Chapter 344: Dingjun Mountain (High Energy This Chapter)

In a small mountain courtyard, Old Yao was sharpening his blade. He received news from Qiu Zhiheng that all thirteen Ghost Cultivators were dead.

The deaths of these thirteen Ghost Cultivators would intensify the malevolence of the Mourning Gate Array to its peak, bringing a catastrophe to Medicine King Valley. Where would this catastrophe begin? It was obvious it would start with the local Earth God. The Mourning Star would first bring the array's calamity to Old Yao. He would also bring the vengeful spirits of those Ghost Cultivators to Old Yao.

Under normal circumstances, within Old Yao's home, the Mourning Star would not dare to attack directly. But with all the malevolence concentrated in Old Yao's home, he now dared to act.

"Old dog, come and get me!" Old Yao tested the edge of his three-pointed, two-edged blade. He planned to capture the Mourning Star alive and force him to reveal the layout of his array. Even if it cost him his old life, he had to break the Mourning Gate Array! As long as he still breathed, no one would be allowed to harm Medicine King Valley.

Old Yao drank his fill of wine and waited for the Mourning Star to arrive. Hundreds of wine jars were stacked against the wall. The topmost jar slowly slid down, about to fall to the ground. Old Yao swung his long blade, and the wine jar returned to its original position. This wine was Old Yao's source of power. It had been stacked against the wall for countless years, just like that, untouched. Yet, it was now that something was amiss.

Malevolence. The Mourning Star had arrived.

A trace of wine aura could counter a trace of malevolence. Old Yao tried to suppress the malevolence with his wine aura, but the Mourning Gate Array was too powerful. The disparity between the wine aura and the malevolence was vast.

Gusts of chilly wind swept through, and five green flames entered the courtyard, rushing about wildly. These were the souls of the Ghost Cultivators, acting as vanguards, trying to destroy the mechanisms and traps in the courtyard. Old Yao used his long blade to hook a wine jar, tossing it into the air. As the wine spilled down, the spirits shrieked and wailed and instantly turned into dust.

"You wretched cur!" Old Yao spat. "I've been waiting for you all this time, and you send me this trash?"

Before he finished speaking, hundreds of spirits surged into the courtyard, not attacking, but circling Old Yao. "Are these all Ghost Cultivators? How could there be so many?"

These were not all Ghost Cultivators. Some were spirits who had been tormented to death by Ghost Cultivators. The Mourning Star had spent decades collecting them, and in his hands, these spirits were weapons brimming with malevolence.

Old Yao swung his long blade again, and hundreds of wine jars beneath the wall flew into the air, spilling wine as a torrential rain of wine poured down. Originally, this wine rain alone would have annihilated this group of spirits. But as fate would have it, a fierce gust of wind blew through, diverting the jars' openings. The wine scattered astray and too quickly, emptying in an instant. This was the power of the Mourning Gate Array.

The wine rain was dispersed by the strong wind, and the spirits still circled around. Old Yao touched his blade's hilt, and the three-pointed, two-edged blade flew out, its hilt extending tens of meters. Like skewering candied hawthorns, it skewered dozens of spirits. With a twist of the blade, dozens of spirits turned into ashes.

The long blade steadily returned to his hand. The remaining spirits hid in the distance, not daring to approach. Old Yao yawned and said, "Old dog, I'm almost falling asleep!"

After losing so many spirits, had the Mourning Star gained nothing in return? These spirits had turned into ashes, but the ashes did not disperse. Instead, they hovered above Old Yao's head. The ashes silently gathered into a ball, and Old Yao seemed completely unaware. This was immense malevolence. If he were to be struck by this, Old Yao would be unable to evade the next attack, because no matter where he dodged, an accident would occur. The ashes descended rapidly, and Old Yao remained unprepared.

Just as the ashes were about to land on his head, Old Yao suddenly pulled out a carved bow from behind him. At the same time, four banners flew up, fluttering and swirling, dispersing the ashes above his head. With an arrow notched, Old Yao drew his carved bow, spun around sharply, and shot an arrow behind him.

"You cur, I knew you'd make your move."

Old Yao knew malevolence was closing in above him. If he had dodged, he would have fallen for the Mourning Star's sneak attack. If he hadn't dodged and was hit by this malevolence, he would have been severely wounded by the next blow. Precisely because he had anticipated the opponent's strategy, Old Yao had also pinpointed his location.

