IMMORTALITY STARTS WITH A GUN

Observing the corpse he believed to be Jin Wuyi and the bones scattered around him, Liu Xing couldn't help but sigh. The man had clearly been dead for a long time. He imagined what it must have been like for these people when the spirit beasts first arrived. There must have been fear and confusion. Some had probably tried to escape, but since no one ever returned to the Jin clan, the spirit beasts must have swallowed them whole. Those who remained must have been the weaker or more cowardly ones. At first, there had been enough supplies to fill their stomachs. They were cultivators, after all, and didn't require much food. But they were only at the Lock Opening realm, and the food supply slowly dwindled. When it finally ran out, some must have tried to escape, while the others remained.

"Jin Wuyi," Liu Xing said calmly, sitting cross-legged in front of the corpse. He then looked at the scattered bones. "And all of the people who died here, I'm sorry I came so late. I'll make sure to bring your remains to your clan."

He gently moved Jin Wuyi's corpse from its leaning position against the cauldron and laid it on the ground nearby. As he did, some of the desiccated skin crumbled to dust. The eyelids disintegrated as well, revealing empty sockets filled with fine powder. He then arranged the remaining bones in a neat row. He would find a box or something similar later to transport them to the Jin clan. Once he finished, his focus shifted to the cauldron.

Gazing at the large cauldron, he extended his senses and detected a strange qi within. It wasn't coming from a single source; rather, it felt like a clump of ambient qi swirling inside. His qi sense detected something the size of a volleyball at the center of the swirling energy, but the phenomenon was clearly not natural. In the entire Alchemy Hall, this was the most likely place to hold the Heaven Severing Pill.

"The ambient qi," he muttered, stepping toward the cauldron, "it felt... angry."

The swirling ambient qi reminded him of the curse plaguing Qing Lian, but its intensity was several times greater. It was as if the qi was trying to destroy something. When he reached the cauldron, his heart hammered in his chest. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, praying the Heaven Severing Pill was inside. It was a special pill, and he was curious about its shape, its smell, even its taste and effects. His mind raced with reasons to eat half of it, but he held back his feelings, held his breath, and peeked over the rim.

The swirling qi inside was visible to the naked eye. It was white, like smoke or a thick mist, reminding him of his encounter with the old man and being swallowed by the whale. It spun like a hurricane, making a sound like the screech of a vengeful ghost as it tried to scrape at something in the center. That something was protected by a qi bubble, similar to the barrier that had separated the dry space from the water in the secret tunnel. But inside the bubble wasn't a pill. It was a normal-looking book with a plain green cover.

When he saw that it was a book, he was overcome with profound disappointment. A bitter feeling spread through his body, causing him to clench his fists and feel the urge to lash out. Ever since meeting Wang Miau, he had pursued this pill nonstop. He saved women from demonic cultivators, fought, met a saint, fought again, investigated, stole, fought once more and even cripled an old man. Everything had pointed to this place, to this moment. The Heaven Severing Pill was supposed to be here. Yet it wasn't.

Liu Xing inhaled deeply, trying to relax his fists, his jaw, and his entire body. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, fighting his anger and disappointment until, with one final exhale, he regained his composure.

He sighed, then muttered, "It seems my lucky streak has ended."

It was disappointing and, after a moment of thought, worrying. He had hoped that tonight would be the last night he needed to search for the Heaven Severing Pill. He had intended to leave the island before dawn and head straight for his sect. But since the pill wasn't here, he would have to look for it elsewhere, which meant staying on the island longer. That was dangerous. He had already announced his presence. Sooner or later, the Mirror Tide Empire, the Nether Lotus Sect, and perhaps other nations and sects would arrive and complicate things. Liu Xing gritted his teeth as frustration flared again, but he took another deep breath and composed himself.

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He looked down at the book, protected by a barrier that the ambient qi was trying to destroy. "There's a high chance this book is related to the Heaven Severing Pill."

After a moment of thought, he nodded. The chance was quite high. The book had to be special. Jin Wuyi must have set up the barrier, not wanting the knowledge of the Heaven Severing Pill to be lost. He was an alchemist and a researcher; someone like that wouldn't want his life's work to perish with him.

