CH 63

“Pfft–”

An intensely strong blast of neili crashed upon Chen Ziqi like an enormous tidal wave, and he felt as if all the bones in his body were breaking. Bright red blood sprayed from his lips, and his whole body went limp. He felt like a tiny leaf floating aimlessly in the wind, unable to control the direction in which he travelled. 

Chen Ziqi’s maxed out neili glowed green in his palm, and the faint sound of a dragon howling could be heard. The Abbess Wuyin got a shock on seeing this. She herself had been pushed back a good distance by the impact, and had to grab on to a large tree nearby to steady herself.

“The Divine Dragon’s Howl?” the Abbess Wuyin said in disbelief, retracting her offensive stance. “You actually succeeded in cultivating this?”

“You disgusting old nun!” Tu Buxian roared in fury. He pushed off hard from the ground, sending his body flying like a swift arrow toward the Abbess Wuyin. He was moving so fast that it was nearly impossible to see with the naked eye.

The Abbess Wuyin raised an arm to block. Tu Buxian was holding a small, sharp throwing knife in his hand, but because he was moving so quickly, the Abbess Wuyin didn’t notice the tiny weapon he held. He threw it hard at his opponent, and the little knife pierced right through the Abbess Wuyin’s palm and lodged itself in her shoulder. Tu Buxian used his neili to push it all the way into her flesh. 

“AH!” the Abbess Wuyin bellowed angrily. She used her other hand to attack Tu Buxian, sending him flying.

“Shifu!” Zhao Surou ran over immediately to support the Abbess Wuyin.

The Abbess Wuyin used her neili to force the little knife out. She accepted the handkerchief Zhao Surou held out to her, quickly bound up her wounds and walked to Chen Ziqi’s side. “Who did you learn the Divine Dragon’s Howl from?” she asked.

Chen Ziqi glared coldly at the old nun, holding his chest in pain. He refused to answer her question.

“Shifu, we should leave quickly. The demons from the Cloud Palace will be here any minute now,” Zhao Surou said anxiously. Everyone in the martial arts world knew how quickly the Cloud Palace was able to send messages, and their travelling speed also could not be estimated by ordinary means.

The Abbess Wuyin considered this for a moment, then sniffed coldly and left. Yu Linglong and Yu Furong followed her, taking Chang Er with them. Zhao Surou kicked the unconscious Wu Bujian once, then turned to look at Chen Ziqi.

“Pei!” Chen Ziqi spat out the blood in his mouth. “What did you take my mother for? What are you going to ask for as ransom… cough cough… you need to tell me that, at least!” he said in a hollow voice.

The Abbess Wuyin stopped in her tracks, but then continued on as if she hadn’t heard that question. All of them channeled their qi and used qinggong to sprint away, disappearing into the darkness in a trice. 

“Bring Cheng Jiazhen to the Suxin Sect on the third day of the sixth lunar month. We’ll exchange your mother for her. Come alone.”

This instruction was transmitted using neili from the dark depths of the forest, and it gave everyone who heard it an ominous feeling.

Chen Ziqi pushed himself up into a sitting position and tried to chase after them, but a wave of intense pain exploded from the centre of his chest. He collapsed onto the ground again.

Mother… 

All was silent, and the only sounds that could be heard in the dark forest were the fluttering of bird wings. Wu Bujian and Tu Buxian were both unconscious. One of Tu Buxian’s arms was bent in an unnatural position, and he looked to be very severely injured. Chen Ziqi forced himself to stay awake. He channeled his neili to the parts of him that were injured, then thought back carefully on the events that had led to this moment.

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The Bloodblade Tower’s fees for killing people were charged per head. There were at least fifty people in his mansion when one took into account the guards, maids and eunuchs. Who would bother spending such a huge sum of money hiring the Bloodblade Tower just to force him out of his mansion? 

If the Suxin Sect’s ambush had been entirely coincidental, then the Bloodblade Tower’s assassins would attack him very shortly. This forest was still teeming with unknown dangers.

