Shi Pengpeng took out the large Five Emperors Coin she had obtained from the tea pet and observed the area from the mountain for a while.
She pointed to a spot and asked, “Do you have a way to place this Qin Banliang coin there?”
The others followed her finger and saw that it was below the connection point of the elephant’s trunk and head, essentially the mouth of the elephant-shaped rock.
In front of the elephant’s head was a sheer cliff, extremely steep and difficult to climb even in daylight.
Now, with the moon obscured, the wind howling, and the rain making everything slippery, it was even more treacherous.
One misstep could send them tumbling into the Forbidden Water.
The group was puzzled, but Shan Ren, the most skilled among them, stepped forward decisively and said:
“This humble monk can give it a try.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a series of “bang bang bang” sounds echoed.
The wooden man clutched his head and crouched down, whimpering, “Eek, it’s ghost bullets!”
Looking down the mountain, the gray mist over the Forbidden Water had solidified, enveloped by the moisture, and transformed into translucent ghost bullets that continuously bombarded the elephant-shaped rock.
The evil deity stood calmly, casually curling a finger made of mud.
The mist from the Forbidden Water grew denser, spreading relentlessly toward the elephant-shaped rock.
“This…” Shan Ren’s face showed concern.
With this development, climbing down the mountain would be even more challenging.
“Master, step aside. Let me handle this,” Bai Wanmu said, taking out a short flute and playing it.
As the haunting melody filled the air, the silver snake chain coiled around her neck began to move.
It turned out that it wasn’t a chain at all but a real, tiny snake.
The snake flicked its slender tongue and opened its mouth toward Shi Pengpeng.
“Truly the king I support,” Shi Pengpeng praised, immediately handing the Qin Banliang coin to the snake.
The snake held the coin in its mouth and, guided by the flute’s melody, silently slithered down from Bai Wanmu’s body.
Like a thin bolt of lightning, it darted into the grass.
The snake moved swiftly, navigating the crevices of the rocks.
The ghost bullets didn’t notice it at all, let alone lock onto it.
In no time, the Qin Banliang coin was in place.
Bai Wanmu asked curiously, “Pengpeng, what are you planning to do?”
Shi Pengpeng replied succinctly, “Borrowing power.”
On their own, they were no match for the evil deity.
But if this place was indeed the Meng Water, they might still have a chance.
Bai Wanmu had mentioned that the Xuan Sect, unable to locate the wronged souls who had suffered in the Mian Kingdom, was preparing to hold a grand Pudu ritual to forcibly open the underworld.
She and Shan Ren had been sent here to release river lanterns for this purpose.
Originally, within the evil deity’s array, Shi Pengpeng, in her half-crippled state, would have found it difficult to break through the deity’s restrictions and borrow external power.
However, she happened to have a Qin Banliang coin that had been passed down since the Qin Dynasty, capable of gathering the might of the five directions and five elements.
The rain poured even heavier, and the sky was torn apart by flashes of lightning.
Shi Pengpeng patted Yan Jing’s shoulder and said: “Brother, I need your help.”
After a pause, she added, “Don’t be afraid.”
Yan Jing naturally took her hand and said lightly, “With you here, I’m not afraid.”
Shi Pengpeng glanced at their tightly clasped hands, a question mark slowly forming in her mind.
Was he really not afraid?
There was no time to dwell on such details.
She led Yan Jing to the front of the elephant’s head, facing the vast expanse of the Forbidden Water below.
Then, she took out a handful of portable incense sticks from a small box and planted them in the ground.
The torrential rain instantly soaked the incense, but the next moment, they ignited on their own.
White smoke rose against the fierce wind and rain, spiraling upward.
Shi Pengpeng held Yan Jing’s left index finger, looked up at him, and after he nodded, she gently bit the finger, causing blood to flow from the tip.
Shi Pengpeng: “Brother, bear with it.”
Yan Jing replied calmly, “It doesn’t hurt.”
Shi Pengpeng chuckled softly, wasting no time, she shielded them from the rain and swiftly drew a talisman on Yan Jing’s right palm using his blood.
Without talisman paper and with her magical energy nearly depleted, she was determined to use the “Unwithering Bone” as a medium to harness the forces of yin and yang, opening a passage between the two realms.
Taking a deep breath to calm her mind, Shi Pengpeng pressed her palm against the back of Yan Jing’s hand and raised it towards the direction of the rising white smoke.
“Boundless heaven and earth, lend me the power of the universe, as swift as the law commands!”
