Chapter Eighty-Three: The nature of metal is immortality itself; no wonder corpse immortals are called battle immortals. (Seeking monthly votes in the middle of the month!)

The page that follows had been misread, and the net had also been underestimated.

“There is one thing to say,” said Jin Mingzi. “Zhu Chongba has overestimated this web, and underestimated me.”

“Even if this net is linked to the dragon vein, it cannot hold me. Besides, he knows only that fire overcomes metal, yet does not know that golden lotus can also be planted within fire.

“My body in this life was born in a fire cavern among the mountains of the northwest, tempered for seven hundred years by dark flame until it was nearly flawless, lacking only the nurturing of true fire. For hundreds of years I wandered the mortal world seeking the underground yang fire, yet found none, and so I had to continue feeding on metal energy and sleep. But he chose to use the fiery virtue of the Central Plains’ imperial fortune to suppress and slay me, not knowing that this was precisely the yang fire I had longed for.

“So while I refined my corpse body, I had the leisure to ruin his dragon vein little by little, until his descendants had to come personally and explain themselves to me.”

Jin Mingzi looked down on the imperial house of Zhu, though he was also a little puzzled.

“Still, that Zhu emperor has remarkable patience. For more than ten years the dragon vein has been rotting away, and the first sign should have appeared in the throne room. By rights, his body ought to have grown steadily worse, already beyond cure. Yet there was not a single stir. Instead, it was you outsiders who noticed first.”

Listening to this, Cheng Xinzhan felt something was not quite right. He asked Zhu Jianmo, “Brother Daoist, after the First Ming Emperor halted the construction of the Central Capital, did nothing ever move again during the Hongwu reign?”

Zhu Jianmo nodded firmly.

“Then later, was it only the Yongle Emperor who ordered the Central Capital to be resumed?”

Zhu Jianmo’s expression changed. “You mean the Yongle Emperor?”

Cheng Xinzhan pressed on. “Then did the Yongle Emperor have beside him some extraordinary man like Liu Bowen, someone capable of altering the great formation?”

Zhu Jianmo’s eyes widened. He nodded. “Yes, yes, there was one! People of the time called him the Black-Robed Chancellor.”

Cheng Xinzhan nodded and said to Jin Mingzi, “Senior, perhaps there has been a misunderstanding. Junior has a conjecture and would like to share it with you.”

Jin Mingzi studied him, then said, “Go on.”

Cheng Xinzhan cupped his hands and spoke at length.

“Senior may not know this, but the First Ming Emperor’s eldest son died young of illness, never inheriting the great mandate, and was posthumously named the Benevolent Prince. The First Emperor then passed the throne to his grandson, the second son of that Benevolent Prince. These private matters, including the agreement with Senior, should have been told to the grandson by the First Emperor.

“When that grandson ascended the throne, he became the Jianwen Emperor. But Jianwen favored the reduction of the royal princes’ power. At that time the Prince of Yan, the First Emperor’s fourth son, rose in the Jingnan campaign and seized the throne, becoming the Yongle Emperor. Most of Jianwen’s descendants perished; those who survived likely knew nothing of the details.

“As for the Yongle Emperor, he had long resided in the Yan princely domain and rose by way of the Jingnan campaign. He likely knew nothing of these private matters at all. Perhaps in some year he simply felt that the construction of the Central Capital had been abandoned halfway through and was far too wasteful, and so he ordered it resumed as a dwelling for the people.

“Before that resumption, however, the Black-Robed Chancellor had seen the original blueprints of the Central Capital and recognized the formation of ‘the qilin swallowing gold.’ He judged that this array was unfavorable to the repose of the ancestors, and so altered the diagram, turning it into a ‘boiling gold in fierce fire’ formation, drawing upon the metal energy of the imperial mausoleum to strengthen the dragon vein of the Zhu clan.

