Edited by: Butter
From what the Ghost Masked Man had said, it was obvious that he knew.
“I know, but the time hasn’t come for me to tell you.” Ghost Masked Man said.
Yan Tianhen bit his lower lip and looked at him, “Then tell me, are they still alive?”
Ghost Masked Man said, “They should be alive.”
Should?
“I haven’t seen him in so many years, how would I know for sure.” Ghost Masked Man rolled his eyes, “Your father and mother had already thrown you to some other couple to be their son, why are you still thinking about them?”
Yan Tianhen hung his head, slightly disappointed, then shook his head. “You don’t understand. My parents definitely wouldn’t have thrown me away because I’m ugly or lame. I believe that they must have had their reasons.”
Ghost Masked Man’s gaze turned more profound, but it was hidden underneath his huge mask, so Yan Tianhen didn’t notice it at all.
Ghost Masked Man threw a book at Yan Tianhen. “This is Yin Corpse Sect’s profound-level top-grade cultivation method 《Imperial Corpse Technique》. It has a total of three stages and nine layers. You can just take a look at it when you don’t have anything better do do. In any case, whether or not you want to practice it is up to you. Also, Benzun doesn’t have the time to spare to be a bodyguard for you and your Dage. Benzun doesn’t like you now, so I don’t intend to accept you as a disciple anymore. You’re on your own.”
Yan Tianhen: “….”
Does he need to be this willful?
“So?” Yan Tianhen waved the book in his hand.
“So, you can comprehend the methods written in that by yourself. How much you learn from it all depends on your talent and comprehension skills now. Even if you suffer from a Qi deviation, Benzun wouldn’t take any responsibility for it.” Ghost Masked Man said coldly.
Yan Tianhen sighed again, “You’re the classic example of the phrase ‘only care about killing but not about burying’.”
Ghost Masked Man, “…….”
Yan Tianhen picked up the worn out book and took a look at it, “What kind of changes will I undergo after I cultivate this?”
“There won’t be much changes to your appearance, but you’ll slowly be able to transform the Profound Yin Qi in your body and turn it into an energy for your own use. Also, after you’ve cultivated up to the fourth layer of《Imperial Corpse Technique》, as long as you have a special method or magic treasure to conceal your Qi, no one will realise that you’re a demonic cultivator.”
Yan Tianhen appeared to be very conflicted.
“I won’t cultivate this, my Dage wants to bring me to Profound Sky Sect.”
“Up to you. By the way, it’s only in this kind of closed-up world that such a strict division between demonic and righteous cultivation exists. If you get the chance to go to the outside world, you’ll realise that within a sect, both demonic cultivators and elemental cultivators are the same. They aren’t categorised as ‘good’ or ‘evil’, only as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Qts kbeiv P ilf ab sbe jybea atja.” Xtbra Zjrxfv Zjc gfrqbcvfv, “Qf’gf jii qegrelcu atf ugfjafg Gjb, jcv kf jii agfja atf ragbcu jr xlcur. Ktf wbgf jwjhlcu sbe jgf, atf wbgf sbe kbeiv gfjilrf atja ktjafnfg qjat sbe meialnjaf lr wfgfis j wfatbv, ktja’r wbra lwqbgajca lr ufaalcu ragbcu jcv jaajlclcu lwwbgajilas.”
Yan Tianhen was immersed in his own thoughts.
Frankly speaking, ever since he met this Ghost Masked Man — and after he had bluntly pointed out the problems with his body — Yan Tianhen had already thought about becoming a demonic cultivator.
He’s not stupid, and is in fact very smart. So of course he had already clearly understood that realistically speaking, he would not be able to make any progress by cultivating the orthodox paths in the near future.
But Lin Xuanzhi didn’t have time to wait for his breakthrough.
A craftsman — especially a craftsman with a talent that’s close to being heaven-defying — would be rapidly targeted by more and more powerful cultivators, and the Lin Xuanzhi today doesn’t have a single martial cultivator by his side whom he could wholeheartedly trust to protect him!
Yan Tianhen has always displayed a cheerful, ignorant and fearless disposition on the surface, but how was it possible for him to not care at all? In fact, he cares about this too much!
He even hates himself to the core for being a good-for-nothing who can’t even cultivate!
Demonic path……righteous path.
No matter which path it was, as long as it could help him get stronger quickly so that he wouldn’t be a cumbersome existence that dragged Lin Xuanzhi down…even if he had to go through a mountain of knives and a sea of fire, or even if he had to endure nine layers of hell, he, Yan Tianhen, would be willing to personally go through all of these trials!
