Under One Person: Feng Shui Master, I Will Protect the Mountains and Rivers with My Own Body

The flickering firelight cast intermittent light and shadow on Yan Que's face.

He held the dark green ancient jade in his hand, his brows furrowed into a knot.

The texture of this jade is very strange; it feels cool to the touch, yet it also has a warm, living quality.

The surface of the jade is pitted and uneven as if it were formed naturally, but upon closer inspection, some extremely ancient, bird-and-insect script-like engravings can be vaguely seen among those irregular patterns, although most of them have been worn away and are no longer recognizable.

"Strange..." Yan Que scratched the surface of the jade with his fingernail, making a tooth-grinding "crunch" sound, but didn't even leave a white mark.

The hardness of this thing is beyond imagination.

"Dad, what are you looking at?"

Yan Sen was almost asleep, but when he caught a glimpse of the faint green light emanating from the jade out of the corner of his eye, he felt a chill run down his spine, and his sleepiness vanished almost entirely.

He leaned closer, his little head peeking out from beside Yan Que's hand, staring curiously at the jade.

"Look at this." Yan Que handed the jade to him. "You have a keen nose and sharp eyes, kid. Show your father what's different about this thing."

Yan Sen took the jade. It was icy cold to the touch, but after holding it for a while, a warm current came from deep within the jade, drilling into his body through his palm. It was indescribably strange.

He imitated Yan Que, staring at the firelight for a long time, but couldn't see anything except that the green stone looked a bit ugly.

"It's just a broken rock, right? Can you exchange it for money?" Yan Sen curled his lip, preparing to return it to his father.

"Use your eyes to see," Yan Que reminded him.

"My eyes?" Yan Sen was stunned for a moment, then realized what his father meant. He wasn't referring to his naked eyes, but rather the wisdom eye he had cultivated using the "Shaking Dragon Scripture" passed down in his family—the [Understanding the Qi of All Things].

He took a deep breath, concentrated his mind, and slowly infused his eyes with a faint amount of Qi.

The next second, the world before his eyes changed completely.

The flickering flames were no longer simply red, but had transformed into vibrant, golden-red clusters of life. The pillars, statues, and even the dust on the ground in the dilapidated temple all emitted varying degrees of deathly gray-white aura.

The ancient jade in his hand presented a completely different scene under the perspective of [All Things Connected by Qi].

The interior of the jade was no longer a deep green, but filled with a dense, impenetrable black aura. This black aura was filled with resentment, violence, and chaos, several times purer than the combined malevolent aura of the previous few Earthly Fiend Corpse Dogs.

At the very center of that massive mass of black energy, at its very core, floated a small, fist-sized ball of blood-red energy.

What made Yan Sen's scalp tingle even more was that the ball of red energy was rhythmically contracting and pulsating!

"Thump...thump...thump..."

Although he couldn't hear it, Yan Sen could clearly "see" its pulse.

With each pulse, a tiny wisp of red energy emanates from within and merges into the surrounding black energy, as if providing a continuous source of nourishment to that massive mass of malevolent energy.

"Father!" Yan Sen was so startled that his hand trembled and he almost dropped the jade. His face turned pale, and his voice trembled. "This...this jade...it feels like there's a heart beating inside!"

"Oh? You saw it?" Yan Que's expression instantly turned extremely serious. He snatched the jade back, his eyes filled with apprehension. "Take a closer look. What does that 'heart' look like?"

Yan Sen swallowed hard, composed himself, and once again activated the [All Things Connected by Qi] technique, moving closer to observe carefully.

"It's red, like a mass of blood. No, it's not blood. That mass of red energy... seems... seems to be wrapped around something." Yan Sen tried hard to see more clearly. He felt a stinging pain in his eyes, a sign of excessive energy consumption.

"What is it?" Yan Que pressed.

"I can't see clearly... It's too small, like... like a child who hasn't fully grown up..." Yan Sen's voice grew softer and softer. What he saw was beyond his comprehension.

Within that ball of red energy was a blurry, curled-up shadow, its outline resembling that of a premature fetus!

Upon hearing the word "child," Yan Que's face darkened completely. His usual carefree demeanor vanished without a trace, replaced by an icy chill.

"Damn it, it's the 'Blood Embryo Locking Spirit Jade'." Yan Que cursed under his breath, his voice filled with barely suppressed anger. "These damned evil cultivators are really getting more and more shameless."

"Blood Embryo Locking Spirit Jade? What is this?" Yan Sen asked, puzzled.

Yan Que carefully wrapped the jade in a tattered cloth and tucked it deep inside his bosom before speaking, his voice terrifyingly low.

"This thing is a type of corpse jade. But it is a hundred times more vicious than ordinary corpse jade. Ordinary corpse jade is made by stuffing the jade into the mouth of a dying person, allowing it to absorb the person's last breath of life essence. But this 'Blood Embryo Locking Spirit Jade' is made by using a secret method to seal the soul of a premature fetus, along with the mother's life essence, in a special nourishing jade and burying it in an extremely yin place underground."

Yan Que paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully: "This jade is like a 'fertile soil,' and the fetus's soul is the 'seed.' It will continuously absorb the Yin energy from the ground to 'grow.' The black mist you just saw is the 'nutrients' it has absorbed over the years. Once it 'matures,' the evil cultivator will take it out and use its soul and accumulated Yin energy to refine poisonous magical artifacts or directly feed it to the 'big thing' he has raised."

Yan Sen got goosebumps all over his body when he heard this.

Although he was a time traveler with a mental age that was much older than his physical age, the method of using an infant's soul as material still made him feel physically nauseous and uncomfortable.

"Then...then that Earthly Fiend Corpse Dog at the village entrance, was it created using this jade?" Yan Sen immediately realized the key point.

"Most likely." Yan Que nodded, his face grim as he analyzed, "In an ordinary mountain village, even if there's a mass grave underground and the yin energy is heavy, at most some small spirits will appear, but they won't amount to anything like the Earthly Fiend Corpse Dog. Those things are artificially 'raised'."

The father and son exchanged a glance, both seeing the same thought in each other's eyes.

"Someone is 'raising a poisonous insect' here," Yan Sen said, enunciating each word clearly.

"That's right." Yan Que's eyes sharpened. "The Earthly Fiend Corpse Dog we encountered today was likely just an experiment, or perhaps a byproduct of this 'Blood Embryo Locking Spirit Jade.' This jade was that evil cultivator's real target. He buried the jade here, came to check on it periodically, and also dealt with the 'grown-out' byproducts, but we, father and son, intercepted it."

Yan Sen instantly understood everything.

No wonder that after fusing with the Earthly Fiend Beast, its first target was me. It could sense the pure primordial energy within me, and what it craved was my body, which could serve as its "energy source."

They didn't encounter a ghost, they just... picked up someone else's bargain!

"Dad, haven't we stirred up a hornet's nest?" Yan Sen suddenly felt that the chicken leg in his hand didn't taste so good anymore.

"It's more than just a hornet's nest." Yan Que gave a wry smile. "Anyone who can handle such a high-end item as the 'Blood Embryo Locking Spirit Jade' is definitely not a nobody. This thing is extremely precious, with every step from material selection to production and refining taking a lot of time and effort. Now that we've taken it, that person will probably fight us to the death."

The atmosphere inside the dilapidated temple suddenly became oppressive.

I thought I was just doing a simple job and earning some hard-earned money, but I never expected to get into such big trouble.

Looking at Yan Que's solemn face, Yan Sen suddenly felt a little uneasy.

"Dad," Yan Sen put down the chicken leg, his little face serious, and said, "How about... we throw this jade away?"