Chapter 3: May You Rest in Peace

What is this thing…? Xu Qing’s eyes shone brightly as he thought back to how the corpse had been completely intact before he took the violet crystal away. It can keep corpses intact, and can also heal living people? Keeping a firm grip on the crystal, he looked around the area, his heart racing. He knew that there probably weren’t any other living people around, but nonetheless, he felt the need to be extra cautious. Of course, he also knew he couldn’t just stand around, so he started moving again, heading back toward his cave as quickly as possible. As he moved, he realized that not only was his wound healing rapidly, but also he felt a lot less weary. He was currently running at a speed that, normally speaking, he could only keep up for about an hour. However, he had already run for more than an hour, and he felt fine. In fact, he was still bursting with energy. He was even able to snatch a fallen bird as he moved along the road. He didn’t kill it. Instead, he rendered it unconscious; living creatures stayed fresh a lot longer. Finally, he reached the cave. There was still time before night fell, but he was already here. Despite his unheard-of good mood, he hadn’t suddenly become careless. He knew that, perhaps because of the opening of the god’s eye and the creation of the forbidden region, mutant beasts weren’t the only things that came out at night. There were also grues. Even back in the slums he’d been raised in, he’d heard stories about grues showing up in places where a lot of people had died. The laughter he occasionally heard out in the darkness came from one such creature. Everybody knew that you shouldn't look at, touch, or even get close to a grue. Based on Xu Qing’s experience, they always came out at night. However, he had no way of knowing for sure if they could appear during the daytime as well. Therefore, he didn’t slow down when he spotted his cave in the distance. Moving at top speed, he shot inside, then quickly sealed the crack. Only then did he sit down cross-legged and open his hands. Violet light radiated upward, illuminating the entirety of the small cave, and causing Xu Qing’s eyes to glitter with the same color. With complete focus, he stared down at the crystal. It was long and thin, about the same size as one of his fingers, and looked like it had something soft and downy inside. In fact, the violet light was coming from that substance inside the crystal. After a time, a thought occurred to him. Is my wound healed?  Pulling open the leather jerkin, he looked down as saw the wound was about ninety percent healed. The parts that weren’t healed wouldn’t take much longer to return to normal, and the scar tissue on the edges of the wound was starting to fade away. Given how hard he’d run, and how he didn’t feel tired, Xu Qing had already come to some conclusions about this crystal. It went without saying that the item had restorative properties. It could heal wounds, restore one’s strength, and replenish one’s life force! I wonder if it does anything else, he thought, his eyes shining thoughtfully. He wasn’t certain if this violet crystal had anything to do with the opening of the god’s eyes, but it seemed like a good possibility. Regardless, it was a precious treasure. He had never in his entire life heard of anything so spectacular. With something as useful as this in his possession, he might as well have a second life. However, the only reason he managed to get his hand on it was that he was the only living person in the city to find it. Once the blood rain stopped, and he left… how could he possibly keep the thing safe? He had to think of a good way to hide the violet crystal… After some thought, he pulled out the unconscious bird he’d picked up earlier. After binding its beak so it couldn’t cry out, he took the dagger from his thigh and sliced open a cut on the creature. The bird struggled vainly as Xu Qing then pushed the violet crystal into the wound. Then he kept his eyes wide open as he watched what happened. Despite the bird’s struggling, the air rippled and flowed with spirit power. In fact, there was far more spirit power at work than when Xu Qing practiced cultivation. And it all moved toward the bird. The bird suddenly struggled with much more force than before, until Xu Qing was having trouble restraining it. That caused his eyes to grow even wider. The bird was getting out of control. Usually, it would only take a bit of effort to snap the neck of a bird. But this time he had to try several times in a row before it worked. He quickly extracted the crystal from the bird’s body, examined it, then closed his eyes in thought. The bird didn’t die when I inserted the crystal. Instead, it received an influx of spirit power. And it also got a lot stronger. I’d say… this crystal isn’t dangerous. A moment later, he opened his eyes and, with complete resolve, shoved the violet crystal into the still-closing wound on his chest. Pain rippled through him, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. There could be no safer place to hide this thing than inside his own body. Besides, his experiment moments ago proved that having it inside him would bring significant benefits. As the crystal entered him, the wound continued to heal, and at the same time, he felt himself trembling. Then he saw flows of spirit power that surpassed anything from the bird experiment, rushing toward him from all directions, even out of the ground. It was such an astonishing volume that Xu Qing’s skin turned a faint green color. At the same time, intense coldness filled him from head to toe. That was because of the high level of mutagen in the spirit power. However, Xu Qing had been ready for that from the beginning. Without any hesitation, he started using the Sea and Mountain Incantation. As he did, the spirit power that entered him separated from the mutagen. Therefore, it was only pure spirit power that flowed through his meridians and into his body. A moment later, popping sounds rang out from inside him. It was almost as if silt that had been choking his insides was being cleared out. At the same time, his flesh and blood felt invigorated and healthy. Within his mind appeared the image of a goblin, extremely lifelike and energetic. Though the Sea and Mountain Incantation was a cultivation technique, it wasn’t a cultivation magic, but rather, a body refinement method. It was divided into ten levels that corresponded to the ten levels of Qi Condensation. His bamboo slip gave a clear introduction, explaining that each level provided the strength of a tiger. The strength of five tigers ultimately combined to make the strength of a goblin. And the