MOF Chapter 74
by VolareXie Yiling couldn’t refute it. He had indeed been assigned to guard an adult rat demon in the secret prison, and he had been careless for a moment, relaxing his vigilance. As a result, the rat demon had dug its way out and escaped in the middle of the night.
Because of this, he was punished and confined to the Purification Cave for two days. For a long time afterward, Lu Jinnian would laugh at him about it whenever they met. He himself felt both humiliated and guilty, and except for practicing his skills every day, he didn’t leave his room.
“Alright.” Thinking of his past mistakes, Xie Yiling was silent for a while, before raising his ambition, “I’ll go down the mountain to eliminate evil spirits, and show Master Yue that I can guard the Bottomless Abyss!”
Nangong Ci held him back, his tone carrying a hint of sternness, “You must not act on a whim. Eliminating evil spirits is fraught with unpredictable dangers. What if you encounter a truly ferocious evil spirit?”
Xie Yiling lowered his head and pursed his lips, glancing at him.
Nangong Ci suppressed the emotions he couldn’t quite control and asked, “Has the injury on your body fully healed?”
“Better than ever!” Xie Yiling immediately replied, seizing the opportunity.
As he spoke, he picked up A Si and held him in his arms, “Sixth brother, pinch him and see, the child’s face is as soft as dough.”
Nangong Ci didn’t pinch him, only saying, “I know.”
He didn’t miss the hint of disappointment in Xie Yiling’s expression, and ultimately couldn’t bear to see him sad, saying, “If you really want to train, I will discuss it with my elder brother. However, your own life is paramount, and you must not be reckless.”
The corners of Xie Yiling’s lowered eyebrows lifted at these words, a star of light gleaming in his dark eyes.
“Don’t worry, Sixth brother, I will definitely not let anything happen to myself.”
After that day, Xie Yiling traveled around, eliminating evil spirits. Most of the time, he was with Si Wumian, occasionally venturing alone to places where evil spirits haunted.
He accidentally broke the formation on Beiman Mountain, mistakenly saving Mo Nanyi and his group who were trapped within. When the Knife Mountain spirit was first born, he braved the lava to seal the mountain with a single sword strike.
Whether it was a suppressed energy in his heart or something else, after half a year of such life-and-death experiences, Xie Yiling visibly matured.
The lush green of the Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion’s back mountain was almost entirely dyed with golden light after an autumn wind, with maple leaves as red as fire interspersed, a scene of deep autumn.
Xie Yiling, wearing a coat of frost, returned to the Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion overnight.
He knocked on the door of Fufeng Pavilion, but didn’t enter. He took out a piece of white jade from his pocket and placed it in Nangong Ci’s cold palm.
“This time I went to the Sun and Moon Spirit Platform and returned the spirit sparrow I found. Headmaster Gu was very generous and gave me a piece of spirit jade as thanks.” He smiled, shaking the frost from his head, and continued, “The people there said that this jade is extremely good. Wearing it can unblock meridians, relax muscles, activate blood, and nourish spiritual power. The longer you wear it, the better the effect.”
Nangong Ci approached him, raised his hand and half-embraced his shoulder, picking up some of the coldness, “It’s cold outside, come in first.”
“No.” Xie Yiling smiled and took down his hand, rubbed it, and then let it go, “I’m just here to deliver the jade. Sixth brother, you should rest early.”
He looked at Nangong Ci reluctantly, then turned and left in a hurry.
The warmth from his palm permeated through the skin and flesh into every limb and bone. Nangong Ci frowned, and a wisp of something unusual that had just surfaced in his heart was suppressed by the warm jade in his hand.
Xie Yiling returned to his residence, carefully avoiding the sleeping A Si, and went to his bed with paper and pen. He and A Si each had a quilt, and he tucked the paper and pen under his quilt, squeezing himself in as well.
During his visit to the Sun and Moon Spirit Platform today, he suddenly remembered the Record of Strange Contracts he had seen in Water-Ink Immortal Estate, and a realization dawned on him: if Water-Ink Immortal Estate had it, wouldn’t other immortal sects have it too?
