Qin Mu suddenly realized that this line of thought was extremely dangerous. This was exactly how the Cripple had lost his leg. Although the Cripple always wore a smile before others, he sighed all day long in private, forever wanting to find his lost leg, yet never daring to do so.
If he fell into the same mad thieving ways the Cripple had practiced before becoming crippled, he would probably meet the same fate before long.
“This feeling is exhilarating, but I should do less of this in the future.”
Qin Mu warned himself. He looked back at the various treasures scattered across the ground. Aside from the sinister treasures refined by the Loulan Golden Palace, he wanted to take everything else with him, but he could only carry so much.
“They worshipped this sword pellet here. It should be a fine treasure.”
Qin Mu picked up the sword pellet. It was very heavy; there were probably many swords sealed inside it.
His qi seeped into it slightly. With a hum, a curved saber flew out of the “sword pellet” and slowly spun half a circle before him.
“It isn’t a sword pellet. It’s a saber pellet!”
Qin Mu was astonished. He had once seen saber pellets like this among the rebels of the Barbarian Di Kingdom. The rebels had used them to charge into Wine Priest Bashan’s Firmament-Dividing Celestial Dipper Divine Ability. In the end, tens of thousands of curved sabers had all been embedded in the Firmament-Dividing Celestial Dipper and could not be retrieved, which was why Tu Limo had been able to slaughter the rebels so easily.
Qin Mu grabbed a curved saber. It felt somewhat awkward in his hand; evidently, a special cultivation art was needed to activate it. However, this curved saber was far better in quality than those of the other rebels, its material no worse than that of his pig-slaughtering knife.
He withdrew his qi, and the curved saber returned to the saber pellet with a clear clang, vanishing without a trace.
There were an astonishing number of curved sabers inside the saber pellet. It was definitely a great killing weapon.
Qin Mu picked up the broken sword next. He could not sense its power at all; it seemed to possess none, and it felt light as a feather in his hand.
Qin Mu opened his Divine Firmament Heavenly Eye and Azure Firmament Heavenly Eye and examined it carefully, but still could not discover anything. Yet since the Loulan Golden Palace had stored it in its treasury with such solemnity, it had to be extraordinary, so he put it away as well.
Part of the ancient qin had been scorched. Qin Mu glanced at it. Those were traces left by a lightning strike.
“Huh? Something’s wrong. This qin has a baleful aura and a demonic aura!”
Qin Mu examined it closely. The more he looked, the stranger it seemed. The ancient qin carried a bloody baleful aura, as if rich blood qi were flowing inside it, while its demonic aura was just as dense.
This qin did not look like a qin at all. It looked more like an incomparably terrifying great demon.
“Could a tree spirit have cultivated into a demon and been made into an ancient qin? Good stuff. This has to be carried away too.”
Qin Mu slung the ancient qin onto his back, then picked up a hand bone. The moment he took it in his hand, he trembled violently as if struck by lightning. A voice of incomparable grandeur exploded in his mind.
“Divine language!”
Qin Mu’s expression changed drastically. He hurriedly threw the hand bone down. It was divine language; when he held it, it was as if a god had appeared in his mind. He had just plucked the hand bone from the seal on the golden altar and tossed it aside without a thought. Only now did he realize how correct that action had been.
“This hand bone is extremely strange. Could it be a god’s hand?”
He steadied himself, drew the Shao Bao Sword, and used it to lift the hand bone. Then he picked up a cloth bag from the ground and put the hand bone inside.
“The Buddhist Thousand-Banner Pagoda is good stuff too. It’s just too large.”
Qin Mu looked the Thousand-Banner Pagoda up and down. Each banner was exquisitely crafted and only a little over three inches tall, but once a thousand of them were bound into the shape of a pagoda, the whole thing became enormous, rising more than ten feet high. If he carried it on his back, it would certainly draw attention.
He did pick up the several relics and stuff them into the cloth bag. Then he found several jade beads and tossed them in as well.
Qin Mu threw the saber pellet into the cloth bag too. Only then did he sense something strange. The saber pellet was very heavy, yet once it entered the cloth bag, he could no longer feel its weight.
