Chapter 126: Advancing in the Art of Healing
This was just the living room. When Wei Yuan expanded his perception, he discovered there were many more rooms in the back. An immortal sword floated above his head and illuminated the surroundings as he ventured deeper into the hidden chamber through a side door.
Past the main hall was a winding corridor with three bedrooms. The rooms were small and sparsely furnished. It looked like they were guest bedrooms.
Further inside were a large bedroom and a cultivation chamber. Just like before, the large majority of the furniture were made of iron. Iron rings could be found everywhere—the furniture, the walls, even the ceiling. Ribbons were scattered throughout the place as well.
Past the master bedroom was a row of rooms. There were five of them in total. Wei Yuan opened each door and discovered that they were all prison cells. Each cell had a slightly different layout. One of them even had a corpse hanging from the wall.
The hidden chamber had been sealed for years. It had been years since the hidden chamber was sealed. As a result, the corpse had become mummified. Judging from its features, it appeared to be a woman in life. She was completely naked as well.
Upon arriving at the cells, Yun Feifei grew even paler and started trembling slightly. But when Wei Yuan asked her about it, she simply said that she had a terrible headache and couldn’t remember anything.
Wei Yuan spent a few moments thinking until he recalled his lessons. The Dao of incense prayer and divine worship boasted various methods, and one of them was the sealing of one’s primordial spirit and memories. If he wasn’t mistaken, part of Yun Feifei’s memories had been sealed away for some reason.
Now that he knew the cause, the solution came to him as easily as breathing. Wei Yuan delivered a wisp of black qi into Yun Feifei and started eroding the hidden power of incense prayer.
Yun Feifei’s headache suddenly doubled in intensity, causing her to clutch her head and crouch on the floor. Because their fortunes were temporarily mixed, Wei Yuan saw an image he shouldn’t have been able to see.
An old man was leading a young girl into a prison cell. His face was blurry and indistinct. The young girl looked to be seven or eight years old and bore some resemblance to Yun Feifei.
“When you’re older, when you’ve fully matured, I will bring you here once more. You will never have to leave again....”
The old man’s voice echoed in the prison cell before the image disappeared. Yun Feifei stopped trembling and rose to her feet. While wearing a complicated expression on her face, she said softly, “I know now. This hidden chamber was built by my Master. He brought me here once when I was little before sealing away my memories.”
She sucked in a deep breath before adding, “Come. I know where he’s hiding that thing.”
The duo returned to the bedroom, and Yun Feifei grabbed a painting depicting a court lady teasing a monkey from the wall. Then, she ripped it apart to reveal a piece of jade paper. Yun Feifei handed it to Wei Yuan before staring at the ripped painting for a moment. Then, she spoke up suddenly, “I remember now. The woman in this painting is Senior Aunt Yuan! She used to treat me so well, but one day she disappeared, and I never saw her again.”
Wei Yuan scanned the jade paper with his perception and discovered an incredibly complex secret art. It was named: Seven Star Body of Reincarnation.
Caught off guard, Yun Feifei remarked, “So this is where the secret art was hidden. What do you think, Senior Sister? Do you want to....”
The woman-in-red—Gong Yufeng—hidden within Yun Feifei stepped out into the open and stared fixatedly at the piece of jade paper in Wei Yuan’s hand, her expression a mixture of anticipation and agitation. The cold and ruthless face she used to wear was nowhere to be found.
When Gong Yufeng felt Wei Yuan’s gaze on her, panic overcame her expression completely. She mumbled, “Give me a bit of time to think,” before escaping back to Yun Feifei’s body.
Thanks to his solid foundation in the theory of cultivation method, Wei Yuan immediately realized that the Seven Star Reincarnated Body was really a secret art of puppeteering that combined corpse refinement, soul binding, and flesh-shaping.
The art required seven fresh corpses as the base materials. They were then combined with seven spirit objects using the power of incense prayer as the fuel to forge a physical body. When a captured soul was placed inside the body, the result appeared every bit like an ordinary person. In reality, the reincarnated body was effectively the creator’s puppet. The creator could perceive everything the reincarnated body was thinking or feeling. Not even the most minute sensation would be able to escape their notice. In other words, the reincarnated body would possess no secrets whatsoever before the creator.