Therefore, Xie Yiling, under the pretense of sightseeing, entered the library and actually found it. But time was short, so he quickly read it once and hurriedly put the book back in its original place.
However, the content of the Record of Strange Contracts at the Sun and Moon Spirit Platform was very different from the one at Water-Ink Immortal Estate. From the moment Xie Yiling saw the first page and the first sentence, his heart thumped non-stop. He finished reading it with rapid breaths, forced himself to calm down, and walked out calmly.
The entire book, densely packed, was filled with records of ghost path sorcery. Such as puppetry, yin corpses, soul manipulation, soul imprisonment, and other second-rate content, and all cultivation methods were clearly and completely annotated.
On the way back to Southern Return, Xie Yiling was often distracted, unable to control his thoughts about the contents of the book. Unfortunately, he had an excellent memory, practically photographic, and with his eyes open or closed, his mind was filled with the words in the book. If this continued, he would soon become obsessed.
So, late at night, Xie Yiling used the spiritual light from his fingertips to illuminate the paper in his quilt, writing down everything he remembered. When he finished writing, the spiritual light from his fingertips was no longer visible. He lifted a corner of the quilt and saw that it was already dawn outside.
After writing all night with his legs crossed, Xie Yiling’s wrist bones were aching. Outside the quilt, A Si rolled over towards him, habitually calling out, “Brother Xie Ci, get up quickly, we need to go eat!”
Xie Yiling quickly put away the paper, folded it, and stuffed it under his pillow, answering in a muffled voice, “You go eat, I’ll sleep a little longer.”
“Then I’ll bring some back for you to eat.” A Si got out of bed, put on his clothes, and washed his face.
“Okay.” Xie Yiling waited in the quilt for a while, until he could no longer hear any sounds, before throwing off the quilt and taking out the stack of paper that was at least a finger’s thickness.
The handwriting on the paper was messy, and other than Xie Yiling himself, no one else in the world could make out what was written.
He shook his sore wrist, put the paper in his coat, and finally succumbed to the drowsiness. He lay down and fell asleep fully clothed.
When he woke up, he felt something vaguely touching his cheek. Xie Yiling squinted his eyes to take a closer look and found that it was a steamed bun wrapped in paper. He casually picked it up, sat up, and took a bite, “A Si!”
“Brother Xie Ci, you’re awake?” A Si poked his head in, standing outside the door, “I brought you a steamed bun.”
Xie Yiling ate as he asked, “Couldn’t you have put it on the table?”
“It would have gotten cold that way.” A Si rubbed his hands, “Brother Xie Ci, when will it snow here?”
“Soon.” Xie Yiling said, getting out of bed and walking outside to take a look, it was almost late afternoon. Because he had to go out to eliminate evil spirits from time to time now, Nangong Yue no longer strictly controlled his studies.
He stuffed the last bite of the steamed bun into his mouth and stretched. After a good night’s sleep, he felt refreshed and much more comfortable.
A Si suddenly asked, “Brother Xie Ci, what were you secretly doing in the quilt at night?”
Xie Yiling almost choked to death on the steamed bun he hadn’t swallowed yet. He thumped his chest, and when the steamed bun went down, he said somewhat painfully, “What nonsense are you talking about?”
“I’m not talking nonsense.” A Si’s expression was serious, “I woke up once last night and saw Brother Xie Ci’s quilt looking like a hill.”
Xie Yiling reached out and pinched his face, his eyes darting left and right, saying mysteriously, “I’ll tell you, but don’t tell anyone else. Actually, I was secretly reading.”
A Si looked at Xie Yiling, his lips moving, “Brother Xie Ci, I’m only easily fooled this once, I won’t believe you next time.”
*
The next morning, Si Wumian finished his practice and returned home, excitedly looking for Xie Yiling, knocking on the door and shouting, “Senior Brother Xie! Senior Brother Xie!”
On the third knock, A Si opened the door, looking drowsy, “Brother Wumian, are you looking for Brother Xie Ci? He’s already gone out.”
“What?” Si Wumian was a little surprised. Senior Brother Xie never liked to wake up early, how could he have gone out so early today? He asked again, “Do you know where he went?”
