Yama Rising

In the instant that Fate appeared, Qin Ye instantly rushed into his own room before closing the door.

He injected his Yin energy into Fate, and the golden soul in the shaft of Fate instantly began to dance in a joyful manner. Black Yin energy was converted into a drop of golden ink on the tip of Fate, following which it flew up before gently descending toward Qin Ye's arm, even though Qin Ye wasn't directly holding onto it.

Fate was going to record his memories for him!

However, it still didn't work. Right as Fate was about to come into contact with his skin, that same burst of invisible power appeared to stop it cold in its tracks.

However, Qin Ye wasn't frustrated or dismayed by this. This was just an initial test, and there were other tests that he could perform.

As soon as the intention of recording his memories appeared in his mind, the Heavenly Dao would sense it and stop what he was doing. In that case, what if he did this?

He licked his lips and cast his gaze toward Fate, then closed his eyes.

Only after a full five minutes did he reopen his eyes, and he grabbed onto Fate before bringing it downward.

On this occasion, the cold tip of the pen was able to make contact with his arm, and he quickly wrote down the word "I".

There was no resistance, and Qin Ye wasn't surprised at all by this.

He realized that he may have discovered the only cheat code in this impregnable fortress!

Right at this moment, Qin Zhongguo re-entered the room. His expression remained unchanged, and he gently patted Qin Ye's head as he said, "Dogballs, I have to make another trip up the mountain."

It was the exact same scene with the exact same dialog, but the outcome was going to change depending on the decision that he made. Even though Qin Ye knew that this was an illusion, it felt extremely realistic, and he pursed his lips as he nodded in response.

Let me see if this trial is truly as invincible as the Heavenly Dao proclaims it to be!

……………………………………………………

Once again, Qin Zhongguo was racing through the mountain with Qin Ye in tow. Several hundred meters behind them was the group led by Ye Xianzu, all of whom were following along with ease.

They were traveling through a desolate mountain, heading toward a ruined Taoist temple with evil ghosts following along closely behind them. If any normal young man were in Qin Ye's shoes here, they would've most likely already fainted from horror.

The chilling wind was causing the canopies of the surrounding trees to rustle incessantly, and Qin Ye allowed himself to be led by Qin Zhongguo toward the Taoist temple. With the experience that he had accumulated from the previous two failures, he knew not to do anything excessive.

However, invisible to everyone else was a silver pen, which was flying along beside Qin Ye like a butterfly, inscribing lines of invisible text onto his arm. Despite this, the Heavenly Dao did nothing to intervene.

There are only 20 more minutes left at most…

Qin Ye's hands were balled up into tight fists, and his heart was thumping rapidly from excessive tension.

On this occasion, he wasn't going to stop his grandfather from consuming the Taisui fungus.

He had to let go of the past, rather than be devoured by it. If he didn't look ahead, then his life would be destined to be a failure, and he couldn't afford to fail given the heavy responsibilities on his shoulders.

Never had he been this desperate to uncover the truth behind something.

Right as the Taoist temple appeared in his field of view, Qin Ye finally heaved a long sigh of relief, and Fate shuddered slightly in mid-air before vanishing into Yin energy.

He had completed his records!

Qin Ye took a deep breath to forcibly restore some calm into his mind.

He didn't dare to relax as he still wasn't sure whether this method was feasible. Just because the Heavenly Dao hadn't interfered didn't mean that he had succeeded. Perhaps this was destined to fail, so the Heavenly Dao felt no need to intervene.

Thus, he wasn't going to pass up any opportunity to gather more information.

It was still the exact same scene as last time. The mountain was riddled with kneeling Yin spirits, and for the third time, he witnessed day transitioning into night, following which the flower emerged from the stone plaque.

As Qin Zhongguo reached out for the Taisui fungus, he merely closed his eyes, even though his body was trembling uncontrollably.

At the same time, his Yin energy had swelled to a peak.

Everything that happened from this point onward would be completely new to him, and it was also the inner demon that had troubled him for over 100 years.

Qin Zhongguo was staring at the flower with an incredulous expression as he gently picked off the stamen while murmuring to himself, "I heard from an old senior that there's a flower that grows from stone, and that eating the flower will grant immortality! Is that actually true?"

Qin Ye forced himself not to look at Qin Zhongguo. He was afraid that if he were to look, his impulsive urges would overwhelm him once again.

There was something else more important that he had to do, and he couldn't afford to fall at the same hurdle twice.

He was going to conduct a very risky experiment.

His fingers moved ever so slightly, and Fate appeared in his grasp again as he said in a low voice, "Grandpa, there are strangers nearby."

He had definitely heard the name Ye Xianzu before, and it had to be a name that was connected to an extremely important event. Otherwise, there was no way that it would've claimed a place in his memory.

He wanted to see if he could figure out who this man was. The Taisui fungus had already been secured, and he wasn't going to stop his grandfather from consuming it. However, perhaps he could use it to exchange for the information that he wanted.

He had already released his consciousness throughout the area, and he could see that Ye Xianzu's eyes had abruptly lit up as soon as the Taisui fungus appeared.

It was clear that he recognized the Taisui fungus.

However, what Qin Zhongguo said next struck a sense of incredulity directly into Qin Ye's heart. "Those aren't strangers. They're my… fellow Taoists."

Qin Ye looked up at Qin Zhongguo with a stunned expression. Firstly, the trial of inner demons hadn't stopped here, so his theory was correct.

