Chapter 84: True Body Burial Coffin Part 2

Why had the Illusory City King brought her here? Why did this appear?

Wang Ya did not know. She only knew she was in agony! The red light seeping into her body felt like it would tear her meridians apart. She even sensed the long-dead Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower attempting to rebirth itself through her body. She wanted to struggle, to stop it, but she could do nothing. In her extreme suffering, she could not even utter a sound.

Suddenly, she found herself cast into a massive pill furnace. She saw raging flames incinerating her, unfamiliar medicinal herbs, beast bones, and stones raining down upon her from the furnace mouth. She wanted to struggle but could not move. She heard voices conversing outside the furnace—their subject was her. They intended to refine her, this Flower Demon, into a divine pill, requiring forty-nine days. From their talk, she learned many of their fellow disciples had died capturing her.

She did not know how Taoists had appeared behind the Illusory City King’s palace, nor how she had ended up in the pill furnace. She did not want to die, did not want to be refined into a pill. It hurt so much—the flames seared her entire body. She felt her meridians stretching open, her whole form bleeding.

Wang Ya wanted to break free, but she could not move. She could only endure the endless fiery torment. She lost track of how long she suffered; her consciousness grew ever fuzzier, as if death approached. Vaguely, she heard sounds of combat, felt someone kick over the pill furnace, saw the lid fly open. In her haze, she glimpsed a youth in ancient attire, and heard a shout: “It’s that Feng kid!”

The sensation of flames vanished. The youth before the furnace disappeared, the furnace itself vanished, the fighting sounds ceased. She was not in the furnace but lying on cold stone tiles, an Ink Jade coffin nearby.

Wang Ya lay motionless on the ground. She could even feel her meridians cracked from the sudden invasion of immense force, while the demonic power slowly circulating in her body rapidly repaired the damage, her strength gradually returning.

After a long while, Wang Ya recovered enough to rise. She crawled to her feet and approached the Ink Jade Coffin. At its side, she saw the lid sealed tightly. Taking a deep breath, she endured the lingering pain, circulated her recovering demonic power, and pushed the coffin open.

Several withered, lusterless petals of the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower lay before her eyes.

In such a vast Ink Jade Coffin, only a few withered petals of the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower.

In that instant, Wang Ya felt an urge to cry, as if what she saw were not mere petals but her own corpse—the desiccated remains of her body. She reached out to touch them; her fingers brushed a petal, and it crumbled to dust.

Perhaps because these petals had lain here for a millennium, time had reduced them to powder.

Or perhaps, when Wang Ya entered, all the essence and energy contained within had flowed into her body.

Perhaps, as Ye Zi had said, what was buried in these supreme Yin treasure acupoints recorded in the Yin Spirit Scroll included not only the Feng Family’s legacies but also the corpse of the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower Demon.

Perhaps the scene she had “witnessed” was a calamity endured by the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower Demon—or merely an illusion born from Ye Zi’s words and her associations with the Feng Family’s ties to the demon.

Wang Ya did not know the true answer. She only felt tired, pained, sorrowful, despairing, and indignant. Why had they tried to refine her into a pill?! Had she offended them? Why?! Even if she was a demon, if they wanted to uphold justice against evil, they could have simply killed her. What was this about refining her into a pill? Making use of trash?

Being captured for pill refinement was a danger not just for her past life as the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower Demon but for Wang Ya herself. Laoshan Taoists colluding with the Ghost Family had once targeted her, and Zhang Qingshui had warned her about it.

Wang Ya closed the lid of the Ink Jade Coffin and walked outside. After two steps, she sensed someone watching her from the corner. She turned to look but saw nothing. She scanned the room meticulously, checking every corner, confirming no one else was there—not even a ghost—before leaving.

Wang Ya traversed the long corridor and emerged from the arched door to find the Illusory City King’s phantom still waiting outside. She said, “Illusory City King, the place you just led me to wasn’t the path to the Bardo Realm. Did you take a wrong turn?” She could not understand why he had brought her to the burial site of the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower’s true body. Could it be Ye Zi? Wang Ya thought it highly likely. She glanced around with her peripheral vision but saw no trace of Ye Zi. After a moment’s thought, she ignored the Illusory City King and walked to Huang Qi at the hall’s entrance. “Huang Qi, have you seen the Leaf Demon?”

Huang Qi wanted to say, “Hasn’t she been here the whole time?” In truth, along the way, she had “seen” traces of the powerful Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower Roots—lift any floor tile here or go around to the back of the palace, and one would see those dense roots. Even beneath these coffins, they were riddled with Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower Roots. But just as Wang Ya’s question fell and Huang Qi opened her mouth to reply, an icy voice rang in her mind: “Say no!” Startled, she swallowed her words and shook her head. Lying was one thing; shaking her head to indicate she could not say was another—whether Wang Ya understood was up to her.

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