Fan Yi watched Wu Lingtian from afar, a soft smile on his face. Wen Yi glanced at her shishu and looked back over to Wu Lingtian. She turned to Su Han to whisper to him, only to find his eyes trained on the masked, black clothed man behind Wuma Qiongling. She pursed her lips and turned to her left to Liang Jun, but her shidi’s eyes were concentrated on the tired looking fairy-like girl behind the sect leader of Drifting Clouds Mountain Sect.
Wen Yi paused and looked from Su Han to Liang Jun to Fan Yi as the entourage followed Wuma Qiongling towards the deceased man. She let out a soft sigh and tugged on Ren Yizhou’s sleeve.
“Hm? What’s wrong, Yi’er?” Ren Yizhou’s steps slowed and they looked towards Wen Yi with a soft smile.
“Shizun, I’m going to take the others to play, is that okay?”
“Play?” Ren Yizhou was surprised. Normally, it was Liang Jun who dragged the others away. They paused for a moment and reached out for someone.
As if Wen Yi could read their mind, she tugged Tian Xiewen back. “Tian-shishu is here.”
“Mn. Then you can go play,” Ren Yizhou held onto the edge of Tian Xiewen’s sleeve. They patted Wen Yi’s head. “Be safe. Don’t run all over. It’s dangerous right now.”
“What? You’re going to play?” Tian Xiewen naturally held onto Ren Yizhou’s hand and looked over at the disciples. “All of you?”
Only the inner disciples had followed the Pillars to the scene. The others had already run off to explore the city. Now that Wen Yi suggested they break off, no one was opposed to the idea.
“I’m staying here,” Su Han said. He looked serious. “I should stay and observe the situation.”
“I also want to stay,” Liang Jun pinched his earlobe awkwardly
Tian Xiewen and Ren Yizhou fell silent.
“I can understand if Su Han wants to stay, but Jun’er, why are you also staying?” Ren Yizhou asked skeptically.
“I…I’ve never seen an autopsy being performed, so I wanted to take a look.”
Hua An’ting scoffed. “Are you serious? You hate corpses. That’s why you take every job but the ones that deal with the undead. Why do you suddenly want to stay around for an autopsy? Do you think corpses that can’t move around don’t smell bad? Let me tell you—the smell is worse.”
Liang Jun leaned away from Hua An’ting’s wiggling fingers. “You see, I thought about that too. A-And I think it’s about time I get over my…”
“Fear,” Li Qing cheerily offered.
“It’s not a fear,” Liang Jun brutally squished Li Qing’s cheeks. “My, um…only weakness.”
“Right, your only weakness,” Wen Yi murmured incredulously.
“Well, if that’s the case, I suppose you could stay,” Ren Yizhou said hesitantly. “But you two don’t run too far off, okay? It might be more dangerous in a crowd of cultivators right now than a crowd of mortals.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll stay nearby,” Su Han said with a gentlemanly smile.
Wen Yi pulled Hua An’ting and Li Qing away from the crowd. Hua An’ting tugged at Wen Yi’s sleeve. “Shijie, why are we leaving all of a sudden? I wanted to see what they were going to do.”
Wen Yi glanced back at Su Han and Liang Jun. “It was originally just supposed to get those two out of there. You two don’t think anything’s weird about them?”
“What’s weird?” Hua An’ting scratched her cheek.
Li Qing rolled her eyes. “Hua-shijie, how could you be as stupid as a boy?”
“M-me—?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Li Qing tugged Hua An’ting and Wen Yi to the side. “Look!”
Hua An’ting glanced at the child skeptically and turned to Su Han and Liang Jun. Her eyes narrowed as she followed their line of sight. “…Han-shige is just looking inside. That little brat is looking at Drifting Clouds Mountain Sect. Nothing strange—he’s always glaring at them nowadays.”
Wen Yi and Li Qing glanced at each other. Whoever fell in love with Hua An’ting in the future would have their work cut out for them.
