Chapter 270: Mutual Assistance

Chapter 270: Mutual Assistance

The announcement of the Tome of Troubled Times made several people cough up blood when they saw it.

Situ Xiao had just escorted the martial artists who had been caught back to Yanmen Pass. When he looked up at the sky and read the announcement of the tome, he cursed, “Damn it, no wonder he asked me to bring the guys who were captured back to camp! He wanted to go out and take all the credit for himself! I’m not even a part of the martial artist camp, why am I the one completing the mission for him?!”

With a smile, Cui Yuanyong received the young master of the Qiao Clan along with Qiao Er’s head, which Situ Xiao had brought back, before issuing an order. “Pass this down: brother Situ is now our deputy leader.”

Situ Xiao stomped his foot in utter rage. “Now I know how the two of you ended up as family.”

Cui Yuanyong raised his head after hearing Situ Xiao’s comment and said helplessly, “Well, I can only wonder how well things are actually going to go... Even back when Zhao Changhe was still at the mountain stronghold, I already could not help but wonder how Yangyang might fare against Yue Hongling in the future should they actually become family.”

Situ Xiao asked hurriedly, “Wait, what?! Yue Hongling and Zhao Changhe actually got so close so early on? Give me more details!”

“Come to our martial arts camp. We can continue this over a bottle of wine.”

“Fine.”

“Ok, so back then, Yue Hongling had reached down to...”

Cui Yuanyong worried about how his little sister would fare in the family hierarchy that seemed all but certain to appear, but Cui Yuanyang herself actually did not think too much about it. At the moment, she was sitting at home with her chin propped up on her hand as she muttered to herself, “He’s already ranked sixth. I knew it; it was never a problem for Big Brother Zhao to enter the Ranking of Man in three years.”

Right in front of her, Cui Wenjing frowned and said, “Shouldn’t you be practicing the sword art I taught you just now?”

“Huh?” Cui Yuanyang smiled apologetically. “T-the wind is too strong. I-I can’t hear you clearly.”

“You used to train so hard. Ever since you went to Langya and came back, you’ve been blushing every day and even sneaking peeks at erotic works!” Cui Wenjing angrily stood up, then grabbed a feather duster and threatened her with it. “If you keep this up, do you think you’ll ever be able to match up to Yue Hongling or Tang Wanzhuang?! How can I have such an unambitious daughter? Do you need me to spank you before you start working hard again?!”

Cui Yuanyang quickly ran away.

Before she could get far, however, Cui Wenjing grabbed her by the collar and said, “Go to the ancestral hall. The Qinghe Sword has been humming recently, and I think it might mean that its sword spirit has returned. Go and see if you can have it recognize you as its master.”

“Huh? Shouldn’t it be big brother who goes instead?”

“It’s not like only one of you can go and try. Do you really think I would only rely on you?” Cui Wenjing was frustrated, “Do you think your performance has been good enough?”

Cui Yuanyang had nothing to say to that.

*

At the headquarters of the Four Idols Cult.

Xia Chichi sat cross-legged on the altar, opened her eyes while in meditation, and tilted her head to look at the sky.

Beside her, a protector bowed and said, “Saintess, your rank has been pushed down...”

Xia Chichi’s mouth twitched.

A group of people clamored, “Saintess, we can’t tolerate it! This Zhao Changhe, we were already being so magnanimous when we refrained from killing him, yet now he’s even gone and surpassed you!”

Isn’t that a good thing...

Xia Chichi’s face remained expressionless. “The Tome of Troubled Times specialized in stirring up trouble. Only fools like Cui Yuanyong would rush to challenge others just because they were surpassed. If there’s someone behind the Tome of Troubled Times, they must be laughing inside whenever they see the chaos caused by some simple changes in rankings.”

The crowd looked at each other in confusion. Their saintess’ words made sense, and they realized that they had been a bit too hasty. But then, why did it seem like their saintess was quite irritated, to the point where her words even seemed to be squeezed through her teeth?

