My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 171 – Seasons Pass, The Disappearance of Yan Yu - Part 3

The next day.

At dawn, Li Yuan sat alone on the stone steps, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. He didn’t relax until a new message flickered before him.

「You spent a harmonious night with Yan Yu and gained 7 stat points.」

“She’s alive,” he murmured, relief washing over him.

He sought out Yan Mu’s words again in his mind, connecting them with the day’s events. A rough, daring hypothesis took shape.

Perhaps Feng’er’s rule really was to prevent Yan Yu from dying.

Last night, in order to protect Sheng'er, Yan Yu must have provoked the peddler ghost that had shown up at their door. The peddler tried to kill Yan Yu. But Feng’er refuses to let her die, so now these two ghosts...Feng’er and the peddler...were colliding, likely merging into a single entity. And Yan Yu was caught right in the middle.

“Come to think of it, the dream Yan Yu and Sheng'er share might be hidden deep within that ghost street marketplace. That would explain why there’s buying and selling happening in the dream house, and also why that peddler managed to show up at their door.” ƒгeewebnovёl.com

Li Yuan was lost in thought when Xue Ning’s voice came from the distance. She was in her night robe with one hand holding Ping’an and the other carrying Sheng'er.

“Dearest! Dearest” she called.

“Mama! Mama! Wahhhh!” Sheng'er’s cries echoed behind her.

“Cwy-baybee, cwy-baybee!” Ping’an chanted.

Xue Ning tapped his head. “Stop that.”

Li Yuan turned and hurried over.

Xue Ning said, “Sheng'er didn’t sleep a wink last night. The moment dawn broke, she started clamoring to find her mother.”

Li Yuan took his daughter in his arms, gently stroking her fine hair. “Don’t worry,” he murmured with a reassuring smile. “Everything will be all right.”

From then on, every night, Li Yuan and Xue Ning squeezed into one bed with the two children. Only then did Sheng'er calm down a bit. Yet he couldn’t help feeling weighed down. There was no easy way for him to predict how the gray rouge compact would react to Sheng'er’s special constitution. Even the Central Plains themselves were groping in the dark when it came to ghosts.

Bottling up his worries, he turned to the martial manuals and skill books he kept buying—particularly those on body tempering and archery—throwing himself into practice like a madman. In addition to having Pang Yuanhua gather any news she could, he spent all his time cultivating.

He also studied Yan Mu's Return-Willow Technique, gleaning its eighth and seventh rank forms, then came home to train on his own. Because of his unusual method of cultivation, he progressed at breakneck speed. Just learning the fundamentals was enough for him to completely master it.

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Half a year flew by.

Aside from adding points to the Return-Willow Technique, Li Yuan generally only used points during a bottleneck. Each time he reached one, he’d allocate 2 points. And when a skill reached Master level but resisted further improvement, he simply topped it off directly.

As a result, he’d accumulated 8,308 points. And meanwhile, on top of City Toppler and Six Convergences, he created two new ultimate skills for body tempering and archery—Gold Body and Piercing Clouds.

These four ultimate skills were still technically seventh rank skills. But when Li Yuan compared them to his Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, and Final Blade, he realized they were all roughly comparable to Advanced level sixth rank skills.

City Toppler could slice through anything. Six Convergences lunged with the spear in every direction. Meanwhile, Gold Body nullified any strike below 900 combat power, leaving him completely unharmed.

The 900 threshold was close to the pinnacle of sixth rank. Back when Li Yuan was still stuck at seventh rank, his maximum power was around that number.

Piercing Clouds allowed Li Yuan to shoot arrows a thousand meters away, yet still accurately skewer multiple falling leaves in its path.

At the moment, Li Yuan was sitting beneath a tree, glancing at his status window.

His overall power had risen from 1,140~1,640 to 1,140~1,890.

With the Return-Willow Technique and Spirit-Release Technique combined, he’d formed multiple sealed beads of shadow blood within his body. If he detonated them all, his strength could peak at 1,890.

A few withered leaves spun down, landing near the wine jar on the stone table. He drained the jar of its strong liquor in one go, then set it aside. He was still waiting, waiting for Yan Yu.

She wasn’t dead. He could tell from the constant trickle of daily stat points and the fact that the peddler who’d sold the rouge compacts on the ghost street marketplace was still missing. In other words, the conflict between Feng’er and the peddler ghost had not yet concluded.

Meanwhile, Yan Mu had moved out of Hundred Lotus Manor to a residence in Silver Creek. Guilt weighed on him; he felt responsible for what had happened to his aunt and uncle-in-law.

Though Li Yuan never said so outright, Yan Mu couldn’t shake the suspicion that his offhand remark about Sheng’er being a living ghost was the very thing that sparked all this trouble.

And now, in late autumn, a swift courier arrived from the north, crossing the Eternal Rest River to deliver Yan Mu’s new posting.

He was to go to Northriver Prefecture as a deputy. It oversaw 36 counties north of Eternal Rest River, many of which were subordinate to the Holy Tree Temple, just as the Blood Blade Sect was to the Sacred Fire Palace.

During the upheaval surrounding the Red Lotus Prince, the lines of communication between these subordinate forces and their head sects had broken down.

