CH 71

Whilst Chang Er was in full voice scolding the two sisters, the main door to the Suxin Sect still remained closed, and more and more people from other sects trickled in to watch the situation unfold.

The big black doors remained firmly shut even as noontime approached. Continuing this way didn’t seem to be a solution. Chen Ziqi frowned, then squeezed about in the crowd with difficulty until he finally found Geng Zhijun, the head of the Sword Stabbing Clan, who had been going around talking to people all over the place. 

“Brother Geng, how many of your disciples did you bring with you today?” Chen Ziqi asked quietly, looking around.

“Five,” Clan Leader Geng said, signalling to his disciples to come forward.

Chen Ziqi looked around once more, then whispered something to Geng Zhijun. The latter’s eyes shone brightly after hearing what Chen Ziqi had to say, and he nodded vigorously in assent. This was going to be fun.

The crowd had shouted itself hoarse by now, but the Suxin Sect refused to respond at all. The anger building in their hearts naturally increased as a result. At this very moment, a small thin man dressed in coarse robes leapt onto the tall stone that Cheng Zhou had been standing on earlier. 

“Ah, Cheng Daxia, there’s something that I don’t quite understand,” the man said smilingly.

“What is it?” Cheng Zhou asked, turning around.

“The master of the Cheng family – was he the Abbess Wuyin’s kept man?” that man asked. His smile was rather lewd now. On hearing this, the tired crowd immediately perked up and pricked up their ears.

“What nonsense are you talking about?” Cheng Zhou said, going red in the face. The martial arts world was rife with these rumours about the Suxin Sect, and he had naturally heard about them as well.

“Oh come on, I’m just saying!” the short man said. Even though he looked very thin and weak, his voice carried quite a distance, and he started yelling at the Suxin Sect’s closed doors. “Abbess Wuyin, your little uncle is here to collect a debt!”

“Hahaha!” The crowd couldn’t help laughing out loud.

Cheng Zhou raised a hand to chase that person away, but four people suddenly sprang up and started shouting as well. “All the people under the Abbess Wuyin are a bunch of whores! The door is closed, so let’s kick it down – we’ll sell the old ones as slaves, and kidnap the young ones to be our concubines!” they yelled.

These words were very vulgar, and the Lushan Sect people couldn’t help frowning when they heard it. Some of the martial artists from famous sects also looked quite offended. Cheng Zhou opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He really, truly hated the Suxin Sect with the very core of his being, and if he were honest with himself, he actually felt sadistic glee when he thought about making what those ruffians said a reality. 

“Well said!” the Thousand Poisons Sect Leader shouted in approval. A few of the people from the Arcane Sects blindly cheered along, and when the younger martial artists saw that other people approved of what the ruffians said, they also started shouting their approval.

“CREAK!” The heavy wooden doors suddenly opened, and a steel whip lashed out at the five people who said those vulgar words.

“Oh my, they’re so embarrassed that they’re angry now!” the five people shouted as they ran off. They disappeared quickly into the crowd, leaving only Cheng Zhou standing exactly where he was. He couldn’t move quickly because of his bad leg, and he got whipped soundly by that steel whip.

“Piak!” the nine-jointed whip made contact with Cheng Zhou’s chest, and the tip of the whip lashed past his face, leaving a bleeding wound there. 

Everyone finally saw who the attacker was – it was the Suxin Sect’s first generation disciple, Zhao Surou.

“Tbe yeiilfr jgf pera abb wemt!” atf mgbkv rmgfjwfv, fcgjufv cbk. Snfgsbcf tjv mbwf tfgf ab rffx peralmf, yea atf Vezlc Vfma vlvc’a rjs rb wemt jr akb kbgvr yfobgf yfjalcu qfbqif eq.

“Shing!” The metallic sound of weapons being unsheathed rang out, and the two leaders of the Lushan Sect group flew down in front of Cheng Zhou. They stood in front of him with their swords drawn. “Wanrou xianzi, there’s no need to get violent!” they said coldly.

“Yc ktja yjrlr jgf sbe tlaalcu qfbqif?” 

“Qtja, jgf sbe agslcu ab xlii tlw ab rlifcmf tlw?”

Cries and yells sounded from the crowd, and everyone rushed forward with their weapons held aloft. When Zhao Surou realised that the person she had whipped was Cheng Zhou, she herself froze in shock for a moment. Before she could speak, a sharp sword flew at her, and she immediately raised her whip to block. The second generation Suxin Sect disciples saw that their Shifu was in difficulty and quickly rushed forward to help. The two sides started fighting in earnest without another word.

