Chapter 48 - 47: Disease Qi Entering the Body Becomes a Demon

Chapter 48: Chapter 47: Disease Qi Entering the Body Becomes a Demon

The starting point of the Tiger Demon Memory Pearl traced back to a very distant past. That part of the imagery was very blurry, as if covered by a thick layer of dust. The sounds were intermittent and indistinct.

At that time, it was still just an ordinary tiger, not a demon.

Lu Jing’an’s Divine Sense sank into the Memory Pearl, like falling into a murky lake. He filtered out the useless fragments. Hunting, sleeping, and zoning out day after day... He fast-forwarded through time in his consciousness.

How did Demon Beasts actually come to be? He had always been quite curious about this. The records in the academy were vague, only stating that when some "heavenly and earthly disease qi" entered their bodies, ordinary animals would turn into demons. But what exactly was this "disease qi"? No one had explained it clearly. Now, he might be able to see it with his own eyes.

Thirty years flashed by in the memory. The tiger in the memory had grown old. Its fur had lost its luster, balding in patches and revealing the pink skin underneath. Its ribs were distinct, and its hind legs trembled slightly when it walked. It could no longer chase down agile prey.

It was so hungry that its eyes had turned green with starvation. It began to eat rotting animal corpses. The smell was pungent, carrying a sickly sweet scent of death. But it couldn’t care less; hunger was burning its stomach.

That day, it limped up a dirt slope. The wind blew up from below, carrying an indescribable odor. A strong stench of blood and the foul smell of highly decomposed corpses. There was also a deeper, more unsettling sensation. It was as if countless people were crying and screaming in its ears.

The tiger instinctively wanted to retreat, but a violent cramp wracked its stomach. Panting heavily, it shuffled down the slope step by step.

It was a village. Or rather, what used to be a village. The earthen walls had collapsed, and the thatched cottages were burnt down to charred frames. Broken household items were scattered on the ground. A child’s tiger-head shoe lay there, its red velvet pompom so dirty its original color was indistinguishable.

And then, there were the dead. Many dead people—men, women, the elderly, and children—lay on the ground in various contorted postures. The blood had long seeped into the blackened soil. But the corpses were still rotting, bloating, turning bruised and purple, and oozing yellow fluid in the relatively warm weather. White maggots squirmed in and out of them. Flies BUZZED in a dense swarm. There were no living things; not even crows would land here.

The tiger circled at the village entrance, emitting an uneasy rumble from its throat. Instinct told it that this place was extremely dangerous and that it needed to leave immediately. But hunger was like a hand, tightly gripping its intestines and dragging it into the village. It walked in.

Its paws stepped on the dried, blackened pools of blood, making a faint CRUNCHING sound. The putrid smell, mixed with resentment and disease, was so thick it made the beast dizzy.

It stopped beside the corpse of a middle-aged man. The man’s chest had been torn open, his organs were gone, and half of his face had been gnawed off. The tiger lowered its head and bit off a piece of flesh that had turned grayish-green. It chewed and swallowed. Sour, venomous juices exploded in its mouth. Suppressing its nausea, it gulped it down, its stomach churning violently. It moved on to the next corpse, and then the next.

It ate for an entire day. By the time the sun went down, it was so stuffed it couldn’t move. It sprawled on the threshing ground in the center of the village, its belly bulging like a broken gong.

It knew it was going to die. Toxins burned inside its body, its muscles began to twitch, and its vision repeatedly faded to black. Whatever, being a well-fed ghost was better than being a starved one. It closed its eyes and waited for death.

However, over an hour later, an unimaginable agony jolted it awake. It wasn’t a normal stomachache. It felt like fire was burning in its veins, like its bones were being shattered and reassembled. It was as if countless needles were piercing and churning beneath its skin and flesh! The tiger rolled on the ground in pain, letting out a mournful howl. Its claws dug deep gouges into the hard earth.

Just as it was about to lose consciousness from the pain, it caught sight of half a child’s corpse not far away. Eat! It was going to die anyway; it might as well take another bite before passing! It crawled over and gnawed frantically. As the rotting meat entered its stomach, the burning agony actually... lessened a little.

It froze for a moment, its murky tiger eyes staring at the bloody flesh beneath its paws. Then, as if grasping at a lifeline, it continued eating like a madman! One corpse, then another.

Those invisible airs of resentment and disease, mixed within the corpses, drilled into its body along with the rotting meat. Instead of destroying it, they initiated a twisted transformation. The blood in its veins faintly shimmered with a dark gold hue, and its growing bones emitted sharp CRACKING sounds. Beneath its shriveled skin, new, tougher muscles swelled.

When it swallowed the last piece of rotting flesh in the village, it stood beneath the pale moonlight, threw its head back, and let out a long roar. The sound pierced through the mountains and forests, carrying an intimidating demonic aura that startled countless birds into the air.

It lowered its head, looking at its reflection in a puddle. Deep within its amber eyes, two eerie green ghost fires burned quietly. Around it, several blurry, transparent human phantoms with agonizing expressions were kneeling silently toward it.

Chong Ghosts.

The tiger had become a demon. From then on, it began to feed entirely on humans.

Lu Jing’an thought, "Looking at it this way, the books are right. It really is ’disease qi’ entering the body that births a demon.

"Demons and fiends emerge in chaotic times. That saying isn’t fooling me either.

"From this perspective, the modern rule forbidding animals from becoming spirits after the founding of the nation really holds its weight."

Having witnessed the Tiger Demon’s birth process, Lu Jing’an fast-forwarded through the memories. Finally, he reached the segment involving the Li Family. After a careful review, Lu Jing’an discovered that this plot was far more outrageous than he had imagined.

