MOF Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Startling Sight of Azure Robes on White Bone Mountain – So it’s not that Nangong Ci is unwilling…

Xie Yiling’s temper flared up instantly upon hearing this, “Bah! You yourself have a crooked face and slanted eyes, yet you have the nerve to criticize others. If you dare to speak disrespectfully again, I’ll have to teach you a lesson!”

“Good! Good!” Liu Weiyuan nodded, seething with anger, “You refuse to leave, is that it? Then I’ll spread word of today’s events, and let everyone see what kind of morals the people of Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion possess.”

What a clever trick to fabricate rumors and cause trouble!

Xie Yiling almost couldn’t stop himself from drawing his sword, “If you dare to slander Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion, I have the strength to overturn your dilapidated house!”

“Alright, alright, stop arguing,” Nangong Ci finally interjected, “Young Master Liu, we did indeed come to visit upon receiving a letter from the Azure Robe Hermit. My junior brother is quick-tempered and may have offended you earlier. I apologize on his behalf.”

Xie Yiling glared at Liu Weiyuan, feeling indignant, but restrained himself out of respect for Nangong Ci.

Liu Weiyuan’s expression remained unpleasant, and he said coldly, “Fortunately, I am magnanimous and won’t hold a grudge. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Xie Yiling suppressed his anger, and spent the entire journey back cursing the dog-eyed Liu for looking down on people.

“Xie Ci, Xie Ci, wake up!”

“Senior Brother Xie!”

“Brother Xie Ci! Please wake up!”

Nangong Ci’s voice kept ringing in his ears, and Xie Yiling slowly opened his eyes, seeing a canopy of branches that covered the sky, crisscrossing together.

A leaf fell, and Xie Yiling stared at the verdant leaf, watching it gracefully land on his body.

“Xie Yiling,” Nangong Ci called to him, “How are you?”

“I,” Xie Yiling opened his mouth weakly, “I…what happened?”

Gu Huanzhi explained, “Senior Brother Xie, you’ve been poisoned by miasma. This mountain is full of miasma, and excessive inhalation can easily lead to unconsciousness and hallucinations. Fortunately, this young master came to our rescue.”

“Is that so?” Xie Yiling rubbed his temple and sat up from the ground, catching a glimpse of green in the corner of his eye.

He looked up and saw Liu Weiyuan looking down at him.

The arrogant face from his dream overlapped with the one before him, and Xie Yiling couldn’t help but feel a bit conflicted.

“Senior Brother Xie, this is the Azure Robe Hermit I told you about, Young Master Liu Weiyuan.”

Seeing that the two were looking at each other without speaking, Gu Huanzhi smoothed things over, “Young Master Liu, these two are Fufeng Daoren of Southern Return and his disciple. I am Gu Huanzhi, and I’m traveling with them. We are new here, so please forgive any disturbances we may have caused.”

The neglected A Si chirped, “My name is A Si!”

Liu Weiyuan glanced at them indifferently, his gaze landing on Nangong Ci’s pale face, and he frowned slightly, saying, “You have the Seven Yang Curse in your body?”

Upon hearing this, Xie Yiling disregarded any pretense and hurriedly asked, “Can you save him?”

Liu Weiyuan nodded, surprisingly agreeable, “Let’s go, follow me.”

Hearing this, the others understood that he had agreed and quickly followed behind him.

The familiar stone house reappeared before them, and Xie Yiling felt a moment of déjà vu.

Years had passed, and this time the stone house finally opened its doors to them.

Outside the stone house, Xie Yiling and Gu Huanzhi were sitting on stone benches, waiting.

Seeing the sun setting, Xie Yiling couldn’t hide his anxiety and pretended to calmly count the birds flying by.

A gust of wind blew past, and he subconsciously turned his head, seeing that the door to the stone house had opened at some point.

Xie Yiling pushed off with his feet and stood up abruptly, walking into the house, but he didn’t see Liu Weiyuan inside.