The power of the blood talisman erupted, shooting straight into the sky in an instant.
A fierce wind howled, causing Bai Wanmu and Shan Ren to stagger, barely managing to steady themselves by supporting each other.
The wooden figure, being lighter, almost got blown away and clung to Shan Ren’s leg, squealing in fear.
The little silver snake, having just returned from a mission, quickly coiled around Bai Wanmu’s ankle.
Yan Jing was also pushed back a step by the wind, but Shi Pengpeng immediately wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, leaning against him to keep him steady.
“Brother, I’m here,” she said.
The two were pressed close together, her chin resting on his shoulder.
Yan Jing could feel her breath so near, and for the first time, he was acutely aware of her presence in his life.
He recalled that night years ago when he discovered Shi Pengpeng had gone out alone to catch ghosts.
Knowing she was a magnet for trouble, he had inexplicably followed her.
He thought, as a man and her older brother, he should protect her no matter what.
But every time, it ended with her standing in front of him…
It was utterly frustrating.
At the very least, this time, he wanted to be of help.
The heavy rain poured down, washing away the blood talisman on his hand, threatening to erase it.
Yan Jing closed his eyes, pursing his lips, where a faint, almost imperceptible trace of her blood lingered.
Their blood mingled, and finally, the Unwithering Bone responded to the sorcerer’s talisman.
In an instant, a brilliant silver light filled the heavens, and a powerful bolt of lightning tore through the sky, accompanied by a deafening thunderclap, striking the nose of the stone elephant.
The thunder’s shockwave dispersed the mist around the elephant’s trunk, and the ghostly bullets evaporated as if scorched by fire.
Bai Wanmu and Shan Ren widened their eyes in amazement.
Bai Wanmu exclaimed, “The Thunder God’s decree, how formidable!”
“Eek!” The wooden figure clung to its head in terror.
“That scared me to death!”
Supernatural creatures fear lightning, and wooden spirits are especially vulnerable.
If lucky, they might become thunderstruck wood; if not, they turn to charcoal.
Bai Wanmu and Shan Ren looked down the mountain.
The lightning had only scattered a portion of the ghostly bullets.
The vast forbidden waters were still shrouded in thick resentment, quickly regrouping towards them.
The voice of the evil deity echoed, “Shi Pengpeng, you are remarkable to summon the profound thunder. But this alone cannot strike me down.”
Shi Pengpeng replied indifferently, “You truly deserve to be struck by heavenly thunder, but I’m not using it to strike you.”
“Oh?” The evil deity statue looked puzzled.
“So you want to…”
Before it could finish, it suddenly paused.
On the Forbidden Water, the long stone trunk of the elephant statue slowly began to rise from the water…
No, it wasn’t just the trunk-the entire stone elephant mountain was moving.
The evil deity statue widened its mud eyes in disbelief and exclaimed in astonishment, “What are you doing?”
On the stone elephant mountain, Bai Wanmu and Shan Ren were equally stunned.
Shan Ren stammered, “Master Shi, aren’t you just borrowing power? Whose power is this?”
“Exactly,” Shi Pengpeng chuckled.
“I’m using the Qin Banliang coin, so naturally, I’m emulating the First Emperor, driving stones as if they were chariots.”
The scene:
Legend has it that Emperor Qin Shi Huang, in order to cross the sea and watch the sunrise, ordered the construction of a stone bridge.
At that time, there was a divine being who could command stones to move into the sea.
An entire stone mountain in Chengyang stood up and followed.
If the stones moved too slowly, the divine being would whip them until they bled, turning the stones crimson.
Earlier, when Bai Wanmu recounted the story of the ancient King of Pu whipping the white elephant, which eventually turned into stone, it not only revealed to Shi Pengpeng that this was the Meng Water but also reminded her of the legend of Emperor Qin Shi Huang driving stones across the Cangjin River.
The tale of the stone elephant being the incarnation of a divine elephant might be far-fetched and not true.
However, Emperor Qin Shi Huang, as the ruler of the world, truly had the power to command stone mountains.
The tea pet, originally just a piece of clay molded into a ceramic art, had absorbed the righteous energy of the five directions over time by holding the Qin Banliang coin in its mouth, eventually gaining its own aura.
Now, Shi Pengpeng placed the Qin Banliang coin in the stone elephant’s mouth, using the power of the undead to manipulate yin and yang, breaking through the boundaries between realms, and gathering the forces of the five elements to recreate the lingering might of the First Emperor-
Driving stones as if they were chariots.
