Book 36 Chapter 3: Timely Acquisition of Fundamental Essence
Book 36 Chapter 3: Timely Acquisition of Fundamental Essence
The ‘Demonic Emperor Relics’ was originally from the first generation Xiedi [demonic emperor] Xie Bo, when he was looking for a set of silk scroll related to medical science, and accidently discovered a funerary object [i.e. item buried together with the dead] inside an ancient tomb from the Spring and Autumn [770-476 BC] and Warring States [475-221 BC] era.
The tomb was located in the ancient Qi state [of Western Zhou and the Warring states (1122-265 BC), centered in Shandong] territory. The construction was grand and magnificent, the funerary objects were extremely luxurious. Just the number of fine horses buried alive reached a hundred; evidently during his life, the owner of the grave, even if he was not an aristocrat, general, or minister, his power and position must be extremely high.
Although Xie Bo was not tolerated by the orthodox Confucianist society that was dominant at that time, so much so that they were cynical toward him, they considered his conduct monstrous, he himself was not a heretical man that was so wicked beyond redemption. Alone, he devoted himself to the art of healing, hoping to rely on his medical expertise to solve the riddle of the demonic school’s most mysterious canon, the ‘Dao Xin Zhong Mo Da Fa’ [lit. great demonic cultivation method of the heart of the way, first mentioned by Shi Qingxuan in Book 20 Chapter 10].
When the ‘Demonic Emperor Relics’ was discovered by Xie Bo, it was placed under the pillow behind the neck of the occupant of the tomb. It was full of traces of blood, sparkling and translucent, mottled on the surface. Due to its semitransparent crystalline characteristic, it was classified as yellow crystal, but actually there was great difference between this crystal and any other yellow crystal stone.
The one thing that piqued Xie Bo’s interest the most was that the crystal ball seemed to contain some kind of bizarre power. After conducting experiments over a long period of time, Xie Bo made an astonishing discovery: the crystal ball actually had a singular characteristic of being able to absorb and store human’s real energy and qi essence.
This discovery was extremely important. Within the demonic school, all kinds of demonic power and strange method of absorbing other people’s power had been handed down from generation to generation for a long time. But no matter how brilliant the practitioner was, absorbing other people’s true qi was only supplementary or temporary in nature; nobody has really been able to take other people’s several decades of power permanently, furthermore, to use it to increase his own power substantially and endlessly.
Even if it could be done, due to the difference in the innate character of the true qi, it would only bring harm without any benefit, and frequently led to the disaster of fire deviation.
A comparatively superior method was through man-woman sexual intercourse, absorbing the other party’s primordial yin or primordial yang; however, this was still supplementary in nature, and it was not without any risk either, hence it was not the best way.
However, primordial essence was another matter altogether; it was mystery within a mystery. The Taoist school had the so-called three-primary concept. In the sky, they are the three lights; namely the sun, the moon and the stars. On earth, they are the three vital elements; namely the water, the fire and the earth. In human, they are the three matters; namely the essence, the qi, and the spirit. By training the essence, one could transform the qi, by training the qi one transforms the spirit, and by training the spirit, one returns to emptiness. This was precisely the entire Taoist cultivation process.
Within the primordial essence, primordial qi [or vital energy in traditional Chinese medicine] and primordial spirit, three primaries, the primordial essence is the fundamental of all things; primordial qi and primordial spirit were obtained with the advancement of the primordial essence cultivation.
Due to the differences in each scholar’s luck and the method he was using, primordial qi and primordial spirit would also differ from one practitioner to the other. However, there was no difference in the primordial essence. [Translator’s note: I translated the best I could, but honestly I had no idea what Huang Yi was talking about. My apology.]
This discovery made Xie Bo wild with joy. After many years of research, he was finally able to create one kind of method to inject primordial essence into the crystal ball. At that time, he was not too far from the great journey back to the western paradise; therefore, as he was approaching his end, he poured his entire primordial essence into the crystal ball, and instructed his next generation successor to find a method of extracting the primordial essence from the ball.
