Chapter 23: Turning Yang into Yin

Surrounded by dozens of villagers, Hong Wen watched helplessly as Mo Lin returned to the mountain.

Including Hong Tianyun, the villagers around him all let out a very obvious sigh of relief.

After seeing Mo Lin leave, not a single person suggested going up the mountain to kill it.

Instead, they whispered nervously:

“What should we do now? There really is a Snake Demon on the mountain...”

“With a Snake Demon up there, how are we supposed to go up the mountain from now on?”

“Exactly, even the Taoist from the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring was killed by the Snake Demon. How could we possibly be its opponent?”

“The court will soon come to collect taxes again. In the past, when we could catch snakes in the mountain, at least most of the villagers could survive. Now that a Snake Demon has appeared, going up the mountain has become even more dangerous. How will we survive this year’s taxes?”

Dozens of strong men from Hongjia Village shook their heads and sighed bitterly.

The heavy taxes and levies of the Great Qian Dynasty increased day by day.

Even people like them, who hid deep in the mountains, found it harder and harder to survive.

And now, a man-eating Snake Demon had appeared.

Seeing even their last path of survival blocked, how could they not feel despair?

“Everyone, the two Taoist masters of the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring died on the mountain for our sake. Their deaths will definitely not be in vain.”

“At the very least, we now clearly know that this mountain indeed harbors a Snake Demon.”

Hong Tianyun raised his hand to quiet the villagers’ complaints:

“For the safety of everyone, I will make another trip to the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring and invite even more powerful Taoist masters to avenge Taoist Ding Fan and Taoist Xu Han, and also rid us of this demon scourge. So, everyone, don’t worry.”

“However, for the sake of your lives, no one should go up the mountain for now. Also, stay farther away from its edge and remain in the village.”

Hearing Hong Tianyun’s words of comfort, Hong Wen, whose eyes had been fixed on the direction Mo Lin had disappeared, finally snapped back to his senses.

He picked up a wooden plaque tied at his waist, the one Xu Han had entrusted to him before his death.

“You carry the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring’s plaque I left with you. After descending the mountain, you must seek out the masters of the Bureau to avenge us brothers.”

Xu Han’s dying words echoed in his mind.

Hong Wen clenched the plaque tightly, his expression flickering with uncertainty.

After calming the villagers, Hong Tianyun prepared once more to set out for the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring.

At that moment, Hong Wen blocked his path.

“Hong Wen?”

“Uncle Yun, I will go with you to the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring.”

......

While the uncle and nephew of the Hong family made their way to the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring, Mo Lin was investigating the mountain’s Feng Shui.

After studying “The Classic of the Green Satchel”, “The Classic of Stirring the Dragon”, and “Survival Feng Shui Studies”, Mo Lin had gained some small understanding of geomancy.

According to the texts, earth veins referred to the terrain’s direction, rise and fall, twists and turns, changes, surface features, and underground environment.

The shifting terrain was like a divine dragon, ever-changing and mysterious, hence it was also called the Dragon Vein.

To grasp the terrain and the veins was known as “seeking the dragon.”

Just as the Dragon Vein of the Great Qian Dynasty originated from Kunlun, all Dragon Veins had a source, called the “Ancestor of Mountains.”

By finding the Ancestor of Mountains, the earth veins could no longer hide.

After seeking the dragon for many days, Mo Lin finally discovered a “Dragon Cave.” If he could occupy this place, he could surely absorb the essence of the earth veins to strengthen himself.

But Mo Lin frowned.

“Normally, if a Dragon Cave and its earth veins haven’t been tampered with, it should be flourishing.”

Mo Lin loosened his snake tail, letting fall a handful of soil he had scooped up.

The soil was extremely dry, lacking moisture, and bore no resemblance to the aura of Dragon Qi.

“As the saying goes, stones are the dragon’s bones, soil is its flesh, and water is its Dragon Qi. It seems this earth vein has already been tampered with.”

“Someone is meddling with this vein.”

Mo Lin hadn’t expected someone to have beaten him to it.

But thinking carefully, it made sense.

Yongzhou was mountainous, and where there were many mountains, there was naturally abundant Dragon Qi.

Even Snake Eagles, who usually lived on the plains, would travel thousands of miles to the mountains.

Wasn’t it normal for people to interfere with mountain veins?

Though someone was ahead of him, Mo Lin was not the type to politely wait in line:

“If the one ahead is weaker than me, then forgive me—I’ll have to cut in.”

With that thought, Mo Lin burrowed into the Dragon Cave.

Yet, the deeper he went, the stranger he felt.

“According to geomancy, this earth vein should have been rich in Yang qi, so why did it feel so heavy with Yin now?”

“It was as if... as if someone were using the Turn-Yang-into-Yin technique, using the vein’s Yang qi to nourish an item of extreme Yin.”

Pondering, Mo Lin formed a hypothesis.

Deeper into the Dragon Cave, after walking dozens more steps, the space suddenly opened up, and Mo Lin finally saw the presence that had occupied this feng shui treasure before him:

A single coffin!

Mo Lin’s snake pupils narrowed.

Sure enough—someone intended to use the earth vein’s Yang qi, invert Yang into Yin, and resurrect the dead!

Unfortunately, Mo Lin shook his head.

Yongzhou was mountainous but composed mainly of small hills; it simply could not support such a heaven-defying act as resurrecting the dead.

Even if the Turn-Yang-into-Yin technique were used, at most it could only raise a jiangshi.

If the one harvesting were at the source of the world’s Dragon Veins—Kunlun Mountain—there might be some hope.

After shaking his head, Mo Lin slithered to the coffin and whipped his tail, sending the dozens-of-kilos coffin lid flying.

“Thud!”

The lid struck the Dragon Cave with a muffled sound, stirring up clouds of dust.

Since Mo Lin had found the Dragon Cave, he naturally would not hand this feng shui treasure over to a dead man.

After all, resurrecting the dead was a violation of the natural order—better to let it benefit himself.

Mo Lin looked into the coffin and saw a man whose body was shriveled and darkened, his features dignified.

Mo Lin pried the man’s mouth open and found a round-sky-square-earth coin lodged on his tongue.

This mouth-coin, perhaps steeped by the earth vein, strangely bore a trace of a magical implement’s aura.

Mo Lin had been lamenting that the two Taoists had left him not a single scrap of a magical implement, so he was surprised to find one in the Dragon Cave a few days later.

Overjoyed, Mo Lin prepared to take the coin from the corpse’s mouth; he felt no taboo about the dead—after all, everyone had died once.

However, the moment Mo Lin’s python-tail was about to touch the mouth-coin, the corpse—whose eyes had been tightly shut—suddenly flung its eyes wide open!

Mo Lin was startled: the jiangshi had awakened!

At the critical instant, Mo Lin’s tail retracted from the jiangshi’s mouth.

The next moment, the jiangshi’s mouth snapped shut and swallowed the mouth-coin back inside.

Mo Lin leapt off the coffin and watched the patterned coffin warily.

A jiangshi was a dead thing beyond the Six Paths, feeding on resentment and blood.

If it bit him, Mo Lin would not die instantly, but invaded by the item’s extreme Yin, he would suffer.

“Knock, knock, knock...”

Seeing the jiangshi raise half its body from the coffin, Mo Lin narrowed his snake pupils:

“If you refuse to obediently leave the Dragon Cave at my invitation, then I’ll have to smash you to pieces first, and then throw you out!”

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