I Only Want to Lie Flat But Am Forced to Cultivate Immortality

But is that really the case? If Li Er Leng didn't die, then where did he go during that time?

Xu Qing, who had seen Li Er Leng's life flash before his eyes, knew better than anyone!

The rumors were not credible! During that time, Li Er Leng didn't flee or die like people outside said; instead, he traveled lightly on his own to Liu County and then to Shangping and Lijun.

He wasn't closed off and isolated, but roamed around, learning advanced experiences everywhere until two years later when Li Er Leng returned to Jiushao Valley.

The villagers were curious and asked where he had gone, why he hadn't been seen in two or three years. Li Er Leng, with his dark skin and face soaked by gunpowder oil, said nothing and simply opened the backpack behind him, revealing something pitch black.

The object was about the size of a head, with a round belly and a long tail, resembling a watermelon with a stem.

Someone asked what this was. Li Er Leng laughed heartily and said three words—"Celestial Thunder!"

A few dynasties ago, one dynasty had the most powerful firearms, among which the iron cannon used for defending the city was the most formidable.

This object was shaped like a gourd but with a small opening, made of cast iron, two inches thick. Even the smallest iron cannon, when filled with two liters of gunpowder, upon ignition, would shake the city walls. In half an acre, people and cowhides would be shattered without a trace.

The iron cannon had another name, Celestial Thunder!

"Our ancestors played with killing iron lumps, and now we're making fireworks to delight people—a big resource used for small purposes. Just wait, when we present this Celestial Thunder to the Imperial Court, the whole world will hear our Li Family's resonance!"

People of the Jin Sect were competitive and loved saving face; the stubbornness in their bones was hard to pull back, even by nine oxen.

Li Er Leng was even more outstanding among them. He held the iron cannon like he was holding his own child, and with a full heart, eagerly went to the musket camp.

However, it had been seven or eight years since his father was alive. By this time, the musket camp was no longer controlled by Governor Wang, and the Imperial Court's funding for the musket camp had been decreasing year by year.

Now, not to mention producing new firearms, even the muskets held by the soldiers in the musket camp were old items from several years ago, some even rusty and moist.

On the battlefield, even a burning stick might be more useful than these things!

Li Er Leng wasn't aware of these things. He went to the musket camp, looking for the camp's former officer, but couldn't even get past the camp gates.

The old soldiers of the musket camp laughed at him, saying just that one iron lump, and you call it Celestial Thunder?

If you have the ability to light it up, let everyone hear the sound and have a good laugh. Maybe we will give you some applause, but if you want to sell this thing to the Imperial Court...

The Imperial Court is even reluctant to make muskets; would they be willing to spend money to buy your iron lump?

Li Er Leng's face turned blue and white alternately. At that moment, he really wanted to take out a fire stick and light that Celestial Thunder.

But he couldn't do that because he knew the power of this thing himself. Once ignited, everyone present would surely be blown to the sky!

After leaving the musket camp, Li Er Leng was discouraged. However, at this critical moment, someone brought two small gold bars in front of him.

"I heard your ancestors made cannons. Although our Cang Yi Group can't give you an official position now, we have money and people. As long as this Celestial Thunder is as powerful as you say, we will surely not mistreat you!"

Li Er Leng didn't catch the implied meaning in that person's words, or perhaps he did but pretended to be ignorant.

"Can you really make my Celestial Thunder shake the world?"

"Indeed!"

With his spies spread all over Linjiang County, Xu Qing hadn't heard any news about Celestial Thunder or any earth-shattering sounds.

He only saw from Li Er Leng's perspective that the branch leader of Cang Yi Group planned to assassinate the king in the capital. However, their secret was leaked by a small minion, leading to their capture, and ultimately, Li Er Leng was betrayed.

When Li Er Leng was about to be beheaded, he was still hysterically shouting as if suffering from a mania, "It's sounded, it's sounded! The whole world heard it, heard it all!"

...

In the funeral shop, Xu Qing returned the claimed corpses to their families and stored unclaimed ones in the Box Garden, burying them on an inauspicious day at the Shuimen Bridge Villa.

Once the busy tasks were completed, Xu Qing rode a fast horse, heading straight to Jiushao Valley.

Not many people were in Jiushao Valley; the timid and cowardly couldn't stick around. Those who stayed in the village were fearless, those not afraid of death!

In this place, five out of ten households were in the fireworks business, and the other five had been blown to extinction while making cannons, naturally reducing the population in the village by half.

