Soul of the Revered Banner
Chapter 55: A Startling Realization

Tu Shanjun sighed helplessly.

He chopped the edge of his hand down onto Shizhu’s neck.

Knocking him unconscious, he tossed him into a nearby teahouse, leaving behind two broken silver pieces. “Get him medical help.”

The teahouse’s shopkeeper and waiters didn’t dare disobey someone dressed like a Embroidered Guard, that’s how they saw Shizhu.

Tu Shanjun, familiar with the path, made his way straight to the Offering Pavilion.

A young attendant quickly came to greet him but didn’t dare speak.

In the mortal world, rank determined life and death. And here, in the Offering Pavilion, these cultivators were the true masters. Though these children had the fortune to get close to cultivation, they were still just servants and wouldn’t dare question why Immortal Master Zhou had returned so quickly from the Jing’an Marquis’ estate.

Tu Shanjun asked, “The demonic cultivator’s corpse sent here a month ago, where is it now?”

He had assumed at least one immortal master would be stationed here, but surprisingly, only attendants in body-training phase were present, he sensed no other spiritual auras.

So he gave up on questioning any immortal masters and casually grabbed a child attendant to ask.

The boy was surprised by the question, but answered dutifully, “Master, the demonic cultivator’s body was buried behind the Offering Pavilion, in the rear mountain.”

“Take me there.”

The attendant led Tu Shanjun quickly to the rear.

Behind the pavilion was a graveyard with many tombs.

Most of the tombstones didn’t even have names engraved.

Several of them looked freshly dug.

Li Qingfeng lay buried among them.

As Tu Shanjun saw the graveyard, his face darkened.

“You may go.”

He waved the boy off.

Then he dug open the grave. Inside the straw mat lay Li Qingfeng’s corpse.

Tu Shanjun shook the Soul Banner, and at once, black mist rolled out. Li Qingfeng’s body rapidly decayed, until only bones remained, then with a touch, the skeleton crumbled into ash.

He reburied the ashes, restoring the grave to how it was.

He had no intention of taking them away.

Let Li Qingfeng’s ashes rest here in peace.

He only did this to prevent loose cultivators from desecrating the corpse, dissecting it or refining it into a corpse puppet.

Most loose cultivators were brutal by necessity. Lacking resources, they spared nothing.

This graveyard wasn’t just for burial, it also had a minor Baleful Qi Gathering Formation, drawing in killing aura from the corpses, which might eventually birth strong ghosts.

The only reason no spirits had appeared yet was that these loose cultivators often harvested the corpses.

But if enough killing aura gathered, even without corpse-refining spells or formations, time alone could turn them into powerful undead.

Some of the old corpses buried here had likely already begun turning.

Tu Shanjun didn’t need corpses. He couldn’t take them, and had no techniques to control them.

However, he could collect the concentrated baleful energy from the graveyard.

He raised the Soul Banner, pouring the dantian's spiritual power into it. The banner expanded from a foot in length to nearly ten.

Its wide face billowed in the wind.

Gray mist surged in from all around, drawn into the banner.

Its fabric grew darker and deeper. The ghostly face on its surface, its tiny horns seemed to have grown longer.

Moments later, the newly condensed killing aura had been completely swept away.

This was far beyond anything the mass grave near the village could compare to.

The Soul Banner spun once in the air before dropping back into Tu Shanjun’s hand.

The sparse grass atop the grave mounds quivered.

A white, finger-sized creature with a glowing green head seemed to be sniffing around.

Tu Shanjun noticed the little creatures, many of them.

They had stubby white bodies with no visible limbs, just glowing green heads, and no eyes to be seen.

They were graveyard-born sprites. At night, their heads would glow. They ran like the wind and jumped great distances.

They lived off yin energy but were basically harmless.

Tu Shanjun figured that since he had drained most of the killing aura, they likely sensed the disturbance and emerged to investigate.

But once his gaze fell on them, they scurried back into the grass, not daring to linger.

Technically, these things were also minor ghosts.

