Danyangzi

“Hahaha! So that’s how it is! That’s how it is!”

Standing atop the gore, Danyangzi laughed wildly, his mouth split wide. At this moment, he finally understood.

Now he fully grasped what the venerable elder at the Heavens-Beyond-the-Heavens had meant about cutting off the Three Corpses. He’d misunderstood before, thinking he had to turn Li Huowang into one of the Three Corpses and then slay him.

Those who seek immortality must first rid themselves of the Three Corpses, become tranquil and desireless, their spirit still and their nature clear.

There had never been any Li Huowang. Li Huowang was simply a part of his own past. He was his heart-demon, one of his Three Corpses.

It was him—stained with mortal filth—who had been obstructing Danyangzi’s ascension. And now that he had fully become Danyangzi, it meant this corpse had been severed.

His previous dose of medicine must have been when he severed another corpse. That was why he had become a demigod.

Immensely pleased, he laughed as he raised his sword, slaughtering the remaining people. Whenever he was happy, he wanted to kill.

There was still one corpse left to sever, but he didn’t know where to find it. Still, Danyangzi had a premonition that he could already pass through the Southern Heavenly Gate.

No one else in the cave was a match for Danyangzi. Soon, the entire cavern held no living souls but him.

Lowering his sword, Danyangzi looked down again at this young body. He couldn’t help but laugh once more, speaking with irrepressible joy. “Heh heh! Your Daoist master is finally going to become a true immortal!”

In the midst of his laughter, the hallucination of the monk beside him, his face frozen in shock, gradually faded away.

But his mirth didn’t last long. Danyangzi suppressed his elation. This was not yet the time to celebrate.

Without the maintenance of Intercalating the Five Phases, Danyangzi’s ruined body—lacking its five viscera—was about to collapse.

He couldn’t die now. He still had to merge with his original body.

“Hmph! A mere heart-demon thinks it can ruin my ascension? Your Daoist master is an immortal now!”

Danyangzi quickly pulled out his bell and began to shake it. The world around him grew chaotic, and several Wandering Lords appeared before him in an instant.

“ᛝᚢᚱ! ᚲᛖᛗᚢᛏ! ᛚᚨᚷᚢᛉ! ᚦᛖᚲᚨ!”

Danyangzi gave his orders to the Wandering Lords with arrogant flourish, and they swiftly flew away.

When they returned, they brought not only cinnabar brushes and yellow paper, but also a block of wood, a clod of earth, a torch, a jug of water, and a gold ingot.

Staggering, Danyangzi turned and found five corpses among the dead—one for each of the Five Elements: Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal. With his sword, he cut off their heads.

He pried open one head’s mouth, stuffed the gold ingot inside, then sealed the lips with yellow paper. Covering the cinnabar brush with his fist as if holding it, he began to draw rapidly on the yellow paper.

As the final stroke landed, the head let out a creaking sound and began to writhe and shrink. Skin, hair, and features sloughed off as the head withered to barely half its size.

Danyangzi picked it up, pulled and pressed, and shoved the thing into his own chest.

He repeated the process. The remaining four heads likewise burrowed into Li Huowang’s hollow chest, taking the places of the missing five viscera.

When the last head had settled in the spot where the heart belonged, Danyangzi nodded in satisfaction. This evil technique he’d stolen from the Lion Dance Palace wouldn’t hold long, but he only needed a little time.

Full of pride, Danyangzi took out the Heavenly Scripture again and gazed at it with emotion. Even though he couldn’t recognize a single character, this book had led him to immortality.

“I wonder if I’ll meet that immortal again after passing through the Southern Heavenly Gate. If I do, I must thank him properly.”

It was only with his help that Danyangzi could enter the Southern Heavenly Gate and live as long as heaven and earth.

“What a fucking waste!”

The sudden curse made Danyangzi’s expression freeze. He whipped his head toward the sound, but there was no one around. Nothing stirred.

“Who’s there! Get the hell out here! If you make this immortal happy, I’ll leave your corpse intact!” Danyangzi’s enraged voice echoed through the cave, but there was no response.

His face twisted with malice, Danyangzi snorted coldly, picked up the Heavenly Scripture, and headed out of the cave.

This place was strange. And that Xi Shen from before was no pushover. Best not to linger.

He needed to leave first, find a quiet place, and wait for his original body to return.

No matter who it was, as long as he finally became a true immortal, everything in the mortal world was but an ant!

When Danyangzi walked back out from the inner cave into the battlefield, he found it eerily silent.

The entire cavern held not a single living person. Everyone was dead. The entire Ao-Jing Sect stronghold hidden among these mountains had been completely wiped out.

“Lazy-head! You think you can become an immortal? You piece of shit, you don’t deserve it!”

With a shing, the longsword Danyangzi flung struck the hard cave wall, embedding itself and quivering.

Now Danyangzi could no longer keep still. “Ring ring ring!!” The jarring bell sounded, and a swarm of Wandering Lords circled around him.

At his command, the Wandering Lords scattered wildly in every direction, searching for whoever had spoken before.

But after a full incense-stick’s burn, the Wandering Lords—who could reach heaven and burrow into earth—had found no one. Not even inside the walls or underground.

“What the hell is going on? Is Zuowandao laying an ambush for this immortal?” Danyangzi’s expression shifted as he stared at the unfamiliar surroundings.

After two such incidents, Danyangzi no longer dared to let his guard down. He pointed his bell, and a Wandering Lord shot out of the cave to find his original body.

He himself stayed put, sword raised, waiting.

When another incense-stick had burned and Danyangzi heard movement outside, his heart leaped with joy. He quickly turned to look.

But the figure walking into the cave was not his original body. It was a woman dressed in very strange clothes.

In all his years of traveling far and wide, he’d seen many things. But he had never seen a woman dressed like this anywhere.

The fabric looked like silk. She carried a strange square box under her arm. Her hair was pinned up.

She looked to be in her forties. Round face, big eyes, short hair. She seemed tired.

“Who is this? Was it her who cursed at me just now? Coming at such a critical moment… An old enemy, perhaps?”

As Danyangzi speculated wildly, he saw the woman smile at him apologetically.

“My good son, the hospital needed to process some paperwork, that’s why I’m late. Your external wounds are mostly healed, so your father and I found a new hospital for you.”

As the words fell, Danyangzi saw the bright cave around him collapse and change color. A glaring white quickly washed over everything.

And on what should have been his own body, things began to pile up rapidly.