As the girls walked back into the city, Wuma Qiongling had waved his hand to change into a set of robes with arrow sleeves, so as not to get in the way of the autopsy. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over the body. “Can I do whatever I want?”
“Within respectful reason,” Sect Master Zhong smiled amicably.
Wuma Qiongling scratched his head. “Well, there’s an easier way to go about this. If Sect Master Zhong gives me permission, I could do it the Fengya way.”
Everyone on scene shuddered.
“W-what does that entail?” a member from Wu Rong School, the same sect as the deceased, managed to muster up a question.
“Nothing much. I won’t even have to touch the body,” Wuma Qiongling gave them a dazzling smile.
However, this one smile made everyone more frightened.
“Well, so long as the soul remains intact and the body isn’t damaged beyond the reasonable amount,” Sect Master Zhong said.
Wuma Qiongling hummed. “Qiu’er.”
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.
Djl Hle rafqqfv obgkjgv. Lf rlifcais tjcvfv bnfg j rwjii vjuufg atja tf tjv qeiifv ogbw tlr riffnf.
Mjc Tl kjamtfv meglberis jr Qewj Hlbcuilcu gjc atf vjuufg bnfg atf qjiw bo tlr tjcv. Lf ujnf la j rdeffhf jcv jiibkfv j vgbq bo yibbv ab ojii bcab atf vfmfjrfv’r ilqr. Pa rbbc vlrrbinfv jcv vlrjqqfjgfv lcab atf rxlc.
“Ah,” Fan Yi hummed quietly.
Wu Lingtian glanced at Fan Yi, but didn’t ask.
The veins of the body in front of them began to pulse red. Wuma Qiongling closed his eyes as he controlled his blood to run through the deceased, his brows furrowing as he did so. At times, he would tilt his head one way and tilt his head the other. His brows became increasingly furrowed until, his eyes shot open and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. The deceased mirrored the action at the same time, a stream of red trickling towards his ear.
A flicker of emotion passed through Bai Qiu’s eyes. He stepped forward, but Wuma Qiongling only held out the handkerchief in his hand.
“This damned fuck,” Wuma Qiongling grumbled. He pointed at the body. “It’s broken.”
“What!?”
An uproar rippled through the hall. Wuma Qiongling rolled his eyes as he stepped back over to Sect Leader Zhong and Situ Hong. Bai Qiu followed behind worriedly.
He glared at the taller man and nudged him. “Stop hovering around me. It’s sickening. Go out for a walk.”
“…Lord Wuma—”
“I’m fine, I just don’t want to smell that thing right now,” Wuma Qiongling covered his nose and glared at the corpse. He turned to Wu Lingtian. “You—tie it up.”
“Tie it up?” the members from Wu Rong School became infuriated. “What do you mean tie it up!?”
“Are you deaf? I said tie it up,” Wuma Qiongling said. “Do I have to explain myself to you?”
Bai Qiu had taken several steps back, but still watched on, obviously not reassured. Wuma Qiongling glanced at Bai Qiu irritably and pointed at Su Han.
“You.”
“M-me?”
“Take this sack out,” Wuma Qiongling said, his eyes flickering a different color. “He can’t be in the same room as this trash.”
Su Han’s back ran cold. He looked at Bai Qiu nervously and quickly pulled him out. To everyone’s surprise, the cold-blooded man didn’t show any rejection. He only looked a bit stiff.
“What do you mean?” Fan Yi asked tentatively.
“It—hmph.”
Wuma Qiongling stopped speaking and crossed his arms over his chest. He had a tongue in cheek as everyone waited for him to continue with baited breath.
Wu Lingtian glanced at Situ Hong. He shifted a little closer. “The pears taste the best during the winter and summer months.”
Wuma Qiongling glanced at Wu Lingtian and Situ Hong. He was obviously sulking, looking as wronged as a child who had been tricked into taking bitter medicine.
“He talked about you when he was drunk,” Situ Hong baited quietly.
