Chapter 962
Getting Brighter
Pigsy was thinking seriously.
"Theoretically... yes. My spiritual energy reserves are much larger than yours; filling a stone cave three or four zhang square should be barely enough. But—"
"But what?"
"But the evil energy won't disappear on its own after it's dissolved out. It's just been flushed out of the rock; it's still there. If my spiritual energy isn't enough to completely flush it out of the tunnel, the evil energy will settle back into the rock, making all my efforts futile."
Chu Yang nodded.
"Therefore, we need to cooperate. You'll be in charge of flushing, and I'll assist with the Soil-Nourishing Bead. Place the Soil-Nourishing Bead next to the node to release earth elemental energy, which will expel the evil energy from the inside out; your water elemental energy will flush from the outside in, and the two forces will combine to create a combined force. Once the evil energy is caught in the middle, it has nowhere to go but to be expelled through the secret passage."
A rare serious expression appeared on Pigsy's face. He mentally rehearsed the execution of the plan, and the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed; the more he thought about it, the brighter his eyes became.
"Working from within and without...that works. I think it works."
"There's another problem," Chu Yang said. "When you release your spiritual energy inside, the cave is full of evil energy and toxins. Can your body withstand it?"
Pigsy patted his round belly.
"I am, after all, the reincarnation of Marshal Tianpeng, with a Foundation Establishment cultivation level. Mere snake venom and evil energy cannot penetrate my body. You shouldn't go in—your small frame would be poisoned in a quarter of an hour."
Chu Yang hadn't planned to go in anyway. His physique couldn't withstand that concentration of evil energy and toxins.
"Then it's settled. Monkey King, you'll guard the crevice—if the snake demon tries to sneak back through the secret passage, you'll block it. Pigsy, you'll go into the cave to cleanse it. I'll wait outside the crevice, using my spiritual energy to monitor the situation inside the cave."
Sun Wukong tilted his head and stared at Chu Yang for a long time.
"When did you become a strategist?"
"The situation demands it. Monkey King, you are the commander-in-chief and vanguard, Pigsy is the main force, and I can only serve as an advisor."
Sun Wukong chuckled, neither confirming nor denying.
The three split up and acted separately.
Pigsy handed the rake to Chu Yang for safekeeping, and squeezed into the crevice with only the copper hammer and his spiritual energy.
Sun Wukong stood guard inside the crevice, his golden cudgel held horizontally in front of him, ready to deal with any snake demon that might emerge from the hidden passage.
Chu Yang retreated to a spot three zhang away from the crack, sat down cross-legged, placed his left hand on the ground, and used the perception ability of the Taiyi Nourishing Qi Technique to extend spiritual energy underground to monitor the situation inside the grotto.
He couldn't perceive the images, but he could sense the flow of spiritual energy.
Zhu Bajie's spiritual energy was clearly water-based, heavy and steady, like a slowly flowing river. Chu Yang could clearly sense this spiritual energy moving from the direction of the crack into the cave, and then stopping in the center of the cave.
Then--
break out.
Pigsy began to release his spiritual energy.
The water-attribute spiritual energy surged out of Zhu Bajie's body like a burst dam, flooding the entire cave. Chu Yang's spiritual energy perception was jolted by the massive water-attribute energy, as if someone had thrown a boulder into a calm lake.
At the same time, he also channeled the spiritual energy of the soil-cultivating bead outwards.
The earth spirit energy sealed within the soil-cultivating bead, through his spiritual energy conduction, seeped into the rock strata beneath the grotto along the ground, and was then released from the stone pillars at the earth vein nodes.
The two forces acted simultaneously.
From the inside out—the spirit of the earth.
From the outside in—the essence of water.
A wondrous scene appeared in Chu Yang's spiritual energy perception—although he couldn't see it, he could clearly feel the changes in the spiritual energy level.
When the water elemental energy came into contact with the evil energy on the stone wall, it produced a violent reaction. The evil energy, like oil being poured with boiling water, hissed and was forced out from the cracks in the rock, forming turbid clumps of gas that floated in the torrent of water elemental energy.
The earth elemental energy surged from the stone pillar, permeating in all directions along the veins of the earth. Wherever it passed, the evil energy remaining in the rocks was pushed out little by little—like pouring clean water into a sponge, the dirty water was squeezed out from the other side.
The two forces have formed an encirclement.
The evil spirits were caught in the middle, with nowhere to escape.
They began to converge on the only low-lying area in the cave—the entrance to the secret passage left behind when the snake demon escaped.
