Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Is Black Tortoise Jade Pendant the key to this painted door?” This thought abruptly came to Meng Qi’s mind when he stroked the pendant that had been eroded by the nether aura.
Should I try the pendant in front of Doumu or should I return secretly after leaving here? Various ideas flashed across his mind so he immediately decided to try it now.
He didn’t know what would happen behind the door, after all. If he couldn’t deal with it, he would feel much safer having Progenitor Doumu accompany himself. There was another possibility that Old Zhong secretly leaked the message to The Myths that would probably rush here soon and if so, their effort would be wasted.
The Black Tortoise Jade Pendant could be traced back to the time when he obtained the ancient books and records of Carefree Valley.
“Fairy Ye, I have a jade pendant that fits the keyhole,” said Meng Qi.
He didn’t mention its background, leaving Ye Yuqi to guess randomly.
Having glimpsed at the pendant in his hand, Ye Yuqi didn’t ask anything but nodded her head to indicate to him to try the pendant.
Meng Qi was composed while standing in front of the stone wall. He sensed the surroundings by merging his Interior with Heaven-earth. Suddenly, old and ethereal voices sounded in his ears. Even though he only heard the slight sound of water, he felt that he was dying.
“I really hear the Netherworld sound…” said Meng Qi grimly.
Having come to his side, Ye Yuqi said after some thought, “The sound is perpetual.”
Should I open it? Meng Qi became a little ambivalent. If “the Netherworld”, the ancient big power, was waiting for someone to open the door, he would put themselves into an extreme danger.
However, all places they had passed by didn’t have traces related to Zhenwu, nor byroads and secret rooms. If they wanted to continue the serial task, they had to open the door.
Since millions of years have passed, the Netherworld was either dying or dead, thus, there was no need to worry about it. Gritting his teeth, Meng Qi put the pendant into the keyhole.
With his saber in his right hand and the “Flowing Fire” sword strapped to his waist, he took one step back, awaiting the result.
The tortoise featured a combination of a turtle and a snake. The badly eroded pendant perfectly matched the keyhole.
Dark light abruptly shone with an overwhelming aura, as if the turtle and snake became alive. The light was as profound as a boundless ocean.
The pendant gleamed with crystal green light that became increasingly brighter. With a crack noise, it splintered into powder. The painted door had become a real one with a distinctive contour and salient edges and corners.
Meng Qi pushed it with his left hand, and then the stone door was easily thrown open, revealing its interior.
The thick red mists were like condensed drops, shrouding everything and blurring their sights.
With the saber and sword respectively in his hands, Meng Qi stepped inside with Ye Yuqi. As the old and ethereal sound lingered beside his ears, he felt that his senses had become disabled. His mind turned unwise and his Vital Spirit restlessly swung, as if it was rinsed by the Netherworld spring.
He induced his aperture acupoints, making the Grand Sun and Stars fly together. As The Celestial was high in the sky and his Vital Spirit was in the initial position, his Immortal Primogenitor Form internally showed, and he managed to calm himself down.
When the ghostly whispers sounded beside his ears, he walked forward step by step with his body surrounded by the mist, as if he was burdened with heavy water. On the contrary, Ye Yuqi was quite relaxed. The stars behind her turned into snow and then swirled into a nebula. It was bright and dreamy, keeping the mist away from her.
After a while, they saw the mist that had condensed into water streams envelope a black coffin.
It seemed very heavy and pressured the hoary ground, cracking it. Black mists inside it upwelled, but they couldn’t penetrate the red waves.
Meng Qi felt surprised at first, wondering about the state of “the Netherworld”. Subsequently, he fixed his eyes on the ancient scripts engraved in front of the coffin.
“Here is the Netherworld that was suppressed by Zhenwu!”
“The Devil-rinsing Primogenitor, it’s really him,” said Ye Yuqi gently.
As powerful as she was, she subconsciously lowered her voice, seeming afraid to awaken the suppressed Netherworld.
Meng Qi felt a bit relieved, for they finally found the traces left by Zhenwu.
They stepped forward and their pupils simultaneously shrank; they saw a tiny gap in the coffin cover.
Meng Qi’s hair stood on end again, and a variety of scary thoughts emerged.
The Dharma Form behind Ye Yuqi rotated slower and slower, but its momentum was strong, overwhelming the sky. She hastened her steps and arrived at the front of the coffin.
As a brave man, Meng Qi gritted his teeth, tightly held his saber and sword, and walked toward the coffin. He used his spirit to sense the internal situation via this tiny gap.
Full of rolling waves, a bloody yellow river flowed quietly. With blank eyes and forgettable memories, numberless souls bounced up and down in it… Such a scene appeared in his mind and deterred his Vital Spirit, making it difficult for him to control his mind. Consequently, his vision became blurry.
As Meng Qi retrieved his spirit, he was on the highest alert. He brandished his long saber and inserted it into the gap to pry the cover. With a heavy sound, the coffin cover was pushed away.
Looking forward, he saw a layer of red-yellow aura permeating the coffin; however, there was nothing beneath it.
“Did ‘the Netherworld’ escape earlier?” Meng Qi murmured.
At that moment, he felt that an item in his Space Ring jumped up and down oddly.
Meng Qi discreetly used his spirit to find out what was happening – it seemed that the secret bone from Old Zhong was moving up and down. With the whiteness hidden in the darkness, it seemed to have been stolen from the Life-changing Sect.
After some thought, he took it out.
From nowhere, the auras swarmed toward the bone and, like whales absorbing seawater, it absorbed all of them.
Damn! Is it the Netherworld bone? Where did the Life-changing Sect get it? Meng Qi’s heart fiercely beat.
