Chapter 9: Borderlands
Chapter 9:
Borderlands
EVENING CAME with high wind in the borderlands, whistling through the scattered houses of the little garrison. All down the street, only a single teahouse shone from within. Warm yellow lantern light lent the place a semblance of life.
The so-called borderlands weren’t the border between two countries or cities. Rather, they were the border between the Demon Realm and the Human Realm.
The two races belonged to different worlds; for the most part, the Endless Abyss ruptured the space between them. But there were always those few places where the boundary between realms was weak, where time and space were in disarray, and where the residents of the two realms would often end up slipping back and forth between them. On occasion, in some cases, someone maliciously stole across the border.
Few ordinary people were willing to live in a place where the demon race could emerge from thin air and vanish like ghosts, skulking around one day then killing and pillaging the next. Thus, signs of human life in the borderlands only grew sparser by the year. Even when the dimensions of different realms began to intermingle in a prosperous city, the population would usually end up evacuating in a mass migration, leaving behind only the disciples sent by the cultivation world to guard the borderlands.
Lu Liu poured the newcomer a bowl of hot wine as he chatted with the few others gathered around their stove. “Brother, where did you come from?”
“The south.”
“Out that way?” A few people looked at each other, their expressions understanding. “It must be hard out there right now.”
The newcomer raised the bowl of wine and frowned. “Who said it wasn’t? There’s a battle twice every three days. No one can endure that kind of torture.”
“Cang Qiong Mountain and Huan Hua Palace both belong to the four major sects. Why are they making such a fuss these days?” someone in the corner cut in. “Their disciples can’t come face-to-face for a second without getting into a huge fight. Won’t their sect leaders control them a little?”
“How long have you been in this damn place, where birds won’t even stop to shit?” Lu Liu said. “You’ve gone too long living under a rock. It’s precisely because they have their sect leaders’ tacit permission that the disciples have been fighting harder and harder!”
“Why’s that? Liu-ge, tell us about it.”
Lu Liu cleared his throat. “It’s quite complicated to explain: Do you know who the current head of Huan Hua Palace is?”
“I heard it’s some kid.”
Lu Liu laughed harshly. “If Luo Binghe can be called a ‘kid,’ then you and I are less than nothing. This Luo Binghe is something else. He came from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and was even the head disciple of Qing Jing Peak’s Shen Qingqiu. At that Immortal Alliance Conference a while back, he dominated the rankings. Now that was truly a sight.”
“If he came from Cang Qiong Mountain, why would he become the head of Huan Hua Palace?” a listener said doubtfully.
“After the Immortal Alliance Conference, Luo Binghe disappeared for three years. No one knows where he went or what he did during that time. Shen Qingqiu said that he’d perished, so everyone believed he was already dead. Who could have known that three years later, he’d make a grand comeback—he had even become an influential figure at Huan Hua Palace. Then he forced Shen Qingqiu to self-detonate on the spot in Hua Yue City.”
“I never understood that,” said the newcomer. “This Shen Qingqiu, was he wrongly accused or did he deserve such a fate?”
“Who can say?” said Lu Liu. “That Cang Qiong Mountain is naturally united against outsiders, and they’ll fight anyone who says anything. They’ve always been like this, holding relations over reason. They won’t even let people talk about something as damning as that An Ding Peak Lord, Shang Qinghua, fleeing to the Demon Realm. Huan Hua Palace changed masters not long after that Hua Yue City incident; the Old Palace Master went into seclusion and disappeared without a trace. Luo Binghe took power in his stead and kills anyone who says anything otherwise.”
“All because of a dead man?” someone muttered.
“This dead man has made quite a few waves,” said Lu Liu. “Shen Qingqiu is from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, and he was even the peak lord of the second-ranked peak. His corpse should by rights go back to Qing Jing Peak to be interred with the former generations of peak lords. But the problem is, Luo Binghe refuses to return the body.”
Everyone was imagining something along the lines of Luo Binghe whipping the corpse or putting it up on display, and their hair stood on end.
“If he refuses to return it, can’t Cang Qiong Mountain take it by force?” someone asked. “That peak lord of Bai Zhan Peak is still around.”
Lu Liu shrugged. “He can’t beat Luo Binghe.”
“What?!” The group’s worldview was shattered. In the eyes of the world, the peak lord of Bai Zhan Peak had always held the position of undefeatable war god. That this peak lord “couldn’t beat” someone or whatever…was honestly unthinkable.
“You don’t know?” Lu Liu asked. “Ever since Hua Yue City, Bai Zhan Peak’s Liu Qingge has fought Luo Binghe countless times, but he’s never won once! And that’s not all. Luo Binghe brought Shen Qingqiu’s body back to Huan Hua Palace, and only a few days later, he personally kidnapped Qian Cao Peak’s Mu Qingfang.”
“Qian Cao Peak has always disregarded worldly affairs,” someone said. “They help the dying and heal the injured. So how did they manage to provoke this devil incarnate?”
“Luo Binghe took him back to Huan Hua Palace and told him to heal and revive Shen Qingqiu.” Lu Liu sighed. “The man had been dead so long, he’d gone stiff. What was there to heal?”
“When I see the two sects fight, Cang Qiong Mountain always likes calling Huan Hua Palace the dogs of demons. Why is that?” the newcomer asked.
“That’s because, for some reason, the entirety of Cang Qiong Mountain from top to bottom insists that Luo Binghe is a fiend from the demon race,” said Lu Liu. “Numerous abbots of Zhao Hua Monastery have personally testified that spiritual energy circulates normally inside Luo Binghe, but Cang Qiong Mountain still insists on calling him that… Those two sects go back and forth, repaying grievance with grievance, growing their feud larger and larger. The way I see it, one day, their ships will capsize together and no one will survive.
“So—” In the end, Lu Liu didn’t forget to comfort himself. “—being sent to guard the border to be free and idle like us was actually a good thing.”
“I really can’t understand what’s going on with this master-disciple pair, let alone those two sects,” the person in the corner said, confused.
“One theory is it comes down to a grudge as deep as the sea. But there’s another theory, and this old Lu thinks that one is more believable. Let me tell you all—”
Lu Liu was just about to launch into another round of enthusiastic gossip, when suddenly a burst of knocking sounded outside the door.
Everyone in the room immediately raised their guard. All their mischief and exhaustion was swept away, and each individual readied their weapons and spiritual artifacts.
The borderlands possessed only rare traces of human life, being abnormally desolate. The members of their squadron were the only permanent residents of the entire garrison. The ones who’d gone out on patrol wouldn’t have returned so quickly, and the few remaining residents were even less likely to risk death by wandering outside in the middle of the night.
No one inside responded, and after a while there were two more knocks on the wooden door.
“Who is it?!” Lu Liu called out harshly.
Suddenly, a chill wind blew by and extinguished the oil lamps and candles on the table. The room instantly turned pitch-dark, leaving behind only the dull, red light of the stove faintly burning.
The silhouette of a man carrying a sword on his back cast itself through the window paper. The person called in a clear voice, “Liu-ge, it’s me. It’s too cold today, so I came back early. Open the door and let me warm up with a cup of wine.”
The group released the breaths they were holding and cursed.
“Old Qin, you trying to die? Just knocking on the door without a word! If we didn’t know better, we’d have thought you were eaten by a ghost!”
The person outside the door chuckled.
Lu Liu felt something was strange, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. He said, “Come in!” and opened the door.
A gust of frigid wind swept into their faces, but there was nothing there.
Lu Liu slammed the door shut. “Light the lamps! The lamps, the lamps!”
The newcomer’s hand trembled. He turned and formed a fire seal, and the flickering flame illuminated a few silhouettes. He’d yet to light a candle when he turned back around and stuttered, “Liu-ge, I…I want to ask you.”
“What are you stammering for?” Lu Liu said, impatient.
