"What's this about dashing and dashing, decisive and hero?
I have no idea what you're talking about. Nonsense!"
The chubby youth stepped forward a few paces and said,
"Good dogs don't block the path."
He planned to sneak up behind Tao Bai after passing by.
Stabbing someone from behind is so satisfying!
Tao Bai stood before him, calmly replying,
"In such a hurry to eat shit, dumb dog?"
"Damn it! You dare call me a dog! Die!"
Furious, he drew the knife he'd just wiped clean of blood and lunged at Tao Bai!
Can't get him from behind?
Fine, I'll come head-on.
Got a knife?
What's there to fear?
"Huh?"
The gleaming blade froze three inches from his chest, as if an invisible wall of air resisted its advance.
No matter how hard he pushed, it wouldn't budge an inch.
Confusion and terror flashed in his eyes.
"You want to fight BenZuo head-on?"
(BenZuo: A haughty self-address used by powerful cultivators when speaking to those with lower cultivation levels, or to those ordinary mortals, indicating superiority and authority.)
Tao Bai raised an eyebrow, swung his right hand, and delivered a resounding slap.
"SMACK!"
The chubby youth saw stars as he stumbled backward, crashing to the ground.
He touched his swollen cheek and spat out a mouthful of blood, along with a tooth.
He staggered to his feet again and lunged toward Tao Bai.
Tao Bai countered with another backhand slap, this time with more force than before.
Clearly dissatisfied that the previous blow had only knocked out one tooth,
Tao Bai delivered another resounding slap.
"SMACK!"
This time, the chubby youth lost two teeth.
Both sides of his face swelled up, and he collapsed onto the ground, stars dancing before his eyes.
He no longer dared to get up and fight again.
No one had ever treated him like this before!
For the first time in his life, he tasted the bitterness of humiliation and the chill of fear.
He couldn't understand why the knife hadn't gone in.
Tao Bai paid no heed to what he was thinking, simply stepping forward to disable his right hand.
His right foot met slight resistance, but swiftly rendered the man's right hand useless.
It turned out the slightly plump youth had raised his blade, aiming it directly at Tao Bai's cloud-stepping shoes, intending to pierce through his foot.
However, Tao Bai saw it all.
With his spiritual power fully unleashed, he kicked the blade, snapping it clean in two.
The shattered blade instantly embedded itself into his arm, its force shattering the bone beneath.
"Aaaahhh!!!"
He let out a blood-curdling scream.
"Yin-Yang Umbrella, open!"
Tao Bai slapped his waist.
A burst of yellow light erupted as an earth-toned oil paper umbrella shot out from his purple storage pouch.
Its canopy was painted with Yin-Yang fish, the Primordial Bagua Diagram, and various talismans.
Tucked beneath the canopy was a small paper figurine of a red man.
A slender figure drifted out from the Little Red Man,
clad in a tracksuit with a high ponytail—
the very image of the young woman in life.
Filled with overwhelming hatred, she lunged at the already terrified, chubby youth!
The chubby youth let out a scream as the apparition vanished into his body.
With his left hand, the chubby boy dug out the blood-soaked blade embedded in his right arm.
Clutching it, he began stabbing himself frantically in the groin!
Stab after stab...
Blood spilled, soaking the late autumn earth.
His face contorted into a series of grotesque, twisted expressions before finally settling into a deranged grin.
"Yin-Yang Umbrella, return!"
As the young woman's spirit flew back into the little red figure, the chubby youth's piercing scream echoed throughout the valley before he passed out from the pain.
Tao Bai flicked his sword finger, sending an ice arrow that pierced his heart with precision.
They searched him and found a set of car keys,
nearly twenty thousand yuan in cash,
and two cell phones—one his own N95.
The other was a K818C—Gui Sixia's phone, which he'd picked up.
He was already calculating how selling it secondhand could net him a couple of thousand yuan for pocket money.
After stowing the cash in an earth-toned storage pouch, Tao Bai snapped his fingers.
A small ball of crimson flame coalesced at his fingertip.
When it grew to the size of a basketball, he hurled it toward the chubby youth.
The crimson flames clung to the flesh like maggots on bone, consuming the slightly plump youth's body in mere moments.
Reduced to ashes, they scattered in the wind as if he had never existed.
A leaden mass of unconscious malevolence drifted upward into the air.
"Qiankun Gourd, go!"
A flash of purple light erupted from the storage pouch at his right hip.
A gourd adorned with mystical symbols shot out, its lid opening automatically.
An invisible suction instantly drew the malevolent energy into the gourd.
The chubby youth's soul form trembled violently at the sight.
What the hell is this thing?
Where did it even come from?
Twisting its body, it tried to flee.
"Blood-Link Mill, pursue!"
Tao Bai shot a glance over his shoulder, stirred his divine sense, and flicked his sword finger.
A stone-mill-shaped artifact shot from his fingertip, spinning rapidly as it gave chase to the chubby youth.
This fist-sized, translucent artifact existed between substance and void, capable of being concealed within the body.
Before long, the artifact returned, its grooves now holding two new "guests."
Three talismanic inscriptions were engraved around its perimeter.
Golden runes danced across its spiritual shield, shifting in size and brightness like breathing lights.
These represented three array restrictions:
A Soul-Sealing Array, a Sound-Blocking Array, and a Spirit-Hiding Array.
