Rise of Qinglian Chapter 7
The Spirit Grass Thief
At this time, Wang Qingyun rushed over along with tens of young men, all of whom helped carry a wooden tub of black dog blood.
“Ninth Uncle, are you alright?!” Wang Qingyun asked in concern.
Wang Changsheng shook his head and replied, “I’m alright, the ghost entity has already been dealt with. Who lived in this estate before?”
“It was a merchant surnamed Yang. He kept a separate family here but more than a decade ago, the people living here passed away from illness and Merchant Yang never came back afterwards. This residence has remained uninhabited ever since.”
One of the young men’s eyebrows twitched as he sniffed the air several times before saying, “It smells! Just what is causing this foul odor?”
When Wang Changsheng heard those words, he too began to smell the malodorous stench which seemed to be wafting over from the well.
Once the stone slab was removed from atop the well and with the help of torches, everyone was able to see the female corpse within.
“Xiaofeng must have been killed by someone and thrown into the well. Qingyun, send people over tomorrow at first light to fetch the body out and have it cremated. Also, have the residence within this estate demolished. If the original owner returns, compensate him with the original price”, Wang Changsheng instructed.
“Ninth Uncle, should this well be sealed?”
“Seal it! Burn it with some lychee wood first. In addition, do an inspection; no person should have any pagoda, poplar, willow, mulberry, or melia trees planted in their residences or estates. If there are any, cut them down immediately. By the way, once this residence is demolished, have some peach trees planted within the courtyard and have people come water them periodically. Once the trees bear fruit, then the Yin energy should have almost completely dispersed.”
Wang Qingyun nodded. “Understood, Ninth Uncle. This nephew will do so first thing tomorrow morning. As it is getting quite late, please return to rest, Ninth Uncle! It will be enough with just this nephew cleaning up here.”
Wang Changsheng didn’t object and left after a few words of exhortation.
Early the next day, after Wang Changsheng had his morning meal, they went from door to door for inspections under the guidance of Wang Qiuxian. It was only after confirming that none had any places containing strong Yin energy that Wang Changsheng finally relaxed.
At noon, Wang Qingyun led the group of elders to personally send off Wang Changsheng and Wang Qiusheng from Wangjia Town.
“Qiusheng, head back to Lotus Island first! I have something to do and will return a little later” Wang Changsheng ordered.
“Yes, Ninth Grand Uncle!” Wang Qiusheng responded naively.
After Wang Qiusheng had long left, Wang Changsheng called forth a white cloud with a quietly muttered incantation. He was lifted up and soon flew off.
A little less than half an hour later, Wang Changsheng appeared above a desolate mountain range. He changed tactics here and the white clouded slowly descended into a narrow part of the valley.
Not far from the valley was a cave entrance no taller than a person and two persons wide, with seemingly nothing special about it.
After going about over a hundred zhang*, the area up ahead suddenly became open and clear, and a cavern the size of about a hundred zhang appeared before Wang Changsheng.
[TL/N: About 1,100 feet or 335 metres.]
There was nothing unique about the cavern and was devoid of vegetation.
Wang Changsheng came before the face of a somewhat smooth stone wall, placed both hands onto its surface, and recited some words. In a few moments, his hands lit up with a yellow light.
A startling scene appeared as a large amount of soil and sand fell down from atop the stone wall.
Not long after, an entrance that would only allow one person to enter at a time, stood before him.
On entering through the narrow and constricting entrance, Wang Changsheng entered into a more spacious grotto of about ten zhang* in size.
[TL/N: About 109 feet or 33 metres.]
When he first came to Ping’an County, Wang Changsheng had simply been unable to stand how sparse the spiritual energy was on Lotus Island and had wanted to find a place with relatively abundant energy. For this reason, he travelled all across Ping’an County’s large mountains and fortunately found this cave. There were spiritual veins within this cave but they were quite small and no bigger than two zhang (~22ft/7m). Moreover, the spiritual veins were a bit weak as well so using it for cultivation purposes was slightly far-fetched.
Having said that, the Wang Clan had already explored the three counties under its control, but they hadn’t found anything.
It was purely by accident that Wang Changsheng had been able to find this spiritual vein. The grotto where this spiritual vein was located, was separated from the main cave by a wall. Wang Changsheng had been practicing spells in the cave when he accidentally penetrated the wall and discovered this spiritual vein.