“There were only six people in this room, right? So why am I seeing…what looks like seven?”
Dead silence.
Suddenly, there was a loud cry. No one knew who had attacked first, but screams and the sound of clashing weapons rose and fell.
Lu Liu yelled, “Light the lamps! The lamps!”
Everyone hurried to form fire seals, but their movements were too uncoordinated. The flames and silhouettes swayed wildly and disoriented their vision, making it even harder to see who was who. Afraid of harming their own, no one dared to swing too aggressively, and so the thing that had wormed into their midst took advantage of the chaos. It was like catching fish in turbid water: a claw here, a knife there. As Lu Liu mentally cursed, something suddenly grabbed him by the neck.
His eyes rolled back into his head and his feet slowly left the ground, unable to see what had grabbed him by the throat. Just when he thought his life would end right then and there, the door flew open, and a whirling gale swept inside. Another silhouette charged in.
No one saw how the newcomer fought, but Lu Liu heard an uncanny cry by his ear that sounded like it had come from the thing holding him by the neck. Its grip loosened.
The six people in the room hadn’t yet recovered from their fright, and some were lying flat on the ground. This new person snapped his fingers, and the oil lamps in the room lit all at once.
He bent down to study the bodies for a moment, then rose. “They’re fine. Just unconscious.”
This person was caked in black mud, like he’d just been excavated from a grave, and his face was covered in whiskers that densely obscured his facial features. Despite his lean figure, his face was that of a large, bearded man’s.
Lu Liu finally stopped shivering and stared him up and down for a long time before cupping his fist. “Many, many thanks to this distinguished gentleman for your assistance chasing away that creature!”
The new person slung an arm over Lu Liu’s shoulder. “This humble one has something to ask.”
“Please do.”
“What year is it?”
***
As Shen Qingqiu had tumbled his way down from the mountain, covered in mud, half-rolling, half-crawling, he’d fervently prayed for Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky to be destroyed ten thousand times. Destruction by spiritual energy implosion or by asshole, either was acceptable.
Originally, most of the strategies he’d thought up to preserve his life had involved faking his death.
But what was the point of faking one’s death? The trope of plotting a fake death with a puppet or look-alike while allowing the original person to flee had been done to death in TV series!
So the strategy he settled on was dying for real.
That day in Hua Yue City, he really and truly had self-detonated, and even done a good deed along the way, absorbing an enormous amount of the berserk demonic energy in Luo Binghe’s body. To say that his meridians had been ground to dust was no exaggeration.
Only by facing death could one return alive6.
The Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom was also called the “flesh mushroom,”7 and this name was entirely literal. Though this mushroom wasn’t especially useful for cultivating, it still grew by collecting spiritual energy from nature along with essence from the sun and moon. If you planted its sprout in soil rich with spiritual energy, nurtured it, meticulously sculpted it, and watered it with blood and qi, once it matured, you could cultivate a living body of flesh. The body could grow just fine, but it was impossible to also create a soul via this method. That was to say, you could only grow a soulless, empty shell.
You couldn’t find a more suitable vessel.
“Plant a Little Shen in the spring and harvest a Big Shen in the autumn” was no longer just a dream!
But the Dew Mushroom wasn’t a Chinese cabbage, something you could simply grow with a handful of fertilizer and water. Shen Qingqiu had destroyed a number of mushroom sprouts before he’d cultivated one that hadn’t grown crooked.
A good while back, he and Shang Qinghua had calculated the coordinates to carry out this long-distance operation. Beneath the tallest building of Hua Yue City, they had set up a transportation array, and at the time when the sun was highest, Shang Qinghua had triggered a second array—this one for activation—on Cang Qiong Mountain. The moment Shen Qingqiu’s soul left his body, he had been sent into the mature Dew Mushroom, which had been buried deep in the mountains of the borderlands.
Three locations, three arrays. If you connected them with straight lines, they would have formed the most stable shape: an equilateral triangle. Reasonably speaking, it was absolutely stable, absolutely reliable.
The only flaw was a certain person.
“Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was just too reliable.
Shen Qingqiu had been worried about flaws like overlarge arms or uneven legs, or a crucial part simply not growing, but none of these problems had occurred. However, sure enough, using chemical fertilizer to mature the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom had resulted in some side effects.
Just after waking, Shen Qingqiu had waited quietly for a while, but he hadn’t heard that detestable Google Translate-like notification.
He internally exploded with joy: The System hasn’t appeared, ha ha ha, the System hasn’t appeared! This big shot’s changed hardware—I’m not going to reinstall a virus like you, ha ha ha!
Though he could only rest assured temporarily, he couldn’t resist dancing in joy.
Dancing in joy my ass.
His whole body was still buried in the ground. He couldn’t move an inch!
For a day, he remained buried, gathering strength from his fingertips until he could finally move his limbs. Only after this did Shen Qingqiu finally, shakily crawl out.
Once he broke through the earth’s surface, he didn’t even get the chance to revel in the fresh air of freedom before he fell face-first onto the ground.
Ah, this body isn’t listening to my commands again. This left him splayed on the mountainside.
Shen Qingqiu spent an entire day walking while doing radio calisthenics, right up until the evening, when his gait finally resembled a normal person’s. At least he was no longer simultaneously putting the same arm and leg forward.
The human cast they used had been based on his former appearance as Shen Yuan. It didn’t compare to Shen Qingqiu’s immortal poise, but it wasn’t a bad mortal container. It just had a bit of a certain listlessness—the listlessness of a worthless pretty boy idling his life away. But because he’d used some of his blood while cultivating the Dew Mushroom, a touch of foreign influence was inevitable. When Shen Qingqiu tumbled to the side of a creek and used a sharp mountain rock to scrape away his whiskers for a look, his new face was still three or four parts of ten similar to Shen Qingqiu’s. Without a word, he re-pasted the whiskers onto his face.
Finally, after managing to tumble his way to the bottom of the mountain, he grabbed a passerby and asked the year.
Fuck, it’s already been five years!
He could understand that right after waking up, his body was uncoordinated and occasionally unable to move because he needed some time to adjust to the new configuration—but only waking up after being buried for five years? What was with this?!
Also, a roast was a roast, but this body was practically bursting with spiritual energy.
The original Shen Qingqiu’s body had been quite abundant in spiritual energy when Without a Cure wasn’t causing it trouble, but the difference between that and the sensations he had in this one—it was like the difference between two bars of battery (still enough to use) and a full charge (the second after charging and pulling the cord). He would even go so far as to say that he was a generator.
Did this count as shedding his body and replacing his bones8, changing his tendons and cleansing his marrows?9
Was this the drumbeat leading up to his own ascension to OP-hood?!
After so many years, Shen Qingqiu felt for the first time that he’d acquired a lick of the dignity owed to reincarnated transmigrators. For the first time, his unskilled self would perhaps not drag down his seniors in the transmigration regiment!
When he tuned back in, Lu Liu was rambling.
“These past few years, the demon race has invaded more and more often. All sorts of demons, ghouls, and ghosts have poured into the Human Realm—a major battle is likely imminent… Oh, I haven’t yet asked this distinguished gentleman for his immortal name.”
The words “Ha ha, this humble one is the untalented Qing Jing Peak Lord of Cang Qiong Mountain, the Xiu Ya Sword, Shen Qingqiu of the Central Plains” veered off course just before they reached Shen Qingqiu’s throat.
So close, so close—he’d almost given them his old name. He couldn’t think of another name in the moment, and after muttering for a bit, he resolutely said two words: “Peerless Cucumber.”
Everything that had happened before was as unto smoke. From today forth, as he walked the jianghu, he would use this ID, which had been plastered all over the comments section for years.
After he spoke, Shen Qingqiu glided away, leaving only a room full of petrified people in his wake.
After a while, the newcomer mumbled, “He just said he was…Peerless… What was it?”
