Chapter 298: Sitting by the Lake to Break Through
Qingyun World has always prioritized the Immortal Dao. Opera, being a lower-class entertainment, was never something anyone would bother with its Legacy.
Moreover, under the heavy taxes, the common people struggled to survive, and it was truly a blessing from Heaven if these old artists' Legacies could even last three generations.
It wasn't uncommon for old artists to starve to death or be beaten to death because of taxes.
However, it was fortunate that there weren't many storytellers among the common folk, and various opera forms would borrow from each other, which prevented many singing segments from being lost.
Zhao Laotou viewed shadow puppetry merely as a tool for making a living. He only knew that performing well would earn him rewards, but he didn't consider the origin of the stories to be very important.
Ji You didn't get the key information, but he wasn't disappointed.
If something that even Immortal Sects deliberately concealed could be easily heard in casual singing performances, then that would truly require careful attention.
However, since similar matters could be heard from casual singing segments, it indicated that things related to the Night Watchmen had not yet reached the point of being lost.
“Old sir, do you have any scripts you often recite?”
“I do, they're in my box.”
Zhao Laotou came back to his senses and pulled out a paint-chipped wooden box from his collection of tools. Opening the lid, he revealed a collection of worn-out handwritten scripts, which looked quite old.
“May I look through them?”
“Of course, Young Master, feel free.”
Ji You took out some silver fragments from his Pregnant and handed them to Zhao Laotou, then asked the waiter to bring a chair. He sat in the dim backstage of the teahouse and began to read through the handwritten scripts.
These were the original scripts for Zhao Laotou's shadow puppet show.
When old artists passed on their craft to their descendants, they would first have such a script, which the Disciple would memorize as an introductory lesson.
What was recorded within it were all the selected segments that the old artist knew throughout his life.
Ji You didn't have time to listen to all the performances. After all, not all taverns and teahouses in Qingyun World only had singing performances; there were also song and dance. It would take several months to listen to a complete play.
So, whenever he heard something he was interested in, he would, like now, spend some silver to directly look through these artists' scripts to save time.
He regretted not bringing his cheap brother-in-law along.
If it were Yuan Chen, he could watch all night without blinking.
However, just as Zhao Laotou said, his shadow puppetry was adapted from Sanxian Shu (three-stringed instrument storytelling).
To make the stories suitable for his performances, his scripts had already undergone several adaptations by his ancestors, incorporating many original passages designed to attract people.
For example, the “Overbearing Young Master Falls in Love with Me” beloved by Young Misses of influential Sect, and “My Fate is Mine, Not Heaven’s” favored by Young Masters of influential Sect, had both been altered beyond recognition.
However, Ji You still found some key information. For instance, in several scenes about the Great Virtue slaying evil spirits in Zhao Laotou's shadow play, that “Great Virtue” was always alone.
If interpreted through shadow puppetry, being alone is naturally easier to perform, as a single puppet is easier to control.
But in the drum storytelling Ji You had heard a while ago, it was also a story of a lone hero.
Different performance styles having the same setting means the possibility of adaptation is very small.
This was indeed different from what Ji You had initially thought.
He had always believed that the Night Watchmen was an organization that secretly selected suitable Prodigies, manipulated them, and made them abandon the world of pleasures for the sake of the world, thereby joining the organization.
But now it seemed that the Night Watchmen had always been a single person.
The Lifespan of cultivators is longer than that of Mortals, but at most, it's three to four hundred years. The Night Watchmen should have changed generations repeatedly, but each generation only had one person.
As for other story plots, there was too much embellishment, and Ji You couldn't distinguish them. So, after pondering for a while in the dim backstage of the opera, he returned the scripts to the box.
As dusk fell, night slowly descended.
The nearby teahouses and taverns became brightly lit, with various Immortal Sect dignitaries gathering there.
The owner, adapting to the situation, changed the performance repertoire to songs and dances that were popular with the local rich youths.
Ji You got up and left the teahouse backstage, returning to the inn he had stayed in.
After staying for one night, Ji You got up from his bed and left the city, greeting the faint morning light. After passing through the mountain forest, he arrived at the next place with relatively rich Spiritual Qi.
Then, he sat cross-legged, as he had done in the previous days, and began to absorb the Spiritual Qi, igniting the Spiritual Fire for Body Refining.
When the Spiritual Qi gradually became insufficient, he got up and left again, found a teahouse, paid for a performance of Sanxian Shu.
Through this cycle, Ji You gradually traveled from the border of Central Plains to the Southwest.
“The opportunity to break through is almost here.”
