One hundred thousand deities are ground to dust. (Ten thousand words in the third night watch.)

That voice was utterly intoxicated, utterly satisfied, yet insatiably yearning for more. It even stuffed its entire palm into its mouth, its tongue refusing to miss a single drop of blood, savoring every trace until not even the taste of blood remained, only then reluctantly withdrawing its hand.

“You’ve gone too far!” Chen Huangpi’s face flushed with anger, gritting his teeth as he demanded, “What kind of evil thing are you, pretending to be my master to deceive me?”

Only then did the other calmly brush the dust from its robes, replying coldly, “The statue of the Mountain God was crafted during the upheaval of heaven; though it failed, by a stroke of fate it retained this memory. The ‘Daoist’ in its recollection is none other than myself.”

“You’re lying!” Chen Huangpi retorted, “Memory is dead.”

The other replied, “True, but you are alive. You are different. You are already nine years old—this is rarer, more miraculous than resurrection or the reversal of heaven and earth. It is you who brought this memory to life.”

Enlightenment dawned on Chen Huangpi: “So, you are only this fragment of memory. If the Fox Mountain God forgets it, you will perish.”

Hearing this, it neither affirmed nor denied, saying, “Huangpi, let me teach you one final lesson.”

“All things spoken are known; the more powerful and unfathomable an existence, the less one should meddle with its memories.”

“Otherwise, beings like myself will find ways to harm you—break your flesh, taste the flavor of rebirth.”

With that, it let out a long howl, reciting, “With your blood, I can escape this memory; from now on, the sky is the limit, the sea is boundless.”

Chen Huangpi corrected, “My true body never entered here; my blood isn’t real.”

It replied, “Then remember this: if you ever enter another’s memory again, your will must be as resolute as it is now.”

“Have you not heard that when false becomes true, true becomes false?”

Chen Huangpi understood at last. It was his wavering resolve that let him be swayed by the thing’s feigned filial piety, leading him to strike his own arm.

He had breached his own defenses.

Yet, thinking further, now that he knew the truth, should he encounter such a thing again, those memory-born entities would not be able to trick him into giving up his blood.

The thing had succeeded, but now warned him not to repeat the mistake.

It had reached the shore, raised its umbrella, but sought to push others into the river, steal their umbrella, block their path.

Truly wicked to the core.

“I’m furious!” Chen Huangpi clenched his teeth, refusing to be so easily cleansed by this creature. In his mind, he kept telling himself, “It’s fake, it’s fake, I didn’t bleed, I didn’t bleed.”

“Futile efforts.” It shook its head, looking at Chen Huangpi with mocking eyes.

“What’s already been eaten cannot be spat out…”

Before it could finish, the face identical to Chen Huangpi’s master suddenly turned deathly pale. Both hands clamped over its mouth and nose, eyes squeezed shut.

But soon, its whole face darkened, as if ink had seeped through it.

Not just the face—the skin, the graying hair—all turned pitch black.

In the blink of an eye, it became a creature of pure darkness.

Beneath its skin, something seemed to wriggle, rising and falling as if alive.

Something was about to burst from its body.

Chen Huangpi glanced only briefly.

A thought flashed through his mind.

“Black smoke!”

Chen Huangpi mused silently, “After cultivating my master’s Five Viscera Spirit Refining technique, black smoke occasionally appeared—strange and sinister. I never expected even my blood to contain it. Now that it has consumed my blood, it’s bound to have stomach trouble.”

Yet the thought passed quickly.

Chen Huangpi knew it was because he kept insisting to himself that it was all fake, that he hadn’t bled, thus causing the change.

“Fake, fake, all fake!” Chen Huangpi ignored it, muttering to himself.

The Daoist, now entirely black, looked nothing like a human.

Its body swelled like a dead pig soaked in water.

The skin grew thinner and thinner.

He could even see drops of blood beneath its skin.

Each drop of blood was encircled by rolling black smoke, emitting an eerie aura.

Just as the vital energy forging the kidney temples between Chen Huangpi’s kidneys never ceased by day or night, these droplets seemed alive as well.

Now, they were returning to Chen Huangpi’s body.

The dark Daoist hated Chen Huangpi to the core.

It was the Fox Mountain God’s memory of Chen Huangpi’s master.

But Chen Huangpi had brought it to life.

Now, having obtained Chen Huangpi’s blood, it had a chance to break out and become something sinister, and naturally was unwilling to give the blood back.

But—

Its body kept swelling, skin thinning, the blood threatening to break free.

Pop—

Like a needle bursting a balloon, a drop of blood wrapped in black smoke forced its way through the Daoist’s taut skin.

The blood instantly merged into Chen Huangpi’s body.

The Daoist’s swollen body shrank at once.

“No!” it screamed, desperately covering the ruptured spot, but two more droplets escaped from its mouth.

“Come back, come back!”

It hadn’t gotten much blood to begin with.

Losing three drops in succession, only two remained.

