Chapter 156: A Chronicle of North Gate Mountain

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Zhou Qing had never considered the lifespan of his grandmaster, for there was no record of time in the Wanderer's Miscellany. Likewise, after he entered the Dao under Wu Liaochan, his master had never mentioned the longevity of his grandmaster. However, Zhou Qing did know that the year Wu Liaochan vanished in Mount Sumeru, his master was already eighty-three years old.

Though hearing all this left Zhou Qing with many doubts, he did not interrupt Cao Linliang’s narration, choosing instead to listen in silence.

...

More than four centuries ago, Lu Shandian, the sixth generation master of the Puhua Sect, descended the mountain to travel the world. In the northern reaches of the Tang Empire, he encountered a great earthquake. After the quake, a barren mountain was split open, revealing an ancient tomb within. At the foot of the mountain lay a small town. The townsfolk, upon seeing this, rushed into the mountain and descended into the tomb in search of treasure, yet none who entered ever returned.

As it happened, Lu Shandian passed through the town. He surmised that the ancient tomb must harbor some evil presence, which explained why none of the treasure seekers returned. Moved by compassion, the great master ventured alone into the mountain.

Within the ancient tomb, Lu Shandian discovered many sinister and malevolent entities. Relying on his spiritual abilities, he cleansed much of the evil within the tomb, but in its deepest recesses, he encountered an ancient zombie who had survived for thousands of years.

For two days and nights, the master and the fiend battled fiercely. In the end, exhausted and no match for the ancient undead, Lu Shandian was forced to flee the tomb, with the zombie in relentless pursuit.

At the moment when Lu Shandian’s life hung by a thread, a cultivator of great power appeared and saved him. This cultivator called himself Master Tianyi. He wielded a short black wooden handle, which, guided by his spiritual power and will, could transform into myriad magical instruments at his command.

Moreover, not only did this self-styled Tianyi possess peerless magical artifacts, but with a mere gesture and incantation, he could summon wind and rain, stir clouds and lightning—truly like an immortal descending to the mortal realm.

Faced with such great power, the ancient zombie stood no chance and was easily vanquished by Tianyi.

Thus, Lu Shandian was saved, and the Puhua Sect survived to this day. Upon his return, he recorded the event in detail, and the account has been passed down ever since.

While the Puhua Legacy Sutra records the deeds of successive masters, most entries are not, as in the Wanderer's Miscellany, focused on slaying demons and cleansing evil. Rather, they recount insights into the Dao, reflections on human nature, and the struggle between good and evil.

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Because of this entry recorded by Lu Shandian, Cao Linliang had never been able to forget it since the first time he read it.

The legendary artifact that transformed at the will of its master, and the divine arts with which a wave of the hand could change heaven and earth—these had always enchanted him.

Just now, when Cao Linliang heard from his soldiers that a spy had injured one of his officers, he had chased after the culprit in anger. Initially, he intended to teach Zhou Qing a lesson, but upon seeing the artifact in Zhou Qing’s hand, he was reminded of the account in the Puhua Legacy Sutra.

He watched as Zhou Qing’s artifact first became a staff, then a whip—the ever-changing form precisely matching the description in his ancestral records of Master Lu Shandian and the legendary artifact, Wuhuan.

Thus, he blurted out the name of the immortal Tianyi, as recorded by his sect’s sixth generation ancestor, never expecting that the man before him truly was a descendant of Tianyi.

After listening to Cao Linliang’s tale, Zhou Qing recalled the entries in the Wanderer’s Miscellany. His grandmaster, Tianyi, had left behind more than two hundred such accounts.

Among these, there was indeed one about slaying an ancient zombie and rescuing a young master. Zhou Qing remembered that account was titled "The Chronicle of Mount Beique," and the rescued master bore the surname Lu, though his given name was unrecorded.

Reflecting on all this, Zhou Qing’s face revealed a trace of disbelief. He gazed at Cao Linliang for a moment before asking, “Daoist Cao, was the mountain where your ancestor Lu encountered the ancient tomb called Mount Beique?”

“That’s right, it was indeed Mount Beique! Could it be that the immortal Tianyi also recorded this event?”

To this, Zhou Qing merely nodded in silence, his heart filled with astonishment.

Given that the details from Cao Linliang’s account matched those in the Wanderer’s Miscellany, the story was no fabrication. This alone proved one thing—his grandmaster had indeed lived for several centuries, at the very least.

In the sequence of Tianyi’s accounts, the Chronicle of Mount Beique appeared somewhere in the middle. If these stories were in chronological order, and his master passed by Mount Beique over four centuries ago, then when was the first account written? By this reckoning, his grandmaster might have lived nearly a thousand years.

With these thoughts, Zhou Qing, for the first time, gained a true understanding of his grandmaster. Previously, he had only known from the Miscellany how extraordinary his grandmaster was.

From account to account, his grandmaster subdued powerful spirits and fiends with ease. Even the Thunder Talisman left to him by his master before departing was said to have been passed down from his grandmaster.

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“Daoist Zhou, if not for your grandmaster saving our ancestor Lu Shandian, there might be no Puhua Sect today, and I would not exist. Though the Puhua Court has now been ravaged by war, our gratitude to your sect is etched in our hearts. In the future, should you ever...” Cao Linliang spoke earnestly, but Zhou Qing paid it little mind.

He believed that his grandmaster had rescued Lu Shandian simply by chance, without thought for any reward, and in any case, so many years had passed since then.

“There’s no need for such formality, Daoist Cao.” Seeing Cao Linliang’s sudden courtesy, Zhou Qing’s earlier anger at being pursued faded away.

“By the way, Daoist Zhou, what brings you here in the middle of the night? You gave me quite a scare—I thought you were a spy scouting the area.” Cao Linliang laughed heartily, and with that, the unpleasantness between them vanished like smoke.

“I explained this to your men earlier—I truly was just passing by.”

Cao Linliang did not doubt him in the least. After a pause, he asked, “So, Daoist Zhou, where are you headed?”

Startled by the question, Zhou Qing hesitated. His original reason for coming to the northern frontier of the Tang Empire had been to perform good deeds, but now, after hearing Cao Linliang’s account of his grandmaster, a new idea had taken root.

He wished to visit Mount Beique, to see with his own eyes the place his grandmaster had passed through more than four centuries ago, and to walk the paths his elder had once trodden.

“Indeed, were it not for our earlier conflict, I would never have learned of this connection between our ancestors,” Zhou Qing said with a smile as he rose from the stone where he’d been seated. “Daoist Cao, which direction is Mount Beique?”