Chen Ziqi heard the sound of dry leaves being trampled underfoot nearby. He shivered. The assassins were probably here.

He couldn’t move at all, so he decided to just play dead.

“They’ve left. Come over here – let’s see what we’ve got,” someone said. It sounded like a middle-aged man’s voice. 

Chen Ziqi frowned, then opened his eyes. He saw two short, grey-clad men searching the area furtively. When one of them got to Tu Buxian’s body, he shouted in fright. “Oh my god! It’s a demon!”  he screamed.

Tu Buxian’s broken arm didn’t look human at all. It was black, thin and scaly, like the claw of a predatory bird.

“Keep quiet!” his companion hissed, covering his mouth. “It’s just a freakish creature, right? The things created by the Ten Thousand Venoms Clan and the Stone Corpse Clan are even weirder than this. Stop being a wuss.”

That person calmed down when he heard this, but he still didn’t dare to touch Tu Buxian, afraid that whatever poison had caused him to become that way would also make its way into his own body. He turned his attention to Chen Ziqi instead. 

Chen Ziqi immediately knew what these two were here to do. There were vulture-like ruffians in the martial arts world who specialised in hanging around battle sites, waiting for the fight to end, so that they could rob the greatly weakened losers of their valuables.

“Yo, this one isn’t dead,” the ruffian said. He got a shock when he saw that Chen Ziqi’s eyes were open, but when he realised that he couldn’t move, he wasn’t afraid any more, and reached out a hand to search Chen Ziqi. Chen Ziqi had changed out of his huafu before embarking on this journey, and the only thing of value he had on his person was the little jade horse.

Chen Ziqi frowned, wanting to slap aside those dirty hands, but his internal injuries had become more and more severe as time ran on, and he was rendered completely immobile by this point. He could only plead with them in a barely audible voice. “Good sir, the silver notes are in the horse carriage, and they’re all yours. This little horse was gifted by my lover…” he said.

Chen Ziqi himself was stunned when he said the last few words. 

“Aww, look at that. You’ve got a lover even at this tender young age of yours. How romantic,” the middle-aged ruffian said jeeringly. He brought the flaming torch closer to Chen Ziqi to get a good look at his face,

A pale-faced, handsome young man lay weakly on the floor, a thin trail of bright red blood at the corner of his lips. He looked very alluring, in a pitiful, downtrodden kind of way. The hooligan swallowed hard, then reached out to grab hold of Chen Ziqi’s collar, tearing the coarse green cloth away and revealing a fair-skinned chest.

“Hehehe…” the middle-aged man laughed lewdly. “You’re so good-looking, it’d be a pity to just sell you off as a corpse. Let me have some fun with you first.”

Chen Ziqi got a shock and couldn’t help cursing his mother for being too beautiful. He had spoken up with a view to delaying time until Dan Yi arrived, but he hadn’t thought this fellow would be a pervert who liked to play with young boys! 

“Old Wang, come here, quick. Have a look at this,” the man said, fondling Chen Ziqi all over as he called his companion over. When his companion saw Chen Ziqi, he also swallowed hard, then squatted down to pull Chen Ziqi’s pants off.

Chen Ziqi struggled hard, and a large amount of blood ran out the corner of his mouth. His internal injuries started hurting again, and he had to give up the fight. “I’m having diarrhoea today,” he said weakly.

“… …” The two who were excitedly undoing Chen Ziqi’s pants suddenly stopped what they were doing.

“Tweet~~” 

A crisp, clear phoenix call sounded, and an overpowering, reddish aura washed over them.

“Bam! Bam!”

Two blows landed heavily on the two ruffians’ bodies, sending them flying into the distance. The force of the blow sent them crashing through three trees, knocking them down flat, before they finally came to a halt. Their bodies were twisted into very strange, unnatural positions when they landed, and they died on the spot.

