Chapter 31: Handing Over the Rope Part 1

Since Shen Yanting had decided to substitute as a bride, Bo Xuenong naturally followed her ideas completely. However, when she proposed taking Liu Huairou’s place, Gui Nianqin did not agree. She had Bo Xuenong and Shen Yanting switch to the other two people instead, while Liu Huairou accompanied them to the Heavenly Feast Sect.

For one thing, if any emergencies arose, having someone from Mistlongevity Village along would make it easier to cope. For another, Bo Xuenong and the others needed someone from the village to point out which cultivators had committed evil deeds. Thirdly, they needed someone to identify the children held by the Heavenly Feast Sect so they could rescue them.

Liu Huairou was Gui Nianqin’s daughter-in-law and successor. Back then, if the Heavenly Feast Sect had not appeared, Liu Huairou would have already changed her surname to Gui and taken over as the next village chief of Mistlongevity Village. In the village, aside from Gui Nianqin, only she still clearly remembered the appearances of every child taken from Mistlongevity Village. She was the most suitable choice.

Because Gui Nianqin had previously retaliated against people from the Heavenly Feast Sect—once dragging disciples into the array when they were off guard—the welcoming procession from the Heavenly Feast Sect consisted only of the four Wooden Puppets entering the village. No one else would come in. They waited in a pavilion some distance from Mistlongevity Village for the Wooden Puppets to bring the brides over.

This actually made it convenient for Bo Xuenong and the others to make their moves.

Shen Yanting secretly cast a spell on the Wooden Puppets, altering the auras they had memorized for the newcomers. She replaced the auras of the two others besides Liu Huairou with her own, then equipped them with spirit tools rich in spiritual qi that also suppressed their cultivation. Their scents now resembled those of Liu Huairou and the other carefully nurtured medicine people.

Once they finished these preparations, they only needed to change into the wedding garb and wait for the four Wooden Puppets to come take them away at dawn the next day.

For this trip to the Heavenly Feast Sect, Shen Yanting planned to bring only Bo Xuenong. But because she worried the Heavenly Feast Sect might send disciples to patrol Mistlongevity Village for anything unusual, she took everyone along with the horse into the Gui Residence, fully integrating into the Spring Seal Eternal Light Array and the Spirit Gathering Array. Once they entered the array, Bo Xuenong then noticed how cleverly the Heavenly Feast Sect’s cultivators had set it up. They did not drag the entire village of Mistlongevity Village into the array. Instead, they enclosed one house at a time. The arrays existed only inside the houses, making it hard to spot anything unusual from outside the village. Mistlongevity Village just seemed like an ordinary village with fewer people.

This was also why Bo Xuenong and the others could smell the spiritual qi and medicinal fragrances inside the houses but not outside, and why, when they came to eavesdrop that afternoon under the bright sunlight outside, not a single ray of light penetrated the houses. Inside and outside the houses were like two different worlds.

A grand array stacked from numerous small arrays made the setup process hundreds of times more troublesome than a normal array.

Bo Xuenong was somewhat puzzled. “Master, why did they go to such trouble?”

Shen Yanting replied, “They were afraid of the Divine Pavilion’s people.”

After Shen Yanting’s reminder, Bo Xuenong understood. The Divine Pavilion existed to maintain order in the Cultivation World. They could be called the enforcers of the Cultivation World, and refining Human Talismans was forbidden.

The Heavenly Feast Sect was not a Demonic Sect. On the surface, they were Righteous Path members who cared about reputation and face.

By only drawing the houses into the array, they kept the village itself as a show for outsiders. But if powerful cultivators came to the village, it was still easy to spot the issues—just like Shen Yanting had.

Bo Xuenong could not help asking Gui Nianqin, “Granny Gui, have you never tried seeking help from other cultivators?”

“We have, but they all had low cultivation.” Gui Nianqin answered truthfully. “In the past, we often saw powerful passing cultivators, but after the arrays appeared, no more powerful cultivators came. Only minor cultivators and ordinary passersby.”

It was not hard to figure out. The Heavenly Feast Sect must have left other sentinels near the village. They diverted the powerful cultivators while letting ordinary people and low-level cultivators pass through Mistlongevity Village. They only needed people to know that Mistlongevity Village still existed in the Heavenly Feast Sect’s territory.

