Chapter 276 - Endless Hunger and Ancient Walls

Chapter 276: Chapter 276 - Endless Hunger and Ancient Walls

The Starving Wraith’s Devouring Maw gradually dispersed, but Su Bai’s attention remained fixed on the same thought.

The technique might be connected to the Preta Realm.

That possibility alone was strange enough, yet the more he thought about what Lu Canghai had told him, the more another detail began bothering him.

’Endless hunger...’

Su Bai’s expression slowly stiffened.

Almost as if responding to the thought, his stomach growled.

He lowered his head.

The sound was unfortunately familiar.

Keeping the Dao-Shattering Jade active for so long had consumed a considerable amount of Qi, and once his reserves dropped far enough, the hunger that accompanied his unusual foundation inevitably returned.

Normally, Su Bai would have accepted it without much thought.

This time, however, he remained completely still.

Hungry Ghosts were defined by hunger that could never truly be satisfied.

His own appetite had become increasingly unreasonable ever since his foundation began changing.

The Starving Wraith’s Devouring Maw felt unnaturally compatible with him.

One coincidence was easy to ignore.

Several gathered together were considerably more irritating.

Su Bai slowly raised his hand to his forehead.

Unfortunately, his thoughts did not stop there.

He remembered Lu Canghai’s description of the Pretas he had encountered during the Great Fissure. Their bodies were gaunt and distorted, their stomachs swollen despite their skeletal frames, while their existence revolved around cravings that ordinary food could never satisfy.

He also remembered something considerably less helpful.

The Immortals had once speculated about his parents.

More specifically, they had looked at Su Bai, considered some of the abnormalities surrounding him, and somehow arrived at the conclusion that his father might have possessed extraordinary taste.

They had even wondered how Su Bai had been conceived in the first place.

At the time, Su Bai had decided that the entire conversation deserved to be forgotten.

Now it returned with terrifying clarity.

His face slowly changed.

A possibility appeared in his mind so absurd that he rejected it immediately.

Unfortunately, rejecting it did not stop him from thinking about it again.

Su Bai stared blankly ahead.

"Did Su Qingshan actually fuck a Hungry Ghost?"

The words escaped before he could stop them.

The courtyard remained silent.

Even Su Bai looked offended by what he had just said.

He closed his eyes and pressed two fingers against his temple.

"No. That makes even less sense."

Based on Lu Canghai’s description, Pretas were closer to spiritual existences than ordinary flesh-and-blood beings.

Even if Su Qingshan had somehow developed that particular interest, the practical problems alone were enough to make Su Bai unwilling to continue imagining the process.

Worse, Su Qingshan possessed the Primordial True-Yang Root.

His Yang had been capable of erasing extreme Yin entities like Hungry Ghosts.

Trying to produce a child with one sounded less like romance and more like an extremely unfortunate exorcism.

Su Bai’s expression became increasingly strained.

Some sons inherited property.

Some inherited techniques.

He had apparently inherited questions that should never have needed answers.

He looked toward the sky for a moment.

For once, he genuinely wondered whether the heavens had anything against him personally.

His biological father was a man capable of permanently erasing Naraka beings, entering the Great Fissure, and apparently making Immortals question his romantic preferences.

His mother remained an unknown existence.

Su Bai knew almost nothing about her.

The more he learned about Su Qingshan, the less reassuring that absence became.

Another thought surfaced before he could suppress it.

His memories.

When Su Bai awakened in this body at twelve, there had been nothing from before that point.

For years, he had accepted that as another strange consequence of transmigration.

Perhaps whatever happened when his consciousness entered the body had simply erased what came before.

That explanation had once been sufficient.

Now Su Bai was no longer certain.

His brows gradually drew together.

What if those memories had never been available to begin with?

What if something about his birth, his childhood, or even the body itself had been deliberately hidden?

The thought became uncomfortable very quickly.

Was he truly Su Qingshan’s biological son?

Had he been conceived normally?

Or was there some other explanation for why his foundation, soul, and body kept developing in ways that barely resembled ordinary human cultivation?

Su Bai stopped himself there.

Continuing down that path would accomplish nothing.

He had one suspicious technique, an unreasonable appetite, missing childhood memories, and far too many unanswered questions about his parents.

That was nowhere near enough to start deciding that he had been grown inside some ancient cauldron.

Although, considering Su Qingshan, Su Bai was beginning to dislike how plausible ridiculous possibilities had become.

He sighed and looked again at the place where the Devouring Maw had disappeared.

The technique remained the most concrete clue he had.

It had always felt strangely natural to him, and now Lu Canghai’s description of the Pretas had given that feeling a possible explanation.

There was one person who might know more.

The cultivator who had originally given him the cursed jade slip containing the technique.

Su Bai’s expression flattened.

Unfortunately, he had never encountered that person again.

He regretted not asking significantly more questions.

If they met again, Su Bai intended to find out exactly where that jade slip had come from.

Until then, guessing would only give him a headache.

Su Bai rubbed his forehead.

Thinking about Su Qingshan was particularly effective at producing headaches for someone whose constitution was supposedly excellent at reversing harmful effects.

He decided that was enough family history for one day.

His attention returned to the jade slips and materials surrounding him.