The Tiger Demon had indeed targeted the Li Family because of that cart of corpses. However, the real reason it took the risk to attack the Li Family was that it had a cub. Those corpses were the nourishment it had prepared for its cub.

As for why the Tiger Demon targeted the Lu Family, it was because the resurrected Li Zhaolin had killed its cub and subsequently impersonated a member of the Lu Family.

Actually, things weren’t too absurd up to this point. What was truly outrageous was that after the Tiger Demon ate Li Zhaolin, it was also able to acquire Li Zhaolin’s memories. Therefore, the Tiger Demon actually knew that Li Zhaolin wasn’t a member of the Lu Family. It also knew the relationship between Li Zhaolin and the Lu Family.

However, in the Tiger Demon’s cognition, the death of its cub was due to the Lu Family failing to kill Li Zhaolin, which led to all the subsequent events. Thus, the Tiger Demon still pinned the blame on the Lu Family. Lu Jing’an couldn’t comprehend the Tiger Demon’s ridiculous thought process.

But the Tiger Demon’s memories still gave Lu Jing’an some unexpected surprises—Li Zhaolin’s memories.

The Tiger Demon’s ability to read memories was certainly not as absurdly potent as the Zhengqi Furnace. Yet, through those fragmented memories, Lu Jing’an still obtained a lot of useful information.

For instance, Nine-fingered Yama had been activated at Li Zhaolin’s suggestion. The reason behind this was that the Void Gods both of them worshipped belonged to the same faction.

Besides this, there was another crucial piece of information: the three-step plan formulated by the Li Family to annihilate the Lu Family.

The first step was to assassinate him, breaking the Lu Family’s Essence, Qi, and Spirit. This would completely strip the Lu Family of their qualifications to compete, allowing the Li Family to slowly plot their takeover.

The second step was that if the first step failed, they would use marriage to break the Lu Family’s spine.

The third step, in the event that both previous steps failed, was to feign goodwill and present the Lu Family with a massive gift—one sufficient to obliterate the entire family.

As for what this massive gift was, Lu Jing’an couldn’t see it because the information was incomplete.

After viewing the Tiger Demon Memory Pearl, Lu Jing’an only felt slightly fatigued. He didn’t experience the intense discomfort he had felt when checking Nine-fingered Yama’s memory for the first time. Clearly, this was a benefit brought about by his increased Spiritual Power. He sat leaning against the bedpost for a while, drank half a cup of herbal tea, and then continued checking the remaining four Memory Pearls of the Li Family Cultivators.

Lu Jing’an began investigating the memory pearls of the remaining four Li Family members. After reviewing them all, he still hadn’t discovered what exactly the grand gift the Li Family prepared was. This wasn’t surprising; after all, those four Cultivators were not considered core members of the Li Family.

It was a pity that the Li Family’s mastermind, Li Jinglin, was not a Cultivator. He hadn’t left behind a Divine Soul. If he had left behind a Divine Soul, Lu Jing’an would absolutely have seen through all of the Li Family’s secrets.

Although he didn’t see what trap the Li Family had prepared for the Lu Family, he did make other discoveries. Lu Jing’an found some traces of the Li Family’s backer in the Provincial City.

The Li Family’s backer in the Provincial City had always been highly mysterious. Even Secretary Hu didn’t know about them. This time, however, Lu Jing’an had found them out. Lu Jing’an had no intention of hiding these discoveries. He planned to tell his father and the others directly tomorrow. He had even thought of the excuse.

The residual consciousness left behind by the Tiger Demon’s Divine Thought impact. This was the best and most reasonable excuse.

By the time Lu Jing’an finished reading all the Memory Pearls, exactly four hours had passed. The entry he had been upgrading earlier also gave a prompt: [Upgrade Complete].

Seeing the prompt, Lu Jing’an looked at the Zhengqi Furnace. At this moment, a brand-new entry was floating within it.

[Vajra Tiger Aspect] (Orange)

[Remarks]: Fused with the entry brought by the Tiger Demon, your physical foundation has greatly increased.

All Attributes gained from the Cultivation of any Body Refining Skill will be increased by 300% on your body.

Body Refinement speed is increased by 150%, and Body Refinement success rate is 100%.

Your profound foundation allows your body to make self-adaptive adjustments according to the Body Refining Skill.

Permanently increases Attack and Defense by 5 points each.

After reading the entry’s remarks, Lu Jing’an was quite satisfied with its effects. The last remark, in particular, couldn’t help but spark some associations in his mind—associations regarding the Six Harmonies Fist.

The true difficulty of the Six Harmonies Fist lay in the conflict of True Qi. The process of True Qi conflict could only be overcome by the body adapting on its own. The final line of the entry, however, mentioned self-adaptation. That meant Lu Jing’an wouldn’t need to figure out how to adapt manually; his body would automatically make the necessary adjustments and changes.

This way, it would not only significantly reduce the pain of Cultivation but also vastly increase his Cultivation speed. As to whether it would work exactly as he imagined, he would just have to wait and test it out when Cultivating the Six Harmonies Fist.

Using his mind to take the entry out of the Zhengqi Furnace and equip it, Lu Jing’an immediately felt a distinct change in his body. He could clearly sense that his body’s density had increased. He was still the same person, but his bones, flesh, and blood had noticeably become heavier.

He thought, "This must be what they call foundation." Since there were no unusual anomalies, Lu Jing’an simply lay down and went to sleep.

Early the next morning, Lu Jing’an woke up and did some stretches. As his Tendons and Bones stretched out, his joints emitted faint POPPING sounds, like a bowstring being slowly drawn to the full. He could clearly feel the changes brought about by the increased foundation in his body.