Since then, the crystal ball was given the name ‘Sheng Di Sheli’ [Holy Emperor Relics].
This has brought about a problem with the most headache to the Heavenly Evil Way [not sure, 天邪道, perhaps a school’s name?] of the demonic school’s two sects and six ways. A man like Xie Bo, who was erudite and multi-talented, his knowledge and experience out of the ordinary, possessing great wisdom, great intellect – was indeed rarely seen in a hundred years. Although the disciples of successive generations exhausted their brains and physical strength using thousand ways, a hundred plans, it was still as if they sat with the treasure mountain in their embrace, but never had any share in it for even half a penny of profit.
And because they failed to obtain the method to extract the energy, the Relics unceasingly absorbed all kinds and sorts of both harmful and harmless primordial essence, so that the problem grew to be more complex, more difficult to solve.
However, the successive generations’ Demonic Emperor, as long as they did not die an unexpected death, at the death door they would all follow the legacy of the previous generation’s Demonic Emperor by injecting their primordial essence into the Relics, which was also becoming the choice way-of-death of the Zongzhu [head of a clan/school] of the Heavenly Evil Way of the successive generations.
Because of all kinds of changes, the research on how to extract the primordial essence from the Relics had evolved into a highly dangerous study. One thing went wrong, it could easily lead to fire deviation. Every now and then, there were people who successfully extract beneficial primordial qi from within the Relics, which could increase their power many times over. This fact has given enough reason for the successive generations disciples to chip away at a task and not abandon it [idiom: persevering]. As for how to extract the primordial essence from the Relics, no one was able to find a solution yet.
Until Xiang Yutian arrived.
With his heavenly talent, he cultivated the ‘Dao Xin Zhong Mo Da Fa’, and suddenly comprehended a way to extract the primordial essence from the Relics. It was only then that Xie Bo’s dream could be realized.
At this time, because his training in ‘Dao Xin Zhong Mo Da Fa’ took a wrong turn, also seeing not one of You Niaojuan, four disciples, became a person who was worthy of respect, before his death Xiang Yutian handed over the Relics to Lu Miaozi, imploring him to search for a capable scholar among the other sects of the demonic school, to pass on the Relics, and to have him unify the demonic way, and thus terminating the disunity and the endless internal strife within the demonic school for the last several hundred years.
In the end, since Lu Miaozi thought that for the time being no one in the demonic school was qualified to be entrusted with the Relics, he hid the Relics in the Duke Yang’s Treasure-trove.
Ever since learning about the existence of the Demonic Emperor Relics, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling had never had the intention to dip their finger into the Relics; were it not for Zhao Deyan, based on the information pertaining to the Demonic Emperor Relics that he obtained from You Niaojuan – deliberately harming them, the two boys practically would never want to have a direct contact with the Relics.
The various qi within the Relics was wide open; only primordial essence would be able to close it, and the method to link the tremendous mixture of qi within the Relics was precisely through interaction with true qi.
Absorbing the various qi in the Relics was not difficult at all. The problem was that it was impossible to control the amount of mixed qi coming in, and there was no way of filtering the flow of harmful-and-without-benefit death qi and evil qi.
If Kou Zhong merely dipped his hand into the mercury inside the jar and took out the Relics, nothing would happen instead. However, Kou Zhong was using the Moon in the Well’s saber blade to stir up the Relics inside the jar, hence he must transmit his qi through the saber blade to use the internal qi so that the Relics would stick onto his saber, thereupon the Moon in the Well became the bridge, so that there was no barrier whatsoever between Kou Zhong and the Relics. Naturally Kou Zhong was unable to immediately understand the logic.
The great amount of death qi and evil qi, like the water from Yong An Canal, burst with irresistible power along the Moon in the Well, which had become the bridge, into Kou Zhong, so that momentarily the illusion in his brain grew as a thicket, like millions of ghosts of the people who died unjustly were coming together to demand his life. The only thing that Kou Zhong could do was to stake it all, to exhaust all his strength, to try hard to repel and force the strange qi rushing forth back into the Relics; therefore, as if he was possessed, he was unable to move.
