Chapter Ninety-Three: Phantom Fox

Chu Youcai did not stop cultivating. He mixed another batch of his special medicinal broth and resumed his training.

His remaining time was short, and Chu Yuwang had already sent the leader of the Dark Butcher Gang after him. It was said that the gang leader had spent thirty years hardening his external martial arts, his body impervious to blades and spears, a tyrant in Yanzhou who had nearly never met his match.

A man like that was not to be underestimated.

So Chu Youcai continued his cultivation. Yet this time, once he entered the cauldron, he discovered that the effect was only half as strong as before. Though he had the Daoist foundation of the summit of the Ice Mountain, the moment the water came to a boil, he still felt pain in the flesh. He knew then that he was still far from the second step, in which the entire body was to be slain.

Thus he kept pouring in the special medicinal broth and tempering his flesh.

Slowly, dawn broke.

Chu Youcai had changed the broth four or five times in succession, and by then its effect on him had become all but negligible.

He knew that if he wished to break through further, he would have to resort to extraordinary measures.

At the moment he once again plunged into the cauldron, he also lowered the heavy lid, sealing himself inside.

The instant the lid shut, he felt the scorching heat and the freezing force within surge several times stronger than before. His summit-level Ice Mountain state was crushed down, and the rising sun within him dimmed to a faint, lifeless glow.

"Yes. That's it!"

Only by driving one to the brink of death could life be born anew.

In such circumstances, Chu Youcai felt his suffering intensify even more, and the metamorphosis of his flesh accelerated all the faster.

Just as he felt the tempering of his body had reached its limit, he suddenly seized the Fish-Scale Blade and stabbed it into his own shoulder.

Blood burst forth at once.

The Fish-Scale Blade was a bronze-ranked cursed treasure, sharp beyond compare. His body, of course, could not withstand it. Blood gushed out in torrents, and agony mingled with agony.

The blood spilled into the cauldron, where it boiled furiously and even produced a strange reaction.

But at that moment, Chu Youcai, having lost so much blood, suddenly felt his body faltering. If this went on, he thought, his body would burst apart.

He was just about to push up the lid of the cauldron when, almost at the same time, a burly man was stealthily climbing over the wall into the courtyard.

The man had a foxlike gaze and was extremely cautious. He kept watch on his surroundings all the way, and only after the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, seeing no unusual movement, did he finally drop soundlessly into the courtyard.

Tiptoeing past the cauldron, he crept close to the bedroom and listened intently.

Then his face brightened with delight; clearly, he had heard that no one was in the room.

He immediately took from his bosom a box that looked as hard as iron and stone. After confirming the contents inside once again, he placed the box beneath the stone table and covered it with a few rocks.

Only after finishing this did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Then he suddenly noticed two talismans carved upon the wall of the cauldron, and his eyes lit up.

He muttered to himself, "This is actually a first-rate cauldron, bearing both ice and fire Daoist talismans. Such a cauldron would fetch around thirty thousand taels of silver on the market. That is dozens of times more than what I've earned on this trip!"

"Since no one is here anyway, why not..."

His eyes burned with greed. Seeing the cauldron, nearly as tall as a man, he stepped close and threw both arms around it.

In that instant, Chu Youcai felt the cauldron tremble violently, as though someone were holding it in a great embrace. His expression changed in surprise, and then it occurred to him: could it be that the Dark Butcher had sent someone to frame him, planting some object of yin and thunder in his home?

Thinking of the Dark Butcher's hateful face, Chu Youcai decided he would leap out of the cauldron.

Yet at that very moment, he suddenly sensed a strange stirring within his body. It was as if, because of this momentary distraction, the pain in both flesh and spirit had begun to lessen.

Was this like projecting the body outward?

At once, he recalled a story from an earlier dynasty.

There was once a fox woman who took pleasure with a scholar and told him she could transform into any peerless beauty. Every lovely woman the scholar could imagine, this fox woman could become. The scholar said, however, that however exquisite the illusion, there remained a veil between it and what was real. The fox woman replied that through the centuries all renowned courtesans and exquisite women had been but illusions. To know a woman, to meet her, to love her, and then to part from her until one’s hair turned white had always made her differ from the girl of youth; even brows painted dark and cheeks dusted with rouge could be called illusion. So why did he single her out as illusion alone?

After hearing this, the scholar attained some enlightenment. Later, when the fox woman departed, he devoted himself to self-cultivation and restraint, never again frequenting the pleasure quarters.

At that moment, Chu Youcai suddenly understood.

His flesh, too, was an illusion, for one day it would inevitably rot away.

His spirit was even more so, for as he grew older, his thoughts would always change; and even if he passed them on to another, they would never remain exactly the same. Therefore, the spirit he possessed at this very instant was also illusion.

Chu Youcai was suddenly enlightened.

With a fierce motion, he drove the Fish-Scale Blade through his skin. Blood gushed out in torrents, yet he no longer felt the slightest pain.

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, and yet it was as though no thoughts had flashed at all.

His soul could even pass through the cauldron and clearly see the burly man outside, hear the sound of flowers falling, hear the sound of grass growing, hear the clamor of all things in the world.

With a thunderous crash, Chu Youcai broke through the cauldron.

The steel cauldron, worth thirty thousand taels of silver, was torn apart by his power in that instant and shattered into countless fragments that rained to the ground.

The burly man suddenly saw someone leap from the cauldron and was so startled that his face changed color. But when he saw that it was only an ordinary scholar, he finally felt somewhat reassured.

Malice rose in his heart. With a sudden swing of his arm, he lashed out heavily at Chu Youcai.

Yet he soon discovered that when his palm struck Chu Youcai, the flesh beneath merely caved in slightly, while Chu Youcai himself seemed to notice nothing at all.

He struck several times in succession. Each blow landed as though on leather, sounding dull and heavy, but causing Chu Youcai no harm whatsoever.

"Ghost!" The thought struck him at once. Remembering how the cauldron had suddenly become lighter, terror seized him utterly. He dropped to his knees and cried out, "Great Ghost King, spare me! Spare me!"

Chu Youcai ignored him and simply felt the changes within his body.

At that moment, he discovered that between his bones there seemed to be a membrane protecting his body, while within his meridians, many blood-red chains guarded them from all sides. No matter how the burly man attacked, he could not even break through the membrane around Chu Youcai's bones, let alone touch those meridians.

Moreover, after being struck so relentlessly, he felt no pain at all, as though this body were not his own. Yet at the same time, he could sense his muscles surging with vitality, filled with boundless strength.

It was a wondrous sensation.

Suddenly, Chu Youcai drew a deep breath and hurled a punch through the air toward the distance.

The wind of the fist swept out in fierce majesty, hurtling toward a tree some ten yards away.

At once, with a great crash, the tree swayed violently, tottering on the verge of collapse, as though it had been blown down by a gale.

Compared with the sight from half a day earlier, when he had only managed to break the bark of a tree at a distance of a few feet, this was an improvement beyond measure.

Chu Youcai could not help feeling a surge of confident elation.

With a body like this, who could say whether he would surpass the Dark Butcher Gang leader, with his thirty years of hard external training, or not?

Seeing Chu Youcai unleash such a terrifying punch, the burly man went dry-mouthed and could no longer utter a single word.

"Get out!" Chu Youcai said coldly.

The burly man had not expected Chu Youcai to spare his life. At once, his face turned miserable, and he fled in utter panic.