The Immortal's Poison

Panda Novel

Many moons have passed since the events on Mount Hua has taken place. There was no way to prove the degree of authenticity to any of the monkey’s claims.

Master cultivators from every sect in the world had rushed over to Mount Hua. Even with the power of the Ending Cave behind him, Qian Ren soon became exhausted from killing everyone who came.

Back in ancient times when the cultivation in heaven’s powers was flourishing, there had been many practitioners in the world. Even if there were a hundred Qian Rens, they would not have been able to kill off all the cultivators that were coming in droves. Just as he had exhausted all his power and was awaiting death, preparing to perish together with the entire Ending Cave, Kong Nuer who had brought him the spiritual seed came.

When the two best friends met, they embraced and cried bitterly. Kong Nuer thumped his chest and cried in regret. Despite turning into a ruthless and tyrannical person, Qian Ren never once blamed his best friend for what happened.

Qian Ren had a profound cultivation base and Kong Nuer was his most intimate friend. Kong Nuer’s supernatural powers were no less inferior to Qian Ren’s. A large group of practitioners whom he had never met before had arrived with Kong Nuer. With their help, Qian Ren managed to hang on to his life just a little longer.

Despite his best efforts in guarding the cave, Qian Ren was only awaiting his death. Two months passed, Kong Nuer who had come to the mountain to help kill the enemies, approached Qian Ren in a pleasant manner. He presented to Qian Ren, who was desperately trying to suppress the divine power in his body, a roll of bamboo slips that he had found on an enemy’s corpse.

The red monkey Qian Ren’s voice was deep and hoarse, it echoed through the giant beast corpse. His voice was not joyous nor dispirited but within his flat and dull tone, there was a hidden power capable of shattering the world. “On the bamboo strips were recordings regarding the whereabouts of a strange beast, hidden in the western regions. This rare beast… haha! Haha! Haha! What a shame, at that moment, I still thought Kong Nuer was trying to do good by me. What a shame that I did not see through Kong Nuer’s cruel and malicious intention!”

Qin Zhui grew bored of the monkey’s long-winded story. Qian Ren laughed with almost every sentence he spoke. Qin Zhui shook his head and interrupted the monkey. “It was you that met with an accident while trying to harness the seed’s power. It was you who had made a mistake, probably due to your lack of understanding in divine energy. You shouldn’t blame your mistake on your friend.”

The red monkey raised its head and started to laugh wildly and bitterly. “Of course I do not blame Kong Nuer, I still regarded him as my best friend at that time. When he rushed over to my aid, I wailed bitterly to him. I pointed to the brightest star in the sky and told him that I had wanted to become an immortal and pluck that star as a gift to him!”

The red monkey’s eyes were bloodshot, almost squeezing out tears of blood. Its laughter pierced everyone’s eardrums, like sharp knives. The laughing went on and on. Qian Ren suddenly started to pull out his own fur, scratching wildly at his body and drawing blood. Before long, his body was covered in fur matted with blood. “The strange beast in the west that had been recorded on the bamboo strips, is me, the Golden Monkey!”

Even head lama Rangjung and the dwarf Taoist priest, who had extensive knowledge of magical creatures, have never heard of this Golden Monkey. Everyone just stood and stared at one another. They knew that an important twist was about to come to light. The implications of this event should reveal how the Qian Ren turned from a human into a monkey.

Over the millenniums of fighting over extraordinary treasures, practitioners all over had created infinite enmity between one another. Through Qian Ren’s doing, he had laid the foundation for a bloodbath around the Ending Cave. As this event was caused by the enmity between practitioners and did not involve ordinary people, King Gesar did not intervene. That was why there was no mention of King Gesar ever having stepped foot on Mount Hua in folk legends.

Qian Ren finally stopped laughing. His tone returned to its prior dullness but a faint hint of bitterness still remained. “The Golden Monkey is a strange beast connected to the metal element. It does not possess any supernatural powers but its body was said to be unimaginably tough. The Golden Monkey is also rumoured to be cruel and cunning but the creature was only an ancient legend. I had never thought I would come across a recording of it. I at first did not think much of this monkey but Kong Nuer helped me… hehe! That’s right, he helped me! He helped me to see an almost unimaginable plan.”

Amongst the five elements, hardness would triumph over softness. Following that, the metal element should be able to tame the wood element. Qian Ren was about to explode and die due to the divine wood elemental powers trapped in his body.

