Learning the Law

"You've fed me a mouthful of dog food; it's an eyesore."

The Flying Tiger King turned and walked away, finding the display utterly revolting.

Chen Family Village Ancestral Hall.

Zhao Longjie knocked out the burly patrolmen outside the hall. Clasping a torch in one hand, he entered the ancestral hall of the Chen family. He pulled out a feng shui compass, used the torch to illuminate the entire hall, and began to study its layout.

"Indeed, it is a treasure plot, a Dragon-Seeking Cave. It seems the ancestors of the Chen family were no simple people."

Zhao Longjie first assessed the feng shui of the village; it matched exactly what Zhou You had measured.

Spotting the restricted inner sanctum, Zhao Longjie felt around the door frame. Above the entrance was a stone-carved Qilin head with a sphere held in its mouth.

Zhao Longjie touched the sphere in the Qilin’s mouth and found it could be moved. With a light press, the two doors of the forbidden area automatically swung inward.

Seeing the entrance open, a cold sneer appeared on Zhao Longjie’s face. Clutching his torch, he strode into the inner sanctum.

The path ahead was a series of stepped, trapezoidal stairs. He descended the equivalent of three stories before reaching the bottom. Zhao Longjie moved with extreme caution, but by the time he reached the end of the night, he realized there were no traps.

What met his eyes were the reflections of water shimmering in the darkness, a hazy, impenetrable gloom.

Zhao Longjie found a stone sphere nearby that smelled of lamp oil. He touched his torch to the sphere, and it instantly ignited. As it rolled down its track, it caught the oil along the path, setting it ablaze and illuminating the entire forbidden chamber.

The true appearance of the sanctum was revealed.

In the center stood a two-meter-tall carving, six meters long and three meters wide—a colossal Bi-xi (a dragon-headed tortoise). Starlight from above shone down onto its back, where a pattern was carved to resemble a coffin. The stone coffin lid featured a Qilin head with a gaping, roaring mouth. The entire coffin was draped in thick cobwebs.

Opposite the Bi-xi sat a set of general’s armor on a stone chair. The back of the chair was straight and carved with intricate patterns, towering even taller than the armor. It, too, was covered in cobwebs. The golden armor, aged and neglected, had rusted to a dull color; it seemed no one from the Chen family had ever set foot in here.

Beside the stone chair lay a long sword, flanked by two bronze dogs with human faces—their expressions twisted and ferocious.

The water in the chamber rippled, casting light like dancing waves against the stone walls.

"This is actually a Profound Sky Flying Star cave. The ancestors of the Chen family stayed detached from the earth's energy for so long—were they seeking immortality?"

Zhao Longjie dropped his torch, leaped onto the stone coffin on the Bi-xi’s back, and channeled his internal energy into a palm strike against the lid.

"BOOM!"

The area around the coffin exploded, and demonic energy leaked out instantly.

Ignoring this, Zhao Longjie moved to the tail of the Bi-xi and pushed aside the coffin lid. There was no corpse inside, only fine, yellow sand. In the center lay a yellow, blood-veined stone the size of a goose egg. It looked as if a Qilin had attached itself to the pebble, though it was partially obscured by the sand.

"It’s actually the treasure, the Qilin Stone!"

Zhao Longjie’s eyes were instantly drawn to it. He picked it up, brushed off the sand, and was overcome with joy. He tucked the Qilin Stone away and pushed the coffin lid back into place.

The moment he did, the yellow sand began to shift like an hourglass. Or rather, the corpse beneath the sand began to emerge, emitting a low, guttural growl.

Blinded by the joy of his discovery, Zhao Longjie failed to notice the sound from within the coffin and turned to leave.

Inside, the corpse had risen from the sand. Its face was hideous—a bovine nose like a Qilin’s, skin covered in thick fish scales and dry as tree bark. Even the stone Bi-xi statue began to tremble.

The corpse suddenly slammed the coffin lid upward, sending it flying toward Zhao Longjie’s back.

