The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu-Chapter 498: Qin Mingyue’s Shock

"I’m very interested in the Curse Mark Gu. Would you be willing to trade the recipe for it? Name your price." Long Xuan didn’t beat around the bush and got straight to the point.

"The Curse Mark Gu recipe was originally a legacy of the Holy Gu Academy and not meant to be passed on easily... but since we’re going to be trapped here forever, it doesn’t matter anymore," Qin Mingyue said calmly.

"Give me one Heavenly Spirit Fruit, and I’ll not only give you the recipe for the Curse Mark Gu, but also three sets of materials required to craft it."

"This place is cut off from the world. I’m the only one here who has all the materials needed for the Curse Mark Gu. But even so, I only have three sets."

"In other words, you’ll only have three chances to refine it. Are you sure you still want to make this trade?"

Qin Mingyue looked at Long Xuan and asked.

"Deal!"

Long Xuan nodded without hesitation. He retrieved a Heaven Spirit Fruit from his storage ring and placed it in her hand. Then he added, "To be honest, I’m currently researching a Heavenly Spirit Pill that uses the Heaven Spirit Fruit as its main ingredient."

"Once perfected, the Heavenly Spirit Pill will far surpass the fruit in medicinal potency."

"If you trust me, I’d suggest waiting a while. I’ll make sure to deliver a Heavenly Spirit Pill to you."

Qin Mingyue accepted the fruit and gave a slight smile.

"You’re even capable of creating your own pill recipe? Very well, I’ll wait a while longer for your pill."

"Here’s the recipe and the materials for the Curse Mark Gu. Keep them safe."

As she spoke, Qin Mingyue began taking out bottle after bottle from her storage ring, carefully placing them on the ground. Before long, the materials were piled like a small mountain.

Long Xuan didn’t even check them. With a wave of his hand, he swept all the materials into his storage space, then picked up the recipe to read. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

After skimming through it rapidly, his confidence grew.

Creating a Gu recipe from scratch was extremely difficult, but refining an existing one was much easier. Based on this version, he believed that by adding just two more sound elements, he could upgrade the Curse Mark Gu in no time.

If all went smoothly, he could soon develop a Seven-Tone version of the Curse Mark Gu.

The only challenge was that every type of sound-type Gu required at least one unique musical composition to function.

The original recipe for the Curse Mark Gu required five musical pieces imbued with killing intent, and no substitutes were allowed.

Moreover, the same composition played by different people could vary in effect. The quality of the music directly impacted the strength of the Gu insect.

This presented a problem—Long Xuan had only a superficial understanding of ancient music. He was far from a master.

Since each step in Gu refinement demanded perfection, there could be no shortcuts. He wouldn’t risk weakening the Curse Mark Gu due to his limited musical skills.

Long Xuan’s eyes flickered, and finally, he turned toward Qin Mingyue.

Since he couldn’t play it himself, he had to find someone who could.

And without a doubt, Qin Mingyue’s musical skill was extraordinary. She was the perfect candidate.

Most importantly, her surname was Qin ("zither")—in this world, few could surpass someone named Qin in musical arts.

Without further delay, Long Xuan ran back to his villa to compose the pieces.

Sitting at the desk, Long Xuan furrowed his brows in deep thought.

The original Curse Mark Gu required five battle-intent-infused musical pieces. The new version would require seven, all played on a seven-string zither—a type of instrument that did not yet exist in this world.

With these restrictions in mind, creating seven entirely new compositions in one go was a massive mental challenge.

Eventually, he wrote down the following seven titles on paper:

Ambush from Ten Sides

Swordsman’s Laughter

Heavenly Dragon’s Eight Tones

Guangling’s Finale

Songs of Chu

Wolong’s Lament

Tides of the Azure Sea

He then quickly transcribed the scores for all seven.

Of course, the sheet music couldn’t follow his previous world’s notation system—this world had neither letters nor Arabic numerals.

Instead, musical notes here were represented as: Gong (宮), Shang (商), Jue (角), Zhi (徵), Yu (羽)—the equivalents of do, re, mi, sol, la from his previous life.

But it lacked equivalents for fa and si.

So, he invented two new note names himself:

Niu (牛) to represent fa

Xing (星) to represent si

Together, they formed a complete seven-note scale:

Gong, Shang, Jue, Niu, Zhi, Yu, Xing

A smile tugged at the corner of Long Xuan’s lips. After completing the sheet music, he began crafting a seven-string zither.

As a Refiner, crafting an ordinary seven-string instrument was no challenge. Soon, the first-ever seven-string zither in this world was complete.

Unable to resist, Long Xuan plucked the strings and played his favorite piece, Swordsman’s Laughter.

“Zheng—”

A chilling, awe-inspiring melody filled the air. The fierce tones stirred Long Xuan’s heart, and for a moment, he felt transported back to his original world.

Outside the villa, Qin Mingyue's gaze turned toward the source of the sound. Her lips curled upward slightly.

"This melody... I’ve never heard it before. Could it be a self-composed piece? Interesting."

"The tune is excellent—worthy of being added to the classic repertoire. After so many years, my Zither Gu has finally heard another classic composition."

