Chapter 665
"Pull him up! Quick!" Nangong Wan screamed and pulled the rope with the rescue team. When Fu Shaoping was dragged out of the water, he had lost consciousness, his lips were purple, and the other end of the safety rope was entangled with a broken branch.
"Cardiopulmonary resuscitation!" Nangong Wan immediately knelt down and began to press Fu Shaoping's chest. The rain hit them, and everyone around them held their breath.
“Wake up, you stubborn bastard!” Nangong Wan pressed and shouted, his voice choked, “You can’t die like this!”
Just when she was about to despair, Fu Shaoping suddenly coughed up a mouthful of water and opened his eyes. He smiled weakly: "When you curse, you are quite fierce."
Nangong Wan suddenly hugged him, tears mixed with raindrops falling. "Is the gate repaired?" Fu Shaoping asked, panting.
"It's fixed." Nangong Wan pointed to the slowly falling water level, "You succeeded."
Fu Shaoping tried to sit up, but frowned in pain. Nangong Wan then discovered that there was a deep wound on his leg, bleeding profusely. "Don't move!" She quickly tore open the hem of her shirt and bandaged him.
"Thank you, expert." Fu Shaoping said softly.
Nangong Wan shook his head: "Call me Wan Wan, comrade."
The rain finally began to ease. When the first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds, Fu Shaoping and Nangong Wan stood side by side on the embankment, watching the receding floodwaters. The town was devastated, but most of the houses were still standing, and residents began to clean up the streets.
"The rescue team will arrive today," Nangong Wan said. "The most difficult moment is over."
Fu Shaoping nodded, was silent for a while, and suddenly asked: "What are your plans next?"
Nangong Wan looked into the distance: "Originally I was just here to complete a temporary mission." She turned to Fu Shaoping with a smile on her face, "But now, I want to stay and help with the reconstruction. Geological monitoring is needed here to prevent secondary disasters."
Fu Shaoping's eyes softened: "I plan to stay too. After all, the people here are used to listening to my orders."
The two smiled at each other, the sun shining on their tired but determined faces. The disaster in Qingxi Town has not yet completely ended, but one thing is certain - in this land baptized by the flood, something stronger than reinforced concrete is taking root.
On the beginning of spring of the third year after the disaster, the remaining monks and mortals in Qingyun Town gathered in the central square of the town.
Fu Shaoping stood on the half-broken monument, his blue shirt lifted by the mountain wind, revealing the "black iron heavy sword" without a tassel at his waist. Nangong Wan stood in the middle of the crowd, the needle of the compass in his hand trembled slightly, pointing to the north - there was the "Zangyin Slope" with the strongest evil spirit, even the weeds had barbs.
"The academy should be built on the site of the old Sword Pavilion!" The white-bearded elder slammed the table and stood up. A yellowed map of the earth's veins flew out from his sleeve. "This place is full of spiritual energy and still has some residual sword spirit. It is the most suitable place for training sword cultivators!"
Several representatives of noble families echoed the sentiment, but Nangong Wan tapped the compass with his fingertips, and as the starlight shone, a yin-yang fish pattern emerged on the sand.
"Under Zangyin Slope is the base of the ancient 'Liangyi Locking Evil Array'." She said in a cold voice, "To practice here, one must constantly resist the erosion of evil spirits - but if one can endure it, those with a strong mind can use the power of the intersection of yin and yang to break through."
Everyone was shocked. A female cultivator said anxiously, "Let the children practice in the evil spirit? What if they go crazy and become possessed..."
"Chong-"
Fu Shaoping's heavy sword suddenly came out of its sheath three inches, and the sword energy split the half stone pillar ten feet away into two halves. The cross section of the stone pillar actually exuded a murderous aura like black blood, but it turned into green smoke when it came into contact with the sunlight.
"The immortal disaster three years ago, those who survived were those who could breathe in the evil spirit." He sheathed his sword and glanced at the crowd, "The world of cultivation has changed."
Finally, when Nangong Wan used cinnabar to draw the first talisman on the rock wall of Zangyin Slope, Fu Shaoping's heavy sword had already split the huge rock on the top of the slope. As the rubble rolled down, the ancient array patterns crisscrossing underground were exposed - those dark golden lines were wriggling like living things, slowly sucking the diffuse evil spirit into the ground.
