Among the authors of the collected cultivation techniques, the one who caught Fu Yun’s attention the most was the Cloud-Covering Immortal.
She stated clearly from the start that a furnace cauldron was also a type of Dao body, naturally attuned to spiritual energy. She called it the “Spiritual Pivot Body,” which progressed slowly but, after forming the Golden Core, had a solid foundation and was unmatched among peers of the same level.
However, every advancement required plundering vast amounts of spiritual energy, making enemies of the entire world and incurring the wrath of the Heavenly Dao.
Cloud-Covering was a sword cultivator. She mentioned “nurturing the sword within the spiritual pivot,” which particularly intrigued Fu Yun refining spiritual energy within the body, condensing it into a “Primordial Heart Sword.” Cultivated to its peak, a single thought could command ten thousand swords to return to their source.
Fu Yun couldn’t help but imagine: What if the refined spiritual energy came from the essence absorbed through dual cultivation? What if he could obtain Xie Lingjun’s fire spirit, the Green Saint’s wood spirit, or even the Sword Venerable’s sword intent.
The other entries were also ingenious.
One discussed how to conceal one’s constitution using heart’s blood to draw talismans, sealing one’s own spiritual meridians, and what Fu Yun needed most: concealing the soul’s aura.
The path of spiritual communion and dual cultivation had seemed like a dead end, but now there was a glimmer of hope.
Fu Yun was utterly captivated, wishing he had been born a century or two earlier to discuss the Dao with these predecessors.
Cloud-Covering, Fu Yun. Was it mere coincidence that this predecessor’s Daoist name resembled his own so closely?
Having read thousands of words in the library, Fu Yun’s state of mind had shifted. In the past, he cultivated merely to survive, but now he genuinely wanted to walk this path not just for himself, but also to offer a few words of guidance to those who would come after.
Once his cultivation was sufficient, he would inevitably leave the sect. But until then, there was no need to hold back he would drain the Taiyi Sect of its resources.
The sect was nothing more than a place for the circulation of resources. Furnace cauldrons cultivated slower than ordinary people, and the sect was unwilling to waste resources on Fu Yun harsh but reasonable. Thus, Fu Yun felt resentment but no hatred.
If the sect cultivated him as desired after his breakthrough, they could use each other. If they still treated him as a discard, then the higher-ups were nothing but fools and enemies, and he would not hold back.
Night deepened. Fu Yun extinguished the candle, and the sharp edge of ferocity in his eyes vanished with the light.
He rarely used talismans for illumination, preferring the dry warmth brought by the flame. It reminded him of curling up in bed, listening to his mother stir the charcoal fire a time when he always slept soundly. Since entering Taiyi, he had learned to meditate and rarely slept.
Tonight, however, Fu Yun had to enter a dream.
The dream anchor he had planted in the Green Saint’s incarnation was stirring.
His soul sank into the dream.
His vision lowered. Fu Yun looked down and saw a pair of child’s hands, about five or six years old, clad in coarse cloth. The illusory dream technique would make him become a person in the dream, but he didn’t know the year, location, or identity.
He would have to adapt as the situation unfolded.
He needed to find the Green Saint’s dream incarnation, locate the spiritual platform, and draw out the essence.
Before him was a small courtyard, surrounded by earthen walls, with firewood stacked in the corners clearly a mortal realm.
The door was slightly ajar. Fu Yun tiptoed forward, grabbed the doorframe, and peeked out to see a locust tree, a stone table carved with a chessboard, and a few sparrows pecking at crumbs in the cracks.
A hand gently stroked one of the sparrows.
The hand’s owner wore a faded blue robe, his back naturally straight, his brows and eyes like condensed ink, the corners of his lips seeming to smile, yet otherwise entirely plain. It was the face of the Green Saint’s incarnation.
But there was no spiritual energy around him a mortal.
Was this the Green Saint before he entered the Dao?
The Green Saint had lived too long. Those from his era had either perished or gone into seclusion, their pasts untraceable. Fu Yun needed to find the Green Saint’s dream incarnation and enter his spiritual platform. The person before him resembled the Green Saint, but it might not be him. He would have to observe through interaction.
The blue-robed man looked toward the door, his pupils dark and unrippled. He beckoned. Only when Fu Yun drew closer did he realize the man wasn’t smiling it was merely the shadow at the corner of his lips.
The man asked, “Who are you?”
Fu Yun replied, “‘Yun’.”
The man asked, “Which character?”
Fu Yun pointed to the sun in the sky.
The man nodded gently. “You may call me Wusheng.” He did not ask why Fu Yun had come or what he intended to do, simply saying, “Come in.”
Wusheng handed Fu Yun a piece of meat. Apart from his eyes and brows, what stood out most were his hands no matter what he did, they moved with an air of ease, his pale fingertips slightly curled, as if holding an unopened flower.
Even though what he held was flesh and blood.
Fu Yun caught the scent of blood on him, his mind racing. In the dream, the Green Sage had been kind to the child, how far could he tolerate this? Fu Yun slapped the piece of meat away forcefully. “I don’t want raw meat.”
“Did no one at home tell you? It can be eaten directly.” Even so, Wusheng took out a flint and struck sparks onto the stone table.
As he turned the meat over the fire, he asked Fu Yun about his family background.