“Get some Spirit Stones and find a place to break through.”
Ji You murmured to himself, then walked to the nearest city and found a Spirit Stone shop.
He had been refining his Physical Body tirelessly these past few days. The binding sensation around his body had reached its peak, as if a highly elastic barrier enveloped his entire body, preventing his Physical Body from further strengthening.
This is a limitation of living beings themselves, equivalent to a lock confining the human body.
And this also meant that after procrastinating for more than half a year since his return from Xianxian Holy Land, he had finally reached the first stage of the Unbound Physical Body.
Body Refining and breaking through are different.
Body Refining can be interrupted at any time due to insufficient Spiritual Qi, with the only consequence being the Spiritual Fire extinguishing.
However, breaking through requires directly shattering and breaking open the Physical Body's limitations.
And if this process is interrupted due to insufficient Spiritual Qi, the consequences would be severe, possibly even leading to a backlash.
Therefore, he needed to use Spirit Stones to maintain a continuous supply of Spiritual Qi, thereby increasing the feasibility of breaking through.
Thanks to the earlier large shipment of snowy region demon stones into the Nine Provinces, the price of Spirit Stones had now returned to its previous level, no longer as expensive as during the New Year.
He purchased a large quantity of Spirit Stones at the shop, stored them in his storage gourd, and then left.
Following the main road south from the city, then heading west, Ji You entered a mountain forest.
He then traveled through it, crossed low mountains, and finally arrived at a low-lying, circular great lake.
The area around this great lake was entirely enveloped in mist, which, when refracted by dew drops, looked like a blue crystal embedded in the earth. The Spiritual Qi here was abundant, flowing around the lake.
Ji You walked to the lakeside and found several young cultivators meditating not far away.
Perhaps disturbed by his footsteps, all the meditating young cultivators opened their eyes and looked towards Ji You, with a hint of vigilance and intimidation in their gazards.
Ji You didn't pay attention, found a flat spot, and sat down.
There were a few small Sect in this vicinity, so it was not strange for other cultivators to appear.
He tidied his robe, took out the Spirit Stones from his gourd, and crushed them one by one, allowing the refined Spiritual Qi within the Spirit Stones to dissipate.
Seeing this, the young Disciples cultivating by the lake exchanged glances, then got up and went to the opposite side of the lake.
Ji You had already closed his eyes and entered meditation. The rich Spiritual Qi began to continuously enter his body through his absorption, and then with a thought, the Spiritual Fire within him began to burn fiercely.
Instantly, that strong binding sensation pressed down, making him feel as if he had been pushed into a swamp, and even his breathing began to become incredibly heavy.
Fortunately, Ji You was mentally prepared and only let out a muffled groan.
Then he clenched his fists and began to exert force, all the Qi in his body gathering from his limbs and bones, continuously impacting the invisible shackles.
Bang!
Bang!
Like a Divine Being beating a drum, the muffled thuds of the separate impacts began to intensify with his heartbeat.
“Clan Uncle, there's an outsider cultivating at our Dragon Spring Lake!”
“Where did he come from?”
“Unknown.”
In a residence not far west of the great lake, the men and women who had been meditating by the lake were now kneeling in the front hall.
This was the ancestral land of the Huai Family in Central Plains, and these men and women were all Disciples of the Huai Family.
Although the Huai Family was not ranked in Qingyun World, it was considered a relatively large Family in this vicinity.
Dragon Spring Lake did not belong to their Family, but because other surrounding Sect were weaker, and the concentration of Spiritual Qi was not very helpful for Integration Dao cultivation in the Upper Five Realms, unable to match the efficacy of Medicinal Pills, some large Sect had no interest in it. Thus, this place was treated as private property by the Huai Family.
At this moment, the Elder of the Integration Dao Realm sitting in the high hall heard that someone had uninvitedly gone to Dragon Spring Lake, and his face could not help but turn gloomy. “What Realm is the visitor?”
“His cultivation is higher than ours, so we can't confirm, but he looks very young.”
Just then, another middle-aged man appeared outside the door: “That person is in the Tong Xuan Realm, like me.”
The Huai Family Elder frowned upon hearing this: “To reach the Tong Xuan Realm at such a young age, he must be a direct descendant of a prominent Family. But to come uninvited like this is still too ill-mannered.”
“What do you think, Elder?”
“A Tong Xuan Realm is already a master. I will personally capture him, ascertain which Family he belongs to, and have their Family come to apologize and retrieve him.”
The white-haired Elder rose from his seat and led his Family Disciples out of the room.