Now, Zhao Changhe greatly benefited from the notes that Master Yuan Xing had written. Staggering under the weight of Yue Hongling on his back, he made it halfway up the mountain. Sure enough, he saw a lot of jagged rocks scattered around. This kind of chaotic rocky landscape was common on such mountains.

The stones did not have anything special about them. They just seemed like a random pile of rocks with no discernible pattern, forming a natural scenery that one could find anywhere.

Midway on the mountainside, right out in the open, lay a seemingly ordinary pile of rocks. No one would ever think that this was the entrance to a secret realm. This was likely the very reason as to why no one had ever found it. Everyone who passed by it likely just overlooked it.

Zhao Changhe could not help but wonder as to how Master Yuan Xing had even come across the thought of there being anything special about a pile of rocks he stumbled upon on a remote mountain. Even if some rocks did form into the shape of the Big Dipper, it was not something that just anyone would notice, much less connect that random shape to a secret realm.

Zhao Changhe could not understand, but he did not bother dwelling on such thoughts too much. Following the shapes drawn on the map, he scoured the pile of rocks and eventually came across the Beidou stone described by Master Yuan Xing. He tried standing on the stone and closed his eyes to focus on his sensations, but he did not sense the unusual aura that had been mentioned.

Just when he was starting to feel rather frustrated, Yue Hongling suddenly spoke softly from his back, “There is something unusual about this place.”

Zhao Changhe quickly put her down on the stone. “How so?”

Yue Hongling closed her eyes for a moment and focused on her senses before saying, “There’s a sense of communication between heaven and man here... I’m guessing that this is something that can only be perceived by those who have come into contact with the Profound Mysteries. It’s normal if you can’t feel anything.”

Zhao Changhe rolled his eyes, but her words made sense.

Yue Hongling said, “There’s an extremely well-hidden star chart formation here. We must be right at the eye of the formation. The person who gave you the information about this place did not lie to you.”

“How do we get through the formation?” Zhao Changhe asked, suddenly getting a very strange feeling in his heart.

He recalled how when he and Chichi had been trying to break the formation back at Beimang, he had asked Yue Hongling such a question as well.

Yue Hongling, who had traveled widely and was knowledgeable about these things, had studied this area extensively. Even if he knew where the eye of the formation was, he did not know how to break it on his own.

Yue Hongling, strugglingly, got up and walked around the Big Dipper. She then said softly, “Fortunately, there are two of us here...”

Zhao Changhe: “Huh?”

“In this Big Dipper formation, there is an extremely slight misalignment at the end where Yaoguang[2] is. One person needs to stand on Beidou to stabilize the eye of the formation, while the other shifts Yaoguang. This correspondence between the head and tail of the Big Dipper will reveal the truth.”

As Yue Hongling explained, she stood next to a stone and pushed it with all her strength.

Click!

The rumbling sound of the stone being nudged suddenly turned into a crisp click, and then the Big Dipper in the sky shone brightly. A vortex then faintly appeared amid the pile of rocks.

Zhao Changhe was overjoyed and jumped off the stone. “Let’s go.”

Yue Hongling did not respond.

When he turned to look at her, he saw that she had fainted on the ground.

Zhao Changhe quickly picked her up and jumped directly into the vortex, disappearing from the mountain.

The moment he jumped into the vortex, the shifted stone rolled a bit more on its own, and the vortex disappeared. The stars moved stealthily, and everything returned to as it was before, with no sign that anything had happened there.

Not long after that, Chi Li soared to the scene. He did not even spare a glance at the pile of rocks, and directly rushed up the mountain.

1. This is the Northern Dipper, also known as Alpha Ursae Majoris or Dubhe. It is the second-brightest star in the northern constellation of Ursa Major. ☜

2. This is also known as the Eta Ursae Majoris or Alkaid. It is the easternmost star on the Big Dipper. ☜