The arrow sliced through the air, but unfortunately, it missed. Missing was normal. Even with excellent archery, there was always a chance of missing. Under such dense malevolence, the possibility of a single shot hitting its mark no longer existed. Old Yao fired another arrow, but it also missed. Relying on his experience, Old Yao changed direction and fired five arrows in quick succession. Finally, one arrow stopped mid-air.

A hit! Old Yao exhaled a burst of flame towards the arrow. Amidst a wail, a figure materialized. The Mourning Star had appeared! The four banners surrounded the figure from all sides, weaving and crisscrossing, pinning it to the ground.

"You cur, prepare to die!" Old Yao lifted his three-pointed, two-edged blade and with a single thrust, severed the Mourning Star's head. To prevent the Mourning Star from resurrecting, Old Yao took out his wine gourd and poured half a gourd of wine onto the Mourning Star's neck. Acrid smoke swirled, confirming that the enemy was truly dead. Old Yao let out a long breath.

The Mourning Star's death was also troublesome. How could the Mourning Gate Array be broken now? Old Yao was about to take a sip of wine to calm his mind when the corpse on the ground suddenly turned into a cloud of dust that flew into Old Yao's face. Malevolence in his face!

"Did this come from the Mourning Star's corpse exploding? No, this wasn't the Mourning Star. The one pinned to the ground just now was still a Ghost Cultivator's spirit. How could I have been mistaken? The Mourning Star and a mere spirit, how could I not tell the difference? A dream!"

Old Yao had been dragged into a dream. All his perceptions and judgments had been distorted by the dream. "When did he enter the dream?" Old Yao knew the Mourning Star possessed dream-cultivation abilities and had taken precautions beforehand. He had been highly focused, so he shouldn't have fallen into a dream. "Could he have been distracted earlier?" Under the influence of pervasive malevolence, anything was possible.

Further thought was useless. Old Yao shot a ball of flame at his palm, and with the searing pain, Old Yao woke up. Before him, there were no spirits, nor the Mourning Star. He seemed to have stepped on something. It felt like scattered wine dregs. "No, this was a trap." Old Yao had stepped into a trap he himself had set. The courtyard in the dream was quite different from the real one. While Old Yao was pursuing the Mourning Star in the dream, his footsteps were distorted; by some twist of fate, he walked straight into his own trap.

A medicine pot hanging in the storeroom broke, and powdered medicine spilled all over Old Yao. Such was the extent of the malevolence. This was the poison he had carefully prepared, and now it had all fallen on himself. The poison immediately began to seep into his skin. Old Yao's body stiffened, and the wine aura that enveloped him dissipated by more than half in an instant. This wine aura was Old Yao's crucial barrier against malevolence. Old Yao raised his wine gourd, intending to wash away the poison with wine. Whether from sweat or wine in his palm, the wine gourd slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.

As Old Yao bent down to pick up the wine gourd, two spirits lunged at him from behind. The three-pointed, two-edged blade, driven by Old Yao's will, moved on its own to parry behind him. As fate would have it, the poison suddenly flared up intensely at that moment. Old Yao was racked with pain, his will wavered, his technique faltered, and the three-pointed, two-edged blade lost control, piercing Old Yao's back. The thrust was both fierce and precise, directly piercing through Old Yao's chest.

Old Yao pulled out the three-pointed, two-edged blade. His feet unsteady, he stumbled and again stepped on a mechanism he had set. A jar of potent liquor fell, splashing all over him. "Could this jar of potent liquor wash away the poison?" No. There was much wine in the courtyard that could wash away poison, but not this jar. This jar of wine was specifically prepared by Old Yao to intensify poison's effects.

With the potent poison fully activated throughout his body, Old Yao's skin peeled away, leaving him bloody and disfigured. He stood rooted to the spot, struggling to move. Spirits wielding various weapons surged forward to besiege him. The four banners struggled to repel them. Old Yao's wine aura was nearly depleted, and even the banners were becoming difficult to control.

Old Yao heard the Mourning Star's voice: "Look at you now, what are you even good for?" Malevolent taunts.

The Mourning Star suddenly appeared, passing through the banners, and picking up the weakened Old Yao. As if playing a game, he tossed him to another Mourning Star. "Another Mourning Star?"

The Mourning Star held Old Yao, laughing: "You drunkard, do you even deserve to be the local Earth God? I don't even need to kill you myself. A few lone spirits are enough to end your old life."

