The Daxia Dynasty, Jinling City.
As the largest cultivation city within tens of thousands of miles, Jinling City's walls stood a full hundred zhang tall. Constructed entirely from black adamantite, they were densely carved with defensive runes. From afar, the enormous city resembled an ancient primordial beast crouching upon the earth, radiating an ancient pressure that made it hard to breathe.
The city itself was even more bustling. Its streets were wide enough for several demon-beast spirit carriages to race side by side. Shops lined both sides in neat rows, while hawkers' cries and demon-beast roars rose and fell in waves.
There were no mortals here. Everywhere one looked, there were cultivators from all over.
The Gu Yue clan's procurement caravan slowly entered the city. Three late-stage Qi Condensation “one-horned rhinos” hauled a massive spirit carriage loaded with spirit stones and ancient beast materials that the Gu Yue clan had prepared to exchange for supplies.
Dressed in blue, Fang Cunsheng sat unobtrusively at the very back of the caravan. His eyes were slightly closed, seemingly resting, but in truth, the stone fragment in his sea of consciousness was spinning furiously, taking in the countless threads of cause and effect projected from the entirety of Jinling City.
“As expected of Jinling City. Its cause and effect are intertwined—tens of millions of times more complicated than the Gu Yue clan's inner estate.”
Fang Cunsheng mused inwardly. Here, he could even faintly sense several terrifying fluctuations of cause and effect belonging exclusively to Core Formation and even Nascent Soul old monsters. They were like abysses lurking in the darkness, making people afraid to look directly at them.
“Junior Brother Fang, once we reach Tianbao Pavilion, you're in charge of moving the medicinal materials. Keep your eyes open. If you damage even one spirit herb, we couldn't pay for it even if we sold you!”
At the front of the caravan, a silver-robed disciple riding a Windtreader Horse turned around and spat viciously at Fang Cunsheng.
The man's name was Gu Yue Qiang. He was a distant relative of Gu Yue Hai's branch and the leader of this procurement team. His cultivation had reached the seventh level of Qi Condensation. Along the way, he had received Li Da's death order: find an opportunity to completely eliminate Fang Cunsheng in Jinling City. Thus, he showed Fang Cunsheng no goodwill whatsoever, doing everything he could to isolate and oppress him.
Fang Cunsheng slowly opened his eyes, revealing an appropriately servile and “frightened” expression. He nodded repeatedly. “Senior Brother Qiang, rest assured. This disciple will handle everything with the utmost care. I would never dare make a mistake.”
“Hmph. A lowly slave is a lowly slave. Mud can never be raised into a wall.”
Gu Yue Qiang gave a contemptuous snort and turned away, exchanging a glance with several trusted disciples beside him. They understood immediately. The looks they gave Fang Cunsheng were as cold as if they were already looking at a dead man.
Half an hour later, the caravan stopped before a towering seven-story building in the center of Jinling City.
Above its entrance, three characters written in sweeping golden lacquer strokes shone brilliantly, faintly emanating Dao resonance—Tianbao Pavilion.
The power behind Tianbao Pavilion was unimaginably vast. It was said that even the imperial family of the Daxia Dynasty held a stake in it. Its branches were spread throughout the various immortal cities, and its foundations were unfathomably deep. Even a power as formidable as the Gu Yue clan had to follow the rules and behave properly here.
“The honored guests of the Gu Yue clan have arrived! Quickly, this way!”
A shrewd steward with a thin mustache had been waiting at the entrance. The moment he saw Gu Yue Qiang's token, he hurried over with a fawning smile.
“Steward Xu, our Gu Yue clan's young master Wuxia is about to be married. This is the procurement list personally drafted by Chief Steward Xu. We want only the best of everything!” Gu Yue Qiang said with an arrogant smile as he tossed over a jade slip.
Steward Xu accepted the jade slip and swept it with his divine sense. The smile on his face immediately deepened. “Of course, of course. The Gu Yue clan is a major customer. However... the last three three-thousand-year-old Frostblood Ginseng on the list are in rather short supply, since so many supreme powerhouses have recently flooded into Jinling City. As it happens, Tianbao Pavilion is holding a small private treasure appraisal today. If the honored guests don't mind, you can follow me to the VIP hall in the back. Those ginsengs are about to be appraised at the gathering.”
“Oh? A private treasure appraisal? Then this young master certainly has to broaden his horizons.” Gu Yue Qiang's eyes lit up.
