Chapter Index
    The deeper they went, the more they felt that beneath the dense forest was an intricate array.

    Gloomy shadows abounded, and the distant black mountains loomed indistinctly. Every grass and stone seemed to grow in accordance with the terrain, flowing and turning in cycles.

    Ye Zhuo’s attainments in formations were not good, and he couldn’t see the purpose of this formation. He just followed the lines of force towards the place where the energy gathered.

    Because he had to identify the direction of the formation, Ye Zhuo didn’t walk fast. The disciples of the Dan Ding Sect behind him walked while collecting the four-colored fruits from the trees.

    The Second Palace Master Ye did not stop them. It seemed that although this behavior was a bit unlucky, it was harmless. If one didn’t pluck every feather from a passing goose or dig three feet into the ground during a secret realm adventure, then one would have cultivated immortality in vain.

    The fruits growing on the dead man’s tree were not good things, but at least they could be used to make poison.

    Shen Xin’ge followed Ye Zhuo all the time, watching the direction he chose and how he walked, with a clear confusion in his eyes: “Daoist friend Ye, how did you figure out this path?”

    Wei Sheng Xian quite admired Shen Jingzhen, so why did he take in such a stupid disciple?

    Ye Zhuo: “By looking, it just comes out.”

    The disciples of the Dan Ding Sect who were picking fruits froze for a moment, almost failing to pick them.

    Shen Xin’ge pouted again, his eyes as if tears were about to appear. But he tried hard to hold them back and continued to watch Ye Zhuo’s trajectory, and then looked at the surrounding terrain and trees.

    Finally, he saw a bit of a pattern, Shen Xin’ge’s eyes lit up, and he was able to keep up.

    After catching up, new questions arose.

    “My master said that formations should have eight gates: Open, Rest, Life, Du, View, Death, Surprise, and Injury. Daoist friend Ye, why can’t I see any of them?”

    “It’s okay,” Ye Zhuo said, “I can’t see them either.”

    Shen Xin’ge became happy and walked peacefully in front.

    With someone leading the way, Ye Zhuo took two steps back and let Shen Xin’ge walk on his own.

    Lin Zhu always felt that Palace Master Ye seemed to have forgotten something.

    “Brother Ye,” Lin Zhu said, walking to Ye Zhuo’s side, “We are now going to the center of the formation, but the missing disciples do not have such attainments in formations and may not be there. How can we save them?”

    Ye Zhuo: “I didn’t come to save people.”

    Since becoming an immortal cultivator, Sect Leader Lin Zhu had never been choked up before.

    Today, he experienced that familiar feeling again.

    Shen Xin’ge’s clear voice interjected: “Then can we meet them?”

    Ye Zhuo: “Yes.”

    Sect Leader Lin Zhu finally slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

    Second Palace Master Ye was a man of few words, but for some reason, when he said this, he felt that they would definitely meet them next.

    Then he saw Ye Zhuo stop and look faintly ahead: “We’ve met them.”

    The withered branches and mist obscured the view, making it impossible to see clearly where he was pointing. Several disciples came forward with lanterns.

    “There seems to be something here.”

    “Move the leaves away.”

    “…Sect Leader!”

    “Sect Leader!”

    Lin Zhu strode forward.

    –The light passed through the mist, and a body hung down limply, with black eye sockets facing the crowd.

    It was a person.

    Disciple: “Still…still has some breath…”

    Sect Leader Lin Zhu reached out and touched the body that seemed both smooth and dry, and shook his head.

    Then the body twitched violently a few times, and a few rapid breaths came from his throat before it stopped moving completely.

    Then, with a thud, it fell to the ground.

    When a person died, it was like a lamp going out, and all the leaves fell in an instant.

    Sect Leader Lin Zhu knelt down, his fingers trembling, and pushed aside the leaves to look at the corpse.

    –Wearing the uniform of a Martial Sect disciple.

    Sect Leader Lin Zhu’s hands stopped trembling, and he began to examine the body meticulously.

    Chan Tui frowned tightly: “The Martial Sect senior brothers said they were protecting us, but they were the most reckless. This time, they insisted on picking some body-tempering holy medicine, which caused our senior brothers and sisters to go missing.”

    “The previous corpse was also from the Martial Sect. It seems that they had another conflict with Senior Sister Chan Yi on the way and parted ways. Now they are indeed dead.”

    “Brother Ye, look.” Lin Zhu showed Ye Zhuo the corpse, “The corpse’s essence and blood have also been drained, and there are many small holes and wounds on his body. The previous corpse also died like this, but died with a smile, while this one has a ferocious expression.”