The grayish-white evil mist mixed with the black snake venom slime, forming a turbid evil current that gurgled and surged towards the entrance of the secret passage, like a huge vortex slowly swallowing all the filth in the cave.
The process took longer than Chu Yang had anticipated.
A quarter of an hour. A quarter of an hour. A quarter of an hour.
Zhu Bajie's spiritual energy output never stopped—Chu Yang could feel his spiritual energy reserves continuously decreasing, dropping from full to 70%, 50%, 40%...
"Bajie, can you still hold on?" Chu Yang shouted into the crack.
Pigsy's voice came from deep within the cave, panting but still full of energy.
“It’s holding up—hey—these filth things are really stubborn—and some are stuck in the corners of the ceiling and won’t come down—”
"Concentrate your spiritual energy on those corners. Don't worry about the ground; it's almost cleared already."
I know—
Another quarter of an hour passed.
According to Chu Yang's spiritual perception, the concentration of evil energy inside the cave had dropped to a very low level. It wasn't completely eliminated—some extremely stubborn remnants of evil energy, which had completely fused with the rock, remained and couldn't be completely cleared away in the short term—but compared to before, it was a world of difference.
The earth elemental energy within the Earth-Nourishing Bead was exhausted. Chu Yang felt the thumb-sized bead shatter into powder in his hand, scattering away in the wind.
"Alright." He stood up, brushing the dirt off his hands. "Bajie can come out now."
Heavy footsteps and heavy breathing came from the crack.
When Pigsy squeezed out of the crack, he looked completely different—he was soaking wet, his clothes clung to his body as if he had just been pulled out of the river. His face, hands, and neck were covered in grayish-black grime, his nose was red from the cold, and his eyebrows were covered in a layer of white frost.
But his pig eyes were bright.
"Done." He panted heavily and plopped down on the ground. "The cave is much cleaner now. Most of the filth was flushed into the secret passage. The remaining residue is no problem—once the Earth God comes to repair the nodes and the earth's spiritual energy resumes its circulation, that residue will naturally be washed away."
Sun Wukong emerged from the crack and poked the ground with his golden cudgel.
"There's no movement from the other side of the secret passage. The snake demon shows no sign of returning."
Chu Yang nodded.
"The final step. Repairing the ley line nodes. This step needs to be done by the Earth God. Brother Monkey, could you please bring the Earth God up from the foot of the mountain?"
Without saying a word, Sun Wukong somersaulted down the mountain.
In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, he returned, carrying a small, grayish-brown figure—the Earth God—which he had carried up the mountain by the back of the collar like a chick.
When the Earth God was put down, his legs were weak and he swayed several times before he could stand up.
"Great...Great Sage, could you please fly slower next time...My heart can't take it..."
He took a few breaths and then sniffed the air.
His entire face changed. "The evil aura... has faded? Much faded?"
“We’ve cleared most of the evil energy from the cave,” Chu Yang said, squatting down in front of him. “But the ley line nodes still need your repair. We’ve run out of Earth-Nourishing Beads; the final repairs depend on your connection to this land.”
The Earth God's eyes reddened again.
“Esteemed benefactors… what is this…”
He didn't finish speaking, then turned around, leaning on his small wooden cane, and limped towards the crack.
He stopped and looked back when he reached the crevice.
"The little god has gone inside. Repairing the node will take some time, at least half an hour, at most one or two hours. You all just wait outside."
Then he took a deep breath, straightened his small body that was only two feet tall, and stepped into the crevice.
After his figure disappeared into the darkness, a faint, earthy-yellow light gradually appeared deep within the crack.
That was the light of the earth's spirit.
……
The waiting time always seems exceptionally long.
The three of them found a relatively flat spot outside the crack and sat down.
Pigsy was exhausted. He had used up nearly 70% of his spiritual energy, equivalent to fighting a tough battle. Leaning against a withered pine tree trunk, he was snoring in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
Sun Wukong squatted on a rock, wiping the remaining snake blood off his golden cudgel with a leaf. He wiped it very carefully, wiping it inch by inch, as if he were grooming an old friend.
Chu Yang sat on the grass, closed his eyes, and circulated the Taiyi Nourishing Qi Technique to restore his spiritual energy.
The mountain wind blew from the ridge, passing through the branches of the dead pine trees, making a whistling sound, like someone playing a low-pitched flute deep in the pine forest.
