Lu Qingyang was drawing a turtle on a reef with half a bronze talisman when a putrid smell suddenly wafted on the sea breeze.
He kicked A Luo, who was roasting clams: "Girl, did you hide stinky tofu again?"
Before he finished speaking, the sea three zhang away gurgled, and twelve bronze coffins with Netherworld talismans floated to the surface.
"Daoist Lu, still well?"
The coffin lids exploded, and the Netherworld Palace Lord, wearing a crying-laughing mask, stood on the waves, unleashing three thousand ghouls from his sleeve: "Hand over the Saintess of the Witch Tribe's soul..."
Lu Qingyang flung out a handful of fried peanuts, and the ghouls immediately started fighting among themselves: "What's the hurry? Your ancestors are waiting below for their New Year's money!"
A Luo suddenly bit her fingertip and drew a blood curse on a turtle shell, and the reef group rumbled, rising to form a Bagua formation.
The moment the Netherworld Palace Lord brought out his Soul-Shattering Bell, Lu Qingyang pulled out a bronze mirror he had pilfered from Guixu: "Come on, let's see how many pimples you have under that mask!"
What the mirror reflected, however, was a scene of the Netherworld Hall massacring a village three hundred years ago, and the Soul-Shattering Bell actually shrieked in mid-air before shattering into pieces.
"You're courting death!" Four black-robed Elders formed a seal, summoning the Yellow Springs Underworld Flood Dragon.
Lu Qingyang stepped on his Qingming Sword and soared into the clouds, then scattered a large handful of "Stinky Tofu Talismans" behind him.
Countless illusions of decaying corpses emerged from the exploding black mist, and the Underworld Flood Dragon actually turned its head to bite its own tail.
He took the opportunity to grab A Luo and leap into the seabed, where the bronze talisman in his embrace suddenly grew hot, reflecting a star map of the Witch Tribe's tomb in the undercurrent.
When the two surfaced, they happened upon the remnants of the Red Serpent Gate looting a merchant ship.
Lu Qingyang flung out seventy-two copper coins, nailing them to the mast: "This road is mine!"
The bandit leader grinned, swinging his saber, but Mr. Lu used the bronze talisman to reveal the patched pattern on his underwear.
Amidst everyone's laughter, A Luo suddenly pointed southwest and shrieked: "Look! That pleasure boat is eating a ship!"
They saw the Mermaid's silver-scaled pleasure boat devouring a Netherworld warship, its bow's zither platform transforming into a gaping maw.
Lu Qingyang pulled out the Water-Avoiding Pearl from his embrace and threw it: "On credit! Put it on the Witch Tribe's ancestors' tab!"
The moment the pearl entered the water, the entire sea area suddenly stilled, and the blue scales on the Mermaid's ear fins peeled off one by one, revealing blood-colored Witch Tribe markings underneath.
"Three hundred years ago, you tricked my Elder sister into gouging out her heart to suppress the sea eye..." The Mermaid's voice, mixed with thunder, pierced through the clouds, "Now it's time to use your Nascent Soul to complete the formation eye!"
She flung out the silver bell on her wrist, and the bell's sound solidified into chains that wrapped around the Qingming Sword.
Lu Qingyang suddenly tore open his robe, revealing a black lotus on his chest: "What's the hurry? The debt for you secretly kissing me hasn't been settled yet!"
A giant bronze hand covered in curses suddenly reached out from the seabed, pulling everyone towards the Witch Tribe's altar.
In the vortex, Lu Qingyang found a broken stele inscribed with "Lu Qingyang and dogs are not allowed inside," and kicked the pursuing Netherworld Palace Lord: "Your Elder is calling you home to change your diaper!"
The moment the broken stele exploded, the bronze cauldron in the center of the altar spewed out a rain of candied hawthorns, each hawthorn reflecting a scene from a past life.
A Luo caught a string of candied hawthorns and bit into the filling, then suddenly cried and pointed into the cauldron: "That's my mother!"
The Witch Tribe woman who appeared in the cauldron was teaching a young A Luo to weave silver bells, and the scar on her wrist perfectly matched the missing piece of the bronze talisman.
Lu Qingyang rubbed his nose and chuckled: "I knew it looked more and more like my pawn shop's ledger..."
The Netherworld Palace Lord suddenly brought out his Lifebound Treasure, the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, and countless resentful spirits shrieked as they lunged at the bronze cauldron.
Lu Qingyang bit his tongue and drew a crooked blood talisman on the cauldron's body: "Heaven and Earth Bank, emergency loan!"
A hand as white as jade suddenly reached out from within the cauldron, gently crushing the Ten Thousand Souls Banner.
The remnant soul of the Witch Tribe Saintess appeared, stepping on moonlight, and the bronze talisman on her neck resonated with the fragment in his hand.
"A Yue..." Lu Qingyang had just opened his mouth when the Saintess grabbed him by the neck and pressed him against the rim of the cauldron, "Three hundred years ago, you said you'd take me to taste all the sweet pastries in the human world."
Her fingertip traced his Nascent Soul, and the black lotus mark suddenly bloomed into a Red Spider Lily: "Now it's time to use your Dao of Reincarnation to repay the debt."
As the seabed altar began to collapse, A Luo suddenly jumped into the bronze cauldron and hugged the Saintess: "Mother, no!"
The Saintess's remnant soul trembled violently, and memory fragments scattered like Colored Glaze.
Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to slap the bronze talisman into the recess of the cauldron's ear, and the entire altar suddenly flipped over, revealing a boiling lava pool beneath.
"Fellow Daoists!" He grabbed a large handful of Spirit Stones formed from lava and stuffed them into his crotch, "Mr. Lu invites everyone to a hot spring bath!"
The flung Spirit Stone rain triggered a melee, and he took advantage of the chaos to drag A Luo into a teleportation array in the lava.
When the Netherworld Palace Lord pursued, he only saw "Lu Qingyang was here" crookedly carved on the rock wall, with a turtle drawn as the signature.
Three days later, a stall selling fire-avoiding talismans appeared in the Miao Frontier black market.
Lu Qingyang was leisurely eating candied hawthorns, his newly acquired Witch Tribe silver bell and Qingming Sword jingling in harmony at his waist.
A Luo squatted nearby, counting Spirit Stones, then suddenly pointed at the sky and shrieked: "Look! Someone's eating clouds!"
High above the nine heavens, the Mermaid was pressing half a bronze talisman into her heart.
Her shed fish tail transformed into a sky full of star rain, and when it fell on Lu Qingyang's hair, it condensed into an ancient Witch Tribe verse: "Debt of love repaid with flesh, Reincarnation never ends."
