153: Chapter 153 The Seventeenth Day

Chen Zhen opened his eyes from Cultivating.

The light in the Secret Base had turned a dark gold.

It was the seventeenth day since the flower had bloomed; the withered yellow at the edges of the petals had spread to the middle.

But the seed at the heart of the flower remained bright, like an inextinguishable lamp.

He used Internal Vision on his Dantian.

The seed was still spinning, and those patterns were still glowing.

The light spot next to the pattern was also glowing—today was the seventy-third.

Going from fifty-three to seventy-three took five days. Four points a day, occasionally five; it was slow, but very steady.

Chen Zhen stood up and walked to the flower.

The petals trembled gently in the breeze, and the withered yellow at the edges had expanded a little more.

He reached out to touch the petals; they were warm, but a bit cooler than before. The flower was about to wither.

Shen Nian was crouching nearby, holding a magnifying glass to check the back of the leaves.

"Master, something new has grown under the flower bud."

Chen Zhen leaned in. At the base of the calyx, there was a tiny bump, green and very small; if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't be able to see it at all.

"What is this?"

Chen Zhen stared at the bump for a long time.

"A new sprout."

Shen Nian was stunned for a moment. "The flower hasn't withered yet, and it's already growing a new sprout?"

Chen Zhen didn't speak.

The growth pattern of this seedling could no longer be judged by common sense.

It was in a rush.

The flower was withering, the sprout was growing; it was in the middle of a transition.

He stood up and walked back to the center of the array, taking out the three jade plaques and placing them in front of him.

He reached out to touch them, injecting spiritual power, and all three jade plaques lit up at once.

The system panel popped up a notification.

[Composite Rune Array · Strength +5% · Current 375%]

[jade plaque Resonating · Progress 3/4]

[east mountain jade tablet · Resonating · Current 73/100]

He withdrew his hand. Twenty-seven more to go.

Zhou Rui walked over and sat down opposite him, holding a notebook in his hand.

The notebook was thick, and the cover was inscribed with "Talisman Notes" in neat handwriting; it was something he had written himself.

"Master, I've been researching an advanced version of the Tracking Talisman recently. The results are unstable; sometimes I can track it, and sometimes I can't."

Chen Zhen took the notebook and flipped through it.

Zhou Rui had written down every failed attempt clearly: the rune structure, the flow of spiritual power, the ratio of Materials, and an analysis of the failure—it looked like a research report.

"Look here." Chen Zhen pointed to one of the pages. "The flow of spiritual power breaks at the third layer. The break is at this node; the Materials aren't pure, so the spiritual power can't pass through."

"The cinnabar. The cinnabar I used was given to me by Old Lin, and the purity isn't high enough."

Chen Zhen took the small porcelain bottle from his Storage Space and handed it to him. "Use this. It's from an old mine."

Zhou Rui took it, opened the lid, and sniffed it. "Okay. I'll try again."

He stood up and walked back to the workbench to start mixing the ink.

In the afternoon, Chen Zhen went out.

He went to Li Xiuying's house in the east of the city.

The old lady was sunbathing in the courtyard, holding that Talisman in her hand; its color was light green.

She heard the door and opened her eyes.

"You're here?" She sat up and put the Talisman into her pocket.

"I'm doing well. I can sleep and eat. I even went to the vegetable market for a stroll yesterday."

Chen Zhen took a few new Talismans from his pocket and handed them to her.

Li Xiuying took them and looked. "You made new ones again?"

"Yes. The effects are better."

She nodded and put the Talismans away.

"Stay for dinner. I'm making dumplings."

Chen Zhen shook his head.

Li Xiuying looked at him. "You never eat."

Chen Zhen didn't speak.

Li Xiuying waited for two seconds and sighed. "Then come next time. I'll make them."

She stood up and walked him to the door.

"Chen Zhen, the light on you is brighter than when you came last time."

Chen Zhen turned back to look at her.

The old lady smiled. "Are you almost at the end?"

Chen Zhen was stunned. "What?"

"The thing you're busy with." She pointed to his chest. "Are you almost at the end?"

Chen Zhen looked at her.

An eighty-seven-year-old woman, illiterate, with no Cultivation, yet she could see.

She saw him busy, saw the light shining, and saw that it was almost at the end.

"Almost."

Li Xiuying nodded. "That's good. Come eat dumplings when you're done."