The Golden Monkey, which was extremely rare, was a strange beast possessing metal elements. Kong Nuer thought up a method to ‘Enter the Body’.

Qin Zhui’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “What do you mean enter the body?”

A ghastly smile appeared on the red monkey’s face. “That means to fuse with the Golden Monkey’s body.”

Qin Zhui felt confused, he could not understand Qian Ren. He asked probingly, “Is it… is it the act of taking over the monkey’s body?”

Qian Ren shook his head. “No no! The act of taking over a body would mean using one’s primordial spirit to seize control over the other. Firstly, your old man here has never cultivated the practice of the primordial spirit. Secondly, there was an accumulation of power attached to my soul that could not be controlled. Not only would it be impossible for me to seize the other body, but it’d be useless as well. In order for me to retain my life, your old man must protect his human body.”

Qin Zhui grew agitated, he shook his head and said, “Stop referring to yourself as ‘old man’, you old man. Otherwise, this old man here will start referring to myself as ‘old man’ while speaking to you, old man!”

The red monkey Qian Ren laughed out loud. He did not waste time bickering with Qin Zhui over this trivial matter. “Kong Nuer was referring to a spell known as ‘Enter the Body’. It’s a spell that would merge my human body with the body of the Golden Monkey. The monkey possessed high amounts of metal elemental energy that should be capable of dissolving the overflowing wood magic within me.”

Qin Zhui was still dissatisfied despite the monkey’s explanation. He gestured at Qian Ren. “You must have been a regular sized human. How did you merge with the body of a small monkey?” He suddenly recalled something and glanced at the dwarf Taoist priest, a cheeky grin spread across his face. He then looked towards the red monkey again and asked, “When you were a human, how tall were you?”

The dwarf Taoist turned green in rage, he stared at Gu Xiaojun with the wrath to match a God, “If you and I survive this to see the day of light, I will certainly challenge your magic to its limits!”

Gu Xiaojun didn’t know how to react. He waved his hands. “You weren’t talking to me right?”

“Of course not, I was talking to the ugly monster!” The priest’s gaze shifted to head lama Rangjung as he spoke to Gu Xiaojun.

Whether it was in Taoist magic spells, science, technology, or academics, there is only one determining factor in the process of evolution. Practicality.

Magic spells from ancient times lacked in strength when compared to the arts of the future generation but spells had been more abundant in nature and had many more functions. Majority of those spells grew out of favour for being useless in facing an enemy or to one’s practice. These tricks were lost through the generations.

That was why the act of ‘Entering the Body’ mentioned by the red monkey Qian Ren was unknown to even the leading master cultivators of today’s world. Rangjung, the dwarf Taoist priest and Qin Zhui could not understand it.

Back then, the ‘Enter the Body’ magic spell was a dangerous one but it was not impossible.

Qian Ren, who had only a few months left to live, read the bamboo strips and listened to Kong Nuer’s plan. He did not have much faith in the plan.

He was an elite practitioner, he had no qualms whether he remained human or became a demon. In his goal to achieve immortality, he was willing to turn over every piece of cow dung in order to continue his practice but to fuse with the creature like the Golden Monkey, that sounded like an impossible plan. The chance of this monkey’s existence was also very low.

However, after much persuasion from Kong Nuer, which Qian Ren thought was his friend trying to make up for his actions, Qian Ren agreed to Kong Nuer’s plan. He left Mount Hua with Kong Nuer. They travelled a long way to the western regions while the group of practitioners which had been brought over by Kong Nuer stayed behind and guarded his house in the Ending Cave.

The red monkey Qian Ren said gravely to Qin Zhui, “I told Kong Nuer that even if I were to die, I wanted to die in the Ending Cave.”

Defying Qian Ren’s expectations, they got lucky upon arriving in the western regions. After going through a few twist and turns, they managed to capture the Golden Monkey with surprising ease. Kong Nuer laid down a magic altar and launched the magic spell that same night. He expertly refined Qian Ren’s body into the Golden Monkey.

The creature that stood in front of them was still a monkey though. Even though the group could guess the ending to that story, they could not help but feel a little astonished. How did such a huge human turn into a Golden Monkey?

Qin Zhui suddenly asked a totally unrelated question, “The Golden Monkey… but you are red in colour.” Wen Leyang quickly took a step forward to Qin Zhui, afraid that the monkey might get angry and punch Qin Zhui again.