As the red-yellow aura quickly faded away, the bone returned to normal. He had tried his best to figure out its peculiarity, but he had failed to do so.
Ye Yuqi asked while slightly frowning, “Is it possible that the Life-changing Sect inherited the Netherworld orthodoxy?”
She also thought that it belonged to the Netherworld.
However, Meng Qi didn’t think that the matter behind the bone was simple upon thinking of the Zombies in the Life-changing Sect and inside Zhenwu’s Decoy Grave. He shook the bone, but nothing unusual appeared.
He looked at the coffin again. With it being devoid of anything, it began to decompose from inside and soon became dirt.
Where were the clues about Zhenwu? Meng Qi revealed his teeth, put the bone away, and walked forward again with his saber and sword in his hands.
Rock walls appeared before them after they walked for a while. Like the wall earlier, there was also a painted door on it. Besides, the door surface was entwined by a turtle and snake, too.
There was a small black flag in front of the door. It currently sent forth the red mist, and around it was the sound of flowing water.
Beside the flag was a turtleback on which there were scripts.
“Does the red mist in Bomi come from the flag?” Meng Qi stared at the turtle shell, trying to identify its scripts.
Ye Yuqi read out before he could see them clearly.
“Things have changed and I have to look for the Ethereal Road. I don’t have time to deal with the evil thoughts that will probably do harm to the mortal world, and I’m afraid that I’ll die soon, so I leave the Devil-rinsing Flag here. If you come here and read the scripts, I hope that you can use the flag to remove those thoughts. Taoist Zhenwu bows.”
Zhenwu Great Emperor didn’t mention where the decoy tomb was; he seemed to anticipate that the comer would definitely obtain the Black Tortoise Jade Pendant he had deliberately left in the tomb.
Meng Qi felt overjoyed while listening to her. He stared at the flag and saw one indescribable word respectively on each side. He couldn’t read them, but he could magically sense their meaning:
“Rinsing Devil!”
“It should be the Devil-rinsing Flag. Rumor has it that it was destroyed by Nether Sea Sword.” Ye Yuqi felt perplexed.
He looked at the flag carefully, and then he found that it was full of cracks. As expected, he could only use it a couple of times.
“Perhaps the Devil-rinsing Primogenitor simply repaired it before placing it here. As time passed and its aura leaked, it became what it is now.” As long as it was usable, Meng Qi wasn’t disappointed at all.
He suppressed his excitement and walked toward the flag before he decently bowed and said,
“Thanks to the Black Tortoise Jade Pendant, I come here. I’ll spare no effort to wipe out your evil thoughts.”
He then stretched out his hand to collect the flag. It was cold, but he easily picked it up.
As soon as he held the flag, the surrounding red mist suddenly rolled like boiled water or the sea surface prior to a storm, so did the mist in Bomi. All old monsters felt scared and wanted to know what happened.
Meng Qi was holding the Devil-rinsing Flag, which made him more outstanding than any others.
Feeling its aura, the painted door shone.
“The clue left by Zhenwu has been found, and step four of this serial task is complete.”
“Step five of the mystery of Zhenwu’s death: return the Zhenwu’s Decoy Grave, remove the evil thoughts, and elicit the information about where he would possibly go from them.”
…
The Seven Luminaries Devil followed the Gatekeeper to the cave. After several turns, he arrived at the underground, and the red mist became thick.
After a while, he saw the Gatekeeper stop walking in front of a dead-end road.
At the end of the road was a graffiti-like door in the hoary wall. The painting was like either a turtle or a snake. Other than that, there was nothing else.
“This is it.” The Gatekeeper felt indignant.
The Seven Luminaries Devil looked at the door carefully, but he couldn’t open it. Even if he used his full force, the red waves would absorb them.
“It’s useless.” The Gatekeeper sighed. “From the very beginning, I could sometimes hear lions roar and the sound of people. As time passed, I could only hear the sound of humans…”
His ankle chain extended to the rear of the stone door.
As the Seven Luminaries Devil paced back and forth, he was meditating. Suddenly, the red mist rolled, and another odd scene appeared.
When he was about to say something, his eyes abruptly froze and his pupils shrunk. He saw the painted door slowly open, bright light gleaming from it. Subsequently, he sensed a ghastly aura and saw a tall silhouette faintly emerge.
Powerful! The Seven Luminaries Devil immediately turned around to escape.
The Gatekeeper felt scared and wanted to escape, too; however, his ankle chain was controlled by the horrendous aura.
“Brother!” He shouted loudly for help, but the Seven Luminaries Devil immediately appeared into thin air.
The Gatekeeper looked back, terrified, and saw a silhouette step out of the gradually opened painted door. His strong aura overwhelmed the sky.
“Spare, spare…” Those words subconsciously escaped from his lips.
Suddenly, he stopped speaking, for he saw the silhouette stand in front him. Composed and cold, the figure was dressed in a white robe and held a long crimson jade sword.
“It’s you!” He asked in shock, “Who on earth are you?”
He felt earlier that the figure was a Dharmakaya master.
Having put the flag away, Meng Qi said with a smile, “We meet again.”
The Gatekeeper did not know how to reply to him, so he stayed silent.
“Tell me about why you guard this place?” Meng Qi asked directly.
The Gatekeeper reiterated what he had told the Seven Luminaries Devil.
An odd young Taoist… Are they the Heaven-destined Cultivator and the others?Meng Qi asked while frowning, “What did he nag about?”
The Gatekeeper tried to recall what he had said. “Waiting for a special person and something about ‘I am who and who I am’…”
I am who and who I am? Meng Qi became serious upon thinking of that ink scroll from Dongyang Villa.
Is Dongyang God still alive?
