Chapter 22#
Xie Zhefeng’s whole body stiffened.
The grip of his hand holding the sheath of the Chunhua Sword loosened slightly, his gaze went blank, and his lips were tightly pressed; he actually seemed dazed.
He had stood on the high platform of the two realms for a full thousand years. Everything in the world, as long as it existed, was under his command. Now, because of such a simple sentence, he was at a loss.
An Wuxue recalled Xie Zhefeng’s actions at the Bramble River after his death, which were like mourning a funeral.
If he hadn’t inexplicably become Su Xue, he wouldn’t have seen a single tear from this man until his soul was extinguished.
He chuckled and said in an indifferent, low voice, “If the Immortal Venerable doesn’t take action soon, the few fellow Daoists from the Yunjian Sect and I will lose our lives here.”
The turbid qi surged, but the black wind couldn’t blow into the ice-cold spiritual energy surrounding Xie Zhefeng.
The mirror sorcery cast in the four directions closed in. Above the small courtyard, mirrors lined up one after another, reflecting this broken corner.
The Mirror Demon’s voice drew closer: “That fellow Daoist at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, since you’re here, why stay with a group of unremarkable immortal cultivators?”
Xie Zhefeng immediately gathered his thoughts.
Only then did the man realize that he had just fallen into a delusive state while looking at An Wuxue’s face and had mistaken him for someone else. His pupils shifted, his hand holding the sword exerted force again, and that expression, which could even be considered fragile, vanished in an instant.
He glanced at An Wuxue, who was propping himself up with a sword, his expression showing no further abnormality.
“You certainly know quite a lot,” he said. “There will be no second or third time for touching the sword.”
The next moment, Xie Zhefeng rose into the air and instantly disappeared from the dilapidated courtyard.
Frost scattered and rose with the wind, like a snowstorm moving from the bottom up.
The turbid qi had no momentum in the face of the frost and snow, retreating with a crash.
An Wuxue didn’t move.
Propped up by the spiritual sword, he lowered his gaze, looking utterly exhausted.
Only then did Yun Wan and the others regain their composure and hurry to An Wuxue’s side to help him up.
“Young Master Su!” She pulled out almost all the spiritual medicines related to external injuries and stuffed them into An Wuxue’s hands. “How did Senior Xie… this… now…”
Seeing that she and the other Yunjian disciples were too terrified to know what to do, An Wuxue’s eyes curved slightly, and he gave a comforting smile.
Although these people had hundreds of years of cultivation, they were still young disciples who hadn’t entered the world. Within a few months, they had experienced their sect’s destruction and witnessed a clash of Tribulation Transcendence experts. The fact that Yun Wan could still look after him showed she was responsible.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
He had known all along that Xie Zhefeng would be furious—the man had nearly killed him last time.
If it hadn’t been for the urgency of awakening Xie Zhefeng, he wouldn’t have taken this step.
“Just now, Senior Xie…”
“Nothing happened just now.”
“I see…” Yun Wan bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, then changed the subject. “What about now? Has Senior Xie gone to fight the Mirror Demon? That Mirror Demon is also at the Tribulation Transcendence stage; it’s the one that killed the Sect Leader and elders. Will Senior Xie be in danger? Can we help?”
How could Xie Zhefeng possibly be in danger?
It was just that the avatar he was using was at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, and he hadn’t brought the Chuhan Sword. While fighting the Mirror Demon, he also had to prevent other minor demons from approaching. It would just take some time to resolve the matter.
When asked by her, An Wuxue thought of another point: “It took that Mirror Demon a full quarter of an hour just to strike the barrier. At most, it’s at the early Tribulation Transcendence stage. The Yunjian Sect had several experts at the Great Success stage; they could have lasted for at least a short while. Even if it wanted to destroy the sect, it’s impossible for Zhaoshui City, which is so close, not to notice anything. How did it silently massacre your noble sect and gather all the resentment and turbid qi here?”
Yun Wan’s eyes instantly turned red. With tears in her eyes, she shook her head: “I don’t know, I haven’t been able to figure it out either. On the day it happened, we didn’t have time to see anything before we were sent here to hide by our Martial Uncle. After that, our Martial Uncle never returned, and the sect became a place for demons. The resentment of the deceased disciples has coalesced and won’t dissipate, and the turbid qi has become increasingly thick. We’ve been trapped inside like this until now.”
