Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio
The Butcher said nothing. He recalled that many years ago the Abbey Dean had sent the Drunkard to the West Wilderness to meet the Chief Monk of Scripture. He was already trying to weaken her back then.
“He is indeed the first in Taoism throughout a thousand years,” the Butcher stood up, wiped off the water on his clothes and said.
The Drunkard looked at him and asked, “What should we do now?” Or rather, how should we choose?
The Butcher said, “Don’t forget there are two Haotian now.”
If she had not returned to the Divine Kingdom and was still in the human world, there should be one Haotian in Heaven and the other in the human world. No one knew which one was the real her.
“If the Abbey Dean is executing the order of Haotian above in Heaven, then he has a great chance to win. But I don’t know if the Haotian in Heaven would fulfill the promise the other Haotian in the human world gave us. Therefore we cannot let the one in the human world die.”
The Drunkard and the Butcher had lived such long lives that they were extremely afraid of death.
When Haotian’s light shone on the human world, they hid like mice. Ever since the Headmaster had found them, they had kept quiet and behaved themselves. They even continued to behave themselves when the Headmaster left for Heaven and the Abbey Dean returned. They never had the guts to rebel.
But they still had desires. The desires were assemblies of countless instinctive desires of human beings. It was so intense and strong that they wanted to seek for eternity.
Yet eternity belonged to the Divine Kingdom rather than the human world. They had Sangsang’s promise, or bestowal. Therefore they found peace and joy and no longer had to cling to the life they had for tens of thousands of years, until they figured out that there might be two Haotian.
There was such a problem in the past. When Sangsang was traveling through the human world with Ning Que, or even earlier on when she lived with Ning Que in the city of Wei, technically there had always been two Haotian. The difference was one of them was not awaken at that time. Since she had awakened, she was already no different from her counterpart in the Divine Kingdom.
But according to what the Abbey Dean had been doing lately, it showed that it was highly possible that the one failed to return to the Divine Kingdom and the one stayed in the Divine Kingdom, had probably set off on two different paths.
Therefore was the agreement between them and Sangsang still effective? What was the Haotian in the Divine Kingdom thinking about? Who should they follow?
The Butcher looked at the Drunkard solemnly and said, “Fortunately there are the two of us as well. If there are indeed two Haotian, then … we can take one each.”
The Drunkard stood up and agreed, “It seems to be our only choice now. Even if we made a wrong pick we would just lose half of the game. We still have a chance in the end.”
The Butcher asked, “Are you going as well?”
The Drunkard answered, “Of course.”
The Butcher said, “If she did fail to return to the Divine Kingdom and stay in the human world, you have to find her before the Abbey Dean and Li Manman…”
The Drunkard asked, “And you?”
The Butcher returned to his chopping board and threw the pig feet into the huge pot. He stared at the pig feet going up and down in the marinated water and said, “I’m going to Peach Mountain. If Taoism is carrying out the order of the Haotian in the Divine Kingdom, they will definitely need my help”
…
…
Apart from the calligraphy store, the butcher’s shop and the liquor store, there was also a gambling house in the town. There were not many residents in the town, and very few of them were well off. Therefore there were barely any addicted gamblers and the business of the gambling house was always slow. But there were still a number of men who came to the place frequently.
Zhang San and Li Si sat by the table and stared at the tokens and the patterns of various shapes. They listened to the calling of the dealer and enjoyed the smell of women and liquor in the room.
When he was in Chang’an, Li Si used to play around like a punk. Zhang San was also a tough figure in his hometown. He used to fight for his mother and injured many villagers. They spent only a short period of time in the Academy and was yet to be well educated by Li Manman’s virtues and Jun Mo’s force. Therefore they were not reluctant to do things like gambling.
“Why are we always losing?” After losing a few coins Li Si said with resentment, “I don’t believe it’s our lack of skills or intelligence. ”
Zhang San tried to remind him. “Don’t you remember when we played with the Youngest Uncle years ago we were also losing? The Youngest Uncle said it was because we were low in moral qualities.”
“How could we be low in moral qualities? If we were, how could we became our master’s disciples? How could he say you are the son of the prime minister and I’m the younger brother of the princess?”
Li Si was irritated. He took out some silver and gave half to Zhang San, then pounded the rest on the table. “Let’s bet on both sides. I’ll go for the big and you the small! At least one of us should win!”