-
Seven days later, the first batch of thirty apprentices stood on the newly leveled martial arts field. Most of them were orphans in the town, the oldest was only fifteen years old, and the youngest was only six years old.
At the end of the team, a thin girl stood barefoot, with purple veins showing under her ragged linen clothes - that is the characteristic of the Yin-veined body. Her name is Lin Xiaoman, her parents died in an outbreak of evil spirits, and she survived by stealing offerings from the grave. At this moment, she was secretly scratching her arm, where the skin was oozing black mist.
"Today I will teach you the general outline of the Great Derivation Secret." Seventy-seven forty-nine jade slips flew out of Nangong Wan's sleeves, forming a Zhoutian star map in the air. She tapped her fingertips, and the starlight turned into runes and fell into the sand table, and the sand grains arranged themselves into hexagrams.
"Heaven moves with vigor, and the gentleman follows..."
"Bang!" A muffled sound interrupted the lecture. On the west side of the martial arts arena, Fu Shaoping was throwing a wooden sword to Zhao Dachui, the son of the blacksmith. The young man was eight feet tall, with arms thicker than ordinary people's legs, but because he had no spiritual roots, he was rejected by various immortal sects.
"Use your blacksmith's strength to split it." Fu Shaoping pointed to the black ice crystals floating in front of him - that was the "Xuanyin Sha Bing" he took from deep in the earth. Ordinary magic weapons would break when touched by it.
Zhao Dachui's face flushed, and he swung the wooden sword and smashed it down fiercely. "Crack!" The wooden sword broke into two pieces, but the ice crystal did not move at all.
"No." Fu Shaoping picked up the broken sword and suddenly pulled it back with his backhand - there was no spiritual power fluctuation, and the sword was shaken into an arc purely by wrist strength. "Snap!" The ice crystal cracked a thin crack.
"A sword is not a hammer." He threw a new wooden sword to the boy. "The force should be like the water in a mountain stream. It looks soft, but it can drip through the stone."
Suddenly, the crowd cried out in surprise. Lin Xiaoman curled up on the ground, with black mist swirling around him, dyeing the hexagrams on the sand table ink-black.
"The evil spirit is backfiring!" An apprentice screamed and stepped back.
Nangong Wan stepped in front of the girl and pressed the compass directly between her eyebrows. A horrifying scene appeared - the black mist not only did not hurt Nangong Wan, but instead poured into the center of the compass like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.
"Did you see it?" Nangong Wan raised the glowing compass and said to the stunned apprentices, "This is the 'evil spirit root' recorded in the Xuanyin Sutra. It is a deadly poison in your eyes, but it is a magical medicine to her."
Fu Shaoping had stood behind the girl without her knowing, his heavy sword stuck three inches into the ground, and the iron chain hanging from the hilt just happened to encircle Lin Xiaoman's trembling shoulders.
"Tomorrow at noon, you two will come to the back mountain alone." He said to Lin Xiaoman and Zhao Dachui, "One will learn how to survive, and the other will learn how to split the mountain."
-
That night, Fu Shaoping carved bamboo slips under candlelight.
"Do you really want to take that Yinmai girl in?" Nangong Wan pushed the door open and walked in, holding two bowls of medicinal soup in her hands. Her sleeves were stained with starlight, and it was obvious that she had just deduced the celestial phenomena.
Fu Shaoping said without even raising his head: "Three hundred years ago, the Xuanyin Patriarch was able to ascend to heaven by relying on evil spirit, so why can't she?" On the bamboo slips was the starting move of the Nine Styles of Evil Sword.
"But the Xuanyin Patriarch was struck by lightning and his soul was shattered." Nangong Wan drank the medicine soup in one gulp, and a golden light appeared in her throat - it was the medicine she refined with her own essence and blood. "I checked the classics, Lin Xiaoman's physique is closer to the 'Nine Nether Mysterious Woman Body', and needs to be harmonized by the 'Taiyin Suxinjing'..."
Before he finished speaking, there was a rustling sound outside the window. Fu Shaoping swung his sword and the wooden window opened.