A Si thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, “I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”
Si Wumian had no choice but to leave dejectedly. After taking a few steps, he suddenly turned around and said to A Si, “A Si, if Senior Brother Xie comes back, please tell him that Master Yue wants him to guard the Bottomless Abyss tomorrow.”
A Si yawned and said, “Okay.”
Although it was already autumn, the temperature at Southern Return Heavenly Pavilion wasn’t too low, and the two small pavilions in front of the main hall still had no frost.
One was named Longli Pavilion, and the other was named Jiugui Pavilion.
Inside Longli Pavilion, Lu Jinnian sat on a chair with his sword in his arms, staring blankly at the stone steps that snaked down the mountain.
When Zhuzi Mo and Zhuzi Shan arrived, this was the scene they saw. The two pushed and shoved each other to the outside of the pavilion, and Zhuzi Mo opened his mouth first, “Senior Brother Lu, what are you doing here? It’s so windy today, be careful of catching a cold.”
Lu Jinnian didn’t even move his eyes, not even a glance.
Zhuzi Mo walked into the pavilion, sitting down next to him at a distance, “Senior Brother Lu, don’t be discouraged, Zishan and I both think you’re much stronger than Xie Yiling!”
“But the one who won was him.” Lu Jinnian exhaled a breath, “This is a fact that all Southern Return disciples have witnessed.”
Zhuzi Mo said, “Is seeing believing?”
“Exactly!” Zhuzi Shan echoed, stepping on the steps of the pavilion and walking in, “Besides, Senior Brother Lu, we’ve all seen how much effort you’ve put in secretly for your cultivation these past six months. Compared, the one who would be lying on the ground this time would definitely be Xie Yiling!”
Lu Jinnian finally moved when he heard this. He slowly leaned back in his chair, twitching the corner of his lips and said, “Secretly putting in effort, how can it compare to showing off in front of people? Xie Yiling is now eliminating evil spirits everywhere, his reputation is well-known, who in Southern Return doesn’t know him?”
Zhuzi Shan rolled his eyes, his tone disdainful, “According to status and rules, Senior Brother Lu is still a senior brother after all, so he should be going down the mountain before Xie Yiling no matter what.”
Zhuzi Mo agreed, “If it weren’t for Fufeng Daozhang, what would Xie Yiling be? And that Si Wumian, he went down the mountain with him too, it’s truly one person attaining the Dao, and the chickens and dogs ascending to heaven.”
“I really don’t understand what Fufeng Daozhang is thinking, in what way is Senior Brother Lu inferior to Xie Yiling? And Master Yue, if he were willing to promote Senior Brother Lu…”
“Alright.” Lu Jinnian felt more and more uncomfortable the more he listened, “Shut up.”
He stood up from the chair, left a sentence “Don’t follow me”, and walked in the other direction.
The words of Zhuzi Mo and Zhuzi Shan really struck Lu Jinnian’s heart.
Yes, Xie Yiling is a junior brother, and he is a senior brother, so he should have been the first disciple to go down the mountain with Fufeng Daozhang.
The first time he went down the mountain, he would definitely perform well, and then rightfully obtain the right to go down the mountain to eliminate evil spirits freely.
When fellow disciples talked about him, their tone would be envious. When the elders mentioned him, they would be full of praise, this was the path of Lu Jinnian.
This path has never changed, but the person walking this path has become Xie Yiling.
How did things get to this point?
Lu Jinnian frowned tightly, walking forward silently. He thought back, his memory retreating step by step to the day of the Spirit Trial Assembly.
Xie Yiling, in front of all the Southern Return disciples, knocked him off the Spirit Trial Platform, causing him to lose face. The elders who had always had good expectations of him shook their heads and sighed in the high seats.
And Nangong Yue’s gaze at that time, coldly falling on him, didn’t even have disappointment.
However, he didn’t even see Xie Yiling make a move!
All the changes were due to Xie Yiling’s last move.
Lu Jinnian’s brows were still furrowed, but they had changed to a different emotion. He clenched his fists and walked towards the back mountain.