Sensing danger, Zhao Longjie dodged to the side, and the heavy stone lid crashed to the ground.

Zhao Longjie looked back at the Bi-xi. It was a Corpse Demon. Its limbs were withered, its fingernails two centimeters long, and it let out a roar at him. It moved with the coordination of a human, but its eyes were solid, abyssal black. It wore the formal court attire of a Great Yan Dynasty general, not the armor.

The Corpse Demon leaped from the Bi-xi and lunged at Zhao Longjie.

Zhao Longjie flipped and kicked the creature, sending it back a few steps, but it took no damage.

The Corpse Demon stepped forward and engaged him in combat, matching his speed and technique blow for blow. Zhao Longjie landed two more kicks, but the creature remained unmoved; his own feet throbbed as if he had kicked solid stone.

Channeling his energy, Zhao Longjie delivered a powerful kick that sent the Corpse Demon crashing into the Bi-xi statue, causing the massive stone beast to sway. The creature fell to the floor and immediately lunged again.

Seeing the monster charging, Zhao Longjie bit his index finger, drew a Yin-Yang symbol on his left palm, channeled his energy into it, and struck the incoming demon. The creature was instantly stunned, trembling violently before collapsing back into the stone coffin.

Zhao Longjie quickly pulled out a talisman, slapped it onto the lid, and kicked the lid back into place. The coffin spun in the air before sealing shut, though both the coffin and the Bi-xi continued to shake.

"Want to come out?"

Zhao Longjie leaped onto the coffin, used his blood-stained finger to draw another Yin-Yang symbol over the talisman, and the shaking stopped.

He licked the blood from his finger with a cold smirk and turned to leave the forbidden area, making sure to shut the door behind him.

As he departed, the demonic and evil energies hovering above Chen Family Village converged toward the inner sanctum, pouring into the Corpse Demon inside the coffin.

"Good, everything is going according to plan. Keep absorbing! In a few days, you will be nothing more than my external demonic vessel."

The Black Emperor had not expected Zhao Longjie to actually follow his guidance and awaken the Corpse Demon. He dissolved back into the darkness of the night.

The next day.

Li Xintian and Zhou You had spent the whole day discussing strategies, but they had no good solutions. Meanwhile, the demonic and evil energies had fully gathered at the ancestral hall.

"Young Master Li, why not use Righteous Qi to seal off the inner sanctum? Prevent that thing inside from absorbing the demonic energy from the outside," Zhou You suggested after a long, fruitless discussion.

"That could work. It is a good plan."

Li Xintian nodded. He took out his Righteous Qi brush and wrote the character for "Seal" in the void. It quickly transformed into a circle, sealing the sanctum and cutting off the flow of energy. However, Li Xintian failed to notice that the demonic energy was already corroding the Righteous Qi.

At the same time, the seal disturbed the Corpse Demon, which was now desperate to absorb the energy, having not yet fully adapted to its physical transformation.

"Excellent, Young Master Li, your methods are truly profound. Tonight, I am willing to assist you," Zhou You said, feeling the time was right.

"Then I thank you, Daoist Zhou." Li Xintian did not stand on ceremony.

When night fell.

"Yiyuan, Yihe, stand guard outside. Do not let anyone disturb us." Seeing Li Xintian arrive, Zhou You ordered his disciples to guard the entrance.

"Yes, Master," they replied in unison, dutifully standing watch.

"Young Master Li, before we begin, I must tell you: you will have the time it takes for one stick of incense to burn. Your soul will leave your body and travel to a certain place. What you see depends entirely on what your heart chooses," Zhou You said, inserting a stick of incense into the burner.

"Very well, let us begin. Everything is in your hands, Daoist Zhou." Li Xintian sat cross-legged opposite him.

"Good!"

As Zhou You channeled his energy, the incense ignited on its own. He raised his fingers in a sword-point gesture and tapped Li Xintian’s forehead.