He lifted the cloth bag and examined it from every angle. This bag was also one of the treasures sealed on the golden altar. He did not know what it was made of or what it did. One side of the bag was embroidered with an exotic beast baring its huge mouth, and the beast’s mouth was precisely where the opening of the bag was.
He opened the bag and peered inside. There were several sesame-seed-sized objects within—the very treasures he had just thrown in.
Qin Mu was stunned for a moment. He poured out the god’s hand bone, the relics, and the saber pellet. When these things slid through the mouth of the bag, they were still their original size; they had not changed at all.
“Strange!”
Qin Mu pulled the mouth of the bag wide, stuck his head inside, and looked in. He could not help but jump in fright. He saw a space about the size of a mu, six or seven zhang high.
He pulled his head back out and reached into the bag. Even with one arm inside, he still could not touch the bottom.
After thinking for a moment, Qin Mu put the god’s hand bone, the relics, the saber pellet, and the other treasures back into the cloth bag. He stuffed the ancient qin inside as well, followed by the Thousand-Banner Pagoda.
Then he lifted the glittering golden lower half and stuffed that into the bag too.
The youth rose and began picking things up from the ground. Whenever he saw something, he picked it up and shoved it into the cloth bag. Anything too large to fit was abandoned.
Before long, the cloth bag had bulged slightly, and he could gradually feel some weight, though it was not heavy.
Qin Mu lowered his head and picked up all the things he had thrown out. He also found several alchemy furnaces. One was a sealed furnace, somewhat larger than the Imperial College’s and even more precious.
The only things left in the treasury were the ritual artifacts refined by the witchcraft cult from human bones. Qin Mu breathed a sigh of relief, tied the cloth bag around his waist, and covered it with his clothes.
“It’s been quite a while. I should go find Yuxiu and the others. We need to leave as soon as possible.”
The youth’s heart pounded. He calmed himself and thought it over carefully. He did not put on human skin. Instead, he took out his pig-slaughtering knife, tidied his hair, and cut it in the style of the witchcraft cult’s disciples.
Qin Mu put on Danbaluo’s clothes and circulated the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Sutra’s Creation Heavenly God Art. The color of his skin immediately began to change subtly, and a faint golden light emanated from it. At first glance, he looked like a witch who had achieved a little cultivation in the Loulan Golden Palace.
Qin Mu unfolded the map of the Loulan Golden Palace, studied it for a while, and then put it away.
His qi activated the talisman treasure. It rose into the air, and one rune after another lit up, shining upon the seal at the treasury’s gate.
“Twelve, nine, six, ten, seven, six, seven, one…”
Qin Mu counted aloud. Every time he said a number, the talisman treasure flipped in the air, turning one of its fourteen faces toward the seal.
When he had entered this treasury, the tortoise-shell guard had activated the talisman treasure to undo the seal. The treasure’s changes were extraordinarily complicated. It had fourteen faces, each bearing different runes, and remembering their changes was extremely difficult.
But remembering the order of those runes was no trouble for Qin Mu.
He represented the fourteen faces of the talisman treasure with fourteen numbers, then reversed the sequence he had seen when entering and deciphered the seal from the inside.
In front of him, cubes emerged one after another and retreated in succession. Qin Mu walked out, finally leaving the treasury without a hitch.
Qin Mu let out a breath of relief, drew the Shao Bao Sword, and hacked the talisman treasure to pieces. Then, following the directions on the map, he headed toward the treasury offices of the Loulan Golden Palace.
Although someone was blocking the Loulan Golden Palace’s gate at that moment, a great witch was still on duty in the treasury office. Qin Mu handed over a prescription. The great witch read it aloud, “Two liang of snakeberry, one jin and six liang of heavenly bamboo, four liang of oleander… So many medicines. Are you preparing to refine a great elixir?”
Qin Mu nodded and smiled honestly. “I was injured just now, so I’m going to replenish myself.”
“You went to fight that fellow blocking the mountain gate? I heard about it too. Quite a few people died. Fortunately, that fellow has already been beaten to death, so it wasn’t too embarrassing. The time Martial Khan blocked the gate—that was truly embarrassing.”
