TFOD Chapter 9

However, after stroking it for a while, Jiang Cheng forced himself to suppress his budding hostility.

Although he was very unhappy, as the head of a sect, he also had more considerations and couldn’t be as impulsive as a young boy like Jin Ling. Since the decline of the Qinghe Nie Sect, among the current three major sects, the Lanling Jin Sect and the Gusu Lan Sect were already very close due to their sect leaders’ close personal relationship. He, Jiang Cheng, independently managing the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, could be said to be in an isolated state among the three families. Hanguang-Jun Lan Wangji was a highly respected figure in the cultivation world, and his elder brother, Ze Wu-Jun Lan Xichen, was the head of the Gusu Lan Sect. The two brothers had always been harmonious. If they could avoid a falling out, it was best to avoid a falling out.

Furthermore, Jiang Cheng’s sword “Three Poisons” and Lan Wangji’s sword “Sweep Away the Dust” had never formally clashed, and the outcome was still unknown. Although he had this heirloom ring, “Purple Lightning,” in his possession, Lan Wangji’s “Wangji” guqin also had a formidable reputation. Jiang Cheng was most intolerant of falling behind. Without ten parts of certainty, he wouldn’t consider fighting Lan Wangji.

Jiang Cheng slowly retracted his left hand that had been stroking the ring. It seemed that Lan Wangji had already decided to interfere in this matter, and it was inconvenient for him to play the villain anymore. He would note this down for now. After weighing the options, Jiang Cheng turned and saw Jin Ling still covering his mouth in anger and said, “Since Hanguang-Jun wants to punish you, then accept his discipline this time. It’s not easy to be able to discipline the juniors of another family.”

His tone was sarcastic, and it was unclear whom he was mocking. Lan Wangji never engaged in verbal sparring and acted as if he hadn’t heard anything. Jiang Cheng, with barbs in his words, changed his tone, “What are you still standing there for? Waiting for the prey to run into your sword? If you can’t subdue the thing in this Dafan Mountain today, don’t bother looking for me in the future!”

Jin Ling glared fiercely at Wei Wuxian, but he dared not glare at Lan Wangji, who had silenced him. He sheathed his sword, saluted the two elders, and left with his bow in hand. Lan Sizhui said, “Sect Leader Jiang, the Gusu Lan Sect will return the damaged Binding Immortal Nets in full.”

Jiang Cheng coldly laughed, “No need!” He chose the opposite direction and leisurely went down the mountain. The guest cultivators behind him followed in silence, knowing that they would inevitably receive a scolding when they returned, their faces full of worry.

After their figures disappeared, Lan Jingyi said, “Why is that Sect Leader Jiang like that!” After he spoke, he remembered the Lan family’s teachings that one should not speak ill of others behind their backs. He glanced at Hanguang-Jun, frightened, and closed his mouth, shrinking back. Lan Sizhui smiled faintly at Wei Wuxian and said, “Young Master Mo, we meet again.”

Wei Wuxian twitched his lips. Lan Wangji spoke, his instructions simple and clear, without any fancy wording, “Go do your work.”

Only then did several juniors remember what Dafan Mountain was about. They put away their other thoughts and respectfully waited for further instructions. After a moment, Lan Wangji continued, “Do your best. Do not overreach.”

His voice was low and magnetic. If one were close, it would surely make one’s heart tremble. The juniors responded properly, not daring to linger, and headed deeper into the mountains. Wei Wuxian thought to himself that Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan were truly two completely different people. Even their advice to the juniors was completely opposite. As he was thinking, he suddenly saw Lan Wangji nod slightly at him, which made him a little surprised.

Lan Wangji had been a painfully righteous and serious person since he was young, rigid as a board, as if he had never been lively, and he could not tolerate even a grain of sand in his eyes. He strongly disapproved of Wei Wuxian’s cultivation of the demonic path. Lan Sizhui should have already told Lan Wangji about his suspicious behavior in the Mo Family Village, yet Lan Wangji still nodded at him, presumably to thank him for helping the Lan family juniors out of trouble. Wei Wuxian immediately returned the salute without thinking, and when he looked up again, Lan Wangji’s figure had already disappeared.