    Lin Zhu: “The limbs and skull have impact marks, sharp weapon stabs, ghost tooth marks, and seven bones broken in various places. It seems that he fell from a high place, fought with others, and was attacked by ghosts, and may have also been poisoned.”

    Ye Zhuo was speechless. It was rare to see so many causes of death gathered on one person.

    Fortunately, martial cultivators had copper skin and iron bones, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to withstand so many calamities.

    On the trunk of the dead tree, a few words were taking shape:

    Void Realm, Du Mountain.

    Li’s Yun Hong.

    Wealth and status complete, but with little fortune.

    Died at the age of thirty-two.

    “So it’s him. The Martial Sect’s Golden Core stage senior brother.”

    “He was the one who first discovered that body-tempering medicine.”

    Ye Zhuo looked at the top of the withered tree branch. The four-colored fruits condensed like dew.

    Died a violent death at the age of thirty-two, not much lifespan left, and the white color was indeed sparse.

    Almost the entire tree was golden.

    Martial cultivators trained their bodies and needed to consume many natural treasures, so those who wanted to join the Martial Sect were destined to be wealthy.

    Achieving Golden Core stage at the age of thirty-two, with hope of reaching Integration stage, he was considered a core disciple of the Martial Sect, and might grow into an elder in the future, so the word “wealthy” made sense.

    There were also some orange fruits, and very few red ones.

    He had seen many dead man’s trees along the way, and those with wealth but no status had more golden fruits on the tree, and those with status but no wealth also had more golden fruits. Those who had both wealth and status like Li Yun Hong had even more.

    “Little fortune, so little red.” Lin Zhu: “Looking at it this way, fortune is red. Fortune is red, wealth and status are gold, lifespan is white, and the orange color is still unknown.”

    Perhaps because a familiar person had died, it made people feel even more unspeakable, and no one went to pick the fruits he had produced.

    However, since they didn’t have much friendship, no one suggested collecting his body.

    “The Martial Sect has already lost two people, and the way they died is so strange. Those senior brothers and sisters…”

    “Your senior brothers and sisters’ soul lamps are still lit, but they are all dim, and one is already flickering.”

    Ye Zhuo continued to move forward, with Shen Xin’ge leading the way, he put more energy into guarding his surroundings.

    There was a vague sense of peeking in the thick dark night mist.

    Shen Xin’ge: “Brother Ye, I think those Daoist friends from the Dan Ding Sect have average formation skills. They definitely wouldn’t be able to walk this far on their own.”

    Ye Zhuo: “So something dragged them in.”

    “But since we entered the forest, why haven’t we seen anything along the way?”

    Ye Zhuo: “Too many people.”

    There were too many people, so the things that were lurking hid. This was normal.

    When others said this, they seemed to just be stating a fact. But when Second Palace Master Ye said it, it made people afraid that he would kill a few of them next.

    That way, there wouldn’t be so many people.

    The Dan Ding Sect disciples fell silent, not daring to breathe, and couldn’t help but hug themselves tighter.

    Ye Zhuo: “Spread out.”

    The disciples scattered like birds and beasts when a tree falls.

    After walking a few more steps, Ye Zhuo suddenly concentrated and drew his sword!

    The icy sword energy grazed past the side of a disciple on the outermost perimeter.

    The disciple was startled.

    Ye Zhuo: “Did you feel anything?”

    “I felt sword energy.” The disciple said stiffly.

    Then he saw the cold expression of Second Palace Master Ye, who obviously didn’t want to waste any more words with him, and he became frightened, his eyes involuntarily drifting around.

    “Eh?” His eyes lit up, and he leaned over to dig at the roots of the nearest tree, grabbing a small grass emitting a faint fluorescent light.

    “Moon Soul Grass?”

    “It’s Moon Soul Grass.” Lin Zhu looked over, and it was indeed genuine Moon Soul Spirit Grass, which could warm and nourish the spirit soul and was a good and rare spirit medicine.

    “Keep walking,” Ye Zhuo said, “Ignore him.”

    Lin Zhu understood his meaning from Ye Zhuo’s words: “Chai Cao, stay away from us and walk on your own.”

    The group continued to move deeper, and the disciple named Chai Cao, who was originally on the edge, was now even more ostracized and walked alone on the farthest left side, holding his Moon Soul Grass.

    The others pretended to isolate Chai Cao, but they were all paying attention to his situation out of the corners of their eyes.

    –Thus, this time everyone saw that when Chai Cao walked under a tree, a blood-red branch, like a ghost, hung down from the dense canopy above and touched his left shoulder.

    Suddenly being patted on the shoulder in an empty place, Chai Cao naturally didn’t dare to turn his head and looked in the direction of the sect leader and Ye Zhuo.

    A sword energy suddenly appeared and slashed at the blood-red branch.