Lucky for him that this moment Xu Ziling saw something was wrong and made the prompt decision to destroy the Relics, and attacked the Relics with all his strength. But perhaps because the Relics contained primordial essence, practically no human power would be able to destroy it. And because Zhao Deyan was aware of this fact, he had no misgivings whatsoever to have a free hand in launching an all-out attack; moreover, exploiting this special characteristic of the Relics, he seized the initiative to the greatest extent, to occupy the upper hand to the greatest extent, and repeatedly carried out killer moves.
Failing to shake and shatter the Relics, Xu Ziling’s true qi violently burst into the Relics. It appeared that ever since Xie Bo injected his primordial essence into the Relics, this situation had never happened. Thereupon he and Kou Zhong, two boys together, established a channel, which linked them with the Relics.
On Kou Zhong’s side, he felt that the strange qi bursting in from the Relics suddenly rolled up and flowed back. Since he could not pull his true qi back, while things that have happened could hardly be controlled instead, he pushed his true qi entirely into the Relics.
Things that even Xie Bo and Xiang Yutian had never thought about were happening at this moment. Because the two boys’ power was comparable to each other, was of a common origin and heterogeneous, the two strands of true qi unexpectedly converged into one stream inside the Relics, forming a yin and yang, positive and negative vortex, which sharply triggered the primordial essence that has been dormant for a long time, it burst outside into the two boys’ body like a flood breaching the dike.
If it were other people, even someone as brilliant as Zhao Deyan or Zhu Yuyan, perhaps they could not withstand this violent shock; fortunately, after going through the Jade Annulus of He Clan transforming their meridians, they were barely able to endure this shock. Otherwise, their meridians would immediately burst open and they would perish. However, even so, because they triggered most of the primordial essence inside the Relics, when it entered their body, it was also mixed with a large amount of various qi that came from successive generations’ Heavenly Evil Way Zongzhu, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were still unable to withstand; they were jolted and fell to the ground, the meridians and true qi within their body was scattered, they were on the verge of suffering fire deviation.
Thanks to Xiang Yushan’s evil thought, Xu Ziling had the opportunity to unload the various qi, which his own true qi had strongly rejected – completely to him, while the primordial essence, which nature was different from the mixed qi – immediately integrated itself with his own primordial essence, which functioned was to recover his physical strength.
By the time he sprang up from the ground, although he did not feel any sudden surge in power, he did feel as if he just shed his mortal body and exchanged his bones, and he felt different compared to before. As for what exactly was different, momentarily he was unable to say, because he really did not understand the logic behind the primordial essence piercing through his body.
This moment Kou Zhong was still in deep water and scorching fire [idiom: abyss of suffering]; he was still in predicament where fire deviation could happen any moment. Fortunately, Xu Ziling, who had undergone two unprecedented valuable experiences of absorbing the Jade Annulus of He Clan and the Demonic Emperor Relics, immediately came over and slapped him on the back. Kou Zhong instantly knew that the mixed qi was sent to his body. By the time Xu Ziling drew and forced out the evil and strange qi from Kou Zhong with his palm wind, everything was settled conclusively.
Without anybody knowing anything about it, each of the two boys have absorbed up to 70% of enormous primordial essence from the Demonic Emperor Relics, which the demonic school people yearned for even in their dreams; it was as if they were taking away 70% of the weapons and gold from the Duke Yang’s Treasure.
This moment Yun Shuai has fallen into the heavy siege and was fighting a hard battle against the Tujue martial art masters under Kang Qiaoli’s leadership; not having the time to deal with Xiang Yushan, they promptly rushed over to rescue Yun Shuai from danger.
Like a hot knife through butter they cut an opening. Inwardly they knew that prolonged battle would be inadvisable. After getting together with Yun Shuai, they pushed through in the direction of the north wall. By the time they leaped up the wall, Zhao Deyan happened to soar into the air in pursuit of Zhu Yuyan. The latter was at the critical juncture where she was about to throw the sheepskin pouch containing the Relics to Wanwan.
