The Unexplored Path grave robbers brought great numbers of roosters into the mountain to raid tombs. Roosters and centipedes are natural enemies. The large and small centipedes within the ancient mausoleum first tried desperately to hide, but eventually, unable to bear the incessant crowing, they emerged to fight to the death, perfectly falling into the systematic trap laid by the Ban Shan Dao people. Those who survived the calamity were only the Six-Winged Centipede and a few offspring whose guts had been scared out of them.

Nine out of ten of the massive centipede population in Bottle Mountain were dead. This three-inch centipede, hidden among the pile of corpses in the Dan Well, was so terrified by the mountain roosters that its three life-spirits were thrown into utter chaos. It frantically burrowed in and out of the eye sockets, nostrils, ears, and mouths of the dried corpses and skeletons, unable to find a moment's peace. By sheer chance, it wriggled straight into the mouth of the seemingly dead Partridge Whistle.

Though Partridge Whistle possessed extraordinary courage and intelligence, if he were to alarm that indestructible, unsmashable Six-Winged Centipede, it would surely be a dead end for him in the Dan Well. However, allowing this small centipede to swim into his mouth was tantamount to waiting for death with open eyes. He had no choice but to steel his resolve. Just as the centipede crawled to his lips, its two antennae brushing against his tongue, he slightly tilted his head back and suddenly snapped his jaws shut, managing to bite the three-inch-plus creature cleanly in half.

Partridge Whistle’s strength was perfectly controlled; the bite was executed with hardly a sound, only a crisp k’ch’a when it broke. But the severed centipede head, though separated from the body, did not die immediately. It struggled twice more in his mouth, its palps and antennae fully extended, before finally falling still.

Partridge Whistle felt a numbness spread across his tongue and gums, knowing that the centipede had released its venom as it died. Although the venom hadn't pierced the lining of his mouth enough to dissolve flesh, keeping poison in his mouth was not an option. He quickly turned his head and spat the centipede head and a mouthful of thick, bloody saliva onto the pile of bones. Yet, the numbness on his tongue persisted, causing him secret apprehension—he was undoubtedly poisoned.

Unexpectedly, this slight movement from Partridge Whistle startled the Six-Winged Centipede. It was rubbing its wounds amidst the pile of medicinal powders and lichens. One couldn't tell what rare ingredients comprised those powders, but they possessed a marvelous efficacy for staunching blood and regenerating tissue. The centipede shook its carapace and flapped its wings, thrashing its body until it was completely coated in the powder. Its sieve-like wounds instantly healed and sealed over. It seemed to sense the disturbance in the Dan Well, suddenly twisting its body around, its mouthparts and antennae wildly shaking, and began scuttling its claws over the mound of dead bodies.

Just as Partridge Whistle was worrying about the centipede poison, he heard the Six-Winged Centipede rapidly approaching from the corner. He thought, This is truly the bitter frost hitting the rootless grass; misfortune always targets the light-hearted. Hua Ling and Old Yang were both dead in Bottle Mountain; he never imagined his own end would be here—this was where the Ban Shan Daoists met their doom!

But Partridge Whistle quickly composed himself. He held his breath and gently felt around, finding a human arm bone from a corpse. One end of the bone was broken off, quite sharp, making a perfect stiletto-like bone spike. He settled his plan: since he was faking death, he would maintain the pretense to the end. If it didn't move, he wouldn't move; but if the Six-Winged Centipede truly uncovered him in the pile of bodies, he would fight it to the death and drive this bone spike straight into its forehead.

Partridge Whistle, having accepted his doom, lay motionless amidst the corpses. He cautiously peeked out. He watched the giant centipede methodically crawl across the undulating mound of coffins, heading toward the other side of the Dan Well. A thought stirred in his mind: What fresh trickery is this? Now I can only meet change with constancy. I will watch it coldly and see what it intends to do before making my move.

He watched the centipede crawl up to a lacquered coffin painted with intricate gold inlay and suddenly stop. It coiled its body, opened its mouthparts, and began to writhe and gesture as if performing an elaborate dance before the coffin. Partridge Whistle watched, increasingly perplexed. Under the starlike lamp glow of the Dan Well, he could discern that the vivid painting on the massive lacquered coffin was still intact: several graceful women in ancient attire, situated among auspicious clouds and palatial towers, strumming pipa and blowing flutes—they looked like celestial maidens, absolutely otherworldly.

