Chapter 60: Entering the Immortal Gate for the Third Time

Inside the Great Peace Mortuary, Wang Ping opened his eyes once more.

'Dead again, huh.'

Sighing, Wang Ping subconsciously touched his neck. He exhaled in relief only after confirming his head was still attached. The memory of that last experience was entirely too vivid.

'My death shouldn't be discovered too quickly.'

'I sealed the secret chamber beforehand. For a while, outsiders will just think I'm in secluded cultivation. That preserves my chance to resurrect and return.'

In short, he wouldn't need to spend destiny to buy a new identity for his next resurrection. He could keep using his current one. As long as there were no witnesses, he could return entirely unnoticed. No one would know he had died, and he could save his destiny for the future.

'After all, this Gold-Bearing Brocade Guard identity is quite nice.'

'Especially since I seem to have caught the eye of the Imperial Tribute Hall. If I want to access higher-level martial arts later on, I have to maintain this identity as best I can.'

But before that.

Wang Ping shifted his gaze to the towering book before him, where the scripture scroll of the Outer Heavenly Demon glowed with a faint light.

'I can time this right and make a trip to the Immortal Gate first.'

He had just died. If he resurrected immediately and someone found out, he would likely invite a second wave of attacks. It was better to stall for time and lay low until the heat died down.

He might as well take this chance to head to the Immortal Gate and develop his strength.

If he could learn Immortal Gate spells like Qi Restriction and Soul Seizing just as he had before, he would have much more confidence when he returned to Great Shun.

With that thought, Wang Ping immediately walked toward the towering book.

[Existing Identity: Six Desires Heavenly Demon King]

[Select this identity?]

'No.'

Wang Ping shook his head decisively. Who knew if the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag was still in that Qi Refining practitioner's hands? He wasn't about to gamble his little life on it.

It was better to start with a random new identity.

At the very least, judging from his previous two experiences, the Outer Heavenly Demon's random identities had a guaranteed minimum baseline. It was highly unlikely to drop him right into a death trap.

A second later, Wang Ping stepped forward.

"Clang!"

The golden, shifting colors appeared just as they had before. Wang Ping's body and consciousness sank into them, and he fell into a deep drowsiness. An unknown amount of time passed before he slowly regained his senses.

The first thing he saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.

Wang Ping looked around and found himself sitting upright on a woven mat. Before him sat an incense burner, where three long sticks of incense drifted with faint trails of green smoke.

'Is this... a cave dwelling?'

Wang Ping instantly perked up. The chore disciples of the Immortal Gate weren't qualified to have their own cave dwellings. To own one, you had to be a formal disciple at the very least!

Had he struck gold this time?

With that thought, Wang Ping immediately circulated his spiritual sense to inspect himself. A moment later, his rising hopes plummeted back down, and a helpless, bitter smile crept onto his face.

The good news was that he had a spiritual root this time.

The bad news was that it was a defective spiritual root, a dime-a-dozen commodity that the Immortal Gate could artificially cultivate. His aptitude hadn't improved in the slightest.

Right at that moment, a splitting headache swept over him.

"Gah..."

Wang Ping clamped a hand firmly over his brow, a flash of surprise appearing in his eyes. The background memories accompanying this new identity were far more vast than ever before.

...

Pingjiangzi was an independent cultivator.

As one of the billions of independent cultivators in the Immortal Gate, he possessed no Daoist registry. Without being officially recorded in the Daoist registry, he wasn't even considered an outer sect disciple within the Immortal Gate.

Thus, just like the other independent cultivators, he could only wander the blessed lands governed by the Immortal Gate, working himself to the bone every day to earn dharma currency for his cultivation and daily life. Even so, compared to the chore disciples, or the countless strongmen and furnaces, his life was considered quite good.

At least, that was what his parents had always told him.

Like many independent cultivators, Pingjiangzi's father was a divine general, ranking in the upper echelon of the Immortal Gate's strongmen. His combat strength was not inferior to a cultivator at the Tribulation Transcending First Layer.

His mother, on the other hand, was a discarded furnace.

After being discarded, his mother was assigned to his father to breed the next generation of strongmen. This was a new regulation the Immortal Gate enacted three thousand four hundred years ago.

Its purpose was to cut costs and increase efficiency.

After all, compared to wasting time artificially forging strongmen, natural birth bore almost zero cost. Furthermore, the strongmen born from the union of a divine general and a furnace were of high quality.

The practice of replacing forging with birthing cleanly resolved both issues at once.

Moreover, the divine general and furnace parents would toil relentlessly to raise their next generation, which in turn stimulated consumption and the circulation of dharma currency within the Immortal Gate.

Normally, Pingjiangzi would have entered the training pipeline right after birth. Like many other children born to divine general and furnace households, he would have undergone strongman conditioning to serve the Immortal Gate in the future—except, on the day he was born, his parents described him like this:

'I was a one-in-a-million miracle.'

