After staring at each other for a long moment, Nántáng saw the Spiritual-Ear Rabbit's long ears droop heavily, seemingly compromising, or perhaps resigning to its fate. A streak of black mist surged out from the rabbit's mouth and darted instantly into the Snow Sheep's body.
Nántáng had guessed right; this thing could indeed possess dead objects at will.
Taking advantage of the gap while this thing familiarized itself with its new body, Nántáng dealt with the Spiritual-Ear Rabbit's corpse. To avoid anyone noticing anything unusual, she dared not pass the task to others. She personally took the rabbit to a secluded spot, ignited a Fire Talisman to burn it to ashes, and only then returned to the main hall.
The little lamb in the hall was already prancing around joyfully. Its body was round and fluffy, its little tail was also round and fluffy; from a distance, it looked like a ball of yarn rolling on the ground. Nántáng developed a deep curiosity about the origins of this black mist—what in the world was it? She couldn't sense any demonic qi, immortal qi, spiritual qi, or fiendish qi from him. Neither immortal, nor demon, nor fiend, it could speak human language—though speaking seemed to drain its energy—understood human nature, could communicate with her, and knew how to evade Yíngxuě's tracking. It had to be an incredibly clever fellow.
As Nántáng was observing and pondering, suddenly a fluffy mass lunged straight into her arms. It felt like embracing an armful of curling cotton. She looked down, and the little lamb happened to look up at her. Its round, apricot-shaped eyes were much larger than the Spiritual-Ear Rabbit's, looking exceptionally endearing. It was propping up its curved little horns, gently nuzzling Nántáng's chin in a flattering manner.
Nántáng had always lacked resistance against such soft and adorable spiritual beasts. Even though she knew this fellow definitely had ulterior motives, she still couldn't help but rub its head. "What? Afraid I'll hand you over to Yíngxuě?"
The little lamb nuzzled her again, rubbing so hard that its fur flew right into her mouth.
Looking at the little lamb before her, which presented such a massive contrast to the black mist, Nántáng laughed. "To save your little life, you really can lay down your pride. Able to bow and able to stand tall—a true hero."
Undeniably, this fellow had taken the right route. This obedient, endearing appearance indeed made it easy for people to drop their guard.
The Snow Sheep blinked rapidly—girls really did fall for this sort of thing. Oh well, to save his life, sacrificing his dignity was unavoidable. Besides, no one here could recognize him anyway.
With a crisp ding-dang sound, Nántáng flipped her palm and produced two copper bells the size of pigeon eggs.
"Inside are pure Jìngxī (Cleansing Rhino) crystals. They can help conceal your aura and evade Yíngxuě's eyes and ears," she explained while tying the bells around the lamb's neck.
The Jìngxī crystals were the crystallized form of the Jìngxī Incense in her hall before it was ground into powder. Its effectiveness was no less than a hundred times stronger than the powder, and its price was a hundred times more expensive as well. Nántáng had really invested a hefty sum of blood capital.
The little lamb shook its head, and the bells let out a string of light, crisp ding-ding-dang-dang sounds.
"This body has already been smoked with Dragon-Bone Wood to prevent maggots, and soaked in Spiritual Spring Ice for preservation. It can last for about a month," Nántáng said as she lifted the little lamb, bringing this fellow right before her eyes, revealing what she considered to be her most amiable smile. "I've done so much for you, isn't it your turn to show some devotion to me?"
The little lamb only saw a pair of gleaming eyes and a mouth full of little white teeth. Her expression made him feel that if he didn't answer well, she would immediately sell him right back into Yíngxuě's hands.
Ding-dang—
A string of bell chimes rang out as the little Snow Sheep leaped from her palms to the ground. It looked left and right for a moment, dashed to the incense censer, flipped the lid off with a horn, stuck its front hoof inside to stir it all up, and then pulled out a pitch-black hoof to start drawing on the ground.
