Chapter 528: Stealing the Tree
Wu Qi stood with his back to Chen Shi, about to speak and ask questions, when Chen Shi immediately said, “My name is Chen Shi. I am the True King of the Western Ox New Continent, a king appointed by the Great Ming court. Your Great Shang dynasty has been destroyed for sixteen thousand years. It was I who searched the battlefield of the Great Shang Celestial Court, found your bones, and used heavenly treasures and earthly jewels to revive you.”
Upon hearing this, Wu Qi was filled with questions. He was about to speak when Chen Shi continued on his own, “The Shang people have already turned into the ghost clan. Because I could turn ghosts back into humans, the Shang people honored me as their ruler. I am not the Shang King; I have no royal bloodline. You can call me the Slave King.”
Wu Qi opened his mouth to speak, but Chen Shi went on, “It’s fine. I’m already used to that title. You perished together with Xun Jiangmu. Xun Jiangmu’s Primordial Spirit disintegrated, but before his death, he possessed a Shang person, took the name Celestial Venerable, infiltrated Despair Slope, and killed the Eighteen Shang Ministers. Now he’s entrenched in Despair Slope. I know you want to repay my kindness and then join forces with me to deal with the Celestial Venerable. You just need to steal a sacred treasure tree for me, and your life-saving debt will be wiped clean. Now, follow me to meet the Empress of Earth. Do you have any questions?”
Wu Qi was dumbfounded. After a moment, he said, “You’ve said everything. I have nothing to say. Where is the Empress of Earth?”
Chen Shi broke into a smile and said, “Please, follow me.”
Wu Qi followed him, puzzled: “This Slave King is really strange. It’s like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. But after I repay his kindness and join him to eliminate the Celestial Venerable, I’ll awaken the Great Shang’s sleeping immortals, catch him off guard, and restore Great Shang’s orthodox rule.”
Chen Shi led him to see the Empress of Earth. When the Empress saw this Wu Qi, she couldn’t help but frown slightly and gave Chen Shi a sharp glare, as if she could gouge out two ounces of flesh from him.
“Your unworthy descendant, Wu Qi, pays respects to the Ancestral Mother, Earth Mother Ladyship!” Wu Qi hurried forward to bow.
The Empress of Earth, while busy ritual-refining the Purple Heaven Vine, casually dealt with him in a few sentences.
Wu Qi, his eyes brimming with tears, choked up and said, “I swear to repay the True King!”
The Empress of Earth couldn’t help but say, “Wu Qi, when you’re out in the world, keep your eyes open!”
Wu Qi acknowledged her words.
Chen Shi led him into the Palace of Virtue. Daoist Willow was already waiting beneath the lotus platform. He said dryly, “Her Ladyship ordered me to steer the boat for the two of you.”
Chen Shi thanked him and boarded the willow-leaf boat.
Daoist Willow piloted the willow-leaf boat, skillfully following that ray of light deep into the Dark Sea.
After an unknown amount of time, they sailed out of the Dark Sea and arrived at the Mysterious Yellow Sea. Another two days passed before they finally spotted the mulberry tree in the sea.
Daoist Willow proactively stopped the boat. Chen Shi glanced at him, then withdrew his gaze and said to Wu Qi with a smile, “Brother, the sacred tree I intend to steal is that mulberry tree. But there’s an immortal palace on the tree, and two fairy maidens live inside. They guard this place. If they see anyone coming to steal the tree, they’ll inform the high immortal, and Immortal Qin will descend from the heavens to kill the thief. Immortal Qin is extremely powerful, far stronger than you. What plan do you have to deal with him?”
Wu Qi was greatly surprised and said, “I never expected Your Majesty to have already scouted out the situation so thoroughly. Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Your Majesty anticipates the enemy’s moves—no wonder you can be the king of the Western Ox New Continent.”
He gazed at the inconspicuous Jade Truth Palace nestled in the distant mulberry tree, pondered for a moment, and said, “Since Immortal Qin’s strength far exceeds mine, it’s indeed unwise to fight him head-on. He’s not here; someone needs to notify him for him to descend. There are many ways to notify him, but the common method is through incense offerings. One thread of incense energy connects myriad continents. So, we just need to cut off that incense energy and we can take the tree with ease.”