After pausing for a moment, he turned and headed down the mountain.

No matter what prey was in Dafan Mountain, he couldn’t take it. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t compete with anyone for it, especially not with Jin Ling.

It was actually Jin Ling.

There were so many disciples in the Lanling Jin Sect, he really hadn’t expected to meet Jin Ling. If he had known, how could he have ridiculed Jin Ling as “having a mother who gave birth to him, but no mother to raise him?” If someone else had said this to Jin Ling, he would have taught that person what it meant to have disaster come from one’s mouth. But it turned out that he was the one who said it.

Standing still for a moment, Wei Wuxian raised his hand and slapped himself.

The slap was loud and forceful. His right cheek was burning hot. Suddenly, the bushes beside him rustled, and Wei Wuxian glanced over to see a donkey’s head sticking out. He lowered his hand. This time, the donkey actually came over to nudge him. Wei Wuxian pulled at its long ears and said with a bitter smile, “You wanted to be a hero saving a beauty, but you made me do a righteous deed.”

The donkey was just humming, when a group of cultivators came walking up the mountainside at the end of the slope. After Lan Wangji sliced through the four hundred plus Binding Immortal Nets with a single sword strike, those cultivators who had been hesitating in Fo Jiao Town all came up again. These people were considered Jin Ling’s opponents. Wei Wuxian pondered for a moment whether to knock them down again. After thinking about it, he silently moved aside to let them pass.

The disciples of various families, their clothes a mix of colors, walked and complained, “That young master Jin, the Jin and Jiang families both spoil him like that. He’s so bossy and arrogant at such a young age. If he takes over the Lanling Jin Sect in the future, won’t we all be doomed? None of us will survive!”

Wei Wuxian slowed his steps.

A soft-hearted female cultivator sighed, “How can they not spoil and dote on him? He lost both parents when he was so young.”

“Junior Sister, you can’t say that. How many people in this world have lost both parents? If everyone was like him, then we’d be in trouble!”

“Speaking of which, Wei Wuxian is really heartless. Jin Ling’s mother is Jiang Cheng’s own sister, the older sister who raised him.”

“Jiang Yanli was also wronged. She raised such an ingrate. Jin Zixuan was even more tragic. Just because he had some disagreements with Wei Wuxian in the past, he ended up like that.”

“How come Wei Wuxian has disagreements with everyone…”

“That’s right. Apart from the mad dogs he raised, have you heard that he has good relationships with anyone? He has enemies everywhere, and everyone is angry at him. Even his relationship with Hanguang-Jun is one of mutual dislike, like fire and water.”

“Speaking of which, today it’s all thanks to Hanguang-Jun…”

After walking for a while, the sound of gurgling water reached Wei Wuxian’s ears.

He hadn’t heard this when he came. Only now did Wei Wuxian realize that he had taken the wrong path down the mountain and had veered onto a different road.

Leading the donkey, he reached the edge of the stream. The moon was high in the sky, the stream banks were unobstructed by branches and leaves, and the stream water was filled with broken, frost-like light. In the reflection, Wei Wuxian saw a face that changed unpredictably with the flow of the water.

He slammed his hand hard on the water, scattering this ridiculous and laughable face. He raised his wet hand, and using the stream water, he quickly wiped away the makeup.

What was reflected in the water was a very refined young man. Clean as if he had been washed by the moonlight, with relaxed eyebrows and bright eyes, and a slight curve to his lips. But when he lowered his head and gazed at himself, the water droplets on his eyelashes were like tears, constantly falling.

This was a young and unfamiliar face, not the Yi Ling Patriarch Wei Wuxian, who had once turned the world upside down and caused bloody storms.

After staring at this face for a long time, Wei Wuxian wiped his face a few more times, rubbed his eyes, and sat heavily by the stream.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t bear the attacks of others. After all, when he had made his choice, he had been very clear about what path he would be facing in the future. In his heart, he had long warned himself: Remember the Yunmeng Jiang Sect’s family motto—”Knowingly do the impossible.”