Although Fu Aoqing’s idea had caused Gui Nianqin to misunderstand them, it was very likely spot-on. If they had not disguised themselves as ordinary people, they might have been diverted elsewhere. Even if they circled back later, they probably would have alerted the Heavenly Feast Sect by then.

Bo Xuenong and the others did not stay too long in the house that afternoon. Their cultivations were not particularly low, so they had not felt much at the time. But now, staying longer in the house, they inhaled more and more of the fragrance, and their consciousness began to grow hazy. Yet, the golden core in Bo Xuenong’s body automatically absorbed the spiritual qi.

The dense spiritual qi surged into her body like bees, and Bo Xuenong was somewhat surprised. “This…”

They were now all within the dual arrays. Besides sensing the Spring Seal Eternal Light Array, the Spirit Gathering Array amplified the spiritual qi.

They were not like the containers in Mistlongevity Village that could not absorb spiritual qi for their own use. This abundance made Bo Xuenong and the others’ eyes grow somewhat fervent. Gui Nianqin’s abilities had evolved over seven hundred years of tempering. A Seventh-Grade Spirit Gathering Talisman had long become a rare treasure. Not only did she single-handedly support the Spirit Gathering Array, but the spiritual power she distributed to everyone in the array was extremely abundant.

As a golden core peak cultivator, Bo Xuenong’s spiritual qi growth speed was three times faster than usual, let alone for those with lower cultivation like Xiang Yu and Fu Aoqing, whose internal spiritual qi was scarce and absorption slow.

For instance, Xiang Yu and Fu Aoqing were already forced to circulate their cultivation techniques.

Their minds were not on cultivation at the moment. If they did not circulate their techniques to consume the incoming spiritual qi, they might burst.

The rapidly growing spiritual qi made Bo Xuenong clearly understand the preciousness of Human Talismans. Staying here, the spiritual qi growth speed was faster than a high-grade Spirit Gathering Array. A high-grade one required thousands of low-grade spirit stones, hundreds of mid-grade and high-grade spirit stones, plus dozens of top-grade spirit stones as the array eyes for support. Yet here, the support was only Gui Nianqin alone.

Gui Nianqin had only grown for over seven hundred years so far. In the future, her spirit gathering speed could increase further. Perhaps one day, she alone could support a top-grade Spirit Gathering Array like those of the three great sects.

This was the real reason those talisman cultivators risked pursuit by the Divine Pavilion to repeatedly refine Human Talismans. The fact that Human Talismans could continuously strengthen their power was too tempting.

Unfortunately, the refining process was too cruel, and Shen Yanting would not like it.

What Shen Yanting disliked, Bo Xuenong also disliked.

Even Feng Yingbo, a Nascent Soul cultivator, felt her spiritual power double in enhancement speed. She did not even need to circulate her technique to suppress this spiritual qi. She could not help asking Shen Yanting, “Senior Sister, why didn’t the Heavenly Feast Sect just send their sect cultivators into the Spirit Gathering Array?”

“Shishu Feng, you’re the truly foolish one.” Bo Xuenong recalled Feng Yingbo’s earlier words to her and irritably rolled her eyes at Feng Yingbo. “Human Talismans have their own consciousness. Once that consciousness is erased, the Human Talisman becomes like an ordinary paper talisman. The Heavenly Feast Sect couldn’t bear to do that. The talisman cultivators who refine Human Talismans can borrow their power but cannot fully control a talisman paper with its own consciousness. If those cultivators entered the array, it would be up to Granny Gui. She could direct the spiritual qi in the array to surge toward anyone in an instant. Even Nascent Soul stage cultivators could be burst by that level of spiritual qi.”

Anyone who entered the array now besides them would not receive spiritual qi from Gui Nianqin at the normal flow rate.

Feng Yingbo clearly had not listened carefully to Shen Yanting earlier. She had probably only been focused on being angry at the Heavenly Feast Sect’s beasts and missed how Gui Nianqin had once dragged their disciples into the array, scaring the Heavenly Feast Sect cultivators so much they dared not approach Mistlongevity Village easily anymore and only sent Wooden Puppets to collect people.

Those disciples from back then had long vanished without a trace, probably burst by Gui Nianqin.