An Wuxue remained silent in thought.
Outside the courtyard, the turbid qi collided with the ice-cold spiritual power. Before long, the Mirror Demon’s heart-wrenching screams came from the sky.
—Xie Zhefeng had gained the upper hand!
Countless mirrors embedded in all four directions of the sky, like an impenetrable wall, shattered at the same time.
The fragments cascaded down, mingling with the frost and snow brought by the ice spiritual power, as if a sharp rain and wind were attacking.
Yun Wan’s expression turned serious, and she formed a hand seal to raise a shield: “Stay behind me, don’t wander off!”
An Wuxue was already behind Yun Wan.
His gaze drifted as he looked around casually.
But the fragments were everywhere, falling all around and quickly flying past his eyes.
The bronze mirror fragments reflected light and shadow. Through the shield Yun Wan had raised, familiar eyes and brows were reflected on the bronze mirrors.
This was…
This was!??
For a moment, he even forgot how to breathe.
His eyes widened, his hands trembled, and he reached out to grab a fragment.
the disciple closest to him grabbed his arm: “Are you crazy? You’ll get hurt!”
He suddenly broke free and reached out to grab a bronze mirror fragment before him.
The falling bronze mirror fragments tore through his sleeves, instantly cutting several wounds on his arm that reached beyond the shield.
This bit of pain was nothing compared to the earlier pain of the ice spike entering his shoulder bone. Without even a frown, he dazed and pulled back his hand, holding the fragment.
The bronze mirror had shattered from the battle of spiritual power in the sky, still carrying ice-cold spiritual power, and it cut his hand.
Blood blurred the mirror’s surface.
At this moment, the thousands of bronze mirror fragments finally all hit the ground, and the rain of mirrors stopped.
“…Young Master Su!?” Yun Wan took down the shield and turned to look, seeing that An Wuxue’s old wounds hadn’t healed and new ones had been added.
An Wuxue ignored her.
Holding the sharp bronze mirror fragment in his hand, he looked at the shards piled on the ground.
With a dazed expression, he stumbled onto the fragments.
Yun Wan seemed to be calling him, and even the other Yunjian Sect disciples were somewhat worried.
They seemed to be saying something, asking something.
But he heard none of it.
He lowered his head, looking at the reflections in the shards all around him, seeing his own reflection from different angles in one bronze mirror fragment after another, doing exactly the same movements.
And that face, which no one was more familiar with than himself.
He gently touched his own eyes and brows.
The reflection in the mirror also raised its hand.
In the reflections of the thousands of shards around him, he was wearing green robes with gold-threaded edges. The shoulder area of his upper body was soaked with blood, and his sleeves were in tatters—wounds caused by Xie Zhefeng’s ice spike, as well as the cuts he had just received while grabbing the fragment in the rain of mirrors.
That face was quite thin, the eyes and brows were like an unfurled scroll, seeming to have a sense of telling a story slowly, and there were also a pair of peach blossom eyes that couldn’t be called gentle, like falling petals in a scroll.
He had never seen Su Xue’s face.
He was someone who had already died once and had no interest in his physical shell. Since cultivators could condense water into a mirror and bronze mirrors were not many, he didn’t proactively look, and usually couldn’t see what he looked like at all.
Only at this moment did he see this face for the first time.
This face that was nearly identical to his own from his previous life.
No wonder.
No wonder when he was about to leave Luoyue Peak that day and bumped into Xie Zhefeng at the sect gate, when his veiled hat fell, Xie Zhefeng and Xuan Fang showed inscrutable expressions.
No wonder Qi Xun’s reaction upon seeing him was so strange.
No wonder Xie Zhefeng had been acting strangely time and again.
No wonder Xie Zhefeng clearly didn’t treat Su Xue as a furnace cauldron, yet still kept him by his side…
Su Xue was just a mediocre talent who had reached the Inedia stage through a pile of spiritual medicines. What right did he have to enter the Burial Frost Sea, which stood grandly at the peak of the two realms?
