Chapter 41: The World Inside the Pot

Gao Tian placed the Pot in a well-lit spot and leaned in to examine the inside.

The Third Floor of the Living Apartment was itself the ultimate supernatural phenomenon, capable of suppressing the Killing Rules of other ghosts. Gao Tian didn't have to worry about suffering a backlash from the Pot.

He could barely make out the scenery at the bottom: the depths of a miniature cave. An exquisite skeleton the size of a figurine sat before an uneven rock face. Its clothes were rotted to tatters, and it remained in the meditating posture it had assumed right before death. Weeds and a trickling stream covered the ground, while the wall behind the skeleton was densely carved with tiny characters. But the cave interior was so small to begin with that deciphering the writing on the rock was nearly impossible.

What was this?

Had Xu Yuan bought a figurine of a cave-dwelling immortal and stuck it at the bottom of the Pot?

Gao Tian changed his angle and turned on his flashlight. He could still barely make out the five largest ancient characters: "Left by True Lord Wanfa."

True Lord Wanfa?

The name of this skeleton when it was alive—its Daoist title must have been True Lord Wanfa.

Judging by the name, he sounded incredibly powerful.

No.

Gao Tian couldn't shake the feeling that everything at the bottom of the Pot—the corpse, the textures on the rock wall, even the ripples in the water and the weeds—was simply too detailed.

At a glance, it looked identical to the real thing. The closer he looked, the more lifelike it appeared, completely blurring the line between a model and reality.

This wasn't a model at all; these were real objects and a real person. The entire cave, along with the actual corpse sitting inside it, had been shrunk to the size of an ornament through some secret art and placed at the bottom of this Pot.

If True Lord Wanfa had genuinely been shrunk and placed inside, the question arose: why had Xu Yuan collected this Pot? He couldn't possibly have just wanted an eye-catching figurine for display.

It had to hide a secret concerning this True Lord Wanfa.

Emboldened by the safety of the Living Apartment, Gao Tian hesitantly reached his hand toward the bottom of the Pot, attempting to fish True Lord Wanfa's entire skeleton out of the cave.

However, the moment his fingers touched the skeleton, they passed straight through its body and the rock wall behind it, pressing against the cold porcelain of the Pot's inner wall.

Like the moon's reflection in water, or a flower in a mirror.

The cave at the bottom of the Pot was a projection. It could only be viewed with the naked eye; a finger would pass right through it.

Now he couldn't even touch it.

Gao Tian still didn't give up. True Lord Wanfa's title, his meditating posture, and the rotting garments on his body clearly marked him as a man of ancient times.

He had read his fair share of Qidian novels—mysterious grandpas lived inside rings, waiting for a fated person to put them on before immediately passing down peerless cultivation methods and transmitting spiritual energy.

But he had never heard of anyone storing an expert's secret manuals and corpse inside a pot.

Furthermore, this era was far crueler than any web novel. Even if a true heavenly immortal descended, they would likely struggle to solve the predicament humanity faced.

Unwilling to give up, Gao Tian slowly lowered his mobile phone into the Pot. He adjusted the camera angle to photograph the microscopic characters carved into the rock wall.

With the screen submerged, Gao Tian moved his arm by feel, snapping several photos from different positions before pulling the phone back out.

Opening the photo gallery, he found exactly what he expected. Although the mobile phone had captured images of the text, the lighting made them a blurry mess. Aside from a general outline and a handful of characters, it was impossible to read.

Fortunately, this was the age of AI. He immediately fed the photos into AI restoration software. It quickly filled in the characters the human eye couldn't decipher, generating a complete reconstruction of the ancient text. It even conveniently translated the contents into modern vernacular.

Now he could finally read what was written behind True Lord Wanfa.

Thank God for modern technology.

Original text:

When I was seven years of age, my entire estate was slaughtered by a Fierce Ghost. I alone survived as a solitary orphan. Though I appealed to the authorities, the yamen was full of foolish and arrogant men who refused to acknowledge the existence of ghosts and spirits, or perhaps they feared its ferocity and dared not oppose it.

That many-eyed, long-armed ghost murdered over thirty of my kin. This hatred is carved into my bones and engraved on my heart, never to be forgotten until my dying breath.

Thereafter, I wandered destitute and alone until I took the jianghu's greatest hero as my master. After thirty years of bitter cultivation, I mastered the supreme art of the Crimson Sun Palm. Wherever my palm wind struck, monuments shattered and boulders split like rotting fat. The student surpassed the master, and all of my contemporaries were astonished.

Just as I sought out that Fierce Ghost to avenge a twenty-year grudge, sudden disaster struck—

One day, returning from slaying wickedness and bearing a severed head to report my success, I found that inside and outside the mountain gates, over a hundred people—from my honored master and fellow disciples down to the handymen—had perished overnight. Their heads were half-severed, dangling from their necks. The scene mirrored the handiwork of that ghost from years ago.

I sat alone amid the severed limbs, deep in thought throughout the long night. Twenty years of bitter cultivation and my vow of revenge were, in the face of a Fierce Ghost, no more than a toddler swinging a branch—utterly unable to withstand a single blow.

Yet my heart remained unyielding. If martial arts cannot slay evil, are there no Daoist paths to immortality in this world? Though I know this road is harder than ascending to the heavens, my hatred fills the vast firmament—how could I willingly give up? Since ghosts exist, there must be sects that vanquish demons. Only the arts of true immortals can suppress the netherworld.

