Chapter 58: The Grandmaster Shattered to Pieces

Li Xuan left Sheng Zuchang's house, stood by the roadside shielding his eyes from the blazing sun, took out his phone, and dialed Huang Huotu's number. Once the call connected, he said, "Officer Huang, send me your current address. I am coming to the mainland to find you in person."

After receiving Huang Huotu's address on his phone, a small plan began to form in Li Xuan's mind.

There were quite a few vacant lots in Taipei, and building a temple wouldn't require much space. A little monetary grease was all it took to smoothly acquire a secluded, barren plot of land.

Li Xuan contacted a construction company, finalized the architectural blueprints, paid the down payment, and had construction started immediately.

As for himself, he purchased a plane ticket and headed to Guangdong on the mainland.

Sheng Zuchang's conspiracy theory actually made a lot of sense.

As an immortal-to-be, Xie Yali's older sister possessed methods that were far too bizarre. She didn't look like an immortal in the slightest; she resembled a ghost much more. Xie Yali claimed that in their past lives, the two of them were fellow martial arts disciples who had reincarnated as twin sisters in this lifetime. Because the elder sister possessed profound cultivation in her past life, she had already "achieved immortality" even before being born...

This explanation had too many loopholes.

Li Xuan was more inclined to believe that the "elder sister" had laid her plans millennia ago.

The so-called younger sister, "Xie Yali," was merely a pawn in the elder sister's grand design—thrown out as a shortcut to attain immortality through the Five Purgatories, coaxed into bearing the karmic retribution of slaughter and inheriting heavy evil karma. Once the dust settled, the elder sister would sweep away the evil karma, harvest the good karma, and naturally achieve the Dao of Immortality!

Regardless of which theory was true,

he had to go find Huang Huotu now.

...

At the airport, a daze-stricken Tsai Ching-fang brought Huang Mei-mei aboard a flight bound for the mainland.

An hour later, Li Xuan arrived as well, boarding another flight to the mainland!

The richness of Guangdong's folk culture was no less than that of Taiwan. The locals were warm, hospitable, and highly receptive to new things, which led to a concentration of foreigners from all over the world in Guangdong, gradually diversifying its festivals.

As soon as Li Xuan stepped off the plane, he immediately felt the impact of a unique regional culture, especially Cantonese, which sounded just like stepping right into a 1980s Hong Kong gangster film...

Although he really wanted to linger and experience the local morning tea culture,

Huang Huotu's fragile life was still hidden somewhere inside Mount Luofu.

He had to set off for Mount Luofu immediately...

...

At a long-distance bus station in a town near Mount Luofu, Tsai Ching-fang sat blankly on a wooden bench in the waiting hall. When a staff member came over to inquire about her situation, she replied in a foolish, dazed manner, "I'm waiting for my daughter to come back."

Deep in the remote mountains and ancient forests, amidst withered leaves and muddy ground,

a tiny figure trudged unsteadily through the shade of the trees. It was none other than Huang Mei-mei—who was also Xie Yali's elder sister!

The double pupils in Huang Mei-mei's eye sockets were spinning at a much higher frequency than the day before, and blood was even trickling from her nostrils. She gave them a light wipe with her sleeve and thought to herself, "Double pupils are the manifestation of one's destiny, something ordinary mortals cannot endure! When my junior brother and I reincarnated into this world, even while still in our mother's womb, we were rejected by the double pupils, causing us to die in gestation. Though my junior brother managed to be born safely, his destiny could ultimately not bear the weight of the double pupils, resulting in a brain tumor that means his lifespan likely will not exceed seventeen years..."

That useless junior brother of hers had inexplicably provoked some outsider and was cursed to death within a mere few days!

Fortunately, she had managed to control Tsai Ching-fang's mind just in time to fly back from Japan, rip out Xie Yali's double pupils, and forcibly graft them into Huang Mei-mei's eye sockets.

However, Huang Mei-mei was merely a mortal of flesh and blood after all, and she had never practiced cultivation.

The destructive power of destiny brought forth by the double pupils would soon crush this vessel, and she would undoubtedly die within three days...