Fu Yun stared at the meat, pretending to be ravenous, occasionally swallowing softly. He pursed his lips and said, “When I opened my eyes, everyone in my family was dead. I was so scared, and so hungry.”
Upon hearing this, Wusheng seemed lost in recollection. If he truly was an incarnation of the Green Sage, influenced by the illusory dream technique and the passage of time, it would be normal for him not to remember which part of the past corresponded to this dream. He asked Fu Yun, “Where did your family live?”
Fu Yun answered randomly, “On the mountain.”
Wusheng reassured him, “Don’t be afraid. They were likely all killed by me.”
Fu Yun shrank back a few steps.
Wusheng explained, “They weren’t your family they were bandits. You were a child they had taken.”
It seemed the background of this dream was indeed in the mortal realm.
The meat smelled delicious not the fragrance of fat, but the scent that any cultivator would instinctively crave… the aroma of immortal-grade treasures. Fu Yun was almost certain this was the incarnation of the Green Sage. “Is this your flesh?”
Wusheng replied, “Yes.”
So, the moment Fu Yun entered the dream, he had given the Green Sage a warning not only demanding to eat his flesh but insisting it be cooked.
Yet the Green Sage was not angry; he had even agreed. Therefore… Fu Yun could afford to be even bolder. He asked, “Why don’t you die when you cut off your flesh?”
Wusheng said, “I am a cultivator.”
“Why do you cut off your flesh to feed me?”
“I nurture all living beings under heaven, and you are one of them.”
“Why do you cut off your flesh for all living beings?”
“For cultivation.”
“Do you practice Buddhism?”
“I practice the Way of Life.” Wusheng teased, “So many questions would you like to become my disciple?”
Fu Yun’s heart skipped a beat, almost thinking his identity had been exposed. But after a few breaths, the Green Sage showed no significant reaction. He cautiously replied, “No.”
Now it was Wusheng’s turn to ask why.
“If I become your disciple, I’d have to learn to cut off my own flesh. If I don’t, I can eat yours.” Fu Yun said, “If not following your path leads to a better life, why would anyone take the wrong one?”
The system was shocked. “Are you really going to speak so harshly?”
Fu Yun thought to himself, “I’m pretending to be a nightmare, and now I’m a child being a little bad is only natural.”
As they exchanged questions and answers, the meat was soon cooked. Given his role, Fu Yun should have snatched it and devoured it eagerly, but he hesitated.
Could he eat the flesh of the dream incarnation? Would it expose his identity? As he pondered, a cup of water was handed to him. Fu Yun took it, using the moment to drink and think, and naturally took a sip.
The cup fell to the ground.
The water turned to blood in his throat.
Fu Yun wanted to vomit, but a slender, cold hand covered his mouth, forcing him to swallow. Blood mixed with saliva overflowed, trickling down his chin and staining Wusheng’s sleeve.
Wu Sheng wrapped his other arm around Fu Yun’s neck, his thumb resting on the Adam’s apple, feeling the tremor of a swallow.
Fu Yun stabbed forward with the bamboo skewer holding the meat.
Wu Sheng caught the wooden skewer barehanded.
It must have hurt, because Fu Yun heard his breathing grow heavier, but he seemed accustomed to it, quickly suppressing the pain.
Then, Fu Yun heard a gentle, low laugh “If your identity is truly clean, I.”
“It’s here!”
The wooden door was kicked open.
“Officers, immortal meat from the immortal’s cabin, eating it grants longevity.”
“The legend of the ‘Flesh Bodhisattva’ it’s actually true!”
Several emaciated refugees, huddled around a few bailiffs holding rusty knives, trembled as they pointed at Wu Sheng. An old man shouted excitedly, spittle flying:
“It’s him, it’s him… When I was a child, I fled famine with my father and came up this mountain. He looked exactly like this. Fifty years have passed, and he hasn’t changed a bit.”
The crowd surged forward.
What followed was beyond Fu Yun’s imagination.
The dull knives and rusty axes of mortals sliced through Wu Sheng’s flesh as if cutting tofu. Blood soaked his green robes, yet he remained unmoving, the sorrowful compassion in his brow never fading, cold sweat continuously beading at his temples he was enduring real, excruciating pain.
Piece by piece, his flesh was carved away.
Beneath, stark white bones connected joint by joint, like polished bamboo.
“Ha! I got some!” a mortal laughed, only to be swallowed by the crowd.
In the end, the courtyard was filled with corpses. The victors devoured the flesh ravenously, only for it to spill out from their torn bellies. They all died.
At the center sat a skeleton, the flesh on its cheeks already torn away, yet it still hung its head low.
Though its face was twisted in agony, it was not at peace.
“There’s no more flesh you should go.” The skeleton’s jawbone moved, its empty eye sockets facing Fu Yun’s direction.
Fu Yun did not run.
He stretched out his thin, childlike arms and wrapped them around the skeletal frame.
“Outside is chaos. I’ll die if I go out.” He pressed his face against the blood-stained ribs, his tone clinging and soft, “If I stay with you, there will still be meat to eat.”
“You.” The skeleton trembled slightly.
Fu Yun tightened his embrace, holding on even more firmly.
“It tickles.” Wu Sheng gasped in pain, coughing up bloody foam, “Your hair is poking into my heart.”