Shen Chenggeng took advantage of the time when Lin Xuanzhi was focusing all his attention on protecting Yan Tianhen to fly over and snatch the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire from Yan Tianhen’s hands.
Because he was unable to hold onto the flame, Yan Tianhen was so angry that he wanted to rush over to beat someone up.
Right at that moment, he heard Shen Changgeng scream miserably — he actually threw the fire away of his own accord.
Bloody blisters appeared on his palm from being burned. Fortunately, he was quick in throwing it away; otherwise, his entire hand might be on fire right now.
“Zixing, go and get that fire!” Shen Changgeng didn’t forget to roar while he was trying to endure the blistering pain.
Needless to say, Su Zixing naturally went to snatch it at once.
Just before Su Zixing was about to touch the fire, an umbrella suddenly hit his hand away.
Su Zixing threw an offensive tool at Lin Xuanzhi, while Lin Xuanzhi whipped out a defensive tool to resist it; they exchanged several moves in this manner.
Lin Xuanzhi found a chance to keep the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire in his bag.
Su Zixing became furious; he was about to utilise a murderous move by taking out an Exterminate Soul Nail when suddenly, all the eternal lamps in the stone room went out one by one.
It’s coming, Lin Xuanzhi thought to himself.
A gust of wind swept by, mixed with a fishy smell. A handsome man wearing a teal robe walked over lightly, with the Small Transforming Bone Dragon coiled up beside him.
“Descendent of the Shen family, you’re disturbing others’ peaceful sleep.” The man’s voice was somewhat sharp. He smiled with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, while also looking rather fierce. “Here to take the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire left behind by that dog ancestor of yours?”
“Senior…” A strange feeling arose in Shen Changgeng’s heart.
Shen Rubing was already shivering all over from fright and dared not even breathe.
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon was obviously the one they had seen before, then there was a high chance that this man had crawled out of the coffin.
“I can’t shoulder that ‘senior’ address of yours.” The man walked over to the stone gate and stopped. He looked at Shen Changgeng quietly. “The dog ancestor of the Shen family didn’t dare touch my Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire, and even after the lucky bastard ascended, he didn’t take the sacred fire away still. So where did the descendants of the Shen family get their courage from for them to dare come and steal the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire?”
Shen Changgeng frowned. “That Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire belonged to my Shen family in the first place, so how can you call it stealing?”
The young man chuckled. “I really can’t tell if you’re really stupid or if you’re pretending to be dumb. You can deceive others, but you can’t deceive yourself.”
Shen Changgeng was about to explain when the Small Transforming Bone Dragon roared, and he was so frightened that he retreated.
The young man looked at Lin Xuanzhi, then at Yan Tianhen, and instantly understood somewhat.
He went up to Lin Xuanzhi and studied him. “If you’re taking this, you have to kill someone for me.”
Lin Xuanzhi replied, “Okay.”
The young man said, “Do you know who I want you to kill? Yet you promised so casually.”
Lin Xuanzhi said, “The one who’s trapping you here.”
A surging storm gathered within the young man’s eyes. He stared fixedly at Lin Xuanzhi for a long while before laughing, “Kid, not bad. In that case, make an oath with me ba.”
“Hold on!” Yan Tianhen frowned, “You’re asking my Dage to kill for you?”
Lin Xuanzhi exerted some strength in holding Yan Tianhen’s hand. “Don’t worry.”
“But–”
“Stop dawdling. If you continue talking, I’ll renege.” The young man looked quite impatient, and even the Small Transforming Bone Dragon beside him started howling.
Lin Xuanzhi stretched out his right hand with his palm facing downwards.
The young man also stretched out his right hand, hovering a few inches above Lin Xuanzhi’s hand.
He started reciting some words, and after he finished, there was an additional oath within Lin Xuanzhi’s sea of consciousness.
“If I, Lin Xuanzhi, were to go to the upper realm of the Nine Lands in the future, I’m obliged to turn Shen Qinian into dust and destroy his soul, so that he can never reincarnate. If I break this oath, then living will be no better than death for me in the future, and I’ll become an animal in my next life!”
The young man continued, “It seems useless for you to hold onto this.”
Lin Xuanzhi, “It’s useful for someone else.”
The young man said, “Then you should hand it to him.”
Lin Xuanzhi nodded and offered to hand over the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire.
The young man took the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire, a glint of nostalgia flashing through his eyes. Then he turned his hand over and smacked the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire straight onto Yan Tianhen’s forehead!
Yan Tianhen, “!!!”
His whole body felt like it was burning. Suddenly, an intense sensation of pain swept over him. Yan Tianhen let out a terrible cry, almost fainting from the pain while his heart and lungs felt like they were being torn apart.
Upon seeing this, Shen Changgeng instantly turned indignant and wanted to use a Sparrow Spirit to kill all of them. However, that young man simply waved his hand and everyone present fainted on the spot.
“I’m the true master of this Pill Limit Mysterious Land.” The young man smiled, then said somewhat helplessly, “Yet you insist on challenging my authority, such an overestimation of your own capabilities.”
He walked over to the eerie white bones that were adorned with the same attire as him, reaching out to stroke the white bones’ cheek.
He chuckled softly, “You really died in such an idiotic way. Every debt has its debtor; go and find that Shen Qinian to pay for it ba. As for his descendants, there’s no harm in sparing them for now.”
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon cried out, sounding as if it was weeping before finally uttering “yingyingying“s like a crying baby.
The young man turned around and reached out to stroke the Small Transforming Bone Dragon’s head with a gentle gaze.
