I have a panel that reduces proficiency.

Chapter 60

Chapter 60

call!

A strong wind swept in from below the cliff, making Fang Shi's robes flutter loudly.

He certainly wouldn't jump aimlessly; he had already calculated his landing point beforehand.

In the instant his body plunged off the cliff, he suddenly reached out with both hands, his ten fingers gripping the cliff face.

He scraped his fingertips against the rock, tearing off a piece of debris, and fell nearly two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) down the cliff before finally grabbing onto a protruding rock ridge.

Then Fang Shi pushed off with both feet, leaned against the cliff wall, and steadied himself. Although he was seriously injured, he still had cultivation. Even if the cliff was steep, he could climb down step by step with care and eventually reach the bottom.

"You're trying to kill yourself!"

Xuanzhu's voice came from the top of the cliff.

"This cliff is not for one person to cross! If no one carries you, the wind below will meet you! This wind is a remnant of the Lesser Forty-Nine Heavenly Tribulations; encountering it will cause your skin to peel away, your bones to erode, and your soul to perish! Even if you manage to cling to the cliff face by sheer luck, you will have no chance of survival!"

Fang Shi did not reply. His fingers were digging into the next crevice in the rock, and his toes were stepping on a half-protruding piece of gravel as he carefully moved down half a foot.

The wind brushed against his cheek—cool and slightly damp, with a hint of the unique moisture of the mountains—and gently tousled his hair.

But that's about it.

It was just the most ordinary night breeze in the mountains.

"Hmph—you think you can get rid of me? Dream on."

Fang Shi was stepping on a protruding pebble and trying to get down when he suddenly felt a tightness in the back of his collar, as if the collar was strangling his neck.

His heart skipped a beat, and when he turned around, he saw Xuanzhu hooking his collar with one finger, dangling in mid-air.

The white Taoist robe, like smoke and mist, rippled in layers in the night wind.

Her topknot was slightly loosened by the wind, and a few strands of her black hair brushed against her cheeks and her still somewhat childish face.

"You just keep climbing, I'll just hang here, where can you jump to?"

Fang Shi did not respond.

As he continued climbing down, he quietly lowered his right shoulder, and his arm slipped silently out of his sleeve.

With alternating left and right hands, and with a shrugging and pulling of the shoulders, the entire outer robe was removed.

The moment the collar slipped down her neck, Xuanzhu's fingers were still hooked on the piece of fabric. As the clothes fell down, she subconsciously clenched the wad of cloth, while Fang Shi, shirtless, darted down half a zhang, his ten fingers digging back into the rock crevice.

"You beast! You think I can't catch you just because you've taken off your clothes? I, the dignified Jade Pivot Mystic Dharma Master, do you think you, a mere Qi Refining disciple, would slip away right under my nose?"

As soon as she finished speaking, she raised her right hand, and a burst of magical power shot out, striking the rock wall ten feet away from Fang Shi.

With a deafening roar, the cliff face blasted open, creating a black hole several meters wide. Rock fragments rained down like a storm, and the entire precipice shook violently from the impact.

Fang Shi felt the rock beneath his hands suddenly tremble, and he was shaken so badly that he slid down several feet, leaving ten bloody scratches on the rock face before he finally regained his footing.

He gritted his teeth and quickened his pace as he climbed down.

Xuanzhu's second burst of magical power followed immediately, heading straight for the crevice in the rock that his left hand was gripping.

Fang Shi reacted quickly, his left hand suddenly retracting, and the magical power struck the rock wall, but only dust fell down.

In that brief moment of contraction, Xuanzhu used the momentum to leap down.

Fang Shi felt a sudden weight on his abdomen. Looking down, he saw Xuanzhu's head pressing against his stomach, her hands tightly wrapped around his buttocks, her entire body hanging on him. Her delicate, porcelain-like face was looking up at him, her chin poking into his bare belly, her eyes blazing with anger.

"You beast! You think you can escape my grasp just because you've taken off your clothes!"

Fang Shi felt a chill run down his spine, but at this moment he finally realized what was going on.

Xuan Zhu would rather hang on him in this comical and pathetic position, with her head against his stomach and her hands holding his buttocks, than lie on his back.

Not to mention that second, weak burst of magic power just now.

So Fang Shi withdrew his left hand and continued climbing down, deliberately squeezing his body into the crevice, trapping his small, round belly between his bare abdomen and the cold rock wall.

Click! Click! Click!

With several crisp cracking sounds, Xuanzhu's body was crushed between him and the rock wall, his head and face pressed into a pancake, his delicate and beautiful features long since disappeared.

His whole body was squeezed into a twisted position, his limbs hanging limply, like a porcelain doll that had been smashed and barely pieced back together, with blood seeping from every part of his body.

Even so, she still did not let go.

"You beast—even if you crush me into mud, you won't get rid of me. Even if I turn to ashes, I'll still cling to you and go down with you."

call!

