White Bone Demon Trail

Chapter 48 Carving White Bones

As dawn broke, a light rain began to fall. Bai Wuxiang sat cross-legged under a secluded elm tree, a folded red silk umbrella tied behind him.

This red silk umbrella is made from the best fabric in Black Stone Village, and he used it to make this bamboo-ribbed cloth umbrella.

It's quite convenient to use it for sunshade during the day and disguise oneself in the rain.

Otherwise, if you don't get a single drop of rain on yourself, you'll attract too much attention.

As for this white, elegant robe, it is quite fitting for walking among mortals. The luxurious clothes can ward off petty and wicked people and save a lot of trouble.

After all, this human skin belongs to a pampered young master like the Bai family's young master; even a handsome appearance can be a scourge in chaotic times.

He was intently sensing the vision of the fireflies, looking at the wilderness and rivers within a radius of dozens of miles.

According to the topographical features described by the expert surnamed Kong, there aren't many rivers in the northeast direction of the northern foothills, making it easier to determine where the black dragon could hide.

He only stared at the rivers, lakes, and ponds from afar. Even if the black dragon had great supernatural powers, it would be impossible for it to appear beside him instantly. This would give Bai Wuxiang ample time to escape.

He was using the opponent's strength against them, but no matter whose strength it was, Bai Wuxiang could attack him at any time, so caution was of utmost importance.

Just as he was distracted, a little tune drifted from the morning rain and mist.

Whether it's a grand mansion or a humble cottage, the air is filled with fragrance every night... Ah~

They all want me to be a little boy too~

Singing a catchy, self-indulgent tune, a burly man pulled a two-wheeled wooden cart and walked over from a distance.

The man was singing enthusiastically when he suddenly saw a person sitting properly under the tree. The person was dressed in fine clothes and had a handsome appearance, unlike any ordinary person.

He immediately cried out in pain, muttering to himself, "Oh no, I've offended an important person!"

As he spoke, the man hurriedly turned the car around to try to find another way, but unexpectedly, the road was slippery due to the rain, and a wooden bucket on the car crashed down, releasing a stench that wafted out, and the car stopped seven feet under the elm tree.

Bai Wuxiang opened his eyes upon hearing the noise, his pupils instantly changing from pure white to black and white, and calmly glanced at the foul-smelling substance not far away on the ground.

"Puff~"

"Please spare my life, sir! Please spare my life! I truly did not mean to offend you! I did not mean to offend you!"

The man was already nervously staring at the person under the tree. When he saw that strange pupil flash by, his heart pounded even harder, and he could only kneel down and kowtow.

Bai Wuxiang chuckled lightly, "There's no cause or effect between us, so there's no need for you to kneel before me."

As for these…

He glanced at the night-blooming jasmine on the ground and said without any concern, "I was born without a sense of smell, so it doesn't bother me."

"You are such a kind person, sir! I will leave now so as not to disturb your peace."

The man quickly picked up the wooden bucket, put on the coarse cloth around his neck to cover his mouth and nose, and swept up the night-scented smegma on the ground.

Seeing his skillful demeanor, Bai Wuxiang asked curiously, "Are you perhaps someone who specializes in this kind of thing?"

"In reply to your question, sir, you have a discerning eye. I am indeed a professional in this line of work, and I have been doing it for seven or eight years. We in this line of work are called 'night perfume men'." Seeing that the other party was very easy to talk to, the dark-skinned man became bolder and said a few more words.

Bai Wuxiang nodded, looking at his rather robust physique, "Is this line of work lucrative?"

"Hehe, I'm sorry to have made you laugh." The man chuckled softly. "Although this line of work looks dirty, it's definitely not a poor one."

"I've done this kind of work and even married a wife. We not only have two acres of poor land and a small courtyard in the countryside, but we also have a place to live in the city."

Bai Wuxiang found this intriguing, "How do you make a living?"

"Hey, night soil is a rare treasure for farmers. It's indispensable for planting and fertilizing the fields!" The man spoke with great pride about his profession, going into detail: "Ordinary people can't even get this job. We night soil vendors all have our own market positions, and we often fight among ourselves over it."

Furthermore, the night soil in wealthy households is different from that in poor households. The rich, with their lavish meals, naturally have even more... well, you know... methods...

The man became more and more excited as he spoke, but then he suddenly realized that the person in front of him might not be a "person." He quickly stopped talking and changed his words, saying, "If I continue, I'm afraid I'll offend your ears. I have important matters to attend to at home, so I'll take my leave now!"

Bai Wuxiang simply nodded, and the man quickly pushed the cart and took a detour.

