Chapter 1128: The World is a Tavern for Living Beings

In the Dao Immortal Sect in the west, there was a vast, fertile land where two medicinal plants had been locked in a struggle. That struggle had just ended.

One plant stood tall and in a full state of bloom, its leaves rustling, and the entire plant glittering like starlight. In contrast, the other plant had withered up. Its leaves had dried up, its flowers wilted, and it looked like it was about to fall to the ground.

And yet... Poison Monarch was still observing the situation closely. He was not looking at the plant that was on the verge of victory, but rather, the plant that was about to collapse onto the ground.

“Facing death without fear, huh?” he murmured, and his eyes started shining.

***

High in the sky above the western region, Li Mengtu looked very pale in the face. His rapid pace of travel had exacerbated his internal injuries, causing him to occasionally cough up blood. He was doing everything he could to suppress them, but was reaching his limit.

This was the most intense and difficult battle he had fought in his entire life. It had been very perilous to achieve victory, and he had also ended up severely injured. It was unprecedented.

This is probably what would happen if I fought some of the other Shining Stars.

Despite having come out victorious, when he thought back to everything that happened in the fight, he still felt lingering fear. Because of that, he hadn’t let down his guard.

There’s always the possibility of unexpected developments. And unexpected developments... tend to favor chosen cultivators.

Li Mengtu took a deep breath. He was not going to permit any unexpected possibilities from playing out right now. And because of that, he was fully aware that he wasn’t moving fast enough.

Reaching up with his right hand, he pushed down onto his forehead. Rumbling sounds resulted, and his face turned unusually ruddy. Apparently he had tapped into some latent potential, and was even burning some authority. The resulting burst of speed was like a major teleportation.

He did the same thing multiple times over the next three days. Combined with the impressive nature of the ancient teleportation portals, and it resulted in him reaching the Li Clan in only four vortex-days.

This was not the clan’s restricted area in the east. Rather, it was their ancestral land. It was Li City! The place was imposing, huge, and bustling, with a population made of countless cultivators.

Meanwhile, deep under the ground beneath the city was a spectacular necropolis. It seemed like an independent world, and actually, it was. It was a minor world. It had its own heaven and earth, although it didn’t have living beings. The world was calm, but there was a wind blowing past rivers and plains before reaching a towering mountain.

On top of that mountain was a building crafted from wood. Its main gate was tightly shut. In the courtyard was a pill cauldron, out of which curled incense smoke. Despite the wind, it rose straight up like a blue cloud.

A short time later, ripples spread out through the sky of the minor world, whereupon Li Mengtu stepped out into the open. Taking a deep breath, he entered the courtyard and looked at the closed door with a grave expression.

He dropped to his knees. This was a holy location to the Li Clan. It was where their aging patriarch had resided. The patriarch eventually passed away into meditation, whereupon the place became a shrine hall. According to custom, clan members weren’t permitted to come to this place except when it was time to offer ancestral sacrifices.

Li Mengtu touched his forehead to the ground in a kowtow, then quietly said, “Your descendant Li Mengtu has come to disturb your peace, Patriarch.”

After a moment passed, Li Mengtu stood. Looking away from the door, he turned his gaze to the pill cauldron. That cauldron was the reason he had come to this place. With the wave of his hand, he produced the scroll painting with Xu Qing sealed inside, and threw it toward the pill cauldron.

When it entered, the cauldron vibrated violently, and in turn, the entire minor world started shaking. Loud rumbling sounds filled the place. Boundless subterranean fire shot up, filling the world with light. Spell formations activated. With the world itself as a spell formation, and subterranean fire setting the limits, the cauldron became like an oven, which boosted the scroll’s power of assimilation.

As of now, nothing can go wrong. There’s no way any unexpected development can occur with Xu Qing. He’s going to die beyond the shadow of a doubt!

Li Mengtu could finally relax a bit. After kowtowing once more to the wooden building, he rose up into the sky and prepared to return to the Dao Immortal Sect. The immortal spirit energy there would be very helpful in his recovery.

