Dao Cheng Gui Xian

Chapter 96 Take the initiative
After leaving Li Wushou's office, Feng Sishui headed straight for the incense hall.

When the official in charge of money and supplies heard that Feng Sishui wanted to request a life-saving incense stick, he assumed that the other party was going to start refining a Yin puppet and did not ask any further questions.

Feng Sishui, carrying the incense stick, walked out of the City God Temple.

Finding a secluded spot, it released a surge of yin energy, causing the incense to ignite without fire. In a short while, the incense burned out and vanished into nothingness.

This incense is colorless and odorless, and when lit, it produces no smoke to the average person. However, if someone were to look at it with the eyes of the divine soul, they would see a cloud of mist swirling above Feng Sishui's head.

This mist, which condenses and does not dissipate, is invisible to ordinary people, but it has a wonderful use: marking the soul of the dying.

A dying person has weak yang and strong yin, and their life force is about to run out. The life incense is made from the throat of the corpse, from which the last breath of life is exhaled, and the two are attracted to each other.

If the priests of the City God Temple wanted to create a Yin puppet, they would often burn a stick of incense and observe among the dying people to see if there was a suitable one.

Feng Sishui didn't understand why the High Priest wanted to find three people who were about to die.

Like the High Priest Liu, he believed that the High Priest wanted to create the Yin Puppet, so he naturally took it very seriously.

They thought it might not be possible to collect them quickly, but to their surprise, Feng Sishui had already collected them after just one trip outside Wusheng Pawnshop in Zhengcheng.

This was the result of his careful selection of candidates after considering the Grand Priest's Yin cultivation methods.

Take out a blank talisman paper with three blood spots on it, shaped like plum blossoms, which were left by the three dying people.

Feng Sishui wanted to leave some silver for the other party, but everyone refused because they saw that he was a priest of the City God Temple.

Circulating his Yin energy, Feng Sishui took a deep breath, drawing the swirling mist above his head into his chest.

Then he slowly spat the mist onto the three blood spots on the talisman. The mist did not dissipate upon encountering the talisman; instead, it quickly merged into the blood droplets.

After exhaling the steam, the three drops of blood turned dark red. With everything done, Feng Sishui nodded to himself and returned to the City God Temple.

When Feng Sishui handed the talisman to Li Wushou, Li Wushou was also surprised. So fast?
"I didn't expect that just taking a quick look around Wusheng Pawnshop in Zhengcheng would be enough!"

Li Wushou nodded and praised, "Smart!" Then, holding the talisman, he visualized the locations of three dying people in his mind. Although they were still moving, they were very clear.

To his surprise, one of them had a very clear goal and headed straight for the west side of the city.

What a dying man he is!
Considering what Feng Sishui said about the three people who had just come from Wusheng Pawnshop, Li Wushou couldn't help but admire them.

To die beneath a peony is truly a romantic death!
Because of Feng Sishui's efficiency, before the bell of the City God Temple closed for the last time, Li Wushou had already returned to the Three Immortals Hall.

The old beggar and Chen Gou'er were still sleeping, and Li Wushou felt, whether it was his imagination or not, that the two of them had been sleeping more lately.

Without disturbing the two, Li Wushou lit three sticks of incense in the incense burner.

The incense sticks were arranged differently today. Instead of the usual three sticks lined up in a row, they were arranged in a triangular pattern in the incense burner.

He then carefully took out the talisman paper that Feng Sishui had returned, took half of each of the three blood drops, rubbed them together with his hands, and burned them into three ash spots.

Li Wushou peeked into the room. The old beggar was fast asleep. So he reached into the incense burner, took out some incense ash, divided it into three equal parts, and mixed it with the ash specks.

Li Wushou shook the talisman in his hand, and the incense ash suddenly rose up, flying back to the remaining half of the blood droplets mixed in with the ash.

The blood droplet returned to normal, only its color seemed a few shades deeper.

Li Wushou nodded in satisfaction, then folded the blood-stained talisman into a triangular pouch.

The position was adjusted, placing the triangular talisman pouch precisely in the empty space between the three incense sticks. A ripple of incense smoke enveloped the talisman pouch. Everything was ready; all that remained was for the person to die!

As night fell, the old beggar and Chen Gou'er went to sleep again after finishing their dinner.

The old beggar was completely unaware of Li Wushou's unauthorized misappropriation of incense offerings; he was too tired, as if he and Chen Gou'er had an endless sleep ahead of them.

Li Wushou was delighted, saving him the trouble of trying to persuade him.

Sitting cross-legged on the futon in front of the incense table, Li Wushou's Yin meridians circulated continuously.

For the past few days, he had been experimenting with one thing: the Dragon Coiling Technique of the Blood Buddha Temple, which allowed one to cultivate solar energy during the day by visualizing the sun. Could his own Yin Refining Technique cultivate Yin energy by visualizing the moon?
This idea is not far-fetched. The art of refining Yin involves consuming Yin energy to forge a Yin spirit, and the power of Taiyin naturally belongs to the category of Yin energy.

Now he's figured out some tricks of the trade.

Just as the Panlong Method first refines the solar energy into the blood, the Yin Refining Technique also requires a medium.

The orthodox lineage of the City God first forges a Yin body, then refines Yin energy into the spirit soul, and finally refines the spirit soul into a Yin spirit, which then sheds its physical form and is not bound by the constraints of the physical body.

In other words, this soul is the medium for refining Yin.

But does Li Wushou have a spirit?

You could say he is, because he can sense what the soul can sense; or you could say he isn't, because both the previous soul-snatching by the Unborn Envoy and his past experiences demonstrate that he is special.

For a moment, Li Wushou was also unsure of what medium to use to guide and refine the power of Taiyin.

Suddenly, a soft sound came from the incense table behind me, and the pervasive mist seemed to spread out a bit.

With a thought, Li Wushou sank into the triangular talisman pouch in the incense burner.

One of the three drops of blood, along with the incense ash mixed in, had disappeared. After some investigation, Li Wushou immediately realized that this drop of blood belonged to the one who had rushed to the western city without stopping!
Hiss! These courtesans are indeed as dangerous as the old beggar said!

All three were about to die, so why did he die first?
Li Wushou solidified this belief, his perspective sinking into the misty haze, where space seemed to lose its meaning.

Inside a brothel on West Street, a beautiful and voluptuous woman was crying out in terror, "Help!"

Before her lay a naked man, his hair white, lying back on the bed, his face ashen, yet with a strange sense of satisfaction.

From the woman's unseen perspective, the man's soul slumped out of his body and slowly drifted away.

Suddenly, from an unknown place in the void, a tentacle stretched out and bound the living soul directly. The tentacle retracted, and the living soul was taken to the location of the Martial God's soul.

"Creak" sound!
The living soul was chewed up and, after being tempered by the Martial God, merged into the river of Yin energy.

The specks of incense ash scattered among the living souls, washed away by the long river, entered the City God's body again, and were unknowingly absorbed into the body of the divine soul sparrow that was drawing nourishment from him.

This scene unfolded silently, much like the Divine Soul Sparrow building its nest in the City God's heart, which could be considered an inspiration given to Li Wushou by the Divine Soul Sparrow.

Inside the Three Immortals Pavilion, two more soft sounds came from behind Li Wushou.

After the Martial God swallowed the two souls again, Li Wushou suddenly opened his eyes and stood up from the futon.

He turned around and reinserted three sticks of incense into the incense burner, still in a "品" (pin) shape, but in the opposite direction to before.

A misty haze filled the air as Li Wushou slowly spoke, murmuring, "Heaven, Earth, and Man!"

(End of this chapter)