The Six Yin Spirits

Jade Qiong Mountain, Purity Immortal Temple.

Song Qiuyue and the others also witnessed the strange changes in the sky.

A blazing sun and a crimson moon appeared together.

Day and night were thrown into confusion.

Though they did not know what exactly was happening, an unspeakable fear and anxiety gripped their hearts.

In the face of the collapse of heaven and earth, it did not matter if you were a True Lord of the Nascent Soul or a scion of a noble family.

All were as insignificant as ants.

“This... this...”

Zhao Hai and the other cultivators could barely speak, stammering repeatedly, unable to utter a complete sentence.

It was Song Qiuyue whose expression was most bewildered.

She was the daughter of an old, well-established clan, and the Song family was one of the great houses with a deep heritage.

Naturally, the information she had access to far surpassed that of ordinary cultivators.

She had once glimpsed secrets in her family’s hidden records that could not be shared with outsiders.

The confusion of day and night.

This was a phenomenon that only appeared when the world itself transformed.

Before the change, the link between the human world and the Underworld had not yet been severed; there were even cultivators in the world who could ascend to immortality.

But after the transformation, evil things were born.

Spiritual energy vanished with every moment.

Once night and day were again set apart, all cultivators, regardless of their ability, disappeared.

Even immortals were not spared.

Even refining one’s body with mortal energy could only achieve the eight-hundred-year lifespan of a Nascent Soul Lord.

Cultivators pursued immortality, eternal life.

Naturally, they would not resign themselves to this fate, but no matter how extraordinary your talent, how peerless your brilliance, it was useless; you would either turn to dust, or instantly become a god.

Of course, you might also become something evil and strange.

There were no other choices.

Some even speculated:

Mortal energy was not spiritual energy.

The sky of today was not the sky of old.

The laws of today were not the laws of old.

Were people of today, then, not the same as those of old?

All of this was recorded in the Song family’s secret annals.

The one who wrote them was the family’s ancestor. He did not know if the cultivator’s speculation was true, only that the man had died a terrible death.

His body was pulverized, his clan wiped out.

No one who knew dared speak of it.

Spiritual energy is spiritual energy.

The sky is the sky, the laws of today are the laws of today.

People are people, from ancient times to now it has always been thus.

And just then—

A flash of golden light streaked across the sky, passing over Song Qiuyue and the other cultivators, and vanished into the Purity Immortal Temple.

A brass oil lamp carried the unconscious Chen Huangpi.

It sped straight for the temple’s main hall.

As if it knew the lamp was about to enter, the great doors of the hall swung open without a breath of wind.

Within, sandalwood incense curled through the air.

A Daoist priest in dark blue-black robes sat cross-legged facing the entrance.

“Temple Master...”

The brass oil lamp recognized at once that this was neither the Grand Master in purple nor the Second Master in white, but the very Temple Master whom Chen Huangpi longed to cure—the one who patrolled the mountains daily, forbidding any calamity in the Ten-Thousand Mountains, the one who seemed capable of anything.

“Temple Master, please save Chen Huangpi!”

Tears welled in the lamp’s eyes.

But the Temple Master did not reply; he merely gestured, and the lamp reverted to its true form.

Chen Huangpi floated before him.

Though old and thin, his hair white as snow, the Temple Master was taller than most.

Even seated, he was eye to eye with Chen Huangpi.

The brass oil lamp dared not utter a sound.

It could only watch anxiously as the Temple Master set Chen Huangpi across his knees and brushed the dust from his clothes.

Beyond that, the Temple Master made no further move.

This drove the brass oil lamp nearly mad with worry, and at last it blurted out, “Temple Master, Chen Huangpi isn’t breathing! Please, save him!”

At these words,

The Temple Master finally glanced at the lamp and let out a quiet chuckle. “No harm done. Huangpi is simply in a hurry to grow, that’s all.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

“But—”

“Huang Er, you truly are blind to the moment.”

The Temple Master teased, “It’s rare for me to be awake for so long—let me look at him a little longer. Next time we meet, he’ll be grown.”

“Temple Master.”

“Mm?”

The brass oil lamp hesitated, then said, “Outside, sun and moon share the sky. Night and day are confused again. Is the world changing once more?”

“Yes and no.”

The Temple Master nodded, then shook his head, but his gaze never left Chen Huangpi.

“The great change has not yet ended. Where did you get ‘again’ from?”

The lamp replied, “When you made me, I heard you say that after the transformation, in six days and six nights, day and night would be divided again. Now the signs have returned—isn’t this a second time?”

“Six is the extreme of yin, nine the extreme of yang.”

“Yin and yang are ever intertwined, inseparable; yin is yin, yang is yang, from the extreme of yin comes yang, from the extreme of yang comes yin.”

The Temple Master’s voice was enigmatic, cutting to the heart of the world’s transformation: “The Ten-Thousand Mountains are where the sun sets first and the moon rises first. So the changes always begin here—first the extreme of yin, then the extreme of yang.”

“The extreme of yin is fated; I will not interfere. But as for this extreme of yang...”

The Temple Master quietly spoke three words:

“I do not approve.”

Those three words struck the brass oil lamp to its core.