The mill featured twelve sides, each with nine grinding teeth.
The upper and lower millstones combined held two hundred sixteen grooves.
Only the grooves on the lower millstone could lock souls in place, fixing their positions.
Each groove could hold one hundred souls, allowing for a maximum capacity of ten thousand eight hundred souls.
Another restriction was that souls of cultivators above the Foundation Establishment stage could not be captured.
Currently, only three souls resided within the mill—
Li Bing, a fourth-layer Qi Cultivation cultivator who had entered half a year ago, and the mortals Qin Shan and Wei Suoxi, who had entered today.
Sigh, it really is... a bit lonely!
Through the young woman's soul's narration,
Tao Bai learned her name was Gui Sixia, aged 24.
She had a younger sister, Gui Nianqiu, just 22 and fresh out of university, searching for work.
She requested Tao Bai deliver her phone to her sister, thus saving Gui Nianqiu the expense of buying a new one.
After persistent coaxing, Tao Bai finally agreed.
He had originally planned to fly by sword to Liu City to check on his fiancée, but encountered this situation shortly after taking off.
He calculated that his fiancée was now 31—
Surely she wouldn't wait seven years for him!
Sigh!
No need to rush things now.
The two youths were both from Five-Star Village, named Qin Shan and Wei Suoxi.
Both were around eighteen, they'd spent three years in high school, but ultimately failed to gain university admission.
Yet Qin Shan, relying on his wealthy father, spent his days idling about, touring scenic spots, indulging in revelry, and enjoying romantic moonlit nights—a life no less heavenly than that of an immortal.
Qin Shan's father, Qin Kun, was the village's wealthiest man.
He'd built a luxurious villa and owned several high-end cars.
This afternoon, he was hosting a banquet for the entire village to celebrate taking a concubine.
She didn't know much about Wei Suoxi, but judging by how he fawned over Qin Shan, obeying every command with servile deference, she guessed he had no real connections.
Of course, if Tao Bai wanted to know these details, she could simply retrieve the Blood Grinder and ask—the information would be absolutely reliable.
At that moment, the Blood-Link Mill lay quietly upon the ascending aorta.
As blood flowed through it, the handle turned, causing the grinding wheel to spin ceaselessly, grinding the three soul bodies round and round.
The mill was filled with the sounds of flesh and bone shattering, along with various agonized screams, yet the outside world remained as silent as a grave.
Black-red blood of resentment dripped slowly from the mill's trough, merging with the crimson blood to nourish Tao Bai's physical form.
The Record of Resentful Blood documented over a dozen uses for such blood, one of which was tempering the physical body.
For Tao Bai, who had just returned from the Immortal Realm through a spatial fissure, body tempering proved an excellent cultivation method.
Tao Bai drew a deep breath, carefully sensing the concentration of spiritual energy.
The spiritual energy in this realm was tenfold thinner than in the cultivation world. Even with his rare dual spiritual roots—
Wind Spirit Root and the rare Void Spirit Root, capable of accommodating other roots, making his talent truly extraordinary, it would be difficult to form a golden core in a short time.
Having trained for seven years at the Yin-Yang Sect, he understood the lethal edge of close-quarters combat wielded by physical cultivation masters.
Their ability to withstand attacks from ordinary magical artifacts had cost him dearly on numerous occasions.
When facing a physical cultivator of equal cultivation level, breaking through their defenses and securing a kill proved exceedingly difficult.
Most encounters ended in the futile squandering of one's spiritual energy.
The Eclipsing Moon Withered Phoenix Art also documented another method of body tempering.
Unlike the Yin-Yang Union Manual's technique of absorbing yin essence to replenish yang,
The former was far more ruthless—it involved absorbing the female partner's Yin essence to nourish one's own flesh, a technique that unilaterally plundered the other's cultivation.
The latter, however, leaned toward mutual Yin-Yang complementation, benefiting both parties' cultivation.
Thus, the latter was a mandatory practice for every Yin-Yang Sect disciple, while the former technique was acquired by Tao Bai during his battles against heretical cultivators, gained through killing and plundering.
It took him a full 69 days of seclusion to fully comprehend this technique.
Upon achieving enlightenment, Hei Feng—
Who had forcibly abducted him to the Yin-Yang Sect seven years prior—
Appeared before him.
Tao Bai thus applied the Eclipsing Moon, Withered Phoenix Art for the first time upon her,
a Foundation Establishment cultivator at the early stage.
Their encounter ignited like dry kindling meeting a flame, and in a single night of passionate union, he stripped her of five years' worth of cultivation.
The demonic energy-infused Demon-Quelling Wine also possessed body-tempering properties.
What would happen if all three methods were cultivated simultaneously?
Liquidized spiritual energy required purification...
He also needed to find someone familiar to inquire about what had truly happened to the Tao clan back then...
As these thoughts swirled, Tao Bai retrieved the SIM card and tossed it aside.
The N95 in flight mode had only five bars of battery left.
Sliding open the cover, he opened the photo album.
Shaking his head, he deleted all the unsavory photos and videos.
Before long, the N95 looked practically brand new.
This must be Nokia's latest model, right?
Back in the day, Tao Bai had been using a bulky Nokia 7110.
Tao Bai opened the Yin-Yang Umbrella and removed the little red man.
"Destroy its ghostly form, purify its soul!"
As the incantation ended, the floating red man burst into flames, turning to ashes in moments.