The sheepskin pouch flew in an arc across the nearly ten zhang of empty air and fell into the distance.
The snow was thick and dense. The residents of the city, because the Great Tang Army closed the roads and was searching the Canal, unless it was absolutely necessary, everybody did not want to step outside. Streets and alleys, big and small, were as quiet as ghost domain. There was only the sound of neighing horses and human voices every now and then coming from the Yong An Canal.
Zhu Yuyan dropped onto the middle of the street. Her entire clothes and sleeves rose up and swept around, so that the snowflakes falling within half a zhang radius from her body were splashed away by her power. The scenery was bizarre to the extreme point.
Seeing how formidable Zhu Yuyan’s demonic power was, Kou Zhong, Xu Ziling, and Yun Shuai sucked in a mouthful of cold air.
“Hold your troops for me!” Yun Shuai shouted in low voice.
Both legs bent and straightened out, his toes tapped the top of the wall, he shot like an arrow, straight toward the sheepskin pouch, which was flying more than ten zhang into the distance.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling backhandedly met Kang Qiaoli and two other martial art masters’ attack and sent them down the wall. After exchanging a glance, they both jumped down onto the street and flew toward the point where the sheepskin pouch was expected to land.
On the street, danger was lurking from all four directions; no one knew whether someone would suddenly charge out from somewhere.
White shadow flashed; the barefooted Wanwan, like a specter, floated out of a magnificent mansion, to meet the sheepskin pouch falling down from the sky. In the blink of an eye the sheepskin pouch was only about three zhang away. Because the sheepskin pouch was thrown in her direction, she was so sure that before Yun Shuai caught up with it, she would be able to safely take the treasure away.
Several shadows rushed out of the dark. Surprisingly, it was Yin Gui Pai’s four martial art master elders, Bian Bufu, Pi Shouxuan, Wen Caiting, and Xia Zhanglao. They were not intercepting the three men at all; rather, they stayed on the ground, holding up their troops for Wanwan, who was soaring into the air to catch the treasure.
‘Bang!’
Zhu Yuyan met Zhao Deyan’s fierce-and-severe-without-equal ‘Qinglong Ji Zhu’ [see last chapter] head-on, and was jolted by the strike that she flew backward to neutralize the opponent’s power, but she promptly turned around to engage him in fierce battle. The situation was fiery and dazzling. The sound of qi power colliding against each other was heard in succession.
In the middle of the splashing snowflakes, two figures, like falcon catching a rabbit – launched incomparably intense severe battle. Two top martial art masters of grandmaster level of the demonic school in life and death decisive battle, amazing and strange moves more and more emerged.
On the other side, when it looked like the sheepskin pouch was about to fall into Wanwan’s hand, sword light filling the atmosphere suddenly flashed; fairy-like Shi Feixuan arrived from the sky, the sword in her hand turned into a streak of white light, shooting toward the up-in-the-air Wanwan.
If Wanwan still focused on catching the sheepskin pouch, she would definitely nurse a grievance under the sword of Shi Feixuan, whose destiny to be her archrival was foreordained.
Wanwan made prompt decision. She called tenderly, “Shibo Gong [martial (older) uncle, Gong is a term of respect to address older gentleman]!” while the Demonic Ribbon shot out of her sleeves, brushing toward Shi Feixuan.
Pi Shouxuan immediately soared toward the sheepskin pouch falling down from the sky to catch and take it away; the coordination was impeccable.
At this time Kang Qiaoli and the group of Tujue martial art masters were jumping over the wall to go out. Kang Qiaoli swept his gaze around. After grasping the situation, he shouted loudly, “Follow me!” Taking the lead, he rushed toward the sheepskin pouch at full speed.
This moment, at the end of the long street were Zhu Yuyan and Zhao Deyan in ruthless battle. On the other side was the you-fight, I-snatch battle with the sheepskin pouch in the middle. The situation was very chaotic, but Yin Gui Pai’s side was still occupying the upper hand.
