Chapter 417: Ninety Thousand Merit Points! Divine Shadow! Cat-Petting! The Strange Dead!

Finally returning to Wei City, Li Yanchu felt both body and mind at ease. This trip into Duanlong Cave had earned him a total of ninety-seven thousand merit points, which was a truly generous harvest. The main reason was simple: he had completely purged the cave of every demon, ghost, and abomination, so the reward was immense.

Aside from that, he had obtained a golden pill with cloud-like patterns, though he had yet to determine its purpose. He vaguely sensed, however, that the “pill” was not a true elixir, but rather a magical artifact, one still faintly imbued with a trace of divine aura.

Breaking through Duanlong Cave hadn’t taken him long. That very night, while cultivating the

Yellow Court Classic

in his temple, his inner power began surging like a mighty river, growing ever purer and more radiant with yang energy.

That last divine-summoning seems to have strengthened my body

, he thought with quiet delight.

It must have been related to that vast divine power which had descended when he held back the bronze Gate of Fengdu.

Still... remembering the words of the golden carp imprisoned in the cave left him slightly uneasy.

Three hundred years ago, Wei City had already been the center of a legend about an Elixir of Immortality. It was a legend that sparked a massive conflict, one fierce enough to leave behind a demon of second-realm peak power suppressed beneath the local waters.

That alone spoke volumes about how intense the struggle had been.

And now, with Wei City having twice revealed hidden paradises, and even harboring a third-realm Lady Bai sealed away, Li Yanchu’s curiosity toward this small city where he had lived all his life only deepened further.

When he returned and spoke with the innkeeper, she mentioned that many unfamiliar faces had recently arrived in town, such as monks, Daoists, wandering swordsmen, and unaffiliated cultivators, as if something major were about to happen.

Hearing this, Li Yanchu couldn’t help but feel a stir of vigilance. Adding in the unusual spiritual energy tides that had been occurring recently, it was highly likely they were connected to the emergence of another Blissful Land.

If only I had an artifact that could monitor the whole of Wei City

, Li Yanchu thought to himself.

Although Wei City had seemed calmer of late, there were still places hidden in the shadows, like the Duanlong Cave, where dark things could brew. And just like when the Grand Steward of the Bare Body Sect had entered the city to harm people, no one had known beforehand.

He shook his head slightly, deciding not to dwell on it for now. Crossing his legs, he began meditating alone in the Daoist temple, breathing and circulating his inner energy until the next morning. By dawn, his body brimmed with vitality, his blood and qi surging like fire.

So early that morning, he began practicing fist techniques in the courtyard.

The three major sequences of boxing techniques sealed within the Divine Astral Hands were extremely domineering.

As he performed them, he found himself gaining a new understanding of martial arts.

Boom

!

A tall illusory figure appeared behind him; it was his Martial Dao Manifestation.

Boom

!

As he continued to practice, another golden-armored divine figure emerged at his back. There were two manifestations: one born from his martial will, the other from Divine Dao power.

This meant that in close combat, Li Yanchu’s killing power had grown even greater. He had comprehended the Divine Dao Manifestation.

If I keep training like this, perhaps one day I really will become a Martial Dao immortal

, he mused.

At that moment, Cuihua was startled awake by the dull rhythmic thuds of his morning practice. She pushed open the window, leapt lightly out, and stared at Li Yanchu in clear annoyance, her eyes full of quiet reproach.

Li Yanchu smiled faintly at her. “Care for a little sparring match?”

But to his surprise, Cuihua turned her head away arrogantly and walked off with graceful, disdainful steps, completely ignoring him. To her, this guy’s qi and blood surged like the sea, his martial intent was fierce and overwhelming, and he was even cloaked in pure yang divine energy.

Who in their right mind would pick a fight with such a monster? That was just asking for a beating.

Ever since she had come to live at Qingyun Temple, Cuihua had long since entered a “lazy retirement mode.” Though still proud and temperamental, she had developed a bit of fondness for this young Daoist.