The Huai Family did not exist independently; like the Qiu Family, which relied on the He Family, they also had a Family they were affiliated with, so they naturally had no worries.
However, as they approached Dragon Spring Lake, they vaguely felt a faint, almost imperceptible heat.
It was still early spring, and the chill was biting, making the heat remarkably noticeable.
However, the Huai Family Elder, full of momentum, didn't pay too much attention and continued to walk around the lake under the guidance of the younger generation of the Family.
But as they walked, they felt the intense heat becoming stronger and clearer.
Just as they began to feel doubts, a massive pressure suddenly poured down on their shoulders, and at the same time, a chilling Aura continuously rose in their hearts.
The Rongdao Realm Family Elder was slightly better, only feeling his head swell and all the hairs on his body stand on end, while the younger Disciples found their vision blurred and struggled to breathe.
Their backs bent under the pressure, everyone's faces changed drastically, feeling the heat assaulting them like the sun.
Then, the powerful Qi dissipated with a roar.
But after a few breaths, it struck again.
Like a tide ebbing and flowing, they could feel a force more ferocious than before, as if it was breaking free from something.
And the moment the Qi dissipated again, the Rongdao Realm Family Elder immediately grabbed two Disciples and rushed back to the courtyard, tightly closing the gate.
"Family Elder—"
"Don't make a sound. Notify the Family Disciples not to go to the lake for the next two days!"
The Huai Family Elder whispered, his forehead covered in fine sweat.
So for two days, the Huai Family kept their gates tightly shut, no one going out, with only a few Elders in the Family secretly investigating.
Three times a day, morning, noon, and night, they felt the Aura by the lake growing stronger.
As the spiritual fire surged continuously, two sunsets and sunrises passed.
Ji You, sitting by the lake, was drenched in sweat, and his lips gradually turned pale.
He had broken through the restraint many times, and the feeling of being bound was no longer as strong as it was at first.
So he gathered the last bit of Qi he had, took a deep breath, and slammed it with all his might into the binding restriction.
A massive force violently collided within his sturdy Physical Body, like a mountain collapse and a tsunami. Just as he was almost exhausted, he heard something inside his body make a cracking sound.
In an instant, all the pressure vanished, and at the same time, a sense of exhaustion surged from his limbs and bones.
The first hurdle was finally overcome.
He opened his golden eyes; although sweat beads constantly dripped from his forehead, he felt a sense of clarity throughout his body.
The Body Refining technique was a brutal Dao. As he broke through the barrier, he did not gain any divine abilities, but the hardness of his Physical Body and his pure strength greatly increased.
After gasping for a while, Ji You clenched his fist and punched forward, the fierce punch instantly causing the large lake in front of him to surge.
Then he gently closed his eyes and lay back in the grass.
Early spring was cold, and the flowers had not yet bloomed, but a patch of land by Dragon Lake, due to the temperature, suddenly burst into bloom under the moonlight.
One, two, the flower stamens gradually opened. By the time the morning light was faint on the second day, Ji You sat up from the grass, and his surroundings were already a sea of flowers.
More tiring than playing with plastic sisters all night long—
After calming his mind slightly, Ji You went down the slope, took off his clothes, and jumped into the lake.
After washing off all the sweat, he flew out again, using the steaming Qi to evaporate the water droplets from his body into a puff of smoke, then continued to absorb Spiritual Qi until his body gradually became full.
Throughout the Body Refining process, the most Spiritual Qi-consuming step was breaking through the barrier.
As the barrier was broken, the amount of Spiritual Qi needed daily would return to normal, and there was no longer a need to deliberately seek out places rich in Spiritual Qi for the time being.
Next was the second hurdle.
Ji You silently recited, looked up at the Immortal Villa on the other side of the lake, and then walked away.
He was hungry and wanted to get something to eat.
He left the forest, then traveled west along the road, had a big meal in the nearest city, and then continued his cycle of Body Refining and listening to music.
After breaking through the first hurdle, he spared no effort to approach the second hurdle. Without the disturbance of worldly affairs, his speed was much faster than in Shengjing.
As for listening to music, he still hadn't found any key. Perhaps this was the drawback of mutual learning; most performances sounded almost the same.
Southwest of Central Continent, to the west, was Kangle County, a large county in the Qingyun World, more prosperous than Guangming County, with many Sect settled there.
Ji You traveled all the way there and entered this city a few days later.
However, what puzzled him was that this was clearly a large city, but the city seemed incredibly desolate.
There were no pedestrians on the road, only some stray dogs and cats.
The taverns and teahouses along the street were not open, only a few shops and one eatery were operating, but they were all quiet.