Dan Yi retracted his offensive stance and the bloodthirsty look in his eyes, then gathered Chen Ziqi gently into his arms. “Qiqi…” 

“Dan Yi!” Chen Ziqi relaxed the moment he felt Dan Yi’s familiar embrace. He pulled on Dan Yi’s sleeve. “Mother… my mother’s been taken away by Wuyin… quick… urk…” he said in a low, hoarse voice, blood rising into his mouth at the end of his sentence.

Dan Yi’s brows knitted together tightly, and he placed a hand palm-down on Chen Ziqi’s back, transfusing some neili to him. “Don’t worry. I will get people to chase after them,” he said gently. Chen Ziqi didn’t know that every time he spoke, a gush of blood ran out the side of his mouth, and Dan Yi’s heart broke at the sight.

“Nn…” Chen Ziqi acknowledged. Finally at ease, he gave himself to the beckoning darkness and fainted.

When he next awoke, it was bright outside. Chen Ziqi narrowed his eyes, slowly getting used to the piercing sunlight. It took quite a while before he was finally able to open his eyes fully. 

Green silk curtains and a pearl windchime – he was in Dan Yi’s huge bed in the Cloud Palace. The windows were open, and the fresh, woody scent of Wutong trees wafted in. Chen Ziqi took a deep breath, feeling refreshed.

He raised a hand to rub his chest. It didn’t hurt any more, but his whole body still felt lifeless and lethargic. He didn’t have a stitch on, and he was rather stunned when he realised this. He looked around, then saw the little jade horse sitting quietly on the bedhead.

The wooden door opened with a small creak. Chen Ziqi turned and saw Dan Yi walking slowly over, dressed in his usual scarlet robes. Linghe and Lingguan followed behind him, with the former carrying a bowl of black medicinal soup in her hands.

“Qiqi!” Dan Yi exclaimed, happiness creeping into his eyes the moment he saw that Chen Ziqi was awake. 

Chen Ziqi couldn’t help smiling faintly at him in return. He had wanted to see Dan Yi so badly in that dark forest. He had never wanted to see Dan Yi so much in his life before. That feeling had continued right until the present, when Dan Yi was standing right in front of him. Dan Yi had a faint smile on his handsome face, and exuded an incredibly powerful air about him. Chen Ziqi suddenly felt like his heart was beating faster than usual.

“Wang ye, you’re awake!” Linghe was also delighted. She set the medicine bowl down on the bedhead, then turned and left to get a doctor to check on Chen Ziqi’s condition.

Dan Yi picked up Chen Ziqi’s limp body and leaned him against his own body, then took the medicine bowl and brought it to the side of Chen Ziqi’s mouth. “Drink this medicine,” he instructed.

Chen Ziqi wanted to say something, but his throat felt so parched that it felt like it was about to crack. He couldn’t speak, so he could only nod obediently and drink up the medicine. The black-coloured liquid was so bitter that Chen Ziqi felt his tongue was about to wither away, but it also moistened his throat, and he was able to speak after drinking it. 

“What happened to my mother?” Chen Ziqi asked, wrinkling his nose as he looked up at Dan Yi. From this angle, Dan Yi’s angular jaw could be clearly seen, and he felt a sudden impulse to crane his neck upwards and bite it.

“We didn’t manage to catch up with them that night before they entered the Suxin Sect. My people have looked into it, however – she’s safe and unharmed,” Dan Yi said, turning to put the empty bowl back on the bedhead. He felt Chen Ziqi’s eyes on him and felt a little uncomfortable. When he thought about the method he had used to heal Chen Ziqi’s injuries last night, his ears also couldn’t help but turn a little pink.

—

The author has something to say: Mini-theatre 

Qiqi: Why are Tu Buxian’s hands his bird feet? Your hands are wings

Birdie Gong: When birds of prey are in human form, their wings are their human legs. That’s how they can fly so fast

Qiqi: Aren’t you a bird of prey?

Birdie Gong: Usually I’m a dignified divine bird, but sometimes I’m a bird of prey 

Qiqi: And when is that

Birdie Gong: When I’m in bed (⊙v⊙)

Qiqi: You pervert