Eternal Life: I Can Sell Everything

Song Ciwan looked up and walked toward the faint silhouette on the mountain path.

She found the visibility here was extremely low. Even her Spiritual Vision was suppressed to a radius of about three feet around her, preventing her from seeing far.

An indescribable murmur drifted through the cold, gloomy air, seeming both far and near, hazy and persistent.

The sound was vexing, stirring one’s emotions and making their Qi Blood roil.

Fortunately, Song Ciwan’s Divine Soul was stable and her Spirit Platform was clear. In her Sea of Consciousness, the Heart Demon Seed formed by the Void Illusion Demon Sword stirred slightly, and all the irritating sounds instantly receded.

If Song Ciwan chose to listen carefully, she could still hear them, but the sounds could no longer affect her emotions in the slightest.

She had layered ten Armor Talismans and ten Exorcism Talismans on herself.

Although these were all just Low Level Talismans, their effects were likely weaker than the defenses she’d gained from her Body Refining. But it didn’t matter. If quality was lacking, quantity would have to suffice.

And even if both were insufficient, it was still better than nothing.

Song Ciwan advanced slowly and cautiously. As she drew closer to the figure on the path, she could just make out that the silhouette standing in the gray mist seemed to be... unclothed?

No!

’That figure wasn’t just unclothed—"she" didn’t even have skin!’

Muscles like withered wood covered a beautifully proportioned skeleton. Though the wood seemed decayed, every one of "her" muscles appeared full and robust.

"She" had perfectly curved hips and a stance that was both resolute and light. In the gray mist, "her" chin was slightly raised, and from within "her" completely wooden eye sockets, non-existent eyes seemed to gaze into the distance.

The moment she came face-to-face with it, Song Ciwan felt a sense of ancient, world-weary shock.

She couldn’t help but stop, her gaze meeting those non-existent eyes.

The murmurs in the mist abruptly intensified, and an incomprehensible language was chanted repeatedly in Song Ciwan’s ear.

"Na ne mang ne weng..."

"Xi Wu!"

"Xi Wu!"

...

Unconsciously, Song Ciwan began to move again, walking forward, drawing ever closer to the Wooden Man’s figure.

Head to head, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, foot to foot.

Song Ciwan’s body tilted forward, about to fall right onto the Wooden Man.

At that critical moment, the Heart Sutra Fire in her Sea of Consciousness suddenly stirred.

Song Ciwan snapped back to her senses. She planted her feet firmly, leaned her upper body back, and subconsciously formed a Finger Technique with her right hand, flicking it forward.

A wisp of Blazing Flame, connected to the Heart Sutra Fire, shot out and landed on the Wooden Man in an instant.

The Wooden Man caught fire immediately. With a WHOOSH, the flames flared up.

Song Ciwan’s feet moved lightly as she executed her Returning to the True Level Grasshopper Lightweight Skill. In that instant, her body split into ten.

Then, a shrill cry was heard: "Xi Wu!"

Amid the scream, a glimmer of chilly, faint blue light pierced through the flames, shooting instantly toward one of Song Ciwan’s illusory afterimages.

SWOOSH!

The cold light passed through the afterimage, hitting nothing.

Meanwhile, Song Ciwan’s real body had already flickered more than a hundred feet away from the Wooden Man.

The afterimages all dissipated like smoke. Song Ciwan then saw the cold light, after passing through a vanishing afterimage, clatter and roll onto the ground.

Not far away, the burning Wooden Man made cracking sounds in the flames—CRACK, CRACK—as its body broke and its bones fractured. The remains of the Wooden Man rustled and fell apart, turning completely to ash in a matter of moments.

The fire flickered in the gray mist before withering into nothingness along with the ashes.

"Xi Wu..."

The murmurs continued, but they had grown faint.

An inexpressible sense of loss welled up, accompanied by an indescribable melancholy.

Song Ciwan quickly held her breath and focused her mind, dispelling the strange feeling.

The Heaven and Earth Scale appeared, and a mass of qi as black as the Abyss rested on one of its Balance Plates.

[Mutated Life and Death Nether Qi. The regret and melancholy of a lost time and space. Eight taels and seven maces. Can be bartered.]

’Mutated Life and Death Nether Qi?’

’What in the world is that?’