That was because Pingjiangzi, born destined to be a strongman, miraculously possessed a spiritual root. Even though it was a defective spiritual root, it meant he could cultivate.

In other words, he had hope of becoming a cultivator.

From that day forward, his father and mother, who used to fight frequently, stopped arguing. They began to work together toward a single, shared goal.

To fund Pingjiangzi's pursuit of immortality.

For this, his divine general father worked even harder, voluntarily applying for dangerous secret realm expeditions. His mother also devoted all her love and energy to their family.

As for Pingjiangzi, he grew up as the "genius" countless children envied—someone who could cultivate the Immortal Dao. Even at a young age, he understood how hard-won this opportunity was. Mature beyond his years, he studied fiercely, sacrificing almost all his free time, until he finally passed the Immortal Gate's examination at the age of eighteen.

From then on, he became an independent cultivator.

Not only was he imparted immortal methods, but as long as he could reach the peak of the Tribulation Transcending First Layer in the future, he could officially register in the Daoist registry and become a true outer sect disciple.

The future seemed bright and limitless.

Pingjiangzi still remembered his soaring spirits from back then. Like newborn calves do not fear tigers, he had been determined to carve out his own grand path in the Immortal Gate.

Until one day, three years later.

Tragic news arrived regarding his divine general father. During an Immortal-Brahma Sword Battle, the inner sect disciple his father served was defeated by monks from the Brahma Nation, and his divine general father was heavily wounded in the crossfire.

Not long after, his divine general father was declared scrapped.

Unable to handle his original duties, his scrapped divine general father could only take on lowly strongman work he would have previously looked down upon. As a result, the family's income plummeted.

Under those circumstances, they naturally couldn't afford to fund Pingjiangzi's continued cultivation. Thus, the twenty-one-year-old Pingjiangzi took the initiative to halt his training. He traveled to the blessed lands governed by the Immortal Gate to find a suitable job. Fortunately, his aptitude was genuinely decent; though the dharma currency he earned wasn't much, it was barely enough to scrape by.

'I suppose you could say destiny favored me.'

A few more years passed, and Pingjiangzi encountered an excellent opportunity. A newly promoted true transmission disciple of the Immortal Gate, Senior Sister You Xuexin, was soliciting dharma currency from independent cultivators.

This was a privilege granted only to a true transmission disciple.

Independent cultivators would lend dharma currency to true transmission disciples in exchange for various quotas under their command. This included many jobs that independent cultivators could only dream of.

Unlike the veteran true transmission disciples, Senior Sister You had just been promoted. She had a massive number of open slots under her name. Although the asking price was high, there was no need to wait in line. Basically, as long as you paid, you could cash in the spot immediately. Therefore, independent cultivators answered her call in droves, and Pingjiangzi was no exception.

He was determined to seize this fateful chance.

However, he soon ran face-first into the easiest, most common, yet most insurmountable chasm that every cultivator in the Immortal Gate faced on their path to immortality:

'I don't have enough money.'

Pingjiangzi found a very good job. The dharma currency payout was high, and it perfectly matched his cultivation method, allowing him to work and cultivate without neglecting either.

The only problem was the steep asking price.

After much thought, Pingjiangzi confessed the situation to his parents and chose to give up. He didn't force the issue.

'But the very next day.'

'I returned from working in a blessed land. My parents, who would usually come out to greet me, didn't appear. Only my mother stood alone at the door.'

'In her hands was a massive stack of dharma currency.'

'Only later did I find out that my father had sold his hands, his feet, his head, his torso, his internal organs, his weapons, and his magical power. He sold it all.'

Even scrapped, a former divine general's physical materials were still quite valuable. His father had sought out friends still in active service to secure the highest possible friendship price... Thus, when Pingjiangzi returned home, he saw his father—now reduced to a single wisp of a lonely soul—smiling at him. His voice brimmed with joy:

"Don't worry, Ping'er. Our family has money now."

Everything that followed seemed a matter of course. After paying the dharma currency in full, Pingjiangzi successfully obtained the job through Senior Sister You's recommendation.

He became a member of the blessed land known as the Soul-Falling Studio.

His job was to craft and sell the Soul-Dropping Straw Men and Soul-Summoning Talismans unique to the Soul-Falling Studio. He worked in three shifts, and when order volumes were high, he had to work overtime.

This was an incredibly precious job.

Whether it was the Soul-Summoning Talismans or the Soul-Dropping Straw Men, the crafting difficulty wasn't high, but it consumed a massive amount of energy. It wasn't worth a true transmission disciple's personal investment.

Therefore, it needed to be outsourced.

Since it was a long-term demand, there was no need to worry about losing the job. And so, Pingjiangzi settled into a peaceful life of leaving early and returning late every single day.

'Life slowly got better.'