Wuma Qiongling’s ears perked up. He glanced at them again and spat out another speck of blood from his mouth. “I’ve seen this a lot before in Fengya when I was younger. My shizun always taught me one thing growing up,” he smiled darkly, “it’s never good to waste resources.
“His elderly self would go to so much trouble to order me to collect the corpses until they piled up high enough to block the door and no one went to clean it up until the hall was covered end to end in them. The smell was always putrid—much worse than a regular corpse,” Wuma Qiongling glared at the unmoving body. “After a few days, my lovely shizun would order a servant or me—depending on his mood—to open the doors. The moment the doors opened, you’d be flooded with the stench of decay and the smell of resentful energy.”
Wuma Qiongling quietly circled the corpse.
“Have you lovely folks ever heard of a manmade fierce corpse?” Wuma Qiongling waved Wu Lingtian away and yanked the body up. It flopped about like a limp puppet.
“You—what are you doing!?”
“Shush, let your daddy show you something,” Wuma Qiongling lightly tapped the forehead of the corpse.
Everyone watched in horror as its eyes flew opened. It tried to struggle from Wuma Qiongling’s grip, but along with Wu Lingtian’s array, it stayed stiffly by his side.
“Release me! Release me!”
“Oh, this one knows how to talk,” Wuma Qiongling flung it to the ground and stepped on its chest. A crazed look took over his eyes. “See, this is why I didn’t want the kid here—he hates things like you.”
“Lord Wuma, Xiao-xiong…”
Wuma Qiongling seemed to come back to himself, though he still insisted on standing on the undead monster. “The technique I used should have allowed me to find out how he died without opening up his internal organs, but instead, I found out that he wasn’t dead, just that he didn’t have the breath of life. In fact, other than dying, he’s a perfectly normal person. However, his soul is no longer inside and is replaced by a Gu instead. Here.”
The monster roared angrily and struggled, but Wuma Qiongling continued moving from foot to foot on top of him.
“My shizun liked playing with corpses like this too, but they never knew how to talk before,” Wuma Qiongling smiled. He looked into the crowd, his words spoken in a sing-song tone, “Seems like someone in this crowd is having a bit too much fun researching his elderly self.”
Wuma Qiongling stomped hard. The crowd shrieked as the chest cavity collapsed. Wuma Qiongling clicked his tongue and hopped off. He bent down and plucked out a round, bead-like object. He held it up for everyone to see. “It’s rotten, you see?”
Wuma Qiongling crushed it and opened his palm. A bug flew out, but was quickly caught by Wuma Qiongling. He looked to Situ Hong and Zhou Ying’an.
Zhou Ying’an stepped forward and quickly offered up an empty Qiankun pouch. Wuma Qiongling threw it in and sealed it up. He used the remnants of his blood to write a seal onto it before tossing it to Zhou Ying’an.
“Be sure to be in a sealed environment when you handle that thing. It can kill you and turn you into one of these,” Wuma Qiongling tapped his toe against the splattered remains.
“As expected of Lord Wuma—the situation was solved so quickly!” Sect Master Zhong laughed heartily without sparing a glance to the traumatized cultivators.
Fan Yi glanced at the scene and turned around, stepping out of the hall. Wu Lingtian looked back at Wuma Qiongling, who was speaking about it in greater detail to Sect Master Zhong, and followed Fan Yi out.
“Let go of me.”
The hoarse voice behind Su Han bad his back unconsciously stiffen. He released the man’s hand and stepped back. He glanced at Bai Qiu and pinched his ear. “S-sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
Bai Qiu silently watched Su Han. “When did you get such a habit?”
“Huh?” Su Han toyed with his earlobe nervously. Bai Qiu reached out and pulled Su Han’s hand from his ear.
“You didn’t do this before.”
“…Well, it’s been ten years. Habits change,” Su Han shook off Bai Qiu’s hand and thought about Liang Jun. How could he pick up a habit from that stupid kid?
