Chapter 21 Leaving Seclusion
“What?! You want to request Master to come out of seclusion?”
Daoist Master Ling Feng’s sentence stunned everyone present.
A person courageously spoke up, “Eldest Senior Disciple, Master is currently in closed door cultivation, and unless something monumental happens, he is not to be disturbed. Previously, when Second Senior Disciple drunkenly knocked on his door, he was sentenced to Yujing Feng’s[1] cave to reflect for three years and hasn’t come out. It’s not like you don’t know that the place is infested with insects during summer, and especially mosquitoes. We had even given him a lot of smokeless Qiang Shou brand insecticide, but it was of no use.”
“Okay. Okay. I know.” Daoist Master Ling Feng weakly waved, interrupting the long winded junior disciple. “I’ll visit Master myself. If anything happens, I will shoulder the responsibility.”
“Just what is so urgent?” Seeing Daoist Master Ling Feng seemingly fly out of Sanqing Palace, and even employ the Nine Lotus steps, the disciples at the scene were all flabbergasted. “That year when Yunnan[2] was in havoc from a Tong Shi Jiangshi, and Longhu Shan activated the Po Tian Jian, even then Eldest Senior Disciple wasn’t so anxious.”
“Exactly!” When the disciples were chattering amongst themselves, they suddenly noticed that the sky outside the temple lighted up.
They looked at each other in dismay and rushed out of the monastery to get a better look. There was a thin but bright horizontal beam of light above Longhu Shan in the horizon.
Many disciples on Sanqing Shan were dazed for a long time, almost like they were frozen in time.
“Po Tian Jian…”
At first, a few new disciples didn’t understand what was going on, and a.s.sumed that someone on Longhu Shan was playing with a powerful spotlight. However, after hearing the other disciples mutter the three words, “Po Tian Jian” they too were stunned.
The entire skyline was illuminated by that light beam that was said to be visible up to a thousand miles. Although for the majority it was the first time seeing this phenomenon, but the three words, Po Tian Jian, were rooted deep in their hearts and known by all.
There was only one meaning when the Po Tian Jian appeared; and that would be that either Longhu Shan or Sanqing Shan had something that couldn’t be dealt with by themselves.
Longhu Shan and Sanqing Shan were extremely powerful, what couldn’t they deal with normally?
Therefore, within the past 100 years, the Po Tian Jian had only appeared three times.
The first time was when the Ban Family in Jiangxi, who were famous for exorcising and eliminating Jiangshi, irritated their enemies from Yunnan who specialised in making Jiangshi. They discreetly made a Tong Jia Jiangshi with malicious intent, then hired a third party to deliver it to the Ban Family out of malice.[3]
All Daoists’ knew that a normal Jiangshi was merely a brainless animated corpse, it would just recklessly attack anything in sight. However, the Tong Jia Jiangshi was different. The Tong Jia Jiangshi’s body was seemingly made out of steel, a normal Fulu pract.i.tioner’s skills wasn’t enough to injure it. Not only was it very strong, it was even able to withstand sunlight unlike a normal Jiangshi. In addition, it could even heed its creator’s instructions.
Therefore the Ban Family were caught unawares and two of their disciples, who were tasked with getting rid of Jiangshi, ended up dead and hanging in the Tong Jian Jiangshi’s hands. Although the Ban Family were very experienced in battling and destroying Jiangshi, but against that exceptionally ferocious Tong Jia Jiangshi, they were powerless. Therefore, they immediately sent messengers to Longhu Shan to plead for support.
The master of Longhu Shan at the time was very cautious, he mulled over how to destroy the Jiangshi for quite some time. Finally, he decided to activate the Po Tian Jian and request help from Sanqing Shan as they specialised in exorcising such demons.
The second time the disciples of the two mountains saw the Po Tian Jian was 30 years ago. It was rumoured that the Heishan Demon was sealed by Sanqing Shan’s Master Ancestor, and his disciple Hongshan Demon, borrowed the power of the Heavens to breakthrough the seal. Even after sending out multiple experts, Sanqing Shan couldn’t defeat them. In the end, as a last resort, Sanqing Shan’s Daoist Master Xuanxu activated the Po Tian Jian to request for help.
The third time was a joke, supposedly a thief infiltrated Longhu Shan in the middle of the night to steal some valuable things to earn some pocket money. However, he accidentally activated the Po Tian Jian and was immediately caught red-handed by the elites of Longhu Shan. When the experts of Sanqing Shan rushed over, they saw Longhu Shan’s Master, Zhang Daoyuan fuming with rage trying to recoup the losses from the thief. This was because the Po Tian Jian required a lot of resources to be activated.
From then on, Longhu Shan tightly guarded the Po Tian Jian. It was said that they kept it in a secret area, and was even heavily guarded at all times.
Normal disciples wouldn’t even be able to go near Longhu Shan’s Po Tian Jian, therefore when the Po Tian Jian illuminated the skies, everyone on Sanqing Shan had only one thought. “Something major has occurred.”
After seeing the Po Tian Jian, Daoist Master Ling Feng hurried to Yujing Feng
Daoist Master Ling Feng’s master, was also the current Sanqing Shan’s master, Daoist Master Xuan Xu. He was currently in Yujing Feng’s Yu Xu Monastery, undergoing closed door cultivation. Additionally, Yujing Feng was the highest of the three peaks of Sanqing Shan, and its path to the peak was very precipitous.
If anyone was to see Daoist Master Ling Feng at this time, they would jump in fright from seeing this extremely long bearded, black robed daoist priest.
His speed when going uphill was that of a gust of wind, his feet didn’t seem to touch the ground, and he just floated up the hill like that.
In the blink of an eye, Daoist Master Ling Feng was already nearing Yujing Feng’s monastery.
“Looks like Zhang Daoyuan, this guy, has been improving his w.a.n.g Qi[4] technique daily. The scene of a great treasure’s qi towering in the sky also seems to have frightened him.”
Observing the Po Tian Jian, Daoist Master Ling Feng had this though. However, while thinking, his movements didn’t pause for even a fraction of a second.
A moment later, Daoist Master Ling Feng floated up to the door of Yu Xu Monastery, neither breathless nor red faced.
“It seems that you have improved yet again, your Nine Lotus Step has almost reached the Lotus Stepping stage.”
Just as Daoist Master Ling Feng roused his courage to knock on the door, an ethereal sound was heard from inside the monastery.
“Master.” Daoist Master Ling Feng was overjoyed at the unexpected good news. “Congratulations on successfully breaking through.”
“Ai. Come, let’s speak inside.”
Daoist Master Ling Feng was truly elated, he a.s.sumed that his master had broken away from the Three Cycles of Reincarnation and attained Immortality or succeed in comprehending the Dao even more. However, his master’s lifeless sentence planted doubt in his heart.
Daoist Master Ling Feng could only slowly push open the vermillion gate and enter with a heart full of doubt.
“It has been over a year since we last met, right?”
Upon entering the monastery, Daoist Master Ling Feng saw his white haired and white bearded master smiling at him.
When Daoist Master Ling Feng had entered, he was incomparably excited, because he hadn’t met his master of many decades for over a year.
Therefore, when he heard the kind voice of his master, he had almost loudly shouted, “Master, I missed you to death!”
As he took in his surroundings, he almost foamed at his mouth and blacked out like before.
The first thing that he saw when he walked in, were the three gigantic TVs, and below those three TVs, were three state of the art, high-tech BBK DVD players.[5]