"Spring Awakening Workshop (Chūnxǐng Fāng)?" Nántáng looked at the green-wood emblem the Snow Sheep drew on the ground and said hesitantly, "How do you know about the Spring Awakening Workshop?"
This question was a bit complex. The little lamb couldn't answer and could only stare back at her. Ultimately, Nántáng figured it out herself: "Yíngxuě took you there?"
The little lamb spun in a circle, proving she had guessed right.
He had been by Yíngxuě's side for a very long time and had already thoroughly figured out Chóngxū Gōng.
"Can my questions find answers at the Spring Awakening Workshop?" she asked him again.
The little lamb spun in another circle.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go together." Nántáng squatted down and reached out her hand to him.
————
Ding-ding-dang-dang... The bells chimed all the way as Nántáng took the little Snow Sheep to the Spring Awakening Workshop.
The Spring Awakening Workshop oversaw the thousands of acres of land, large and small, belonging to Chóngxū Gōng on Fúlíng Mountain. Its workshop was naturally built in the most open and expansive area of Chóngxū Gōng. By the time Nántáng arrived, the sun was blazing overhead, and outside the workshop were the silhouettes of low-level cultivators busy with agricultural work.
"Fifth Martial Aunt?" Before Nántáng could even speak, she heard someone calling her.
"Yānhuá." Nántáng recognized the person; it was exactly Yānhuá, who had delivered the Ice Mulberry to her.
Pressing down the brim of her straw hat with one hand and wiping sweat with the other, Yānhuá asked, "How come Fifth Martial Aunt is here?"
"I came to tell you that one of the potted Ice Mulberry trees you gave me died, while the other is growing very vigorously," Nántáng thought for a moment and replied.
"Died? How could it die?" Yānhuá raised her voice, seemingly disbelieving that her potted plant could die. "It hasn't even been a few days in total, how did it die? How did Martial Aunt take care of it?"
This made it awkward for Nántáng to answer. Yānhuá simply assumed her attitude had offended her, and hastily explained, "Please don't be annoyed, Martial Aunt. I'm not blaming you. I formulated the potting soil for the Ice Mulberry with my own hands. If the Ice Mulberry withered in such a short time, there must be a problem with my mixture ratio. I want to bring it back to examine it. Martial Aunt, you didn't throw that pot of soil away, did you?"
"No, it's still in my hall. You can come fetch it anytime." Nántáng nodded. She also wanted to see if Yānhuá could discover the anomaly within the Ice Mulberry's potting soil.
"That's good then." Yānhuá felt relieved.
"I have one more thing to ask about..." Nántáng asked again. "I remember the Spring Awakening Workshop worships the God of Agriculture, Jùmáng. I wonder if the workshop has any records regarding Jùmáng that I could borrow to read?"
"Jùmáng?" Yānhuá pondered. "We do have some, but not many. It's not some secret cultivation manual, so it's not hard to borrow. Let me take Martial Aunt there."
As she spoke, she took off her straw hat, gave a few instructions to several fellow martial brothers across the field, and led Nántáng into the Spring Awakening Workshop.
"Martial Aunt, please sit for a moment, I will go find the books." Yānhuá served her tea and then went to look for the books.
Nántáng had only sat for the time it took to drink half a cup of tea before Yānhuá returned holding a tray of books.
"They're all here. Please take a look, Martial Aunt."
Nántáng swept a glance over them. On the tray were only three worn-out silk scrolls and one wordless jade slip.
"The silk scrolls were collected from the mortal realm, while the jade slip is an item from the immortal realm. Both of these mostly record mortal legends, nothing more," Yānhuá sat beside her, explaining the origins of the books, and added, "Jùmáng is merely a mortal belief. He is only enshrined at the Spring Awakening Workshop because he oversees agriculture. Why is Martial Aunt suddenly interested in him?"
Nántáng first picked up the three silk scrolls. Just as expected, they were miscellaneous legendary records meant for mortals, documenting the deities worshipped by mortals. The section regarding Jùmáng was very short, only introducing his origins, the duties he oversaw, and a sketchy outline of his life.