As Qin Mingyue gently stroked her instrument, the Zither Gu perked up its ears with a blissful expression, clearly captivated by the sound.

In this world, though there were countless zither pieces, only a rare few could be considered true classics. The Zither Gu was famously picky, and compositions that could enthrall it were extremely rare.

Suddenly, Qin Mingyue’s hand froze mid-stroke. She raised her fingers and counted quietly. When she reached the seventh, her body trembled and she stood up abruptly.

"Impossible! This piece actually contains seven musical tones? But the scale only goes up to five!"

"This can’t be real!" she cried out in shock.

Her beautiful face paled with astonishment. A master could recognize another's skill with just a few notes—and as a true expert, she instantly sensed that something was fundamentally different with this music.

And it was very different indeed.

This was actually a zither composition featuring seven musical scales. The moment the melody rang out, it completely shattered her worldview.

But what terrified her went far beyond that.

With her profound mastery of music, she quickly noticed that the tune produced by this seven-string zither seemed vastly superior to that of the traditional five-string zither, possessing a far deeper and more expansive artistic conception.

She soon realized that a complete musical system must consist of seven tones. Only with seven musical scales could the system be whole. The previously accepted five-tone system was, in truth, incomplete.

In other words, the musical theory that had been passed down for tens of thousands of years in this world was fundamentally flawed. All the top experts on the Path of Music Cultivation had been led astray, walking down a misguided path.

Thinking about how she had spent countless years studying a musical path that was, in fact, wrong—how all her efforts had been in vain—Qin Mingyue's face turned pale, and she felt a violent urge to cough up blood.

At that moment, she clenched her teeth, her Dao Heart on the verge of shattering.

“How is this possible? How could this be? This can’t be real!”

“If this kind of news were to spread, it would trigger a global earthquake. The entire music world would undergo a massive upheaval!”

“Those grandmasters who devoted their entire lives to the musical path—if they found out that everything they had studied was wrong, they would go insane!”

Qin Mingyue was breathing rapidly, utterly flustered.

She was still young; even if she took the wrong path, she could start over.

But what about those white-haired musical grandmasters?

She had a premonition: once the truth of this world’s incomplete musical theory was exposed, many of those old masters would vomit blood on the spot, their Dao Hearts breaking apart, even falling into Qi Deviation.

“This is all that brat’s doing! Does he even know what kind of havoc he’s causing? He’s truly harming people!”

Gritting her teeth, Qin Mingyue looked toward the young man inside the villa who was still playing the zither. She could no longer restrain herself. Rushing into the villa, she pushed open the bedroom door from which the music was emanating.

Soon after, the zither music inside came to an abrupt halt.

“Hey! What are you doing? Why didn’t you knock before entering?”

Seeing Qin Mingyue suddenly barge in, Long Xuan put on a surprised expression and asked.

Qin Mingyue’s outburst was entirely within his expectations.

The reason he had been playing the zither here was deliberate—he had done it specifically to lure Qin Mingyue.

With his own zither skills, he was far from reaching the level of a Zither Dao Master like Qin Mingyue.

To refine the most powerful Curse Mark Gu, these seven zither compositions needed to be played by Qin Mingyue herself.

Now that the fish had taken the bait and Qin Mingyue had developed strong interest in the seven-string zither compositions, his plan was already half successful.

Qin Mingyue’s gaze fell upon the peculiar ancient zither with seven strings on the table. Utterly shocked, she asked, “Did you invent this seven-string zither? You discovered the world’s musical system was incomplete long ago?”

Long Xuan's lips curled up as he shamelessly boasted, “That’s right. The seven-string zither is my invention. I realized this world’s musical theory was lacking and created the Path of the Seven-String Zither to complete the world’s musical Dao.”

Long Xuan was thick-skinned. He lied without even blinking, boldly claiming all the credit for this earth-shattering innovation.

Qin Mingyue then looked toward the seven sheet music scrolls, each composed for the seven-tone scale. Her eyes filled with even greater shock as she asked, stunned, “These seven seven-string zither scores… you composed them yourself too?”

Long Xuan puffed out his chest and shamelessly continued, “Of course! To prove that the seven-tone system is the correct one, I spent countless years composing many seven-string zither pieces. These are my most painstaking creations!”

Hiss! Hearing him admit it with his own mouth, Qin Mingyue couldn’t help but gasp, her eyes filled with awe as she looked at Long Xuan—as if gazing at a divine being.

Unable to control herself, she rushed to the table at lightning speed and picked up the seven sheets of seven-string zither music, reading them with rapt attention, entirely entranced.

With her deep cultivation in Zither Dao, she could instantly discern the level of these scores.

The more she looked, the more thrilled she became. Classics—all of them were classics. These seven compositions were all timeless masterpieces, works worthy of being passed down for eternity.

She was overwhelmed with shock. Her gaze at Long Xuan was now filled with awe and disbelief.

This young man not only created the Seven-String Zither Path, but also composed seven classic pieces for it in one go. He was simply a peerless prodigy.

As a musical genius, she knew exactly how difficult it was to compose even one classic piece. But this young man had composed seven, and each was a classic. Could he really be the reincarnation of the Zither God?

Qin Mingyue found it all utterly unbelievable.