With that, Li Yundong finished speaking, and Lin You immediately brightened: "True Master Li, you have a way?"

Li Yundong smiled faintly and said, "Step back a bit further."

Lin You looked at him in confusion, half-believing and half-doubting, and retreated several meters.

Li Yundong had previously swept the dust from the stone door and noticed that the patterns on it were extremely similar in size and shape to the fan leaves of the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan. Moreover, Li Yundong carefully counted, and there were exactly forty-nine rectangular grooves on the door, matching precisely the forty-nine leaves of the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan!

Most importantly, there were clear intaglio inscriptions within these grooves. Although Li Yundong couldn't read them, he felt they closely resembled the Diamond Sutra characters engraved on the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan.

Li Yundong mobilized his True Essence to commune with the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan. Before long, the fan leaped out of the cloth pouch on its own, its leaves snapping open instantly. Then, all the leaves within the ribs jumped out, one by one, fitting perfectly into the grooves of the stone door. With every leaf inserted, Li Yundong heard a krak sound of machinery engaging, and the stone door trembled slightly.

Not long after, all the leaves were embedded in the grooves. A golden light erupted from each leaf, and the golden Sanskrit characters upon them materialized in the air, resembling a surging wall of stupas, glistening magnificently.

This stupa wall surged for a moment, rapidly transforming into the forms of Vajra Arhats one after another, then swiftly vanishing. All the golden light disappeared, and the fan leaves embedded in the wall flew back, swish-swish, into the ribs of the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan.

Once all the leaves were back in place, the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan automatically snapped shut with a swish, landing by Li Yundong's side with a thud, motionless like a majestic stone pillar.

Lin You, watching from not far away, was dumbfounded. He stared at the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan beside Li Yundong, his eyes filled with envy and jealousy, unable to speak for a moment. He was gazing blankly at the scene when suddenly he heard a series of kaka mechanical sounds. After a short while, with a loud hong long, the stone door shot upward, kicking up a dense cloud of smoke and dust that quickly engulfed the two men in the passageway.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Lin You covered his nose, swatting at the swirling dust, and coughed, "True Master Li, is that perhaps the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan?"

Li Yundong also covered his nose and waved his hand, unleashing a powerful surge of energy that dispersed all the surrounding dust. He said in a deep voice, "So what if it is?"

Lin You detected the intense vigilance and hostility in Li Yundong's tone, and he gave a dry laugh. "Nothing, I was just asking casually." As he spoke, his gaze lingered unwillingly on the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan beside Li Yundong.

Li Yundong rewrapped the Seven Treasures Spirit-Guiding Fan and placed it on his back, taking an oil lamp in his hand, and said, "Let's go."

Lin You looked eager and excited, saying, "I wonder what's inside?"

His whole life had been dedicated to revitalizing his sect. After coming to the Great Continent, he realized that the martial arts he practiced were far from supreme, which greatly disappointed him. He then thought about muddling through at the Fox Zen Sect to snatch some benefits that could strengthen his sect and improve his own cultivation.

Now that his long-cherished wish was about to be fulfilled, even though he was an older cultivator, he couldn't help but reveal his delight, losing his composure completely.

Li Yundong carried the oil lamp and walked in, maintaining a certain distance from Lin You throughout the path.

The two walked one after the other along the passage, finding the air growing cooler and colder, the passage wider, and the path steeper and more inclined. After walking several hundred meters this way, Li Yundong found a series of steps appearing before him.

He couldn't help but marvel in his heart: Has the Fox Zen Sect hollowed out the entire mountain? What a monumental undertaking!

After climbing upward for about another hundred meters, Li Yundong suddenly found the space opening up before him, and he arrived in a rather spacious stone chamber.

This chamber was about forty to fifty square meters, paved with bluestone slabs, and the walls were coated with a waterproof sealant. More than a dozen shelves were placed around the edges of the chamber, each over two meters high, arranged in a circle, displaying various vessels, jade, scrolls, and paintings.

Li Yundong curiously walked over and picked up one of the scrolls. Opening it, he saw that the paper was yellowed, featuring an ink wash painting of several solemn and majestic immortal beings. Lin You leaned over for a look and was immediately shocked, exclaiming, "The Celestial King Presenting Sons Scroll! This is Wu Daozi's Celestial King Presenting Sons Scroll!! They say no authentic works by the Painting Sage have survived; could this one be real? If it is, it's worth at least hundreds of millions!!"