In this commotion, Chen Ziqi was only waiting for the Thousand Poisons Sect Leader to send up a smoke signal. The moment he did so, he would rush in with the palanquin bearers to look for Chang Er.

Sect Leader Huang took out a light blue pill and was about to pour wine on it when a deafening laughter sounded all around them. “Hahahahaha…” It was the Abbess Wuyin’s juezhao – Wuyin’s Laughter! 

“Urk!” The people standing in the frontmost row immediately vomited blood. Sect Leader Huang immediately kept the pill and covered his ears, using his neili to fend off the laughing attack.

Chen Ziqi’s head hurt badly from that attack, and he quickly gathered his neili, but unfortunately, it was only enough to prevent him from getting seriously hurt. It wasn’t enough to make himself feel better, and his ears continued to ring painfully. At this moment, he felt a warm burst of neili enter his chest. He stroked the little fluffball in thanks, then channelled the new source of neili. His ears stopped ringing, and his head stopped feeling like it was about to explode.

Others weren’t as lucky as Chen Ziqi. Many of the less skilled martial artists had all fainted. The laughter suddenly stopped. Chen Ziqi, who had prior experience fighting with the Abbess Wuyin, immediately pulled Brown Berry and dodged to one side.

“Bang!” As expected, the moment the laughter ceased, the Abbess Wuyin charged out and attacked them with a strong palm blast. 

That blow produced a muffled sound when it contacted something solid, and the person who’d been hit flew back, knocking down a whole row of people.

Silence reigned over that flat expanse in front of the Suxin Sect’s entrance. The Abbess Wuyin looked around with cold, arrogant eyes. “Who wants to seek justice from this poor nun?” she asked menacingly.

“Wuyin, you hired the Bloodblade Tower to murder all ninety-three people in the Cheng family. I am here to seek justice. Even in these circumstances, you dare to kill wantonly – there’s really no hope for you!” Cheng Zhou snarled, glaring at the Abbess Wuyin with bloodshot eyes as he pressed the wound at his chest with his hands.

“Abbess, your actions are a disgrace to the entire martial arts world. If there has been any misunderstanding, why don’t you clarify it right now? The Lushan Sect can bear witness to it,” one of the Lushan Sect people said. 

“Exactly! The Cheng family hadn’t done anything wrong as a satellite sect, and you killed them off just because you wanted to. If you don’t make things clear today, our Zhang family will defect to the Lushan Sect!” the Zhang family head said. He couldn’t stand to keep quiet any more.

“Ha! That Cloud Palace – it’s made up of a bunch of demons! This poor nun saved the only living issue of the Cheng family, and the Cheng family was not just ungrateful, it actually listened to the words of demons and came to surround the Suxin Sect! I am offended beyond words!” the Abbess Wuyin said angrily, her tone righteous.

Everyone was surprised by this statement. They looked at each other in confusion. Perhaps the Suxin Sect was innocent after all?

“Shifu! Quick, save me!” 

Just then, the ragged, dirty-faced Cheng Jiazhen suddenly ran out from behind the rock formation toward the dais that the Abbess Wuyin was standing on.

The Abbess Wuyin’s face relaxed the moment she saw Cheng Jiazhen. She grabbed hold of her. “This is the Cheng family’s eldest legitimate daughter. You can all ask her how this poor nun treated her and her Cheng family,” she said.

The moment she heard Cheng Jiazhen call to her for help, she knew this stupid girl still believed that she was her benefactor. The Abbess Wuyin had lived for a long time, and she certainly knew how to seize the moment. So long as Cheng Jiazhen testified for her, she could whitewash all of the suspicions surrounding the Suxin Sect.

“Shifu… shifu is very good to me!” Cheng Jiazhen said, leaping into the Abbess Wuyin’s arms. As she did so, she pulled out a dagger and plunged it deeply into the Abbess Wuyin’s abdomen. 

That dagger was a bloodblade that was slightly rusted. Chen Ziqi had thrust it into her hands before they left earlier today.

Wuyin looked at Cheng Jiazhen in shock and disbelief. She raised her arm and slammed a powerful blast of neili into her, sending her flying.