“Peerless…Chrysanthemum?” Lu Liu guessed.
“Wasn’t it Peerless Crown?”
“No, no, no, it was Peerless Crazy Flower!”
Shen Qingqiu had walked several tens of feet away, but at the sound of this, his feet slipped out from under him.
Uh, perhaps he would have to think about it some more later. Maybe switch to a different name…
***
The first step to starting his all-new life would, of course, have to be proceedings with which Shen Qingqiu was most familiar. First, for a prop, he needed a folding fan, one with a white silk base, decorated with an ink wash painting of mountains and rivers.
Shen Qingqiu snapped the fan open and waved it before his chest, sending his long hair and whiskers flying. Perhaps his image wasn’t ideal and was slightly unsuited to said prop, but that didn’t matter. With a folding fan in hand / Badass act at my command.
Shen Qingqiu placed one foot on a mountain rock and said, “Speak. Exactly what intentions have brought you to infiltrate the Human Realm?”
A crowd of trembling people—ah, no, demons—huddled before him. Though to be honest, from appearance alone there was basically no difference.
“Usually we only…steal small trinkets from the Human Realm and take them back to trade,” the frontmost one said, shaking with fear.
The Demon Realm didn’t have a common currency, so they often bartered. If something caught their eye, they’d trade for it, or if it didn’t, they wouldn’t. Between the demon race’s questionable skill in craftsmanship and artistic tastes, to them, an everyday piece of Human Realm embroidery was a top-notch artisanal product. Therefore, all manner of ordinary trinkets from the Human Realm were exceedingly popular among demonkind. By contrast, the items they valued least were the various crystals with special effects that were a dime a dozen in their homeland.
But being a dime a dozen in the Demon Realm didn’t mean there wasn’t a market for them among humans!
Shen Qingqiu snapped his fan shut and spoke solemnly. “This remote and destitute town, where neither birds shit nor chickens lay eggs, has poor production rates and a stagnant economy, and the level of general happiness is lower than average. It is wrong for you to profit from their misfortune.”
The minor demon was at a loss. He was pretty sure that in the moment he was captured, this…lofty master had also been stealing—ah, no, borrowing?—clothes, as well as the fan with which he was happily fanning himself.
I was compelled by my circumstances! Shen Qingqiu thought. Surely you can’t expect me to wander around in clothes that had been exhumed from the dirt like some kind of savage?
However, this actually opened up a new line of thought. These minor demons had never dared to do more than snoop and thieve here and there. But if he could supply them with an honest channel for small goods, perhaps within this world that revolved around cultivation and monster-fighting, he could forge paths into a new frontier based on farming and amassing capital?
Shen Qingqiu irresponsibly fantasized for a while, then felt that if he were to accept underlings, they needed to understand each other’s cultural practices.
“Do you eat rotten flesh?” he asked amiably.
The minor demons shook their heads. Shen Qingqiu was about to sigh in relief when the leader effusively said: “My pa said that only the rich and influential can afford rotten flesh.”
“Enough.”
It isn’t at all a question of economic access, okay?!
After climbing to the top of the Demon Realm, Luo Binghe had been more than influential, right? So how come he’d never enjoyed this kind of thing on page?!
After a pause, Shen Qingqiu changed his angle. “What’s your name?”
The first one replied, “Six Balls.”
“What does that mean?”
“When I was born, my pa held me and said I was six balls heavy.”
Shen Qingqiu was speechless. What balls? Shot put balls or ping-pong balls?! This kind of name is absolutely meaningless.
The rest of the demons then scrambled to declare their own names, each one more unbearable than the last; they seemed to take much pride in them.
Are the names chosen by demon commoners all this literal?!
Family names didn’t exist in demon culture, so the names they chose were daring and audacious, bold and unrestrained. You could tell at a glance that those generals with names that left people speechless, such as Elder Sky Hammer or Elder Single Arm, had started as nobodies and climbed up to the top. But if they came from nobility, such as Mobei-Jun, Sha Hualing, or Luo Binghe’s father Tianlang-Jun, their name situation was a little better.
It then occurred to Shen Qingqiu that it was fortunate Luo Binghe hadn’t been tossed into the Demon Realm and found there. If he’d been taken in by demon commoners, in accordance with these naming conventions, he might’ve been dubbed something that made it sound like his parents hated him.
What would he be called? Jade-Faced Little Playboy? Evil Demonic Incubus Spirit?
No, no, no, it needed to be something more earth-shatteringly terrifying.
Then he remembered that in the original story, some girl had bashfully expressed that Luo Binghe’s “that” was very “that.” With an uncountable harem and innumerable trysts, he could effortlessly pull his trigger in every manner of setting. And even after eons, the gun remained infallible, as vigorous as ever. In truth, the name Peerless Cucumber would have suited Luo Binghe quite well, but since Shen Qingqiu had already taken it, then Luo Binghe might as well be…Heavenly Pillar-Jun?
Ha ha ha ha, fuck! Luo Heavenly Pillar! Ha ha ha ha, how painfully exhilarating!
Shen Qingqiu had been laughing for a while when he abruptly slapped himself.
The fuck is wrong with you?! Getting carried away, using the Great Master protagonist to come up with a tasteless dirty joke in your head! What’s funny about this? Don’t you get that some people are off-limits for your crass humor?!
The minor demons watched this lofty master first laugh so hard that he fell to the ground, then slap himself in anger. Mystified, they didn’t dare do so much as breathe loudly.
Then Shen Qingqiu suddenly stopped smiling and pressed his fan into Six Balls’s shoulder, pulling him close. As he did, Shen Qingqiu plucked a sword tassel from the demon’s waist. “Where did you get this?”
It was a sword tassel, but it was no ordinary sword tassel.
This decoration belonged to the number one female lead, Liu Mingyan—it was Shui Se’s sword tassel!
It was what male and female leads always exchanged as love tokens, you get it? Back at Cang Qiong Mountain, Shen Qingqiu had made a point to take special notice of this one, so it didn’t need to be distinctive to stand out to him. How had this thing fallen into the hands of a minor demon in the borderlands?
Terrified, Six Balls responded, “I-I-I didn’t steal it, I found it…”
Hit the streets and find me another one then, if it’s so easy, Shen Qingqiu thought. “Where did you find it?”
“Th-th-these days, an important person has been traveling the roads at night, though first they send their subordinates to clear the way. We were a little curious and hid by the roadside, then afterward we found this on the road.”
The important person the minor demon described had to be someone at the pinnacle of power in the Demon Realm.
This type of character didn’t frequent the borderlands; they would only draw attention. In fact, the local environment was most unsuitable for them. Exactly what kind of important person would boldly take over the roads with such swagger, even going so far as to leave behind an intimate item of Liu Mingyan’s?
The first possibility that came to Shen Qingqiu’s mind was, of course, a certain someone.
He asked, “The important person you’re talking about, was it…a good-looking young man?” When he thought about it, he decided against suppressing his conscience and clarified. “Not just good-looking, he’s very good-looking, especially good-looking. Fair skin, pretty face, tall. He doesn’t smile often, but when he does, it’s exceptionally dark.”
Six Balls shook his head, then suddenly blushed.
Why are you blushing? Shen Qingqiu interrogated him for a while, but he couldn’t get any answers. He decided internally that this mystery person probably wasn’t Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe carried Xin Mo, and it was a super crazy, ridiculous, huge-ass cheat that broke every single rule. With a casual slash, it could cleave the space between the two realms, and with that slice, you could open yourself a passage through which to enter the Demon Realm. Luo Binghe would never expend the effort required to make a special trip to the borderlands, let alone to faithfully follow the paths of smugglers.
If that was the case, a problem arose. Demons had passed through the area, yet they had left behind Liu Mingyan’s belongings. Could it be that Liu Mingyan had slipped up and been captured?
