A Pawn's Passage-Chapter 1197: Wrapping Up
While Old Master Long and Wu Luo were locked in fierce combat, Great Sage Lan began preparing the third stage of the Taiyi Supreme Technique.
So long as the Taiyi Supreme Technique was not used four times in succession, three stages posed no real burden for an Earthly Immortal and were even effortless.
Taiyi represented the beginning, before chaos began. Taiji was the end, when clear qi arose to become heaven and turbid qi sank to become earth. Thus heaven and earth come into being.
The closer one was to chaos, the more it tended toward destruction and offense. The closer one was to the formation of heaven and earth, the more it tended toward stability and defense. Thus, the Taiyi Supreme Technique at the beginning of the Five Innate Tais was the supreme offensive technique and the most powerful, while the Taiji Golden Diagram at the final position of the Five Innate Tais stood as the ultimate defense technique.
Apart from the Taiyi Supreme Technique and the Taiji Golden Diagram, the Taisu Mystical Arts occupied the fourth position among the Five Innate Tais; the second was the Taichu Incarnation, and the third was the Taishi Sword Qi.
Thus, purely from the standpoint of offense and defense, aside from the Taiji Golden Diagram, none of the other Three Innate Tais were suited to confronting the Taiyi Supreme Technique head-on.
The Taisu Mystical Arts was merely a method to mend the body and could not be used for direct confrontation.
Moreover, Chen Shuhua had exhausted her Taisu Mystical Arts.
Great Sage Lan thrust his hand forward, and the black sphere shot out, transforming into a massive black vortex and a bottomless abyss that devoured all light and elemental energy. It slowly pressed downward with an overwhelming might, giving one the sensation that the heavens themselves were collapsing. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
From Wu Luo’s perspective, the black vortex was a perfect circle. From farther away, however, it appeared as an ellipse, like a black abyss splitting the sky or a giant maw poised to devour her.
Compared with the first two stages of the Taiyi Supreme Technique, the power of the third stage had already reached a level sufficient to threaten Wu Luo’s life.
Blood-red light flared in Wu Luo’s eyes, as though her pupils had turned completely crimson. Her entire body was likewise tinged with a blood-red and golden glow as she activated her Golden Body. It looked radiant and majestic, like a deity descending into the mortal world, standing in stark contrast to the pitch-black Taiyi Supreme Technique.
When the two collided, not a single sound was heard. In an instant, Wu Luo transformed from light into darkness, her radiance voraciously devoured by the abyss.
Next, Wu Luo’s form was completely swallowed by the black chaos. The sky was dyed a pure black, with neither sun, moon, nor drifting clouds in sight. Not a single trace of light remained. It was as if turbid qi rose and clear qi fell, heaven lay below and earth above, and yin and yang inverted, forcibly altering the course of the heavens.
When the abyss formed by the Taiyi Supreme Technique gradually shrank, Wu Luo reappeared. At this moment, she no longer bore the radiance that symbolized immunity to all evil and the repulsion of all spells, all that remained was Chen Shuhua’s original physical body. However, it was in an extremely unstable state, constantly warping and distorting.
After another brief moment, Chen Shuhua’s physical body began to collapse.
Unlike an ordinary body rotting into a bloody pulp, this kind of collapse was like a shattered mirror. Each shard reflected a portion of the body, then broke into even smaller fragments until it finally became dust.
After all the fragments fell away, all that remained of Wu Luo was an outline and a blood-red stone at the position of the heart.
The greatest difference between the first-generation Longevity Stone and the second-generation Longevity Stone lay in their materials. The former was made from the vitality of living beings, often accompanied by blood sacrifice and slaughter. Hence, it had a blood-red color. The latter was made from various heavenly and earthly treasures that were primarily plants, so it appeared green.
Chen Shuhua had used the ancient method, which was why it differed greatly from Qi Xuansu’s Longevity Stone Heart.
The outline of her form turned into countless points of light, rising into the air and returning to the divine kingdom.
Only the Longevity Stone and Heaven’s Will remained floating in midair.
Seeing this, Great Sage Jiang no longer held onto the Lord Buddha’s wrist, allowing the Buddha’s palm to retreat into the void.
Chen Shuhua’s rebellion, which had shaken the entire Golden Tower Council, finally came to a close under the joint efforts of the two Great Sages.
Great Sage Lan let out a breath of relief.
Although the Golden Tower Council did not hold him accountable, the situation reaching this point was truly beyond his expectations. Had things spiraled out of control, he could forget about receiving any posthumous titles.
Having reached this stage, with ascension imminent and lacking neither status, power, nor cultivation, all Great Sage Lan now cared about was his reputation among the future generations.
Now that he had personally wrapped this up, it counted as making amends through merit and salvaging some of his image.
With a single gesture, Great Sage Jiang drew both Heaven’s Will and the Longevity Stone into his hand.
These two immortal objects would not remain with the Poluo Daoist Mansion. They were to be reclaimed by the Golden Tower Council.
Although Heaven's Will had been passed down through generations of the Yu Kingdom, the Chen sibling’s rebellion carried a price.
The Longevity Stone was now nothing more than an empty shell because its essence had been fully absorbed by Chen Shuhua. Thus, it could no longer be considered a complete immortal object. Restoring it would require vast amounts of living sacrifices, which was difficult to achieve.
