MOF Chapter 12

Chapter 12: A False Alarm, Xie Ci Meets A Si

Xie Yiling’s heart sank upon hearing this…

Feng Nong, upon hearing this, was immediately moved to tears of gratitude.

Nangong Ci, under Xie Yiling’s expectant gaze, nodded in agreement.

Only then did Feng Nong breathe a sigh of relief, quickly expressing his thanks, “Many thanks, Daoist Fufeng, and this young master!”

Xie Yiling waved his hand, but before he could say “No need to thank me, just be a good person in the future,” he was suddenly and forcefully dragged away by an unseen force.

“Nan—” Xie Yiling was shocked. In his urgency, he forgot proper etiquette and almost called out Nangong Ci’s name. However, he realized he was instantly being carried far away from the other man.

Even so, he still clearly saw Nangong Ci turn around. The person who seemed like he could calmly wave his sleeve even if the Nine Heavens collapsed looked as if he had been struck on the head, his face filled with panic.

Xie Yiling didn’t have time to think about the reason behind it, only feeling the sky and earth spinning before the thing set him down.

He quickly looked around, wary.

“Hey!” A crisp voice sounded near his legs, “I’m over here!”

Xie Yiling looked down and saw a boy of about six years old. His face was round and jade-like, his eyes were dark and bright, his lips were red and his teeth were white, and he exuded an air of innocence and naivete.

He looked at the child in front of him, somewhat disbelieving, “You are?”

“You don’t recognize me?” The child looked at him, a hint of disappointment in his eyes, “It’s me, I’m little A Si, have you forgotten?”

“A Si?” Xie Yiling lowered his head and slowly squatted down to examine him.

A Si looked exactly the same as he remembered, but Xie Yiling knew this wasn’t normal.

Although he didn’t know how many years had passed since his death, judging from the changes in the outside world, Mo City and the Tian Yong Residence’s destruction, at least five years had passed.

Five years, yet A Si was still the same as before. He could roughly guess the reason why.

Seeing that he seemed to know nothing of the past, A Si became anxious, “You really don’t know? They all said you were dead. I’ve been looking for you for so long, and finally, I get to see you again, but you don’t recognize me?”

“You can’t not remember,” he kept trying to help Xie Yiling recall, “My name is A Si, and you were the one who gave me that name! That early spring, you picked me up by the river and said the mountain flowers were blooming beautifully, so why not call me A Si…”

“Wait!” Xie Yiling interrupted, “The mountain flowers blooming nicely, what does that have to do with you being called A Si?”

A Si let go of his hand and gave him a resentful look, “I asked you the same thing back then, and you said—ah, it doesn’t really have anything to do with it, it’s just that you planted three trees on the back mountain of Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion, one was called A Yi, one was called A Er, and one was called A San, and it just so happened to be my turn, so it was A Si!”

“…I see.” He looked at A Si in surprise, “You even know about Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion?”

A Si gave him another resentful look, “You picked me up at the foot of Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion Mountain.”

Xie Yiling nodded, indicating he understood.

“So,” A Si cupped his small face in his hands and looked up at him, “Have you remembered me?”

Xie Yiling stared blankly at him for a moment, seeing the hope in his eyes turn to nothing, then suddenly lowered his head and chuckled, “A Si, how can you still be so silly after all these years?”

“Brother Xie Ci! You’re teasing me!” A Si’s face first showed surprise, then turned to annoyance. He raised his tightly clenched fist, pretending to hit Xie Yiling.

A burst of sharp spiritual power, carrying a sense of solemnity, arrived, interrupting A Si’s movements and blowing him away.

Xie Yiling suddenly stood up. Just as he was about to speak, the spiritual power caused a throbbing pain in his head, and the things in front of him began to blur. Then everything went black, and he lost consciousness.

When he woke up again, he saw a swaying sky.

Xie Yiling slightly moved his eyes and saw a white figure standing with his back to him. He could tell at a glance that it was Nangong Ci.

“You’re awake?!”

A startled cry rang in his ear. He was startled and then saw A Si, who had been lying beside him all along.

Nangong Ci turned around and quietly looked at him.

Xie Yiling’s face was dazed. He turned his head to look at Nangong Ci and asked, “Master, what happened to me? And who’s child is this?”

Nangong Ci, uncharacteristically, did not answer his question.

A Si heard this and looked at Xie Yiling, then at Nangong Ci.

Xie Yiling pretended not to notice A Si’s hesitant expression. He propped himself up and realized they were in a carriage.