A wave of drowsiness washed over Li Xintian, and he closed his eyes.

"Go!"

At Zhou You’s command, Li Xintian’s soul instantly shot out.

As it flew, his soul was surrounded by a swirl of purple mist, as if entering a new realm.

"Li Xintian, what will you learn?" The Black Emperor appeared as the soul departed, looked up at the sky, waved his hand to shatter Li Xintian’s lingering Righteous Qi, and vanished.

Li Xintian’s soul drifted across a landscape of nothing but mountains.

After drifting for a long time, an ancient voice echoed in his ears.

"You have been wandering my domain for quite a while without leaving. What is your business?"

There was a voice, but no one was in sight.

"Junior Li Xintian, I beg the Daoist Master to teach me the Immortal Arts! Please forgive my intrusion." Li Xintian could not tell where the voice came from, so he bowed in one direction.

"So, you wish to learn the arts. What is it you wish to learn?"

The old man, appearing as if he had not seen a person in ages, materialized before him. He had piercing eyes and wore plain cloth garments, looking like a common farmer, yet he sat on a cloud-bed, occasionally rubbing his feet.

"This junior does not know. I pray the Master will instruct me." Seeing the old man appear, Li Xintian knew there was hope.

"You child, you come to learn, yet you don't even know what you want to learn? I won't teach you. Go back." The old man was annoyed that someone would wander his domain without a purpose.

"Master, is it that you cannot teach me, and that is why you wish to drive me away? If you truly wanted me gone, you would not have let me wander here for so long; a wave of your hand would have sufficed." Li Xintian refused to leave. Only a fool would walk away now—anyone who called himself 'Old Daoist' in such a place was clearly a master. If he wanted him gone, he wouldn't have bothered appearing.

"Hahaha, you are an interesting child! Daring to say I cannot teach you? Ignorant boy, you don't even know who I am." The old man laughed. "Very well, since you are here, it is fate. I will teach you. Every Immortal Art I possess can lead to enlightenment and immortality."

"This junior is deeply grateful!" Li Xintian was overjoyed.

"I see you are still a mortal of flesh and blood. Shall I teach you how to achieve the Dao and attain immortality, never to grow old?" The old man stroked his chin, observing him.

"Master, please, I ask to learn something else." Li Xintian shook his head.

"You can actually resist the temptation of immortality? Not bad, not bad. You are the first person who hasn't wanted to learn immortality from me. Then, I shall teach you the Method of Dragon Transformation. If you master it, you may one day become a Ancestral Dragon, the progenitor of a race."

The old man was surprised that Li Xintian rejected immortality in favor of the dragon path.

"I will not learn it!"

"The Way of Might?"

"No!"

"The Way of the Five Elements?"

"No!"

"The Way of Yin and Yang?"

"No!"

"This, you won't learn; that, you won't learn! Are you playing games with me, brat? Get out!"

The old man’s face grew darker with every rejection. He tapped Li Xintian on the head three times and waved his hand, casting him out.

Any one of the arts the old man had mentioned would have sent the gods and the underworld into a frenzy of desire, yet Li Xintian had refused them all.

As Li Xintian vanished, the old man and his realm dissolved, as if they had never existed.

"Young Master Li, thank goodness you woke up. I tried everything to wake you, but you were under for two whole sticks of incense. Do you feel any discomfort?" Zhou You asked, relieved to see him stir.

"Did you see anything? Did you learn anything?" Zhou You asked, assuming he must have succeeded to have been gone so long.

"I feel no discomfort. I saw someone, but I angered him, and he sent me back immediately. I learned nothing," Li Xintian said, shaking his head, still stunned by how quickly he had been dismissed.

"Could it be that he was unwilling to teach you? That is impossible. You possess Righteous Qi; he should have taught you." Zhou You scratched his bald head.

"He was willing to teach, but none of the arts he offered were what I wanted to learn. He got angry and sent me away," Li Xintian replied softly.