While Shi Wuduan’s mouth talked nonsense, his eyes took in the situation — he’d never entered the Fire Lotus Cave before, even though he’d been to Cangyun Valley. After all, the yao king’s cave residence wasn’t some place that a little child could barge into without reason. Even if he was searching for Bai Li, he could only stand at the entrance and yell for him. Now that he was inside, he took in the layout of the furniture in a single glance.
Heavenly foxes tended to have an affinity with fire. Shu Wuduan sensed the “boundary” inside the cave as soon as he entered, yet there seemed to be something tainting its fiery nature. That something formed into a barrier of its own, preventing the black mist outside from surging in. Shi Wuduan knew that something was off, but there was no time for him to figure it out.
If it came to combat, Shi Wuduan thought that even if he cultivated for another thirty or fifty years he wouldn’t be able to beat such a large crowd of fox spirits, but then what else could he do?
He, in a very self-aware way, thought that his greatest speciality was that he was bad at succeeding but excellent at failing. Thus he planned to wreak some havoc, perhaps he’d roll around a few times in this Fire Lotus Cave, and see if he could buy time to find the eye of the array and destroy it. Even if he couldn’t destroy it, he’d at least do everything he could to let Bai Li escape in the chaos.
Shi Wuduan extremely fearlessly plotted it all out. In any case, Lady Bai couldn’t really do anything to him since shifu was still around. At most he’d get trussed up like a chicken and thrown back to Jiulu mountain, then he’d take a beating and afterwards it’d be all’s well that ends well.
As he was thinking that, Shi Wuduan lowered his arm, and, as if the Cuibing bird could read his mind, it gurgled, puffed up it’s feathers, and flew up towards the foxfire on the wall of the cave. The place where the foxfire was burning was where the fox race would consecrate their ancestors, how could they let a flat-feathered beast ruin it? Immediately, a few guards standing by Bai Ziyi threw themselves over to catch it.
Shi Wuduan pretended to laugh awkwardly, “I am so sorry, it’s shifu’s bird you see, it doesn’t listen to me — you guys just keep busying, I’ll go catch that animal.”
The ones standing watch at the entrance were two fox-faced human-bodied yao. Shi Wuduan took a step forward, and the two instantly flashed their weapons. Shi Wuduan ducked his head down, their blades scraped by the back of his neck as he passed by. He took advantage of his short height and made like a mouse, squeezing in through the gap between them.
He knocked over the offerings altar while he jumped about wildly all over the place, “Stupid bird, let’s see where you run now!”
Bai Ziyi could not endure any longer and screamed furiously, “Capture him!”
However Shi Wuduan, that abominable little trickster, was like a flea, hopping about here and there, flipping tables over and knocking chairs to the ground. There just wasn’t anyone who could catch him — this was all thanks to the training he got from when the sect master would chase him all over the courtyard to beat him. Right then, it had even more use than qinggong martial arts.
“Lady Bai, calm down, it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. Aiya, little brother don’t chop at me, I’ve only got one head … you see, I just said stop chopping, see now you’ve got it stuck in the table and can’t pull it out. Why all this stabbing and hacking anyways, let’s just all sit down and chat this out….” Shi Wuduan didn’t forget to gripe as he ran about, “Lady Bai, I say mother-in-law, every time you get angry you’ll get three wrinkles, you know, you’ve really got to take it easy!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Bai Li’s face was deathly pale. As he looked at Shi Wuduan, his lips curled into a wisp of a smile, but upon turning to look at Bai Ziyi, that wisp of smile seemed fragile as glass, breaking upon contact.
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Bai Li sighed as he lowered his eyes. Only after a few moments did he quietly ask, “Mother, why?”
In normal families, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters were all of the same flesh and blood. Which mother wouldn’t rather die than see their children suffer even the slightest injustice? Why was it that for my whole life, you always had to guard against me? Fear me? Even going as far as trying to kill me?
The hatred had faded slightly, but the grievance was a boulder plugged up in his chest.
He felt all the energy in his body flowing out continuously through his wound and into the hilt of the sword, where it was absorbed. Bai Li thought, if he was going to die like this, he didn’t want to stand facing death, facing the end, without even knowing why.