Shen Qingqiu didn’t remember Liu Mingyan, being the number one female lead, suffering such treatment in the original work. What dumbass insignificant bandit would dare touch Luo Binghe’s wife?
Furthermore, though the Liu siblings normally each cultivated on their own peaks, the original work had mentioned that their relationship was quite good. Perhaps their sibling bond only seemed distant because neither was the clingy type.
But whether Shen Qingqiu saw her as Liu Qingge’s little sister or as Qi Qingqi’s beloved disciple, he couldn’t just stand aside and do nothing.
Moreover, at this time, the System was (seemingly) unable to threaten him (for now), and thus he had nothing to fear with regard to restrictions or massive deductions of B-Points or whatever. So why not go check it out?
“Where is the rift in the boundary between realms?” Shen Qingqiu asked.
***
At midnight, Shen Qingqiu hid in the treetops with all traces of his presence concealed, overlooking the area below.
After an unknown length of time, a certain patch of air began to visibly distort.
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes lit up. He held his breath, attention rapt, and watched a youth in black rush out of it.
They were a great distance away from each other, but Shen Qingqiu’s eyes were incredibly sharp, and he could see the boy clearly. This youth was around seventeen or eighteen years old, with a tense expression on his sharp and handsome face. Actually, Shen Qingqiu found that face somewhat familiar; he just couldn’t remember where he’d seen it. Nevertheless, he was certain he had.
Suddenly, a crisp female voice, at once sweet and cold, broke the silent night and echoed through the forest. “Bai Zhan Peak’s disciples are truly exceptional. Your body’s constrained by a hundred immortal-binding cables, yet you’re still able to wipe the floor with a great many of my subordinates and you’ve fled so far. I truly can’t lower my guard for an instant!”
On hearing this voice, realization hit Shen Qingqiu.
A demon who was beautiful, of noble background, and had subordinates, who a minor demon would blush at mentioning—it had to be Sha Hualing.
Sorry! So what if this girl was one of the female leads? She hadn’t been around for way too long, and thus he’d pretty much forgotten about her.
If Liu Mingyan had fallen into Sha Hualing’s hands, her fate was even more cause to worry. If Sha Hualing settled for slashing up Liu Mingyan’s face, she’d be going easy on her.
No wonder this youth’s running posture had seemed odd just now, his body noticeably heavy. Shen Qingqiu had only focused on his face before, but now he continued looking downward. As it turned out, there were numerous thin silver wires bound around the lad. The color of his robes confirmed that he really was from Bai Zhan Peak, but Shen Qingqiu could summon no memory of ever having seen such a young disciple before.
The youth knew he couldn’t beat his opponent in speed, so he abruptly braked, his eyebrows furrowed fiercely. “If you want to fight, let’s fight!”
There was a flash of gauzy red cloth, and Sha Hualing walked toward him with swaying hips that emphasized her figure. “It took me so much effort to catch you,” she said, full of smiles. “How could I bear to fight you? Quickly, why don’t you come back with me?”
The youth’s temper was violent, and he spat at her.
“You won’t?” Sha Hualing asked. “I won’t damage your spiritual energy, but chopping off an arm or leg or whatever won’t injure that part of you.”
As she spoke, her right hand reached out to grab the youth, but before she could touch him, an odd tremor suddenly traveled down her fingers. Sha Hualing assumed she’d fallen for some trick on the youth’s part and quickly withdrew. She then raised her hand to examine it. Her five cinnabar-painted nails had been uniformly trimmed a noticeable length shorter.
It was only her nails, and it hadn’t hurt in the least, but Sha Hualing’s blood went instantly cold.
“Who’s there?!” she shouted.
If someone lurking nearby could cut her nails with such ease, then they could just as effortlessly slice open her neck.
Shen Qingqiu was feeling much more relieved as he released a twig plucked clean of leaves.
In truth, he’d just wanted to scare Sha Hualing a little, and while he was at it, keeping her nails so long really wasn’t good. Every time Shen Qingqiu saw them, he was worried they’d break, which made him extraordinarily uncomfortable. Plus, they often scratched Luo Binghe’s back into a bloody mess… Even if Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky liked that kind of hardcore flavor, and even if Luo Binghe’s healing ability was inhuman, it didn’t mean this habit was proper or indicative of a healthy lifestyle.
Sha Hualing’s killing intent spiked. She whirled a red cloth and summoned a mass of chilling demonic qi, gathering it around her fingers, and then struck at the youth. This maiden wasn’t scared stiff, she was scared angry. Truly a character.
Shen Qingqiu had no choice but to leap down from the treetops to drop between the two. He gathered energy in his hand and fired a spiritual blast, directly meeting Sha Hualing’s.
He had known that this body was full to bursting with spiritual energy, but he hadn’t thought it was bursting to such an extent. Their palms hadn’t yet connected when Sha Hualing was flung straight back like a repelled magnet. At the same time, those skimpy clothes tore once more…
Though this was an unexpected bonus, Shen Qingqiu had always insisted on the rule of “Under no circumstances look at an unexpected bonus from women in this world who have above-average looks.” He censored it himself.
Sha Hualing was also more than direct. Last time, she had let out some vicious words, but this time, having weighed their respective strengths, she had no words for the occasion and just dropped into a roll. When she lunged into that patch of distorted air, her figure instantly vanished.
Shen Qingqiu tossed his fan several times, channeling spiritual energy into it and transforming the fan into a blade, which he sliced down with a flip of his hand. The immortal-binding cables fell into some hundred pieces.
The youth performed the respectable act of cupping his fist. “Many thanks to Senior for the rescue!”
In turn, Shen Qingqiu performed the respectable act of asking, “You’re a disciple of Bai Zhan Peak?”
“I am.”
“Under who?”
“My master is the Bai Zhan Peak Lord, Liu Qingge.”
Shen Qingqiu was genuinely astonished.
Liu Qingge never accepted disciples. On that Bai Zhan Peak of his, at most there were people equal to him in seniority, and other than that, there were the disciples his shixiong and shidi had taken in. The man himself wasn’t interested in teaching. To be fair, what Bai Zhan Peak called “teaching” was just putting effort into beating up on one person in particular…
Shen Qingqiu had some slight suspicions. “What’s your name?”
“Yang Yixuan,” the youth answered, loud and clear.
Like I said, he looked familiar, so I’d definitely seen him somewhere before, right?
A young child could certainly grow up in five years. Shen Qingqiu looked Yang Yixuan up and down as he thought of how Liu Qingge had sworn that he wouldn’t accept disciples because it was too troublesome. But he had in the end, hadn’t he!
“Senior?” asked Yang Yixuan.
“How has your Shizun been these past few years?” asked Shen Qingqiu.
At their parting in Hua Yue City, Liu Qingge had lost to Luo Binghe, and it must have been a true blow. Shen Qingqiu felt he absolutely had to ask after his shidi’s current condition.
“He’s been defeated in every battle,” Yang Yixuan said honestly.
Shen Qingqiu was silent.
The idea that the Bai Zhan Peak Lord could be associated with the phrase “defeated in every battle”… It really made one shake in one’s boots.
“Who did he fight?” Shen Qingqiu asked. “Luo Binghe?”
Yang Yixuan humphed. “Who else but that little beast?”
Shen Qingqiu’s expression twisted slightly. Yang Yixuan himself was quite a bit younger than Luo Binghe, yet he still called him “little beast.” Who had he learned this from?
He didn’t yet know that nowadays, whenever anyone in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect referred to Luo Binghe, it was always as “little beast,” “demon fiend,” or “ingrate.” If they called him by his name and added “that bastard,” it was considered courteous.
“How did you fall into that demon woman’s hands?” Shen Qingqiu asked. “Her words just now were a little strange. What was that ‘how could I bear to fight you’ business about?”