In ancient times, coffins were often painted with inlaid gold and colored depictions of immortals, intended to signify the final resting place of the deceased in the netherworld. It was unknown by which dynasty's master craftsman this lacquered coffin was made, but the expressions of the painted celestial maidens were so lifelike, and the artistic conception so powerfully evocative, that merely looking at it involuntarily inspired a transcendent feeling, as if one could hear the ethereal music of the celestial palace.

The Six-Winged Centipede circled the lacquered coffin several times, reluctant to leave for a long time, as if paying homage to the maidens in the painting. Suddenly, it extruded from its mouth a red pill the size of a longan, brighter than blood, faintly enveloped by a halo of light. The centipede repeatedly spat it out and then inhaled it, playing with it ceaselessly.

Partridge Whistle was greatly astonished to see the centipede inhaling and exhaling the red pill. A strange fragrance suddenly filled the Dan Well, causing a chill to creep down his spine. It turned out the Six-Winged Centipede’s external wounds had indeed healed, and now it was swallowing and expelling its inner elixir to mend its internal injuries. For any living creature that forms an inner elixir within its body, the time for its exhalation and absorption of vital energy always occurs at the convergence of Zi and Wu, when Yin and Yang are clearly delineated.

Partridge Whistle understood in his heart that everything in this world is preordained by the Great Dao, possessing the dual poles of Yin and Yang—it is truly the work of creation. Where there is Yin, there is Yang; whatever is born must also perish. Only the deities existing in vague, ethereal legends can achieve the Great Dao and completely transcend the cycle of life and death.

Whether human or other creatures, once born into this world, they are inevitably subject to the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death. This is why, since antiquity, many have abandoned their family fortunes and kin to dedicate their entire lives to seeking immortality and refining elixirs, purely for the sake of ascending and achieving golden body immortality, everlasting life, and existing in coexistence with the heaven, earth, sun, and moon. This impulse might stem from a fear of nature’s cruel laws.

In fact, this fear is not exclusive to humanity; all other beings in the world likewise cling to life and dread death, attempting to pry into the secrets of heaven and attain the Great Dao. Over thousands of years, the methods these creatures have sought for longevity have invariably centered on two types of elixirs: external and internal. The external elixir is forged from minerals like mercury and gold, but the internal elixir is far more mysterious, involving methods of Yin-Yang complementary nourishment or Qi refinement and absorption.

Considering the path of Qi refinement, it is essentially the process of cultivating an inner elixir by absorbing the essence of the sun and moon. The methods are countless, complex, and profound, difficult to fully enumerate, but most are deceptive tricks. Unless a creature encounters an exceedingly rare fortune, achievement is unlikely. Oddly enough, simple livestock like cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep often unknowingly develop concretions close to inner elixirs, such as bezoar (ox gallstone) or dog treasure, simply because they possess fewer distracting thoughts than other beings. However, because they are mere brutes, they are often unaware of the elixir forming within them and lack the consciousness to absorb and refine it, ultimately benefitting the butchers who slaughter them. When a butcher cleans an animal, finding a bezoar or donkey treasure within the viscera, and sells it to an herbal medicine collector, they can gain a considerable windfall.

Starting from the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a school of inner elixir practice called Xiuzhu Kanli, practiced by both men and women. It was based on the principle of “ox produces gallstone, dog forms treasure.” This method posited that the reason all beings are bound by birth, aging, sickness, and death is due to a physical knot within the body that governs lifespan. By absorbing the essence of the sun and moon, this muscular knot could be transformed into a true gall, and upon the perfection of this physical refinement, one could escape the cycle of life and death to become a Grand Unity Golden Immortal. This method of Qi absorption and respiration has circulated for thousands of years, and indeed, a very small number of people have managed to refine their inner core. At the end of their practice, they could form a blood-red elixir in their Dantian, but those who reached that stage still died; none seemed to live past a hundred, and whether they became true immortals after death remains unknown.

