60. The Demon Tree: Death and Resurrection

Chen Huangpi was stunned.

He had never considered what he would do if his master could not awaken.

Now, the sudden remark from the brass oil lamp made him lower his head and ponder deeply. Chen Huangpi muttered to himself, "My master and I have depended on each other for so many years, our bond like that of father and son. If my master never wakes up, then... wouldn't I become the abbot of the temple?"

As soon as these words left his mouth, the brass oil lamp was dumbfounded.

It had expected Chen Huangpi to get angry, or at least to refute the suggestion. It had never imagined this outcome.

The brass oil lamp, having been created by the abbot, naturally felt a connection to him. If the abbot hadn't gone mad and taken to grinding his teeth on it whenever he had nothing better to do, it would never have schemed to escape every day.

But hearing Chen Huangpi speak like this now, the brass oil lamp was overwhelmed.

"Chen Huangpi, I underestimated you. I thought you were just a little mischievous, but it turns out you're truly devious."

"You've been biding your time, pretending to be innocent, all for this day, haven't you?"

Chen Huangpi scratched his head in confusion. "Huang Er, what are you talking about? I don't understand."

"Stop pretending—it's just us here," the brass oil lamp laughed. "You knew the abbot would never let you leave the Great Ten-Thousand Mountains, so anger brewed in your heart, you grew bold, and simply gave him a pill to knock him out. Then you waited for me to help you escape!"

"After all, I possess the Light of Escape—no matter how vast the world, we could reach anywhere in an instant."

Convinced it had uncovered the truth, the brass oil lamp was delighted.

Having a friend this cunning finally set its mind at ease.

Chen Huangpi looked completely bewildered.

He was only trying to cure his master's illness. Once his master was well, he intended to care for him in his old age.

How had he become someone who feigned ignorance, waiting for a chance to escape the Great Ten-Thousand Mountains?

He was about to explain when, suddenly, his brow furrowed—he sensed a chilling, hair-raising presence.

The sensation came from the Pure Immortal Temple.

More precisely, from the Old Temple.

"Huang Er, what is that?"

"Chen Huangpi, you feel it too?" The brass oil lamp's voice trembled with fear. "Something's coming out of the Old Temple—how is this possible?"

Its fragments had been divided by the abbot into thousands, each suppressing a corner of the Pure Immortal Temple.

All this was to prevent the Pure Immortal Temple from being devoured by the Old Temple.

There were countless terrifying, sinister things inside the Old Temple. Once within, if they didn't escape before dawn, they could never get out.

That was the rule, the law of the world.

But now, it seemed that rule had been broken.

"Impossible—impossible!" The brass oil lamp shook violently, preferring to believe it had seen wrong than to accept something could truly escape from within.

There were too many horrors in the Old Temple.

Some had been there from the beginning—like the evil spirits formed from deceased Taoists. Or the guardians of the Sutra Pavilion, Golden Horn and Silver Horn—though they were aberrations, they had ceased mutating and posed less of a threat.

Even if the Old Temple truly lost control and these spirits escaped, they wouldn't dare act recklessly.

After all, the abbot was only sedated, not dead. Who would dare seek death? What if he woke and annihilated them all with a single blow?

But more dreadful still were those the abbot, while lucid, had captured from across the Great Ten-Thousand Mountains and thrown into the Old Temple.

The abbot was, after all, the master of the mountains—life and death decided at a whim.

Any spirit he tossed into the Old Temple was either unspeakably wicked or a calamity of overwhelming malice.

If such things got out, they would never return.

Though no one knew why the abbot imprisoned so many, his actions always had purpose.

If any escaped and ruined his plans, at worst, Chen Huangpi might take a beating, but Huang Er would face true disaster.

Just then, a faint, nearly imperceptible ripple disturbed the mirror-like darkness.

The next moment—

A rustling sound, like wind stirring fallen leaves, broke the silence.

A withered branch extended from the gloom.

Dangling from it was a human-shaped fruit.

No, more accurately, a divine fruit.

It was truly a deity—emaciated as if all essence had been drained, skin clinging to bone, so ghastly a single glance could drive one mad, deranged, or twisted with dread.

"It's the Demon Tree!"

Chen Huangpi's eyes widened. "I remember now—Senior Master once joked about planting the Demon Tree. I never thought it was true."

"The Demon Tree has truly come back from the dead!"

"Back from the dead?" The brass oil lamp went pale. "No wonder it could escape the Old Temple!"

It wasn't that the Old Temple had failed, or the evil spirits were escaping.

The Demon Tree had returned to life.

This was a new existence.

The Old Temple would treat it as a first-time entrant.

And since it was still night, the Demon Tree could naturally leave; it was her only chance.

While Chen Huangpi and the brass oil lamp spoke, the Demon Tree's immense form—like a sky-piercing cosmic pillar—emerged from the darkness.

Its shadow enveloped the entire Pure Immortal Temple.

Countless branches thrashed wildly.

Forty-eight dried-up deities hung from its limbs—each already assimilated, now evil gods.

Moreover, innumerable human fruits, shriveled like ancient elders, clustered on the branches, densely packed without end.

Malice—thick, suffocating malice—radiated from the Demon Tree.

