Chapter 328: Tianxuan Red Dragon
In ancient times, when a Sacred Body appeared, the world would submit. Wherever it passed, all heroes would retreat, not daring to clash with it.
Alas, its decline has been too long. Now, even disciples of minor sects, when discussing this physique, would prefix it with the word "waste."
Time flows, rise and fall. The Sacred Body has become ordinary, its unparalleled glory hard to manifest again. Its decline and fall are unstoppable.
Ye Fan wanted to break the curse and change his current predicament. He urgently desired to grow stronger, especially after learning the secret of Emperor Wu Shi, which stirred his emotions greatly.
Divine City was truly too vast. After so many days, Ye Fan had only explored a corner, never venturing deep enough to see it all.
Of course, this was mainly because he wanted to gamble on stones. He couldn't just skim through; once he chose a stone workshop, he would stay for a long time.
Today, Li Heishui took Ye Fan a bit farther. This ancient street was wide, but there weren't many pedestrians, making it exceptionally quiet.
On both sides of the road stood ancient trees, their branches reaching into the sky, their trunks cracked and aged. It would take over a dozen people to encircle them. They blocked out the sun, giving the place a somewhat eerie atmosphere.
When they walked a bit further, Ye Fan sensed something was off. By the roadside was a stone workshop, quite large in scale and covering vast ground, yet it was desolate beyond belief.
Overgrown with weeds and wild trees that had grown rampant, they nearly swallowed the buildings. Clearly, no one had tended to it for years, turning it into something close to a wilderness.
"What the hell!"
Ye Fan was dumbfounded because he actually saw a rabbit. Yes, a wild rabbit leaped out of the weeds and dashed deep into the garden.
This was Divine City, where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold. How could such a massive estate be so abandoned?
No one maintained it, leaving it a strange place where ancient vines climbed wildly and trees grew like a forest. It was truly peculiar, and the most outrageous part was the appearance of wild rabbits.
Soon, Ye Fan spotted two wild pheasants flapping their wings and flying into the thick bushes. He was speechless—this was too bizarre.
"What place is this? Who in Divine City would be willing to abandon such a treasure?"
"This place... is the Tianxuan Holy Land's stone workshop," Li Heishui said.
Ahead, by the roadside, there was a grand gateway like a city tower, hidden by ancient trees. Above it hung a mottled bronze plaque engraved with two ancient characters—Tianxuan.
"That Holy Land!" Ye Fan was surprised. He walked closer to examine it and said, "No wonder it's like this."
He thought of the Old Madman. In the past, when this Holy Land was at its peak, it mobilized its entire sect to attack the Ancient Forbidden Land, only to be nearly annihilated.
"Didn't the other Holy Lands have any ideas?" Ye Fan asked.
In the distant past, there were more Holy Lands than now, but by this day, many lineages had been severed. The treasures they left behind were divided among other Holy Lands, which was one reason the current Holy Lands grew stronger.
"Back then, only three or four people from Tianxuan Holy Land escaped. How could they hold off the covetous eyes of the other Holy Lands? Many of the treasures they left were divided, including the vast source mines outside the Primordial Forbidden Zone."
"Why wasn't this place divided?" Ye Fan was puzzled.
"There are reasons..." Li Heishui explained.
Tianxuan Holy Land was located in the central region of the Eastern Wasteland. The three or four who escaped didn't last long before their lifespans dried up, and they perished in body and spirit.
The other Holy Lands wanted to split Tianxuan evenly, but later, every full moon night, crying sounds came from Tianxuan Holy Land. Several Saint Lords went to investigate at night but found nothing.
Not long after, in Divine City, this largest stone workshop also emitted sorrowful weeping on full moon nights. Various Holy Lands sent strong experts to investigate, but they didn't even see a ghost shadow, so they ultimately dared not touch this place.
In the following years, every thousand years, the sorrowful weeping would appear once in the dead of night, truly intimidating all the Holy Lands.
To this day, no one dares to touch this place.
"Oh, the door is open," Ye Fan said in surprise.
"After so many years, only an old gatekeeper remains, a descendant of the loyal old servant from the past. But this line is about to end too; the current gatekeeper has no offspring."
"Can we go in and take a look?"
"We can enter, but the stone materials were long taken away by the various Holy Lands. Nothing good is left."
"Can we gamble on stones here too?" Ye Fan was a bit surprised.
"The old servant guarding this place also needs to survive. He only guards this old estate. If someone wants to buy stone materials, he naturally sells them."
Back then, the various Holy Lands had already transported away many precious stone materials before the night crying began. Although they didn't occupy this place, they certainly wouldn't return the source.
Broken stone steps, collapsed palaces—all were covered by grass and trees. An old man, dim-eyed, hunched, and stooped, sat on a green stone.
He was senile, with little life left, nearly at the end of his rope. Gazing at the desolate, weed-covered garden, his eyes were filled with nostalgia and sorrow.
Seeing this, Ye Fan couldn't help but sigh. This was a loyal family, generation after generation guarding this courtyard with no future or hope.
The old man was somewhat stiff. He slowly turned his head, his face full of wrinkles, his old eyes cloudy.
"Young men, have you come to buy stone materials?"
"What a heartbreaking old man. What is he guarding here, waiting for?" Ye Fan wondered what force or belief sustained him.