Li Yundong didn't understand antiques, but he knew the item in his hand was priceless. He quickly rolled the scroll closed and placed it back on the shelf.

However, when he took the item, he didn't apply any force to the shelf, but when he put it back, he inadvertently exerted a slight downward force. Although small, this force was enough to make the long-standing, long-rotted wooden shelf collapse with a hong long.

One of the rotten wooden legs of the shelf instantly disintegrated, tilting sideways with a zi ya sound and toppling forward. Li Yundong reacted swiftly, reaching out to steady the shelf, but as soon as his hand grasped it, the spot he touched instantly crumbled into dust, and the items upon it crashed down with a clatter.

These items fell onto the adjacent shelf, causing it to tilt and fall, which in turn smashed into the next one, creating a chain reaction like Mino’s dominoes. The shelves collapsed one after another, the objects scattering with a crash. Jade pinged onto the ground and shattered to pieces. In an instant, the room resembled a scene after a Red Guard rampage—utter chaos!

Li Yundong and Lin You were stunned, staring at their surroundings dumbfounded, unable to speak for a long time!

After a long pause, only when the last shelf, precariously leaning for a moment, finally crashed down with a hong long, did Li Yundong recover. His eye twitched a few times, and he thought with a creeping sense of dread: Good heavens, this must be the most expensive set of Mino’s dominoes ever assembled in the history of the world!

Lin You also let out a great shout and rushed to the littered ground, rummaging everywhere. He picked up a jade carving, only to see it completely smashed beyond recognition. He opened a scroll, only to find a hole punched through the painting when it fell!

Lin You turned to Li Yundong with a bitter smile and said, "True Master Li, what skills you possess! That one move just now destroyed at least a billion! And that’s in US dollars!"

Li Yundong forced a dry laugh. "This, this was just an accident! They, they aren't going to make me pay, are they?"

Lin You paced around the room, shaking his head and sighing whenever he saw a broken antique. Li Yundong looked at the scattered remains of antiques covering the floor; his scalp tingled, and he didn't want to stay another second. He said, "Let's leave quickly. If you don't come, I'm leaving."

Saying that, he took the oil lamp and continued up the passageway.

Lin You sighed and followed. After walking another ten minutes or so along the passage, their path suddenly opened up, and they arrived in a large circular room.

This room was a dead end, empty all around except for a Yin-Yang meditation cushion in the center. The walls were covered with characters carved in ancient Seal Script. These characters had all been chiseled into the stone, their strokes elegant and unrestrained, their lines powerful. Although Li Yundong didn't understand calligraphy, he still felt an imposing aura of sweeping brushwork rushing toward him.

Lin You stepped into the room and froze: "No way out? How is this possible? Where are all the magic treasures and secret manuals of the Fox Zen Sect? Where did they hide them?"

Both shocked and anxious, he lit all the oil lamps on the walls with his own, frantically searching the room for an exit or mechanism, but after searching everywhere, he found no anomaly whatsoever.

Lin You exclaimed in frustration, "How can this be! How can there be no way out! It’s impossible, there must be another chamber! The Fox Zen Sect couldn't be this meager!"

Li Yundong watched Lin You circle the large stone chamber like a madman, and he said in a deep voice, "Stop looking, there won't be anything else!"

Lin You suddenly spun around, his face contorted with fury, and shouted, "Impossible! This information absolutely cannot be wrong, otherwise why would the Six Great Sects attack the Fox Zen Sect! So many sects coming to pick up scraps! The Fox Zen Sect must have learned the Six Great Sects were attacking and hidden these magic treasures. Damn it, it must be so!"

As he spoke, Lin You angrily punched the ground, causing the floor to tremble slightly.

Li Yundong glanced at him and silently shook his head. His only concern was not being able to reach the Fox Zen Sect in time.

But looking around, he genuinely couldn't discern any exit, so he shifted his attention to the characters on the wall and began reciting them silently in his heart.

At first, he found the characters incoherent, but after reading them several times, he realized they had to be read from right to left, and top to bottom—the most ancient reading style.