Yang Yixuan’s face immediately flushed red. “If that demon woman hadn’t used such devious methods, first disguising herself as a woman who’d fallen into misfortune, then when I became suspicious, suddenly taking off…taking off—I absolutely wouldn’t have fallen into her trap and been captured!”
Shen Qingqiu instantly understood. “Look at yourself! Look at yourself. Are you really a representative of Bai Zhan Peak?” he lectured. “Avoiding feminine charms doesn’t mean fearing them. So what if she took off her clothes? So what if a maiden stripped right in front of you? Back when your shizun went to fight succubi, their entire cave was filled with unclothed bodies!”
Mind you, at that time Shen Qingqiu had also been there, and true enough, he’d begun to suspect that Liu Qingge was either asexual or impotent…
Yang Yixuan’s face was filled with longing admiration. “An entire cave! As expected of Shizun!” Then he said curiously, “Does Senior know my master well? How else could you know of how my shizun fought succubi?”
Shen Qingqiu coughed once. “Old affairs. Old affairs.”
Getting back to the main topic: Sha Hualing hadn’t just captured Yang Yixuan, she’d likely also taken Liu Mingyan. She would capture Cang Qiong Mountain Sect disciples in such a high-profile manner for only one reason. Something had gone wrong with Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe’s cultivation system was unscientific in the extreme. He had to multitask and coordinate the two systems within him in order to combine diametrically opposed forces into one working network. This meant that his spiritual and demonic qi had to operate as mutual checks and balances against each other. However, once Xin Mo got involved, his demonic qi surged and the balance was lost, throwing the whole into disarray.
In order to resolve this issue, Luo Binghe employed a method that involved looking for human vessels. When the moon was full, he’d search for someone with strong spiritual energy and pass the excess demonic qi in his body to them. In exchange, he absorbed the greater part of the vessel’s spiritual qi. In this way, he naturally regained his balance.
However, because Luo Binghe’s demonic qi was far too intense, the human vessel would often be left crippled by the energy transfer. Generally speaking, these extraction implements were limited to a single use.
And of course, Luo Binghe wouldn’t do the demanding work of capturing human vessels himself. Naturally, it was Sha Hualing who stored people in cages for him to pick from as he pleased, no explicit orders needed. Luo Binghe simply needed to deploy Xin Mo to cleave open a passage to the Demon Realm on the night of the full moon and grab somebody to use.
The sad thing was that in the original work, Sha Hualing had gone to all that effort, and then Luo Binghe had gotten together with three beautiful nuns from Tian Yi Temple—victims she had personally selected. As one might imagine, Sha Hualing nearly went mad with anger!
“While you were captured, did you see anyone else?” Shen Qingqiu asked. “Where were you held?”
Yang Yixuan shook his head. “As soon as we entered the rift between realms, we were in the lair of that demon woman, Chi Yun Cave. I was shut in a single-person cell and didn’t see anyone else.”
Shen Qingqiu tossed and caught Liu Mingyan’s sword tassel several times. “My guess is that you weren’t the only one captured.”
He thought for a bit, then decided to go take a look. In any case, tonight wasn’t the full moon, so it wasn’t time for the extraction. Luo Binghe would be away, busy stirring up havoc and inciting chaos in the Human Realm, so he probably wouldn’t come looking to meet with Sha Hualing. And saving Liu Mingyan, who shouldn’t have appeared here in the first place, wouldn’t count as messing up the plot. Rather, he’d be correcting it.
Yang Yixuan hurried to catch up. “I’ll come too! My sword is still in that demon woman’s hands.”
“You’re not scared she’ll take off her clothes?” asked Shen Qingqiu.
“There’s no way I’d be scared,” Yang Yixuan said disdainfully. “Besides, throughout that entire trip she took them off dozens of times. There’s nothing remarkable about it anymore.”
Shen Qingqiu turned around, speechless. So the reason she shut you in a single-person cell was actually so she could strip for your eyes only—what an unbelievable bonus. Young man, if you continue at this pace, you’ll definitely die to the male lead. How worrisome! You’re Liu Qingge’s sole disciple!
Passing through the spatial rift was like passing through a gushing flow of warm water. Once they re-emerged, they were in demon territory.
On the human side, it was already past midnight, but on the demon side, twilight had only just fallen. The air was particularly arid; after standing there a moment, Shen Qingqiu grew a bit dizzy, like he was suffering from altitude sickness. As far as the eye could see, there seemed to be little difference from the Human Realm, although the trees were a tad sparser. Looked like their greenification efforts were a bit lacking.
Yang Yixuan led the way. They passed through craggy stones and soon found the opening of Chi Yun Cave.
It’s an honor to see you at last, o cultural monument of the demon race. Seeing it in person, Shen Qingqiu found that sure enough, it was…unique.
It was in the demon race’s nature to prefer darkness. Most of their permanent and temporary residences were located wholly underground. When he took in the entire entrance, it seemed to him to be an exceptionally splendid mausoleum.
A tablet inscribed with three characters in twisty red calligraphy erected in front of a big pile of rocks—tell me, what could that be if not a tombstone? Shen Qingqiu thought.
He cupped a handful of spiritual energy, ready at all times to make a mess of any enemy who might show their face. But after he started down the tomb passage—no, the cave entrance—not once did he see any guards. When he thought about it, it made sense. Only demons had ever sneaked into the Human Realm to throw their weight around. What humans would suicidally run over to this side? The demons had absolutely no need to arrange for guards.
The pair stealthily moved deeper. After passing through the stone corridors, they arrived at a large hall.
The hall was carpeted with the intact skins of all manner of strange beasts; at first glance, they seemed to be still alive. Sha Hualing was currently barefoot, pacing back and forth on an enormous tiger skin spread over the floor of the hall.
Shen Qingqiu was worried that Yang Yixuan would recklessly make a sound and alert her. Just as he was about to remind him to shush, he saw that the child had sensibly shut his mouth. Reassured, he turned back around.
On both sides of the hall were numerous cages, each holding tightly bound cultivators in differently colored uniforms. Some looked awfully young, but he also saw veterans. Some were drowsily nodding off, and others were glowering in fury.
Sha Hualing walked over to one of the cages, arms crossed. “You people from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect really are both troublesome and annoying! Capturing two of you took so much effort, and one even escaped before he could be shut away.” She clenched her teeth. “If not for—if not for… I’m really itching to break all your legs!”
In this cage, Liu Mingyan sat with her veil covering her face, her eyes closed and legs crossed, impervious to outside matters.
Sha Hualing saw that she was being ignored and smiled coldly. “That thing on your face, don’t you ever take it off? Oh, I see, could it be that your face is so ugly that you dare not take it off out of shame?”
Girl…do you know who you’ll envy the most in the future? Saying she’s ugly is just you giving yourself a thorough slap in the face!
Sha Hualing’s woman’s intuition was acting up. No matter how she looked at Liu Mingyan, the cultivator irritated her from every angle. She opened the cage, dragged Liu Mingyan out, and yelled, “Kneel!”
Liu Mingyan was naturally unwilling to do so. Though she was thoroughly without spiritual energy, she still stood firm. Sha Hualing pushed and shoved, but she was utterly unable to make Liu Mingyan’s knees bend even a little. Enraged to the point that steam came out of her ears, she snatched the veil off Liu Mingyan’s face.
In that moment, Sha Hualing’s delicate, snow-pale face became even more snow-pale.
Turn around! Turn around! I want to see! Shen Qingqiu howled internally. Quickly, let me see what the most beautiful woman in this book looks like!
All these years, he’d been mindful of his status, so he couldn’t have just said, “Hey, Shizhi, I heard you’re super pretty, so I wanted to look at your face. May I?” That sounded like something a pervert would say when sexually harassing someone. But having spent so long unable to see Liu Mingyan’s face, he felt like he was about to burst!