I swear to suppress all Fierce Ghosts under heaven, to restore the order of Yin and Yang, and permanently separate the dark from the light. May the Nine Springs reclaim the vile spirits, and clarity return to the mortal realm.

Translation:

When I was seven, everyone in my estate was killed by a Fierce Ghost. I was left as a solitary orphan. But even after reporting it to the authorities, the officials were just a bunch of ignorant fools who absolutely refused to admit that monsters and ghosts existed in this world. Or maybe they simply didn't dare fight against it.

That ghost murdered over thirty members of my family. Its body was covered in eyeballs, and its arms were so long they dragged on the ground. I will never forget it for as long as I live.

After that, I endured endless hardships and became the disciple of the martial arts world's greatest hero. I spent about thirty years learning an incredibly profound martial art: the Crimson Sun Palm. A single strike of my palm could crack boulders as easily as slicing tofu. The student surpassed the master, and everyone in that era was shocked.

Just as I was flushed with success and preparing to begin my revenge plan—to find the Fierce Ghost that slaughtered my estate twenty years ago—something completely unexpected happened.

Following a sect mission to hunt down an evil thief, I was carrying the thief's head, returning to the sect to report in. But what awaited me across the mountain—whether my master, my martial uncles, my fellow disciples, or just ordinary handymen and outer disciples—was that all hundred-plus people had been slaughtered overnight. Their heads had been hacked half off, left dangling from their necks.

I couldn't have been more familiar with that scene; it was my nightmare repeating itself. It was the exact style of the many-eyed, long-armed ghost that had killed over thirty people in my estate back then.

I sat alone among the severed limbs of my fellow disciples and thought for a long time. It took me ages to finally accept the truth.

Profound martial arts might be highly effective against ordinary people, but in the face of a true Fierce Ghost, they were as laughable as a child waving a dead branch.

Those twenty years of time, my peerless martial arts, my desire for revenge—in the face of the real thing, they all vanished like a bubble.

But I still didn't give up.

If martial arts were no longer enough to fight Fierce Ghosts, did immortal sects exist in this world? Was there a method to become an immortal?

Although I knew this path would be far more tortuous than practicing martial arts, I absolutely refused to accept defeat. If there were ghosts in this world, there had to be cultivation sects. Only a true immortal could deal with Fierce Ghosts.

I swore that one day, I would suppress all Fierce Ghosts in this world. I would let the underworld belong to the underworld, and the mortal realm belong to the mortal realm.

...

...

The text broke off there. In fact, judging by the condition of the rock wall, there was obviously more to follow; the story wasn't finished.

However, due to its great age, the rest of the story carved into the rock face had sunk deeply, completely fusing with the stone disc beneath Master White Bone. He couldn't photograph it, let alone read it.

Looking at this skeleton's meditating posture and the carvings on the wall, it seemed that supernatural events were not unique to the modern era. As far back as the feudal dynasties, even wealthy aristocratic families and martial arts sects fell victim to ghosts.

During their era, the supernatural hadn't yet fully reawakened and spread. In the imperial court and history books alike, such events were glossed over with a few brief strokes. The records left behind in village logs and family genealogies were dismissed by later generations as nonsense and feudal superstition.

So, had True Lord Wanfa eventually found a method to become an immortal?

If he hadn't found it, why would he give himself that Daoist title? And why would Xu Yuan treat this miniature Pot holding True Lord Wanfa's corpse like a treasure and carefully store it away?

But if he had found it, centuries later he was still just a mortal, reduced to a handful of yellow earth and a pile of dry bones. He was far from achieving a true immortal's transcendence over the cycle of life and death.

Centuries or even millennia after his death, not only had the Fierce Ghosts in this world not been suppressed, but upon entering the modern age, supernatural events surged and swelled, showing signs of a full-scale revival.

Looking at the miniature world inside the Pot, Gao Tian seriously considered whether there was a way to see the rest of True Lord Wanfa's life story.

In a moment of distraction, his gaze drifted to the ceiling. When he looked back at the mouth of the Pot, Gao Tian was shocked to discover that the reflection-like cave, person, and water inside had all undergone a violent shift, transforming into an entirely new world.

A concrete road, flanked by the silhouettes of towering skyscrapers rising in the darkness.

"How is that possible?"

"No, that's impossible."

Seeing the Pot simulate a new image, Gao Tian found it impossibly hard to believe that the scene before his eyes was truly happening.

A Bus drove down a deserted road. The world inside the Pot seemed to be in the dead of night. Aside from the Bus itself and the road ahead illuminated by its headlights, it was entirely impossible to see through the void-like darkness on either side.

If the image displayed inside the Pot were only that, it wouldn't have shocked Gao Tian to such a degree.

The outer iron shell of the Bus was semi-transparent, allowing an observer to see what was happening inside the cabin.

It was as if the Red Jar was intentionally displaying it like this, sending some kind of signal to the person outside the Pot.

In the seats of this miniature Bus, excluding the driver, sat a total of five passengers.

No, strictly speaking, one of them was a highly decomposed, nearly air-dried corpse, so it was hard to say whether it could be counted among the "passengers."

But as for the one sitting behind it—the very moment he saw him, Gao Tian's mind went completely blank, and for a split second, he even forgot to breathe.