Chapter 850: Ten Thousand-Year Turtle Marrow Attaches to the Supreme

"He?" Zu An was startled. "Who is he? A man or a woman?"

For some reason, when Mi Li spoke of someone with such a wistful tone, it was fine if it was a woman, but if it was a man, it always made him a little uncomfortable.

"Huh, why am I thinking like this?"

Mi Li was unaware of his thoughts; otherwise, she would probably be hammering him with something by now. "Have you heard of Xu Fu?"

"Is that the Xu Fu who took three thousand boys and girls to sea to search for the elixir of immortality for Qin Shi Huang?" Zu An smiled. "It's hard *not* to have heard of him, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's him," Mi Li said, looking at the two lines of text next to the door. "These two lines are about Xu Fu. Actually, I had a hunch when I first saw the temple's appearance, and now it's completely confirmed."

"After Ying Zheng unified the world, he had no rivals left. His ambition was incredibly high; he believed his achievements surpassed those of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Naturally, he was unwilling to simply turn into a mound of earth like previous emperors, so he began to pursue the path to immortality."

"When the news spread, countless alchemists and sorcerers from all over the world were drawn in. The more famous ones included Lu Sheng, Han Zhong, Xu Fu, and Hou Sheng, with Xu Fu being the most well-known, of course."

"In the 28th year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, Xu Fu submitted a petition stating that there were three immortal mountains—Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou—in the sea, inhabited by immortals. Ying Zheng then dispatched him to sea with thousands of boys and girls, along with three years' worth of provisions, clothing, medicine, and farming tools, to seek immortality, incurring enormous costs. However, after several years at sea, Xu Fu and his group did not find the divine mountains. In the 37th year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, when Ying Zheng toured east to Langya, Xu Fu claimed that they had encountered a gigantic monstrous fish that hindered their voyage and prevented them from sailing further, requesting more experts to deal with it. Ying Zheng agreed and sent palace experts to kill the monstrous fish."

Mi Li paused here, looking at the temple before them. "If I'm not mistaken, this temple was built using the bones of that monstrous fish."

Zu An was immediately surprised. "Such a huge temple was built from a fish? How big was that fish?"

Mi Li rolled her eyes. "Do you think an ordinary large fish could have convinced Ying Zheng that Xu Fu had been hindered by it for so many years and prompted him to dispatch all his top experts to kill it? Truly, that monstrous fish's strength was roughly equivalent to a Grandmaster in your world."

"A Grandmaster..." Zu An couldn't help but swallow. A gigantic monstrous fish with the strength of a Grandmaster was clearly an overlord of a sea region. "Who did it offend to bring such misfortune upon itself?"

"After all, it had obstructed Ying Zheng's quest for immortality. The monstrous fish's corpse was brought back, and Ying Zheng even went to see it personally. However, there are no further records of it. I never expected him to place the fish bones here."

"What happened later? Did Xu Fu find the elixir of immortality?" Zu An couldn't help but ask. Although he was familiar with the related stories, the history of this dimension wasn't quite the history he knew; it was more like a mythical version of the Qin Dynasty. So, he wasn't sure if the subsequent developments would be the same as he remembered.

"After that powerful monstrous fish was killed, Xu Fu led his group to sea again. However, I don't know what happened later, as I was sealed not long after," Mi Li said with a self-deprecating smile. "But I imagine he didn't find the elixir of immortality, otherwise, how could Qin have fallen?"

Zu An's brows furrowed slightly. "Wait, something's not right. You just said Xu Fu submitted his petition in the 28th year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, and the powerful monstrous fish was killed in the 37th year. You know all these details. By that time, Qin Shi Huang had been on the throne for 37 years, making him at least in his fifties, and you were Ying Zheng's empress... Um, how old were you then?"

He remembered that the moment he unsealed Mi Li, she appeared like a young maiden. While cultivators often possessed techniques to preserve their youth, there were absolutely no traces of age on her face, making it genuinely difficult to associate her with terms like 'old woman.'

Mi Li snorted. "Asking a woman's age is not polite."

