalent to the movie "A Chinese Ghost Story" that I watched more than 30 years ago.

There are two most profound memories: one is "Zuxian getting dressed" and the other is "Heishan getting married".

At that time, he was in the adolescent stage of teenage development and the age of falling in love for the first time. After watching the movie, that cold and otherworldly figure lingered in his mind for a long time.

That was the white moonlight in his heart, the most beautiful picture of the opposite sex in his memory. Even if he had a life of luxury, with maids around him and had seen countless beauties, none of them could compare to one ten-thousandth of "Zuxian's dressing"!

If you really count it, the only scene that can be compared is Wen Jingluan, who I saw not long ago, walking out of the clouds pouring down from the sky.

But at that time, I felt that Wen Jingluan's every frown and smile could touch my heart and make my blood boil. But when I think about it later, it's just like that, and I no longer feel that excited.

If "Zuxian getting dressed" aroused his greed, "Heishan getting married" carried his fear. The scene of the Black Mountain old demon's clothes opening and countless heads flying out of it became a shadow that shrouded his heart for years!

After watching it, he didn't dare go out alone at night for three years...

This magical realm should be composed of the images in my memory based on these two thoughts.

As Yang Qisheng walked forward, he thought silently: What does it take to break through the realm of demon cultivation?
Should he kill Nie Xiaoqian to sever his greed? Or should he destroy the Black Mountain Demon to eliminate his fear?
Do we have to kill them all?

Are all these things that appear in the demonic realm demons?

Only by killing them all can we break the devil's realm and leave here? However, Nie Xiaoqian is kind, so sending her to reincarnate might be okay, after all, it means she has cut off her greed.

While pondering this, Yang Qisheng soon saw the dilapidated temple in front of him. The wooden buildings were all rotten, and many beams were broken and collapsed. It looked like no one had been here for at least decades.

He had to go find Yan Chixia first, otherwise, let alone the Black Mountain Old Demon, with his current strength, he probably wouldn't be able to defeat even the Tree Demon Grandma.

Yang Qisheng walked into Lanruo Temple and checked each building one by one, looking for Yan Chixia.

He was extremely agile and there weren't many buildings in the temple, so he walked through it quickly and finished searching the entire place. Not to mention Yan Chixia, he didn't even see a mouse.

In such a huge temple, there is no living thing except for trees and weeds!
With Yan Chixia not around, Yang Qisheng felt a little less confident. With his current strength, it would be no problem for him to deal with a few female ghosts, but if his grandmother took action, he would lose more than he would win.

If the Blood Pecking Sword and the Golden Light Talisman were still there, perhaps I could have fought the tree monster. But now, just as Master said, all external objects are gone, even the spiritual figure left by Master in my mind is gone.

In this devilish world, you can only rely on yourself!

A good man does not suffer immediate losses.

He remembered that there was a town in the world of "A Chinese Ghost Story". He rushed there overnight to find a place to stay and figure out what to do next after dawn the next day.

He used his lightness skills to walk out of Lanruo Temple. The wind was under his feet and his speed was faster than a galloping horse. He jumped several feet and covered a long distance in just a few steps.

But he clearly left Lanruo Temple and rushed in one direction. In the blink of an eye, he arrived at Lanruo Temple again.

After he came out, he turned around and ran again. A moment later, he arrived at Lanruo Temple again!

Through the marks made with the five Lingbao talismans, it can be confirmed that there is only one Lanruo Temple, but he can't get out!
Yang Qisheng was also a little scared and tried to keep himself calm: It seems that I can only wait until dawn. There has been such a scene in the movie. When the day comes, the spell should disappear.

He wanted to find a suitable place to sit cross-legged in meditation. Just as he turned around, he saw a pretty figure standing there, quietly, with long hair draped over her shoulders, snow-white skin, eyes full of tenderness and coldness, just looking at him quietly.

"You are...Xiao Qian?"

"Do you know my name?" Xiao Qian approached slowly. "Sir, have you heard of me?"

"I..." Yang Qisheng hadn't figured out how to answer.

Xiao Qian threw herself directly into his arms: "Ah, it's so cold!"

Yang Qisheng reflexively dodged to the side, and Xiaoqian fell to the ground: "Ouch, that hurts."

She turned around and stretched out her fair arms: "Sir..."

Yang Qisheng hesitated for a moment, but still grabbed Xiaoqian's hand. He felt that her fingers were soft and tender, and the touch was very good, but extremely cold.

He pulled gently, and Xiaoqian took advantage of the situation to stand up and throw herself into his arms, facing him and their eyes met, which made Yang Qisheng's heart skip a beat.

Although I knew it was a magical realm, an illusion, but holding a girl like this, I could clearly feel her soft touch and could even smell the unique fragrance of a girl...

He didn't push her away, he just turned his head away.

Xiao Qian whispered into his ear: "Sir..."

Yang Qisheng said, "Xiao Qian, I know you're a good ghost. You don't want to harm anyone, but you're forced to do so by the tree demon. Play a trick with me tonight and trick the tree demon. Wait until dawn tomorrow. I'll take your urn away and send you to reincarnation..."

He didn't know whether sending Nie Xiaoqian to reincarnate could achieve the goal of "refining the devil and breaking through the realm", but he still wanted to try.

After all, Xiaoqian is kind, and she was forced to harm people by the tree demon. No matter whether it is the magic world or reality, whether it is real or illusion, she must maintain a certain heart and remain true to her heart.

He wanted to let her go, but Xiao Qian refused to give in. She opened her mouth to bite his lips while moving her hands downwards to explore. Yang Qisheng quickly pushed her away: "What are you doing!"

Xiaoqian looked at him with a smile on her face: "Don't you want to? Haven't you thought about it before? Now as long as you are willing, your dream will come true!" As she said that, she was about to pounce on him again.

Yang Qisheng pinched the Lingbao Jue with his hands and said in a deep voice: "If you come over again, I will not be polite!"

"What is standing between us? In fact, as long as you change your mind, we can be together immediately!"

"You are not Xiaoqian, not the person in my mind, please go away."

"Why am I not? I am the person in your heart!" Xiao Qian said, "The one you think is real is not what you imagine!"

No matter how much she said, Yang Qisheng remained unmoved. Finally, she got angry!

The female ghost suddenly ripped open the gauze dress on her chest, and eight heads suddenly emerged from her chest to her abdomen. They all had Xiaoqian's faces, but their faces were hideous and they were roaring loudly!

(End of this chapter)