Spurred by these demoralizing words, Old Yao's will to fight completely vanished. Three spirits lifted the three-pointed, two-edged blade and thrust it into Old Yao's chest. The Mourning Star said, "Do you have any dignity? If you still care about your old face, commit suicide quickly. This is for your own good. If the local Earth God truly dies at the hands of lone spirits, wouldn't he become a laughingstock to the world?"

Dying would be easy enough. But what about Medicine King Valley? The Mourning Star seemed to have thought it all through for Old Yao: "Of the living in Medicine King Valley, I'll spare half. The other half I'll send to accompany you in death. What are you waiting for? Are you afraid to die? Living to this age, you truly have no shame!"

"Kill half? You bastard, just try it!"

Old Yao suddenly snatched back the three-pointed, two-edged blade and swung it towards the Mourning Star. The great blade swung through the air. At that very moment, Old Yao experienced a sudden ringing in his ears, and his swing went in the wrong direction. He missed the Mourning Star and was kicked to the ground by another Mourning Star.

A trace of wine aura could counter a trace of malevolence. "A sip of wine, just a sip of wine, and he could recover!"

There were still a few jars of wine at the base of the wall. Old Yao struggled to get to his feet, wanting to summon the jars from the wall. A fierce wind blew, and the wine aura on his body completely dispersed. His techniques failed. Old Yao rushed towards the wine jars at the wall. The Mourning Star appeared again, kicking Old Yao in the chest, sending him flying several meters away. Before Old Yao could get up, another Mourning Star appeared beside him, transforming malevolence into a long sword and thrust it towards Old Yao's back. Old Yao barely dodged it, only for yet another Mourning Star to transform malevolence into an iron hammer and smash it into Old Yao's face. The blow fractured Old Yao's skull. As malevolence surged in, Old Yao's vision blurred, and he could only vaguely discern outlines.

"Why are there so many Mourning Stars? A dream?" Old Yao was certain he wasn't dreaming. "These must be clones. How could the Mourning Star's clones be so powerful? Was this also a technique granted to him by Neizhou?"

Old Yao painfully got to his feet. Before he could steady himself, several Mourning Stars, accompanied by a host of spirits, surged forward to attack. Wine, if he could just get a sip of wine, he could still fight them off.

After struggling for a few more exchanges, Old Yao finally got hold of a wine jar. But before the wine touched his lips, a Mourning Star clone smashed the jar with an iron hammer, and Old Yao was simultaneously slammed against the wall by a blow. The wall collapsed. Old Yao climbed out of the rubble and stood leaning against the bed.

By the bed was the wind-up phonograph Li Banfeng had given him. He knew what the phonograph was for and where the record came from. Should he listen? He was too ashamed to listen. He had wronged her back then, and today he was even more ashamed to face her. This battle was a disgrace. So far, Old Yao hadn't even seen the Mourning Star's true form. The Mourning Star was right. His old face really had been thrown away.

Old Yao saw the wine vat in the room. This was his last chance and the only recourse he had left. Yet, he knew clearly that given the current battle situation and his luck, if he rushed directly to the wine vat, he might not even touch a single drop of wine. Even if he couldn't reach it, he had to try.

Old Yao had just taken a step towards the wine vat when his knees gave out improperly, suddenly dislocating up and down, and Old Yao collapsed to the ground. He propped himself up with his hands and crawled towards the wine vat. Two spirits approached and stomped on Old Yao, pinning him to the ground. Old Yao struggled to rise, shoving the two spirits aside. One spirit stumbled and crashed into the phonograph by the bed. Given the current streak of bad luck, the phonograph should have been broken by now. But the spirit didn't break the phonograph. Instead, it bumped into the phonograph's switch.

Crackle, crackle, crackle... The phonograph emitted some static. Inside the room, all the Ghost Cultivator spirits froze. Old Yao's heart tightened. He didn't know what he was about to hear. He didn't know what the Marshal would say to him.

Clang, clang, clang... Gongs and drums rang out. The Mourning Star's clones were startled and terrified by the sound of the gongs and drums. "Was this phonograph a magical artifact?" The Mourning Star immediately manipulated his clones to destroy the phonograph. But once the singing began, the Mourning Star's true form became unstable, and he was forced back several meters along with his true form.

"This letter comes at a lucky time, Heaven aids Huang Zhong in his great deeds, Standing at the camp gate, I issue my command, All soldiers, listen to my words!"

It was *Dingjunshan*. Old Yao's eyes widened. It was the Marshal! When she marched to war back then, she sang *Dingjunshan* for her soldiers. She still remembered this old man!

