The Demon Lord of All Forms

Chapter 4 Zhang Guangze

Su Qinghe closed his eyes.

This was the first time he had devoured a cultivator's soul. Mortal souls are as bland as water, too thin, like a layer of paper that breaks easily. But this thing was different; it was thicker, denser, and chewier, like a piece of old cured meat dried by time, with a mouthful of the taste of time when you bite into it.

Nearly a century of solitude.

In a mountain cave, a skeleton lies, and a demon has slumbered in darkness for nearly a hundred years, its consciousness in a state of chaos, left with only a single obsession: to wait for someone to come, then possess that person and live on.

Su Qinghe smacked his lips.

good to eat.

Memories flooded into Su Qinghe's consciousness like a burst dam, turbid, chaotic, carrying mud and fragments, fragmented and disjointed.

The rebirth wheel spun wildly, capturing these fragments one by one.

Su Qinghe discovered that Zhang Guangze's memory was not as complete and coherent as that of an ordinary person. An ordinary person's memory is a complete river, from its source to its mouth, with each segment clear and distinct.

Zhang Guangze's memory is like a shattered mirror, scattered all over the ground. Some fragments are worn and scratched, while others have simply disappeared.

The century-long slumber and the formation of the invisible demonic entity caused irreversible damage to Zhang Guangze's soul.

Su Qinghe frowned and pieced together a boy from the fragments.

The boy's name was Zhang Guangze. He was born in a small town in northern Cangzhou. When he was twelve years old, he was taken away by a man in black. The man said that his soul was born with a trace of yin energy, which was suitable for cultivation.

Zhang Guangze's parents knelt and kowtowed at the entrance of the town, thinking their son was going to become an immortal. Zhang Guangze only had time to look back at his parents once, and never returned.

The man in black led Zhang Guangze to a giant mountain, its body as black as ink, its peak disappearing into the clouds, and its upper half shrouded in purple thunderclouds year-round.

This mountain is called Jiuyou Mountain, and the sect on the mountain is called Jiuyou Sect.

Zhang Guangze spent ten years in the Nine Nether Sect, where he learned to draw qi into his body and to cultivate. He reached the Qi Refining Realm and then the Longevity Realm. He had seen inner disciples fly overhead on swords, seen a hundred ghosts clear the way for elders when they traveled, and seen his senior brother in the Dao Embryo Realm split a three-zhang boulder in half with a single palm strike.

The Dao Embryo Realm was the realm Zhang Guangze desperately wanted to reach. He spent thirty years progressing from Qi Refining to Immortality, each step fraught with difficulty. Finally, he broke through and became a Dao Embryo Realm cultivator.

Then he died.

Less than three months after his breakthrough, Zhang Guangze encountered a righteous cultivator while traveling. The cultivator was at the same level as him, but his strength was extraordinary. Zhang Guangze was seriously injured and fled all the way to Qingming Mountain, where he died in a cave.

However, Su Qinghe discovered something interesting from the fragments: before his death, Zhang Guangze had refined his soul into an invisible Yin Demon. This process itself caused enormous damage, and coupled with nearly a hundred years of slumber, Zhang Guangze's soul was constantly weakening.

When Zhang Guangze attempted to possess Zhang Hu's body, his soul strength had already dropped to the Longevity Realm, a whole realm lower than his Dao Embryo Realm in his previous life.

In other words, what Su Qinghe swallowed was not a complete Dao Embryo Realm cultivator, but a fragmented Longevity Realm soul.

Before his death, Zhang Guangze, who had become an invisible demon, possessed a piece of Yin jade. As long as someone touched the Yin jade, the invisible demon would awaken, possess the body, and be reborn.

Zhang Guangze was there.

They waited until Su Qinghe arrived.

Su Qinghe opened his eyes and spent half a month digesting Zhang Guangze's memory fragments and the text of the three cultivation techniques.

The "Heavenly Ghost and Netherworld God Demon Codex" is the fundamental law of the Nine Netherworld Sect, but Zhang Guangze only possesses the first three levels.

"The Book of Corrupted Souls and Silkworm Spirits" is a Taoist book that produces souls and refines demons.

The "Thousand Stars Chart" is a cultivation technique found on a disciple of the Starry Sea Sect, which involves drawing upon the power of the stars for practice.

The complete written record of the three cultivation methods was preserved among Zhang Guangze's belongings, but most of the memories regarding "how to cultivate," that is, the specific pathways of the meridians, the timing of opening and closing acupoints, and the techniques for guiding death energy, have been lost.

Zhang Guangze's soul, in its century-long slumber, forgot most of these details.

Su Qinghe read the three martial arts manuals over and over again, his brows furrowing more and more with each reading.

"I don't understand," Su Qinghe muttered to himself.

He knew the phrase "death energy enters the meridians, circulates through the twelve heavens, and converges at the Qi Sea," but he didn't know exactly how the twelve heavens circulated, where the Qi Sea was located, how much death energy was needed, or when to stop.

The "Thousand Stars Map" is no better. "Drawing starlight into the soul, using the soul as a medium, and the body as a mirror"—how does it draw it in? What is used to draw it in? What does "using the soul as a medium" mean?

If Zhang Guangze's memory were complete, Su Qinghe could directly copy his experience and copy the answers like copying homework. But now the homework book is torn up, and only half of the answers remain. He has to fill in the other half himself.

Su Qinghe remained silent for a long time, then smiled.

"Interesting, this is the first time I've ever tasted an incomplete memory."

Mortals have clear and unmistakable memories, but cultivators are different. A cultivator's soul is more complex, more resilient, and more difficult to digest. Zhang Guangze's soul was worn down during his century-long slumber, and his memories were shattered into dust.

Su Qinghe licked his lips.

"Cultivators are indeed interesting." Standing up, Su Qinghe smiled with a hint of amusement. "Even in death, they don't give us any peace of mind."

Zhang Guangze's memories told Su Qinghe something: this world is vast, so vast that his Lin'an City is not even a speck of dust. The Nine Provinces, the righteous and the demonic paths, the Buddhist and the demon races, and countless cultivators are vying for immortality and power.

A cultivator's soul is a hundred or a thousand times denser than that of a mortal. But what about those cultivators at even higher levels? What do the souls of the higher-level cultivators like those who have reached the Refining Spirit, Golden Core, and Dharma Aspect realms in Zhang Guangze's memory taste like?

Su Qinghe stood in the center of the main hall, looking down at his hands.

The souls of 100,000 mortals allowed it to grow to its current size, but what about the 100,000 cultivators?

Footsteps sounded outside the palace gate, and Zhu Zi walked in, carrying a bowl of tea.

"A big harvest?" The young man glanced at Su Qinghe and placed the tea on the table.

Su Qinghe did not answer. He walked to the palace gate, and the March wind blew in, making the banana leaves in the courtyard rustle.

"The outside world is vast, and it's time for you to go out and explore," Su Qinghe said.

The boy nodded: "The cultivation world, huh? I'm looking forward to it."

Su Qinghe turned around, glanced at the boy, and smiled.

"But before that," Su Qinghe said, "you need to learn something first."

Standing at the entrance of the main hall, Su Qinghe was still savoring the taste of Zhang Guangze's soul. In Zhang Guangze's soul, he tasted nearly a hundred years of loneliness and the difference between cultivators and mortals. These memories were like a key, opening a door that Su Qinghe had never seen before. The Nine Provinces, cultivation, Dao embryo, demonic path, righteous path... a world a million times larger than Lin'an City unfolded before his eyes.

Then Su Qinghe closed the door.

It's not that I don't want to go in, it's that I can't go in.