Xi Heng accompanied the emperor up the dark stone steps, then walked across a flat ground of the same color and entered the hall.
The three characters "Fuqing Hall" are hung high inside the hall, with the characters looking like flying dragons and dancing phoenixes, and appearing natural and unrestrained.
After Xi Heng entered the hall, the sound of greetings rang around her ears, but Zhao Qianyuan and she ignored them, both of them looking very serious.
After entering the palace, the Crazy Emperor took Xi Heng to a wide corridor on the side and said, "I brought you here to talk about the matter of becoming an immortal."
As expected...Xi Heng's eyes became a little colder.
This crazy emperor just said so many nice words, saying that he regretted his mistakes and would reform himself in the future.
But in fact, he still led himself here.
I think he wants to train her into a spirit stone just like he did in the previous life.
Knowing one's mistakes but still continuing to do evil things, it really shows that it is difficult to change one's nature.
In short, Xi Heng didn't have a good impression of this crazy emperor.
"Yesterday in the Hua Man Lou, you said you wanted to become an immortal." Zhao Qianyuan said:
"I listened to you and thought about it all night last night. I finally made up my mind to tell you the way to become an immortal, how to become an immortal, and why you can't become an immortal."
"Are you going to tell me how to become an immortal?" Xi Heng answered hesitantly.
Only at this moment did she realize that there was indeed a small chance that this crazy emperor would reform.
"Because you look a lot like me." The other party repeated it again, looking up and saying:
"I can see that you were serious about becoming an immortal yesterday... I don't want you to spend so much effort on the ethereal path to immortality like I did, wasting time and money in the end only to end up with nothing. So I have to tell you the truth."
Xi Heng thought for a few seconds and then spoke out his thoughts: "I am different from you, and no one can be like me."
"Young." Zhao Qianyuan shook his head like a hermit.
"All living beings in this world, even the emperor, are just part of the reincarnation of the world. In the next reincarnation, there will always be people like you and me."
As they were talking, they walked to the end of the hall, where there was a heavy wooden door blocking the end of the corridor.
It was the pale-haired eunuch who stood by the door again. He bowed to the emperor and said:
"Your Majesty, the things you mentioned yesterday are all in the room."
"It's not needed today." Zhao Qianyuan replied simply and pushed open the heavy wooden door.
The wooden door opened with a long, sharp sound, and the familiar dim scene appeared in front of Xi Heng again.
The house is covered with stone slabs everywhere. It is not as bright and clean as other rooms. Only there are some gaps for ventilation where the wall meets the eaves.
The gap at this angle cannot let in any sunlight, making the entire room appear dark and eerie.
Only under the large cauldron in the center of the stone room was there a faint glow of dark red charcoal fire, which served as a source of light.
With the dim light, Xi Heng saw five round things placed on the floor, which looked like beggar's chickens and were tightly wrapped in several layers of lotus leaves.
Judging from their size, Xi Heng guessed that these were the five heads of the five elements needed to condense the Blood Spirit Stone.
She looked at the stone table next to her and saw many neatly arranged porcelain bowls, which probably contained all kinds of rare treasures crushed into powder.
In addition, Xi Heng also saw several extremely pure white jades on the table, which were slightly reflecting light.
The other materials are ready...
The last material of the Soul Absorbing Technique is the flesh and blood of relatives, and she and the mad emperor beside her are both considered one of the materials.
Xi Heng was just thinking about whether to deal with Zhao Qianyuan as soon as possible, lest the other party send someone to subdue her first.
A middle-aged man in a dragon robe suddenly said:
"This stone room is where I refine pills and gather spirits, and the various materials on the table are used to refine spirit stones."
"I thought about it over and over last night, and kept thinking about trying it one last time today... I even ordered the eunuchs to look for the necessary materials. But after a hard night, I woke up today and saw the sun again. Watching the morning light rise, I was relieved..."
He lowered his head and smiled bitterly, as if he didn't quite believe it.
"It turns out that everything is just like the sun rising and setting, just a cycle." He said:
"It is the same in every dynasty. In the last years, there will always be a few emperors who seek immortality. I am just one of them."
"I quit."
He waved the long sleeves of his dragon robe.
Xi Heng was listening to the other party's sigh, but his mind was not on him. He was still staring at the materials for the spirit absorption method in the room.
It doesn't matter how brilliant the insights of this mad emperor are, what she is going to do will not change.
"Come in, today I will tell you the method to become an immortal, and also tell you why it cannot be achieved." Zhao Qianyuan stepped into the room first.
Xi Heng responded by saying yes, and followed behind him like a very obedient daughter, her eyes fixed on the other person's back.