Ever since he discovered this vein within the cave, Wang Changsheng would try using spiritual weapons to cleave and strike at it whenever he passed by the cave but there weren’t any new discoveries.
The spiritual veins were no bigger than two zhang*, the area was also too small and dark without light, and thus unsuitable to establish spiritual roots.
[TL/N: ~22ft or ~7m]
Wang Changsheng planted over twenty black moongrass, which usually grew in moist, dark caves. Five-year-old black moongrass was the material for making blank talisman paper, and the Wang clan planted a lot of them.
The environment within the grotto was not humid, but Wang Changsheng deliberately dug and created a pond about three to four zhang* in diameter to create a damp environment.
[TL/N: ~33-40ft or ~10-12m]
Wang Changsheng would then come here every other month to water the plants.
This time, as soon as Wang Changsheng walked into the grotto, the smile on his face stagnated.
The twenty plus black moongrass plants had disappeared and even the water in the pond was gone.
In the last three years, the water within this pond had never once dried out; it was impossible for the pool to run dry in less than a month.
Wang Changsheng quickly strode over to the edge of the pool and with attentive inspection, discovered that there was a hole the size of a watermelon at the bottom.
It was evident that the water in this pool had been drained through this cavity.
Wang Changsheng furrowed his brows as he stared at the hole.
When the pool was built, he used the art of fossilization to turn the soil into stone. It stands to reason that it was impossible for a hole to form. There was only one possibility. An animal dug this which pierced through to the pool thus causing the water to flow out; that animal must have also eaten the black moongrass.
When Wang Changsheng thought of this, he could only feel pained; three years of hard work was thus wasted.
After turning it over in his head, he planned to catch the animal that stole and ate his black moongrass and kill it, in order to vent the hatred in his heart.
Wang Changsheng fetched a cloth pouch from his person, opened it, and placed two pieces of sesame seed flatbread on the ground.
From his mouth flowed the muttered words of a spell and it didn’t take long before the surface of his body began to glow with bright blue light, then, his figure blurred and disappeared.
About a half hour later, a fat, large, yellow rat emerged from the hole within the pool.
Unlike ordinary rats, this one had a longer nose and a fat body.
Its nose sniffed the air a few times and then quickly climbed out of the pool to rush towards the sesame seed flatbread.
Right when it was about to eat it up, Wang Changsheng revealed himself.
Out waved his hand and a bright golden light shot forth.
Because the yellow rat’s back was facing Wang Changsheng, it hadn’t noticed him.
The golden light quickly encircled the yellow rat a few times, entangling it in a deathly tight grip.
The yellow rat let out a few terrible and strange squeaking cries as it struggled about in vain.
“How unexpected for it to be a low-ranked demon rat. No wonder it was able to dig through the stone.” Wang Changsheng beamed with a pleased look.
Fluctuating spiritual energy was emanating lightly from the yellow rat’s body. Had Wang Changsheng not been a cultivator, it would have been unnoticeable.
However, the spiritual energy here was quite thin and weak, how did a demonic rat end up appearing here?!
Could it be that an ordinary rat had evolved into a demonic rat after eating the black moongrass? Although twenty plus black moongrass was not a small number, the ones here in particular were only three-years old and thus didn’t contain much spiritual energy. An ordinary rat eating up over twenty of those was not enough to ascend into a demonic rat!
Could it be that there was a larger spiritual vein here? This rat’s lair must have been within the grounds of the spiritual vein and thus it became a demonic rat over a period of time!
Wang Changsheng thought about it carefully but soon overturned the idea. If it was that easy for an ordinary rat to become a demonic one, then the clan would have domesticated a large number of these demonic rats to sell!
Although demonic rats are among the lowest ranked of spiritual beasts, it was still a spiritual beast; it would have been possible to exchange them for several dozen spiritual stones.
From the looks of it, this spiritual beast must have run into some sort of unknown luck and happened to rise to become a demonic rat.
“Squeak, squeak!”
The yellow rat continued to burst out with bewildering cries, as if to protest against Wang Changsheng for tying it up.
“You ate up all of the spiritual grass I planted and you still want me to release you? You shall e my spiritual beast from now on!” Wang Changsheng said with a light smirk.
Though it was only a low-ranked demonic rat, if it was taken into the markets and sold, it would at least be worth dozens of spiritual stones. But compared to the value of twenty plus black moongrass, Wang Changsheng was still at a deficit.