Li Yanchu always gave off a calm, peaceful air, and he never tried to control her. It was irritating in its own way, but she could tell from his attitude that in his eyes... she was no different from an ordinary orange cat.

Forget it.

After all, she hadn’t yet fully transformed; it was only natural that, with just her beast body, she couldn’t beat that freakishly strong young Daoist.

In truth, though she would never admit it, Cuihua actually felt a bit of

fondness

for being ignored like this. She couldn’t quite describe the feeling; the more she was ignored, the more she wanted to approach him, to provoke him, and to argue with him. It had become her favorite pastime.

By now, the man and the cat had settled into a surprisingly harmonious rhythm of life together, until... Li Yanchu started petting the cat. At first, Cuihua was resistant, as no one had ever dared touch her before.

That afternoon, Li Yanchu sat on a stone bench in the courtyard, lost in thought, while Cuihua happened to be crouched on the table nearby. Without even realizing it, he reached out, picked her up, and began to stroke her fur.

Cuihua froze, completely bewildered at first, but as his “sinful” hand continued its movements, she suddenly felt her body go stiff... and warm.

“Eh!? This... feels so good...”

Li Yanchu, for his part, was simply acting out of habit. In his previous life, he’d owned a cat, so he had developed a very particular technique for petting them, starting from the ears, then gently down the neck and back.

Under his skilled, practiced strokes, Cuihua soon surrendered shamefully. With her eyes closed, she nestled quietly in Li Yanchu’s arms.

Meanwhile, Li Yanchu’s mind was elsewhere, thinking over a letter he had received half an hour earlier from Master Huizhen of Lingxi Temple.

The letter was brief: an invitation for Li Yanchu to visit the temple on the 23rd of this month, for Huizhen’s official inauguration as the new abbot.

Since Lingxi Temple wasn’t far from Wei City, Li Yanchu decided he would attend.

Just before noon, Head Constable Wang from the county

yamen

arrived at Qingyun Temple in a hurry.

“Head Constable Wang,” Li Yanchu asked, noting his pale, flustered expression, “why the panic? What’s happened?”

“Daoist Master Li,” Wang said breathlessly, “just within the past hour, there have been three murders in Wei City! A street vendor was suddenly decapitated out of nowhere, a waiter at an inn had a hole burst open in his chest while serving food, and one of our constables was sliced clean in half while on patrol. His body was mangled, and he died on the spot! These three murders happened almost at the same time, and the circumstances are extremely bizarre; it’s already thrown the whole city into panic.”

Head Constable Wang’s face was pale, his voice trembling slightly.

“Hmm?” Li Yanchu’s brow furrowed deeply.

A street vendor, an inn waiter, and even a constable... all dying mysteriously at the same moment? Indeed, there was something profoundly strange about it.

“I’ll go take a look with you,” Li Yanchu said in a low voice.

In the past, he might have cared about the bounty or the reward money, but now, he was quite wealthy, with an entire tea mountain that brought him tens of thousands of taels a year. These days, he was purely doing it for merit, no, to carry out the will of Heaven and protect the people!

Soon after, they arrived at the county

yamen

’s mortuary, where the three corpses were laid out. Their conditions matched exactly what Head Constable Wang had described.

𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Li Yanchu’s eyes glimmered faintly with spiritual light as he activated his Spirit Eyes and Qi Sight. As his cultivation had grown, both of these divination arts had become far more potent, yet even so, he detected no demonic qi, corpse qi, or ghost qi on the bodies. Judging by their expressions, all three had died instantly; even summoning their souls back might reveal nothing useful.

But then, he sensed a faint, lingering energy within each corpse, and his eyes lit up. Without summoning the coroner to open the bodies, he simply reached out into the air and made a grasping motion.

Daoist art: Telekinetic Retrieval!

In an instant, three strange, misshapen insects appeared in midair, writhing before them.