Chapter 70 Witchcraft

Wu Xuan's spirit was uneasy, even wanting to escape.

The fear in his heart was uncontrollable, even though there was an unhidden hatred within that fear and unease.

Wushan, once hailed as the connection between the Celestial Emperor and the mortal realm, even Emperor Yao had intended to grant them that vast land as a nation of witches, the Wuxian Kingdom, as envoys of the gods, superior to the common people of Shenzhou, possessing a transcendent status, but after that group of people came, it was completely reduced to the past.

The road to Wushan was sealed.

The trees that directly connected to the human world were cut down.

The green snakes coiled around the trees were shot dead.

The former envoys of the gods could only be forced to stay on the mountain, unable to set foot in the human world, as if they were being exiled.

And in the later period, King Yu, for the sake of the peace of the human race, drove all the mountains and seas of Shenzhou out of the human realm. Since Emperor Xuanyuan, the emperors of the human race had been known for their benevolence to heaven and earth, and the Emperors Yao and Shun were even more so, abdicating the throne from generation to generation, but King Yu, who succeeded Emperor Shun, was completely different…

He was a tyrannical emperor who killed gods and forged the Nine Cauldrons.

The person in front of him was the subject who recorded the Classic of Mountains and Seas for King Yu.

His first reaction was that even after a long period of time, that man named Yu was once again leading his subjects, rushing from the legends to punish the Wuxian Kingdom for betraying his orders.

But Wu Xuan quickly realized that there was only one person who had come. Neither the subject who had accompanied Yu, nor the man who had swept away the mountains and seas and gathered the gold of the Nine Provinces to forge the Nine Cauldrons had come. He was slightly stunned, and then breathed heavily with relief.

The fear gradually subsided, allowing other emotions to surge up.

Wu Xuan's body trembled slightly with anger and hatred. He said:

"...You are called Yuan, right? You are still alive, you are still alive."

"Heaven wants me to take revenge. The hatred of Wushan, the vengeance of the Wu Kingdom, I have not been able to forget for thousands of years. Today, I will fight for my Wuxian Kingdom. Do you still remember me! Do you still remember the hatred of my Wu people! Do you still remember the sins you have committed against the myriad races of the mountains and seas?!"

Wei Yuan fell silent.

Wu Xuan assumed that he felt ashamed, so his tone was even more intense and unwilling.

Suddenly, Wu Xuan heard a voice:

"...Who are you?"

Wu Xuan's voice came to an abrupt halt.

Wei Yuan frowned and looked at this remnant soul. In his first life, he had not yet eaten the Kunlun Immortal Flower, and many memories had become blurred. That era was already five thousand years ago. It was as if he had lost his memory for thousands of years, and suddenly he was asked to recall something that happened on a certain day thousands of years ago. He simply couldn't remember it clearly.

He could only recognize that he was from the Wuxian Kingdom.

Wu Xuan opened his mouth, his heart full of anger, but for a moment, there was a trace of confusion. One of the enemies he had resented for thousands of years didn't even remember his name, making his anger fall like a plummet. He came back to his senses and roared:

"I am the grandson of the High Priest of the Wuxian Kingdom, the bloodline of the King of the Wuxian Kingdom, Wu Xuan, how dare you..."

Wei Yuan replied, "Not much jade was obtained from the Fangfeng tribe."

"Every corner of the jade has its meaning. The Wuxian Kingdom is just one of the mountains and seas, and not everyone on Wushan is qualified to be recorded on the jade."

He said, "Your name, bloodline, and status are not qualified to be carved by me."

"Therefore, I don't remember who you are either."

"Of the entire Wuxian Kingdom, I only remember ten people, and only those ten people's names are worth remembering."

Wu Xuan's expression froze.

He suddenly laughed sadly and said, "What a 'don't know who you are'. You caused my Wushan to be cut off from the human world for thousands of years, and only after the seventh generation of the Shang King did we dare to enter the mortal world. Can you just gloss over it with a 'don't know'? Today, you deserve to die! You deserve to die!"