Su Han glanced back at the building and then to Bai Qiu. “You…”
Bai Qiu turned away. “How have you been?”
“Me?” Su Han coughed lightly. “I’ve been well. I sleep well and eat till I’m full. What about…hah, probably not a good question to ask, huh?”
Bai Qiu chuckled.
Su Han hesitated. “What…happened to your face?”
Bai Qiu touched the mask. “I got disfigured. It’s nothing. I was originally crippled, but Lord Wuma managed to fix my legs.”
“Crippled?” Su Han’s eyes widened. “But—but when you left, it wasn’t—”
“It’s nothing now, that’s in the past,” Bai Qiu murmured.
Su Han glanced at Bai Qiu’s hands that sat limply at his side. He hadn’t noticed it before, but a lot of Bai Qiu’s clothing worked to cover his imperfections. His robes wound around his neck, a mask covered his face, and his hands wore gloves to cover goodness knows what else.
“…Have you ever thought about coming back?” Su Han asked quietly.
“Coming back?”
“To Screeching Sparrow Sect,” Su Han said, his voice growing quieter. He felt like he was fifteen again and the person beside him was still the da-shixiong he looked up to and admired. “…An’ting misses you. Sometimes she still talks about you—Li Qing doesn’t know who you are at all, but she always wanted to meet you. Wen Yi also misses you. Tian-shishu, as well. He doesn’t say it, but sometimes he stands outside like he’s waiting for someone.”
“…And you?”
“Me?” Su Han laughed bitterly. “…Shouldn’t it be obvious?”
Bai Qiu rubbed at the cloth about his fingers.
“No one blames you,” Su Han murmured. “We all understand.”
“…I can’t leave Lord Wuma.”
Su Han felt his heart constrict, but he quickly calmed back down. He bet Bai Qiu’s gaze and smiled. “That’s true. He did save your life. And you two seem close. I’m sorry, that was a mistake on my end. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Bai Qiu’s brows furrowed. “…Han’er.”
“…Hm?”
“You smile more and more like your shizun,” Bai Qiu reached out and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind Su Han’s ear.
“And what’s wrong with smiling more and more like me?” Fan Yi’s voice ran out behind him.
Su Han jolted and stepped several paces back as if he were caught having an affair. “S-Shizun, are you all done?”
“Someone tells you to take a man and run, and you actually take a man and run. If I tell you to elope with him, will you elope with him?” Fan Yi asked teasingly.
“Of course not,” Su Han said stiffly. He glanced behind Fan Yi. “Wu-shishu.”
“Mn,” Wu Lingtian glanced at Bai Qiu. “Tell Lord Wuma to come find me tonight.”
“Yes…” Bai Qiu’s words ran out abruptly. He glanced at Fan Yi.
“What? Don’t know what to call him?” Fan Yi nudged Bai Qiu’s chest. “Shitty brat, you run off without even telling your shizun and now you don’t want to call your shishu? Goodness, those ten years of raising you were all for naught, I see. I should have just saved my rice instead of pouring it all into a rice bucket.”
The visible area of Bai Qiu’s face turned bright red. He lowered his head. “Wu-shishu.”
“I don’t hold any official position. You do not need to be so polite,” Wu Lingtian said.
Bai Qiu glanced at Wu Lingtian and then to Fan Yi. He thought about what Wuma Qiongling had told him about these two figures and fell silent. To see the two legends who were always on opposing sides standing side by side was quite strange. It made Bai Qiu feel as if he hadn’t woken up from his sleep yet. Nonetheless, Bai Qiu at least knew Fan Yi, so he was a bit more relaxed in the presence of a stranger like Wu Lingtian.
“What happened with the autopsy?” Su Han awkwardly changed the subject.
Fan Yi narrowed his eyes at Su Han and looked his own disciple up and down. “A-Tian.”
Wu Lingtian caught the mischievous glint in Fan Yi’s eyes and suppressed a smile. “Hm?”
“Since we got caught eloping, maybe we should just take these two with us,” Fan Yi said.