The horse was found from somewhere, old and ugly, and had to gasp for breath after every two steps, as if it would die at any moment.

He looked back and only saw a small part of Feng Nong Mountain’s peak, and couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows, thinking to himself: Looks like you can’t judge a horse by its appearance.

Nangong Ci leaned over and asked, “Are you feeling better?”

Xie Yiling straightened up half his body and nodded somewhat stiffly, “Much better. Before I fainted, I seemed to sense a very strong force, but I didn’t have time to see it clearly.”

Nangong Ci lowered his eyes slightly, “Sorry, I was rash.”

Xie Yiling was a little surprised, “Was it you, Master, back then?”

Nangong Ci explained, “I thought this little ghost wanted to do something bad to you.”

A Si muttered, “I’m not a little ghost.”

Xie Yiling noticed his way of addressing A Si, and his heart sank. He glanced at A Si and asked softly, “Master, this child is really…”

Nangong Ci looked at him, as if trying to capture something from his face.

Xie Yiling felt his heart beating a little erratically under his gaze. He pretended to be calm and met his gaze.

“A Five Ghost,” Nangong Ci withdrew his gaze and slowly explained, “It is formed by gathering five types of qi, both righteous and evil, into a human form.”

Xie Yiling showed some surprise on his face, “He’s actually a ghost? I can’t tell. Then what are the five types of qi?”

Nangong Ci said, “Ear Ghost, Movement Ghost, Strength Ghost, Hungry Ghost, and Nightmare Ghost. It seems that after death, for some reason, it was unwilling to submit to the Yin Division and wandered around, developing half a spiritual root, and that was how it happened to gather the Five Ghosts.”

“But I’ve investigated,” Nangong Ci finally looked at A Si, “Although he is a Five Ghost, he hasn’t lost his mind and is wholeheartedly good, never doing evil.”

Xie Yiling breathed a sigh of relief in his heart and said, “That’s good. Master, are you going to take this little ghost along?”

Nangong Ci heard this sentence and glanced at A Si, “He’s the one who insisted on not leaving.”

“I have a name, I’m called A Si!” A Si shouted at them, “I’m a good ghost, I just want to follow you.”

After he finished speaking, he pouted and shrunk into a ball, forming a clear divide from the two people beside him.

Xie Yiling helplessly twitched the corners of his mouth, “By the way, where is that Young Master Gu?”

He looked around, not finding Gu Huanzhi’s figure, and didn’t dare to interact too much with A Si, fearing that Nangong Ci would see something was wrong.

Because of the previous “Record of Strange Contracts” incident, Nangong Ci was already suspicious of him, and if he showed familiarity with A Si at this time, it would only deepen his suspicion.

Nangong Ci replied, “Up ahead.”

Sure enough, a blue figure stood not far away.

“Daoist Fufeng,” Gu Huanzhi raised his hand and waved, “You’ve arrived!”

Xie Yiling also waved his arm in response. Suddenly, he heard Nangong Ci say, “Since you are my disciple and have joined Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion, you can be considered a cultivator. However, you have no cultivation or spiritual power, so it will be inconvenient for you to do things.”

“Ah?” Xie Yiling hesitated, “Master, what do you mean by that? A master shouldn’t dislike a useless disciple, you’re not going to abandon me, are you?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Nangong Ci handed him something.

Xie Yiling looked up and saw a box the size of an inch.

“This is?” He hesitated and took the box, opened it and saw that it contained a smooth, jade-like pill.

Nangong Ci gestured for him to take it.

Xie Yiling knew that Nangong Ci wouldn’t harm him, so without asking, he directly took it, threw it into his mouth, chewed it a couple of times and swallowed it, not forgetting to praise, “Not bad, sweet on the palate.”

After eating it, he remembered to ask, “Master, what is this thing? It’s quite delicious.”

Nangong Ci said calmly, “This is a Ning dan wan that can reshape the golden core.”

Xie Yiling’s swallowing action suddenly stopped, “Can I still spit it out now?”

“You can.” Nangong Ci nodded and added, “Market price is nine thousand gold.”

Upon hearing this, Xie Yiling’s heart bled. He swallowed the nine thousand gold with tears in his eyes.

Seeing that he had eaten it, Nangong Ci explained, “However, this pill was refined by myself, so it’s probably not worth the market price.”

In the past, Xie Yiling would have accepted whatever strange things Nangong Ci gave him as a matter of course. But now, with his current identity, he felt a little overwhelmed by the favor, “Master, you’re so good to me!”

A Si gave them a strange look, his face full of inexplicable expressions.