The sun was already setting in the west. Looking out from the mountainside, you could see the entire Zao Hua Valley Basin spread out at your feet—the withered yellow fields, the grayish-white stream, and the village at the southern end with sparse smoke from its chimneys, all bathed in the warm light between gold and orange before dusk.
"Brother Monkey." Chu Yang opened his eyes.
"Um?"
"That snake ran away, do you think it will come back?"
Sun Wukong put the golden cudgel into his ear and tilted his head to think for a while.
"It's hard to say. Snake demons hold grudges. I, Old Sun, broke its belly scales and injured its internal organs; it won't forget that. But it's not stupid—it knows that coming back is suicide. The most likely scenario is that it will run off to find a new ley line to settle in, and once its cultivation has recovered or even become stronger, it will decide whether to return for revenge."
"What will happen to Jujube Blossom Valley after we leave? The Earth God's cultivation level can't stop it."
Sun Wukong glanced at him.
"You worry about too many things."
"It's not about worrying. It's about seeing things through to the end. What's the difference between helping halfway and not helping at all?"
Sun Wukong remained silent for a moment.
"What do you want to do?"
Chu Yang took out the octagonal bronze token from his pocket—the Huangfeng Ridge patrol token he had found in Huangfeng Cave.
"This is useless. But I'm thinking of something else—"
He rummaged through his storage bag for a while and took out the emerald green Wind Spirit Jade Token.
"This... You said it contains a wisp of wind spirit energy. If you crush it, it can release a strong gust of wind, with thirty percent of the power of the Samadhi Divine Wind."
"Yes. A one-time life-saving measure."
"What if I leave this to the Earth God? With this jade tablet, if the snake returns, he'll at least have a means of self-defense. The power of thirty percent of the Samadhi Divine Wind is enough to blow a severely injured snake demon several miles away, giving him time to escape or call for help."
Sun Wukong raised an eyebrow.
"You're willing to part with that? That thing is for your own survival."
Chu Yang flipped the jade tablet over and over in his hand twice.
"I have other things to save my life. Although I've only practiced the Invisibility Technique for a day, it can buy me two or three breaths in a critical moment, which is enough. The chances of me needing this jade tablet are slim. The chances of it being used by the Earth God are also slim—but if it is used, it could save the lives of an entire valley."
He placed the jade pendant on the stone beside him.
"value."
Sun Wukong stared at the emerald green jade tablet for a few moments, then said nothing more.
But his tail twitched slightly—a small gesture he only made when he was happy.
……
The Earth God stayed in the cave for nearly two hours.
The sun had completely set, leaving only a last, dark purple glow on the horizon, like a ribbon about to go out. The light in the forest quickly dimmed, and Black Pine Ridge returned to its original appearance—a silent, gloomy mountain covered with withered, black pine trees.
The yellowish-brown light deep within the crack remained undiminished for two hours.
Not only did it not go out, it became brighter and brighter.
From its initial faint glow, like a firefly, to its later gentle glow, like a lantern, and finally—a bright, earthy-yellow beam of light shot out from the crack, illuminating the ground several meters away outside.
The ground is shaking.
It wasn't the violent, destructive tremor that the snake demon had experienced before, but rather an extremely even, rhythmic pulsation, as if the earth's own heartbeat had returned to normal.
Chu Yang placed his hand on the ground and clearly felt the flow of the earth's spiritual energy.
It's completely different from what it was a few hours ago.
Previously, the earth's spiritual energy was cold and turbid, flowing slowly and sluggishly, like a culvert that was mostly clogged. Now—the spiritual energy has become gentle and pure, and its flow has accelerated considerably. Although it has not yet recovered to a fully healthy state, it is at least no longer that suffocating stagnant water.
More importantly, the direction of spiritual energy has changed.
Previously, the earth's spiritual energy flowed in a single direction from north to south—because the serpent demon was coiled at the node, only inhaling and not exhaling, so the spiritual energy only entered and did not leave. Now, the spiritual energy has begun to flow in both directions—radiating outward from the node while simultaneously converging towards the node from the outside, forming a cycle.
cycle.
The earth's energy circulation has been restored.
The beam of light lasted for about fifteen minutes before gradually weakening and eventually retreating back into the crack.
After a while, faint footsteps came from the crack.
The Earth God emerged from the crack.
His appearance has changed.
It wasn't a drastic change, but it was definitely different. A faint rosy glow had settled on her previously dry, chapped face, like someone who had been ill for a long time finally enjoying a bowl of hot porridge. The light in her small eyes had changed from dim to a steady, understated brightness—not dazzling, but full of spirit. (End of Chapter)