He was left alone under the tree. Some mosquitoes were attracted to the ground not far away, but not a single mosquito dared to approach Bai Wuxiang.

Bai Wuxiang silently stood up. He wasn't lying; how could a skeleton smell anything?

Even if he wears a human skin and looks exactly like a "human", he cannot smell the fragrance of flowers, know the tastes of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and foul, cannot drink water, and cannot eat food.

He can only survive by clinging to life!

Bai Wuxiang watched the departing figure, smiled and shook his head. It turned out that there was a group of unknown night-scented men who once existed under the ancient sky.

He flicked his sleeve, left the place, and found a more secluded and deserted spot.

A mass grave reeking of foul odor.

As for why he knew it smelled bad, it was because Bai Wuxiang saw the insects and mosquitoes on the rotting corpses.

No one comes here, so no one will disturb him.

As Bai Wuxiang walked across the wasteland, insects of all kinds spontaneously made way for him from both sides of his feet.

It wasn't that Bai Wuxiang used his demonic power because he was afraid they would soil his clothes; it was that these insects sensed the death aura and spontaneously avoided him.

Humans can be deceived by appearances, but wild animals cannot be deceived by outward appearances and lose their sense of death.

He looked at the pile of bones on the ground, many of them wrapped in tattered rags and thrown into the woods. There were old people and children, only poor families who couldn't afford funerals, or pitiful people with no relatives or friends.

Some of the rotting flesh had already revealed white bones, some strange-looking worms were wriggling inside the bodies, and wild grass had grown on some of the old corpses.

Death gives birth to life in the land.

Bai Wuxiang sighed, raised his hand, picked up a piece of white bone from the ground, and then sat down to trace the bone with his Xuan needle.

Tiny white bone meal particles fell down and scattered on the soil.

In the forest filled with corpses and bones, Bai Wuxiang sat in the center, carefully carving a bone sculpture.

The palm-sized bone carving resembled a small stone figure, but since Bai Wuxiang had only roughly outlined the lines, the bone figure had no facial features.

He held the bone carving in his hand, and with a casual gesture, the turbid air from all directions surged into the bone carving.

The next moment, the tiny bone carving landed on the ground and in the blink of an eye, it rapidly expanded a hundredfold, transforming into a giant white stone figure.

After the stone figure appeared, it plunged its hands into the soil and dug a pit in a few strokes.

Then, guided by Bai Wuxiang's consciousness, the bone giant picked up the skeletons one by one and placed them into the pit. Bai Wuxiang stood there silently watching, and whispered, "Bones, if you ever awaken your spirits, burying yourselves in the soil will allow you to escape the calamity of the sun."

"Without the confinement of a square coffin, I hope that one day one of you, or even just a bone, will break free of the earth and become like me."

In the year since his birth, Bai Wuxiang has seen all sorts of spirits and monsters, but he has never seen a White Bone Demon like himself.

Demons have their own methods, Buddhas have their own teachings, and Taoists have their own lineage.

However, each beast among the demons has its own cultivation method. Snakes have their own cultivation methods that cannot be used for eagle cultivation, and tigers have their own cultivation path that cannot be used for rat cultivation.

His skeleton, naturally, can only cultivate the Way of the White Bones.

Bai Wuxiang has no like-minded people by his side to verify or communicate with, so his path is full of unknowns.

A smile finally appeared on his lips as he watched skeletons being placed into pits.

Regardless of what these skeletons were like in life, he only knew that the skeletons after death were his own kind.

After the giant skeleton finished doing all this, it returned to its original form and fell back into Bai Wuxiang's hands.

He looked at the bone carving in his hand, then picked up the Xuan needle again and carved out the bone man's facial features: thick eyebrows and big eyes, like a brave man.

Bai Wuxiang considered the time, then stopped refining the bone carving and simply put it into his sleeve. His vision then shifted to the scene observed by the fireflies.

There was no unusual activity in any of the waters, it seems that the black dragon needs some time to refine the blood essence after it has consumed enough.

Bai Wuxiang suddenly remembered that snakes are at their weakest right after eating, because a full body slows down their reactions in all aspects, and their bloated bodies make them easier to push up.

Even if a python has now transformed into a dragon, this kind of transformation using evil magic is certainly no match for a dragon that has truly cultivated itself through hardship.

Bai Wuxiang calculated in his mind that there was a gap of more than two months between the first and second times the black dragon ate people, and a gap of more than one month between the third and second times.

The blood essence that the black dragon consumed two days ago should take at least half a month to refine.

Bai Wuxiang waited patiently until dusk when a group of government officials and several experts who looked like half-immortals arrived at several bodies of water.