She was in extreme distress now. Overnight, she had used Sheng Zuchang to kill the last two human-ghouls, inheriting their killing karma, and then rushed here carrying the double pupils to find Huang Huotu for her intentional detachment of the spirit!

Mount Luofu had undergone quite a few changes compared to a thousand years ago.

Nevertheless, Huang Mei-mei successfully located the ruins of the True Immortal Temple. Standing amidst the ruins, she chanted incantations under her breath and walked forward until she found a cave entrance blocked by a massive boulder.

She was both the senior disciple and the temple abbot; she knew that the mummified remains of the founding master were stored inside.

The founding master had left behind a ancestral precept: whenever the True Immortal Temple faced a life-or-death crisis or a turning point of destiny, one could move the giant boulder, enter the cave, and implore the founding master for protection.

Reciting a spell, Huang Mei-mei pressed both hands against the giant boulder and let out a low cry: "Open!"

The boulder, weighing several thousand catties, let out a rumbling sound as it shifted to the side, revealing an opening just large enough for an adult to squeeze through.

It was her first time using this magical spell, and she had no idea what the situation was like inside. According to what her master had said before he died, this founding master had displayed extraordinary traits after practicing cultivation for over sixty years, and then an underworld official had come to escort him away to take up an official post in the netherworld. Although he was merely a ghost immortal, an immortal was still an immortal...

Her aptitude was inferior to the founding master's; she had cultivated until death without any underworld official coming to welcome her, leaving her with no choice but to pin her hopes on reincarnation and re-cultivation.

As a result, the moment she reincarnated, she could no longer withstand the power of the double pupils and died...

She refused to accept this. Clearly, her junior brother's cultivation was even worse than her own.

However, it didn't matter anymore. Her junior brother was unlucky and unworthy of cultivating immortality. It seemed that this time, it was destined for her, the senior brother, to ascend to the immortal realm...

Huang Mei-mei walked into the cave.

A faint breeze blew from within, and a cut instantly appeared on her cheek as if sliced by an invisible blade, drawing blood...

...

What was going on?

She panicked and dropped to her knees, crying out loudly, "Master Patriarch, your disciple of the Qing generation, Xu Qingshan, has encountered obstacles in cultivation and has specifically come to implore Master Patriarch for assistance!"

There was no response from inside the cave.

Kneeling and inching her way forward bit by bit, the darkness of the cave could not obstruct her vision. She soon discovered numerous tattered, heavily carbonized fragments of books scattered on the ground—no, there were also pieces of clothing, and even scattered human bones!

She raised her head.

The cave was not large. Aside from the debris littering the ground, there was only a stone bed, a stone table, and stone chairs riddled with notches. These notches looked as though they had appeared quite recently.

Huang Mei-mei was somewhat stunned. Her master had said the mummified remains of the founding master were right here...

Could the shattered fragments on the ground possibly be...

On the cave wall directly above the stone bed, there was a standard circular hole twenty centimeters wide and over a meter deep!

Upon seeing these dimensions, Huang Mei-mei involuntarily recalled the twenty-centimeter hole in Xie Yali's abdomen, and a sudden, extremely ominous premonition washed over her! Could the young man who used a curse to kill Xie Yali have incidentally destroyed the remains of the founding master hidden deep inside this cave on Mount Luofu as well?

Even she was incapable of such a feat!

The unknown!

Equaled terror!

Huang Mei-mei's face turned as dark as water. She bit her index finger and drew a talisman in her palm; this was the method she used to sense Huang Huotu's presence.

This physical body was Huang Huotu's biological daughter, and their paternal bloodline was interconnected. Even if she died, she could use her primordial blood as a guide to locate the target, though the greater the distance, the more energy it would consume...

Found!

A look of great joy appeared on Huang Mei-mei's face. She dashed out of the cave and sprinted frantically toward the mountain forests, paying no heed to how the sharp branches and grass blades slashed bloody gasps all over her delicate, fragile body!

After running wildly for half an hour, she saw a tent pitched in a clearing ahead. Huang Huotu was sitting on a small wooden stool, warming his hands over a bonfire...