Shi Feixuan arrived at the scene the moment Zhu Yuyan snatched the sheepskin pouch from Yun Shuai’s hands. Originally she decided not to come to the Foreign Guesthouse, the reason was precisely like Xu Ziling had guessed: she thought that Xu Ziling was deceiving her.
Afterwards she received information from the Heavenly Policy Mansion, and knew that the two boys were falling into the ambush, and that they escaped by getting into the water of the Yong An Canal. In the end she could not resist worrying over Xu Ziling’s safety, hence she secretly monitored Jiancheng, Yuanji’s large scale search operation around the Canal – from the side. By the time she was certain that the two boys ought to have come out of the Canal early on, she immediately headed toward the Foreign Guesthouse, and happened to see Zhu Yuyan throwing the sheepskin pouch toward Wanwan, while Zhao Deyan was staking everything in desperate battle against Zhu Yuyan. In her heart she was still half-believing-half-doubting, not sure if the object inside the sheepskin pouch was the real Relics.
However, since the demonic people were disregarding everything and opening up their oath against taking life in a you-fight, I-snatch melee over the pouch, she set her trust or her distrust aside to make her all-out move to intercept Wanwan.
‘Pow!’
The Tian Mo Ribbon hit the sword blade. Shi Feixuan borrowed the impact force to change direction; her body followed her sword, but was still flying toward the sheepskin pouch high up in the air. Her posture was confident and at ease, beautiful to the extreme point, but it was also beyond everybody’s expectation.
Wanwan suffered the setback of having to change her move at the last moment to meet the enemy, she could only use 70% of her power in her Demonic Ribbon against Shi Feixuan’s 100% sword, immediately she appraised the shape and seeing inelegance [no idea, must be an idiom], like a violently strong wave rolling up, Wanwan floated to the side and landed down.
This moment Pi Shouxuan was right under the sheepskin pouch; he only needed to rise about a zhang or so, then the sheepskin pouch would be grabbed firmly in his hands. His power was deep, his five fingers generated a force, the sheepskin pouch’s momentum stood still, it dropped straight down toward him as if it was being pulled by magnetic force.
If Shi Feixuan had wanted to fight over the sheepskin pouch like him, she would surely be able to slow him down a hair; but Shi Feixuan’s objective was to destroy the Demonic Emperor Relics; naturally, it was another matter altogether.
Flying across the air, Shi Feixuan did not care about Pi Shouxuan leaping up from below using a grabbing-something-across-empty-air technique to seize the Demonic Emperor Relics at all, the Color Empty Sword shot out of her hand, like a streak of lightning splitting the air, it scattered the snowflakes everywhere. Released later but arriving sooner, at the critical moment where Pi Shouxuan was only about a cun from grabbing the edge of the sheepskin pouch, the sword hit the sheepskin pouch.
‘Boom!’
The pouch and the sword collided; the impact produced the sound of clashing qi power, which was beyond everybody’s expectation, deep and low like the echo of a muffled thunder. The sheepskin pouch was blown into shreds of skin filling the air, bright yellow light shooting down, the snowflakes within the three zhang radius were shaken by the power into snow particles and were sent splashing in all directions.
The first to suffer calamity was Pi Shouxuan. Jolted by the impact, he dropped straight down to the ground.
At the same time as the Color Empty Sword fell down and flew back, the Demonic Emperor Relics turned into yellow light, shooting toward Yun Shuai, who was flying over across the sky. The strange thing was that the Relics’ yellow light gradually dimmed down, as if it was an object with spirit within in.
Shi Feixuan’s countenance finally changed, knowing that she had blamed Xu Ziling wrongly. Grabbing the Color Empty Sword, she dropped down to the ground. Only this moment did she realize that the Demonic Emperor Relics was not something that human power could destroy.