Was it because of this face?
And just now, when he propped himself up with a long sword and looked up at Xie Zhefeng, was that “Senior Brother” the man blurted out also because of this face?
Ha.
Haha.
“…Hahahaha!!!” He laughed out loud.
And what did this mean?
Xie Zhefeng.
Xie Zhefeng!!!
“…Young Master Su? Young Master Su?” Yun Wan pulled him, “What exactly is wrong with you?”
He instantly stopped laughing, closed his eyes, then opened them again, the corners of his eyes flushed red as he murmured, “I’m fine.”
“You always say you’re fine…”
In the sky within the illusion, the dark clouds were nearly frozen by the frost, and the Mirror Demon’s shrieks became more frequent.
Other demons had long been disturbed by such a large commotion and had gathered, only to be slaughtered by the cold ice falling from the sky.
He looked up toward the place where the fierce battle was occurring.
His own spiritual pouch suddenly vibrated.
He was startled and opened the spiritual pouch in a daze.
It was the transmission talisman he and Yun Zhou had left between them that was vibrating.
The transmission talisman floated out, carrying a voice only his soul could hear: “Su Xue! Are you nearby?”
The transmission talisman between him and Yun Zhou wasn’t a high-level one; it could only be used within a certain range.
But soul transmission couldn’t be faked; at least the person on the other side of the talisman was truly Yun Zhou and not the Mirror Demon in disguise.
Was Yun Zhou also on this peak?
He asked: “Where are you?”
“I saw Fellow Daoist Xie fighting that Mirror Demon! After I came in yesterday, I couldn’t find you. There were demons everywhere, and I didn’t dare wander around until Senior Xie and the Mirror Demon started fighting; only then did I find you here.”
“I’m currently hiding to the east of the only courtyard on this peak. I’m not sure where you are or what the situation is in the courtyard, so I haven’t made a move. So what’s going on with you and Fellow Daoist Xie? Where’s Fellow Daoist Jiang?”
An Wuxue listened quietly to what Yun Zhou had to say.
He wasn’t an inexperienced youth; he knew the priorities and had to set aside those messy thoughts for now.
He transmitted: “Don’t move, I’ll come find you.”
“Su—”
He directly put away the transmission talisman.
Since he was talking to Yun Zhou through his soul, Yun Wan didn’t know what he was doing and looked at him in confusion.
The other few disciples also looked at each other, standing not far away, at a loss.
He said to Yun Wan, “I’m going out for a bit. Xie Zhe… that Senior Xie of yours, though I don’t know why it’s taking him so long to deal with a Mirror Demon, with him here, nothing will happen. You all stay here and don’t wander off.”
He was about to leave, but then paused and turned back: “I saw you all practicing sword moves earlier. I have one piece of advice; I hope you can take it to heart.”
These words were too strange, and Yun Wan didn’t understand, her face showing confusion.
An Wuxue didn’t explain, but said directly, “In your noble sect’s movement techniques, there is an opening three inches to the right of the dantian. If you start your sword from behind, you can break through this opening.”
Having finished speaking, he had no energy left to care about Yun Wan, who was already hearing things in a daze. He said to another disciple, “Lend me your spiritual sword for a moment.”
The other person nodded blankly. He put the spiritual sword into his spiritual pouch and headed east.
The barrier was broken, but fortunately, while Xie Zhefeng was fighting, he would also clear out the demons heading this way. For the time being, there was no danger around the small courtyard.
He walked out of the courtyard, and after taking a few steps to the east, he bumped into Yun Zhou and Yun Yao hiding in the bushes.
Yun Zhou was both surprised and happy: “I’ve finally found you! No, what’s wrong? Why is there so much blood on you?”
“They’re just superficial wounds.” He walked forward quickly and found Yun Yao leaning against a tree trunk with his eyes closed, as if he had lost consciousness.
He knelt down and checked his breathing—it was steady.
“What’s wrong with Yun Yao?”
Yun Zhou’s expression darkened: “We encountered a demon after we came in. During the fight, Senior Brother suffered internal injuries. We finally managed to kill that demon, but because of Senior Brother’s internal injuries, we didn’t dare wander and had to hide. Just now, it took a lot of effort to come find you, and Senior Brother’s internal injury flared up, causing him to faint.”