However, before Liu Mingyan could turn and let him experience the joy of a first glance, malice flashed through Sha Hualing’s eyes. Her fingers curved into claws and shot toward Liu Mingyan’s face.
And thus for the second time that night, Sha Hualing was sent flying, and she was finally unable to stop herself from coughing up a sullen mouthful of blood. A dash of self-consolation flashed through her mind: At least my clothes weren’t damaged this time. I won’t need to change again, right…?
Although Shen Qingqiu had sent her flying, she’d still clawed five gashes into his sleeve. Didn’t I trim those fingernails an hour ago? he thought, shocked. Are they capable of unlimited regeneration?
After tossing Sha Hualing away, he promptly turned his head to look at Liu Mingyan, and as soon as he did, his feet slipped out from under him. In the blink of an eye, she’d instantly put her veil back on—
What’s wrong with letting me have a glance?!
Yang Yixuan had found his sword stabbed into a seam in the rocks, and he had already started hacking at the chains on the cage doors with matchless speed. A throng of cultivators swarmed out with each chop.
Then Shen Qingqiu saw three navy blue silhouettes out of the corner of his eye and said with great alarm, “Stop, stop! Don’t do anything impulsive!”
Confused, Yang Yixuan turned his head. “Is something wrong, Senior?”
The words had barely left his mouth when Shen Qingqiu realized that he’d already opened the cage at hand, and three dainty Daoist nuns with faces that could have been cast from the same mold rushed out of Chi Yun Cave like a trio of whirlwinds.
Buddy, by haphazardly releasing everyone like this, you’ve released some people who shouldn’t have left!
He had released the three sisters responsible for settling Luo Binghe’s demonic qi in the long term!
But the blunder had already occurred. Shen Qingqiu’s heart flooded with tears, but it wasn’t like he could run after the nuns and stuff them back into their cages. There was no other option; he could only join in releasing people.
As he freed them, he sighed and lamented. He was dead. He’d managed to totally ruin a plot thread—the first meeting between the male lead and three members of his harem. A freak accident had messed up the scenario in which they fooled around and cultivated together. He could only place his hope in that hardworking employee, Sha Hualing, who would bravely go back to war and ideally recapture them to present to Luo Binghe. It was criminal! Criminal!
Shen Qingqiu was still wallowing in remorse when he lowered his head and unexpectedly found himself looking at a familiar face. His heart thumped.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. It truly was an unlucky year. His enemies kept marching down that narrow road.
Qiu Haitang was huddled in the cage, staring at him with a bewildered expression.
Shen Qingqiu was stupefied for a couple of seconds, then feigned ignorance. He motioned for her to hurry out, then nonchalantly turned around.
With his current appearance, no one (should have) recognized him. Moreover, five years ago, countless pairs of eyes had witnessed the scene of Shen Qingqiu’s self-detonation. There was nothing to worry about.
After coughing up blood, Sha Hualing remained sprawled on the floor in a daze for a while, then finally struggled into a seated position with great difficulty. She focused her gaze and yelled, “It’s you? Who the hell are you? You actually dared follow me here! You sure have some guts!”
Yang Yixuan looked like it had suddenly occurred to him to ask this question as well. So as he was setting people free, he asked offhandedly, “Oh, right, Senior, who are you?”
“Oh, right” my ass. Young man, your reaction time is way too slow! Also, what’s with that tone, like you’re asking something tangential and unimportant?!
Shen Qingqiu was considering whether to introduce himself with the title of Peerless Cucumber again when Sha Hualing humphed out a laugh. “Whatever, you’ve come this far—so don’t imagine I’ll allow you to leave.”
She clapped her hands, bells jingling around her wrists. After a moment, Chi Yun Cave’s guard regiment finally flooded into the hall from every corner.
Chi Yun Cave was Sha Hualing’s private residence, so her regular underlings weren’t around, and these useless troops were nothing to fear. Those minor demons circled around and around them, raising and lowering their arms, looking exactly like they were performing some kind of backwater dance ritual. Shen Qingqiu was mystified by the sight. But he was impatient, so he prepared to send them all flying with his fan when to his surprise, it seemed like countless strands of hair had fallen all over him, constraining his movements.
Immortal-binding cables.
Even though these motley troops didn’t have much fighting ability, they were obviously trained. Each held a hair-thin immortal-binding cable, and they circled him nonstop, winding him into a giant ball of string until he was fully entwined.
Sha Hualing hadn’t managed to cheer in victory before Shen Qingqiu laughed, then violently stomped on the floor. The air filled with the sound of snapping strings.
They had burst. The immortal-binding cables had been thoroughly snapped by this person who flooded them with spiritual energy!
More or less everyone there was so terrified, they completely forgot the task at hand. This really was the first time they had seen someone who could use spiritual energy to simply snap immortal-binding cables.
What a straightforward and brutal method of freeing oneself!
“Just run!” Shen Qingqiu yelled.
The freed cultivators didn’t need additional encouragement; most of them were already long gone. Yang Yixuan and Liu Mingyan had just struggled free of their immortal-binding cables, and the circulation of their spiritual energy was still unstable. Knowing they would only get in the way if they stayed and seeing that Shen Qingqiu would likely be able to handle things, they retreated, leaving with only a “Senior, take care.”
The underlings didn’t know whether to chase them and remained stuck in place, waiting for their superior’s orders.
Sha Hualing pointed at Shen Qingqiu, a strange gleam in her eye. “Catch him!” she shouted. “Don’t worry about the others—just him! Hold him down, even if you die trying!”
A few hodgepodge soldiers threw themselves at Shen Qingqiu, and he sent them flying with his fan. Then something heavy pressed down on his head.
A giant net.
Countless immortal-binding cables, each the thickness of a pinky finger, had been woven into a giant net, which was draping down upon his head. When it settled over Shen Qingqiu, its weight alone forced his knees to fold, and he nearly fell flat on the ground.
Where did you get this kind of bizarre prop? With cables this thick, are you sure it’s for binding immortals? Maybe you mean elephants?
Sha Hualing waited a while, and only after seeing that Shen Qingqiu was indeed unable to struggle free this time, she lazily approached.
Her previously wretched state had been swept tidily away. Sha Hualing felt that she had completed a momentous task and was wholly content. Even her reprimands took on a coquettish tone. “If a hundred immortal-binding cables can’t hold you down, then why wouldn’t I use a thousand, or ten thousand?” she chuckled. “This immortal-binding net wasn’t originally prepared for you, and yet it was used on you, so you should feel supremely honored. Don’t flail about! As long as you behave, I won’t do anything to you.”
“If you won’t do anything to me, can I trouble you to withdraw this net?” asked Shen Qingqiu.
But the demon race’s star employee Sha Hualing had jumped right back into her grand missionary sales pitch. “It seems that you were blessed with extraordinary talent,” she said as she crouched down, though she was speaking mainly to herself. “If you were to surrender and pledge yourself to my people’s banner, power and glory would be within your grasp. Of course, even if you won’t pledge yourself, it doesn’t matter. What should be done must be done; some suffering will be unavoidable. You should consider this carefully.”
No wonder Sha Hualing had ignored the others fleeing the cave and concentrated all her firepower on him. Luo Binghe needed spiritually powerful human vessels, abundant in spiritual energy. Of all the cultivators she had captured, none could have been more spiritually powerful than Shen Qingqiu. So this brat was planning to offer him to Luo Binghe as a human vessel!
Releasing the three beautiful flowers had been a purely unthinking mistake. Shen Qingqiu had certainly never planned to fill in the gap they left behind himself. He had that old feeling of having accidentally picked up the wrong script—it made him vaguely suspicious that that scam of a System was still around.
Shen Qingqiu was thinking up escape plans when Sha Hualing fixed her slightly messy hair, and with a swing of her hips, forged ahead out of the hall.