It was so moved, even its oil seemed to boil.

It was all it could do to keep from bowing and calling him ‘Master’ as Chen Huangpi did.

But at the last moment,

The lamp reverted to flattery. “Temple Master, to have been made by you is the fortune of my life. The name you gave me is lovely. I’ll never run off like Huang Yi—I’ll stay in this temple, always by Chen Huangpi’s side, protecting him for life.”

“You have heart, at least.”

The Temple Master rarely glanced its way, joking, “But you’re too talkative, always thinking ill of me, though you won’t dare say it aloud, only composing secret complaints in your heart. This must stop—”

He broke off suddenly.

The brass oil lamp thought the Temple Master was angry, and hurried to promise, “Yes, yes, I won’t do it again!”

“No need for that.”

He waved a hand, saying, “I knew your nature when I made you. Just be yourself, but mind your words—don’t lead Huangpi astray.”

With that, he set Chen Huangpi down.

Only then did the brass oil lamp notice that, at some point, Chen Huangpi’s chest was rising and falling in steady rhythm.

It truly was as the Temple Master said.

He was simply in a hurry to grow.

“Temple Master, are you going to deal with the yang extreme?”

The lamp meant the strange phenomenon in the sky.

As the Temple Master passed by it, he replied without looking back, “This is no true yang extreme, just a phantom born in these mountains. If I do not permit it, even this illusion will fade.”

“Look—gone already.”

The brass oil lamp looked up and saw that the blazing sun which had risen behind the red moon had already vanished in an instant.

There was still an hour until dawn.

So now, it was night.

The lamp’s thoughts surged; it wanted to flatter the Temple Master, but his figure was nowhere to be seen.

...

Outside the Purity Immortal Temple.

For no apparent reason, a breeze swept past.

The thick white mist that had trapped Song Qiuyue and the others on Jade Qiong Mountain instantly dispersed, as if it had never been.

“The strange fog is gone?”

Only now did the cultivators realize

They had been standing right before the temple’s grand mountain gate.

“Look! The writing above the gate has changed!”

Someone cried out in alarm. Looking up, they saw that the characters, which had previously spelled out “Purity Immortal Temple,” had somehow changed to “Suppression Immortal Temple.”

More uncanny still,

With the mist gone, the temple looked utterly different from what they had seen by day.

It was larger, with countless new buildings appearing out of nowhere.

No, that was not all.

The cultivators looked up—

And their bodies went limp with terror; all of them fell to their knees.

There was no pressure, no oppressive aura,

They had merely glimpsed vast, indistinct figures behind the temple—shapes both divine and demonic.

“Run! Run!”

Song Qiuyue thought only of escape.

She did not know what had happened, but this was a rare chance.

The farther she fled, the better.

At night, flying was impossible for cultivators at the temple, lest the evil things detect them and attack in hordes.

But she had brought sixty guardian deities.

They should have been enough to shield them and fly out of the mountains by night.

Yet,

The sixty deities gave her only one command:

“Stay low. Don’t move.”

Song Qiuyue had no time to think before the sound of footsteps approached from overhead.

The footsteps drew closer and closer.

No one dared lift their head.

Only when the steps halted before them did Song Qiuyue, from the corner of her eye, glimpse a pair of Daoist shoes.

The shoes were dark blue-black.

Not white, not purple, not blue.

It was that uncanny old Daoist.

Song Qiuyue’s face turned ashen. She dared not even tremble, but pressed herself lower, clinging to the earth like a worm.

...

At this moment,

Deep within the Ten-Thousand Mountains,

Thunder rumbled incessantly.

The ground quaked, trees toppled.

The mutated idol howled at the sky, destroying everything in its path.

Black smoke poured from its body, burning the earth black.

Just then,

The idol froze, its huge hands stilled mid-swing, the great eyes in its palms reflecting the form of a gaunt old Daoist.

He wore a blue-black robe.

Though tall, before the idol’s massive body, he was smaller than an ant.

With a thud,

The idol dropped to its knees.

Even the black smoke retreated into its body.

Its hands came together in ceaseless supplication.

The mouth on its chest opened and closed, as if pleading for mercy.

“Still so talkative, even with your throat bone torn out.”

The Temple Master said coldly, “I brought you all here from the Great Qian, and made the consequences clear from the start. But when I went mad, you all tried to escape. Fine. But you—after a little suffering, you want back in? It’s not so easy.”

“Now you’ve become something evil and wanted to eat Huangpi—truly unfilial!”

“If you weren’t the last deity remaining in these mountains, I’d reduce you to dust here and now.”

His voice bore no supernatural force.

No thunder, no raging wind.

But the idol trembled in terror, bowing again and again.

Stripped of its black smoke, it seemed almost lucid again, like the pitiful deity Chen Huangpi had often stolen offerings from.

But wrong is wrong.

Regret was useless now.

With a gesture, the Temple Master caused the idol’s body to burst open, a great chunk of flesh flying free.

Unlike the other idols of clay or wood, this one was truly flesh and blood.

Its meat gave off a pure fragrance, unmarred by any impurity—no trace of black smoke remained.

In a blink, it transformed into a platter of fruits and cakes and flew into the Temple Master’s hand.