strength of two goblins combined to make the strength of a hobgoblin. According to the popular saying, goblins can move mountains, hobgoblins can transport seas. And thus, the name of the technique came to be the Sea and Mountain Incantation. The violet crystal in his chest was like a whirlpool, constantly rotating as it sucked in masses of spirit power. Xu Qing’s cultivation advanced dramatically. It was hard to say how much time passed, but eventually, the popping sounds inside of him grew more and more intense. Filth oozed out of the pores in his body and a noxious aroma filled the little cave. As the filth emerged, Xu Qing’s body glittered like the morning dew. Though his face was covered with disgusting grime, it was clearly fairer than before. More time passed. Eventually, the flows of spirit power ceased, and Xu Qing opened his eyes. This time, they glittered with violet light. He looked around, stunned. The cave was pitch black, but he could actually see everything quite clearly. Next, he looked down at himself, and an expression of utter incredulity filled his face. This feeling…. Standing, he launched an experimental punch, and a sharp wind whipped through the cave. The cave was too small to test how fast he could run, but based on the sensations coming from his arms and legs, he knew that he had definitely surpassed what he was capable of before. Reaching up with his right hand, he pulled back the sleeve covering his left arm. When he saw a dark blotch the size of a fingernail there, he took a deep, excited breath. So, I reached the first level of Qi Condensation! According to the description in his bamboo slip, the black spot was a mutation blotch. When practicing the Sea and Mountain Incantation, that mutation blotch was supposed to appear on the left arm. Every time he advanced in level, a new blotch would appear. Rubbing the mutation blotch, Xu Qing tried to control his excitement about getting so much stronger. Walking back to the entrance of the cave, he looked out through the crack and tried to decide if he should wait until it was light to go and do some tests. Only a moment passed before a vigilant expression took over his face. Leaning his head closer to the crack, he strained his ears to detect any sound from outside. It was completely dark outside, but he couldn’t hear any of the usual bizarre sounds. He had been in this place for days and had never experienced anything like this. Furthermore, even during the daytime, when the sound of the grues and mutant beasts ceased, there would still be the sound of the blood rain. But right now, he couldn’t hear the rain. Don’t tell me…. His heart pounded as he considered the implications. He waited in silence for a time, until a dazzling ray of sunlight shot down, entered the crack in the cave entrance, and illuminated everything within. The light caused Xu Qing to tremble. He reached his hand out to intercept the beam of light, and when he felt the warmth, it slowly brought him back to his senses. Sunlight…. A moment passed, then Xu Qing’s eyes shone with excitement. Unsealing the crack, he slowly stepped out into the sunlight. Looking up, he didn’t see any of the dark clouds that had filled the sky before. Instead, he saw the dazzling sun. That light was like a sick old man who had a new lease on life, and was finally coming to visit the human world. The rain… it stopped. Xu Qing took in a deep breath of the sun-filled air, then looked around at the ruined city bathed in the morning glow. The city seemed dazzling in a way he’d never imagined it could be. As the sunlight shot past the crimson clouds on the horizon, it seemed like countless golden whales swimming through the sky. It swept away the sickly fog in the city, revealing the damage that had previously been concealed. Collapsed houses were everywhere, interspersed with greenish-black corpses and ghastly pools of blood. Those were the sights that roused Xu Qing from his stupor and reminded him of the catastrophe that had befallen this place. Mixed emotions appeared in his eyes. He had lived for six years in the slums outside the walls of this city. In other words, it had been for six years that he gazed down on this place. Though he had been in the city on numerous occasions, during that entire six years, he had only dreamed of actually living inside. I found my cultivation technique here. I got the violet crystal here. I… lived here. After a while, he sighed softly, then walked over to one of the greenish-black corpses. He looked down at it, stooped, and pulled the corpse onto his back. Then he started walking. Eventually he reached a public square, where he put the corpse down. Turning, he went and found a second corpse. Then a third, and a fourth…. Some corpses just lay on the street, others were buried in rubble. Some corpses were intact. Others were mangled. One by one, he took as many as he could find and carried them on his back to the square, where he piled them up into a small mountain.  Eventually, he stood in front of the mountain of corpses with a torch in his hand. He tossed the fire onto the mountain. Perhaps because of the mutagen, the flame burned hot, and the smoke rose thick into the air above him. He stared at the smoke for a while, then walked to the city’s second district. Before long, smoke rose up from that district as well, thicker… and thicker…. As the brilliant sun shone down on the city, the place became full of the smoke of burning corpses. The smoke obscured the sun, causing everything to turn red. It was like the sun was heaving a deep sigh, and the streams of smoke were its tears. The shadows cast by the smoke were tearstains on the earth. The final tear stain led Xu Qing to the area where he’d found the violet crystal. He took the old man from the medicine shop and added him to a pile of corpses to burn. As he stood to the side watching the flames, they reflected in his dark pupils, flickering endlessly. The tips of Xu Qing’s long, disheveled hair curled in the heat. Eventually, he clasped his hands and bowed deeply. “May you… rest in peace.” The flames burned even hotter, sending sparks up like dandelion wisps to float away in the breeze. However, the smoke that drifted up contained unending regret and defiance that could never be dispelled. It rose high, like scars in the sky. Insignificant and pointless. *** Sometime later, the sound of footsteps rang out. And then, a bizarre and mystifying voice spoke from behind Xu Qing. “I was wondering why I didn’t see any corpses around here. It turns out a skinny little brat was wasting his energy cremating them. Ah, whatever. Since you miss them so much, I’ll help you join them!” Xu Qing spun in place.