“But what he did not know, and what the Yongle Emperor also did not know, was that the formation of the Central Capital had been tied together with the protective net you designed, as well as the Zhu clan’s dragon vein. By changing it, he turned what had once been a shield into a prison—no, not even a prison, only something that bound your hands and feet.

“And when Senior later struck at the Central Capital’s dragon vein, the Zhu emperor may already have been beyond saving, but the Yongle Emperor’s descendants did not know that there had once been such a hidden affair beneath the ancestral tombs of Fengyang. That is why they delayed so long before coming.”

Jin Mingzi listened in silence. After a moment, he said, “It is that simple?”

“Perhaps it is that simple.”

“Then it was not Zhu Chongba who did this deliberately? I never spoke to him of my true nature. Perhaps he merely thought I was only a corpse demon; once he sat the throne, he scorned any pretense and wanted to use the dragon vein to suppress and kill me?”

“That should not be the case,” Cheng Xinzhan said, lowering his head.

At this, Jin Mingzi was silent again. Then, suddenly, he laughed.

“Good. Perhaps it truly is that simple.”

Indeed, nearly five hundred years had passed since his last meeting with Zhu Chongba. Mortals had long since become dry bones, and even the lineage he had once named had changed hands. Why should he still be tangled in such things?

“So be it. Since your ancestors committed the offense, it is only right that you descendants clean up the mess. You few above, sever the connection between the capital’s dragon vein and this place. As for the two of you, shed some blood as well, and I shall dissolve this net.”

Yet after Jin Mingzi spoke, Cheng Xinzhan and the others still made no move, merely keeping their heads bowed in silence.

Seeing this, Jin Mingzi laughed in exasperation. “You are all young, yet sly as foxes. Very well, I will show you my means!”

With that, Jin Mingzi seized the fire net before him and yanked hard.

A thunderous crash shook the earth. Rocks from the cavern ceiling rained down like a storm, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Senior, please wait! We will go at once!”

From the passage above, someone shouted. Cheng Xinzhan thought it sounded like Sun Miaoshu’s voice, and before the words had even faded, the voice was already gone.

“Hmm. Do you believe me now? Did you think I was some demon trapped here and unable to leave?”

Jin Mingzi looked at them both.

They hurriedly shook their heads and said they would never dare.

“Each of you, give me two taels of heart’s blood.”

This time Zhu Jianmo nodded, circulating his vital blood through his meridians to the fingertips. Then, using his hand like a blade, he sliced open the tip of his finger. Scarlet blood flowed out at once, caught by his power and gathered into a sphere in the air.

Cheng Xinzhan said, “Senior, my flesh body is injured. I travel in spirit form, so I have no blood to give.”

“No matter, no matter. I’ll give some more. Four taels won’t kill me,” Zhu Jianmo said repeatedly.

But Jin Mingzi looked at Cheng Xinzhan and shook his head.

“You still have not understood what I said earlier about the unity of essence, energy, and spirit. You may have no vital blood in your body, but has the power in your heart palace vanished too?”

Realization dawned on Cheng Xinzhan. With a thought, the power in his heart palace, a mingling of the Great Solar Inferno and the Three-Flame True Fire, surged forth.

“That is enough,” said Jin Mingzi, and with a method Cheng Xinzhan could not comprehend, he grasped the power that had left his body.

“In your heart palace power, besides the fire of the dynasty’s fortune, I also taste the fires of heaven, air, and the mortal world.”

Cheng Xinzhan replied, “I was fortunate enough to receive a few opportunities.”

“Still, though your bloodline is closer to Zhu Chongba’s, the imperial fire contained within it is very faint. It seems the one seated on the throne is indeed far removed from your line.”

“That has nothing to do with me,” Cheng Xinzhan answered. Before this, he had not even heard of such imperial fire, but what good could there be in a cultivator bearing it? He would have to find a way to remove this fire-essence in the future.

Jin Mingzi said nothing more. He lifted both men’s essence blood and power into the air, then flicked his hand forcefully, scattering a curtain of blood mist.