From a distance, Shen Qingqiu heard the sound of her soft and delicate laughter. “My lord, it isn’t the night of the full moon. Why did you think to visit this subordinate? Although you came at just the right time. As it turns out, I’ve prepared a special gift for you—it’s right in here.”
In a split second, a flood of hot blood mixed with cold sweat surged into Shen Qingqiu’s head.
He didn’t know where he found this burst of explosive power, but he grabbed the side of the net and sent the bottomless pool of spiritual qi in his body outward in the form of a spiritual blast.
Bang!
A giant boom sounded. Sha Hualing’s smile became fixed on her face. She sprinted back to the inner hall in a panic and was left staring tongue-tied at the sight.
In the middle of the hall, every last one of Chi Yun Cave’s minor demons lay sprawled every which way, all over the ground. In the center of the immortal-binding net, there was an immense hole, its edges still sizzling with flashing sparks, and wisps of white smoke drifted through the air.
That man was, in a word, terrifying. He’d rent a devastatingly large hole in this specially made immortal-binding net. And he was gone.
The person behind Sha Hualing passed her and strolled into the hall. Chi Yun Cave was lightless and dim; only his straight and slender silhouette was visible, along with the subtle silver light reflecting off the embroidered patterns on his black robes.
After a moment, Luo Binghe spoke with a tone that was neither pleased nor angry. “And this is your special gift?”
“Due to a momentary miscalculation, I let him get away!” Sha Hualing said bitterly.
Her distressed heart was dripping blood. An immortal-binding net woven from thousands of immortal-binding cables, originally meant to be used on those stinking cultivators from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, had been torn open with a massive hole just like that. This wasn’t something she could just sew and patch with a needle, then go back to using like it was nothing!
Luo Binghe’s back was facing her. He lowered his head and looked over the wreckage as he said icily, “I seem to recall telling you that people from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect were off-limits.”
Drops of cold sweat dripped down Sha Hualing’s forehead. Luo Binghe had indeed told her this. However, the spiritual energy levels of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s disciples were generally higher than those of other sects’ disciples by a good margin, and so they were the most suitable human vessels for extraction. Clinging to wishful thinking, she’d just captured a few, thinking that maybe she could switch their clothes and slip them into the collection undetected. She hadn’t expected that Luo Binghe would somehow still be able to tell who she’d captured, even after they’d all fled. Internally, she couldn’t help but feel her blood freeze over.
“Don’t be angry, my lord,” she said hurriedly. “I accidentally captured two of them, but I released them right after. Rather, this time, this subordinate found someone exceptional. I’ve never seen a cultivator with more abundant spiritual energy. If you had that one person, you’d no longer need to switch to a new vessel every month.” She bit her lip and added, “As long as you give me…a certain thing.”
After waiting for a moment, she suddenly extended her hand to catch the object tossed her way. Securely clutching it in her palm, she smiled, determined.
***
At this time, Shen Qingqiu had already run miles away and was terrified out of his mind.
His terror wasn’t because he’d just made an explosive getaway from right under Luo Binghe’s nose, but rather because in that split second, he’d heard an exceedingly familiar and hateful voice.
A mechanical voice, with a tone like Google Translate.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. New hardware should be guaranteed virus-free! Where’s my promised chance to turn over a new leaf, to henceforth be a bird, soaring high and free?!
Shen Qingqiu covered his ears as if, this way, he could pretend the voice didn’t exist, and in this manner he dashed from the Demon Realm to the Human Realm as fast as lightning, tearing the entire way through from the desolate wastes to the borderlands. Yet that demonic sound poured into his brain unceasingly, as though it were stationed within his very psyche.
【 Activating… Activating… Binding to soul… 】
【 Debugging… Contacting customer service… 】
So because it was bound to his soul, the System had reactivated upon encountering Luo Binghe?
I switched bodies, so the connection is bad, and therefore you need to contact customer service, huh?
Luo Binghe was truly the bane of his existence!
Fortunately, aside from repeating those few keywords in a half-dead manner, the System was utterly incapable of forming complete sentences. Shen Qingqiu smacked his head the whole way, but upon seeing signs of human life here and there, he considered his appearance, then slowed his steps and strolled back into the garrison town.
This small border town seemed more alive during the day than it had at night. It couldn’t be called flourishing—the streets were neither wide nor narrow, and the pedestrians were neither many nor few—but with the storefronts open, it could still be considered to be thriving.
Beside a tea shop with its flag fluttering in the wind, a young man and woman stood gazing into the distance, swords in hand.
“Why haven’t you returned to Cang Qiong Mountain?” Shen Qingqiu asked as he walked over to them.
Liu Mingyan gave him a shallow bow.
“The disciples from the other sects have already returned,” Yang Yixuan said hastily. “Seeing that Senior has managed to escape, we too are now at ease.”
Shen Qingqiu entered the tea shop with them, finding a table at which to sit down. To the side, some people who had originally been idly chatting suddenly cried out in alarm upon glimpsing him.
“Ah, it’s…it’s…”
Shen Qingqiu turned around to look. It was those border guard disciples he’d saved the night he first crawled out of the ground. The person who had first seen him stammered, unable to call out a name.
“It’s you, Peerless…-xiansheng!” Lu Liu rushed to say.
He mumbled another word after “Peerless,” but it came out remarkably muddled, muttered from beneath his tongue. The others mimicked him one after another, with some degree of hastiness: “It’s you, Senior Peerless…!”
Shen Qingqiu nodded his greetings, internally deciding that he really had to take up another title without delay.
“Senior, are you called Camellia? Commitment? Commander?” Yang Yixuan said blankly.
Shen Qingqiu coughed twice and mumbled, “It’s…”
After using this ID for so many years, for the first time he finally felt a bit ashamed of it.
He put on a stern expression. “Last night, disciples from various sects saw me in Chi Yun Cave. Though I can’t conceal the fact of my existence anymore, if other people ask about me, say as little as possible. It would be ideal if you could keep your lips sealed on this topic altogether.”
“Why? Senior, aren’t you familiar with my master?” asked Yang Yixuan.
“Uh, we are indeed quite familiar…”
While Shen Qingqiu was still unsure of what to say, the table to the side continued their conversation.
“Liu-ge, why don’t you elaborate. What exactly is the alternative theory?” one person asked while spitting out melon seed shells.
“About that, it’s really rather interesting,” said Lu Liu. “This theory apparently originated with insiders and spread from there. So this Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu…”
Upon hearing these two names, Shen Qingqiu’s heart thumped. He involuntarily straightened his posture, pricking up his ears to listen, and the motion of the fan in his hands slowed. The pair of disciples from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect also couldn’t resist looking over.
Lu Liu drank a mouthful of tea. “This Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu were master and disciple, right? This Luo Binghe came from a humble family and had suffered the hardships of the world since he was young. After becoming a disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, he still went underappreciated for a while and was beaten down and humiliated by his peers. Fortunately, Shen Qingqiu treated him with great warmth and kindness.”
He spoke with great flourish, his cadence rising and falling. With a traditional rosewood gavel in hand, he would have looked no different from a professional storyteller.
Shen Qingqiu inwardly nodded. Right, he too could agree that until he kicked Luo Binghe down into the Endless Abyss, he’d been quite kindhearted.
Yang Yixuan snorted. “What use was that warmth and kindness, didn’t he still…”
“Doesn’t this theory run absolutely contrary to the rumors that Shen Qingqiu abused his disciples?” one person asked, flabbergasted.
“You’re already astonished at this point?” asked Lu Liu. “Then what are you going to do when I say that while this master and disciple were together, day and night, hidden feelings were born?”
The three people at Shen Qingqiu’s table had each taken a mouthful of tea. Upon hearing this sentence, Shen Qingqiu and Yang Yixuan simultaneously spat theirs out. Though Liu Mingyan didn’t spit out hers, her hand shook and her teacup tilted, spilling its contents all over the table.
Everyone at the other table sucked in their breaths, one after another.