Unexpectedly, Qian Ren burst out laughing. It explained to Qin Zhui calmly, “It was originally gold in color but it turned red .”

Qin Zhui decided to drop the issue of how the gold coloured monkey turned red for now. He diverted the topic. “Even though you had turned… you did manage to save your life right? The Golden Monkey is a spiritual creature and if you had sincerely picked up your practice again, perhaps you could have achieved some level of power. You can’t just blame everything on Kong Nuer right?”

Qian Ren, who had been agitated and angry earlier, suddenly sounded really tired. Its voice and tone of speaking had become calm. It pondered for a moment before it looked towards ugly Qin Zhui and laughed, “I noticed something. You seem eager to know how Kong Nuer betrayed me.”

Qin Zhui laughed in embarrassment. He scratched his head and changed to a new question. “I do not know of this ‘Enter the Body’ spell but I guess it should be magic from a demon sect or a death sect. I thought you said that Kong Nuer cultivated the power of the sun and moon, yet he knew how to perform this spell. Did you not think that that was suspicious?”

The red monkey joined in on Qin Zhui’s laughter, much to everyone’s surprise. It seems that the monkey had taken a fancy to this honest, straightforward, ugly looking youth. “It’s not just the spell, but also how we found and captured the Golden Monkey so easily. These were all indeed suspicious. Kong Nuer was my best friend though and I chided myself that I could even suspect him of anything. Thinking back now, I was being foolish. What a fool I was.” The monkey’s laughter continued. There was hatred nor joy in its laughter, just hollow, dry emptiness.

“I had not expected it. After I was refined into the monkey’s body, I could not perform my magic anymore because…” Qian Ren’s expression was dull. “From the moment I entered the body, I became the monkey while the monkey remained a monkey.”

Qian Ren was a monkey, while the monkey remained a monkey?

Qian Ren’s laughter was cold and flat, yet it condensed and did not fade, echoing next to everyone’s ears. “What sort of creature was the Golden Monkey. It is a spiritual being that born of the world’s metal energy. Even though I ‘Entered the Body’, I had no control over it! I couldn’t find a way to control its movements. I was just like a parasite that had merged with its blood vessels, only barely retaining my primordial spirit.”

Wen Leyang and the rest were dumbstruck, barely comprehending the story. A distinguished magic practitioner had turned into a monkey and could not control the body he went into. He could only watch as he turned into a beast. This was certainly a first-rate tragedy.

Qin Zhui’s expression turned pale along with the monkey’s laughter. “If it was true that Kong Nuer had wanted to harm you, what was his purpose in doing so?”

Qian Ren took his time before it continued, “This Golden Monkey was the purest embodiment of the metal element. I was refined by Kong Nuer’s spell into its body. The monkey’s body cut off my spiritual ties to Mount Hua’s Ending Cave.”

Qin Zhui opened his mouth to speak but Qian Ren simply shook its head towards him. “It was cut off, not destroyed. From then on, I was simply the Golden Monkey and the Ending Cave just became the Ending Cave. Even if I were to die thousands of times over, the Ending Cave would not be affected…” The monkey walked to Qin Zhui, raised its head and stared straight into the man’s eyes. “Now, do you understand the purpose of Kong Nuer’s betrayal?”

The red monkey did not bother with waiting for answering, simply turned tail and walked away with its hands clasped behind its back. As it turned around, it held not the appearance of a wild monster, but instead was like a loneliest old man in the world.

Wen Leyang’s face too held an unpleasant expression. He inhaled a long breath and murmured, “Kong Nuer was trying to seize your wood elemental land, the Ending Cave…”

The red monkey Qian Ren whipped around, its expression regaining its previous savageness. “That’s right! After I had ‘Entered the Body’, Kong Nuer suddenly knelt in front of me and told me the whole story. He disclosed the whole secret, leaving nothing out. He had orchestrated everything, from beginning to end. This malicious b*stard, he schemed against me and took from me the land of the wood element.”

Every word Qian Ren uttered were pulverized by this teeth and then squeezed out from between his teeth gaps. They were so full of poisonous enmity that it could have smashed bones and broken the spirit of any man. “When he gifted me with the Seed of Gou Mang, he had already predicted that I would end up in a bad situation.”

After Qian Ren entered the body, he became the Golden Monkey. Despite being able to listen and understand everything around him, he could not control the monkey’s body. It was only then that Kong Nuer explained the truth to him.

