A Guide to Self-Rescue in the Cultivation World - Chapter 19

“Don’t let them lead you around by the nose,” the Master’s voice was very soft.

The simple sentence acted like a blade of ice cutting through everything. It didn’t harm Zhou Suyao’s consciousness, but it forcefully quelled the surging demonic power in her heart.

It was as if the words weren’t meant for her, but for the profound resentment deep within her soul.

“I understand,” Zhou Suyao replied.

Master said nothing more, only giving her a deep look. The gaze seemed to hold a power capable of seeing through all her fear and confusion.

But that was all it was—a single glance. He quickly withdrew his attention and turned back toward the enormous, unsettling mass grave.

Yet, it only lasted an instant.

“This place is simply overflowing with resentment! Bad luck!” Master plucked a bit of dust from the edge of the pit, his frown deepening. He then stood up and clapped the dirt from his hands. “This place! They don’t even bother to clean it up! Are they waiting for people who miss the road to just fall in?! This is too unlucky!”

He grumbled and complained, as if that moment of profound solemnity was just Zhou Suyao’s imagination. Her Master was back to being the same crude, unkempt old man who scratched his feet.

But she had seen it clearly.

The instant her Master turned away, underneath the cover of his greasy, messy hair, a flash of all-encompassing compassion quickly crossed the depths of his slightly lowered eyes. That pity was as heavy as a mountain weighing ten thousand jin, yet he carefully masked it beneath a thick layer of dust and indifference.

She suddenly understood the source of the profound weariness in her Master.

A century ago, the woman named Ning Qinggui had carved an indelible mark on him with the flesh and bl00d of her entire clan. Since then, he had chosen to sink into the mire of the mundane world, using slovenliness to hide his powerlessness to turn the tide of that disaster.

Were she, Ming Luo, and all the others caught in this whirlpool, merely a few new chapters of grievance added to this long-running tragedy?

Zhou Suyao let out a soft sigh.

In front, Master dusted off his fingers and beckoned them to follow.

But before taking many steps, he stopped. In Zhou Suyao’s eyes, the habitually unkempt old man seemed to slump his shoulders.

He stretched out his arm, pointing toward the mass grave they had just passed.

“Take… one more look.”

Zhou Xuqing’s aged voice drifted back, carrying a fatigue born of walking through the dust of time, yet acting like a key that suddenly unlocked the door to the past.

Zhou Suyao, Qi Jie, and Qi Shuo Bei instinctively looked back at the huge, unsettling pit. The white bones scattered on the rim, the clotted bl00d deep in the soil—all silently attested to the horrific slaughter that had taken place there.

The stiflingly thick scent of bl00d, like an invisible ice pick, ruthlessly stabbed into the soul of everyone present.

Qi Shuo Bei gagged violently again. The retching pulled at his internal injuries, making everything he saw more acutely painful and unforgettable.

Qi Jie’s hand was clamped tightly around his sword hilt, his knuckles a horrifying dead white. Beside him, Zhou Suyao’s demonic spiritual power palpitated restlessly, as if forming a tragic resonance with the residual resentment in the pit.

In this stomach-churning silence, Zhou Xuqing slowly turned around. His body was still slightly hunched. The eyes under his messy hair held no alarm, no indignation, only an almost numb, all-seeing desolation.

He spoke softly:

“Three thousand years ago, this entire land was tens of thousands of times more horrific than this mass grave before you.”

“The Spiritual Dao then was not called a ‘Dao’ (Path), but a ‘Tomb,’ a living, man-eating purgatory.”

He slowly retracted his hand and turned back around, his eyes vacant. He shuffled slowly forward.

“The Heavenly Dao Royal Court viewed the people of the Human Dao as mere elixirs,” he stated calmly, seemingly having the leisure to tell the younger generation to keep up. “They set up a grand array, and under the guise of pursuing immortality, they trapped the Human Dao cultivators who sought the Way, absorbing their fortune and spiritual energy day and night, refining them into the purest essence of heaven and earth to be absorbed and cultivated by Heavenly Dao cultivators.”

“At that time, the Heavenly Dao was merely a puppet supported by the Spiritual Dao. They held the wealth and power of the human world and enjoyed the offerings of the Human Dao. The price was delivering tens of thousands of ‘human sacrifices’—the lowest of the common people, the civilians, and even minorly disgruntled cultivators—into the designated cauldrons of the Spiritual Dao.”

Hearing this, Zhou Suyao’s stomach flipped. The ‘Human Realm’ Master described overlapped with the suffering of the Demon Race she had seen in the illusion—the sallow, thin mortals, their eyes vacant. They were driven like lambs to the slaughter into this man-eats-man world.