After I’m back to normal, I’ll come back. Xu Qing’s soul will have been scattered into Deep Earth, and my legacy will return to me.

Li Mengtu gave one last look at the pill cauldron and the scroll inside of it.

The patriarch of the Li Clan had left that scroll painting behind before he passed away into meditation. Truth be told, most clan members only knew that much of the story. Few people knew the details. Common knowledge stated that the painting was a precious treasure of the clan, and that it came from a place called Deep Earth. That was their patriarch’s home.[1]

They also knew that if someone could open it, they could unleash the power to seal a Lower Immortal. But Li Mengtu, who was only strong enough to crack it open by sacrificing some of his longevity, knew a bit more.

The body will turn to nothing. The soul will enter reincarnation. After being whittled away, the end result is... the spirit being scattered in Deep Earth.

Li Mengtu burst into motion and disappeared from the minor world. He had disturbed the peace of the minor world. It was now full of endless fire, as well as... constant rumbling sounds.

***

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!

The sound of heavenly thunder seemed to come from beyond the sky, piercing into the world and becoming muffled rumbling sounds. It soon entered the dreams of all the people sleeping in the capital city.

Many people woke up with a start. Among them was an old man. He opened his eyes and then coughed softly.

To some extent, the sound of his cough surpassed the heavenly thunder. In an instant, the old man’s mansion house filled with lamp light, and a host of servants rushed to attend to him. None of them dared to be even slightly negligent in their duties. Whether or not you got killed by lightning from heaven mostly depended on chance. Whether or not you got killed by the old man mostly depended on his mood. That was why his cough surpassed the heavenly thunder.

The old man wore an inner garment of the finest silk, which indicated he had a very high status. He had white hair, a face full of wrinkles, and plenty of age spots. But the prestige he had built over his years of occupying such a high position ensured that people who looked at him didn’t even realize that he was on the verge of dying. All they could think about was his lifetime of astonishing deeds.

“What time is it?” the old man said in a raspy voice.

The dozens of servants present were all trembling. One of them said, “Lord, it’s the fourth watch.”[2]

The old man lay back down. “You’re all dismissed.”

The servants breathed sighs of relief as they backed out of the room. Soon the room was quiet again, except for the sound of thunder coming from beyond the heavens. The old man didn’t close his eyes. He stared into the darkness of the room. He could feel that his life force was withering away, and he could sense how weak he was. Death was coming.

I’m old... but I still get the sense that there’s something I’ve forgotten.

After some time passed, he finally closed his eyes.

This was the 79th year in the Heavenly Nobility calendar of the Great Tranquility dynasty. The capital city of Heavenly Nobility was known as Heavenly Treasure.

That old man was the immensely powerful Prime Minister Xu Jinfa, who had helped Emperor Heavenly Nobility ascend the throne after conquering twenty-five smaller kingdoms, and had thus given the emperor a powerful foundation upon which to rule. That night... the prime minister passed away.[3]

Thunder rumbled through the night continuously. It was almost like how the cycle of reincarnation ran continuously. However, when it came to the cycle of reincarnation, there were some people who were remembered by history, but most of them... were little more than passing ripples.

A good example was the person who was born that day in this world. He was a person named Xu Hong. His father was a merchant who was obsessed with becoming rich. In fact, the “Hong” in Xu Hong’s name came from an idiom that meant “rich businessman.”[4]

Xu Hong worked hard his entire life to make his father’s dreams come true. Instead of focusing on academics, he took over the family business at a young age. He followed his ideals. Days passed. Years passed. He was always kind and charitable, to the point where people started calling him a philanthropist.

Unfortunately, a scam perpetrated by someone close to him destroyed the family dream. And an epidemic destroyed his personal dream. The wealth that his family had built up ended up vanishing.

After losing his wife and children, he sank into despair. And then, as he was on his deathbed... someone wrapped him up in a tarp and threw him onto a pile of corpses. The fire... wiped him out of existence.

Was it all worth it?

Xu Shan wasn’t confused and felt unlucky. Trying to ignore his mounting headache, he looked at the burning corpses and spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm.[5]

Around him on the road were shattered horse carts, mounds of gold ingots, trembling womenfolk, and greedy eyes peering through the flames at the women. He was one of the greedy ones.