Zhao Qianyuan picked up a candle, walked to the stone table where various powder materials were placed, pointed at them one by one and explained:
"The powder crumbs on this table, from left to right, are: Dendrobium, Tianshan Snow Lotus, three-liang ginseng, 120-year-old Polygonum multiflorum, sixty-year-old Poria cocos, wild Ganoderma lucidum, seabed pearls, Cordyceps sinensis, Cistanche deserticola... They are the nine great immortal herbs in the Taoist canon, and are things that accumulate spiritual energy."
“And this mutton-fat white jade is a beautiful stone that gathers spirits in the deep mountains.”
"I have gathered these spiritual objects in order to refine them into the spiritual stones used by the immortals in the legend."
He then brought Xi Heng to the gold and silver cauldron in the center of the stone room and pointed to the five skulls placed in five positions: "The things wrapped in the lotus leaves are the skulls of the executed prisoners with different destinies of the five elements, arranged in order according to the five elements..."
He just introduced it, turned around and glanced at Xi Heng, skipped the last and most important material, and said with a sigh: "I have spent a lot of effort and used many treasures, and I have indeed refined such a so-called spiritual stone."
"But..." He picked up a piece of mutton-fat jade: "After I refined the spirit stone, I realized that the so-called spiritual energy cannot enter the body at all."
Zhao Qianyuan suddenly let go, and the jade fell to the floor with a plop.
"Just like water flowing down and rocks falling to the ground, as long as it appears, the spiritual energy will spontaneously fly up to the sky."
"I thought that spiritual energy was like smoke, floating up to the sky, so I sealed an airtight underground dark room to try to lock the spiritual energy and practice it. However, the spiritual energy was not blocked and flew into the sky through layers of earth, stone and wood. No matter what I did, it was difficult to restrain it."
“Even if I use all my strength to absorb the spiritual energy into my stomach, it will pass through my body and fly away, as if something in the sky is attracting it, and as if it should not remain in this mortal world.”
"I think it's probably because the immortal palace in the sky sucked away the spiritual energy, and the immortals don't allow mortals to walk the immortal path."
His eyes seemed to be looking through the dim roof to the vast sky above, and he said self-deprecatingly: "It's a pity that I had such a big dream back then, I thought the words of the Jade Emperor were true, but I didn't know that immortals and mortals have already been separated, and the two worlds have been separated."
“Even if I practice with another spirit stone today, I will just repeat the same mistakes.” He shook his head.
"Spiritual energy will float upwards and can directly penetrate objects..." Xi Heng frowned slightly. She also wanted to become an immortal and achieve immortality. This was obviously a problem she would face in the future.
Even electromagnetic waves and radiation cannot directly penetrate all matter, right?
What exactly is aura? Dark matter? Quantum entanglement? Anti-entropy? Subspace energy? Extra-dimensional matter? High-energy particles? Or microorganisms? Free quarks?
Xi Heng pressed his temple.
Supernatural things like aura may be difficult to grasp with scientific theories, and Xi Heng is not a scientist.
Seeing Xi Heng thinking, Zhao Qianyuan frowned and shouted, "Don't even think about it! Hurry up and let go of this obsession with cultivating immortality. The Heavenly Palace is sealed off and spiritual energy is hard to survive! Mortals cannot cultivate immortality!"
"You are a mortal, but I am not." Xi Heng was confused and a little angry.
"Don't talk nonsense!" Zhao Qianyuan taught her, "As the princess of the current dynasty, you should abide by the rules and order, be loyal to the country, learn the laws of saving the world and governing the country to bring peace to the world, and in the future, be a virtuous wife and help, fulfill the virtues of a mother, be a role model for the people, strengthen the country and serve the public, serve the emperor in the temple, and take care of the people!"
"What I think and do has nothing to do with you!" Xi Heng said coldly, "Are you qualified to say such things to me?"
Zhao Qianyuan opened his eyes wide, also filled with anger: "I am your father!"
"Okay, father." Xi Heng immediately drew the long sword from his waist, and with a swish, the sword shone brightly: "My daughter is here to show her filial piety today!"
"You! What are you doing?" Zhao Qianyuan, dressed in a dragon robe, gritted his teeth and stepped back.
"Become an immortal!" Xi Heng's waist and wrists suddenly turned, and his mind had never been so free.
The tip of the sword flashed red, like a white rainbow piercing the sun.
With a "whoosh", the long sword directly penetrated into the opponent's chest, and came out from the dragon eye position on his robe behind him with a bloody color.
The long sword pierced through flesh and blood, and then suddenly turned -
Zhao Qianyuan wanted to call for help, but before he could say the word, most of his neck was chopped off.
The girl swung her sword, and countless drops of blood splashed in the dim room.
Zhao Qianyuan still had the strength to cover his severed neck. His eyes, which were gradually losing their luster, stared at Xi Heng. He opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but could only spit out some dirty blood foam.