After a short while Zhang San and Li Si left the gambling house disappointedly. The came back to the store with their heads lowered. Chao Xiaoshu was washing the chess pieces in clear water. Upon seeing their expressions he figured they had lost all again in the gambling. He smiled and asked for some details.
“Betting on both sides is definitely losing. Anyone who does so is absolutely stupid,” Chao Xiaoshu said with a smile. But he did not look at Zhang San or Li Si. Instead, he looked over their shoulders toward the Butcher’s shop across the street.
Zhang San and Li Si looked calm. They stopped scorning and almost forgot the money they just lost in the gambling house.
When going to the gambling house they had to pass by the Butcher’s shop and heard their conversation inside the shop. Indeed, the people inside the shop must know …
But Zhang Nianzu had to be Zhang San, and Li Guangdi had to be Li Si. They were just two ordinary people, as ordinary as their names. Who would ever care about them?
“I have to write a letter.” Chao Xiaoshu headed for the backyard.
Inside the Butcher’s shop, among the wet floor and the slight smell of blood, the Butcher and the Drunkard sat together silently. They had finished their conversation, but could not calm down immediately.
Suddenly the Butcher raised his eyebrows and pulled out his cutlass. The cutlass pierced through the air and was placed in front of his face.
His body reacted even faster and already moved to squat behind the chopping board. The shining blade reflected his solemn look.
He felt some extreme danger. The same as that he sensed during the Rite to Light years ago on Peach Mountain. It came back today.
The Drunkard stood up. His gown fluttered as if he would disappear in the wind in no time.
They both sensed the threat from Chang’an. The iron arrow was pointing slowing toward the human world, following that person’s eyesight.
Who was Ning Que targeting?
The City of Yangzhou was flooded with blood and dead bodies. The blood had turned dark. The bodies were covered by snow, preventing them from decaying immediately. By the Fuchun River outside the city, there was also blood and floating bodies in the previously clear water. It was scary.
A sacred sedan was placed by the river, facing the Verdant Canyon.
Hengmu Liren sat in the sedan with his legs crossed. There was no expression on his young face. But everyone could sense his pride from his slightly rising lips and bright eyes.
Recently he led the cavalrymen from the Divine Halls of West-Hill and slaughtered countless people in the Qinghe Prefecture. The formerly peaceful villages were now stained with blood. The trees were dying in the fields. People could only see crows instead of magpies now.
He was obviously proud of his achievement and his power. He looked to the Verdant Canyon far away at the horizon, and opened his arms toward the sky as if he was communication with someone.
When Jun Mo fought against tens of thousands of enemies at that place and surprised the entire human world years ago, he was merely a lowest manservant in the Revelation Institute. It was a pity that he could not join that fight years ago, worse that Jun Mo had already lost one arm. Even if he would win against Jun Mo today, there was nothing to be proud of.
When he thought about that the pity became pride. Every sentiment Hengmu Liren came across would eventually become his pride, as if they were Haotian’s seal on him.
Suddenly he raised his eyebrows and waved some wind above the Fuchun River. The wind came with a slight smell of blood and tore several layers of gauze around the sacred sedan.
One layer, two layers, and many layers of gauze fell and shielded his figure from the outside world. His subordinates by the sedan and the pious followers standing in the fields could no longer see his face or share his honor or pride.
Hengmu Liren did not like it but had to do so. He even had to restrain his power and refrain from being proud. He had to make his Taoist heart as calm as a dried well because if he were to continue to expose his pride, he would be located by that person. Even if he could not locate him, Hengmu was worried that it would attract his attention so that he could eventually locate him. Therefore he had to stay extremely low.
Was that humility? No way. Humility was a virtue. But he was forced to stay low and found it completely humiliating.
Behind the countless layers of gauze, Hengmu Liren kept his head lowered. His face flushed in rage and his lips shivered. He murmured with indescribable resentment, “Come out if you dare, come out if you dare, come out if you dare!”
Coming out of the Song Kingdom, Long Qing led his subordinates and over two thousand cavalrymen to the north. They were returning to his hometown Chengjing and joining the cavalrymen who had been stationed there for years.
His elder brother had been taking good care of the Yan Kingdom. He had confidence in his brother and would never care about the trivial problems. He kept looking north, to the East Wilderness where he regained his fame, and to the ghostly powerful figure.