“Jiazhen!” Cheng Zhou shouted in horror. He hobbled over quickly and managed to catch her before she hit the ground. She was vomiting blood nonstop.

Cheng Jiazhen pushed Cheng Zhou aside and laughed like a maniac. “Hahahahaha! Wuyin, did you think I wouldn’t know the truth about that secret music score you asked me to learn? Hahahahaha…” 

She actually didn’t know much about the music score, but Chen Ziqi had told her to say this in order to create more trouble for the Suxin Sect.

When the Cheng family was massacred, the Suxin Sect had sent people to deal with the burial and funeral rites, and had also taken in the Cheng family’s valuables for safekeeping. The only thing that had been kept in the Abbess Wuyin’s personal custody was that bit of the music score for  “Xiao Shao Jiu Cheng”, and the Abbess Wuyin had asked Cheng Jiazhen to play it for her. At that time, she hadn’t thought much about it; she had focused all her energies on improving her martial arts so as to get revenge on the people who killed her family. Unfortunately, her innate abilities were poor, and when she wasn’t able to progress in her martial arts, she became very frustrated, and when she was frustrated, she took it out on Chen Zimo.

Her neili had already been dispersed eight years ago, and her body simply could not withstand such a powerful blow. She looked up at Chen Zimo, who was standing to one side, his face expressionless. She wanted to call out to him, but blood wouldn’t stop gushing out of her mouth, and finally, she was simply unable to speak at all.

The Befuddling Blackworm’s power was that it was able to make a person say everything that he knew, regardless of whether it was related to the question being asked or not. Everything that the person had experienced, everything the person could remember – that blackworm would make that person go through these memories one by one. When Cheng Jiazhen was forced to reflect on the arrogant, wanton way she had lived in the first half of her life, the only thing she regretted, the only thing she truly felt sorry for, was the way she had treated that tanned, thin little boy who wanted to cut off her head as a sacrifice to his deceased mother. Right now, she didn’t think that his wish was that unreasonable. 

They said that people were at their kindest and most honest at the brink of death. Chen Zimo looked at Cheng Jiazhen, who was forming words with her mouth that she couldn’t vocalise.

“Your aunt has wronged you.”

She went limp the moment she finished mouthing these words.

“Jiazhen!” Cheng Zhou wailed. Other than Chen Zimo, Cheng Jiazhen was the only relative he had left on this earth. 

Chen Zimo’s expression didn’t change as he turned his head away. If apologies were enough, there wouldn’t be any anger and resentment in the martial arts world. Sorry wasn’t enough where his mother’s murder was concerned.

When the crowd saw that the Abbess Wuyin was injured, they immediately became braver. Chen Ziqi gave a hand signal, and the four palanquin bearers who were hiding in the shadows immediately sprang into action.

“Everyone! Let’s go forth together and capture this evil old nun!” the Sword Stabbing Clan Leader suddenly shouted. He gave the Jiangnan martial artists in front of him an encouraging push, then charged forward with them.

The people in the crowd had originally not been sure what to do with themselves, and when they saw a group of people charging forward, they instinctively followed blindly as well. The Thousand Poisons Sect Leader quickly tossed a smokescreen bomb, and as Chen Ziqi reached up, two palanquin bearers caught hold of him. They flew quickly into the Suxin Sect’s grounds. 

Chen Ziqi flipped over the wall and caught hold of a young maiden. He covered her mouth neatly, then slipped into the shadows and pressed her against the wall. “Where is Yue Taifei?” he asked in a low voice.

The maiden widened her eyes as she looked at him and gestured that she wouldn’t yell.

“Chang Qi gege, do you remember me?” the young maiden asked. She was Yuhu, the one Chen Ziqi had given a handkerchief to in Xunyang City.

“Tweet!” The moment the little red bird heard that sweet, girlish voice call Chen Ziqi ‘gege’, it sat up, popped its little head out and chirped its disapproval. 

The author has something to say: Mini-theatre

Qiqi: Oh my! I finally have a person who secretly admires me!

Birdie Gong: You had one long ago

Qiqi: Where? Who? 

Birdie Gong: Me!

Qiqi: (covers his face) You don’t count

Birdie Gong: Why?

Qiqi: You’re my secret admirer bird (not a person) 

Birdie Gong: Nonsense. I don’t just secretly admire your bird, I also secretly admire your chrysanthemum

Qiqi: _(:з」∠*)_ Communication between different species is always a problem