He was one of the bandits of Cloudy Mountain, but that had never been his goal in life. He was Third Master Xu, who had lived a life of freedom! He was a jianghu wanderer who cared only about being free! But now he stayed on that mountain, robbing passing merchants, occasionally facing deadly situations. And in the end... others ate meat while he sipped plain broth.

He hated this kind of life. And his headaches just kept getting worse. It was a problem he’d had his entire life. When he was young, his mother had claimed it was his head growing bigger. He had believed her. But as he grew up, the headaches just got worse, and it didn’t seem like his head was growing any bigger.

He always got tricked. He always got the short end of the stick. He remembered that his mother ended up getting killed, and he was fairly certain he avenged her death... but he couldn’t be sure. He just remembered killing a lot of people.

After smacking himself in the head a few times, he bandaged his leg and thought about the bodyguard who had landed a saber blow on him before dying. The bodyguard had very nearly inflicted a deadly blow, and thus, Xu Shan felt unlucky.

I need to just pick a time and leave this place. Then I can find a doctor and figure out what’s wrong with my head.

As Xu Shan was thinking about such things, he heard laughter in the distance. A moment later, someone threw a woman down in front of him. The person who had thrown her down was the vice-chief of the bandits.

“Hey, Third Idiot. You did pretty good today. How about I reward you with this tramp?”

Xu Shan shivered. For some reason, the words caused his head to stop hurting. Breathing somewhat heavily, he eyed the trembling woman. Now that he thought about it, being a bandit wasn’t that bad after all.

Looking at the vice-chief, Xu Shan said, “Uh, thank—”

A rock flew out of nowhere and hit Xu Shan in the head. The painful force of the blow sent him staggering backward a step.

The vice-chief laughed mockingly. “Still want her?”

There was a lot of laughter from the other bandits.

“Nah, that’s fine...” Xu Shan said with a smile, trying to look like he didn’t care. But in reality, his headache had just gotten a lot worse. It hurt so bad that he either needed to kill someone... or kill himself.

The bandits got everything in order and headed back to their camp. On the way there, Xu Shan suddenly jumped in front of the vice-chief. As the vice-chief laughed mockingly at him, Xu Shan tried to stab him with his saber. He missed.

What came next was a tempest of pain. In the end, he was stabbed over and over like a rag doll, until he was soaked with blood. Despite the fact that he was about to die, he laughed. Then everyone gasped. That was because just before dying, he managed to get a big mouthful of meat.

And that meat came from the vice-chief’s throat.

The world blurred. As it did, Xu Shan suddenly realized that his headache was gone. A saying had just popped into his head out of nowhere.

The world is a tavern for living beings.... But what’s it mean?

Xu Shan was no scholar. He had no idea what the saying meant. And before he could put much thought into it... his life ran out.

1. Things click together here. The “tu” character in Li Mengtu’s name is the same character that means “earth” in “Deep Earth.” Remember that Meng means “dream.” So the interpretation of the characters in his name seem to imply “dreaming of Deep Earth.” All of this is additionally thought-provoking considering that previous chapters have seemingly implied that Deep Earth is the home of the characters of the author’s other novels. ☜

2. Assuming the night watch system works like ancient China, there would be five watches covering the night, with the first watch either starting at sundown or at a specific time around something like 7 p.m. So the fourth watch would be the deep night a few hours before dawn, probably something like 3 or 4 in the morning. ☜

3. Xu Jinfa: Xu is the same surname as Xu Qing. Jin means “gold/metal” and Fa means “law/magic.” ☜

4. Xu Hong. Xu is the same surname as Xu Qing. Hong means “swan, goose, great, large.” This is a sort of fancy-looking character. To be specific, the character usually refers to the swan goose (Anser cygnoides), which is a large goose native to Mongolia, Northeast China, and the Russian Far East. However, the meaning attached to this name is different, as is explained in the narrative. ☜

5. Xu Shan: Xu is the same surname as Xu Qing. Shan means “mountain.” ☜