Zu An chuckled awkwardly. "It's just that we're so close now; what can't we say to each other?"

"I wasn't his original consort..." Mi Li explained briefly, then grew impatient. "Whether I was eighteen or eighty back then, I'm now eight thousand eight hundred and eighty. I'm more than old enough to be your great-grandmother, hmph!"

Zu An was speechless.

A woman three years older than her husband is considered good fortune, but what about eight thousand eight hundred and eighty years?

He could only keep reassuring himself that matters in the cultivation world couldn't be judged by conventional age concepts. In myths, didn't those immortal maidens often count their age in tens of thousands of years? "Hmm, in that case, Mi Li is still young."

Just then, Bi Linglong's voice reached his ears: "Ah Zu, what are you muttering to yourself?"

Zu An snapped back to reality. "N-nothing."

Communication in their spiritual forms was incredibly fast. Although he had exchanged so many words with Mi Li in his mind, in the real world, very little time had actually passed for others.

"Come look, what are these statues?" Bi Linglong's voice trembled slightly as she pointed at two rows of dark statues ahead. The entire place felt eerie.

Because the temple was too dim, Zu An directly used his Flame Blade to light some of the torches and candle holders nearby, surprised that they could still ignite after so long.

Soon, the temple was brightly lit, and both of them could clearly see its interior.

On both the left and right sides stood a total of eight sculptures. Each had either a pointed, monkey-like face or a fierce, menacing expression.

"It seems many evil gods are worshipped here," Bi Linglong said, feeling a chill down her spine and instinctively moving closer to Zu An. Neither the temple's appearance, their encounters along the way, nor the malevolent expressions of the statues allowed her to associate the place with anything benevolent.

Mi Li scoffed. "Ignorant. These are the Thunder General, Lightning Maiden, Wind God, Rain God, Yaksha, and so on. They are not evil gods at all."

Zu An was a little puzzled. "Why would this temple house statues of these deities?"

"Presumably, it's because Xu Fu and his group spent years at sea, encountering various disasters like storms, lightning, and tsunamis. They worshipped these deities to pray for safe passage," Mi Li explained.

Zu An nodded inwardly. Although cultivators in this world were far more powerful than ordinary people in his previous life, the power of heaven and earth in this world was also far greater than the disasters on Earth in his previous life. Often, even powerful cultivators couldn't resist them and could only build temples and pray.

"Then the main altar of this temple should be dedicated to the Sea God," Mi Li said, floating forward. She saw a statue indeed in the central position, but her expression instantly froze upon recognizing its face.

Zu An took the opportunity to comfort Bi Linglong with a few words and led her to the main altar as well. There stood a statue nearly twice the size of the others, with a massive stone turtle serving as its base.

Compared to the appearances of the Thunder Lords and Yakshas they had just seen, this statue's face was much more benevolent.

It resembled a human, even possessing a touch of an immortal's ethereal quality.

However, Zu An couldn't help but frown. He found something inexplicably strange about the statue. How to put it? Its body was extremely formidable, and theoretically, its overall appearance should have been fierce. So why was its head like *this*?

The two styles simply didn't quite match.

"Oh, there seem to be characters carved into the base here," Bi Linglong said, her delicate brows furrowed. She prided herself on her extensive knowledge, but at that moment, she couldn't recognize the script.

Zu An recognized these as Lesser Seal Script. His numerous experiences in secret realms had helped him mostly learn this script. He wiped away the dust from the surface and read aloud, "A thousand-year-old fish bone for the framework, a ten-thousand-year-old turtle's marrow attached to the supreme..."

Just then, Mi Li, standing nearby, let out a cold snort. "Arrogant!"

Zu An was startled and looked at her questioningly, wondering why she had suddenly become so angry.

Mi Li pointed at the statue and asked, "Do you know who he is?"

"Isn't it the Sea God?" Zu An was taken aback.

"It should have been the Sea God, but the face of this statue is that of another person," Mi Li paused, her voice growing colder. "Xu Fu, by what right do you dare to call yourself 'Supreme'?"