According to legend, when some people were nearing death, their memories would flash before them. Bai Li felt his vision becoming hazy. He tried to recall his own life, but he found that aside from those sparks of brightness when that child from Jiulu mountain would sneak over every so often, calling his name at the cave entrance, there truly weren’t many happy moments in his life.
Or perhaps, it was because of Shi Wuduan that he was even unhappier. If he wasn’t there, then there’d be no one who’d call out the name “Bai Li,” no one to remember that someone named Bai Li ever existed.
Perhaps he wouldn’t know what happiness was, and he wouldn’t realize that all along, his life had been so very long and so very boring.
And if he wasn’t happy, then what did it matter if he died?
In reality, it didn’t matter at all, he was just unwilling.
A group of various sized yao had already forced Shi Wuduan into a corner. Bai Li grit his teeth and said hoarsely, “Let him go, there’s only so much trouble he can cause. If you injure him, you’ll have a hard time explaining it to the people of Jiulu Mountain.”
Bai Ziyi’s expression was complicated as she looked at him, but Bai Li didn’t look at her again and didn’t call her mother again. She was almost sorrowful; it was impossible not to develop some attachment after raising him all these years. But her sorrow was only skin-deep, too paltry and too shallow to shake the terror in her heart and the …. abhorrence.
“Just let him go,” Bai Li sneered coldly as he closed his eyes. His spiritual powers had been suppressed; he couldn’t even lift a finger. His voice was weak and strengthless. Although he and Bai Ziyi were not close, after all was said and done, she was his mother, and he had never thought to guard against her.
“If I could still move,” Bai Li thought calmly and coldly, “I would absolutely kill all of you, shatter your limbs, and dry your corpses out in front of the cave, wait until the vultures picked away all your rotten flesh, and then collect the bones back and stick them into the walls, so that every day when I opened my eyes I could look upon those scraps of bone.”
Shi Wuduan was unpredictably dashing to and fro, but he couldn’t hold up against some tens of yao encircling and chasing him. He saw in the corner of his eye that Bai Li had already closed his eyes, and in his heart he was even more anxious. He knew that Bai Li was a yao and was sturdier than a human and that normal wounds couldn’t kill him, but that didn’t mean he could endure being pinned to a pole for so long either.
Right then, he stepped on a piece of wooden plank that some little yao had knocked over, and came up with an idea.
As a fox spirit leapt towards him, Shi Wuduan picked up the plank, dodging nimbly to the side. He opened his mouth and began reciting an awkward-sounding incantation. That incantation was one he’d only heard once when Jiang Hua had brought him flying on his sword. He hadn’t learned a single word of it before, but remarkably he remembered the head-ache inducing sound and the mudras.
Once the incantation was complete, Shi Wuduan felt that the plank he was clutching in his arms moved a bit. In his body, there was a small stream of qi traveling upwards along his dantian, forming into a small vortex, and lifting up the wooden plank.
Shi Wuduan knew that even though the wood plank had some spiritual properties from being in the cave for so long, it was still a long way off from Jiang Hua’s sword. Not to mention that his own bit of cultivation was also more than a few levels lower than rogue cultivator Jiang Hua’s.
He glanced around, and in an instant, had another idea. He threw down the plank, ducking down to avoid a yao’s sword. Most of those who wielded swords were those who ranked as elders; naturally, they looked like humans. Shi Wuduan rolled to the side, his hands shot out quickly, grabbed his pants, and pulled them down more than half way, revealing a pair of thighs still covered in fox fur.
Anyone who got pantsed in public would be stunned for a moment. Shi Wuduan took advantage, flicking his fingers, “Burn!”
There was a crackling explosion, something like thunder flashed through the air, striking the wrist of the fox elder. The sword in his hand dropped to the ground and was picked up by Shi Wuduan. He slashed without hesitation.
It was a rather shocking move, seeming to carry the strength of a gale, that blew back a few nearby yao. However, he didn’t follow up on the attack. He swept the blade in a bizzare arc, yelling out the sword-riding incantation, and using the sword as a replacement for a hand, “swept” out the sword-riding hand seals.
In the next moment, Shi Wuduan felt a powerful force lifting him up. The yao, alarmed, found that the sword he was hugging had suddenly begun soaring fast as lightning.
