Chapter 507 - 476: The Youyou Deer Call, Eating Wild Apples

In the mine, the old woman cried out, "My twenty-third grandson? I have twenty-three grandsons already?"

Zhang Chen stammered and said in a small voice, "Grandma, Seventh Uncle had another child a while back. You now have eight sons and thirty-six grandsons."

At this, he fought to suppress the panic welling up inside him. He carefully crawled forward on his knees, assuming a posture of childlike affection as he faced the old woman. "Grandma, I was worried about you... AARGH!"

The words had barely left his mouth when he cried out in pain.

A wildly growing vine had shot out of nowhere and lashed across Zhang Chen’s back, sending him sprawling. The sharp CRACK of breaking bones echoed through the air.

If a Silver Flood Dragon hadn’t flown by at that exact moment and severed the vine, Zhang Chen would have suffered more than just broken bones.

He would have been whipped to death on the spot!

But even so, the blow left Zhang Chen grievously wounded on the ground, unable to rise.

He was an Innate Second Transformation Martial Artist who had also reached the Foundation Establishment Stage in his cultivation. His physique was exceptionally robust. Outside this place, a Cultivator like him, who practiced both Immortal and Martial paths, could even punch above his weight and battle an ordinary Divinity Transformation expert or an Innate Third Transformation Martial Artist.

But here, Zhang Chen was as fragile as glass.

Sprawled on the ground, Zhang Chen was terrified. He opened his mouth, and just like the old woman, he began coughing up clots of dark red blood.

"Grandma!" Zhang Chen cried out, his voice full of pain and strain.

The old woman remained seated cross-legged on the ground, her gaze icy and vacant.

Countless blood-red filaments covered her eyeballs, making them look as if they were cracked at first glance.

She let out a dry chuckle, as if she hadn’t heard Zhang Chen’s cries at all. Or perhaps she had, and simply didn’t care.

"I don’t just have twenty-three grandsons..." Her withered body seemed to hold an endless supply of blood. She kept spitting it out as she muttered, "I have eight sons, thirty-six grandsons... So many, so many... Hehehe... HAHAHA!"

The blood gradually stained half of her body red.

On the other side of the cavern, Song Ciwan, in her state of Upright Shadowless, silently observed everything from the void.

But while Song Ciwan’s expression was serene, her mind was anything but calm!

The old woman had fallen into the various demonic illusions conjured by the Void Illusion Demon Sword, but she wasn’t the only one affected by them.

The caster, Song Ciwan, was also being influenced to some extent by the old woman’s Heart Demon!

Of course, Song Ciwan had the upper hand as the caster. Furthermore, the Samadhi True Fire and the Heart Demon Seed within her Sea of Consciousness would help her suppress the Heart Demon to the greatest extent, allowing her to emerge victorious in this battle of demonic wills.

Even so, if Song Ciwan’s own will wasn’t strong enough, the Samadhi True Fire and Heart Demon Seed could, at best, only ensure that her True Spirit wasn’t extinguished.

The battlefield of the Heart Demon is a zero-sum game. You either win or you lose. One careless move could result in a backlash that, even if it didn’t destroy your True Spirit, would leave you severely wounded.

The danger involved was more sinister than any battle Song Ciwan had ever experienced.

This was one of the reasons she rarely used the Void Illusion Demon Sword.

At this moment, the old woman in the physical mine was descending into madness, while Song Ciwan, hidden in the void, remained composed, her expression like still waters running deep.

Visions from the Heart Demon, carrying images from long ago, flashed through Song Ciwan’s Sea of Consciousness. Through them, she first learned the old woman’s name was Zhang Ping.

Zhang Ping. A name that evoked images of pastoral youth, of picking ferns in fields of duckweed.

Zhang Ping hadn’t been born old. She too had once been a girl of sixteen, brimming with youth, who yearned for the beauty of life and the grandeur of the world beyond.

’When did it start? When did Zhang Ping begin to change?’

She became someone who had lost her name. She went from being Miss Zhang Shiba to Cai Feng Hall Master, and then later, Grandma Zhang, the Ancestor, Madam Zhang...

People gradually came to call her Mother, Grandmother, Ancestor...

Shiba Elders, Shiba Madam, Master of the Skill Transmission Pavilion, Preaching Hall Master...

Later still, she went from being the glorious Master of the Skill Transmission Pavilion and Preaching Hall Master of the Chuzhou Zhang Family to a nameless old woman in the Giant Spirit Realm.

She became a schemer who deceived, plundered, and stole... who would stop at nothing. All for the sake of... for the sake of... ’For the sake of what?’

Zhang Ping sat cross-legged at a bend in the mine tunnel. The amount of blood on her grew, gradually staining her entire body red and pooling on the ground beneath her.

Zhang Ping burst into laughter, a long, drawn-out sound that she couldn’t seem to stop.

"Hehehe... HAHAHA! I have eight sons and thirty-six grandsons! How could there be so many? How could there be so many?"

"Who wants to have children? Who wants to give birth?! I don’t want to! I’m not a brood sow, why should I have to bear so many children?"

She slammed her hand on the ground in a fury. The force of her Palm Power struck Zhang Chen, who lay before her. With a BAM, he was sent flying three feet, crashing into the cavern wall.

Now, Zhang Chen was even more grievously wounded.

His eyes were wide, unable to speak or resist. He was hanging on by a single thread, his mind reeling in shock, hovering on the brink of death.

But Zhang Ping suddenly tilted her head back and began to sing in a delicate voice, "With a gentle cry, the deer graze on the wild southernwood. I have a fine guest, let us play the zithers and blow the pipes... Ee-hee-yo, play the zithers and blow the pipes, yo..."

The song was melodious and beautiful, a stark contrast to her current aged and withered appearance.

Her thoughts drifted back to a time long ago.

’That’s right. Why did I have so many children?’

’Because... because my name is Zhang.’

The Zhang Family existed in the cracks of the Nine Provinces. Chuzhou, for all its merits, was but a tiny scrap of land, poor in both resources and territory.

Though called a province, Chuzhou was fractured, possessing only a sliver of its ancient prestige.

The Zhang Family was an ancient house, barely clinging to life from a long-gone era. They were unwilling to lose their noble glory, and even more unwilling to integrate into the modern Nine Provinces and descend into obscurity.

’So, how were they to break this impasse?’

’And if the clan produced no peerless Celestial Pride, no one who could ride the winds and part the waves to turn the tide, what then?’

Then there was only one solution: procreation.

Yes, the clan elders’ decision was to breed without restraint.

They stepped down from their high pedestal as a noble house. Everyone in the clan, male or female, was to take multiple spouses and breed without restraint!

Men took wives and concubines; women took husbands and male consorts.

At sixteen, Zhang Ping, priding herself on her noble bloodline, refused to bow her head and casually take husbands. She planned to leave a note, take up her sword, and venture into the Nine Provinces to seek her own fortune.

But on the day she was to leave, her plans were leaked by an older clan sister.

The clan elders laid a Heaven and Earth Net to trap her. Within the array of the Heaven and Earth Net were ten male consorts, carefully selected for her by the elders.

And then... and then... within the Celestial Net Illusion Realm, Zhang Ping was lost in a dizzying world of carnal delights.

’The indulgences of the Mortal World are so fun, aren’t they? Once you fall, you can never get back up.’

When she finally left the Illusion Realm, she had somehow left her free spirit behind. She complied with the elders’ wishes, taking husbands and consorts, remaining in the clan to bear children and propagate the next generation.

She continued her Cultivation, advancing through the ranks, until the day the Spirit Realm Secret Realm opened!