He sighed, then said softly, “It’s been tough for you to stand guard by my side for all these years, this Pill Limit Mysterious Land probably isn’t very interesting. If you want to leave, after I die completely, it won’t be long before the Pill Limit Mysterious Land gets destroyed too. By then, you’ll be free again, and you’ll be able to leave this Mysterious Land.”
After he spoke, his body turned transparent. He leaned over and merged into one with the skeleton.
After the physical body was attached to the skeleton, the skeleton soon looked like a young man.
But though his lips were smiling, his eyes remained closed — he had stopped breathing long ago.
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon wailed loudly in anguish. It had wanted to kill the others as well, but there was nothing in the stone room. The Small Transforming Bone Dragon cried pitifully; it would nudge the young man’s face with its face once in a while and circle around him from time to time.
It had accompanied its master by his side since birth.
It still remembered the time when it was trapped within an array on its last legs. When all the demonic Qi was about to die out, its master appeared and saved it from the array.
Its entire body could corrode all living things, but few people knew that it was able to control its own body. If the softest skin covered the corrosive layer, then it could be touched just like a normal demonic beast.
It still remembered the feeling of being hugged by this person.
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon circled around the young man’s body for a long time before it finally accepted the fact that the young man had completely died.
It shrank into a small ball and stuffed itself into the young man’s embrace, then used its round and bright head on which no eyes could be seen to nudge against the young man’s chin. In the end, the silver colour on the Small Transforming Bone Dragon’s body gradually faded before it turned into a rigid, gray stone statue.
Since its master had died, then it wouldn’t continue living as well.
When Yan Tianhen woke up, there were hardly any stars in the night sky outside. The mountains in the distance overlapped, while the shadows of trees swayed from side to side.
Yan Tianhen was stunned for a while. He got up and looked around, realising that there were still some dead demonic beasts near him which had evidently been killed when they were attacking.
“Are you hungry?” Lin Xuanzhi’s voice traveled over from the other side.
Yan Tianhen’s eyes were filled with sorrow and the silence left behind after experiencing the vicissitudes of life.
Lin Xuanzhi and he looked at each other, paused slightly, and saw through everything. So he said, “Ah Hen, that’s someone else’s life, not yours.”
Yan Tianhen rubbed his eyes. “But Lu Qingli’s so pitiful.”
That young man was Lu Qingli.
And after Yan Tianhen received the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire that belonged to Lu Qingli, he also saw all of his memories.
Lin Xuanzhi rubbed Yan Tianhen’s head. “He had married a bad man, the heavens are unfair. However, heaven has its own rules for everything. What comes around goes around, that one surnamed Shen will get his retribution in time to come.”
“But Lu Qingli can’t live on anymore.” Yan Tianhen said with bloodshot eyes, “His soul had already scattered. It was this Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire that helped him stabilize one soul, which was why he could hold on until now. Yet he gave me the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire, so he lost his last soul…even if that bad guy dies and never gets to reincarnate, Lu Qingli still won’t be revived.”
Lin Xuanzhi thought of his previous life.
The Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire passed through Su Zixing’s hands and ended up with Shen Changgeng.
That celestial-level pill, after it was passed around from person to person, was finally given to Lin Xuanzhi by Shen Changgeng as a favour. From then on, Lin Xuanzhi let down his guard against Shen Changgeng.
As for whether Su Zixing helped Lu Qingli fulfill his wish, Lin Xuanzhi wasn’t clear on that.
But–
Lin Xuanzhi thought, actually the agreement that Lu Qingli concluded for him was not a complete one.
Because Lu Qingli did not state a time limit and conditions.
Lu Qingli was still too kind.
He was probably that kind in the previous life as well.
Lin Xuanzhi said lightly, “Everything in this world is balanced. For every person who’s happy, there will be an equal number of people who have to suffer in misery. Not everyone can achieve immortality, and not everyone will have a good beginning and end.”
Yan Tianhen nodded somewhat sadly. He could be considered to have lost his father at a young age as well and have had a tough life.
It’s just that with Lin Xuanzhi by his side now, he had a lot more happy times than sad ones.
In order not to affect Yan Tianhen’s recuperation, Duan Yuyang and Yuan Tianwen were barbequing a pheasant they hunted not far away.
After Yan Tianhen woke up, he sat beside them.
Duan Yuyang asked about Lu Qingli, and Yan Tianhen unreservedly described the past he saw in the memories retained within the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire.
Lu Qingli was an array cultivator. He met Shen Qinian when he was young; the two of them found each other congenial, and very soon, they turned from friends to lovers.
But who would have thought that Shen Qinian had approached Lu Qingli in the first place because he wanted his ancestral Mysterious Land where spiritual plants grew, as well as his ancestral Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire.
Shen Qinian tricked Lu Qingli step by step into telling him about the Mysterious Land’s secrets.
Later on, Shen Qinian acted as the owner instead of the guest and forcibly took ownership of the Pill Limit Mysterious Land. And because he was afraid of Lu Qingli’s revenge, he killed him and used a poisonous magic tool to scatter his soul.
But unexpectedly, Lu Qingli had an escape route. The Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire replaced one soul of his, so he didn’t go so far as to truly die in the human world.
However, Lu Qingli couldn’t be considered to be alive either, and he could never leave the Pill Limit Mysterious Land.
Shen Qinian got married and had children, rising steadily by relying on the benefits brought about by the Pill Limit Mysterious Land. In the end, he successfully ascended and left the Five Continents’ mainlands.
The Shen family rose along with him; when one man achieved Dao, his poultry and dogs would ascend as well. The foundation for being an elite family was laid out for them.
This sort of past was too humiliating for the Shen family, so they naturally wouldn’t tell their younger generations about it. Instead, they turned black into white and beautified everything to the extreme.