Yan Mu’s task was to restore connections between those scattered factions and the Holy Tree Temple, and then eliminate the newly appointed magistrate set to arrive.

That was how Yan Mu learned that an all-out clash between undying husks and martial artists was about to begin.

The emperor had started placing undying husks in command of imperial troops throughout the provinces and prefectures. Northriver was merely one piece of the puzzle.

Yet the Holy Tree Temple wasn’t the only major force in the region; the Sacred Fire Palace and the Mountain Hall had footholds there too.

Yan Mu, having become an inner disciple, was well aware that the great powers in the Central Plains all formed their own alliances and circles, each with its own agenda.

Among the five major sects—the Holy Tree Temple, Sacred Fire Palace, Mountain Hall, Mystic Gold Monastery, and Moon Reflection Tower—there was a tight alliance.

Yan Mu, who hated the undying husks and also wished to do something for the common folk, couldn’t refuse his new posting. So he arrived at Hundred Lotus Manor, leading a sturdy horse, to bid farewell to Li Yuan.

Li Yuan met him. They shared another jar of fine wine—one when he first came, and now one more as he prepared to leave.

Afterward, Li Yuan rode with him out to Antelope Pass, where, in the autumn wind, they clasped hands and said their goodbyes.

When Li Yuan returned to the manor, he felt ill at ease. Wandering to the river in Silver Creek, he paid respects at Senior Li’s grave, then gazed silently toward the distant black market ghost domain.

Before he realized it, a chill autumn rain began to fall. The west wind blew harsh; far off in the village, people hurried about.

A horse-drawn carriage pulled up behind him, and Xue Ning came over with an oiled paper umbrella, shielding him from the rain.

Inside the carriage, Sheng'er and Ping’an had finally learned to get along. Ping’an patted Sheng'er, saying, “Don’t cwy, Bwig Sish.”

Xue Ning said nothing. She even had Zhou Jia bring over another jar of wine so she could keep Li Yuan company at Senior Li’s graveside.

Unused to drinking, she choked after two sips, causing Li Yuan to stop her.

Holding the elegant woman close, he let his gaze sweep past the gravestone, out across the misty lake, toward that distant ghost domain.

“She’s a good person,” Xue Ning said softly. “She’ll be fine.”

Li Yuan tried to smile but couldn’t manage it. She offered him the wine jar with a gentle sigh. “I can’t finish it.”

He gripped it tightly, draining every last drop of the fiery liquor.

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Deep winter.

No snow yet fell, yet the flowers bloomed in riotous colors, alarming the townsfolk. And then, not long after, the snow did come. But this time it was warm.

People stood in the streets, hands held high to welcome the snowfall, only to recoil in horror when they felt its heat.

The flowers, instead of withering, looked even more lush, so vivid they seemed unnaturally bright and ominous.

On that day, Tie Sha and Yu Chaojin returned once more to Hundred Lotus Manor.

“Patriarch,” Tie Sha said, “this time I must truly go. A high ranked elder from the Sacred Fire Palace has appeared north of the river, just across from us. I must meet him.”

“Then go,” Li Yuan replied.

“From now on, Old Yu will serve you as I have.”

With that, Tie Sha offered Li Yuan a deep bow. Memories flitted across his mind, of the young man before him who had progressed from associate to inner disciple, to elder, and then all at once had become the Blood Blade Patriarch.

Tie Sha mounted his horse, taking a trusted few with him, and rode away into the warm snow.

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A few days later.

The Blood Blade Sect conducted one of its routine tests of the black market ghost domain’s boundary.

The results sent shockwaves through everyone. The ghost domain had nearly swallowed every bit of surrounding water, now pressing westward to the very edge of the township and southward into the woods. To the southwest, it had crept to within a mere dozen or so meters of Senior Li’s gravestone.

Silver Creek was in a state of panic.

Li Yuan, however, sensed something stirring. One day, without calling on Pang Yuanhua, he donned a mask, pulled on a cloak, and snuck over to the ghost street marketplace alone. Circling the stalls near the entrance, he found no sign of the peddler who once sold rouge and cosmetics.

The second day, the third day, the fourth, and eventually the seventh...each day he returned for a look. Near the year’s end, he visited again. Preparing to leave, he suddenly froze, someone was hawking goods.

“Step right up, don’t pass by. Come have a look at my face powders and rouge! Honest trade for all ages...!”

Li Yuan turned, heart pounding. There, in gray garb, stood the peddler, boxes of rouge on display. His pupils shrank as flickers of fury flared in his eyes. Gripping the hidden Dragon-Fanged Spear in his sleeve, he almost lunged forth to end the ghost right then.

But slowly, his clenched fingers relaxed. He stared at the peddler for a long moment, then turned to walk away. Before he had gone far, though, the man’s seemingly mocking laugh followed.

“Going already, my brother? You came all this way, why not buy some rouge for your missus?”

Author’s Note

I, Peach Blossom Pastry, owe everyone an apology. I’ve been rushing the writing too much lately. All those story threads that should have been introduced methodically, passing the spotlight from one to another...have instead been hurled out all at once, along with stray details that won’t matter until much later. But the story needs a calm, measured pace, not everything jumbled in haste. I’ll slow down and do my best to tell this tale properly. I hope it can still bring some enjoyment to you, the readers.