Unbelievably, the Six-Winged Centipede, hidden in the Dan Palace's medicinal well for many years and having consumed the residual elixir heads from the underground palace, had actually refined an inner elixir resembling a red pill. Its actions suggested it intended to absorb and exhale within the Dan Well a few more times, gathering its full strength before engaging the Raging Sun Roosters again.

A sudden thought struck Partridge Whistle: “This red pill is the Six-Winged Centipede’s life source; all its essence is gathered within it. Now that the opportunity is here, why not risk my life to seize the pill? Otherwise, if it swallows the pill back, who knows when it will expel it again. If I don't crush it to dust then, it will be impossible to kill.”

Partridge Whistle felt his tongue's sensation fading. He knew that another moment of hesitation meant the poison would certainly attack his heart, and by then, he would only be able to watch the Six-Winged Centipede fly up the Dan Well. Without further deliberation, he seized the timing. As the centipede turned its back to expel the red pill, he rapidly shoved the corpse covering him aside, leaped from the pile of dead bodies, and kicked a skull directly toward the Six-Winged Centipede.

This move was a feint. The skull he kicked whistled past the Six-Winged Centipede’s head and smashed into fragments against the well wall. The sudden noise indeed made the giant centipede tremble violently. A surge of Dantian energy was severed, and the red pill, suspended mid-air, immediately dropped onto the lid of a pitch-black coffin, spinning rapidly.

As Partridge Whistle executed his Qiankun Throw, his body sprang forward simultaneously, moving so fast it seemed his feet never touched the ground. By the time the centipede's elixir landed, he had traversed the distance in a few quick leaps and crouched down, snatching it from the coffin lid before it could roll off.

The Six-Winged Centipede regarded this pill as its life, but being heavily wounded, it was now as skittish as a startled bird. The skull hitting the well wall terrified it. A moment’s distraction caused it to drop the red pill. It immediately hunched over and tried to suck the pill back into its body. Who knew that in that split second, its inner elixir had been stolen! It flew into a frenzy, all its limbs and antennae twitching, and lunged toward Partridge Whistle.

The moment Partridge Whistle secured the red pill, he did not pause for even an instant. Using the momentum, he continued running forward while simultaneously ripping the coffin lid lying on the ground backward, using it as a shield right in front of the charging Six-Winged Centipede.

By the time the centipede tore through the rotten coffin lid, Partridge Whistle had circled halfway around the Dan Well and was dashing diagonally toward the bronze elixir furnace situated in the center of the well floor. He knew that no matter how fast his movement, he could not contend with the Six-Winged Centipede in a deep, iron-barrel-like well. His only option was to find a place to evade its cutting edge. Having lost its inner elixir, the centipede would not survive more than an hour and three quarters. In his flight, he saw that the elixir furnace was the only perfect refuge.

Partridge Whistle had no time to look back to see how close the pursuing centipede was. Holding his breath, he bolted toward the furnace. He moved six feet in one stride, over twelve feet in two. His figure flickered, and in a few bounds, he was at the furnace. He split into a wide horse stance, executed a Kui Xing Kick, and used his leg strength to heave the more-than-two-hundred-pound lid of the bronze furnace upward, creating a gap just large enough for a person. He then flipped himself into the air, rolling through the opening in the furnace lid and into the interior.

Immediately, the bronze lid crashed down with a deafening CLANG. Following that, he heard the Six-Winged Centipede slam against the bronze furnace, creating a muffled thud. All this happened in the blink of an eye. As Partridge Whistle rolled into the furnace, before his body even hit the bottom wall, he heard the furnace lid close above him, coinciding with the sound of the centipede crashing against the furnace.

The interior of the bronze furnace acted as a superb echo chamber. The impact sounded like a bronze bell booming incessantly in his ears. Partridge Whistle frantically covered his ears. At that moment, he heard the sound of a hundred feet scratching against the copper skin outside the furnace—a chaotic, grating ch’ch’k’ch’k’a sound. No matter how tightly he clamped his hands over his ears, that dense, rustling noise seemed unimpeded, drilling directly into his skull.