Song Ciwan retracted the Heaven and Earth Scale. After a moment of thought, she walked over to where the cold light had landed.

’After burning the Wooden Man, besides the mass of qi the Heaven and Earth Scale automatically collected, that bit of cold light that fell to the ground should be the real prize this time.’

Song Ciwan walked over for a closer look and saw a blue, circular pearl about the size of a thumb pad lying on the stone-and-dirt ground, shrouded in gray mist.

Instead of picking it up directly, she formed a hand seal and flicked her fingers. Executing the Qi Absorption Technique, she instantly swept up the blue pearl and sent it into the Heaven and Earth Scale.

’Whatever it is, I’ll test it with the Heaven and Earth Scale first!’

As expected, a description of the small pearl appeared on the Heaven and Earth Scale: [Primordial Longevity Pearl. A Yellow Level Netherworld Marvel. Consuming it increases one’s lifespan by one year. Can be bartered.]

’This is the Primordial Longevity Pearl that Xie Yunxiang mentioned!’

A sense of joyous confirmation washed over Song Ciwan. Without hesitation, she immediately tried to barter away the Primordial Longevity Pearl.

’Let’s see what I can get from the Heaven and Earth Scale for a Marvel that can increase lifespan!’

[You have bartered one Yellow Level Netherworld Marvel, a Primordial Longevity Pearl, and have received ten Ancestral Dragon Coins.]

Ancestral Dragon Coins: Mysterious coins from a previous civilized era, bearing the strange power of the tides of heaven and earth and the ancient aura lingering in the river of history. Carrying them allows for Divination of fortune and disaster, and can ward off calamities and harm.

The specific effects depend on the wearer’s current fortune and the severity of the disaster faced.

It is also the common currency of the Netherworld. Its value is circumstantial.

’Its value is circumstantial?’

’Interesting!’

Song Ciwan immediately took three Ancestral Dragon Coins from the Heaven and Earth Scale.

The coins were round with a square hole in the center, not much different at first glance from the copper coins currently popular in the Zhou Dynasty.

They also had a character side and a patterned side. Song Ciwan had expected not to understand the characters, but to her surprise, they were remarkably similar to the seal script she had seen in her past life!

Upon closer inspection, the characters read: Heaven, Earth, Cosmos, Universe.

What a boastful inscription. The copper coins of today were no longer minted with such words.

If anything, they were usually inscribed with "So-and-so Tongbao."

Song Ciwan pondered for a moment. To be honest, the world she was in now had always shared a consistent cultural and customary lineage with the past life in her memories, with the Huaxia she longed for.

She had never before contemplated the origin of this consistency. Whether she had awakened her Innate Wisdom or had transmigrated, this was, in short, a Mythical Realm. In a Mythical Realm, anything was possible.

Who was to say this cultural consistency wasn’t just a wondrous convergence in the development of the Cosmos?

’Why should the insignificant seek the world’s fundamental truths? A mayfly needs only to know morning and evening, not the passing of spring and autumn.’

Though the former Song Ciwan was devoted to the Dao and the pursuit of longevity, her Cultivation was low. When faced with the fundamental nature of the world, this had indeed been her perspective.

Sometimes, knowing more wasn’t necessarily for the best. If one’s strength couldn’t match their knowledge, excessive awareness could bring not only pain, but also danger!

However, this Ancestral Dragon Coin, said to be from a previous civilized era, was inscribed with seal script. At this moment, Song Ciwan couldn’t help but think deeper.

The common script of the Great Zhou was also a form of block characters, but the composition of their strokes was very different from the Huaxia characters in Song Ciwan’s memory.

The two could be called the same type of script, but they were not the same script.

’But why was the seal script, of all things, so identical?’

’And this Ancestral Dragon Coin, according to the Heaven and Earth Scale’s description, was from a previous "civilized era"!’

As Song Ciwan pondered, she flipped the coin in her hand.

The moment she turned it over, the dragon motif carved on the coin’s patterned side seemed to come alive.

The jet-black dragon’s head reared up in an instant, its mouth opened, and it let out a long cry!

ROAR—

An ancient, world-weary presence pierced through time and space, as if illusion were breaking through reality.

Song Ciwan’s heart leaped, and she almost dropped the coin.