Ji You stepped into the eatery, found a seat, and then saw the waiter approach with tea: "Customer, what would you like to eat?"
"Just bring two dishes of the chef's specialties, and a bowl of rice."
"Alright, customer."
Ji You placed the silver on the table, then asked, "Why is this city so quiet? Even the teahouses and taverns are closed?"
The waiter in the eatery lowered his voice after hearing this: "Young Master, you must be from out of town. In our Kangan City, an Immortal has returned to Heaven and has ordered a strict ban on singing and dancing."
"Which Immortal?"
"The Immortal of the Lang Family, an Elder of Mountain and Sea Pavilion. It is said that he lived for over a hundred years, and it's considered a natural death. He has now been sent back home, which is considered returning to his roots."
Ji You frowned after hearing this: "Even if singing and dancing are strictly forbidden, why can't I see anyone on the streets?"
The eatery waiter lowered his voice even further after hearing this: "The Lang Family issued an order that all people must mourn together. Every household must send people to the funeral. If you had come earlier, you might have even seen the flag-bearing procession."
"Such a big commotion?"
"Hmph, an Immortal, you know."
With the teahouses and taverns in Kangle County closed, the eatery became more crowded, and the surrounding diners were also discussing the Lang Family's Immortal.
Ji You ate and listened, and after clearing his plates, he left the eatery and headed towards Wangyang Mountain.
The Lang Family was one of Mountain and Sea Pavilion's in-law Sect, and the deceased Immortal was named Lang Kun, an Initial Yingtian Realm Elder.
He had cultivated in Mountain and Sea Pavilion for many years. After turning 108, he began a death seclusion to break through the Realm and extend his Lifespan. He emerged from seclusion not long after the New Year this year, then passed away in Mountain and Sea Pavilion and was sent home by his Disciples, returning to his roots.
This was what he had heard from the diners' discussions, but he felt a little puzzled.
The Yingtian Realm was already extremely close to the Heavenly Dao. Perhaps they didn't fully understand the Heavenly secrets, but they should have been very clear about their own Lifespan limits.
Logically speaking, after calculating his Lifespan limit, he should have returned home in advance, transmitting his Legacy or passing away as appropriate. He shouldn't have died directly on the mountain and been carried back.
Moreover, dying not long after the New Year, and only being sent home now, the efficiency was a bit too slow.
He came to a hillside on the north side of Wangyang Mountain and looked at the Lang Family's Daoist temple from afar. He saw white banners dancing on the green mountains, looking like snowy waves.
From time to time, cultivators who came to pay their respects would fly through the air, their robes fluttering as they landed on the mountain peak.
Ji You watched for a while, his gaze falling on the foothills, where he saw a stage being lit, seemingly preparing for a performance.
In front of the stage were people from all directions, all dressed in white, looking like a dark mass, prostrating themselves and kowtowing repeatedly.
The play on the stage was performed for them, intended to proclaim the Karma of the Elder named Lang to the world and make all people feel grateful.
Ji You had heard of such things before, but he only felt amusement.
Whether Immortal Sects, Sect, or Immortal Villas, they all sat idly in the deep mountains, producing nothing, being revered by the people, and feeding on human blood buns.
When such a person died, he truly didn't know what deeds were worth praising.
Bullying men and oppressing women? Sucking the blood of the people dry?
Ji You had no interest in watching such things, only feeling that it was truly good that another Immortal who lived off offerings had died in the world, and then he turned to leave.
However, at this moment, an opening narration suddenly came from the foothills, making him abruptly stop.
"Iron clothes condense dew, guarding against the colder watch, demon Aura on all sides seeks to break the fence."
"Sword picks the lingering stars, sinking ancient butterflies, lamp supports a lone shadow, pressing down on perilous peaks."
"Wind hisses through dead trees, suspected wailing, clouds crack in the middle of the sky, revealing a bloodied basin."
"Enduring the deep night for a single promise, the human world is not allowed to grow dim."
The singing, accompanied by the creaking sounds, drifted into his ears with the night wind, making Ji You's back suddenly tingle, and he turned to look down.
On the high stage, a martial Hualian actor appeared, holding a wine pot in his left hand and a sword at his waist in his right, turning and moving back and forth on the stage amidst the clanging music.
Judging from his movements and the traces on the props, this was not a newly arranged play but one with a long Legacy.
Immortals who sat idly in the deep mountains and consumed the fresh blood offerings of the people indeed had no Karma to praise to the common folk, but no one said they couldn't borrow other people's stories.
Ji You circulated his Spiritual Qi and drifted towards the foothills.