Qi Jie’s face was also growing darker. Although the RaoTian Dao was the foremost sect in the world, the history Zhou Xuqing spoke of was only vaguely alluded to in their records, often using terms like “Ancient Chaos.” As a result, he had never before heard the naked truth of this story.

“Those Human Dao commoners once walked upon the soil of this Imperial City,” Master scoffed. “Their flesh, their souls, along with their desire for life and their fear of death, all became the refined ‘Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy.’ And the residue left after they were refined.

That is the stuff in this pit before you.“

At this, Qi Jie could no longer hold back and violently retched. Since his stomach was empty, only sour bile came up.

He was born into an aristocratic family and understood the cruelty of acquiring power, but he had never imagined that the very ground beneath their feet was built upon such a horrifying foundation.

“But,” Zhou Suyao frowned beside him, voicing a thought that brought him even greater dread, “I can see white bones in that mass grave wearing clothing from the current dynasty. They look like… they haven’t been dead for very long.”

Hearing this, Qi Jie’s throat tightened again, and the nausea returned even more fiercely than before.

“That is, Master didn’t answer her directly. Instead, he smiled faintly and countered, “Then do you know, girl… when this sort of Spiritual Dao came to an end?”

Zhou Suyao shook her head, her neck stiff with dread, making a creaking sound.

“The lives of the Human Dao were less than livestock. They were penned like swine, waiting to be dragged to the altar at any moment. The Heavenly Dao Royalty, blinded by the desire for rule, willingly served as their lackeys, hunting their own kind. And the Spiritual Dao sat enthroned in the clouds. They didn’t care about this endless sacrifice; they only cared about how to maintain it.”

 Until…

 His aged voice softened considerably. A Celestial Maiden appeared within the Spiritual Dao.

“No one knows her exact origin. Some say she was an ancient deity of the Spiritual Dao; others say she was a goddess who descended from ancient legends. Still others say she was merely a cultivator in the Spiritual Dao who witnessed a mother and son thrown into the cauldron, witnessed the children refined right after birth, and witnessed where the spiritual energy that nourished her came from. And so, her Dao Heart shattered at that moment.”

“She understood, and she saw clearly, that the root of this entire cycle was the ‘Spiritual Dao’ itself.”

“So, she did a deed that shocked the heavens and wept ghosts.”

Master took a deep breath.

“It was an unimaginable confrontation… She, alone, fought against the will of the entire Spiritual Dao leadership, against a ‘tradition’ and so-called ‘rules’ that had persisted for millennia. The Elders of the various Spiritual Dao sects, all the vested interests under the original Spiritual Dao rules, instantly tried to tear her body apart and incinerate her soul—only, these selfish beings never imagined that someone truly would…”

“In that great battle, she used the countless spiritual powers cast against her to refine her own body into a flower. This flower was deeply buried in the earth, becoming an immutable law.”

All things have spirit. They live and perish together. Those who use the souls, flesh, and bl00d of living beings as fuel for cultivation will have their foundation destroyed and their souls consumed.

He paused, his gaze slowly falling upon the faces of the three young people who were stunned beyond words, his expression complex and unreadable.

“So… Suyao, now do you understand why the white bones in those mass graves are there?”

Hearing this, Zhou Suyao closed her eyes and nodded softly.

The flower created a millennium ago, at the cost of a body’s destruction, had seemingly fulfilled its mission. And the Spiritual Dao, no longer bound by its compulsory magic, had long since devolved.

Or perhaps…

Zhou Suyao suddenly snapped her eyes open.

Just as she tried to continue her conversation with Master about the legendary flower, countless puppet-like palace maids and eunuchs suddenly appeared before them.

Qi Jie abruptly drew his sword, saying coldly, “We can talk about the legendary flower and the Celestial Maiden later. Now doesn’t seem like the best time for a chat.”

“Of course.” Master nodded, his hand gently pressing down the sword Qi Jie had drawn. “Young one, best stand back for now. If I fail, you can always carry my corpse and run.”

With that, he formed a hand seal. The world instantly transformed into a heart-warming golden hue. In the blink of an eye, the grotesquely moving puppets collapsed to the ground. Looking at Master, there wasn’t a speck of dust on him.

He slowly lowered his hand, utterly calm, as if the comforting golden light that had filled the air was not his doing, but merely an illusion.

Just as the three younger people prepared to applaud, Zhou Suyao, with her sharp eyes, noticed that the puppets were beginning to twitch violently. With a grotesque, twisting motion, they were trying to climb back to their feet.

She couldn’t help but yell, “Master! Look!”

Before the words were fully out, the puppets had already twisted their bodies back upright. The skin on their bodies, like clothing, was slowly peeled off, revealing the terrifying white bones beneath.

A rough count… at least two hundred corpses.