Da Yu was not here, and those born saints were not here either.

What did a mere civil official amount to?!

Wu Xuan was a descendant of the Wuxian Kingdom. Even if only a remnant soul remained, he still burst out with great resentment. He was wearing a gray robe, holding a scepter in his left hand and a green snake in his right hand. Upon closer inspection, the scepter was also wrapped with a strange red snake. He offered a witchcraft and rushed towards Wei Yuan.

The Wuxian were not only musicians, but also Emperor Shun's generals, as well as diviners and witch doctors.

The long years had allowed them to master many skills and knowledge.

And Wu Xuan, as their descendant, was the same.

Even as a remnant soul, his movements and demeanor were still majestic and could not be easily humiliated. Wei Yuan swept his fingers, talismans floated in the air, fixing the yin and yang energies to prevent the aftermath of the fight from affecting the patients here, and then retreated. Wu Xuan's spirit briefly transformed into a physical form, directly attacking.

But Wei Yuan dodged it, and the Eight-Sided Han Sword blocked it horizontally.

The two quickly exchanged blows in this spacious room.

The sword was for defense, and the staff was for attack.

Wu Xuan vaguely sensed something was wrong, vaguely feeling that he was being restrained by the other party. He gritted his teeth, and green and red snakes flew out from his soul, pouncing and biting. This was a direct attack on the soul, but it did not work. Before they could get close, a spotted tiger stepped out beside Wei Yuan.

It came from the waist badge hanging from his waist.

It came from the Crouching Tiger Token passed down from generation to generation.

The deep tiger roared, directly breaking the witchcraft imprinted in the souls of the Wuxian Kingdom's witches into pieces, and then it was suppressed by this tiger.

The ancient Crouching Tiger was good at attacking mountains and breaking temples, and dealing with witchcraft.

Wu Xuan's face was pale, his body was transparent, and he retreated repeatedly, trying to avoid it, but suddenly a long wind rose, and Wei Yuan's figure disappeared. Wu Xuan's thoughts froze, and then he felt a press on the acupoint behind his neck.

Wei Yuan's right hand directly pressed against Wu Xuan's spine.

Wu Xuan was about to resist when he suddenly felt a scorching aura erupt from Wei Yuan's palm.

Here, Zhou Zichang, who was still conscious, and the old professor who had scolded his disciple, saw the young man wearing a pankou jacket with a cold expression, saw the yellow scarf fluttering on his arm, the fingerless gloves on his right hand suddenly tore into pieces, revealing a scarlet streamer, saw him twist his body and exert force, his palm seemed to clasp onto nothingness, and slammed it to the ground.

Boom!!!

The scarlet streamer overflowed, and the flames of the Yellow Turban rose fiercely.

Behind the youth, the tiger stepped gracefully, its eyes deep.

The scarlet edict on the back of his hand—

Zhengyi Dao (The Way of Orthodox Unity), skilled in the affairs of gods and ghosts, able to summon wind and rain, subdue demons and eliminate evil.

Zhang Daoling, attacking mountains and breaking temples, exterminating the six-day ghosts and gods.

This talisman was now emitting an extremely rich red light. Wei Yuan pressed down hard, directly suppressing Wu Xuan. The latter was not weak, with innate witchcraft and various strange witchcraft methods.

But perhaps it was precisely because witchcraft was too powerful, so powerful that it could disrupt the order of the human world, that in the later generations of the Shang Dynasty, various schools and factions attached great importance to this method.

Whether it was the Taiping Dao (The Way of Great Peace) that summoned gods and impeached ghosts, or the Zhengyi Dao that subdued demons and eliminated evil.

Or the ancient Crouching Tiger inheritance.

Almost all of them were natural counters to witchcraft methods.

Wei Yuan used talismans, supplemented by exorcism powers, to tightly control Wu Xuan.