When Kong Nuer had gifted Qian Ren with Gou Mang’s Seed, he knew that Qian Ren would try to use its power and would lose control eventually. He predicted that Qian Ren would depend on his wood element practice and transmit the gush of power into the Ending Cave. Kong Nuer had just been using Qian Ren as a conductor. He had wanted to trigger the growth of the Ending Cave using the power of the spiritual seed.

Qian Ren was unaware of Kong Nuer’s true intentions. He had been completely deceived. The Ending Cave may have grown exponentially but the cave’s spiritual roots were now tied to Qian Ren’s life force. The Ending Cave would wither away the moment Qian Ren died.

Kong Nuer had even expected this. Before giving the seed to Qian Ren, he had led his fellow practitioners and prepared for various setbacks. They had already found and prepared the Golden Monkey beforehand, then helped the severely injured and dying Qian Ren in defeating the incoming practitioners, then slipped in the prepared bamboo slips to Qian Ren, urging him to go to the west.

When they reached the western regions, the Golden Monkey had already been prepared and was easily found. Kong Nuer immediately launched the magic spell and refined his body into the creature. The monkey’s metal element energy successfully cut off Qian Ren’s body to the Ending Cave. Everything had fallen into place. Everything had been planned laboriously by Kong Nuer, just to seize Qian Ren’s pure wood element land.

The red monkey Qian Ren finally finished his story, of how he had turned from a man into a monkey. Wen Leyang, Qin Zhui, and the head lama Rangjung looked solemn. Kong Nuer was a dark and evil person with sinister intentions. He deserved to be killed!

Suddenly, a loud panting sound was heard. The sound echoed all around them. The panting sounded like a pair of bellow working hard at a forge, forceful and strong. Even Wen Leyang who had the lung capacity ten times the average person was incapable of panting so loudly.

Wen Leyang and the rest were puzzled. A thunderous, raging roar suddenly sounded out. “I am so mad right now!” The giant pangolin, that had been lying motionless on the ground, suddenly jumped up. Its eyes were bloodshot and the scales on its body stood on end. It appeared to be shimmering with Overwhelming heavenly power.

Everyone there including the red monkey was startled. Only Gu Xiaojun stomped his feet and cursed, “You who can’t even clamp a jujube fruit in a monkey’s buttocks! You reveal yourself just because of this insignificant matter?”

The giant pangolin’s pointy head shuddered. Its voice was more startling that a clap of thunder. “I couldn’t stand it anymore! How could there exist such a vile and malicious b*stard, scheming against his own friend and taking away their treasured land and immortal cave? He even willingly turned his friend into a monkey! A man of such vicious motives, I will kill him if I ever see him!” The divine beast of the Immortal Sect had a hot temper.

The red monkey tilted its head, sizing Po Tu up and down in glee. It spoke in a peculiar tone. One could not tell if it was a mocking tone, contempt or rage. “I can’t believe you were just feigning a coma and I fell for it! Well done, well done!” It then shot its gaze towards Gu Xiaojun. “What does ‘you who can’t even clamp a jujube fruit in a monkey’s buttocks’ mean?”

Gu Xiaojun quickly took two steps back and hid behind the other master cultivators. He cautiously said, “It means… it means that the dog’s stomach that can’t even hide one hundred grams of butter…”

Qin Zhui scoffed, he did not expect Gu Xiaojun to know so many witty remarks. He frowned as he refocused the topic. He asked Qian Ren, “Were you trapped in this monster’s body by Kong Nuer?”

The head lama Rangjung exploded in anger at this question. “Shut up! How dare you say that the pious deed of King Gesar is Kong Nuer’s doing?!”

Qin Zhui realized he had asked the wrong question and had made the lama angry. He quickly switched to a new question. “So how did you survive? Kong Nuer turned you into this, he could have easily just killed you and ended all his troubles. Why didn’t he bother to do so?”

Qian Ren’s face was filled with bitterness, its expression and gaze were poisonous but upon hearing Qin Zhui’s question, its face softened and said joyously, “How could he have killed me? I had already entered the Golden Monkey’s body. He did not possess the ability to kill it. The Golden Monkey was the embodiment of the purest metal element in the world. Who would be capable of killing it? Kong Nuer was aware that I could not control the monkey as well. He knew that I would not be able to seek revenge against him. After he had successfully used the monkey in cutting my ties to the Ending Cave, he let the monkey go.”