The Gu Yue clan disciples accompanying him also revealed excited expressions. Gatherings of this level were extremely rare, and they might get to see many priceless treasures.
“You lot, unload the ancient beast materials from the carriage and hand them over to Tianbao Pavilion's workers. As for you—”
Gu Yue Qiang suddenly turned around and pointed at Fang Cunsheng, sneering. “Fang Cunsheng, since you came from the outer estate and have never seen the wider world, follow Steward Xu inside. You're responsible for carrying the jade boxes meant to hold the spirit herbs right against your body. If you so much as chip one corner, this young master will slap you on the spot!”
“Yes, this disciple obeys.”
Fang Cunsheng lowered his head and followed the main group step by step.
The instant he lowered his head, purple radiance erupted in his eyes. Within his vision of cause and effect, a sinister black-and-red thread of cause and effect atop the seemingly shrewd Steward Xu's head was tightly entangled with the hem of Gu Yue Qiang's robe.
“Interesting...”
Fang Cunsheng sneered inwardly. It seemed Gu Yue Hai and Li Da had more tricks up their sleeves. They had actually bribed a steward in charge within Tianbao Pavilion as well. This so-called “private treasure appraisal” was clearly a deadly trap aimed at Fang Cunsheng—or rather, a massive black hole prepared to swallow their entire procurement team.
After passing through several corridors covered in high-level defensive formations, they arrived in an extraordinarily luxurious enclosed hall.
At the center of the hall stood a huge circular platform built from warm jade. More than a dozen cultivators with deep and unfathomable auras were already seated around it. Every one of them had concealed their features with secret techniques. The weakest spiritual fluctuation they emitted was actually at ninth-level Qi Condensation, and two Foundation Establishment powerhouses were even seated in a corner.
Gu Yue Qiang swaggered into the right-side VIP seats with his people. Fang Cunsheng, meanwhile, hugged several enormous white-jade boxes and stood obediently behind him, looking exactly like a lowly servant.
“Fellow Daoists, Tianbao Pavilion's private gathering begins today. The first treasure is the three-thousand-year-old Frostblood Ginseng reserved by the Gu Yue clan!”
As the seductive voice of a red-robed female cultivator rang out from the platform, a maid slowly walked onto the circular stage carrying a brocade box carved entirely from polar ice.
The brocade box opened. In an instant, an intense blood aura mixed with bone-chilling cold rippled through the hall. Inside lay three strange ginseng roots, blood-red from top to bottom yet covered in a layer of dark-blue frost. The ginsengs had even faintly taken on human shapes, and their spiritual energy was astonishing.
“What a treasure!” Gu Yue Qiang could not help slapping the table, his eyes filled with greed. If he could skim one of these and consume it himself, breaking through to the eighth level of Qi Condensation would be just around the corner.
Yet the instant Fang Cunsheng, standing behind him, saw the three Frostblood Ginseng roots clearly, his pupils suddenly contracted.
In his Eye of Cause and Effect, the lines connected to the tops of those three ginsengs were not pure spiritual threads belonging to heavenly treasures at all. They were thick, ink-black threads of fiendish cause and effect, saturated with death aura and evil curses!
Those death-laden threads were faintly condensing into the phantom image of an evil wraith covered from head to toe in white bone spikes.
【Cause-and-Effect Prompt: Counterfeit treasure, “White Bone Heart-Devouring Ginseng.” This poisonous object was forged by an evil-path demon cultivator using the vital blood essence of a thousand mortals together with white-bone withered vines. Its appearance is identical to Frostblood Ginseng, but once it falls into a cultivator's hands, the hidden “White Bone Blood Fiend” will erupt within the time it takes an incense stick to burn, turning every cultivator within a hundred zhang into blood.】
A poisonous object forged by an evil cultivator!
Fang Cunsheng's gaze abruptly shifted, stabbing toward the red-robed female cultivator on the platform and Steward Xu, who had brought them inside.
Just as expected! Nearly invisible karmic blood threads extended from the backs of both men, connecting to a gloomy mass grave outside Jinling City.
“The Black Witch Cult...”
The stone fragment in Fang Cunsheng's mind turned up a passage about the powers surrounding Jinling City. The Black Witch Cult was an evil-path sect wanted by the Daxia Dynasty, notorious for its ruthless methods. It seemed that Gu Yue Hai's branch was willing to collude with evil cultivators just to kill him.