The happiest was Yun Shuai, thinking that the swan was around the corner, good luck was at the door. Promptly he maintained his posture to meet the Relics, making up his mind that if the Relics fell into his hands, he would disregard everything and run far away a thousand li, to return to the West Tujue at full speed.
Behind him, running after him on the ground from three zhang away, Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong’s countenance changed greatly, afraid that Yun Shuai might repeat their mistake. “Don’t touch!” they shouted together.
Yun Shuai was a warrior with superior ability and wisdom; furthermore, he knew that the two boys would never deceive him, and he also recalled the two boys’ terrifying bitter experience just now. Thinking quickly, while still flying in the air, he took off his robe and brushed it forward to roll the Relics inside.
While changes were happening on this side, changes were also happening on the other side. Originally, Zhao Deyan was certain that he would lose; hence he wanted to vent his resentment onto Zhu Yuyan. Previously, he has always been dissatisfied that he was ranked under Zhu Yuyan and Shi Zhixuan; therefore, for several decades in the East Tujue he secretly cultivated his demonic power, hoping he could ascend to the top position of the Eight Major Martial Art Masters of the Demonic Way. Battling Zhu Yuyan this time, although he had not fallen into the disadvantageous position yet, but he was well aware that he was still half a notch inferior to Zhu Yuyan.
This time, seeing another party appeared, he did not have the heart to zealously continue fighting. Since he was still maintaining his offensive momentum, he made a feign move and withdrew from the battle arena, to go toward the Relics.
If Zhu Yuyan wanted to entangle Zhao Deyan, it would be as easy as a hand’s turn. However, on one hand, she did not have the intention to put Zhao Deyan in order yet, moreover, she was afraid both sides suffered, also afraid that the Relics would fall into Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling’s hands again; thereupon she let Zhao Deyan off, and followed behind Zhao Deyan toward the other battle arena.
The men and horses from several different parties, every one using every method, their target was the Relics flying in the middle of the big snow above.
Yun Shuai and the Relics continued to approach each other at about three-zhang altitude above the ground. When it looked like Yun Shuai was about to catch the Relics into his robe, a shadow, at the speed that nobody was able to see clearly, pounced over from the courtyard to the side, at the speed that was faster than Yun Shuai, just before Yun Shuai’s robe caught the Relics, stretched out its hand to grab the Relics, traversed cross the long street, and landed on top of the courtyard wall of the magnificent mansion across the street.
Throwing his head back, he let out a long laugh and brought the Relics in front of his eyes, his pair of eyes emitted wild and hot light.
Surprisingly, it was the ‘Demonic King’ Shi Zhixuan.
Dazzled, Yun Shuai landed on the ground, only to find that everybody else, none did not stare blankly while being rooted on the spot.
With Shi Zhixuan’s Huan Mo Shenfa and Bu Si Yin Fa, even if everybody present worked as one, perhaps they would still be unable to retain him, much less everybody was against everybody else, every one had his own sinister design.
Coming behind him, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling looked at each other in shock; inwardly they were puzzled that Shi Zhixuan grabbed the Relics, yet it did not look like he was adversely affected at all.
In a ruler-overlooking-the-world posture, Shi Zhixuan’s evil eyes slowly swept everyone. His left hand waved, a streak of flame soared up into the sky and exploded into blood-red fireworks; he spoke loftily, “One year from now, I, Shi Zhixuan, will make a comeback, to unify the demonic way. Obeying me, you will prosper, opposing me, you will perish.”
Zhu Yuyan and Zhao Deyan shouted in anger at the same time, and flew toward him.
Only now that everybody else, Yun Shuai included, acted as if they had just woken up from a dream, and swarmed toward Shi Zhixuan standing on top of the wall.
Shi Zhixuan made a somersault and disappeared behind the wall.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were dejected as if they had lost. They did not know that 70% of the Relics’ best feature had already entered their body.
Shi Feixuan’s voice was heard behind the two; she spoke indifferently, “Is this the result you were hoping for?”
The two were left speechless; but when they looked back, Shi Feixuan’s immortal tracks had already disappeared.