The great witch prepared the medicinal materials. Qin Mu handed over Danbaluo’s money pouch and said, “Do you have any fresh purple fruits from crimson pearl grass? Give me four.”
“That stuff is expensive. Where would we get fresh ones? Will dried ones do?”
“Dried is fine too.”
The great witch brought over the dried purple fruits. Qin Mu accepted them and squeezed one into his mouth. Seeing how honest he looked, the great witch quietly took a few extra coins from the money pouch, savoring a secret thrill.
Qin Mu’s expression changed slightly. He shouted, “You charged me extra!”
The great witch’s face fell. He angrily said, “How could I have? You’re slandering me!”
Qin Mu tugged at the money pouch. “The money in my pouch is counted. If you took extra, I’ll know the moment I weigh it in my hand. I’ll report you to the Witch King!”
The great witch hurriedly reached for the pouch. As the two tugged at it, a jade bottle in Qin Mu’s hand accidentally fell into the treasury office and shattered with a crack.
“Don’t report me to the Wit—”
Before the great witch could finish, he suddenly toppled stiffly to the ground. A fragrance spread throughout the treasury office. Several great witches who had come after hearing the commotion had not even reached them before they fell one after another with heavy thuds.
Qin Mu threw the money pouch into the treasury office, where it landed on the great witch. Then, supporting the cloth bag at his waist, he carefully rummaged through it and took out a furnace cauldron—the very sealed furnace he had found in the treasury.
“This time, I added ten times the amount of Bewildering Incense. Let’s see if I can’t drug the entire Golden Palace into a stupor!”
He put the medicine into the furnace. His qi burst forth and revolved rapidly around the furnace cauldron, his movements changing so swiftly and unpredictably that they dazzled the eye. Before long, the Bewildering Incense in the furnace was refined. The qi in Qin Mu’s palm still transformed into a roaring blaze. Instead of cooling it with Black Tortoise qi as he had last time, he made the flames burn fiercer and fiercer.
After a while, Qin Mu stopped and opened the furnace lid. Pink smoke billowed out and spread in every direction. Even though the crimson pearl purple fruit in his mouth could neutralize the effects of the Bewildering Incense, he still felt as if his limbs were gradually disappearing.
He hurriedly held his breath. The smoke continued to pour from the furnace. Qin Mu transformed his qi into Green Dragon qi and cast the Wind-Calling and Rain-Summoning art from the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Sutra, blowing the smoke away.
Soon, the strong wind carried the Bewildering Incense throughout the entire mountain.
He immediately rushed into a golden palace, slung his bundle over his back, fastened his twin sabers, and secured his iron hammer. He left the sword case to one side, then sped toward the mountain gate.
His qi transformed into Black Tortoise qi, forming a mass of water vapor that became a water ball in his hand.
Qin Mu dropped the three remaining crimson pearl purple fruits into the water ball. He ran wildly while supporting the ball with one hand; the technique in his other hand turned into afterimages, his five fingers dancing as his gestures shifted again and again, tapping the water ball and drawing out the medicinal power of the purple fruits.
The three purple fruits absorbed the water and quickly swelled, their medicinal power released by him.
Qin Mu breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, streaks of golden light rose into the air and fled outside in panic. The few Witch Kings guarding the front of the sacred hall had probably seen every disciple on the mountain “die of poisoning,” panicked, and fled the Loulan Golden Palace.
“They’re dead! Every last one of them is dead!” A booming voice carried terror and panic as it rapidly receded into the distance.
Qin Mu pushed his speed to the limit and raced down toward the foot of the golden mountain gate. There he saw the Azure Bull, Hu Ling’er, and Ling Yuxiu all lying on the ground. Ling Yuxiu was injured in several places and covered in blood.
He immediately stuffed a crimson pearl purple fruit into each of their mouths. One man, one bull, and one fox slowly awoke. Their legs were still somewhat numb, and their souls and Spirit Wombs tingled faintly. None of them knew what had happened.
“Bewildering Incense can scare away the Witch Kings, but it can’t knock them unconscious.”
Qin Mu spoke rapidly. “There may be several beings in the Loulan Golden Palace who stand alongside Wine Priest Bashan. Once they receive the news, they’ll certainly come rushing over. We must leave at once!”