Chen Shi humbly sought advice: “How do we cut off his incense energy?”
Wu Qi smiled and said, “We can use the method of substituting a dead branch for a living one. Brother Daoist Willow, if you would, lend me a branch.”
Daoist Willow reluctantly took a branch from himself and handed it over.
Wu Qi gathered qi into a sword and trimmed the willow branch neatly. He concentrated his mind and drew some peculiar shamanic ritual markings on the branch, saying, “This is the Phantom Double Method. In the underworld, there are two ghosts, one called Phantom and one called Shadow. They’re good at infiltrating the Dao Fields of shamanic rituals, impersonating Ancestral Gods, and stealing incense offerings. As the number one great shaman, I’ve encountered these ghosts many times, so I figured out this little divine ability. It’s most suitable for fooling people.”
He raised the willow branch, and it silently flew toward the Jade Truth Palace in the mulberry tree, hovering above it.
Chen Shi bowed and said, “I’ll leave it to you, brother.”
Wu Qi rose to his feet and said with a smile, “What’s so hard about that?”
He broke through the air and soon arrived at the foot of the mulberry tree.
Inside the Jade Truth Palace, the two fairy maidens were guarding the place. One said, “This time, although the Immortal Lord killed his enemy, without the Heavenly Silkworm, I fear the calamity will be hard to survive.”
The other said, “That’s beyond our ability to solve. The Immortal Lord is powerful and has a wide network. He’ll definitely find a place to take shelter during Opening the Calamity, so he won’t perish. At the very least, he can offer this mulberry tree as a gift to some big shot in the Earth Immortal Realm and trade it for a place to stay... Huh? Someone’s come to steal mulberry leaves again... It’s that man again!”
She gasped, her face filled with disbelief.
The two women looked down and clearly saw that the scattered immortal, the one the Immortal Lord had killed and even had his Indestructible Mystic Art obliterated, had come back again!
“We’re no match for him. Hurry and notify the Immortal Lord!”
The two women immediately lit incense offerings, trying to notify Immortal Qin. The incense rose, drifting upward, and Immortal Qin’s voice came through, lazy and indifferent: “What is it now?”
The two women quickly said, “Immortal Lord, disaster has struck! That scattered immortal you killed just now has come back to steal the tree!”
The mulberry tree tilted and swayed as Wu Qi shook it violently.
Immortal Qin’s voice, carried by the incense, reached the women’s ears. He laughed and said, “Is that so? Burn more incense, and I’ll descend right away.”
The two women hurriedly lit several more sticks of incense. Immortal Qin’s voice came again, saying, “The incense isn’t enough. I can’t pinpoint your exact location. Light some more.”
The women lit some more incense. Just then, the mulberry tree shook violently as Wu Qi, with his unmatched brute force, uprooted it entirely!
The two women were horrified.
This tree had sprouted from the corpse of an ancient Golden Crow and grown into a towering giant. Though it was still a sapling, it was no small matter. What was even more terrifying was that this mulberry tree was rooted in the corpse of the ancient Golden Crow, drawing nourishment from it, and in doing so, it formed a kind of suppression and refinement of the crow’s body.
Legend had it that someone had done this on purpose, using the tree to suppress the Golden Crow corpse.
That was why this tree was planted in the vast Mysterious Yellow Sea, yet no one dared to covet it.
But now, this mulberry tree had been uprooted by someone. One had to wonder whether this man was incredibly strong or just outrageously bold!
“Why hasn’t the Immortal Lord descended yet?”
The two women’s scalps tingled. They didn’t dare stay on the mulberry tree any longer. They quickly activated the Jade Truth Palace and flew away through the air.
The Immortal Lord’s voice came through the incense energy again, saying, “The incense you’ve offered still isn’t enough! I can’t descend! Hurry, more incense, or the mulberry tree will fall into someone else’s hands! Do you realize you’ve committed a heinous crime!”
The two women quickly lit more incense, and the Immortal Lord’s voice kept urging them to burn more. One of the fairy maidens suddenly realized the truth and said, “The Immortal Lord isn’t a deity—why does he need so much incense? You’ve overstepped your bounds, Immortal Lord!”
