Chapter 286 - The Return (1)

Huangfu Xin’er stood at the gate outside the yard, looking in her best since she got injured. Xiao Chen got up and brushed the soot off his hands. He walked over to her and said, “It’s cold out here. You should be resting indoors.”

“I’m leaving.”

Her voice sent a chill down all that heard her as if her voice, like a glacier that never melts, was colder than the harsh frost around them, that the two young men were stunned beyond words.

Xiao Chen’s forehead curdled into a frown as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “It’s not easy to return to Tianyuan City from here, Xin’er. How about resting for a few more days until you feel back, hmmm?”

Huangfu Xin’er let out a cold and cynical smirk. Her eyes drifted to the herbs strewn across the cobbled ground of the yard before they shifted to the pestle lying idly on the ground and the mortal still containing half-grounded herbs. Derisively, she mocked, “The Young Lady must be a gorgeous lass, is she not?”

“Wha-what?!”

“What else would explain your zeal in searching for these herbs? Would you have done the same for a man instead?”

Xiao Chen could find no words to contradict her; she was right, he would have hardly cared if the patient was a man. And the two now standing behind him would have ensured that.

“Heh heh heh, so stay if you will. I bid you an early congratulation, if in any case, you end up as the Governor’s son-in-law. I’ll be taking my leave now.”

With an icy tone, she left her message and brusquely turned to leave.

“Xin’er! Wait! Listen to me!”

Xiao Chen ran up to her and wrapped a strong hand around her forearm to stop her. “It’s very far from here to Tianyuan City. You’re hardly fit enough for a journey so far. Moreover, I have given my word to Governor Ye that I will help him cure his daughter. Would you not wait for me so that we could go back together?”

Huangfu Xin’er turned to face him, her eyes, steady and untrembling, held him in a fixed stare. “Are you staying because of my injury or because of the Young Lady’s?”

“They don’t seem to be contravening to me…” Xiao Chen muttered sheepishly after a heartbeat of thought.

“Humph.” Huangfu Xin’er snorted wryly and walked away, leaving him frozen at where he stood.

There he stood for seconds, watching helplessly as she walked away. At length, he meandered back to the yard and saw the two young men still waiting for him. Irate with annoyance, he hissed at them, “What are you lot still doing here?”

“HUMPH!” The two men threw their sleeves disdainfully into the air and left the yard.

Zhiluan stood in front of him and muttered jauntily, having witnessed the entire episode, “How sweet youth is, to feel Love’s keen bite…”

“Bite my foot!” Xiao Chen snarled at him.

Xiao Chen remained a valued guest at the Governor’s manor for the next ten days where he finally succeeded in expelling the infernal aura from Ye Mulian’s body. News of her recovery enraptured the all and sundry of the city and the household save for Gongsun Tai and his two disciples, who were seething with indignance and jealousy as they began to realize that the only chance to redeem their dignity would only be to challenge Xiao Chen.

Even though the days had passed without any work on his magic, but Xiao Chen’s improvements in the skills of brewing medicine had all but made up for it. More so, that he was confident that his mastery in healing made him no inferior than any common Tier Four Elixir Kings in the Violet Manor.

It was finally time for them to return to Tianyuan City; it has been two months since they were transported here. Moreover, Huangfu Xin’er had made a great recovery. She was still behind her full strength, but her condition was ready for the journey.

At their sending off back to the Five Continents, Ye Lingfeng brought an entourage with him to meet them. For their trip home, Elder Plum had had a Flying-Cloud Stone prepared and stocked with provisions. Two of his students would be coming along to see them off safely. Outside the city, Ye Lingfeng saluted humbly. “I’m greatly indebted to you, Master Xiao! Safe journeys, I bid you!”

Standing at her father’s elbows, Ye Mulian smiled shyly. “It’ll be a long journey, Master Xiao. Best of luck!”

Xiao Chen grinned, happy to see her restored as well. “Let’s hope we’ll meet again, everyone.” To the Three Friends of Winter, he said, “Rest assured that I will report about everything here—including the blight of the infernal aura—to the Daoist League of the Five Continents, Seniors.”

“Understood. Thank you so much, Young One.”

The huge fanfare of Xiao Chen’s departure attracted many onlookers who thronged the gates of the city to watch. “Who is that? Even the Governor is sending him off personally…” Some began murmuring with interest.

“An emissary from the Daoist League of the Five Continents, or so I heard. They say he could even cure patients infected from the unholy aura.”

“That’s a relief. It’s glad tidings indeed for everyone here at this Burg.”

Thousands of eyes watched intently as the Flying-cloud Stone rose up into the air and glided towards the horizons. Xiao Chen was in good spirits. It was long since he parted with Xian’er and his Brother Yifeng and at long last, he could finally meet them again.

Zhiluan dropped itself onto a soft bed made of hay. A bundle of cloth was hanging from its neck, filled with dried fish fillet Elder Plum had made especially for it. Xiao Chen peered at the bundle with narrowed eyes, wondering, “A powerful conjurer of the Nascent Soul Realm, making dried fish fillets for a cat…”

The flying-cloud stone climbed tirelessly in the air for miles. The sun was way off faraway and Xiao Chen could only surmise that it was near evening. The Burg of the Feral Phoenix must be thousands of miles behind by now, he mused. He leaned himself on a stone slab and shut his eyes, reminiscing the year-long period that he had spent in the Violet Manor and the Three Pure Sect in the Human World.