"Buy! I want to buy a lot of stone materials!" Ye Fan nodded and placed a considerable amount of source before the old man.
"You don't need so much. There's nothing valuable here..." The old man trembled, pushing the source back with his rough, aged hands. "Besides, you haven't chosen any stones yet."
"I'll go pick them now," Ye Fan said.
"Look carefully. You might still find one or two treasures. Occasionally, legendary figures come here to seek treasures." The old man's eyes were lifeless, looking sadly at the ruined garden. "Someone just came in and went deep to search. He might be that kind of person."
Li Heishui chuckled and joked, "Maybe we'll get lucky and really run into a legendary Great Power."
Suddenly, Ye Fan's expression froze, and his heart pounded because he actually saw a terrifying figure!
Deep in the overgrown weeds, there was an old Daoist, wearing ancient, worn-out robes, his body withered. He was squatting on the ground examining stone materials—it was actually Red Dragon Daoist.
Fortunately, Ye Fan's composure was sufficient. An ordinary person would have screamed. He calmed his emotions in an instant, his pulse showing no disturbance.
This was Peacock King's sworn elder brother, a super terrifying existence that even the various Saint Lords found troublesome and feared. Ye Fan never expected to encounter him here.
He glanced at the old man and Li Heishui, unsure whether to call them crows' mouths or masters of prophecy for pointing out such a super terrifying figure.
Red Dragon Daoist looked over, glanced at the old man and Li Heishui, and said nothing.
Months ago, Red Dragon Daoist had selected a pile of stone tools in Stone Stockade, only for Ye Fan to clean them out entirely, even pulling up the villagers' house foundations, leaving him not even a single hair.
Ye Fan could imagine Red Dragon Daoist's expression when he returned that day. He dared not show any flaw. If the other party found out it was him, he would likely be severely punished.
He and Li Heishui casually searched for stones under the ancient trees, showing no sign of anything unusual.
Before long, Red Dragon Daoist selected over a dozen broken stones, nothing special about them, and piled them before the old man, ready to pay source.
Suddenly, Red Dragon Daoist seemed to sense something. A terrifying aura emanated from him, and he vanished from the spot in an instant, rushing out as if chasing something.
"Why did he leave..." The old man was puzzled, then said to Ye Fan and Li Heishui, "Why don't you stop picking and buy these stones? They're the good ones I picked."
Ye Fan hesitated. Should he clean out the bottom again and take everything Red Dragon Daoist had his eye on?
"Buy! If that ox-nose Daoist doesn't come back, it's my great luck. If he does, I'll sell him a favor." Ye Fan made this decision inwardly and walked over.
"Let's cut them open right here," Li Heishui said, not particularly concerned, unaware of Red Dragon Daoist's identity.
"Wait a bit longer," Ye Fan said, afraid Red Dragon Daoist would return.
But after a full quarter of an hour, the other party hadn't returned. Ye Fan silently thanked his luck and began cutting the stones directly.
He peeled open thirteen stones in a row, but they were all empty, containing nothing.
The fifteenth stone was only the size of a fist. As soon as Ye Fan cut it open, he smelled a fragrance, like orchid or musk, penetrating the heart and intoxicating to the bone.
He was immediately shaken. This scent was too familiar. Not long ago, he had cut it from the stone tools left by the Origin Heavenly Master, which had poisoned the greedy Big Black Dog into a near-death state.
"Why is Red Dragon Daoist's eye so sharp? Does he also understand the deepest source arts?!" Ye Fan's mind was shaken, filled with endless doubts.
Of course, the bigger issue now was a headache. He had cut out this kind of thing again. Would it be wasted once more?
"We've found a treasure!" Li Heishui shouted excitedly. A fragrance this rich seeping from a stone must be a rare and precious item.
Even the old man beside them, his cloudy eyes no longer dull, showed surprise.
Ye Fan peeled off the stone skin, revealing a pink fruit, only half the size of a fist. It was identical to the last one, just half the size.
"Swish"
Suddenly, light flashed, and Red Dragon Daoist silently appeared in his original spot, his expression one of shock and anger. "How dare you touch my stone materials?"
Ye Fan didn't answer immediately. He wanted to do Red Dragon Daoist a big favor and absolutely couldn't let the other party blame him.
"You didn't come back, so I sold them to him voluntarily," the old man, frail and near death, answered at that moment.
Red Dragon Daoist was somewhat surprised and couldn't help but take a closer look at the old man.
"We've already bought them. If you want them, bring enough source to buy them back," Li Heishui said. Although he sensed Red Dragon Daoist was extremely powerful, he never imagined the other party was terrifying enough to be Peacock King's elder brother.
"Don't talk nonsense first. Hurry and get some jade to seal it, or else—conservatively estimated—something worth over a hundred thousand jin of source will be ruined!" Red Dragon Daoist was extremely anxious, sweat beading on his forehead. He searched his whole body but couldn't find any jade.
"Over a hundred thousand jin of source?!" Li Heishui nearly bit off his own tongue.
Damn Black Emperor!
At that moment, Ye Fan wanted to curse, his mouth almost twitching. Damn it, that greedy dead dog had bitten off over two hundred thousand jin of source!
And it was completely useless, poisoning itself until it foamed at the mouth, convulsing for half a month.