“That’s the theory?!”
“That’s right!” said Lu Liu. “But strictly speaking, it was only Luo Binghe who harbored impure thoughts toward Shen Qingqiu—a one-sided delusion.”
A one-sided delusion? A one-sided delusion?!
“What sort of person was Shen Qingqiu? Peak lord of Qing Jing Peak. What was the way of Qing Jing Peak? To be tranquil of heart and forsake desire, devoting all thoughts to the lawful path of cultivation. Shen Qingqiu rejected the mortal world and avoided entanglement with others, and so because Luo Binghe sought after the unattainable, love gave birth to hate!”
Blue veins rose on Shen Qingqiu’s forehead and the backs of his hands.
“L-Love gave birth to hate?” Yang Yixuan asked, astonished.
“If you think of it this way, it’s obscenely easy to explain everything else,” Lu Liu said. “Without a doubt, the whole sequence of events at the Immortal Alliance Conference went something like this:
“Luo Binghe entered the battlefield as Qing Jing Peak’s head disciple. Because of his remarkable performance, he was filled with confidence. Right then, the demonic beasts ran loose, the mountain was sealed, and Shen Qingqiu entered Jue Di Gorge to provide backup. Seized by a momentary fit of madness, Luo Binghe took the chance to confess his true feelings to his shizun.”
Shen Qingqiu held his forehead in misery.
Why, why did it seem like for every ten lines this person said, nine would be about right, but the last one would sound so off?
And it was exactly due to that last sentence that the implications of the entire account became so bizarre!
“Shen Qingqiu was of noble and unsullied moral character, so naturally he delivered a firm rejection,” Lu Liu said solemnly.
Shen Qingqiu was a little moved. Other than his bleeding heart of a zhangmen-shixiong, he’d never expected to hear someone else willing to use the phrase “noble and unsullied moral character” to describe him.
Who could have predicted that right after, the story line would take a nosedive?
Lu Liu continued, full of emotion. “Who could have predicted that after being rejected, Luo Binghe, in the grips of despair, would be overtaken by wicked thoughts to the point that he lost his mind and embraced the abominable. Out of lust, he tried to force Shen Qingqiu to submit!”
Shen Qingqiu dug his fingers into his head of messy hair, burying his face in his hands.
Yang Yixuan was thoroughly speechless. The gates of a whole new world had just been opened for this young man, assailing him with new perspectives.
Liu Mingyan, on the other hand, just let out a soft, “Ah,” and said seriously, “so that’s how it was.”
What do you mean, “so that’s how it was”?! What “that” is “that” referring to?! Don’t think I won’t rip you a new one just because you’re the female lead!
Without his notice, a crowd of spectators had congregated at Lu Liu’s table to listen to his gossip, their melon seeds and wooden benches littering the floor, their attention rapt. At this time they all sighed.
“A beast!”
“Not just a beast, basically worse than that…”
But within these sighs was a tone of incomparable satisfaction.
Da-ge, are you the captain of the border patrol squadron or the gossip brigade?!
Lu Liu abruptly slammed his teacup down like a gavel. “Of course Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t submit! Master and disciple crossed swords, and in the end, the master still came out on top, so Luo Binghe retreated in defeat, leaving in sorrow.
“Though all pretenses had been shed, Shen Qingqiu still couldn’t bear to ruin the reputation of his beloved disciple. He couldn’t bear to be fully honest about what had happened and could only offer the excuse that Luo Binghe had died at the hands of the demon race. With this, he preserved the reputation of his disciple, being unwilling to cut him off entirely.
“So, this is the truth behind Luo Binghe’s years-long disappearance after the Immortal Alliance Conference, as well as why he didn’t return to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect despite having survived.
“It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see his Shizun—it was that he didn’t have the face to!”
While the story was in full swing on Lu Liu’s end, Shen Qingqiu’s heart was flooding with tears on his.
What an intense story line!
This r-【 beep— 】-pist and this white lotus Holy Mother—who are they?!
The key point was that the r-【 beep— 】-pe actually wasn’t a successful r-【 beep— 】-pe. This is way too fucking off. How could that be Luo Binghe? If he wanted to r-【 beep— 】-pe someone, they would obediently spread their legs themselves, okay?!
Lu Liu was still going on. “After his heartbreak at the Immortal Alliance Conference, Luo Binghe went on his own adventures. He trained until he had a set of exceptional martial abilities to his name, and he even gained the favor of Huan Hua Palace’s Old Palace Master. But he was still unwilling to give up on Shen Qingqiu, and so he staged a grand comeback. Thus came the events of Hua Yue City.
“Doesn’t all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect insist that Luo Binghe is a demon? I don’t think that’s necessarily baseless, or wind from an empty cave. Most likely, they discovered slivers of evidence that he was colluding with the demon race to slander Shen Qingqiu. After all, Shen Qingqiu stood high above him, aloof and untouchable. If Luo Binghe couldn’t measure up in his eyes, he wanted to drag Shen Qingqiu down—make him fall from grace and shatter his arrogance!”
Shen Qingqiu didn’t know what exactly he’d given up on, but either way, he suddenly felt his body and mind relax, and he no longer wanted to listen to or care about anything anymore.
“Let’s order something,” he said pleasantly to the other two.
“Peerless…ahem-xiansheng, you can count your table on my tab,” Lu Liu seized the chance to say.
Then he turned back around and continued to sorrowfully lament.
“Luo Binghe thought of every possible method to shut Shen Qingqiu in the Water Prison of Huan Hua Palace. What do you think his goal was with this? His wicked ambitions were as clear as day. Huan Hua Palace had long been in his pocket; he had the entire sect dancing in the palm of his hand. They claimed to be keeping Shen Qingqiu in temporary custody, pending the four sects’ joint trial, but it was no different from throwing a lamb into a tiger’s den. For the couple of days Shen Qingqiu was shut in the Water Prison, he was bound with immortal-binding cables and completely without spiritual energy—who knows what that traitorous disciple did to him?!”
In perfect harmony, the crowd cried out one after another in disgust:
“A traitorous disciple indeed!”
“Raising a tiger invites calamity!”
Shen Qingqiu threw aside his menu. “How about we go somewhere else.”
“Shen Qingqiu couldn’t take this humiliation, and after struggling with all his might, he managed to escape. Little did he know that he would be cut off in Hua Yue City by the search party sent by Luo Binghe. From top to bottom, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is of one heart, so the peak lord of Bai Zhan Peak, Liu Qingge, naturally came to provide assistance. This attempt to aid Shen Qingqiu was met head-on by Luo Binghe.
“Luo Binghe’s jealousy overturned the heavens. He immediately took on Liu Qingge in an earthshaking battle, going all-out for the kill. With no other alternative, Shen Qingqiu could only self-detonate on the spot… And henceforth…”
Lu Liu stopped and waited with a meaningful silence, drawing a chorus of sighs from the crowd. Finally, he arrived at his conclusion. “And so, this is the alternative theory that’s been widely circulated underground. Even though it sounds incredibly absurd, and some might treat it as complete nonsense, there are many details worth considering. Gentlemen, bear this in mind: When history is officially recorded, it’s often whitewashed or embellished, the actual facts purposely withheld, and many times the unofficial version is the truth!”
Those details aren’t the slightest bit reliable, okay?! “The truth,” your sister! Even if I had no girls to fondle for twenty years, no matter how wretched I became, I wouldn’t get so desperate that I’d get gay with a guy! Let alone get gay with the male lead!
The young waitress had finished gracefully weaving her way to their table and serving their dishes, but Yang Yixuan and Liu Mingyan were still in a daze.
“Hurry up and eat,” Shen Qingqiu reprimanded them. “After you finish, you should hurry back.”
If these children stayed any longer in this dangerous place, who knew what kind of assaults their views on life, the world, and morality would suffer?!