    With a snap.

    The branch fell to the ground and disappeared instantly.

    Chai Cao turned his head tremblingly, but didn’t see anything. Instead, he noticed a tempting shimmer in his vision.

    So, the disciples watched him “eh” again as he squatted down and began to dig in the soil, this time digging out a piece of deep, silver ore from the soil.

    “Nine Nether Secret Iron?” Chai Cao picked up the ore and said doubtfully, “Didn’t Daoist Shen Jingzhen say that he was looking for it to refine his own Dao sword?”

    Such luck came so suddenly.

    –Was this really the luck that someone as born unlucky as himself could have?

    Ye Zhuo directly unleashed his second sword, splitting the big tree in half from top to bottom.

    The two halves of the tree trunk crashed to the ground, and with a strange shriek, a blurry red shadow that had been split in two quickly rose from the middle and disappeared into the distant dense forest.

    It was impossible to see what it was, but it felt very bright red. Compared to the red clothes on Second Palace Master Ye, it had a few more mysterious and strange colors, making people uncomfortable.

    Lin Zhu looked around: “In this area, there are very few red ‘fortune’ fruits, but a red monster has appeared.”

    Then, this monster was also related to “fortune”, and may have been born from these many red fruits.

    It made Chai Cao pick up spirit grass the first time it appeared, and it made him dig out secret iron the second time. Contact with it seemed to add good fortune to Chai Cao.

    Chai Cao said: “Then if it touches me again…”

    Ye Zhuo: “If you think you have a lot of fortune in your life, you can let it touch you a few more times.”

    Chai Cao immediately broke out in a cold sweat and said repeatedly: “Not much! Not much!”

    Every time the sect collected medicine, he always picked fewer high-grade spirit medicines than others. Even when drawing lots to determine disciples’ names, he drew the unsightly “Chai Cao”.

    Even if he were like the senior brother and drew “Chai Hu”, although it was not pleasant to the ear, at least it sounded like it had some medicinal effect.

    –Like him, he probably wouldn’t be able to produce a few red fruits even if he died.

    Ye Zhuo’s eyes swept across the surrounding mist. The red monster had disappeared without a trace, but the feeling of being watched had not retreated by half. It was still observing them in the dark.

    Someone ate the white fruit and increased their lifespan by three years, but their age was forced to grow by six years, which meant that they lost three years of life.

    Now, no one ate the red fruit, but someone was patted on the shoulder twice by the red monster, suddenly increasing their luck twice. This luck was obviously not falling on him out of thin air, but consuming his original fortune in advance.

    That Martial Sect Li Yun Hong also started by accidentally discovering a body-tempering medicine, and ended up hanging on a tree with various causes of death.

    Thinking back to that corpse, it was full of disasters.

    When a person’s “fortune” in life was exhausted, all that remained was “misfortune”.

    When this person was surrounded by disasters, and all that they did had accidental misfortunes added to them, and they had no power to resist, the monster in the forest could safely absorb their entire body of essence and blood and become its own nourishment.

    Lifespan was death, fortune was misfortune, gain was loss. There were indeed some mysteries between life and death.

    But how much intelligence did that monster have, and when would it reappear? Ye Zhuo didn’t like this feeling of being ambushed in the dark.

    In the quiet environment, the voice of the little Daoist Shen Xin’ge sounded: “My master brought me a lot of invisibility talismans.”

    Ye Zhuo: “Your master is not bad.”

    “Hehe.”

    –Finally, Chai Cao painfully looked around.

    Palace Master Ye, Sect Leader, sect elders, and even the little Daoist Xin’ge, and even the senior brothers and sisters, were all invisible.

    In a rare open space among the dead man’s trees on all sides, only he was sitting alone on the ground. How cold was the wind in the void realm, and the Moon Soul Grass and Nine Nether Secret Iron in his arms were also cold and without warmth.

    Chai Cao could only count the numbers in his heart.

    When he counted to four hundred, a blood-red branch suddenly hung down in front of him.

    At four hundred and one, he was suddenly surrounded by dense blood branches on all sides.

    Chai Cao stopped counting and turned his head stiffly.

    A huge red monster was quietly watching him from behind, without any rise or fall of breath.

    Its entire body was bright red, and the upper body was a dense mass of soft branches, floating in the air.

    The lower half was a tangle of roots, rolling on the ground at the ends.

    In the middle, the entangled bright red branches weaved out a huge face.

    That face looked like a very blessed old man in the mortal world, grinning and smiling kindly at him.

    Chai Cao’s body trembled, and the next moment he cried out.

    “Sect Leader ah–”

    He didn’t want to accompany Li Yun Hong so soon!

    Note