But there was a huge premise…he definitely couldn’t let Lin Xuanzhi find out.
“So, do you want to cultivate it?” Ghost Masked Man asked.
Yan Tianhen decisively shook his head, “No, I won’t practice this art.”
But his hand gripped the book tightly without any hints of letting it go.
Ghost Masked Man nodded with gratification, then clapped as he laughed, “Amazing, amazing. Yan Tianhen, do you believe that you’ll become an amazing character in the future?”
Yan Tianhen’s eyes turned into half moons as he broke out into a hideous yet naive smile.
“I won’t tell you whether I believe it or not, but I know you do.”
Ghost Masked Man, “…”
Ghost Masked Man was too lazy to talk to this little rascal any longer. He threw him another incomplete scroll and said, “This incomplete scroll is called《Ancient Divine Devil Dance》. When you feel like you’ve reached a turning point in your cultivation, you can comprehend its contents by yourself. You definitely, definitely cannot let anyone know about this book, or else calamity will befall you.”
Yan Tianhen opened the incomplete scroll, and within a blink of an eye, the incomplete scroll disintegrated into a ray of black light that rushed into Yan Tianhen’s forehead before emerging in his consciousness.
“I can’t open it.” Yan Tianhen said.
“Because the time has not yet come.” Ghost Masked Man smiled, “When the time comes, it’ll open up by itself; you need not force it.” Ghost Masked Man quietly left once he finished speaking.
Yan Tianhen no longer felt sleepy.
He first got off his bed to go take a look at how his two tiger cubs were doing. When he saw that they were still sleeping with their bellies facing up, and were even snoring so hard a bubble could be seen coming out from their noses, Yan Tianhen couldn’t help but jab their bellies and purse his lips, “Useless little fellas.”
The moment the tiger cubs fall asleep, even the sound of thunder wouldn’t be able to wake them up. Yan Tianhen felt like he couldn’t count on these two tiger cubs who were already on their way to becoming puppies to guard him for the night.
After he rubbed Ah Bai and Hu Po’s soft bellies, Yan Tianhen returned to his bedroom and sat on his bed. He eagerly opened up the plain-looking book adorned with a black cover.
The moment he opened it, a bone-chilling gust of cold Qi travelled from the paper to his finger tips, then continued along his bloodstream and meridians and rushed toward his heart.
But this sort of cold felt very comfortable to Yan Tianhen.
For as long as Yan Tianhen could remember, his hands and feet had always been icy cold. If it wasn’t because of his heartbeat and pulse, when other people touched him, they might have thought that they were touching a corpse.
Yet Yan Tianhen was extremely afraid of the cold. No matter how hot the weather got, he had never been able to feel warmth.
But now, he had only just touched the rune characters that were filled with the profound mysteries of Dao when he felt a warm Qi that was so comfortable he almost uttered a prolonged sigh of relief.
The current Yan Tianhen still didn’t know that the more wickedly Yin the cultivation method is, the more easily he could manipulate it.
Yan Tianhen’s fingertips traced over those runes and carefully recited the characters as well as the profound and almost incomprehensible meaning behind them.
《Imperial Corpse Technique》is an introductory foundation cultivation method that belonged to Yin Corpse Sect. It has a total of three introductory stages and nine layers. The three introductory stages are: Corpse Refining, Gu Refining and Imperial Corpse. The nine layers are divided according to the level of the corpse that can be controlled.
The nine layers are: Corpse Soldiers, Corpse General, Corpse Ghost, Corpse Monster, Corpse Demons, Corpse Devils, Corpse Kings, Corpse Ancestors and Corpse Emperors. It is only when a user refines a corpse and inserts a Gu bug into it — that allows the corpse to move flexibly and establishes a connection between the corpse and imperial corpse user — as well as attain the same level as their corpse before they truly fulfill the basic requirements of being an Imperial Corpse user. As for controlling the corpse, the extent to which it can be controlled depends on the Imperial Corpse user’s own level as well as the corpse’s talent, and also their own fortunes.
Yan Tianhen was so engrossed in reading the book that he didn’t even realise that the sky had already turned bright.
The Qi within his body was limited, and reading this kind of book required a huge expenditure of his consciousness and Qi. Thus, Yan Tianhen couldn’t continue reading further after a short while.
However, even though the Qi in his body had been completely exhausted, he felt like he had suddenly been enlightened and could grasp the secrets of cultivation, so he immediately began to meditate. He formed the basic introductory hand seals and uttered the magic seals in the book, then entered a state of cultivation.