Su Bai gathered everything he had prepared for Radiant Sky Sect and temporarily moved it into his System Inventory. The methods meant for Lu Canghai’s inspection remained separated, especially those originating from the factions connected to the righteous-side traitors.

Once everything was properly stored, the courtyard finally looked normal again.

Su Bai stood and stretched.

His stomach immediately reminded him why he had stopped working in the first place.

Fortunately, that was an easy problem to solve.

He walked toward the familiar flat stone near his hut and sat down.

There was still an enormous quantity of Ashen-Blood Miasma stored throughout his ten Dantians.

Su Bai closed his eyes.

The Binary Void-Sun Supreme Method began circulating.

His Myriad-Path Meridian Web responded almost immediately.

Qi routes adjusted throughout his body as the ten cultivation centers entered rhythm with one another.

His depleted reserves began recovering.

The hunger eased with them.

Su Bai remained on the stone for some time, allowing the familiar process to continue until the emptiness within his cultivation centers no longer felt as noticeable.

...

Eventually, his eyes opened.

For several breaths, he simply enjoyed the quiet.

Unfortunately, remaining alone for the rest of the day would eventually become another form of hiding.

He had returned to Radiant Sky Sect after more than eight months.

There were disciples he had barely spoken to since coming back.

There were elders who had waited for him.

More importantly, he had spent the past several hours preparing things specifically for the sect.

There was little reason to keep all of it inside his System Inventory.

Su Bai rose from the stone.

Rather than returning to his hut, he headed toward the Main Peak first.

The difference became obvious long before he reached it.

Radiant Sky Sect had not become idle during his absence.

Training grounds were crowded.

Disciples moved between platforms, practice fields, and halls with an intensity that had become increasingly common since the situation outside deteriorated.

Some trained techniques against one another.

Others practiced formations under the supervision of elders.

The pressure surrounding the sect had clearly affected everyone.

They had become more serious.

Su Bai watched for a while as he approached.

But then, his arrival ruined the training almost immediately.

The first disciple who recognized him stopped mid-movement.

The second followed his gaze.

Within moments, attention spread across the training field faster than most movement techniques.

"Senior Brother Su is here!"

Su Bai had barely entered the area before several groups began moving toward him.

The elders overseeing the training made no attempt to stop them.

A few even followed.

Questions arrived quickly, although thankfully not all at once.

Had he rested properly?

Was his cultivation stable?

Was he really staying this time?

Su Bai answered what needed answering and ignored the questions that would require explaining several months of disasters.

Before the crowd could build enough momentum to trap him there for the rest of the day, Su Bai lifted a hand.

"I actually came because I brought something for everyone."

The noise faded.

Several disciples exchanged looks.

Even the elders became interested.

Su Bai walked toward an open section beside the training grounds.

Nobody knew what he intended to take out. A few disciples expected jade slips. Others probably imagined pills or artifacts.

Finally, Su Bai’s spiritual sense entered the System Inventory.

A moment later, something enormous appeared above the ground.

The first impact made the earth tremble.

Dust rose.

Before anyone recovered, another massive section followed, then another.

By the time Su Bai finished, several enormous ancient wall sections stood beside the training grounds.

The entire Main Peak became quiet.

Disciples stared upward.

The elders stared as well.

One of them slowly turned toward Su Bai as though trying to understand why a disciple who had disappeared into a forbidden land had returned carrying pieces of architecture.

Su Bai ignored the look.

These were not ordinary walls.

They were comprehension walls taken from Fallen-Star Sanctuary.

Ancient marks covered their surfaces. Many contained remnants of weapon intent. Others preserved traces of techniques, comprehension, or the paths followed by cultivators who had trained before them countless years ago.

The moment the walls appeared, several experienced disciples already sensed something unusual.

Their expressions changed.

A sword cultivator near the front stopped breathing for a moment as his gaze settled on one damaged section.

Another disciple unconsciously raised his hand, tracing a movement through the air as though following something only he could see.

An elder stepped closer.

His eyes widened.

"This..."

He never finished.

A young disciple standing several steps away suddenly sat down.

There had been no warning.

His legs folded beneath him, his eyes closed, and the Qi around his body began moving in an unfamiliar rhythm.

Everyone nearby instinctively backed away.

Another disciple froze while staring at a different section of wall.

His weapon slipped slightly in his grip before he tightened his fingers around it.

A moment later, he also sat down.

The elders reacted immediately, creating space around both disciples and preventing anyone from disturbing them.

More people began looking at the walls differently.

The excitement disappeared.

What replaced it was disbelief.

Su Bai folded his arms and watched.

He had expected the ancient comprehension walls to be useful.

He had not expected them to start working almost immediately.

One of the elders slowly looked toward him.

"Martial Nephew Su... where exactly did you get these?"

Su Bai glanced at the enormous sections of ancient wall he had just deposited beside the training grounds.

"Fallen-Star Sanctuary."

The elder opened his mouth.

After several breaths, he closed it again.

There was apparently no useful response to that.

Su Bai smiled.

Perhaps bringing back several pieces of a forbidden land had been slightly excessive.

Still, as another disciple’s expression slowly became vacant with the beginnings of comprehension, Su Bai felt no regret at all.

He had spent months taking everything useful he could find.

Now Radiant Sky Sect could finally start using it.