As blood gushed out from the line of blood connecting his chest to his neck, he lost his strength and fell to his knees. Finally, he lay in front of Xi Heng. The light in his eyes gradually dimmed, and the blood on his neck formed a pool on the stone floor.
"Huh..." Xi Heng closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.
The sword intent I felt when I swung the sword just now was extremely striking and so pure that it seemed as if it had suddenly undergone a transformation.
After experiencing the lingering effect of the sword's power, the girl slowly sheathed the sword in her hand.
He looked at the corpse at his feet, and then at the large gold and silver tripod beside him.
……
Chapter 40: Succession to Heaven and Establishment of the Pole
Xi Heng lowered his head and saw that the body of the mad emperor was still twitching slightly, with blood oozing out from his neck and shoulders...
Somehow, she unconsciously recalled the four words "You will not die well" that the loyal minister in the court shouted to Zhao Qianyuan before his death in her previous life.
Looking at this state now, he probably won't die a good death, right?
Xi Heng felt that the pool of blood on the ground was a bit of a waste, so he grabbed the other's arm wrapped in a wide dragon robe and used all his strength to drag the crazy emperor up.
He looked around and found a large empty vat that looked like a water tank and stuffed the body into it.
After clapping his hands to finish the work, Xi Heng looked around at the dim scene and prepared to start working.
"Let's add the firewood in first... The ground formation has also been drawn, so there's no need to be too troublesome." Xi Heng then picked up a pile of firewood by the wall and threw it under the golden and silver cauldron.
The red charcoal, which already had some residual fire, devoured the fuel violently when it came into contact with it, and soon a raging fire broke out.
Xi Heng came to the stone table nearby and identified the various rare materials in it. When the bottom of the cauldron was roasted red, he poured the powder in the bowl and the five heads on the ground into the cauldron one after another.
Due to the extreme heat, there was no water in the cauldron, but it made a gurgling sound as if water was boiling.
After Xi Heng poured the herbs, the powders in the cauldron mixed and turned into a dry gray-yellow color. He clapped his hands, then ran to the other side and brought over the large jar containing the emperor's body.
"Hey." The girl rubbed her arms, looked at the various medicinal sands boiling in the pot, and tried to scoop half a bowl of blood into it.
The blood fell into it and quickly dyed the cauldron of medicinal sand.
Small bowls of black blood were continuously poured into the cauldron until the medicinal sand turned bright red.
But in Xiheng's opinion, the color is not that bright yet.
"As expected, I still have to throw my whole body in..."
General Xi Heng cut open the dragon robe with his sword, then grabbed the body inside and threw it directly into the cauldron.
The dark golden dragon robe that had just been taken off was also thrown into the fire by Xi Heng. The most noble silk and satin were quickly burned into charcoal in the raging fire, just like the most common fuel, which increased the fire for a while and then quietly turned into ashes.
She lifted the blood-stained toe of her shoe and touched the ground in a circle. She pinched her fingers, and the ritual array on the ground lit up with a reddish fluorescence, and chanted:
"The spirits of the mortal ministers who lost their spiritual consciousness through their blood, the true spirits of this heaven are gathered in Yuyang, and the yin and yang are devouring each other repeatedly..."
After the voice fell, his footsteps paused, and Xi Heng blinked one eye and looked into the cauldron.
Dark red smoke rose, and Zhao Qianyuan, who was lying in the cauldron, became old and weak, as if all the blood in his body had been sucked out and he looked like a mummy. His flesh and blood quickly withered and dissolved, and his skin covered his bones. There was no trace of his original majestic appearance anymore.
She took a larger piece of white jade from the side, placed her hand over the extremely hot cauldron, and relaxed her five fingers.
The jade stone happened to fall into the very center of the cauldron.
Then, the bright red medicine powder next to it stuck to the white jade like magnetic powder attracted by a magnet, wrapping the jade into a blood-red ball.
Under the roaring sound of the fire, the red color wrapped around the outermost layer of the jade became lighter, as if all the blood in the medicine powder had been absorbed.
Gradually, countless medicinal powders and Zhao Qianyuan's skinny body had faded into decayed ashes.
Xi Heng slowly lowered his tightly clenched fingertips. The method of absorbing spirit energy had been completed. The white jade wrapped in medicinal powder should have turned into blood spirit stone at this moment.
She scooped a bowl of water from another small water tank nearby and poured it on the fire under the cauldron.
After two or three times, the fire was extinguished.
Xi Heng grabbed the large hardwood spoon in the cauldron and fished out a red jade stone covered with medicinal ash from the loose ash powder.
The originally smooth mutton-fat jade had now turned red like crystals of blood.