At this point, Gu Xiaojun frowned and asked, “What use would it be for Kong Nuer to take over your Ending Cave? It’s not like he was cultivating in wood element magic.”

Qin Zhui thought this was a silly question. “Even if he did not practice wood element magic, a land with the purest form of any element would greatly improve anyone’s magic practice. My own supernatural power of Force also improved remarkably when I practised in the Gold-Consuming Lair. I did not cultivate the magic spells of the metal element.”

The red monkey Qian Ren shook its head. “That is not completely correct. He had been my friend after all and I would never have rejected him if he had just wanted to practice in the Ending Cave. He had used me to trigger the Ending Cave’s growth. He told me the real reason he wanted to take over my Ending Cave was to use it to refine some sort of weapon.”

The human had already turned into a monkey. Upon hearing the first half of the story, Qin Zhui was already seething with rage. This did not stop his curiosity though. He urged Qian Ren to continue. “So how did you end up in your current position? What is the deal with this gigantic beast corpse?”

Qian Ren had radiated with enmity while it spoke of Kong Nuer’s betrayal. After it was done telling this portion of events, the monkey’s story became much duller. In between the recounting of Kong Nuer’s betrayal, the giant pangolin Po Tu had revealed itself and messed up its own plan of attack. It was unknown whether these events had taken place millions or even aeons ago, but the monkey had finally gotten its story off its chest. It smiled warmly at the group. “I was fused with the monkey. Regardless of how I put it, my life was saved at last. The Golden Monkey’s body really did help to dissolve the vast power of the wood element magic stuck in my body.”

Qian Ren had felt uncomfortable. The Golden Monkey, which now had the wood element magic mixed up in its body, felt uncomfortable as well. Even though it could dissolve the power, it would prove to be a slow and agonizing process. The battle between the purest powers of two opposing elements was blindingly painful, swallowing up the mind and breaking the bones. Monkey had frequent outbreaks of craziness whenever the powers clashed with each other.

The Golden Monkey had been regarded as a hostile creature. Every time it went crazy, it would commit horrendous crimes and leave massive destruction in its wake. Qian Ren could do nothing but watch helplessly. Many years passed before the Golden Monkey came across a top elite with strong supernatural powers. This elite then decided to eliminate it.

Wen Leyang gulped and asked, “Was it King Gesar?”

Qian Ren shook its head. “I do not know his name. Don’t tell me when you’re capturing a monkey, you will announce your name to it?”

The latter half of Qian Ren’s story matched up with The Epic of King Gesar that was told earlier by head lama Rangjung. After a series of laborious battles, the Golden Monkey had finally been captured by the master practitioner of the highlands but not before his two hundred and seventy disciples had been lost.

At this point, Wen Leyang asked as if a letting go of a heavy burden, “So what you’re saying is… the creature that had been wreaking havoc across the western region was actually the work of the Golden Monkey and not you?”

Qian Ren nodded. “Of course. If I could control the monkey, I would not have allowed it to cause harm to others. I would have since figured out a way to get revenge against Kong Nuer!”

Head lama Rangjung pondered before speaking in a low voice, “How can you prove that it was really the Golden Monkey that King Gesar was trying to suppress and not you?”

Before they had descended through the mandala from the small town of Tuer, everyone already had pre-conceived ideas of what had happened. They had expected to find the evil monster of the evil cult here. However, upon hearing monkey Qian Ren’s story, they found his story a truly unprecedented tragedy. Even the giant pangolin, that had been force-fed bugs by the monkey, could not contain its rage.

It may have been easy to convince the others but in the eyes of the head lama, this was a matter of life and death. He had planned on perishing together with this monster before he came down. It was impossible that he would let this evildoer go so easily.

Qian Ren smiled viciously. The monkey clasped its hands behind its back and once more assumed the air of an erudite person. “Why is there a need to prove anything? By the time this deal is over, you can go ahead and continue to think of me as the Golden Monkey. Come and try to kill me!”

Qin Zhui tugged at the head lama’s robes lightly and pointed at the monkey with his chin. He used his finger and dipped his head, signalling that the monkey has gone through mental trauma and there was no use in debating with it.

Head lama Rangjung smiled as he said to Qian Ren, “Please, go on.”

The ugly Qin Zhui nodded strenuously, “That’s right, that’s right. Please continue! What’s the story with this giant beast corpse, where did all those dung beetles come from, and how are you able to control the monkey now?”