“How are they?” he wondered, longing for the three princes, Xiao Han, Xiao Wan’er, Shangguan Yan and his friends there. He remembered his promise that he would return. “And so I will,” he said to himself, “I must go back once I reached the Nascent Soul Realm.”

Suddenly, the Flying-cloud Stone shuddered so strongly that Zhiluan was almost tossed off and it yelped with fright. The first thing Xiao Chen did when he opened his eyes was to make sure that Huangfu Xin’er was fine.

“What’s wrong?”

One of Elder Plum’s students said, “It’s fine. We’re just caught up in a cold wave from the ranges of the Thousand Summits Mountain. Are we going over now, Senior Brother Xiao?”

Unlike the warm sunshine of the Burg they had left behind, they had found themselves grappling with the harsh chilly winds of the Thousand Summits Mountain that stretched higher than thirty thousand feet. The icy walls of the unscalable mountain loomed over them, blazing blue and crystalline in the pale sunlight. The Flying-cloud Stone would have to fly to the altitude of forty thousand feet to pass over this leviathan obstacle.

But even with the best Flying-cloud Stone of the Burg, well-stocked with spirit energy fuel, could hardly prevent from malfunctioning at the altitude of forty thousand feet. Xiao Chen shuddered to think about what would happen to them if the stone conveyance fails and plummets.

There was no way his flying sword magic would work in such altitude, nor would his Phoenix Wings be of any help. Zhiluan screamed, “I suggest circumventing this mountain! It’s so high that even I, the great one can’t fly over this!”

“The range of the Thousand Summits Mountain extends endlessly into the horizon. There’s no way to circumvent this never-ending barrier of ice, save from above,” said the other of the pair, “Hold on tight! We’ll begin our climb now!”

“So be it then,” Xiao Chen muttered resolutely, nodding grimly.

They began gasping for breath as the stone conveyance began its steep climb upwards, skimming the side of the wall as they rose. The air was becoming thin and that made it difficult to breathe, especially with the frost, which caused icy crusts to grow at the ends of everyone’s eyebrows.

At long last, the Flying-cloud Stone blew past the thick swirling mists and clouds beyond the crest of the Thousand Summit Mountains, rising higher than its peak by three hundred meters. Zhiluan shivered and sneezed, gaping immediately at the mucus freezing instantly as soon as the thick, viscous fluid flowed out of its nose.

“Heavens! What cold is this?! Where’s your jade pendant, boy?”

Xiao Chen snuck a hand into his robes wordlessly and dug for his Fire-heart Jade and tossed it to Zhiluan. With their True Energy to ward off the cold, Xiao Chen and Huangfu Xin’er were hardly perturbed by the frost.

Shaking like a rickety bridge over a wildly rushing river, the Flying-cloud Stone skittered over the top of the mammoth ice barrier that cut off the Burg and its vicinity areas from the outside world. The top of the mountain range was so far and wide that they had yet to see anything resembling an end even after two hours of flying. The storm was more bitter and rigid here in comparison to the Thousand Summit Mountain that Xiao Chen once came from, and the continual shuddering of the stone conveyance only made the ride all the more unbearable.

The twilight of sundown was streaking over the western skies when they finally passed through the mountain range, a feat where few, if not none, had all but failed. The two disciples shared a look and smiled, relieved at their success. They had been worried sick throughout the journey over the mountain range, fearing with butterflies in the stomach at the dreadful prospect of the Flying-stone Cloud failing.

The pair of students immediately descended to a lower altitude. Warmer air caressed their skins, soothing them from the chilly bite of cold they felt earlier. In the dark, they could not see where they were hence, they decided against flying too low.

But Xiao Chen could see that they were in a rocky wilderness. For an entire night, they flew non-stop until they reached a little hamlet when the break of dawn shone at the horizons.

They landed their conveyance and went to the hamlet to have their breakfast and rested until they were ready to continue in the afternoon. The journey took another three days of poor and terrible weather until they finally reached the borders of the Middle Continent. Xiao Chen sat atop the flying stone, looking down at the views beneath him with the surrealistic feeling as if he had returned to civilization after months and years of being in the wilderness.

They were still in the South of the Middle Continent and the journey to Tianyuan City would take another three days.

The three days passed quickly, the Flying-cloud Stone lowered gracefully before the gates of the Tianyuan City and Xiao Chen recognized the devastation of the site not far away when he practiced using the Nine Heaven-scorching Flames technique.

“After two months… Finally, we’re back, although I am sure that there are people hoping for the worst for me,” Xiao Chen muttered, stretching himself as his eyes set upon the gates of the largest and busiest city in the Middle Province.

“And you’d do well to remember your promise to me, the elixirs!” Zhiluan reminded.

“All right, all right…”

The Flying-cloud Stone screeched to a halt, much to the protest of those before the gates. A few bolts of light shot down from the air and ripped apart the protective magic of the stone conveyance.

“You’ve indeed returned, Xiao Chen…”