Two of the Mourning Star's clones once again charged towards the phonograph. His true form lay in ambush by the wine vat. According to the Mourning Star's calculations, Old Yao would rush desperately towards the wine vat. At that point, he would destroy the phonograph and then use his true form to deal with Old Yao, ensuring a decisive victory. But unexpectedly, Old Yao didn't head for the wine vat. Instead, he desperately protected the phonograph.

The Mourning Star was secretly alarmed: "This old man is a wine cultivator. What he needs most now is wine. Could this phonograph be more important than wine? Then it absolutely couldn't be allowed to remain." The Mourning Star sent five more clones to besiege Old Yao.

As they fought, Old Yao was knocked to the ground by a clone and crashed into the table behind him. The table overturned a cabinet. The cabinet toppled over and landed squarely on the wine vat. Luck really was unpredictable. By all accounts, this was rock bottom for his misfortune. But unexpectedly, Old Yao fell, the wine vat shattered, and all the wine from the vat spilled perfectly onto Old Yao. The Mourning Star was startled, sensing that something was amiss. "Was this old man getting lucky? With the Mourning Gate Array at its peak, how could he possibly be lucky?"

Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo... Inside the Portable Dwelling, Li Banfeng lay on the ground, gasping for breath. Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo... The Portable Dwelling seemed to breathe along with Li Banfeng. Li Banfeng rubbed his hip. "One foot in, one foot out, digging earth like this is too exhausting." The walls trembled. Li Banfeng heard the voice of the Portable Dwelling: "Four railway tracks, constantly switching back and forth, do you think I'm not tired?" Looking at the bloody soil in the sack, Li Banfeng suddenly burst out laughing: "Hahahaha!" A whistle sounded, and the Portable Dwelling seemed to laugh along with Li Banfeng. Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo... His wife cheered continuously, and the drums boomed incessantly.

The Mourning Gate Array is broken! Boom! Boom! Boom!

In Old Yao's courtyard, the malevolence dispersed with the sound of the war drums. The phonograph was still playing *Dingjunshan*. The drumming was resonant and clear, shaking the Mourning Star to his core. Every word terrified the spirits, making them cower.

"First drumroll, prepare the battle meal!" The wine flowing on the ground disappeared, as Old Yao drank it all, mud and all.

"Second drumroll, tighten your battle robes!" Old Yao stood up, tidied his clothes, and the four banners flew into place, re-attaching themselves to his back.

"Third drumroll, draw your blades!" The three-pointed, two-edged blade returned to Old Yao's palm.

"Fourth drumroll, engage the enemy!" The Mourning Star summoned spirits to resist Old Yao, but amidst the phonograph's song, the spirits had long since lost their ability to move. Old Yao swung his long blade. Where the blade passed, wine mist steamed throughout the room, filling the air. Hundreds of spirits turned into ashes in an instant.

Perhaps it was due to his leg injury, or perhaps he was drunk, but Old Yao staggered towards the Mourning Star. With a flash of his blade and a whisper of wind, the Mourning Star was cut in two. "This was a clone. Where was the true form?" Old Yao couldn't see clearly. "What if I can't see clearly? I'll just chop them all down!" Old Yao chuckled, and a mist of wine instantly enveloped the entire courtyard. The pungent wine made it impossible for the Mourning Star to open his eyes. Amidst the flashing blade lights, more than ten clones were reduced to severed limbs and broken bodies strewn across the ground.

The Mourning Gate Array was broken, and the malevolence was gradually overwhelmed by the wine aura. Seeing the unfavorable situation, the Mourning Star controlled one clone to fly out of the courtyard. Old Yao threw his three-pointed, two-edged blade, and the long blade went to pursue the clone. The Mourning Star's true form seized the opportunity to escape. As his form moved, it stirred a faint breeze, causing the wine mist to shift slightly. The banners on his back trembled in the mist, and Old Yao pinpointed the Mourning Star's location.

"You cur, where do you think you're going!" Old Yao reached into the wine mist and grabbed the Mourning Star's head. With his head gripped, it would be difficult to escape now! The Mourning Star transformed malevolence into short knives and repeatedly stabbed and slashed Old Yao's arm. Old Yao seemed impervious to pain and charged forward, holding the Mourning Star's head. The Mourning Star controlled all his remaining clones to surround and attack Old Yao. The four banners fluttered about, helping Old Yao parry the attacks. If he could parry, he parried; if not, he endured! Old Yao didn'