Wei Yuan knew what Gong Yufeng was thinking, but he didn’t really care. If she was willing to reincarnate into the Seven Star Reincarnated Body, then so be it. If not, then whatever. She could simply remain in Yun Feifei’s body like she had done until now[1].
Wei Yuan scanned the surroundings another two times and confirmed that there was nothing else worthy of note, nor any other karmic light dot that he should pay attention to. Then, he took Yun Feifei away from the hidden chamber.
As soon as the woman left the hidden chamber, she declared that she was going to find a suitable place for the mortals to stay and flew away in a hurry. As Wei Yuan had a mountain of tasks he had to tackle at the moment, he could not be bothered to worry about Yun Feifei’s feelings and went straight back to the central hall.
He had just arrived when Xu Wan’er blocked his path and stared at him intently. Word for word, she said, “Senior Brother, my injuries are pretty severe. Can you please treat me as well?”
She put extra emphasis on the word “treat”.
If Yun Feifei had given her all in the previous battle, then Xu Wan’er had staked her very life to defeat the enemy. In fact, she had traded blow for blow during the most critical moment of the battle, clearly determined to take as many enemies down to the grave with her as possible.
Given the circumstances, Wei Yuan simply couldn’t refuse her request. So, he looked left and right in search for a suitable room. However, Xu Wan’er ignored his reaction and walked straight into the disciple room where he had just treated Yun Feifei. Left with no choice, he followed her inside and closed the door shut.
Two hours later....[2]
Wei Yuan stepped out of the disciple room feeling that his healing skills had improved tremendously. Jia Wood Nurtures Life contributed to the effort a little, but he was unquestionably the primary reason that Xu Wan’er was cured.
The sound of hooves grew louder as they approached, and softer as they moved away. It was Xu Wenwu taking his horse for a run.
After four hours of strenuous work and having his primordial spirit repeatedly tested by various heart devils, Wei Yuan had almost forgotten what he was supposed to do. So, he mentally went over his to-do list once more. Right now, the most pressing matter was not construction, but safeguarding the realm from the Shamans’ retaliation.
It was past noon at the moment, and the delicious aroma of food was wafting through the air. The cultivators had set up a large pot and cooked a thick broth mixed with wild vegetables and the military rations retrieved from the hidden storerooms. It was their lunch for the day.
Wei Yuan found a relatively flat piece of wood and propped it up on some stones, using it as a table. He then unfolded a piece of jade paper and began sketching an array on it. Initially, he drew a Purify Spirit Array with nine array nodes to ward off the enemy’s blood curse. However, only nine Dao Foundation stage cultivators were still alive after the battle. So, he made revisions until it was simplified into a version with five nodes.
Next, Wei Yuan drew a fengshui array with five nodes as well. It matched perfectly with the Purify Spirit Array. His Techniques Theory teachers were the ones who had taught him how to stack the arrays on top of each other to share the same nodes. An emergency method, its greatest flaw was that the cultivators occupying the nodes had to withstand double the amount of energy drain. It was said that a top-class array master could stack a whopping seven arrays on top of each other, but for Wei Yuan, two was his absolute limit.
After the arrays were sketched, Wei Yuan called over five Dao Foundation stage cultivators and explained the arrays to them. Then, he started setting up the arrays. The five array nodes surrounded the main chamber, and each node was a hundred zhang away from the other. After all five cultivators had taken their places, Wei Yuan activated the arrays and inspected their performance.
It went without saying that the independent cultivators of the western region could not hope to compare to the disciples of the Palace of Absolute Beginning in terms of Dao energy. However, everyone’s spirit energy recovered twice as fast while within Qingming’s domain. Thus, they could keep both arrays running for three days straight. Including Yun Feifei and Xun Wan’er, there were four backup Dao Foundation stage cultivators who could take their place as well.
The fengshui array and the Purify Spirit Array encompassed everything within a thousand zhang from the main chamber. That was sufficient for now. It was the first line of defense Wei Yuan had set up to deal with the Shamans’ blood curses.
With that done, Wei Yuan finally relaxed a little and looked at a map, pondering his next move.
1. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ☜
2. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ☜