The last drop twisted frantically within its body, but as it shrank rapidly, it became as gaunt as before, no longer pitch black.

“Why does your blood contain such sinister things?” it demanded.

All it knew came from the memory itself, but it had no idea why Chen Huangpi’s blood was filled with this strange black smoke.

If Chen Huangpi’s true body were here, the black smoke might utterly corrupt it in an instant.

Even if it was just a memory fragment, it was not safe.

“I grew up, so black smoke naturally appeared!” Chen Huangpi sneered. “My master told me that—something you, the impostor, would never know.”

“Wrong, wrong, all wrong!” it replied, still affecting a grand manner. “Even as you grow, you couldn’t simply produce such a thing. This thing is alive, and it does not originate from you.”

Chen Huangpi scoffed.

He refused to believe the monster.

Seeing it still trying to trick him, he called inwardly to his blood: “Blood, blood, your home is here with me. Hurry back, don’t linger outside—everyone out there is a villain!”

The two drops of blood seemed to hear Chen Huangpi’s call.

Like weary birds returning to their nest, they rushed madly to come home.

“Take them, take them!” It could no longer endure. No matter how strange or powerful Chen Huangpi’s master might be, it was only a memory fragment—not even his master’s memory, but a scene accidentally recorded by a lifeless statue.

If it let the blood continue rampaging, it sensed it would soon dissipate completely.

No—in fact, the memory itself was fading.

Only the surrounding darkness concealed this dissolution.

One drop of blood was spat out.

“One more!” Chen Huangpi kept urging. He refused to let the thing keep a single drop; he wanted it all back.

A gift of rice breeds gratitude; a bushel breeds resentment.

If you give too much, you must take it back.

Especially since the thing had stolen his blood first!

However, the last drop was vital to its essence, and it was unwilling to return it.

“Enough, enough—one drop is fortune enough. Huangpi, our master-disciple fate will cross again.”

Chen Huangpi protested, “You are not my master—don’t call me Huangpi!”

He intensified his call for the blood to return.

But the other was unmoved; one drop it could barely endure.

“Enough, enough. Huangpi, if you won’t call me master, I won’t blame you. Next time we meet, you may call me the Evil Daoist. Then, I will claim all your flesh and blood for myself.”

The Evil Daoist finished speaking and crashed into the enormous golden wall.

With a thunderous crash, the wall shattered as if made of paper.

All the surrounding scenes fragmented at once.

Chen Huangpi plunged into darkness, memory shards whirling past him.

Those fragments still played their scenes.

Chen Huangpi saw the image of Xu Qingshan, his arm transformed into a mouth. In the scene, he severed his arm, but it regrew from nothing, the mouth gaping, revealing ferocious teeth, the ground littered with severed arms.

Those arms, using their fingers to crawl, leapt toward Xu Qingshan.

He also saw a Daoist with a dead infant’s face growing from the back of his head; though the Daoist was dead, the infant rode atop his skull, its umbilical cord fused to the back of his head, controlling his movements with ease.

“So, in the Fox Mountain God’s memory, that’s how they died—transformed into evil things after death!”

Chen Huangpi did not know what the Evil Daoist had done.

But all the memory scenes were shattered, disjointed, no longer orderly or sequential.

It seemed a great portion of the memory had been taken away by the Evil Daoist.

Chen Huangpi never learned why his master forged one hundred thousand statues.

He only knew those gods were sent into the dark region, but not why none ever returned.

He saw neither his master nor the chief among the Daoists.

At that moment,

A fragment of memory drifted before him.

The scene showed a corner of the enormous golden wall.

A fissure gaped in the wall, like a door.

Through the gap, Chen Huangpi glimpsed a scene that stunned him.

Behind the fissure lay a vast space,

Like an altar, with countless tiers.

Heavy chains anchored the five corners of the altar.

At the other end of the chains, five colossal five-clawed golden dragons strained, rotating the altar, layer upon layer grinding with a relentless clatter.

One by one, the gods ascended the altar, only to be crushed to powder in an instant.

This was no altar—it was a millstone!

Chen Huangpi saw one god, previously awakened by the golden lamp atop the mountain.

Its body bore the marks of ages, its aura powerful.

It seemed that after entering the dark region, countless years had passed, and it could truly be called a deity.

Yet there were untold numbers of such gods.

“Perhaps there really are one hundred thousand gods—all ground to powder. Why did Master do this?”

Chen Huangpi murmured inwardly, gazing at the center of the altar.

Instinct told him, had it not been for the Evil Daoist’s interference, his master would have stood there at this point in the memory.

“Evil Daoist, you are vile beyond measure! I will find you and reclaim my blood!”

Chen Huangpi shouted.

In the next moment, he opened his eyes.

He was back in the kitchen of Jingxian Temple, before the stove.

“Chen Huangpi, you’re awake!”

That was Huang Er’s voice.

Chen Huangpi immediately asked, “Huang Er, did you see the Evil Daoist—the one who looks exactly like my master, that wicked thing?”