While suppressing him, Wei Yuan vaguely saw a series of images.

But they were not ancient, but the modern bustling streets. He saw an empty room, saw old-fashioned clothes, and saw a man outside the door, watching a football game on TV. The table and the floor were full of empty beer bottles, and cigarette butts almost filled the ashtray.

And on this side of the door was a narrow, cramped, and dark space.

A thin boy was lying on the ground, struggling to breathe, his body twitching unnaturally.

He patted the door, almost weakly whimpering, "Dad... medicine... medicine..."

The man outside the door was already dead drunk.

The medicine was on the table.

So in the end, the boy died. On his desk, there was a bronze cauldron used as a pen holder.

Inside the bronze cauldron, Wu Xuan's body slowly emerged. He seemed to be considering something, hugging his arms, with a mocking expression on his face. He waited until the boy had a seizure and died, and then took out the last pill from the bronze cauldron with the dan bird pattern and let the boy swallow it.

The next day, the boy woke up.

He finally experienced what it meant to be healthy and knew how tempting immortality was.

The exorcism technique failed to explore deeper memories. Wei Yuan directly sealed Wu Xuan in the exorcism talisman, planning to send it to Nujiao. The latter should have more certainty than him on how to deal with the Wuxian Kingdom. Then he reached out and captured Zhou Zichang, sealing the latter's meridians with the qi of a martial artist, making him unable to exert force, and then using the Yellow Turban talismans to stabilize the physical condition of these leukemia patients.

It was just a pity that the Taiping Dao talismans could only regulate the five internal energies of a person, only enhance the body's constitution, making people healthier, relying on their own immunity to defeat the disease, but they could not return the already cancerous cells to a normal state. Or rather, cancer was precisely the disease that spells were least skilled at.

The old medical professor was still awake. He looked at Wei Yuan and murmured, "You are..."

Wei Yuan was silent for a moment and said, "...Old sir, did you just see something?"

The old man nodded slowly, staring at the sealed Wu Xuan. After a pause, he mocked himself:

"...To be able to see spirits, it seems that I am about to die. Was Zichang bewitched by him?"

Wei Yuan replied, "It's not bewitchment. In fact, Zhou Zichang is already dead. Of course, it can't be said that he is dead. Old sir, did Zhou Zichang ever say something similar to an elixir of immortality..."

The old man hesitated and nodded.

Wei Yuan said, "As expected."

The old man widened his eyes and asked laboriously, "...Is there really an elixir of immortality?"

Wei Yuan replied, "Elixirs of immortality do exist, but immortality doesn't just have one explanation. It can be an elixir of eternal life, or it can be a medicine that prevents death after taking it. I wasn't sure before, but now that I think about it, the medicine of the Wuxian Kingdom is the second type."

The old man was shocked: "Bringing flesh back to bones, reviving the dead?!"

"Indeed, but there is a price to pay for this."

Wei Yuan replied, thought for a while, and said, "I remember an old story."

"A long, long time ago."

"At that time, there was a spirit named Yayu, with a human head and a snake body, who ate people. But in fact, at first, this guy was very kind and harmless. He was once brutally killed by the two ferocious spirits, Wei and Er. Emperor Yao was very sad and resurrected him. According to the records, it was 'made him immortal'."

"But after that, Yayu became a more brutal spirit than the murderers who killed him."

"He massacred all living beings, even swallowing passers-by."

"Then Emperor Yao had to send Houyi to kill him."

Wei Yuan's voice paused and said, "Immortality is always a curse, and a miracle like resurrection that violates the rules of heaven and earth will be subjected to a greater curse, and that is not actually from some kind of extraordinary power, but from the choice of the person who takes the medicine."

"Perhaps it is because they have personally experienced the feeling of death, or perhaps the side effects of the elixir of immortality will amplify the experience of death. People who take the elixir of immortality will pursue the cause of their death in a morbid manner."