Chen Zhen nodded.

After leaving Li Xiuying's house, Chen Zhen went to the old street. The door of the Bookstore was open, and Grandpa Wu was reading an old book behind the counter.

"Grandpa Wu, do you have any information about the Nanshan area?"

Grandpa Wu looked up. "Nanshan? Which Nanshan?"

"The one in Hunan. Fu Mountain."

Grandpa Wu put down the book, stood up, walked to the bookshelf, flipped through it for a while, and pulled out a thin booklet.

"Old Gu's notes, the last one. See for yourself."

Chen Zhen took it and opened it.

The handwriting was sloppy, and there were corrections in many places.

Flipping to the middle, one page was titled "Investigation of Fu Mountain in Nanshan."

"In Nanshan, there is a mountain named Fu Mountain. On the mountain, there is stone; on the stone, there is a Talisman. It is similar to East Mountain and North Mountain. In the autumn of 1987, I went to explore it and found a stone tablet on the mountainside, with a stone box beneath it. Inside the box was a jade plaque, similar to the east mountain jade tablet. However, the jade plaque was already cracked, and its spiritual power was completely lost. I suspect it was destroyed by the ancients."

The jade plaque was cracked. Its spiritual power was completely lost.

Chen Zhen stared at this line of text for a long time.

The nanshan jade tablet had long been shattered.

Then what was it that Master Liu buried back? He continued reading.

"The broken plaque can no longer be used. However, its form remains, and it can serve as a marker. I glued the broken plaque back together, placed it back in the box, and sealed it in its original place. To await those who come after."

Shen Zhiyuan had glued the broken plaque back together and put it back.

The one Master Liu's father dug up was that very broken plaque.

The one he buried back was also that broken plaque.

Chen Zhen closed the booklet.

The jade plaque was broken.

But the nanshan jade tablet in his hand, which he had obtained from Master Liu, was complete; it wasn't cracked.

He was stunned.

He took out the nanshan jade tablet and examined it carefully.

The surface was smooth, with no cracks, and the light was stable. When spiritual power was injected, the reaction was normal.

It wasn't the broken one.

It was a complete one.

The one Shen Zhiyuan had glued together was still under Fu Mountain. The one in his hand was another one.

Two nanshan jade tablets.

He stood up. "Grandpa Wu, thank you."

Grandpa Wu waved his hand. "Go on, hurry up."

Chen Zhen pushed the door open and left.

At night, in the Secret Base.

Chen Zhen sat cross-legged in the center of the array, placing the nanshan jade tablet in front of him.

The three jade plaques—North Mountain, West Mountain, and Nanshan—their milky white surfaces were shimmering with a faint light.

He stared at them for a long time.

There were two nanshan jade tablets: one complete one in his hand, and one broken one underground.

Whose was the one in his hand?

He took out Shen Zhiyuan's notes and flipped to the page about Fu Mountain in Nancheng.

"I suspect someone took it before me." Someone had taken it first.

The one taken was the complete one.

When Shen Zhiyuan went later, he saw an empty stone box.

He didn't know who had taken it, but he had carved words in the cave and left his name.

Chen Zhen looked at the nanshan jade tablet.

The one Master Liu's father dug up was the broken one.

The complete one was not in Master Liu's hands.

It was in his hands. Was it obtained from Shen Nian?

He thought about it.

Shen Nian had given him a pile of things, Shen Zhiyuan's belongings, but there was no jade plaque among them. So where did it come from?

He activated the system panel and flipped to the task page.

[nanshan jade tablet · Origin Unknown]

[Energy Imprint Detected]

[Tracking...]

[Energy Imprint Pointing To: North Mountain]

North Mountain.

Chen Zhen was stunned.

He stood up and walked to the blackboard, drawing a circle at the location of North Mountain.

North Mountain.

The nanshan jade tablet in his hand was pointing to North Mountain.

He turned back to look at Yun Xi.

"North Mountain, what else is there?"

Yun Xi thought for a moment. "North Mountain rune stone. The stone tablet. And the stone box you dug up. There is nothing else."

Chen Zhen shook his head. "There is. There is one more place."

"Where?"

"Under the stone tablet. Dig down, more than a meter."

Yun Xi was stunned.

Chen Zhen turned and walked back to the center of the array.

After the east mountain jade tablet resonance is complete, go to North Mountain.