Another gust of wind swept into the valley.

The wind didn't brush against my face, lift my robe, or even stir a single strand of hair.

Yet there was a chill that went straight to the bone.

The chill surged from the deepest part of his dantian, spreading along his meridians and penetrating his entire body.

Fang Shi's fingers, which were gripping the crevice in the rock, suddenly stiffened. The already weak magical power at his fingertips was extinguished with a hiss, as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head.

He subconsciously tried to circulate his internal energy, but his dantian was completely empty, and he felt no energy in his meridians.

"Hahahaha" 6

Xuanzhu's laughter came from his waist. His face, which was squeezed into a ball, was no longer distinguishable in terms of features, with only the corner of his mouth opening and closing amidst the bloodstains.

"The wind is coming! The wind is coming! Skin will be eroded, bones will be eroded, and even the soul will be destroyed! You refused to carry me on your back, and now you will be blown to death on this cliff face, turning into a dried-up corpse—no, not even a dried-up corpse will remain, just a handful of fragments. With a gust of wind, not even a trace will be left! This is the price you pay for disobeying me!"

Fang Shi gritted his teeth and used his right hand to pry open the hands that were tightly clasped around his waist.

However, those ten jet-black fingernails had already dug deep into the flesh on his side, hooking onto the fascia.

Even though she was squeezed so tightly that she was no longer human, her hands were the only thing that wouldn't give up. They were like parasites growing on his body, and no matter how he tried to pry them apart, they wouldn't budge.

Fang Shi hardened his heart, released his grip on the crevice, and plummeted downwards.

Her body pressed tightly against the cliff face, her small, round belly sandwiched between the rock and her bare abdomen. Using the force of the fall, she was slammed hard against the rock.

The sound of bones cracking and breaking was continuous.

With each zhang (approximately 3.3 meters) of fall, Xuanzhu's body scraped away a layer of flesh from the rocks. After falling a hundred zhang, he was reduced to a meat pie clinging to his Taoist robe.

At that moment, the ten fingers twitched a few times around Fang Shi's waist, and finally relaxed.

The inhuman body slid off him and plunged into the darkness at the bottom of the cliff.

At the same time, the bone-chilling cold vanished without a trace, and the magical power in his dantian surged again. Fang Shi shook his arms and clenched his ten fingers against the rock wall.

But the downward trend had already begun, and there was no stopping it.

The moment the fingertips struck the rock face, the nails split off at the root, the skin and flesh of the fingertips were torn apart by the rough rock surface, and strips of flesh were scraped off, even the bones began to make a "crack" sound.

If your hands won't work, then use your head!

Fang Shi directly used his head to try and stop his fall.

"Oh dear, you're already useless enough. Even with your hand crippled, you can still crawl around like a cripple. If you damage your brain too, you won't even be able to crawl anymore. What are you going to do then?"

Fang Shi felt a weight on his shoulder, and that cold touch pressed down on his shoulder again.

He said, "Great Celestial Venerable! Show me what you've got, or I'll pin you to the cliff face!"

As he spoke, he released one of his hands from the crevice in the rock and reached back to grab Xuanzhu's calf.

"Oh dear, don't panic! This Heavenly Venerable certainly doesn't want to die. So don't fret, don't fret."

As soon as he finished speaking, a beam of purple light shone down from above Fang Shi's head.

The purple talisman had somehow appeared above the two of them, its silver patterns rippling like waves, and its purple light illuminating the entire cliff face as if it were daytime.

The two people's descent suddenly slowed down, as if they were being gently supported by an invisible hand, turning a rapid fall into a slow descent, and then into a suspension.

Fang Shi's fingers, which were gripping Xuan Zhu's calf, were still bleeding.

Fresh blood dripped from his fingertips, slid down his snow-white calf, past his ankle, over his instep, and finally dripped from his five dark toenails.

"You're filthy! Take that hand off me right now!"

Before Fang Shi could answer, he felt his feet touch solid ground.

He loosened his grip on Xuanzhu's calf and his shoulder shrugged.

"Then you'd better get down here right now."

Xuanzhu gracefully leaped down from his back and said, "What's wrong with you? Why are you being so disrespectful to this Heavenly Venerable?"

Fang Shi said, "Because it's you who actually wants to go out, I never wanted to go out in the first place."

Xuanzhu opened her eyes wide and said, "You...you don't want to leave? If you don't leave, you will be trapped in this Realm of Seven Emotions and Desires forever."

Fang swore, "No."

Only now did he fully understand—his ability to enter this realm of seven emotions and desires was a game arranged by Qi Xueyi.

Although he followed Xuanzhu all the way to the edge of the cliff because of the steward's pursuit, the steward was not so easy to get into.

He had only heard the sounds of clashing swords and galloping horses once in the herb garden; that must have been the steward trying to break into the place.