He frowned. Few of these people were truly capable. He feared they wouldn't even be able to find the Black Dragon's hiding place.

But Bai Wuxiang continued to observe from the sidelines. After all, he was borrowing someone else's power, so he couldn't act rashly.

It wasn't until Bai Wuxiang saw those people throwing something into the water that he realized these people were really there to die!
They sprinkled snake gall powder, realgar, sulfur, and other substances into the water.

However, they scattered realgar on the north side of these waters and snake gall powder on the south side, clearly luring the black dragon southward.

Truckloads of medicine powder were scattered into the river, turning several sections of the waterway murky.

As night fell and a full moon shone brightly in the sky, the group finally stopped to rest by a large marshland to the south.

Looking at the surrounding weeds, Lin, the head constable, felt slightly uneasy and pulled a Taoist priest aside to ask, "Master Zhao, is it really safe for us to spend the night here?"

"Well... logically speaking, that snake demon hasn't been eating for more than a few days, so it shouldn't be interested in us," the somewhat obese middle-aged Taoist priest reassured him.

Hearing this, Constable Lin felt a little relieved. He had known this Taoist priest Zhao for several years and considered him an acquaintance. He was a demon hunter from the Zhao family of Luyang.

Because of his profession, he inevitably came into contact with ghosts and spirits, so he made a special effort to befriend this demon hunter.

The Zhao family of Lu Yang is one of the most famous of the eight great demon-hunting families. This person is a direct descendant of the Zhao family. Although he is somewhat unreliable, he must still have some real skills.

Once Lin, the head constable, felt relieved, he gathered his men together, lit a fire, and took out the wine, meat, and dried food they carried with them for dinner.

The other "experts" gathered together, chatting and laughing, boasting about the demons and monsters they had captured.

Zhao Fengyuan left the group on his own and went to a secluded spot. He drew various patterns on the ground and took out nine yellow talismans from his clothes, which he used to create a formation.

Then he sat cross-legged on the spot, not talking to anyone else, and silently prayed, "Please, please, don't let this snake demon come out!"

That damned magistrate actually tricked me into being bait with these people!

"If I weren't short of money right now, I wouldn't have taken on this lousy job!"

The dozen or so constables sitting around the fire weren't particularly afraid; they just laughed and made noise.

"Hey, do you guys think there really are snake demons? I've never seen one in my whole life!"

"You little brat, you're too bold! If you really see that snake demon, your life will be in danger!"

"With so many of us here, and these six celestial masters among us, what is there to be afraid of?"

"Yes! When we kill this snake demon, we'll get a reward of ten taels of silver! When the villagers see us, who won't look at us with more respect?"

"Hahaha, you just want to show off, don't you?"

"I was just worried that something might go wrong, since my wife is only two months pregnant. I'll use the reward money to buy her some nice things to help her recover."

"Once this is all over, I'll treat everyone to a feast at Juxianglou! Good wine and meat galore!" Officer Lin said with a smile. His family was a prominent local clan and they certainly didn't lack a few taels of silver. Naturally, he wanted to make life better for his men.

"Good, good, good! Officer Lin is practically my godfather!"

"Haha. You little brat, you might as well just acknowledge him as your godfather!"

Everyone burst into laughter, which relaxed them considerably, and they were less nervous.

A tall, thin Taoist priest boasted to a few of his companions, then found a moment when he went to the water's edge, took off his clothes, and relieved himself.

He hummed a little tune, thinking that he could be happy for another six months after receiving this sum of money.

The water, which was originally quite clear, suddenly became murky, turning the river a deep, dark color, like an abyss.

It was indeed difficult to tell at night. The tall, thin Taoist priest shook his hand twice and prepared to pull up his pants and leave.

Unexpectedly, the calm lake surface suddenly broke open, and a huge black python pounced out, biting off the head of the tall, thin Taoist priest, separating his head from his body, and then coiling around his body to swallow him bit by bit.

Before the man could even utter a scream, the black python's scales gleamed in the moonlight, and crimson blood spilled from its mouth, dripping onto the weeds.

A firefly lying on a pile of grass silently watched the scene not far away, not startled at all.

Dozens of miles away, in the mass grave, Bai Wuxiang frowned. This was not the black dragon, but judging from its enormous size, it must have been cultivating for at least several decades!
There are likely more than just black dragons in this vast swamp!
He suddenly remembered the tens of thousands of snakes in Wulong Village. If the black python had become a dragon, then the snakes it summoned would not only be ordinary snakes and pythons!

Instead... snake demons from all directions!

Bai Wuxiang stood up in surprise, looking up as the moon was obscured by a dark cloud.

The moon was dark, and a sudden gust of wind arose!

(End of this chapter)