The larger characters read: "The of the First Turn resembles a precious pearl, spirit permeates the body through mountains and rivers, the universe. Beneath the red lotus leaf, the elixir nest is hidden, the crimson water flows into the Nine Hou Pearl."

Li Yundong silently recited the poem once, not fully grasping the meaning, so he continued reading the annotations written in smaller characters below.

It stated: The work of the Inner Elixir begins with One and completes in Nine. One is the source from which all things spring. Heaven generates Water in One, Earth generates Fire in Two, Heaven generates Wood in Three, Earth generates Metal in Four, Heaven generates Earth in Five—the sequence of the Five Elements begins with One. Therefore, the work of the Inner Elixir also begins with One and completes in Nine, as Nine is the extreme of the Yang number. When the count reaches Nine, the Dao Fruit is attained.

Upon reading this, Li Yundong's heart suddenly gave a violent jolt, and he unconsciously opened his mouth wide, secretly exclaiming: Is this actually a scripture on cultivation?!

Li Yundong quickly continued reading, and indeed, the following lines stated: Man has a body, formed from the essence of the father and the blood of the mother in ** intercourse; this is the union of Form. The Elixir descends, formed from the Heart Fire and Kidney Water in ** intercourse; this is the union of Qi. Hence it is said: The union of Form gives rise to man; the union of Qi completes the Elixir.

Reading this far, Li Yundong couldn't help but clap his hands in admiration!

Since achieving Foundation Establishment, he had reviewed numerous cultivation manuals, but none explained the concept of the Inner Elixir with perfect clarity. Some were overly esoteric, shrouded in mist, while others were too obscure, leaving one bewildered.

But this single sentence explained precisely how a person comes to be, and how the Inner Elixir forms!

How does a person come into being? Simply, through the intercourse of a man and a woman—this is the sexual union, thus called xing jiao (form intercourse). How does the Inner Elixir form? Through the union of the Heart Fire and Kidney Water among the five organs' qi—thus called qi jiao (qi intercourse)!

Lu Dongbin also wrote a poem: "The body contains its own universe of heaven and earth; the heart is like heaven, the kidney is like earth." This shows that the union of Heart and Kidney qi is the method of cultivation where heaven and earth merge into one!

The moment Li Yundong understood this principle, it was as if a valve opened in his mind, and with a hong long, all his knowledge cohered. It felt as if a basin of hot water was poured over him from head to toe—a moment of sudden enlightenment that filled him with immense excitement!

Li Yundong roared inwardly: Which extraordinary Great Cultivator wrote this, to explain the process of cultivation so clearly, so concisely! Amazing, truly amazing! This must be the writing of a great Daoist cultivator, and this text must be an unparalleled treasure trove for cultivation!

Excited, Li Yundong’s eyes widened as he continued reading the characters on the wall. Below, larger characters were inscribed: "The Second Turn of Yang concludes to begin the formation of Yin; Kidney light and Heart fluid combine as Ding and Ren. The spirit pearl rushes like lightning to the East Sea; timely sparks of spiritual light illuminate the Purple Gold."

Following this were explanations in smaller script. Li Yundong finally reached the Ninth Turn, where it stated: "Nine Turns grant Dao Fruit fully realized, Three Thousand merits achieve immortal status. Golden Book and Jade Scroll convey the decree of Huangdi, treading on auspicious clouds, grasping the Ninth Heaven!"

Reading this, the last thing that caught Li Yundong's eye was a line inscribed by the author of the carvings.

This line was written in highly cursive script. At a glance, Li Yundong felt an atmosphere of untamed arrogance and disdain sweeping toward him.

It read: "In the fifteenth year of Emperor Xizong of Tang, Master Chen Pu of the Mud Pellet created the Nine Turns Golden Elixir Art. This art seizes the creation of heaven and earth and is an unparalleled secret treasure for cultivation. My heart yearned for it but could not attain it. However, I expended all my effort, wandering across the Divine Land for more than ten years, and fully recorded it here in the third year of Qianhua during the Later Liang Dynasty."

After these words, Li Yundong finally saw the inscription's signature. The signature was written in a flamboyant, domineering hand of four characters: Tianji Xuan Hu (Mysterious Fox of Heavenly Secrets)!!!

========================================== Three chapters tomorrow! H