Otherwise, why would Abbot Xuanzhu go through all this trouble? She could simply wait for someone at the top of the cliff.

Xuanzhu stared at him for a while, and seeing that his expression didn't seem to be lying, she frowned slightly and said, "Don't try to fool this Heavenly Venerable."

Fang Shi looked up at her, his expression calm.

Xuanzhu met his gaze for a moment.

Suddenly, he threw the purple talisman into the air, his ten fingers flying, silver patterns spreading across the talisman like ripples on water, but never quite forming a hexagram.

"I can't figure it out."

She muttered something, lifted her right leg, and stood on one foot on the rocks. Her five toes curled and stretched nimbly as she began to calculate.

"It won't work again."

She simply sat down on the ground, both bare feet on top of her.

Pinch all twenty fingers together, including both hands and both feet.

Fang Shi's gaze fell on Xuan Zhu's toes, which were rapidly calculating—his toenails were stained with a layer of ink.

Her fingernails, however, were a pale pink, quite different from the black-fingered abbot at the cliff top.

hum!

The hexagram finally took shape.

Xuanzhu stared at the divination diagram, stopped all her calculations, and looked up at Fang Shi.

"The hexagram 'Shi' (師). Water below and earth above, water within the earth. Water hidden in the earth, gathering without dispersing, storing without leaking, is called a deep pool. Your staying here is a way to survive. You truly did not deceive this Heavenly Venerable."

Fang Shi sneered and said, "Now that we've reached the bottom of the cliff, you can go on your own. Or are you saying that you still can't move an inch without me?"

He had already seen clearly when he landed that this was not the bottom of a cliff at all, nor did he see the body of the abbot who had fallen earlier.

Beneath my feet lay a forest floor covered with fallen leaves, and behind me stood layers upon layers of ancient trees. Moonlight filtering through the branches cast sparse, slanting shadows across the entire forest.

Xuanzhu stood up, patted the fallen leaves off his Taoist robe, and said, "Yes, logically speaking, the place below the cliff should be the manifestation of the obsession of the Lord of the Blessed Land. How come the obsession is still not resolved after coming down? Please allow this Celestial Venerable to perform another divination."

The divination was performed extremely quickly this time.

She simply raised her right hand, tapped her thumb a few times on her knuckles, and the silver patterns on the purple talisman steadily solidified into a hexagram.

She stared at the divination chart for a moment, then looked up in a certain direction in the woods and said, "It's there."

She took a few steps in that direction, but heard no footsteps behind her.

She stopped, turned around, and saw Fang Shi standing under the ancient tree. She said, "Are you really going to leave this Heavenly Venerable here all alone?"

Fang Shi said, "You've already calculated it yourself—staying here is my only way to survive, why ask such a stupid question?"

Xuanzhu said, "That's not necessarily true. There are ways to live. The difference between living well and living poorly is like heaven and earth. Take those rogue cultivators in Sanpan City, for example. They toil all day for a single fragment of spirit, unable to even find time to cultivate. Meanwhile, the inner disciples of Sanpan Temple casually toss a hundred fragments of spirit onto the table without even lifting a finger. It's true that you can survive here, but how well you'll live is not mentioned in the divination."

Fang Shi has not yet answered.

Suddenly, a series of hurried footsteps came from the direction the black pearl was pointing.

A little girl of about ten years old emerged from the woods, carrying a medicine basket on her back that was wider than her shoulders.

A pair of round eyes widened instantly upon seeing Fang Shi and Xuan Zhu, and the voice cried out, "Run! There are snakes! There are brocade-scaled pythons!"

The heavy crushing sound grew closer, the bushes were being pressed to the sides by something, and the crisp sound of breaking branches echoed in a series.

The little girl ran a few steps, then turned back and saw the two still standing there. Annoyed, she stamped her foot and exclaimed, "Why aren't you running away!"

Fang Shi was naturally unable to move. Having experienced all that had happened before, he had been struggling to stay afloat from the moment he landed. He only managed to keep his breath afloat by relying on the Lesser Breath Concealment Technique, which he had mastered to a high level, so that Xuan Zhu could not detect much of his condition.

Xuanzhu didn't run away either.

She lifted the hem of her Taoist robe and walked slowly towards the roadside bushes. She glanced down, bent down, reached out, and picked up a piece about the thickness of her little finger from among the grass. It was a small, bright green snake, its seven-inch neck firmly held between her fingers, its tail flicking weakly in the air.

"What's the point of running from a mere phantom vine snake?"

Xuanzhu, holding the small snake, turned around and swung it towards the little girl.

The little girl rubbed her eyes and said sheepishly, "Oh, it's a phantom vine snake—I thought it was a brocade python."

Xuanzhu casually tossed the small snake into the grass, saying, "It's not a brocade-scaled python."

The little girl breathed a sigh of relief, stepped forward, bowed respectfully, and said, "I am Wanxia, ​​thank you for saving my life, senior."

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