Every gesture unleashed waves of demonic fire, as if a fiend imprisoned for millennia had finally broken free.

A chorus of strange cries, neither weeping nor laughing, echoed through the air—a demonic symphony.

It was the exultation of the forty-eight evil gods and the uncountable human fruits, cheering in twisted delight.

But suddenly, their jubilation stopped short.

The Demon Tree's massive trunk froze.

It seemed to sense something.

Then, every human fruit lowered its head to gaze at Chen Huangpi.

Their eyes burned with murderous hatred.

"The Light of Escape!"

The brass oil lamp roared, its body blazing with dazzling brilliance.

A flaming wick pierced through the lamp, illuminating everything around.

Golden light, like the sun, banished all darkness.

But in the next instant—

The branches above stirred with a deafening rustle.

Twisting, serpentine limbs, thicker than ancient trees, wove together in the sky above the Pure Immortal Temple, their bark writhing like snakes, fusing in the blink of an eye to form a barrier of interlocked branches.

No matter how brightly the brass oil lamp shone, the light could not break through.

The Light of Escape could only spin in place, trapped.

Despair filled the brass oil lamp.

The Demon Tree had stumbled upon incredible luck—finally escaping the Old Temple. Any other spirit would have fled as far as possible.

But it seemed determined not to leave until Chen Huangpi was dead.

What grudge, what hatred was this?

"Chen Huangpi, did you exterminate its whole family? Why is it so bent on killing you?"

Chen Huangpi's face twisted in distress. "When I was a child, I planted a hawthorn tree, but it died before bearing fruit because I watered it too much."

"Hawthorn trees bear fruit, Demon Trees do, too—maybe they're related."

"But it's an evil spirit. Can it really be so sentimental?"

At these words, the Demon Tree's aura grew terrifying.

Crack—

At the center of the branch-woven barrier, a crack appeared.

It stretched nearly a hundred meters, like a giant eye snapping open.

A red moon served as its pupil, night as its iris.

The colossal demonic eye fixed on Chen Huangpi, brimming with resentment.

This was not its first resurrection.

But every time, it never forgot Chen Huangpi's face.

Because the hawthorn tree Chen Huangpi had drowned as a child—that was the Demon Tree.

But it was no ordinary fruit tree—how could it bear hawthorns?

The less it bore fruit, the more Chen Huangpi watered it.

Its roots rotted.

Yet by then, it had gained sentience.

It wanted to live—it didn’t want to die.

By day, it endured the agony of its roots dissolving.

By night, it struggled to grow new ones.

But Chen Huangpi was stubborn—thinking the tree needed more water, he soon watered it even at night.

It resisted for centuries, but in the end, it was still drowned.

Even in death, transformed into an evil spirit, it longed for revenge.

But before it could act, it had been thrown into the Old Temple.

Never to escape.

Until now—resurrected once more, it could finally crawl out and seek Chen Huangpi’s life.

A strange vibration sounded.

It was the Demon Tree’s giant eye trembling.

Chen Huangpi couldn't help but look up at the immense eye—red moon for a pupil, night for an iris.

Within the demonic eye, the red moon pulsed, wicked and strange, glowing red as if it would bleed.

With the Demon Tree's arrival, the Pure Immortal Temple was sealed—there was nowhere to run.

Chen Huangpi closed his eyes and sensed the endless black smoke in his Kidney Shrine.

He summoned the energy within his kidneys, attempting to communicate with the six shadowy gods still forming in his mind.

If even Huang Er couldn't take him away, he would have to fight for his life.

There was still endless black smoke locked in his Kidney Shrine.

If he could open the temple gates, there was still a chance.

After all, it was because his Kidney Shrine needed to invite a god that the Demon Tree had returned to life.

But just then—

Within the giant demonic eye, the red moon's pupil blazed with blood. A towering pillar of crimson light crashed down upon the Pure Immortal Temple—upon Chen Huangpi himself.

"Chen Huangpi! I'll buy you some time!"

The brass oil lamp cried out, green ghost-fire blazing in its eyes.

Its body lost its earlier luster, turning instead the color of corroded bronze.

A chilling, eerie, murky aura poured off of it.

"Fire—come!"

The lamp's voice was icy, like a bitter wind from the underworld.

It spat forth a thick, ghostly green fire that hurtled straight for the pillar of blood.

Yet the brass oil lamp did not stop.

It hurled itself into the inferno.

The ghost-fire surged to new heights.

The pillar of blood and the ghostly green flames clashed with a thunderous roar.

For a moment, their unnatural lights devoured all color.

"Aaah!"

The brass oil lamp screamed in agony—its body was indestructible, but not immune to pain.

Even with all its might, the ghost-fire could not hold back the blood-colored pillar.

With a crash, the brass oil lamp landed heavily at Chen Huangpi's feet.

It tried to rise, but the blood-red light crashed down toward Chen Huangpi.

At that instant, Chen Huangpi’s eyes snapped open. He shouted, "Kidney Shrine—open!"

Boom!

The endless black smoke answered his will, shattering the doors of the Kidney Shrine.

The next moment, billowing black smoke surged skyward.

Standing amid the smoke, Chen Huangpi raised his head to face the towering Demon Tree.

"The Kidney Shrine is open—why don't you hurry in?"