When he reached the last page of the journal, Du Qi instinctively turned it over to look at the back.
The back of the page was packed with a long, orderly list of cold serial numbers. Recorded clearly next to each number was a preserved living soul: their name, cultivation level in life, and place of origin.
Du Qi quickly scanned down the rows of names, his heart sinking bit by bit. With a rough sweep of his eyes, he estimated that the living souls registered in this booklet numbered at least a thousand.
The further Du Qi turned, the colder his heart grew. He could actually see the names of many disciples from the Central Continent Alliance, and even quite a few members of Medicine Peak itself.
Du Qi gripped the tattered journal tightly, the frayed edges of the paper scraping against his palm. A bone-chilling cold shot up from his fingertips, straight to the back of his mind.
This Bai Cen was truly utterly insane. He had plotted against and harvested the souls of his own disciples—people he had raised himself, who stayed on Medicine Peak every day to await his commands—without the slightest hesitation.
Every single entry was written with absolute clarity, recording exactly where the soul had come from and their cultivation realm in life.
Du Qi’s fingers rapidly flipped through the pages, row after row of names flashing before his eyes. Suddenly, a line of text locked his gaze completely.
“Sect Master of the Beast Taming Sect, Su Hao—Void Refinement stage cultivation. Can be used to control the Beast Taming Sect... Hidden in Column 23, Row 4...”
Du Qi stiffened, his breath catching in his throat.
He had never known the name of Su Li’s father before. But the words “Sect Master of the Beast Taming Sect” alone were enough to explain everything; no further proof was needed. The soul of Su Li’s biological father had actually been imprisoned and kept here all this time.
Countless thoughts exploded in his mind in an instant.
What on earth was Bai Cen planning? Could he really be like what was written at the end of the journal, single-mindedly following the calamity spirits to seek ascension? But thinking back on all the clues, Bai Cen showed absolutely no signs of long-term consumption of calamity seeds. He had not been corroded by calamity power at all. In that case, what was he after by going to such lengths to make deals, slaughter villages, and harvest over a thousand living souls?
Du Qi raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the rock walls on both sides of the narrow stone chamber, which were densely covered in formation lines.
Over a thousand spiritual bodies were sealed within these stone cabinets and rock-wall formations embedded into the mountain. According to the booklet, the vast majority of these souls had cultivation levels around the Foundation Establishment stage in life.
Keeping such a massive hoard of spiritual bodies... could this old codger secretly be a ghost cultivator?
His fingers continued to rapidly flip through the pages. Harboring a faint glimmer of hope, he carefully searched line by line, hoping to find the name of Su Li's mother. Yet as he turned page after page, he found absolutely nothing from beginning to end.
Du Qi’s heart sank.
If Su Li ever found out that her biological father’s soul had been imprisoned for all these years, sealed away in this dark secret chamber deep within Medicine Peak, how would she react? Just thinking about it made Du Qi’s scalp tingle, and he dared not let his thoughts drift any further.
Having dealt with this Little Ancestor for so long, Du Qi had already figured out most of her personality.
On ordinary days, she seemed lawless, constantly causing trouble and acting recklessly, as if she wouldn't care even if the heavens fell. Yet, the thing she valued most and could never let go of was her tiny domain, the Beast Taming Sect.
Du Qi knew very well that the Beast Taming Sect was the only thing her parents had left behind. It was Su Li’s ultimate soft spot.
If she ever learned that her parents' demise years ago was no accident but highly likely a covert assassination, and that her father's soul had been imprisoned here by Bai Cen for years, at the mercy of others...
Du Qi had no doubt that Su Li would go completely insane on the spot, turning the entire Central Continent Alliance upside down and blowing it to smithereens. He absolutely could not tell her about this now—under no circumstances.
Du Qi warned himself over and over in his heart, his hands never stopping as he continued to look through the thick booklet.
The journal was very thick, containing countless names. Under some of the entries, there were a few brief words noting the person's simple life history. At the end of other entries, Bai Cen had written down their intended uses, along with a few short comments of either contempt or pity.
It was clear that Bai Cen was extremely selective when choosing souls. Those with low cultivation who managed to make his register were all one-in-a-million geniuses; the rest whose souls he had harvested were all high-realm cultivators.
As he flipped, a familiar surname caught Du Qi's eye—members of the Lin clan.
An uncontrollable surge of fury instantly welled up in Du Qi’s eyes. Bai Cen had actually used the bloodline of the Lin clan to refine elixirs! Secret atrocities and hidden sins, one after another, lay quietly recorded in this booklet.
Du Qi suppressed the raging anger in his heart, forcing himself to calm down and read through the entire record in detail. Once he finished, his first order of business would be to seal this secret chamber completely, forbidding anyone from taking a single step inside. The secrets hidden here must never be leaked.
If this were ever made public, the Central Continent Alliance would instantly be ruined. They would be branded as a demonic sect, and everyone in the world would seek to destroy them.
It wasn't that Du Qi cared so much about the Central Continent Alliance and wanted to preserve its tarnished reputation. It was just that he had to plan for the sake of the cultivators who were still alive.
Once the Central Continent Alliance collapsed, the various large and small sects and clans of the Central Continent would immediately plunge into endless civil war. Like a chaotic warring states era, they would fight and slaughter one another until a hegemon emerged who could suppress everyone else.
But they currently had no spare time to waste on internal conflicts and mutual destruction.
Outside, the Formless Spirits were like madmen, launching massive offenses toward the inland without a single moment of pause. The local cultivators of the Central Continent possessed mediocre skills, and their subpar combat strength was an undeniable fact.
If even these cultivators wiped themselves out through internal strife, leaving only the hard-trained military formations of ordinary mortals to hold off the external enemy, the defensive lines would completely collapse within two months. Humanity would face a total defeat, and the Formless Spirits would roam the world without restraint. Just thinking of that outcome made Du Qi's chest tighten.
And then there was the so-called will of the Heavenly Dao mentioned in the journal. What was the ultimate goal of this secret Descent faction who had been plotting in the dark for so long? Du Qi stared at the dense rows of names on the paper, his heart pounding wildly and his back turning cold.
Many geniuses who had supposedly met mysterious, untimely demises years ago—whom the world believed had long had their souls dispersed—had actually had their souls collected by Bai Cen and kept in this secret chamber.
The booklet was nearing its end.
He had been flipping backward from the end; the closer he got to the front of the booklet, the further back in time the recorded events went.
As he reached the earlier sections, a mortal's name caught Du Qi's eye. Strictly speaking, the entry only left a single surname: Jiang.
Below it was a small note: "Father of Qingwei's disciple." That old geezer Qingwei actually took a disciple? He silently made a mental note of this record; perhaps it would come in handy in the future.
Directly below this line was another name: Madame Shen of the Jiang Clan. A thick streak of ink had been violently drawn across the name, crossing out the entire line.
The ink used to cross it out looked very fresh, completely different from the ink used to write the name originally. It had clearly been applied quite recently.
Du Qi’s fingers froze, and his heart sank heavily.
Could these be... the parents of Shiyi's cultivation companion?
Rate on N.U.
