Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The High Priest of Flower Soul went on and narrated an absurd story about the Stone Castle. It was a story very different from the history that Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus knew of. In order to convince them, the High Priest made his disciples bring along stacks of books and pointed the text out line by line.
There was no concept of time in ancient books so they could only judge by the wear and tear of the book itself to know that the books were recorded many years ago.
At that time, Jade City had just been established and its population was no more than a few thousand. Even the North and South cities were not completely segregated as well.
The mountaintop was named Xuandu Peak and the Stone Castle was named Reborn Fort. The owner’s surname was Feng and people addressed him as “Holy King”.
Holy King possessed excellent Kung Fu and accepted all kinds of disciples. According to the characteristics of each person, he established three inner halls, namely Blazing Sun Hall, New Moon Hall and Lone Star Hall.
The disciples of Blazing Sun Hall were good at cooperating with one another in collective warfare. New Moon Hall specialized in pill-making and occult sciences, while Lone Star Hall had the most outstanding disciples. They never cooperated with others and kept to themselves, performing the most arduous and secretive tasks.
At Reborn Fort’s heyday, a revolt emerged from within.
The three inner halls believed that they had learned all the Kung Fu from their master and began to act arrogantly. Unwilling to submit, they joined forces to revolt against the Holy King.
But they overestimated their own strength. Once Holy King retaliated, the renegades were defeated immediately and lay down to beg for mercy.
The Holy King forgave his disciples for their momentary rebellion and did not kill them all, but his kindness only resulted in an even greater betrayal. New Moon Hall used occult sciences to entrap the loyalty of the servants who served Holy King and discovered the date of Holy King’s self-destruction. Blazing Sun Hall banked on their advantage in numbers and besieged the guards loyal to the Holy King. Lone Star Hall took the opportunity to enter the secret chamber and was about to commit the crime of killing their master.
However, the Holy King’s Kung Fu was unfathomable. Even in the midst of self-destruction, he was also able to easily destroy the insurgents.
He killed many people and the survivors were terrified. However, he grew tired all of a sudden. He looked at the trembling disciples on their knees on the floor and said, “You all are merely ants, and ants can never bring down the elephant. But the elephant can easily trample and kill all of you in a step. However, it won’t have any meaning to the elephant. His strength will not increase because of your loyalty, nor will it lessen because of your betrayal. As punishment, all of you will forever lose the chance to become the strong one.”
Therefore, the Holy King left Xuandu Peak and voluntarily gave up the castle to the cowardly and incompetent renegades. He knew that once these useless disciples were no longer under his protection, they would not be able to keep the Stone Castle and would soon become slaves to their former enemies.
Then, the Holy King came to the Land of Fragrance. Generation after generation, his prophecy came true. The three inner halls perished one after another, and the traitors, filled with regret, would always call out the title of Holy King at the end of their lives.
“The end.” The high priest closed his books and continued, “My surname is Feng, and I am the Holy King of the 11th generation. He is my successor, the 12th generation Holy King, the sixth generation of High Priest of Flower Soul.”
“He” referred to a boy aged somewhere between 11 to 12 years old, propping his chin up and listening with fascination as the high priest told the story. In truth, he could not understand Central Plains Chinese but he was more than familiar with the contents of the books. He already knew which paragraph the high priest was talking about the moment he moved his fingers across the pages.
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus looked at each other. This story might be fabricated, but there were a lot of true contents about the Stone Castle that outsiders were unaware of and uninterested in. But there were also many illogical areas in the story, even if it were true, those who were not from Stone Castle could easily find many loopholes in the story.
Blazing Sun Hall was obviously known as Golden Roc Fort later on and although New Moon Hall was in exile, it had not perished. But neither of them had heard of Lone Star Hall before, and they guessed the black-masked assassins were most likely what remained of them.
Maid Lotus did not bother to argue, and even though Shangguan Ru did not have the heart to do so, she still asked, “High Priest, are you training disciples here to recapture the Stone Castle one day?”
The high priest did not seem to understand what she meant, then he looked surprised and said, “Did you not heard what I said? Holy King relinquished Reborn Fort willingly to let the betrayers know their tragic fate without the protection of the Holy King. We will never go back. I am training my disciples here to protect the Land of Fragrance. They were honored to receive guidance from the successors of the Holy King, and each of them will be able to fight against a hundred people once they complete their studies.”
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus exchanged a look with each other and were very sympathetic toward the high priest. He obviously knew nothing about the real situation in the Western Region and believed every word in these ancient books. He continued to live in a partly true and partly fictional fantasy world, contented with everything he had.
There was nothing crueler than destroying someone’s fantasy. Shangguan Ru decided to never bring up Golden Roc Fort again, while Maid Lotus did not care for it. She was more worried about Old Man Mu, his Kung Fu was recovering day by day and in a few days’ time, no one would rival him.
Although the high priest was pedantic and simple, Maid Lotus was more interested in the fact that he had pinpointed the secret of the Five Hole Punch.
The high priest did not hoard information and eagerly asked his disciples to bring in more books and read out information about the Five Hole Punch word for word.
But Maid Lotus was slightly disappointed. As it turned out, this was not the real manual, but just an analysis of the Five Hole Punch made by a certain Holy King, based on what he saw and heard. Among them, it specifically mentioned the Earth punch as the highest level of the Five Hole Punch and there would be no more loopholes once you mastered it.
The high priest also wanted to explain the Dajue Book of Swordcraft to Maid Lotus but she politely refused and merely glanced through the related books. Again, no specific content from the scriptures was stated, it was only discussions made in general terms and divided the practitioner to several realms of skill levels. Rather than insight, it seemed more like exaggerations written by a disgruntled scholar who had never seen the true scriptures before.