“Thud, thud…”
The stone elephant’s trunk pointed toward the sky, letting out a long snort, then lifted its massive leg and began walking toward the mausoleum and the evil deity statue.
The stone mountain, towering over a hundred meters, was awe-inspiring.
With each step, it sent huge waves across the Forbidden Water, shaking the earth.
Shi Pengpeng’s heart was in her throat.
After all, while the stone elephant was mighty, the evil deity statue still held the Zigan Sword.
If it chose to fight with the sword, the outcome was still uncertain.
Sure enough, after the initial shock, the evil deity statue quickly regained its composure and raised the Zigan Sword, pointing it directly at the stone elephant’s massive foot.
“So what?!”
“Ah! How could this be?!!”
At the moment the stone elephant’s colossal foot, which blotted out the sky and moon, came down, the Zigan Sword suddenly shattered into countless pieces.
Shi Pengpeng: ?
No way?
The lingering might of the First Emperor is this powerful?
The Zigan Sword was scared into pieces???
The next second, she heard the evil deity statue’s furious roar echoing through the heavens:
“That scoundrel of a state preceptor dared to give me a fake sword!!!”
Shi Pengpeng: “……”
Everyone else: “……”
Damn, Longevity Island truly lives up to its reputation as a scam zone.
Even the deities they collude with get scammed.
It was then that Shi Pengpeng finally understood the strange feeling she had all night.
When she fought Zhao Xiwen, she always felt he was weak.
Given that he had turned himself into a corpse ghost and had the Zigan Sword, a powerful yin-yang artifact, he should have at least been able to hold his own against her, if not dominate.
Yet, she had easily beheaded him.
Turns out, the sword was fake all along!
The Grand Preceptor was indeed a professional at deception.
With just a fake sword, he nearly fooled everyone.
It wasn’t until they encountered the true power of the Five Directions and Five Elements that his scheme completely unraveled.
“No” The evil deity, now without the Zigan Sword, truly felt the might of the stone elephant.
It let out a panicked scream, turned around, and fled in terror.
However, a mere clay carving, even one four stories tall, seemed insignificant in the face of a true mountain.
The stone elephant, transformed from a massive boulder, stomped on the clay deity with ease, crushing it into a muddy pancake.
“Crash”
The stone elephant didn’t stop there.
It raised its head and let out a long, resonant cry, its stone trunk swinging left and right, smashing into the mausoleum.
Its towering feet were equally relentless, stomping on the extravagant paper offerings.
In no time, the eerie and gaudy mausoleum was reduced to rubble by the elephant’s trampling.
The once-glorious palace lanterns dimmed one by one, and the mountain walls collapsed with a thunderous roar, turning into ruins.
Bai Wanmu, Shan Ren, and the wooden puppet looked down from above, witnessing the awe-inspiring scene before them.
It was as if they were seeing the legendary might of the First Emperor, who once moved mountains and filled seas, and they couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, they lacked the imperial aura of the First Emperor.
As the stone elephant moved, the mountain shook like an earthquake, forcing the two humans and the puppet to cling desperately to rocks and vegetation to avoid falling.
Bai Wanmu took a moment to lament, “This humble Southern Border Gu King can’t handle the treatment of a true emperor!”
Shan Ren: “…Your Majesty, there’s no need to belittle yourself.”
Shi Pengpeng and Yan Jing, the ones who had cast the spell to move the mountain and stones, remained unaffected.
They stood embracing each other on the elephant’s head, unmoved by the storm raging around them.
Yan Jing looked down at the mountain below, where the elephant continued to stomp on the evil deity and the mausoleum.
“Thud-thud-thud-“
It was the earth trembling.
And his heart pounding violently.
Just like that terrifying night many years ago.
He had watched the still-youthful Shi Pengpeng fiercely drive away a powerful ghost, then turn back, hands on her hips, and flash him a confident, triumphant smile.
“See? I told you you’d be fine.”
So bold, so radiant.
At that moment, his heart had started racing uncontrollably.
Back then, he didn’t understand this feeling.
It was too unfamiliar, too overwhelming, even making it hard to breathe-like when he encountered a ghost.
No, worse than encountering a ghost…
So terrifying that, from then on, just as he avoided ghosts, he also avoided Shi Pengpeng.
Until now, listening to his thunderous heartbeat, Yan Jing finally admitted to himself—just as he had once admitted his fear of ghosts— that he had fallen for her on that distant night long ago.
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