Nangong Ci paused for a moment, his expression as usual, “Don’t worry, later I will slowly teach you some self-defense spells.”

“Thank you, Master.” Xie Yiling had been thinking about how to get a Ning dan wan, but he didn’t expect Nangong Ci to have one on him.

But what was strange was, why would Nangong Ci have a Ning dan wan on him?

“Master, you are so powerful, you even have this kind of good stuff. But,” Xie Yiling first flattered him a couple of times, then asked what he really wanted to know, “This thing must be very precious, right? Do you have any more yourself?”

Nangong Ci looked at him, “If you still need it, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for a while.”

Seeing that he had misunderstood, Xie Yiling quickly denied it, waving his hand and saying, “I don’t mean that, that would be too much trouble for Master.”

Nangong Ci said in a light voice, “It’s not troublesome.”

A Ning dan wan requires a total of nine ingredients.

One is a Returning Spirit Leaf, which grows in extremely cold places; one is a Life Yang Seed, which grows in places where the sun is at its peak; one is a Soul-Attracting Incense, which grows on the walls of broken cliffs; one is a Fallen Phoenix Flower, which is hidden among desolate rocks; one is a Crossing Yin Grass, which grows on the edge of the Black River; one is a Red Jiang Pearl, which forms on high-cliff trees; one is a Bitter Love, which grows in the Abyss of Immeasurable; one is a Three-Finger Lotus, which is hidden in a place covered in snow; and one is Returning Heaven Water, which is taken from the Spring of the Underworld.

He had only refined one in total. In the years that followed, all his attempts to refine more pills were unsuccessful.

Xie Yiling had read all kinds of strange and extraordinary books, so how could he not know how difficult it was to obtain a Ning dan wan?

But he didn’t understand. To Nangong Ci, he was just a disciple he had taken in less than two days ago. It didn’t seem like they had such a deep and meaningful relationship that he would give him something like a Ning dan wan. Why was he being so…caring?

He was full of doubts, and so he overlooked a detail.

Ning dan wan, as the name suggests, has the effect of re-condensing the golden core. But if a mortal who has never cultivated takes it, it’s like someone who hasn’t been poisoned taking a medicine that can cure all poisons. It has no effect.

Nangong Ci’s light-colored eyes shifted away from Xie Yiling’s gaze. When the other party looked elsewhere, he peered back at him again.

The carriage had arrived at Gu Huanzhi’s side. He lightly flipped over and jumped onto the carriage. The journey continued without stopping. As dusk approached, they traveled forward into the deepening night. Finally, they saw a household, which was a black-tiled house and a thatched cow shed.

As he was about to get out of the carriage, Xie Yiling touched the horse’s back and asked, “Master, where did you get this horse?”

Nangong Ci looked at A Si.

Xie Yiling was a little surprised and turned to ask him, “Is this your horse? Do you like this kind of horse?”

A Si said angrily, “Jiaojiao is almost forty years old, and you stilldislike her, it’s really thankless to put in the effort!”

Xie Yilingdislikeed her very openly and honestly, “Why would a horse be called that name?”

A Si glanced at him and didn’t speak.

Seeing that he had played his part enough, Xie Yiling stopped while he was ahead and didn’t ask any further.

Gu Huanzhi went up and took a look around, then came back and told them, “This is an empty house. It looks like no one has lived here for a long time. Why don’t we rest here tonight? I’m afraid there won’t be any more households on the road ahead.”

Xie Yiling nodded and looked at Nangong Ci again. Seeing him ponder for a moment, he suddenly asked him, “Do you still want to eat biscuits?”

“Ah,” Xie Yiling was stunned for a moment, then touched the back of his head and smiled, “Forget it, where can we find them now.”

A Si originally thought there was something to eat, but upon hearing this, his eyebrows wrinkled and his mouth pouted high.

“Alright.” Xie Yiling flicked his round head, comforted him, “We’ll just have to make do for tonight, tomorrow we’ll find a place to take you to eat good stuff.”

A Si shook his head and said, “Am I doing this for food? I’m heartbroken that you treat children like this!”

Xie Yiling smiled and pushed him towards the house. Nangong Ci followed closely behind, leaving Gu Huanzhi alone, looking at the old horse.

Gu Huanzhi looked at the old horse who was looking back at him and resigned himself to picking up the rope, tugging it and saying, “Let’s go.”

As they approached the door, Xie Yiling released A Si’s hand and was about to push the door open when Nangong Ci pulled him aside, “I’ll do it.”

The door was slowly pushed open. With a “creak,” it stirred up a cloud of dust.