They formed wherever killing aura grew too thick.

But Tu Shanjun didn’t capture them. These little things were so weak they didn’t even count as proper souls.

Watching them burrow into the grass, he truly felt he had come to a different world.

Tu Shanjun chuckled under his breath:

“Little spirits lurking in the dark, scurrying like rats in a grain jar. Far too commonplace.”

With everything handled, he turned to retrieve the sword-hairpin magical tool.

It had been left to him by Hou Boxu and he had gifted it to Li Qingfeng.

It belonged to him. To Li Qingfeng. Not to the Offering Pavilion of Liang City.

He couldn’t read memories from living souls, and Zhou Liang had never revealed where the treasury was so he would have to search blindly.

Still, a treasury would surely be well protected, not only from regular people but even from the pavilion’s own immortal masters. There must be restrictions.

His dantian still held ample spiritual power. If he activated spiritual sight, he might be able to locate it.

“Spirit-Seer Eyes, open!”

Light surged into his eyes, illuminating hidden flows.

He surveyed the pavilion compound.

Calmly, Tu Shanjun walked past the boy attendants, through pavilions and towers, across ponds and gazebos.

The Soul Banner, now three feet long, rested in the crook of his left arm like a priest’s whisk.

The Offering Pavilion looked expansive, but in truth, wasn’t very large.

Because blue stone and paulownia wood, both good for channeling spiritual energy, were rare in the mortal world, only important buildings were built from them. Some had roughly carved formation patterns.

Though crude and simple, when layered, they could offer some protection against cultivators.

Tu Shanjun finally stopped before one particular residence.

Out of all the buildings, this one had the most complex restrictions and the strongest locked aura.

He concluded this must be the treasury.

He raised a hand and channeled spiritual power.

A pale blue veil of light appeared before him. All energy flows converged on a heavy bronze lock.

He muttered, “Requires a key?”

Of course, he didn’t have one. But the goateed cultivator had mentioned that without him, the treasury couldn’t be opened.

Perhaps he had a key.

Tu Shanjun activated Zhou Liang’s old, battered storage talisman.

Sure enough there it was. A bronze key.

He also found a familiar book, The Blood Fiend Grand Method.

Tu Shanjun’s mind spun. He felt like he’d grasped something important.

Thinking carefully, he recalled that Zhou Liang had met the guardian immortal master of Eight Directions City.

And now he had the Blood Fiend Grand Method… no wonder he had pursued the Soul Banner so desperately, even going so far as to seek out Xiang Hu.

Still, that could wait. For now, retrieving the sword-hairpin was the priority.

Clack.

As the bronze key slid in, the lock clicked open. All three locking mechanisms released. A crude formation shimmered faintly, then faded.

Tu Shanjun pushed the door open and entered the inner courtyard.

Here, deeper within, was a four-ring planar formation lock wrapped in multiple layers of restriction.

But the bronze key had no effect this time.

Tu Shanjun wasn’t about to waste time deciphering every formation. All the energies gathered at the lock, it would take who knows how long to unlock properly.

The simplest solution was brute force.

Destroy the lock, then find the sword-hairpin.

Tu Shanjun planted his feet, drawing back like a fully pulled bowstring.

Power surged through his body, encasing his fist.

Boom!

An explosion erupted.

The entire restriction was triggered. A pale silver barrier instantly materialized.

The blast rocked the Offering Pavilion, every attendant snapped awake.

The five Offering Pavilion cultivators at the Jing’an Marquis’ estate all turned toward the source.

They had felt the shockwave too.

Old Daoist Lu shouted, “Not good!”

“Someone’s attacking the treasury!” cried the rotund cultivator.

Everyone was stunned.

The treasury held their lifelines. If someone cracked it open and looted everything, they were doomed.

“Go!”

The Offering Pavilion cultivators forgot about playing with Wen Yue. They summoned their spiritual power and launched into the air.

Old Daoist Lu flung out a low-grade flying sword and flew off, completely ignoring appearances.

(Chapter End)