The first two failures had been a result of his actions, which had prevented the Taisui fungus from being secured.

However, things were different now.

The Taisui fungus had already been secured, and the probability of attaining immortality from consuming the Taisui fungus wasn't going to be altered by the timing of consumption. Thus, he didn't fail the trial of inner demons.

However, even more importantly, his grandfather seemed to be familiar with these people.

He stared at Qin Zhongguo with a dazed expression, and a name suddenly popped into his mind.

It was a name that had disappeared in the sands of time, the name of Cathay's number one cult!

Qin Zhongguo lowered his head with a slightly ashamed expression as he gently patted Qin Ye's head. "They are my fellow Taoists from the Yiguandao."

It really is the Yiguandao!

Qin Ye took a few steps backward as he stared at Qin Zhongguo with a stunned expression, then turned back to look at Ye Xianzu, who was standing several hundred meters away.

Yiguandao was the number one cult in Cathay, and it had run rampant in Cathay for over half a century!

Its origins could be traced back to the late Qing Dynasty, and it was at the height of its powers in the 1940s. Essentially, it was a doomsday cult, stating that the end of the world was imminent, and that the only way to survive that tribulation would be to follow the teachings of the Yiguandao.

Back in the 1940s, it had a total of over 300,000 followers in the capital city alone, and there were even more followers of the Yiguandao in all other cities across the nation.

Back when it was in its heyday, it had been powerful enough to compete with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party! None of the cults that emerged in Cathay after the Yiguandao were able to achieve anywhere near the same level of power and success!

The Yiguandao only suffered its demise in mainland Cathay in 1950, after the People's Republic of Cathay had been founded. At the time, the government took advantage of a meeting between the Yiguandao's most important leaders in the capital city, lashing out in full force to arrest all of the cult's important figures.

He should've thought of this earlier. He had never heard of the occupation of "mountain runner" before, nor had ever seen the strange method of movement that his grandfather was using to travel up the mountain. There was no way that he could've attained this method of movement without learning it from somewhere.

No wonder his grandfather was extremely reluctant to leave the village and go to the city. At the time of this memory, it was the year 1956, and the purge of the Yiguandao several years ago was still clear in everyone's memories. Members of the Yiguandao were still being actively hunted down and arrested, so it was extremely risky for his grandfather to venture into the more developed areas of the nation.

As for Ye Xianzu, Qin Ye finally recalled who he was.

There were 10 major supernatural events in Cathay's history, most of which were just tall tales that were blown way out of proportion, and one of those events just so happened to have something to do with Ye Xianzu.

That event took place in none other than the year 1956, and it was the Lin Family Mansion incident.

If he recalled correctly, this incident was going to take place four or five months after the events of this memory. On that day, the local police station received a call from someone at the Lin Family Mansion, stating that they had killed someone.

However, once the police arrived, they discovered that the Lin Family Mansion was completely uninhabited. Right as they were about to leave, they heard a blood-curdling cry from inside, and upon breaking into the mansion, they discovered that the entire place was filled with fresh blood, but there wasn't anyone in there!

At the time, this case had shaken the entire nation. However, that wasn't why Qin Ye had such a strong impression of it. Instead, it was because he had seen this case in the Special Investigation Departments S-rank files!

This meant that it wasn't a hoax, and that a supernatural event really had taken place there!

The outcome of the investigation stated on the file was: "The owner of the mansion, Ye Xianzu, is the suspected culprit, but no body was found."

It seemed to be only an unfounded accusation, but Qin Ye recalled that he had seen some records pertaining to Ye Xianzu on the file as well.

Ye Xianzu was supposed to be 32 years of age, but according to a hospital examination, he was already 87 years old. Furthermore, he was an empty shell of a man without any organs, which completely matched this Ye Xianzu's current condition!

What was even more extraordinary was that he disappeared not long after the medical examination.

He had vanished from the face of the earth right under the noses of all of the public security departments!

During the nationwide manhunt that followed, the last piece of information that was discovered about Ye Xianzu was that he had been living in this exact same mountain in close proximity to Qin Ye's home! The residents of the village at the time had confirmed that the photographs provided by the public security departments were photographs of Ye Xianzu, and he had already been living here for several decades! At the same time, it was verified that he was the "Master" of the Yiguandao that had managed to evade capture this entire time.

The two most revered and high-ranking figures of the Yiguandao were the Master and the Mistress, which meant that Ye Xianzu was one of the two most powerful figures of the number one cult of Cathay!

All of this information quickly flooded into Qin Ye's mind, and it was a lot to process.

As the plot continued to thicken, he discovered that he may as well have been blind back then!

However, he quickly snapped out of his astonishment as more questions had surfaced in his mind.

Who exactly was this Ye Xianzu, and what was he doing here? Also, who was the founder of the Yiguandao?

Ye Xianzu wasn't a human, he was an evil ghost. The fact that the Yiguandao had attained such a significant level of influence across the entire nation meant that it had to have had spies in the government working for it.

They had to have seen Ye Xianzu at some point, and it was most likely also them who had identified Ye Xianzu to be Master in the end.

In that case, why hadn't the investigators of the Special Investigations Department managed to identify this?

None of the Special Investigations Department's files on Ye Xianzu stated that he was a Yin spirit. How had they been fooled by him?

How had he managed to keep his identity a secret under the investigation of Infernal Judges and Abyssal Prefects? There had to be something extremely terrifying pulling the strings behind Ye Xianzu!