Under the moonlight, Lin Xiaoman held a broken clay pot filled with freshly dug wild kudzu root. She stammered, "Medicine, medicine mother-in-law said this can replenish qi and blood..." Nangong Wan suddenly laughed. She took the clay pot, pulled out a jade hairpin from her bun, and gently inserted it into the girl's messy hair.
"Tomorrow I will teach you how to draw a talisman to ward off evil." She touched Lin Xiaoman's forehead with her fingertips, and a ray of moonlight shone in. "But remember, the talisman paper must be made from the bamboo you planted yourself."
At the same time, in the Zhendong blacksmith shop, Zhao Dachui was staring at the oil lamp in a daze. On the table was the wooden sword given by Fu Shaoping, with cracks all over the blade from his attempts to chop. His father's voice came from the inner room: "The immortal masters love to tease mortals. Tomorrow..."
"Snap!" The young man suddenly broke the wooden sword and used red-hot iron pliers to fuse the two broken swords into a cross shape. The molten iron splashed on his arm, emitting green smoke, but he grinned: "The cracks in the ice crystals are split diagonally..."
Three months after Qingyun Academy was founded, the first batch of apprentices were able to barely draw on spiritual energy, but the spiritual medicines and monster materials needed for cultivation were becoming increasingly scarce.
One day, Nangong Wan was studying the stars on the top floor of the library, when she suddenly saw the compass needle tremble violently, pointing to the northwest direction of the "Black Mist Forest" - where evil spirits were surging and there was a faint demonic aura rising to the sky. She tapped her fingertips, and a vague picture emerged on the sand table: a giant python was perched on an ancient tree, its scales glowing with a cold blue light, it was the "Xuan Yin Python".
"This python gall can cure the 'bone-eating poison', which is just right for harmonizing Lin Xiaoman's yin meridians." She put away the compass, turned around and walked towards the martial arts field.
Fu Shaoping was instructing Zhao Dachui in swordplay. The boy was sweating all over, and his wooden sword had broken into three pieces, but he still gritted his teeth and repeated the chopping motion. When Nangong Wan approached, Fu Shaoping did not even turn his head: "You want me to be a laborer again?"
"Organize a hunting team and go into the mountains to hunt monsters." She threw a jade slip to him, "I've prepared the list."
Fu Shaoping scanned with his spiritual sense and raised his eyebrows slightly: "Tomb robber, poisonous woman, defected disciple - you are good at picking people."
"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary people." Nangong Wan gathered starlight on his fingertips and outlined three human figures in the air.
-
Chen San was once a well-known tomb robber in Nanling. After digging up a tomb of an ancient monk, his left eye was infected by evil spirits, and his pupil turned into a dark green, which allowed him to see the flow of Yin energy that ordinary people could not perceive. When the immortal disaster broke out, he relied on this pair of "ghost eyes" to escape several fatal disasters, but he was also hunted down by righteous monks and eventually ended up in Qingyun Town.
When Fu Shaoping found him in the dilapidated temple in the west of the town, Chen San was telling fortunes with an animal bone. Beside him were a dozen rotten rat corpses - those were the "materials" he used to test toxicity.
"Will you let me go into the mountains with you?" Chen San grinned, revealing his gold-studded canine teeth. "Okay, but I want three things: a pot of 'Soul-breaking Brew', a piece of 'Evil Iron', and..." He stared at Fu Shaoping's heavy sword with his one eye, "the iron chain on your hilt."
Fu Shaoping was silent for a moment, then took off the chain and threw it to him: "Do you know what this is?"
"It's the fragment of the Demon Sealing Lock." Chen San wrapped the chain around his wrist, his green eyes glowing with evil light, "In the tombs I dug, this thing was usually used to suppress corpses."
Sun was originally an outer disciple of Yaowang Valley, but was expelled from the sect for secretly studying poison. She lost the little finger on her right hand - she cut it off herself when testing medicine. After the immortal disaster, she relied on her ability to "fight poison with poison" to save dozens of townspeople who were infected with evil spirits.
When Nangong Wan entered the medicine room, Aunt Sun was stuffing a centipede into a wine jar. The medicine shelf in the room was filled with bottles and jars, with labels saying scary names like "Seven Steps to Broken Heart" and "Laughing Half Step to Madness".