Jùmáng was the God of Wood, overseeing agricultural affairs. In legends, he possessed the body of a bird and the face of a human. To mortals, he was a very important deity.
"It's nothing really. Didn't I just take over outer Class Bǐng? Occasionally, when giving lectures, we chat about mortal deities, so I came to learn a bit more." She explained with a smile, while simultaneously picking up the jade slip and releasing her spiritual consciousness into it.
Books in the cultivation realm were not like those in the mortal realm, which used paper and silk as mediums. Instead, they were fashioned from spiritual jade into slips. A single jade slip could hold words, images, shapes, and spirit, all accessible by probing with one's spiritual consciousness.
"I see. I've read these materials too; there's nothing special about them. However, that jade slip in Martial Aunt's hand, though merely a miscellaneous record of the immortal realm, is somewhat interesting."
As Yānhuá's voice sounded, Nántáng was already looking at the contents of the jade slip.
The jade slip contained only records of Jùmáng. Aside from explanations that were largely identical to the three silk scrolls, it also mentioned another item—the Jùmáng Spring Seed (Jùmáng Chūnzhǒng).
This was an ultimate immortal treasure circulated only within the Yùkūn cultivation realm. The ancient god Jùmáng had undergone hundreds of millions of years of cultivation, and his traces had long faded from Yùkūn. He left behind only a single Spring Seed. It was a seed formed by gathering the spiritual sources of all living things in heaven and earth over tens of thousands of years before his disappearance. It was known as the "Spring Seed," also called the "Seed of Life."
This seed belonged to the Wood element. It would come alive when it met water, and grow when it met earth. It could absorb the spiritual qi within the soil, transforming it into life force to nourish all things. It possessed the power to resurrect the dead and grow flesh on bare bones. For cultivators, it also held powerful augmenting effects, capable of breaking the cycle of reincarnation and escaping the Six Paths.
A few sketchy words sketched out an unreachable desire of the cultivation realm.
Whether mortal or cultivator, all were shackled by their lifespans. Cultivators practicing immortality were merely using extended lifespans to combat the helplessness of life and death. Be it a thousand years or ten thousand years, there would eventually be an end. Yet to raise the dead, restore life, and break reincarnation—that meant stepping out of the cycle of rebirth, gaining the power of endless, unceasing life.
How many cultivators dreamed of this?
After Nántáng's spiritual consciousness left the jade slip, she sat frozen in her seat, merely murmuring: "Jùmáng Spring Seed..."
"Martial Aunt, you absolutely must not become obsessed like my old man. Just relying on these few generic, dime-a-dozen sentences in this jade slip, he's spent his whole life researching the Jùmáng Seed of Life, wanting to imitate the ancient gods and refine a Spring Seed himself. He's practically experiencing qi deviation!" Seeing her dazed expression, Yānhuá hurriedly warned.
The "old man" she spoke of was her master, the master of the Spring Awakening Workshop, Nánshān Jué. The Spring Awakening Workshop used the Jùmáng Spring Seed totem as its emblem, which was also Nánshān Jué's idea.
Nántáng snapped back to reality: "No, I just find it incredible. Senior Brother Nánshān actually wants to refine the Jùmáng Spring Seed?"
"He... wants to resurrect my martial mother." Yānhuá suddenly turned sorrowful.
Her master and martial mother were originally a pair of Daoist companions within Chóngxū Gōng, and a rare, deeply affectionate couple in all of Yùkūn. Sadly, during a tribulation twenty years ago, her martial mother perished to save her master. Nánshān Jué was so struck with grief he wished for death. From then on, he neglected his cultivation and became obsessed with the art of resurrecting the dead.
Nántáng had heard rumors of this matter, and hearing it now, she couldn't help but sigh in lament.
The deeply affectionate were common, but those who remained devoted for so long were rare to see.