In the earlier stages of cultivation, demonic and elemental cultivators don’t appear to be very different while cultivating. In addition, they both absorb the same spiritual Qi between the heavens and the earth, so when Lin Xuanzhi sensed that Yan Tianhen was cultivating, he didn’t think that Yan Tianhen had already begun cultivating the demonic arts.
By the time Yan Tianhen came out, it was already the morning of the second day.
Lin Xuanzhi had already prepared breakfast and was placing it on the table. When he saw the Yan Tianhen who was stretching as he left his bedroom, he smiled and said, “Ah Hen’s complexion looks pretty good today, why were you suddenly enlightened?”
Yan Tianhen smiled as he ran over to sit by Lin Xuanzhi’s side, “I suddenly remembered that Daddy had shown me a book on alchemy before. I thought it was quite insightful so I gave it a try, and unexpectedly, it really provided some insight into the mysteries of cultivation for me.”
Lin Xuanzhi was slightly surprised, “Alchemy?”
Yan Tianhen nodded, “There has always been an alchemist fire within my body, but I have never been able to find a suitable alchemist path for me to cultivate and I didn’t have much insight either, so whether or not I had an alchemist fire never made a difference for me.
Lin Xuanzhi gazed at Yan Tianhen with a profound look in his eyes, “Then what is the name of the cultivation method that you’re using now?”
“《Partial Arts》.” Yan Tianhen responded.
“It’s actually 《Partial Arts》!” Lin Xuan was evidently quite surprised, but after he thought for a bit, he nodded. “It can only be a bizarre manual like《Partial Arts》, I can’t believe I never thought of it before.”
《Partial Arts》is a manual at the intersection between the righteous and demonic paths. It didn’t only contain alchemy techniques, but of course, alchemy techniques were its main content, the rest were merely add-ons.
It’s just that, this manual can’t be judged as either righteous or evil, because those who can cultivate the methods in this manual are those with a special constitution.
For example, those who have an either extreme Yin or extreme Yang alchemist fire, someone who has all the crafting soulfires, and even those who have absolutely no talent in formation arrays can use it.
And the medicinal pill recipes, equipment recipes, and formation descriptions recorded in it are quite different from the orthodox kinds — it could be described with the words “strange” and “weird”. Examples include a medicinal pill that can make you grow wings once consumed, a medicinal pill that helps you maintain a child’s appearance for a hundred years, a trap that can catch spirit beasts, etc.
Due to the limitations of《Partial Arts》, it is not widely circulated. With the additional bias of many righteous cultivators against this kind of unorthodox method, they tend to look down on it with scorn. Thus, up till today, other than a few lone books that could be found in the bigger families or sects, it was very difficult to find 《Partial Arts》on the market anymore.
As such, most cultivators don’t even know of the existence of this manual.
Lin Zhan was someone who liked to collect all sorts of cultivation methods. This unique hobby of his had allowed him to accumulate quite a few manuals.
When Lin Xuanzhi was very young he had seen this 《Partial Arts》manual before. But at the time, he was just casually browsing around as he had never thought of cultivating auxiliary paths such as that of alchemy and the like.
Even now, Lin Xuanzhi didn’t plan on cultivating《Partial Arts》.
But of course, he was extremely supportive of Yan Tianhen gaining an insight to a cultivation path that was suitable for him through this manual.
“Ah Hen has an extreme Yin body type, and your alchemist fire is also of the extreme Yin quality, so《Partial Arts》suits you very well.” Lin Xuanzhi felt extremely comforted so he smiled as he said, “So it is true that every cloud has a silver lining. Yesterday, I was still worrying about how to cheer Ah Hen up and encourage you to continue cultivating, but I didn’t expect Ah Hen to grasp the knack to cultivation all by yourself.”
Yan Tianhen also revealed a happy smile as he said, “I also feel like my progress is especially fast when I use this cultivation method to cultivate. I should have begun cultivating it a long time ago.”
—
T/N: Just a small note to my readers, pls don’t leave spoilers in the comments below! There are some readers who don’t like spoilers coughlikemecough, but there is a specific NU page here that discusses RSCB spoilers which I have to avoid like the plague now I’ve added the link to spoilers on the main RSCB page as well for easier access~
Thank you Jwel for the kofi!! (ᗒᗨᗕ)
Thanks for the chapter! 💕💕💕
So whatever happens it’s seems still happened regardless the rebirth..