"Xuan Yin python gallbladder?" Aunt Sun said without even raising her head. "The poison of that thing can make a Jindan cultivator lie down for half a month. How many of you are strong enough for it to kill you?"
Nangong Wan took out a spiritual herb with moonlight from his sleeve: "What if there is 'Moonlight Grass' to neutralize it?"
Aunt Sun raised her head suddenly, and snatched the spiritual herb with her missing finger: "Where did you get it? This thing only grows in..." She suddenly fell silent, and a trace of fear flashed in her cloudy eyes, "Dragon Burial Abyss?"
Li Qinghong was once an outer disciple of Tianji Pavilion. He was abolished for practicing the forbidden technique "Soul-stealing Arrow" privately. He has a hideous scar on his right arm - it was left by the "Soul-slaying Whip" of Tianji Pavilion. During the Immortal Disaster, he shot and killed three evil monsters with his mortal body, and was called "Flying Feather" by the townspeople.
When Fu Shaoping found him at the archery range, Li Qinghong was aiming at a copper coin a hundred steps away with his arrowless bow. The bowstring vibrated, and the copper coin was split in half by the invisible energy.
"The Soul-stealing Arrow emphasizes spiritual awareness over spiritual power, which is just right for this world where spiritual energy is depleted." Fu Shaoping threw him a black iron arrow, "But your arrow is still missing the ingredient 'Soul-killing'."
Li Qinghong caught the arrow, his fingertips trembling slightly: "You want me to kill the demon and capture its soul?"
"No." Fu Shaoping pointed to the scar on his right arm, "I want you to refine the resentment of this 'Soul-Slaying Whip' into arrow intent."
-
Five days later, the hunting team entered the Black Mist Forest.
The forest was filled with thick fog, and Chen San's ghost eyes glowed green: "Thirty steps to the left, there is something underground."
Aunt Sun squatted down and dug up the rotten leaves, revealing a piece of bone - the bone was covered with fine tooth marks. She dipped some soil and sniffed: "It's the excrement of the Xuanyin python, no more than three days old."
Li Qinghong suddenly put an arrow on the bowstring: "There is something on the tree."
Everyone looked up and saw a giant python as thick as a bucket coiled between the branches of a ten-foot-high ancient tree. Its dark blue scales almost blended into the mist. The python flickered its tongue and looked down at everyone coldly with its vertical pupils.
Nangong Wan took out seven bronze flags and inserted them around the python's nest according to the direction of the Big Dipper.
"The Seven Star Demon Locking Formation is complete, but it can only trap it for half a quarter of an hour." She looked at Fu Shaoping, "When taking out the gallbladder, you must cut through the heart, otherwise the poisonous blood will contaminate the gallbladder."
Fu Shaoping nodded, and slowly drew his heavy sword out of its sheath. The sword had no luster at all, as if it could even swallow up the light.
The battle broke out with the sound of a bow.
Li Qinghong's arrow flew through the air and accurately shot into the python's left eye. The Xuanyin python roared angrily, and its tail swept across, breaking the ancient tree that three people could hug together.
Fu Shaoping took the opportunity to charge forward and slashed at Qicun with his heavy sword. Unexpectedly, the python suddenly spewed out poisonous mist, and the black and purple mist instantly enveloped an area of ten feet.
“Retreat!” Nangong Wan made a hand gesture and activated the formation flag, and the starlight chain wrapped around the python.
Chen San groaned and fell to his knees - he was too close, the poisonous fog had penetrated into the ghost eye, and the left half of his face quickly turned blue and black.
Aunt Sun suddenly ripped open Chen San's collar, grabbed a handful of moon grass from the medicine bag and stuffed it into his mouth, while at the same time inserting a silver needle into a major acupoint on his neck.
"Swallow it! This grass can temporarily suppress the toxicity!" She tore open her sleeves, revealing a row of poison sacs on her forearm. She actually scratched one of them with her fingernails and dripped black venom on Chen San's eyelids.
What’s horrifying is that after the venom mixed with the moon grass juice, the blue-black color on Chen San’s face began to fade.
"Fight poison with poison..." Nangong Wan's pupils shrank slightly, "You used the poison of the 'Green Phosphorus Snake'?"
Aunt Sun grinned and said, "Why else do you think I cut off my own fingers?" (End of this chapter)