The mist fell upon the fire net, and the flames upon it instantly went out, revealing the net’s true color: gold, like rope, or like light congealed. The net’s four sides sank deep into the cavern, linked to the Central Capital’s dragon vein.

“Once those boys sever the dragon vein’s link to this place, the net will naturally disperse,” said Jin Mingzi.

Cheng Xinzhan and Zhu Jianmo could only hope that the four would act quickly. They did not know what good method they might improvise, but they certainly could not simply split the earth and destroy the city—that would incur an immense karmic debt.

While they waited, Jin Mingzi spoke again.

“Let us assume what you said is true, and that Zhu Chongba did not break his promise. At the time I agreed with him that when I awoke, I would do one thing for his descendants, but now that service is unnecessary. Even if he did not break his word, he failed to govern his descendants properly. Still, you two are his descendants, and today you have helped me escape. I grant each of you one question. So long as I can answer it, I will tell you everything without concealment. You may ask now, but remember: each person only one question.”

Cheng Xinzhan and Zhu Jianmo were delighted to hear this. These were figures who had lived through two lifetimes as immortals, peers of the founder himself. In terms of knowledge and spellcraft, they could be said to tower over the present age.

Zhu Jianmo thought for a moment and was about to speak, when Cheng Xinzhan suddenly interrupted him.

“Senior, why not wait until my fellow Daoists return before we ask? That way they won’t fail at their tasks and still waste Senior’s effort.”

Zhu Jianmo immediately understood and echoed him at once.

Jin Mingzi was no ordinary figure; he saw through Cheng Xinzhan’s little scheme at a glance. “I have no time for such delays. Ask quickly. Whatever I answer, you may tell them, or the disciples and grand-disciples of the Immortal Elder. As for my origins, it has been a long time since I have seen living people, so I have spoken much today. The current master of your Three Pure Peaks need only know these matters; he should know where discretion lies and not spread them about.”

The two of them agreed.

Cheng Xinzhan signaled for Zhu Jianmo to ask first.

Zhu Jianmo thought for a moment, then said, “Senior, do gold immortals truly exist in this world? Is our patriarch one of them?”

Cheng Xinzhan had not expected Zhu Jianmo to ask that, and quickly pricked up his ears.

Jin Mingzi answered, “That is two questions, but as for the Immortal Elder, I will say it all the same. Of course gold immortals exist in this world, but not in the present heavenly realm. After I ascended, I did not find the Immortal Elder in heaven, and I do not know whether he has already become a gold immortal.”

It was an answer they had never imagined. That single sentence left them silent for a long while. What did he mean, the present heavenly realm does not have them? And where had the patriarch gone?

“All right, you boy, it is your turn. Remember, only one question.”

Cheng Xinzhan thought carefully for a long while before asking, “Senior, you attained enlightenment as a gold qilin, and in your second life you became a golden corpse. I seek to cultivate the metal path, and so I dare to ask: what is the nature of metal?”

“What is the nature of metal?”

Jin Mingzi repeated the words.

Cheng Xinzhan nodded.

Jin Mingzi fell silent for a time, as though answering this question were far more difficult than the last.

“A good question.”

Jin Mingzi said this, then fell silent again. He too was thinking with great seriousness.

After a long while, he slowly said:

“My clan calls itself the Gold Qilin. The world thinks this means our scales and horns are fierce and peerless, able to cut through anything, able to guard against anything. But that is not so. Look: was I not slain in my first life? My scales were shattered, my horns broken, my blood entirely drained.

“We call ourselves Gold Qilin simply because our bones are hard, taking the meaning of unyielding endurance and true gold refined by fierce fire. Hah, those fellows in the heavens wanted to subdue me, not knowing that my bones are harder than the immortal weapons in their hands!