He really still chooses become demonic cultivator..
Thought after 4 stage.. There’s will be different..
We’ll see if he chooses different path after 4 stage or not..
But there’s xanxia novel that I read before have their sect practice control demon, ghost, Bone, etc..
But their still accepted as Normal sect ..
I miss that book.. But I don’t have money..
Thanks for the chapter
Tittle?
Just tell him the truth ;(
2Ha??
E llorado el fin de semana por la espera pero ahora perece que valio la pena
I dread the moment LX finds out YT is cultivating demonic path. If LX manages to cure YT of whatever it is thats afflicted him would it be better to cultivate righteous path? This had become really interesting now.
Heh. Cute ML will only lie to his Dage when he wants to protect him in some way. This actually just reminded me that the one elder made that corpse thing outta the guy who died from eating rice. I wonder when that’ll show up? Ooooo so much going on.
Thanks for the great translation ♥️♥️♥️
It’s like an unavoidable fate for YTH to learn demonic cultivation, even when LXZ’s treatment to him has changed drastically. In fact I think he also take the role of shadow protector for his gege in the previous live, because DYY explicitly stated that YTH is the only one LXZ shouldn’t hate.
Thank you for the translation..
Thanks for translating! Yay for Henhen! He can cultivate now! Who the eff cares about demonic or righteous methods? As long as you don’t hurt innocent people, it’s fine.
And what if the energy cultivated by the technique twists the personality of the cultivator? There is always some sort of catch with demonic techniques. Either the foundation is damaged, or the personality is twisted.
That being said, we have no idea if that masked dude has good or bad intentions. I particularly dislike the technique that was forcefully absorbed by the ML.
Thank you for the update!
It seems that he cannot avoid his fate. Well as long as he use it for good it doesn’t matter. Im sure LX wont hate him but he will be worried for Ah Yan.
Thank you!
Ooooooooh boy! This is starting to really heat up! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
I like this novel but I would really love this novel if ah hen is the seme… =(
ih??
aiyayaya what a child going against his Dage. He will notice when he use that yang blood to cure you…also maybe you will be able to take care of steward zhang’s corpse now.
I really hate the moments when characters lie to their most important people. I was raised to tell the truth, even if I had to quickly yell “mom, I’m going to the abandoned hospital” and run out before I’m caught.
If I was lied to by my family/lover, I would probably forgive them, but I wouldn’t have the courage to trust them anymore.
Thanks for the chapter! 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
Ghost masked man, go easy on the little baby please😂 soon you’ll be depressed. Honesty is the best policy afterall, no matter if the time is ripe or not. Just look at the future YZH who straight up admit it with no nonsense playing around lmao. HenHen is still a lil baby here, but he’s quite crafty and mature too.
Wow I wouldn’t want Yan as an enemy. He lies with a straight face and he’s lies can’t be seen through. Goosebumps
Wait wait wait…….I just realized this after re-reading…..since Partial arts exists and their dad collected most of those novels…wouldn’t that mean that Yan Tianwen didn’t have to practice actual demonic arts…since its neither righteous or demonic cultivation and since their dad left them a bunch of stuff couldn’t they just find those Partial arts manuals so Yan Tianwen could cultivate….bruh
Can’t say I’m not disappointed to Ah Hen though 😑 it feels like this will turn into angst and I just read a few chapters earlier that LX is finding solution for him. Guess what, Dage? He already made the move and please, please Ah Hen don’t kill innocent lives for the sake of having power that can protect your Dage coz I won’t accept that. I feel betrayed, my boy.
I am not biased against demonic cultivation path. Because those that labelled it righteour or demonic are still pompous human. What I am worried about is Ah Hen’s desception that can affect Xianzhi’s plan. I wished them to have sincere and honest relationship this time, but this just had to happen. Quite sad here.
It’s a bit disappointing to see Ah Hen going down this road. I know it’s gonna crush LXZ hard when he finds out. I hope they don’t drag it out & fall into traps because of their differing plans. But it foes seem like Ah Hen may be the descendants of demonic cultivators.
I’m disappointed that Ah Hen became a demonic cultivator. Lin Xuanzhi’s trying to make him not one because of what happened in the past, if Lin Xuanzhi know that Ah Hen became a demonic cultivator because of him again oh how heartbroken Lin Xuanzhi would be.
…this won’t end well… It’s never a good idea to lie to your closet person’s…
Thanks for the chapter!!!
*persons
Little brother YTH is too good at telling lies.
I don’t like that he’s lying