Su Han’s well practiced smile began to crack.
“But Sect Leader, you said we were going to go by ourselves. How are we supposed to do anything with other people around?” Wu Lingtian asked.
“What are you being so shy for? It’s not as if we haven’t done it befo—”
“Shizun!” Su Han bit out the word he normally said with a lot of respect. His face was bright crimson and his fists were clenched at his side.
“What’s wrong?” Fan Yi asked. “I brought A-Tian out here to investigate the crime scene again. What are you thinking of?”
“I—” Su Han turned to Bai Qiu, looking extremely wronged.
The one look stirred up some carefully buried memories within Bai Qiu’s mind. His fingers trembled at his side and his hand couldn’t resist lifting to give Su Han’s head a light rub. “Han’er still can’t take any teasing.”
“Right? He’s already twenty-five this year, yet he acts like a little maiden,” Fan Yi sang frivolously as he began to walk off. He paused and looked back at the two young men. “Aren’t you two coming?”
Su Han touched the top of his head and hummed. He took a few steps forward and looked back at Bai Qiu. There was a hint of quiet longing in his eyes that even Fan Yi and Wu Lingtian couldn’t miss. Bai Qiu hesitated for a moment before following after them, his head lowered as he walked alongside Su Han.
“Is it okay to stay away from your master for so long?” Fan Yi asked.
“He doesn’t actually need me. He just gets bored sometimes,” Bai Qiu said. He glanced at Wu Lingtian. “He says Fengya is too cold, it’s nicer to have a person to accompany him.”
Fan Yi glanced at Wu Lingtian as well.
“He won’t go to Fengya,” Wu Lingtian said. “Even if I asked him to visit, he wouldn’t.” After a pause, Wu Lingtian added, “He doesn’t like the cold.”
“That’s what Lord Wuma said as well,” Bai Qiu looked a bit troubled.
“Does Lord Wuma talk about him a lot?” Wu Lingtian asked.
“A lot,” Bai Qiu confirmed. He hesitated before saying, “I think Lord Wuma’s feelings are sincere.”
Wu Lingtian fell silent. “Whether they are or aren’t, I can’t be the one to determine that. I can only give Lord Wuma the way to get through Yu Shui Manor’s arrays and at least reach his messenger. Whether Xiao-xiong actually accepts him is another thing.”
Bai Qiu lowered his head.
“What’s this? New gossip?” Fan Yi poked his head over curiously. “Who’s Xiao-xiong?”
“Xiao Xunrui, master of Yu Shui Manor.”
“Isn’t he that elusive alchemist?” Su Han recalled reading his name somewhere before. “Not only is he good at refining pills, he’s always a master at arrays and matters dealing with the soul, thus earning him the nickname ‘Soul Doctor’.”
“Mn, that’s him,” Wu Lingtian confirmed. “He’s a part of my generation. After some events happened, he went into seclusion and never touched matters of the common world again.”
“Then, how come he’s acquainted with Lord Wuma?” Fan Yi glanced at Bai Qiu. “Or is he not?”
“It was an unfortunate run-in—”
“Lord Wuma says it was the fortune of a lifetime.”
“—And Xiao-xiong doesn’t like talking about it, so I personally don’t know the details. I just know that, when he gets really drunk, he’ll say a few words,” Wu Lingtian said.
“What sort of words?” Bai Qiu stepped forward.
Wu Lingtian lowered his gaze, but the eyes of the three men were already concentrated on him. He cleared his throat and looked up seriously as he recited Xiao Xunrui’s words, “That stinky ass bastard said he wouldn’t leave, but now he’s been gone for so many years and I haven’t seen his damn shadow.”
Did Wuma have a fling then runaway from his feelings? ‘Stinky ass bastard’ lol
🤣 😂
They all have a lot of history together – is it all here or should I have read something else before this one?
it’s all there. It’s just shown through snippets
Oh good! I’m keeping up just fine, then 😅
Stinky bastard! 😂