"Those who have been abused will become murderous lunatics; those who have died of illness will crave to overcome the disease."

"Those who have drowned will never want to be near water for the rest of their lives."

The old man seemed to understand something and said, "Zhou Zichang, he..."

Wei Yuan was silent for a moment and replied:

"Watched himself die of illness, and then swallowed the medicine of Wuxian. The obsession with immortality occupies the main consciousness, and he is guided step by step into a paranoid lunatic."

"Emperor Yao's doctor was the Wuxian."

"It was the medicine of Wuxian that turned Yayu from a good spirit into a demon."

"The medicine of Wuxian is indeed immortality, but this immortality only allows the consciousness to remain in the body."

"The consciousness is still there, but the body has died. The cells no longer renew and replace, and it will be like a conscious zombie, even different from that. The consciousness of a zombie also has a day to dissipate, but this kind of elixir of immortality will allow the consciousness and soul of the person who takes it to remain in the body forever."

"Everything is the same as a normal person, with all the joys, sorrows, and emotions, but the body has already died."

"Watching his own body turn into a corpse-like state."

"And the side effects brought about by 'immortality' will make them frantically search for ways to alleviate this change. One method I knew of in the past was to inject another medicine into the body, injecting vitality from the same bloodline."

"Like water flowing through a dry river, keeping the body active for ten or dozens of years."

"Then, you need to continue to take this kind of medicine constantly."

"So, Zhou Zichang is probably planning to use leukemia to overcome the side effects of the medicine of Wuxian. The medicine of Wuxian can partially suppress the vitality of the body, causing the body to be in a state of death, with vitality leaking out, and cancer cells can proliferate uncontrollably. If it can be used properly, it may be able to achieve a balance."

"But..."

"Can the will of a human being really withstand an elixir of immortality that even gods are tormented into lunatics?"

The old man suddenly noticed that the young man suddenly paused as if he was in a daze.

When he looked up, the young man in the pankou black clothes had returned to normal.

Wei Yuan reached out and held the simple and exquisite Yin Shang bronze cauldron in his hand.

Flicking his fingers, he had already prepared in advance. This familiar object, the same as the Shang King's bronze jue (wine cup), allowed him to glimpse a corner of the distant past, saw the simple and towering altar, saw the heroic and tall man, wearing gorgeous clothes.

He had a detailed map in his hand, with the words Chaoge on it.

He threw this map into the bronze cauldron that was more than one meter high.

The bronze cauldron was huge, majestic and solemn, with cloud and thunder patterns as the base, a row of relief fish patterns on the ears, relief double tiger eating human head patterns on the outer sides of the ears, taotie patterns around the abdomen, relief taotie patterns on the upper part of the pillar feet, and two weeks of convex string patterns on the lower part.

It was an object of sacrifice.

In the cauldron, there were several objects tumbling, including the Shang King's bronze jue, and a short sword engraved with Xuan bird patterns.

There was also this bronze cauldron with dan bird patterns. In addition to these, there were several other objects. Around it was an altar, with merchants kneeling and kowtowing on the layers of steps, chanting sacrificial words. In the vast and simple prayers, the map gradually burned, but it never completely disappeared, and finally turned into a streamer and flew into these bronze objects.

ps: Thanks to Bai_Mo for the 10,000 reward, thank you~

Today's first update, continue to lock myself up and code non-stop, forcibly control my work and rest.

In addition, I have added several new characters - Nujiao, Wuzhiqi, and the water ghost brother.

Classic of Mountains and Seas · Sea Within the South Classic: Yayu has a dragon head, lives in the Weak Water, west of where the orangutans know people's names, its shape is like a dragon head, and it eats people.

Classic of Mountains and Seas · Sea Within the West Classic: Erfu's minister is called Wei, Wei and Erfu killed Yayu.

Classic of Mountains and Seas · Sea Within the West Classic: Yayu is a snake body with a human face, and was killed by Erfu's minister.