Their plan was simple: have Gu Yue Qiang purchase the three counterfeit ginsengs, then specifically order Fang Cunsheng to carry them against his body. Once they left Jinling City and reached an uninhabited wilderness, the blood fiend inside the counterfeits would erupt. Fang Cunsheng, the ant responsible for carrying the boxes, would be reduced to ashes in an instant, without even his soul remaining.
As for Gu Yue Qiang and the others, they had most likely brought secret treasures capable of resisting the blood fiend. That way, they could both accomplish their goal of killing with a borrowed blade and pin all the blame on the evil cultivators and dead Fang Cunsheng. It was the perfect plan.
“Gu Yue Qiang, if you want my life, then I'll send every one of you on your way first.”
The killing intent in Fang Cunsheng's eyes had grown incredibly dense.
The purple-gold Buddha bones within his body roared furiously. Wisps of ancient, weathered cause-and-effect energy from the stone fragment silently seeped into the ground through his feet, traveling along the cracks between the jade floor tiles and extending straight beneath the ice-carved brocade box at the center of the circular platform.
“Shift cause and effect. Steal Heaven and change the sun!”
Fang Cunsheng let out a cold snort inwardly.
He had activated a brand-new divine ability awakened after the stone fragment reshaped his spiritual root.
In an instant, the black death-fiend threads on the three White Bone Heart-Devouring Ginseng roots began to shift secretly under the pull of the cause-and-effect energy. They had originally locked firmly onto Fang Cunsheng's fate, but in the blink of an eye, those death threads representing destruction and death were forcibly severed by Fang Cunsheng and bound tightly to the tops of Gu Yue Qiang's head and the heads of several trusted disciples of Gu Yue Hai within the hall!
That was not all. Fang Cunsheng also casually caused the karmic fortune of the two Foundation Establishment rogue cultivators resting with their eyes closed in the corner of Tianbao Pavilion's hall to form an extremely subtle repulsive connection with the three counterfeit ginsengs.
Once cause and effect fell into disorder, the secrets of Heaven would inevitably be overturned.
“Steward Xu, our Gu Yue clan will take these three Frostblood Ginseng roots! Name your price!” Gu Yue Qiang had no idea that a massive sword of Damocles was already hanging above his head. He stood up proudly and shouted.
Steward Xu exchanged a glance with the red-robed female cultivator on the platform. A sinister, triumphant smile flashed simultaneously in their eyes.
“Since a young master of the Gu Yue clan has spoken, Tianbao Pavilion will naturally show you every courtesy. Thirty thousand low-grade spirit stones. These three ginseng roots belong to the Gu Yue clan!” Steward Xu said with a beaming smile.
“Deal! Fang Cunsheng, you useless piece of trash, what are you waiting for?! Get your ass up here and put the ginseng in your white-jade box. Hold it tight for me!” Gu Yue Qiang abruptly turned around and barked at Fang Cunsheng.
“Yes... this disciple obeys.”
Fang Cunsheng walked forward obsequiously and extended a pair of slightly trembling hands. Under everyone's watchful eyes, he carefully placed the three “Frostblood Ginseng” roots, radiating astonishing cold, into the white-jade box in his arms.
The instant his fingers touched the ginseng, a strand of purple-gold cause-and-effect energy hidden deep within transformed into an invisible steel needle and viciously pierced into the counterfeit's core restriction.
The evil-path blood fiend that originally required the time it took an incense stick to burn before erupting... had its countdown forcibly shortened by Fang Cunsheng in an instant to less than ten breaths!
“Senior Brother Gu Yue Qiang, everything is packed.”
Fang Cunsheng carried the box back behind Gu Yue Qiang and lowered his head, his voice perfectly calm and devoid of even the slightest fluctuation.
“Good. Let's go back to the inner estate!”
Gu Yue Qiang threw back his head and laughed, waving his hand as he hurriedly led the remaining disciples out of the hall.
Watching the Gu Yue clan's departing backs, Steward Xu curled his lips into a cruel smile and silently counted in his heart. “One, two, three... The moment you leave Tianbao Pavilion's gates will be the moment you turn into blood.”
However, before he could count to five—
Boom—!
A blood-red explosion that shook heaven and earth erupted without warning at the instant Gu Yue Qiang's caravan reached the main entrance of Tianbao Pavilion's hall!
Terrifying black-and-red blood-fiend energy erupted like a flash flood, instantly drowning the entire luxurious hall!
In a single turn of cause and effect, blood stained Tianbao Pavilion!