'My job was stable, and since it dealt with souls, I ordered the finest Soul-Guarding Method Talisman for my father. I even bought a new cave dwelling on a mortgage.'

'The only pity was that the workload at the Soul-Falling Studio was heavier than I'd imagined. I truly couldn't manage to balance cultivation and work, so I had to give up on cultivating and focus most of my energy on the job. My cultivation base hasn't grown in years... but it doesn't really matter anyway.'

The voice in his memories grew exhausted and detached.

At some unknown point, that once high-spirited young man had become remarkably ordinary. A few gray hairs now speckled his temples, and his brows were perpetually knitted together.

Before long, ten, then twenty years passed.

The young man continued to hold onto his job at the Soul-Falling Studio. It was more than enough to support his family, but his cultivation stagnated. Reaching the peak of the Tribulation Transcending First Layer remained indefinitely out of reach.

His future could be seen to its very end at a single glance.

'Actually, I had thought about venturing into a secret realm to see if I could progress further... but after weighing it over and over, I still didn't dare to put it into action.'

Because he was the pillar of his family.

His father had only a soul left, and his mother lacked the ability to work. He couldn't afford a single slip-up, nor could he weather the slightest risk. He didn't even dare to seek out a dao companion.

Because he lived on Bliss Immortal Peak, the rules concerning dao companions there were quite different from other immortal peaks. In short, after both parties signed a Dharma Covenant, they had to compete in dual cultivation while living together. Whoever lost would be drained to death by their dao companion, turning into fuel for the other's cultivation.

Once a dao companion died, the surviving party automatically became single again.

And they could find a new one.

Therefore, on Bliss Immortal Peak, when dealing with cultivators whose depths couldn't be easily read, people would usually check their divorce records. They judged a person's cultivation base by the sheer number of times they'd been divorced.

In practice, the accuracy of this method was incredibly high.

Occasionally, when alone at home late at night, Pingjiangzi couldn't help but curse out loud, swearing that this rule wasn't for finding a dao companion at all—it was signing a life-and-death waiver.

However, rules were rules.

He couldn't change the Immortal Gate's rules, so the only thing he could do was simply never seek a dao companion. He would just work hard and live his own quiet little life.

But the years never stopped moving forward.

As time slipped away, what was bound to come finally arrived—his divine general father's soul reached its limit. The Soul-Guarding Method Talisman could no longer sustain its existence.

And Pingjiangzi had no way to acquire a higher-level talisman.

His father was about to die.

Not long after, his mother's time was also drawing to a close. After all, as a discarded furnace, her body was inherently hollowed out. It was already a miracle she had lived this long.

The next second, the memory froze before a bed.

Pingjiangzi knelt before the bed, tears streaming down his face. Yet his father and mother lay there smiling. They took his hand, their eyes brimming with earnest hope.

"Child, don't cry."

"You've already done so well. You have no idea how many people envy our family. You are our pride and joy. The only pity is that we didn't get to hold a grandson..."

Pingjiangzi forced out a smile and agreed to everything they said.

After his parents passed away, his life grew even more monotonous. He traveled back and forth between his cave dwelling and the Soul-Falling Studio every day, living a respectable life that many independent cultivators envied.

He had a cave dwelling, and even owned a low-grade flying magical artifact.

He even found a dao companion.

Although he had to shoulder a sizable loan to maintain all three, living every day as if walking on thin ice, he believed it was all worth it.

Because this was what his parents had hoped for.

This was his happiness.

"I'm sorry, you're fired."

That heavy voice shook the entire torrent of memories, causing Wang Ping—who had almost entirely immersed himself in Pingjiangzi's perspective—to let out a muffled groan. Blood slowly trickled down the tip of his nose.

The cause of this was a Soul-Dropping Straw Man he had sold. Not long ago, it received a complaint claiming it had quality issues and failed to successfully curse and kill a target Mortal. This severely impacted the reputation of the Soul-Falling Studio, so the Soul-Falling Studio Master decided to fire him to avoid further damaging their prestige.

However, this was entirely unjust.

"I didn't craft that Soul-Dropping Straw Man! You crafted it, Studio Master, and then handed it to me to sell, didn't you?! Even if there's a quality issue, it wasn't me..."

"So what?"

Faced with Pingjiangzi's questioning, the Soul-Falling Studio Master was completely unmoved. "The achievements of the lesser cultivator are the merits of the superior immortal. The mistakes of the superior immortal are the responsibility of the lesser cultivator."

"Failing to spot my oversight during the crafting process and selling it directly to the public—that is your fault."

"Anyway, hand in your resignation tomorrow."

That became the final straw that crushed the young man. At the very end of his memories, he returned to his cave dwelling in a daze, sat upright on his woven mat, and closed his eyes.

And from that sleep, Pingjiangzi never woke again.

Wang Ping woke up.