Gu Huanzhi, who followed closely behind, said, “I’ll go check the backyard.”

Xie Yiling nodded and looked at Nangong Ci, whose face was still pale but whose spirits were much better, and asked, “Master, how is it?”

Nangong Ci sat by the bed, rolled up his sleeves, revealing the wound, the marks on it had faded a lot in just a few hours.

“This shouldn’t recur, right?” Xie Yiling leaned closer to take a look and asked worriedly.

“It shouldn’t. Most of the corpse poison has been cleared away, but there’s still some residual poison that needs to be forced out with medicine, both applied externally and taken internally.” Nangong Ci said softly, “Don’t worry too much, the medicine isn’t hard to find.”

Xie Yiling finished looking at the wound, unsure whether to sit or stand. The two were silent for a moment, their eyes occasionally meeting in the air.

“I, I didn’t expect,” Xie Yiling cleared his throat, “that the Azure Robe Hermit would be so kind-hearted.”

He had been holding it in for a long time, and only managed to squeeze out this sentence.

Nangong Ci lowered his eyes, seemingly thinking of something, and a hint of pleasure appeared in his eyes, “It is indeed a bit of a surprise.”

There was also a small courtyard behind the stone house, and Gu Huanzhi’s attention was immediately captured by a Lagerstroemia indica.

“This Lagerstroemia indica must be at least twenty years old, right?” He leaned over to take a closer look.

“It’s older than you are.”

Liu Weiyuan’s voice came from behind him, and Gu Huanzhi turned his head to look, seeing him sitting upright on a rock that looked like a stool, grinding medicine with a stone mortar.

The shape and size of the container holding the medicine looked very pleasing, and it was clearly something that had been used for many years.

Liu Weiyuan had changed into a light-colored azure robe, his hair was slightly loose, and a few thin green bamboo branches were casually inserted into his hair.

The Liu family had made a living from writing and ink for generations, and even as a hermit, Liu Weiyuan’s demeanor revealed a scholarly air.

“Young Master Liu, don’t you feel bored being in the mountains all year round?” Gu Huanzhi walked over leisurely and sat on a stone bench beside him.

Liu Weiyuan said leisurely, “Bored of what?”

The sound of grinding medicine rang out intermittently, sometimes loud and sometimes soft, depending on his strength, and it actually sounded quite pleasant.

Gu Huanzhi shrugged, “I’ve been locked up in the Sun and Moon Spirit Platform for years, and I’m tired of it. Now I just want to travel around and be free and unrestrained.”

Liu Weiyuan ground the herbs into a thin cake shape, covered it with a thin cloth, and gently removed it.

Only then did Gu Huanzhi see that there was also a white bowl on the ground.

Liu Weiyuan lightly used his spiritual power, and the herb juice permeated the thin cloth, falling into the bowl.

He picked up the bowl and asked casually, “What does Third Young Master Gu think is freedom?”

Gu Huanzhi thought for a moment and said, “No one restricts my comings and goings, and no one controls my thoughts.”

Liu Weiyuan smiled and gently shook the bowl in his hand, “Think of this medicinal juice as water, and it seems like the bowl has trapped the water. But in fact, water cannot be grasped, and no matter what method you use, you cannot change it.”

“If you are inherently free, then why seek it? No one can trap you. If you are not free, then being in or out of the bowl is of no use.”

Liu Weiyuan got up and walked out of the courtyard with the thin cloth and medicinal juice, leaving Gu Huanzhi alone, stunned in place as he watched him leave.

Liu Weiyuan carried the medicine into the house and handed everything in his hands to Xie Yiling.

“Apply this herb to the wound for half an hour, and use the medicinal juice to decoct, boiling two bowls of water into one bowl.”

Xie Yiling quickly went over to take the medicine and nodded in agreement. The herb in his hand was only half the size of his palm, and he lifted the thin cloth and gently applied the herb to Nangong Ci’s wound.

“Master, the medicine has been applied. I’ll go decoct the medicine first.”