Following Li Er Leng's memories, Xu Qing wound through twist and turns to reach an abandoned cowshed.

Sliding aside the pile of straw and lifting the thin wooden board covered with white lime, what lay beneath were bags full of gunpowder.

Xu Qing packed those bags into the Mountain and River Map and then went to the home of Li Er are; in the cellar, he found more hidden fireworks and gunpowder.

Like a crafty rabbit with multiple dens, those in the fireworks business feared 'explosions,' and as the top bombmaker of the Jin Sect, the amount of gunpowder amassed by Li Er are's ancestors far exceeded what the government had confiscated!

After several searches, Xu Qing discovered large quantities of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal in a few old houses.

Later, Xu Qing roughly estimated that there was no less than ten thousand pounds of ready-made gunpowder!

He could hardly imagine if one day it accidentally exploded, the entire Jiushou Canal could be obliterated.

When leaving Jiushou Canal, Xu Qing also swung by the Li Family's ancestral gravesite, offered incense to Li Er are's father, and set off a couple of fireworks.

Finally, Xu Qing took out an iron shovel, dug into the ground, and unearthed something wrapped in oilcloth.

Unfolding the oilcloth layer by layer, an iron cannonball larger than a winter melon appeared right before Xu Qing's eyes.

Even Xu Qing, who had seen much in the funeral trade, was greatly shocked.

He had seen people burning paper effigies and offering tributes to ancestors, seen someone decapitating an enemy's head to dedicate it before a tombstone, but never witnessed a family offering explosives and fire cannons to their forebears.

If one day celestial thunder met celestial fire by accident, wouldn't the Li Family's ancestors all ascend to the heavens again?

Xu Qing held the 'large firework' in his hand, eager to try it out.

While others might not know, Xu Qing thoroughly understood what the item in his hand signified.

This iron cannon, which integrated the strengths of multiple families, far surpassed the power of ancient iron cannons!

Xu Qing thought that this could possibly be the most powerful 'mortal weapon' in the Dayong Dynasty to date.

He just didn't know if this thing would pose a threat to him now.

Xu Qing dared not experiment and decided to manipulate the paperman in a few days to head to the Ancient Yin River Dao, set this thing in the Ghost King Mausoleum, and test its effect.

Isn't this treating the Ghost King Mausoleum as an anthill!

Returning to Linjiang County, Xu Qing did not pause, opened the Twin Coffin in the shop, and in an instant arrived at the Ancient Yin River Dao.

The two coffins interconnected, and Xu Qing opened the other Twin Coffin hidden in the Ancient Yin River Dao, stepping out from it.

He was faced with the same ominous end-of-the-world scene, where thin, white dust swirled up by gusts of yin wind coated the ground.

Xu Qing knew it wasn't sand, but bone powder weathered for countless years spiraling upward.

Even though it wasn't his first visit, walking on the Bone-Burying Path continued to deeply shock him.

Beneath his feet lay an unfathomable bed of gray-white bone fragments, and even the corpses buried in his villa would be nothing more than a drop in the ocean here.

The bones of the weak turned to dust by the wind; the bones of the strong were buried deep below, with occasionally one or two freak-shaped skeletons exposed to erosion by the yin wind.

Xu Qing groped around and found an abandoned grave about fifty miles from the Twin Coffin entrance.

Transferring all the gunpowder and saltpeter from the Mountain and River Map into the abandoned grave eased Xu Qing's mind.

If this gunpowder accidentally exploded in the Mountain and River Map, who would he find to reason with?

Having dealt with the gunpowder, Xu Qing carried the celestial thunder and walked to the outskirts of the Ghost King Mausoleum.

The Ghost King of the mausoleum had millennia of Dao practices, and after surviving two great calamities, during the second celestial fire burning of the Ghost King Mausoleum, Liu Youdao seized the chance to steal a Twin Coffin from the Ghost King's Tomb.

Now Xu Qing returned to the Ghost King Mausoleum and still chose not to venture deep inside; he controlled the paperman to bring the iron cannon near the inner perimeter before a Ghost General led Ghost Soldiers to surround the paperman.

Xu Qing had nothing to say, for the Straw Spirit Paperman was no match for the Ghost General, and under the Ghost General's large blade, the papermen soon turned into countless pieces of paper.

Seeing twelve papermen entering the Ghost King Mausoleum reduced to just two, Xu Qing unhurriedly controlled one of the papermen to pull out the Fire Stick and ignite the fuse of the iron cannon.

"Today being idle, let me burn you something unusual."

In the distance, Xu Qing remarked.