Among the piles of books, only a few contained atlases of real Kung Fu, but Maid Lotus took no interest in any of them.
Like their Master Shifu, these children spent most of their energy reciting words. They were able to speak knowledgeably on the subject but were no different from ordinary teenagers when they tried to strike a blow.
One could only imagine the strength of the soldiers trained in this way.
However, the high priest and his disciples had something in common: they were extremely submissive. From what the two girls had observed, these people’s submissiveness was to the point of eager flattery; the disciples would fight to fulfill any request of the two girls. Their enthusiasm was like a group of dogs focused on pleasing their owners, not caring where they came from or what their purpose was.
Golden Roc Fort had made great efforts to train obedient slaves but they were never able to achieve results like this.
If the high priest was really the successor of Reborn Fort, perhaps the Holy King had overdone in rectifying their behavior. The disciples would never betray him, but they were also useless.
This was a group of people who possessed no threat, so Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus’ thoughts went back to Old Man Mu again.
Old Man Mu was wary of the high priest, so he gave up on challenging directly and chose to sneak attacks instead, which he was good at.
On the night of the duel with Maid Lotus, he quietly approached the residence of the high priest and was attacked at the door by Maid Lotus.
Old Man Mu had already prepared himself for it, so he easily avoided her but stumbled right into Shangguan Ru’s hands.
The most exasperating thing for him was that Shangguan Ru actually used Subtle Shadow Lightness Skills and preempted him on the path that he took and performed the Seven Circles seven apertures Heart Stopping Finger on him. Although the move would not kill him, it was more than enough to cause internal injuries, and he was unable to strike back for a long time.
Old Man Mu narrowly managed to avoid it but was in a sorry state.
Maid Lotus soon caught up and the two girls joined forces to surround him. They would not let Old Man Mu escape again.
Old Man Mu regretted attacking them when he had not fully regained his Kung Fu. He said, “How malicious of you, Shangguan Ru, using the Kung Fu that I taught you to deal with me. Ungrateful! You are as vicious as snakes and scorpions, a woman’s heart is the most wicked…”
Old Man Mu refused to shut his mouth. But in the end, it was another mouth who rescued him from trouble.
When the high priest heard the noises outside, he asked his disciples to carry him to the door. He gave comments as he watched, “The short one is going to lose soon. He doesn’t dare to use the Five Hole Punch, now he is using the Tiger Shape Palm from Yuqing Sect and… Seven Circles Flower Picker from New Moon Hall. He is quite the daredevil, combining these two sets of Kung Fu together. But both the Tiger Shape Palm and the Seven Circles Flower Picker belong to the yin, it’s more than enough to defend but inadequate if he wants to attack. Don’t tell me he’s a woman as well?”
Old Man Mu cried loudly and wanted to go up to the paralyzed High Priest several times to teach him a lesson for sprouting nonsense, but he was always blocked by Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus.
The high priest was impartial and he started explaining the Kung Fu performed by the other two, “This girl is still using the Dajue Book of Swordcraft. Wait, no, it’s mixed with the Seven Circles Floating Sword from New Moon Hall. Yes, this is a smart move. This way, she can reduce the chances of the swordcraft backfiring on her. But it would also decrease the power of the moves. The other girl… her Kung Fu is strange. It looks like the Subtle Shadow Lightness Skills from Yuqing Sect, but the Kung Fu she uses is not easy to recognize, it seems like it could be from New Moon Hall but also from Yuqing Sect.”
“Well, the three of you possess good Kung Fu and seem like you were fellow disciples of the same sect. Why are all your moves so vicious?”
Old Man Mu was trapped by the two girls and could not run away or fight back. After hearing the sarcastic remarks made by the high priest, he was fuming with anger. “You wretched cripple! You will still be a cripple in your next life! If you know everything, then why not tell me how to defeat these two girls? Even if I cannot defeat them, it will be good if I can escape as well!”
“The two of them have very good skills. It will be difficult for you to defeat them, but you can escape easily if you want to.”
Without waiting for Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus to stop him, the high priest voiced what was on his mind, “I don’t know if you know the Nimble Sparrow Lightness Skills by Yuqing Sect…”
Old Man Mu silently cursed at himself for being so stupid. Both the Nimble Sparrow Lightness Skills and Subtle Shadow Lightness Skills were Yuqing Sect’s unique skills to save oneself. He definitely learned it before, but he had been killing people for the past few decades and spent another good decade in hiding to practice the Seven Rotation Skill, therefore he seldom had the chance to use these two sets of Lightness Skills. He did not remember it at critical moments like these and even needed a bystander to remind him about it.
Subtle Shadow Lightness Skills were suitable to use in flat areas, but Nimble Sparrow Lightness Skills were for flying around at a height.
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus were not familiar with this Lightness Skill and by the time they understood, Old Man Mu had already leaped onto the rooftop and soared like a bird. Although his footing was unstable, he landed on a flora plant nearby and was able to use it as an assist to jump onto another plant.
The two of them followed closely on the ground. Suddenly, Shangguan Ru had a thought: If Old Man Mu was jumping around in high areas like these, wouldn’t it be easy for him to leave the Flower Soul Forest?
As this idea flashed past her mind, Old Man Mu fell from the sky all of a sudden and landed heavily on the ground. He let out a scream, “Strange.”
This was not the only strange thing. Shangguan Ru staggered and almost fell as well. All of a sudden, her Dantian felt empty and it seemed like her Qi had vanished. Then, she smelled a faint fragrance which was different from the flower fragrances around her. She felt dizzy and her eyes closed involuntarily.
Maid Lotus managed to persist for a while longer. She saw about 20 to 30 men wearing long robes walking out from behind the flowers. They were holding ropes and approaching cautiously.