With that, he turned around with the bowl, about to walk out the door, when he suddenly heard Nangong Ci groan in pain behind him, and hurriedly turned back.

Nangong Ci’s mouth was oozing blood, and the white clothes on his chest had been stained a dark red.

Xie Yiling’s heart turned cold, and he quickly put down the bowl and went forward to check.

Nangong Ci’s face was as white as paper, and his eyes were tightly closed. Xie Yiling raised his hand, his fingers trembling slightly, to check his breathing, only to find that it was already faint.

Xie Yiling’s whole body turned cold, and he panicked. He opened his mouth, and his voice was hoarse in an instant, “Young Master Liu! Young Master Liu!”

Liu Weiyuan was not far away and quickly entered the house upon hearing Xie Yiling’s voice.

Gu Huanzhi rushed over upon hearing the sound, and immediately understood that things were probably not good when he saw the situation.

Xie Yiling saw Liu Weiyuan approaching to check, his eyebrows gradually furrowing, and he slowly said, “In addition to the Seven Yang Curse, there is another poison in his body, but it is hidden too deeply and is not easily detected.”

Xie Yiling forced himself to calm down, his voice trembling slightly, “Even the Lagerstroemia indica was useless?”

Liu Weiyuan explained, “Actually, Lagerstroemia indica cannot cure the Seven Yang Curse. The Seven Yang technique is extremely sinister, and the only way to completely cure it is with the Returning Spirit Leaf. Coincidentally, I have it here. The herb I used earlier was it.”

Upon hearing this, Xie Yiling pressed, “What is the other poison? What medicine is needed? I’ll go find it now!”

Liu Weiyuan took his pulse and carefully checked with his spiritual power, his expression a bit complicated, “This poison is probably troublesome.”

Gu Huanzhi said, “Young Master Liu, please speak frankly. No matter what medicine is needed, we will do our best to find it.”

Liu Weiyuan withdrew his hand, seemingly unsure how to speak, “This, the poison that Fufeng Daoren has contracted is self-inflicted.”

Xie Yiling suddenly raised his eyes and stared at Liu Weiyuan, hearing him slowly say, “Fufeng Daoren must have made a ghost contract with someone himself, which originally had no effect. However, I see that this ghost contract is incomplete, with only him involved. You must know that the only condition for making a ghost contract is two people. But he is willing to endure the pain of having his heart gouged out and his bones scraped, rather than dissolve this incomplete ghost contract. If that’s not self-inflicted, then what is?”

Without waiting for Xie Yiling and Gu Huanzhi to speak, Liu Weiyuan continued, “Making a contract is a secret technique that few people know, and even fewer know how to use. Although there is no harm in two people making a contract, one must still act cautiously.”

“Because once a contract is made, it is a matter of living and dying together. If one party dies, the other party will never be able to live alone. But right now, Fufeng Daoren’s situation clearly seems like he has forcibly continued a broken contract, otherwise he would have died long ago and would not be suffering this pain.”

Xie Yiling’s mind seemed to be filled with a chaotic cloud of blackness. He understood every word Liu Weiyuan said, but he couldn’t understand what it all meant when put together.

He remembered that he had clearly dissolved the ghost contract before his death. Logically speaking, Nangong Ci should be fine, but why wasn’t the contract successfully dissolved?

Xie Yiling was the one who made the contract in the first place, because Nangong Ci would never learn such a low-class technique.

So it wasn’t that Nangong Ci was unwilling to dissolve the contract, but that he simply didn’t know how.

Perhaps after Nangong Ci forgot him, he had also racked his brains trying to figure out when and with whom he had made a ghost contract.

His heart felt bitter and astringent, as if it had been twisted into a ball by a sharp blade.

Boundless guilt spread endlessly at this moment. Xie Yiling’s heart felt tasteless, and he only felt cold all over, his heart aching, his mind in chaos, when he suddenly heard Gu Huanzhi say in shock, “Senior Brother Xie, are you alright?”