Following the incense energy, she raised her hand and struck.
A stream of mana flew along the incense energy. After a moment, a sharp crack was heard from outside the palace. A willow branch burst apart, and the Immortal Lord’s voice vanished instantly.
The two women lit incense again, and the Immortal Lord’s voice came through: “What is it?”
The women hastily recounted the whole affair. The Immortal Lord was both shocked and furious. The next moment, the void tore open, and Immortal Qin’s true form descended, standing high above the Mysterious Yellow Sea, his aura dominating the world as he looked down.
“Immortal Lord, that thief is carrying the mulberry tree and heading that way!” one of the women called out.
Immortal Qin’s face darkened. He pursued in the direction Chen Shi, Daoist Willow, and Wu Qi had fled. After chasing for a day or two, a patch of darkness suddenly blocked the path ahead.
Immortal Qin immediately stopped, looking at the surging darkness with a look of fear on his face, not daring to go forward.
“Bold as hell! Absolutely bold as hell! Do you even know the origin of this mulberry tree, and you still dare to steal it?”
Immortal Qin sneered. “Stealing anything—what a bunch of desperadoes! If you anger the master of this mulberry tree, heh heh...”
He looked at the darkness before him and suddenly felt as though it had crept closer to him. He quickly retreated, moving far away from the Dark Sea, as if he couldn’t avoid it fast enough.
Immortal Qin hurried away, running into the two women who were catching up. He stopped them and said, “The thieves who stole the tree have already entered the Dark Sea and disappeared. There’s no need to chase them. Stay here. Someone will come looking and ask what happened. Tell them the truth, and they won’t make trouble for you...”
He was about to leave when he suddenly stopped again and said, “No, I’ll explain it myself to avoid any misunderstandings.”
The three of them waited for a while. Sure enough, an immortal boy rode a crane to their location. The boy had an immortal bearing, holding a whisk. He waved it lightly and said, “So it’s Immortal Qin. My master sent me to ask—where did the mulberry tree go?”
Immortal Qin didn’t dare to be negligent. He forced a smile and said, “So it’s Brother Lingxu. My regards.”
He explained the whole matter, saying, “The thieves who stole the tree are very strange. They’ve cultivated a kind of pseudo-Indestructible Mystic Art, something like the Nine Cycles Mystic Art, but with some flaws. I originally struck them, completely destroying their Dao patterns, assuming they were as dead as dead could be. But unexpectedly, the man came back to life and, while I wasn’t paying attention, stole the tree.”
The immortal boy, Lingxu, said in surprise, “Is that so? Let me calculate.”
He began counting on his fingers, but no matter how he calculated, he couldn’t get a result. He frowned.
Immortal Qin smiled ingratiatingly and said, “That thief took the mulberry tree and fled into the Dark Sea.”
The immortal boy Lingxu’s expression changed immediately. “No wonder I can’t calculate it. I will report this to my master. Do not worry, Immortal Lord.”
He tossed his whisk into the air. Suddenly, each thread of the whisk turned into countless soft yet razor-sharp swords, stabbing into the sea. He laughed and said, “My master’s treasure should be able to suppress the Golden Crow corpse for a while.” With that, he rode his crane and departed.
Immortal Qin, as if pardoned from a death sentence, hurriedly rose and left quickly with the two fairy maidens and the Jade Truth Palace.
The Empress of Earth was still refining the Purple Heaven Vine. After several days of ritual-refinement, she had already refined most of it. If she could integrate her Reincarnation Dao into it, this treasure would be able to command the heavenly Dao of the underworld and possess extraordinary power.
Just then, a brilliant blaze of fire suddenly erupted from within the Palace of Virtue.
The Empress of Earth quickly looked up and saw Chen Shi walking out first, his face glowing with ruddy light, followed by Wu Qi, who carried the flaming mulberry tree out of the Palace of Virtue.
The Empress of Earth was stunned. She blurted out, “You were supposed to steal leaves! How did you end up stealing the whole tree back?”
She suddenly felt like her accounting book was about to burst at the seams.