Only at this point did the two Great Sages finally have time for a brief exchange.
Great Sage Lan spoke first. “Brother Jiang, thank you for cleaning up this mess for me.”
Great Sage Jiang waved his hand. “We’re family, so there’s no need for such politeness. This is my duty anyway. Wherever there’s a fire, I go to put it out.”
Using fire to describe this situation was a slight at Great Sage Lan.
Great Sage Lan was not offended and gave a wry smile. “I really should have been more vigilant. Xu Jiaorong told me roughly what happened while I was in seclusion. I never imagined things would escalate to this extent. Fortunately, that young boy, Qi Xuansu, managed to hold the situation together until you arrived.”
Great Sage Jiang smiled faintly. “Qi Xuansu is indeed very capable. It’s no wonder he was granted the second rank at such a young age. Aside from Xuan Ji’s strong backing, he’s truly a talent worth developing.”
Sage Donghua’s courtesy name was Xuan Ji. When the two Great Sages addressed Qi Xuansu and Xu Jiaorong, they could call them by their full names as elders, without it being disrespectful. But Sage Donghua could not be treated as a mere junior. Their status was somewhat equal.
Great Sage Lan asked, “How are things on Wang Jiaohe’s side?”
Great Sage Jiang replied, “I was mainly responsible for pursuing Chen Shuhua. Xuan Ji personally took charge of the arrangements on capturing Wang Jiaohe, so there shouldn’t be any problems. But just to be safe, the two of us should still go our separate ways. I’ll go to Wang Jiaohe, while you should go to Sun Heyu.”
Great Sage Lan nodded.
With that, the two Great Sages parted ways, transforming into streaks of light as they departed.
......
Elsewhere, Little Yin had already fished out Wang Jiaohe’s magical receptacle. This little imp had mastered all sorts of underhanded tricks on her own. It was only today that Qi Xuansu discovered that Little Yin could actually pick locks.
Of course, these were not ordinary metal locks, as those were hardly secure. Qi Xuansu could open them with a light knock. The truly impressive ones were these magical locks, commonly found on magical receptacles. Their essence lay in many layers of miniature formations stacked together. Picking such a lock was the same as breaking a formation. It was not just delicate work but also highly technical. Unless one had studied it specifically or had reached such a high level of cultivation that mastery of one art meant mastery of all, it was extremely difficult to open.
If one attempted to break them by brute force, it would likely damage the contents inside.
Thus, it was completely beyond Qi Xuansu’s expectations that Little Yin could actually pick locks.
It was no wonder that the girl had been eyeing the magical receptacle earlier.
Little Yin asked to take a look at the magical receptacle earlier, unlocking it with skill and rummaging through it excitedly. However, aside from some precious pills, it mainly contained various contracts, letters, and documents, as well as bearer notes from the Taiping Bank and certificates of deposit from Western banks. All of it was writing.
Seeing this, Little Yin felt confused by all the words and disappointed, so she casually tossed the useless documents aside.
Qi Xuansu took the documents and gave them a rough look.
The deeds and certificates had nothing to do with Poluo. Wang Jiaohe also knew that once his crimes were exposed, even if he held land and property deeds, they would be meaningless. The Daoist Order could forcibly take over those assets as illegal gains and then redistribute them. Thus, the property contracts he carried were all located in various countries on the Western Continent. He had been acquiring these assets over many years as a fallback.
Now that these contracts had fallen into the hands of the Daoist Order, they could send people to reclaim and sell off the assets if they wished. That was a matter for later, not something Qi Xuansu needed to worry about.
There were also some letters that were mostly correspondence with Westerners. There were no letters concerning the upper echelons of the Daoist Order, as they had likely been destroyed by Wang Jiaohe.
Qi Xuansu did a quick calculation of the bearer notes from the Taiping Bank and certificates of deposit from Western banks. Converting the Gold Crowns and Eagle Silver, it came to roughly 300,000 Taiping coins.
This was undoubtedly a huge sum. It might not be much for a local tyrant like Wang Jiaohe, but considering that it was all liquid cash that did not bear a name, it made sense. After all, the bulk of the Wang family’s wealth lay in fixed assets such as the Nanyang United Trading Company. In a hasty escape, there wouldn’t be much cash Wang Jiaohe could carry.
Qi Xuansu would not touch this money. He would have to hand over every last bit of it.
Just then, Little Yin let out a cheer. “Finally found something with pictures!”
Qi Xuansu looked over and saw that Little Yin was holding a map.
“What map is this?” Little Yin turned the map all around, but it looked completely unfamiliar.
“Let me see.” Qi Xuansu took the map from Little Yin and examined it carefully. It was indeed unfamiliar.
Geography was a required course at the Wanxiang Daoist Palace, so Qi Xuansu recognized the mountains and rivers of the Central Plains like the back of his hand. Due to his assignment, he had also familiarized himself with Poluo and Fenglin. He also had some knowledge of the Western Continent—even if not in detail, at least in broad strokes. However, this map did not match any of them.
Fortunately, the map had textual labels.
“Paititi...this seems to be a map of the New Continent.” Qi Xuansu was slightly startled. “Was Wang Jiaohe planning to flee to the New Continent?”