Excited once more, Liu Xing reached into the cauldron. The ambient qi lashed at his hand like whips, as if a badger were trying to repel a snake from its lair. But the energy, though fierce, was nothing to him. Projecting his own qi, he commanded it to suppress the hostile energy. Under the pressure of his power, the ambient qi deflated and dispersed like a kicked dog. When his hand touched the bubble surrounding the book, he felt a brief pang of pity for the ambient qi. It wasn't normal. Ambient qi was supposed to be mindless, yet this had felt like a child throwing a tantrum. Shaking the thought off, he grabbed the bubble and lifted it, book and all, out of the cauldron.

The book inside the barrier was small enough to fit in his palm, but it was quite thick. Seeing its thickness, hope bloomed anew in his heart. This had to be a notebook that Jin Wuyi carried everywhere, which meant the chance of it containing information about the Heaven Severing Pill suddenly increased. Even if the pill wasn't in the Alchemy Hall, this notebook certainly held a clue to its whereabouts.

Liu Xing held the volleyball-sized bubble in both hands and began to squeeze, intending to shatter the barrier. It was harder than he thought. He gritted his teeth and cycled his qi, tempted to just slash it with his stone blade. After pressing for nearly a minute, the veins on his neck standing out, the barrier finally broke. It made a sharp crack, like a plate shattering on the floor, and disintegrated into a fine mist of qi that quickly dissipated.

Liu Xing grabbed the notebook, sat near the cauldron, and, with his body humming with anticipation, flipped it open.

There was text on the first page, written in a beautiful, elegant penmanship. He read the title: "Notes about the Heaven Severing Pill."

At the sight of it, Liu Xing's heart gave a single, loud thump. He couldn't help but lean forward, pulling the book closer as if afraid that any distance between his face and the page might mean less information absorbed.

"This is it!"

It seemed that while his lucky streak had finally broken, it hadn't turned into bad luck, just an obstacle he could hopefully overcome.

Liu Xing flipped to the next page, which recounted events from thirty years ago. The entry mentioned the golden lightning, the war that followed, and the rivalry between the Jin and Qing clans. It also described the final outcome of the conflict, in which the golden grass was consumed by the current patriarch of the Qing clan and a member of the Jin clan.

"When I heard those two ate the golden grass, it felt as if the world was playing a joke on me. All of that fighting, all of that death, and all the resources I unleashed to procure that golden grass gone like a puff of smoke. The patriarch, my father, and my uncle were enraged and disappointed with the outcome, but my feelings were different. Deeper. What they lost were merely resources to make the clan stronger; what I lost was a herb that would only appear once in a lifetime. Even if I became an Immortal and lived forever, I might never see that kind of grass again. And this outcome pained me. I couldn't sleep for three days, thinking about what kind of elixir I could have made from it, what kind of breakthrough I could have attained if I'd had the chance to examine it. Luckily, it seemed the heavens were not entirely heartless. Good news came from the patriarch."

Liu Xing flipped to the next page, intrigued by what would happen next. From what he knew, Jin Wuyi had somehow managed to create the Heaven Severing Pill. He was tempted to flip to the last page and find its location, but he fought the urge and continued reading. He wanted to know everything about the intriguing pill.

"He talked to me about his niece, who had suddenly fallen ill after eating the golden grass. A cultivator is immune to any mundane disease, yet she had a normal fever, which was very strange. The patriarch was afraid it was an effect of eating half the golden grass, or perhaps some kind of attack from the Qing clan. I concocted some elixirs to purge impurities from her body, and after a month, she regained her health. What the patriarch didn't know was that I collected samples of her blood, urine, and feces. I was sure there had to be a trace of the golden grass inside her, and I was determined to extract it from her—and from the man from the Qing clan—no matter what. However, all my tests turned up negative, except for one, which I ran only because I had no other clues. And I found one interesting fact."

Liu Xing looked at the end of the page.

"She was pregnant."