Chapter 277: Chapter 195: Mysterious Tai Chi Diagram
The instant Feng Wuming self-destructed his Lifebound Gu, in a corner of the wooden house nestled in the mountain hollow, an antique wooden box quietly opened.
A blood-red worm, as thick as a thumb and covered in slime, dragged its bloated body out of the wooden box. It carefully surveyed its surroundings with eyes like tiny black sesame seeds, only crawling toward the door after confirming its direction.
At first, it moved very slowly, like a toddling child, but it soon adapted and its speed increased several times over.
In less than a quarter of an hour, it had vanished, leaving only a disgusting trail of slime on the ground...
In the very center of the mountain hollow’s cluster of buildings stood a three-story Wooden Tower several dozen feet tall. This was the heart of the Ling Family, where all of the clan’s more than one hundred Cultivators practiced their cultivation.
Just then, a blood-red worm slowly crawled up the steps of the Wooden Tower. The tower’s Defensive Array showed no reaction, and even the two Early-stage Qi Refining Cultivators guarding the entrance seemed completely oblivious.
The worm entered the Wooden Tower without any trouble.
The bottom floor of the Wooden Tower was filled with the Ling Family’s underage Cultivators. They sat properly on their cushions, listening to a white-haired elder lecture from the front. Some were drowsy and others were looking around, but not a single person noticed that a thumb-thick worm had come among them.
The worm raised its head as it crawled through the gaps between the cushions, its eyes constantly sizing them up as if it were selecting a piece of clothing to its liking.
But it did not find a satisfactory target in this crowd. Their bodies were simply too frail.
It soon followed the stairs to the second floor. The Cultivators practicing here were older, and their Cultivation had generally reached the mid-to-late stages of Qi Refining.
But here, too, it found no target to its satisfaction.
So it proceeded to the final floor. In the entire Ling Family, only one person was qualified to cultivate on the third floor: the Ling Clan Leader, Ling Duanhe.
Ling Duanhe, a man of nearly seventy, was dressed in a gray Daoist robe. He sat cross-legged in the center of a Tai Chi Diagram, focusing his core energy. Each breath he took held a unique, special rhythm.
Although the Tai Chi Diagram was an inanimate object, with his every breath, its two interdependent yet clearly distinct halves seemed to transform into two black-and-white fish swimming around him.
Upon seeing this, the blood-red worm’s eyes revealed a flash of human-like greed.
Ling Duanhe was immersed in the profound mysteries of the Tai Chi Diagram and failed to notice the blood-red worm rapidly approaching him.
HUMMM...
The moment the worm drew near, it was like a stone tossed into a pond; ripples spread out, and eight illusory patterns materialized around it, faintly combining with the Tai Chi Diagram to form an Eight Trigrams Diagram.
Ling Duanhe was jolted awake. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a streak of blood-red light lunging at him like a lightning bolt.
SHLICK!
A small gash was instantly torn through his robe and flesh. Ling Duanhe then felt something bore into his body and quickly travel upward.
Ling Duanhe’s face went pale with shock. He immediately circulated his Spiritual Power to force it out. The Eight Trigrams Diagram flared with a brilliant light, providing him a continuous stream of Spiritual Power.
His efforts immediately halted the worm’s upward momentum.
But before he could even sigh in relief, Ling Duanhe felt a sharp pain in his chest. The Spiritual Power he had just gathered dissipated in an instant.
Seizing the opportunity, the blood-red worm plunged directly into his Sea of Consciousness.
"AHHH—"
With his Sea of Consciousness invaded, Ling Duanhe let out a bloodcurdling scream. It felt as though ten thousand needles were piercing his brain.
"You... What... what are you?"
"Heh heh heh... I was planning to wait until after you reached Foundation Establishment to do this. But then I ran into that bastard Song Changsheng. I have no choice but to move the plan forward."
A cold, sinister voice rang out in his mind, sending a bone-deep chill through Ling Duanhe. He was all too familiar with that voice.
"It’s... it’s you! What are you doing? Xue’Er was kind enough to take you in! Are you going to repay her kindness with hatred?!"
Ling Duanhe’s eyes were wide with fury, his voice trembling slightly from sheer rage.
"Heh heh... I really should thank that little beauty. When I was being hunted back then, I was gravely injured. If not for her, I might have actually died out there.
I had planned to leave as soon as my injuries healed. But who could have thought that a tiny little Qi Refining Family would possess such a treasure?
Don’t you understand the saying? ’Innocence is no crime, but possessing a treasure is.’ A treasure like this is simply not something that ants like the Ling Clan are worthy of possessing!"
"Feng Wuming, you... you really are a monster. I was truly blind back then!"
At this moment, Ling Duanhe’s heart was filled with immense regret. Three years ago, his granddaughter, Ling Xue, had "found" Feng Wuming outside the mountain hollow and brought him back.
The man had a grim face and a sinister aura, which Ling Duanhe had disliked from the start. But he couldn’t stand up to Ling Xue’s desperate pleading, so he had reluctantly agreed to let the man stay.
Over the years, despite the man’s strange demeanor, he had always been well-behaved. Meanwhile, Ling Duanhe was completely focused on using this serendipitously acquired treasure to break through to Foundation Establishment, and over time, he had stopped paying the man any mind.
’Who knew a single lapse in judgment could bring about such endless disaster.’
"What do you think you’re doing?! The Ling Clan is under the protection of the Rong Clan! If you dare to act so recklessly, the lords of the Rong Clan will never forgive you!" For now, all Ling Duanhe could do was try to threaten him while desperately thinking of a countermeasure.