He wasn’t very steady at it, bumping into the stone walls numerous times, and yet despite his young age, he didn’t cry out at all. He lifted his hand and swung his sleeve. The wind wrought by the flying sword put out all the torches in the Fire Lotus Cave. Bai Ziyi roared in shock, “Stinking brat!” She retrieved a long whip from her sleeve, lashing in Shi Wuduan’s direction.
The whip moved like a living thing, going straight for Shi Wuduan’s neck. Panicked, Shi Wuduan, hugging the sword, barrel rolled a few times in the air. his back smashed against the stone wall hard enough to make him see stars. He felt a stuffy feeling in his chest, as if his organs had all somersaulted a few times. The sword in his hand trembled, then due to lack of energy, dropped to the ground.
Right then, from his angle, Shi Wuduan suddenly caught a glimpse of a hidden array in the dark cave. Near where Bai Li had been tied to a pillar on the sacrificial altar, there were a few faint luminous pearls embedded into the wall glowing in tandem with each other, seeming to form a yin-repelling array. In that instant, Shi Wuduan thought of what he’d learned from Jiang Hua’s books about arrays. Calculations flashed past in his mind.
In merely the blink of an eye, he could already tell that the eye of the array was amongst the row of white flags stuck into the pillar that Bai Li was bound to. It was the second one, counting backwards from the bottommost flag.
Shi Wuduan grit his teeth, forcing himself to catch his breath before grinning, “I say, mother-in-law, why’re you trying to beat your son-in-law to death, eh?”
Bai Ziyi’s second strike was already approaching him. Shi Wuduan bit the tip of his tongue open, abruptly sucked in a breath, strenuously lifted the sword up another meter, and rushed at the white flags on the banner. As expected, Bai Ziyi’s whip paused for a second before viciously coming at him again. Without fire, the only source of light in the cave were the luminous pearls. Shi Wuduan saw very clearly that there was a hint of cruel spirit fire burning on that whip.
That meant that they weren’t messing around anymore. Shi Wuduan charged forward without looking back, feeling the whip chasing him from behind. It merely grazed past his back, but was already scorchingly painful.
Right then, the Cuibing bird flew over. Shi Wuduan suddenly pushed it towards the eye of the array. The Cuibing bird was caught unawares, flying towards the white flag headfirst, it’s sharp beak poking into the flag. It instinctively began to struggle. The bird was naturally an auspicious creature, and a natural counter to yin-type arrays. In its struggles, it tore off the flag.
Shi Wuduan rushed over to catch the dizzy, falling Cuibing bird. The instant the white flag came off the pole, the black mist roiled in from the cave entrance. Sobs and whimpers began to sound from all sides. The yao that had just been leaping about energetically and chasing after him were now curled up into fetal positions.
Shi Wuduan was shocked. He looked over and saw that he was being protected by the light of his astrolabe. The other yao looked pained. The whip that Bai Ziyi lashed at him got only halfway there when it fell limply to the ground.
What was going on? Shi Wuduan frowned, but didn’t ponder deeply. He jumped down from mid air and landed in front of Bai Li. After hesitating a second, he lightly patted Bai Li’s face. Before his fingers had made contact, Bai Li opened his eyes. Then Shi Wuduan said, “Bear with it.”
He pulled out the sword pinning him to the post. Bai Li abruptly convulsed. Shi Wuduan pressed a hand onto his wound, then cut the ropes binding him.
Bai Li staggered for a second, unable to support his weight for a moment and fell straight onto him. He was no longer in the form of a child, but though he was daintier than a full grown person, his sudden collapse was too much for a child like Shi Wuduan to catch. The two of them were sent sprawling on the floor together.
AHHHH I’m crying and laughing at the same time with this laughing at Little Shi foolishness and Bai Li situation!!! My heart!
Thanks for the chapter<3
I love your work 😳👏🧨🙏❤️💐
💙💙💙
SWD IS SOO CRAZY FOR THIS 😂 BUT I LOVE HIM SO BADD. GO SAVE YOUR MAN- I MEAN WIFEY- kekeke
Thanks for the food!!!
What in the Jackie chan movie is that? 🤣
That was described so well. There weren’t gaps that lost me. Didi saved his husband and I’m so proud!