It was just that, though he had thought his heart was like a stubborn rock, in the end, he was still not unfeeling.

The little donkey seemed to know that he was in a bad mood at the moment. It surprisingly didn’t call out impatiently. It remained quiet for a while, then turned its tail and left. It looked back, saw Wei Wuxian was still ignoring it and stamped its hoof a few times. The donkey had no choice but to come back and tugged at the hem of Wei Wuxian’s clothes with its teeth.

Going was okay, not going was also okay. Since it was now tugging with its teeth, Wei Wuxian followed it. The donkey led him to some trees, circling around a patch of grass. A Qiankun pouch was lying quietly in the grass. Above it was a torn golden net; it must have been dropped by some unlucky cultivator when they broke free. Wei Wuxian picked up the pouch, opened it and saw that there were many miscellaneous items inside – gourds of medicinal wine, talismans, small demon-revealing mirrors and so on.

After rummaging around for a while, he grabbed a talisman at random. Suddenly, a ball of flames burst from his hand.

The burning object was an Ignite Yin Talisman. As its name suggested, it used yin energy as fuel, and would automatically ignite upon encountering yin energy. The more yin energy there was, the stronger it would burn. The fact that it had ignited as soon as it was taken out meant that there was a yin spirit not far from Wei Wuxian.

Upon seeing the fire, Wei Wuxian focused and was on guard, using it to test the direction. When he turned to the east, the fire weakened; when he turned to the west, the flame flared up. He took a few steps towards this direction and saw a white, hunched figure appear under a tree.

After the talisman paper burned out, the ashes fell from his fingertips. An old man was standing with his back to him, muttering to himself.

Wei Wuxian slowly approached, and the old man’s muttering became clearer.

“It hurts, it hurts.”

Wei Wuxian asked, “Where does it hurt?”

The old man replied, “My head, my head. My head.”

Wei Wuxian said, “Let me see.”

He walked a few steps to the side and saw a large, bloody hole on the old man’s forehead. This was a dead soul; most likely, he was murdered by having his head smashed with a weapon. He was wearing a shroud, and the materials and workmanship were excellent, indicating that he had been properly dressed for burial. He was not the wandering soul of a missing living person.

However, there should absolutely not be such a dead soul on this Dafan Mountain.

Wei Wuxian couldn’t figure out this incongruity and felt that something was wrong. He jumped onto the donkey’s back, slapped it, shouted and spurred it, chasing in the direction where Jin Ling and the others had gone into the mountain.

There were many cultivators wandering around the burial mounds, intending to wait for prey. Some were boldly holding Summoning Yin Flags, but only summoned a group of wailing yin spirits. Wei Wuxian reined in his rope, looked around and asked loudly, “Excuse me, could you tell me? Where did those young masters from the Jin and Lan families go?”

It seemed that washing his face had made people more willing to talk to him. One cultivator answered, “They left this place and went to the Heavenly Maiden Shrine.”

Wei Wuxian said, “Heavenly Maiden Shrine?”

That group of country cultivators, after hearing that the Binding Immortal Nets had all been destroyed, had quietly slipped back up and were also among the night patrol. The middle-aged man, seeing this person’s clothes and that baring-its-teeth donkey, looked like the madman who had saved them earlier. He was quite embarrassed and pretended nothing had happened, but the round-faced girl gave him directions, “Over there. It’s a stone cave shrine on this mountain.”

Wei Wuxian pressed, “Which deities are enshrined in the shrine?”

The round-faced girl said, “I-I think it’s a natural stone statue of a Heavenly Maiden.”

Wei Wuxian nodded, “Thank you.”

He then rushed towards the Heavenly Maiden Shrine with the utmost urgency.

A lazy man getting married, a coffin struck by lightning, a fiancé bitten to death by jackals, and a father and daughter losing their souls one after another, a gorgeous shroud… like beads, they were strung together to form a complete line. No wonder the Wind Compass couldn’t point out the direction, and the Summoning Yin Flag was not working. They had all underestimated the thing on this Dafan Mountain.

It was not what they thought it was at all!