Yu Lian was about to finish her task in the East Wilderness. The Divine Halls of West-Hill had tried several times to stop her but in vain. They lost many powerful cultivators and had to stay aside after those failed attempts. But he could not stay aside. It was not because he had regained his fame in the East Wilderness, but because the Yan Kingdom was located to the south of the East Wilderness. If the Wild People wanted to take back the south, then the Yan Kingdom would be the first kingdom they would conquer.
All of a sudden Long Qing turned away from the grassland and looked toward Chang’an because a second ago he sensed some flow of psyche that skimmed over Chengjing.
The psyche was so powerful that barely anyone throughout the cultivation world could possess it. Liu Bai used to be the most powerful figure in the world, and his psyche roared like the Yellow River. But even he was not able to skim the entire human world with his psyche. Then whose psyche was it? Long Qing knew it was Ning Que’s.
Ning Que’s psyche was like an ocean. It used to be like this when he was bestowed with Sangsang’s Divine Flame. And it appeared again today because he had the entire Chang’an as his power supply. His psyche reached out to the entire human world.
Long Qing kept quiet. He was not as anxious as the Butcher because he did not care that much. He was not getting ready to escape by using the Distanceless Skill like the Drunkard. It was because he was not Distanceless and also because he did not want to leave.
Throughout the cultivation world, there were only three who had survived Ning Que’s Thirteen Primordial Arrows: the Chief Monk of Scripture from the Xuankong Temple, Ye Hongyu, and himself.
Among the three, he was the only one who actually went through the horrifying shot. The hole in his chest was still telling the story years ago. He knew that iron cutlass so well, every detail of it. With the help of Tianqi and the support from Chang’an, Ning Que was able to reach out to the entire human world with his psyche. However, in order to target a person, he would still need someone to help locate the person. In other words, he needed someone to help provoke his target to the highest level of his cultivation.
Long Qing knew it. Therefore he was not worried. Because by now the Eldest Brother should have left the human world. But he was still silent. It was still the Thirteen Primordial Arrows after all.
A virtuous man would stay aloof from any worldly success. If only he had to win, that would be in a shooting game. The Academy was very particular about shooting. When Ning Que was preparing for a shot, the entire world was silent.
Even the most powerful, confident and narcissistic cultivator would never be willing to become his target. The iron arrow might not be able to kill someone like the Butcher. But no one dared to risk it because years ago during the Rite to Light, the powerful cultivator at Knowing Destiny from Qinghe Prefecture was killed. The Elder Cui who was on top of the clans was also killed.
They both died in a single shot.
When Ning Que reached out to the human world with his psyche, he skimmed through the vast fields, mountains and rivers. The aim of his iron arrow also moved while he did so, and eventually targeted somewhere deep in the West Wilderness.
There was nothing, no battles. He could not see any special light spot in his ocean of psyche. It was too far away, almost the end of the world. Even though his psyche could reach there, it became very dim and was hard to detect anything.
But he still stared calmly at that point because he was about to do something. The Abbey Dean had left during the storm. Therefore he must finish something before he left Chang’an.
Long Qing assumed that his iron arrow could not be shot without the help of his Eldest Brother. They had tried to shoot the Drunkard in front of the imperial palace in Linkang. Although they failed, it was no less a shock to the Drunkard, and had caused the chaos afterward which ended in Ye Su’s death in the small courtyard by the East Sea.
In its optimal state, the Thirteen Primordial Arrows could take down any powerful cultivator. But it required the whole Chang’an as his source of power, and someone to help him locate the target. However, many people had forgotten that when Ning Que made his first iron arrow shot from a thousand miles away, it was not the Eldest Brother who helped him.
Many years ago in the courtyard by the Fuchun River, it was Jun Mo who took a step forward, introduced himself and provoked the Elder Cui to expose his full strength.
…
…
The snow had stopped for a few days in the Wilderness. Now it fell even heavier and almost became a storm. The entire Golden Tribe Royal Court was heading south in the storm. Every male adult in the tribe on the grassland was a good cavalryman. Therefore the Northern Battlefront Army was confronted with tens of thousands of good cavalrymen now.
In the West Wilderness, a snowstorm was also roaring. The Right Royal Court had sent out all their best cavalrymen. Being far from the Central Plains, their cavalrymen had not participated in any battle for years. This time they did not head south to the Yuelun Kingdom or to the horrifying swamp in the east. Instead they went further to the west. Neither the severe weather nor the lack of supplies could have slowed them down because they were heading for Xuankong Temple.