"He doesn't even stop to think—how could such a heaven-defying thing exist in this world? It's nothing more than something fabricated by predecessors to grab attention. To ruin his Dao foundation over this illusory tale, causing his cultivation to stagnate and regress, it's really..." When Yānhuá brought up her own master, she couldn't help but feel anxious and worried.
Nántáng could only console her, "Senior Brother Nánshān has always acted with measure, he wouldn't act recklessly. Since he believes the Jùmáng Spring Seed can be refined, he must have his reasons."
"In theory it's feasible, but practically refining it is harder than ascending to immortality." Yānhuá was Nánshān Jué's favorite disciple and usually helped him out a lot, so she naturally knew a thing or two. "The Spring Seed requires extracting the spiritual sources of all things. The spiritual source is not spiritual qi; it is the fundamental spirit of all creations, and it is extremely difficult to separate and extract."
The spiritual qi in this world could be divided according to the Five Elements into five types: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. But this was merely a broad categorization. In reality, the spiritual qi of every single thing had subtle differences, and what embodied these subtle differences was the spiritual source. Spiritual qi was merely an extension of the spiritual source. On this foundation, mutations could also occur, giving rise to things like lightning, ice, light, and so forth.
"After the spiritual sources are extracted, they must be merged into a Pure Wood Container. When the types of spiritual sources in the container reach a certain quantity, the Spring Seed can be refined. But the old man hasn't even found a method to extract the spiritual sources, so how can he talk about gathering the spiritual sources of all things and cultivating the Spring Seed?" Yānhuá said, sighing again.
This was merely the theoretical direction for refining it, not a secret, so naturally, there was no need to hide it.
Nántáng, however, sharply caught onto a specific piece of information—Pure Wood Container?
It was highly coincidental that she possessed an innate, Supremely Pure Wood spiritual root.
A spiritual root that was one in ten thousand didn't necessarily mean it was a good thing—at the very least, a Supremely Pure Wood spiritual root was not.
Because it was far too pure, it could not tolerate even a single trace of impure spiritual qi, which ironically made her cultivation extremely difficult. Add to that the fact that most spells a Wood spiritual root could practice were healing and supportive types, with incredibly few offensive spells. She couldn't go out on experiential training alone to acquire resources, and every time she went out, she could only rely on hoarded talismans to protect her life. Lacking a versatile spiritual root and lacking resources for cultivation, her path to immortality became increasingly arduous as she walked it.
It was precisely because of this that rumors spread throughout the sect saying she had deliberately schemed to marry Jiāng Zhǐ just for the sake of her cultivation, because Jiāng Zhǐ could assist her in her practice.
Ding-ding-dang-dang—
A hurried burst of bell chimes rang out. Nántáng snapped out of her deep thoughts. Looking up, she saw that the little Snow Sheep, who had slipped outside the workshop at some unknown time, was quickly "rolling" in through the door and lunging straight into her embrace. Following closely behind was a cultivator running completely out of breath.
"Quick, quick, catch it!"
Nántáng, holding the lamb, stood up at the same time as Yānhuá. Yānhuá shouted, "What happened?"
"Senior Sister Yānhuá, this is the Snow Sheep that escaped the pen a few days ago! All the other sheep have already been sheared and neutered. It's the only one left! Now that we caught it, it's the perfect time to send it off for shearing and neutering!" The cultivator panted, reaching his demonic claws out toward the little Snow Sheep again.
After a Snow Sheep gave birth, its wool production would greatly decrease. Thus, aside from a portion of the Snow Sheep raised in Chóngxū Gōng specifically for breeding, the rest had to be sterilized.
Nántáng and the Snow Sheep exchanged a glance, their expressions entirely different.
One was brimming with amusement—"Oh? Getting shaved bald AND castrated?"
The other was in absolute horror—"?! Shaved bald? Castrated?! What the hell?!"
Translator's Anecdote: The ultimate betrayal! You scheme your whole ancient existence just to escape your enemies, only to find out your new rented meat-suit is scheduled to lose both its fluffy coat AND its family jewels! RIP to the ancient spirit's dignity! ✂️🐑😱 ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
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