“As for what the nature of metal truly is, I would not dare speak recklessly. The golden core is the beginning of the cultivated path, the gold immortal the beginning of immortality; who would dare say they have penetrated the essence of metal? If I were to speak only for myself, I would say this: the nature of metal is certainly not mere armor and weaponry. The nature of metal is deathlessness.”

“Deathlessness?”

Cheng Xinzhan mouthed the three words.

“That’s right. Those people severed my flesh body and destroyed my primordial spirit. So what? So long as a single thought remains, or to put it another way, so long as that trace of metal nature has once been refined into the world, I can still use a corpse to prove the Dao and kill my way back into heaven! In this life, I am stronger than I was before!

“Even if they smash this corpse once more, with this metal nature, could I not live out a third life? If I live out ten lives, who would not call me a gold immortal?”

At this moment, Jin Mingzi was radiant with pride, sharp and unstoppable.

Cheng Xinzhan listened with utmost attention, memorizing every word Jin Mingzi spoke, and Zhu Jianmo’s face also showed sudden enlightenment.

Just as Jin Mingzi finished speaking of metal nature, all three of them heard a tremendous crash from the northeast. The earth trembled gently.

The light net above Jin Mingzi’s head also began to disperse. It seemed the others had succeeded as well.

Jin Mingzi laughed heartily. “Lads, since I fell into corpsehood in the northwest, more than fourteen hundred years have passed. Of those, twelve hundred were spent in underground caverns. I have tasted both dark flame and true fire, and they are but so-so!

“Today, I shall ascend once more in the realm of the corpse immortal! Those few in the heavens, do not die too early!”

Laughing, Jin Mingzi released boundless light from his body and shot straight toward the sky.

With a rolling thunder, the land within the imperial tomb walls began to collapse, while the land beyond remained wholly untouched.

A dazzling ball of gold light flew out from deep within the mausoleum and ascended directly into the clouds.

Cheng Xinzhan and Zhu Jianmo also escaped the cavern with Jin Mingzi before the ground collapsed. Once they emerged, they saw that the great sun was just rising in the east, its brilliant gold light bathing the earth. In the sunlight, the golden radiance transformed from Jin Mingzi was all the more blinding.

For a moment, there seemed to be two suns, one in the east of heaven and one at its center, competing in splendor.

Cheng Xinzhan forced his eyes wide open, and Zhu Jianmo did the same. This was ascent!

Cheng Xinzhan saw that within the mass of golden light, Senior Jin Mingzi seemed once again to have taken on the form of a qilin. That scarred corpse of a qilin came to life, bathed in gold, stepping across the void, running and surging toward the heavens.

Then came another thunderclap.

After the earth collapsed, thunder followed.

Though sunlight poured everywhere, thunderclouds appeared only in the direction where the gold qilin was rising.

Silver-violet lightning cascaded downward like a flood, pouring over the gold qilin.

“Earth fire I regard as nothing, so what have I to fear from heavenly thunder?”

The gold qilin cried out in arrogance. The thunder crashing down upon him did not halt his body in the slightest. He still raced through the void, raced on, and actually climbed to a height above the thunderclouds.

“He who has sharp edges is buried from childhood in withered grass, and only later comes to look down upon the weeds and reeds. Men of the time do not recognize the timber that can reach the clouds; only when it has already soared do they call it lofty!”

Before all under heaven, Jin Mingzi recited a poem, and with thunderous laughter stepped into the heavenly realm.

Cheng Xinzhan watched in a daze. The qilin’s scales and horns, the qilin’s body, the qilin’s charge through heavenly thunder and earthly fire—all of it was etched into his mind. And echoing there as well was that single line:

Metal nature is deathlessness.

At this moment, witnessing the qilin ascend to heaven for revenge, another thought naturally formed in his mind:

So a corpse immortal is a warrior immortal.

At that moment, he conceived in his mind the corpse of a gold qilin, an undying corpse.

It is the middle of the month now, and I ask for your monthly votes. Thank you!

Also please send recommendation votes, and comments and messages are welcome!

The End