“Where’s Jiang Qing?”
“I was just about to ask you. Yesterday, after you and Fellow Daoist Jiang were pulled in by demons one after another, Fellow Daoist Xie dove in without a word. Senior Brother and I couldn’t rest easy and didn’t want to be ones who fled, so after thinking for a moment, we followed.”
“But I haven’t seen Fellow Daoist Jiang since I came in. Fellow Daoist Xie is fighting the Mirror Demon, you’re here, and Senior Brother and I are here too…” Yun Zhou paused, his words carrying suspicion. “What about Fellow Daoist Jiang? You told me before that the person who knocked on the door on the day of the massacre was either someone who could lead us into the illusion, or…”
—Or the perpetrator of the massacre themselves.
The Mirror Demon’s cultivation was only at the early Tribulation Transcendence stage; it couldn’t have single-handedly and silently committed the massacre and sealed the mountain.
It must have had an accomplice at the Tribulation Transcendence stage.
And on the night in Zhaoshui City, the person who ambushed him and Xie Zhefeng was also a cultivator at the early Tribulation Transcendence stage.
Jiang Qing was also at the early Tribulation Transcendence stage.
Listening to this, An Wuxue lowered his gaze slightly, only then realizing he was still holding the bronze mirror fragment he had grabbed, his palm already covered in blood.
He opened his hand and took one last look at the person’s eyes and brows reflected on the blood-stained mirror surface.
After a moment, he let go, letting the bronze mirror fragment slide down. His hand fastened on the spiritual pouch at his waist, and he nodded: “He is the one who knocked, and also the first person to enter the illusion. Now he’s missing too. In any case, right now he truly seems like the most suspicious one.”
Yun Zhou said angrily, “And to think I was talking to him the whole way! Isn’t he the last Fetal Spirit Race member in the world? My Yunjian Sect has no grievances with North Underworld City or the Fetal Spirit Race. Why would he be so cruel and ruthless?”
“Fellow Daoist Xie should have known this for a long time,” An Wuxue said. “Come to the small courtyard with me first; there’s no danger inside, and there are some survivors from your Yunjian Sect.”
As he spoke, he pulled out many talisman papers he had drawn himself and stuffed them into Yun Zhou’s hands: “Take these talismans for self-defense; I still have many here.”
Yun Zhou hurriedly took the talisman papers and stuffed them into his own spiritual pouch, saying happily: “There are still surviving disciples in the sect!? That’s great!! But it’s not convenient for my Senior Brother to move right now… How about this: you look after Senior Brother first, and I’ll go find those surviving junior brothers and sisters to ask them for some spiritual medicines and talismans to see if I can wake Senior Brother up.”
Yun Zhou seemed really anxious; before he even finished speaking, he had already turned around, walked past An Wuxue, and headed quickly toward the small courtyard.
But just as he brushed past An Wuxue, An Wuxue suddenly called out to him: “Yun Zhou.”
Yun Zhou stopped in his tracks and turned back in confusion.
An Wuxue didn’t move at all, his hand still on the opening of his spiritual pouch.
He let out a long sigh.
“I just told you that there are survivors in the Yunjian Sect. How did you know those were ‘a few junior brothers and sisters’?”
He then slowly turned around.
Yun Zhou looked at him, was stunned for a moment, and tilted his head in confusion: “If it were the experts of the sect, they would have come with you to find me now. It’s most likely the junior brothers and sisters—”
“Then why did you specifically call me out alone and want to trick me into staying here while you go back by yourself? Are you trying to get some spiritual medicine from your junior brothers and sisters, or are you trying to lure me away before the Mirror Demon is defeated so you can go back and kill them to prevent those ‘fish that escaped the net’ from exposing your identity?”
Yun Zhou’s expression suddenly froze.
His eye twitched, and the confusion in those eyes that always looked innocent faded, replaced in an instant by ruthless ferocity.
He stared at An Wuxue for a moment, but then suddenly regained his previous innocent expression, spread his hands, and laughed: “Oh, was there something I didn’t perform well enough?”