cw; gore/graphic depictions
After that day, Li Ran returned to Drifting Clouds Mountain Sect and Wu Lingtian stayed in Purple Bamboo School for another year and a half. While the next year and a half passed by in a blur, Wu Lingtian had always remembered that conversation he had had with Li Ran. It wasn’t their last, but Wu Lingtian always wondered if things would have gone differently. If he hadn’t learned about Li Ran’s feelings for Rong Meihua or if he had noticed the signs of fatigue on Li Ran’s face, what could have changed?
If you asked Wu Lingtian what he was doing at age nineteen, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. He must have been off playing with Situ Hong. Without Xiao Xunrui by their side anymore, the two youths depended on each other more. Wu Lingtian was no longer at the sect as frequently. He’d gather up to ten cases at a time to investigate, before running off to find Situ Hong for any useless “help” he could provide.
When Wu Lingtian turned twenty, he had taken on a particularly difficult case. With Situ Hong, the pair didn’t return until Wu Lingtian’s twenty-first birthday.
It was winter.
Wu Lingtian returned with roasted duck and warming ginger tea from outside. The disciples were happy to see Wu Lingtian again. They flocked him excitedly as he pulled out gifts after gifts for those he was particularly close to. Even if the gift wasn’t for them, the disciples would peer on curiously.
Wu Lingtian leaned over to one of the disciples. “Is my shizun in?”
“Sect Leader? She and Li-shixiong went to the back caves. They haven’t left in about three months,” the disciple said.
“Three months?” Wu Lingtian frowned. “What are they doing in there for so long?”
“We don’t know. We just know that something happened to Sect Leader while she was cultivating. Li-shixiong is probably in there to help guide her.”
“For three months?” Wu Lingtian asked in disbelief.
The disciples shrugged. None of them were able to offer up a better explanation.
After chatting for a while longer, Wu Lingtian wandered off. His feet carried him first towards his own residence, but he stopped. A prickly feeling had settled in his heart. He glanced back towards the back mountains.
About twenty minutes later, Wu Lingtian was halfway down the trail. Just as he was about to make a left, an odd glimmer caught his eye.
Wu Lingtian paused. His brows furrowed and he knelt down beside the underbrush. He ran his hands through it and quickly withdrew.
A monitoring array? But what was it here for?
Wu Lingtian glanced around. He crouched back down and shifted closer. His fingertips just brushed the top of the array when the sound of dirt crunching beneath a person’s feet drew his attention away. He looked up.
“What are you doing here?”
Wu Lingtian stood.
The back mountains weren’t just a place for people to cultivate and have breakthroughs. It was also a place where sect elders, who might have once been peak lords or were the sect leader’s martial siblings, dwelled. The person standing in front of Wu Lingtian right now was a white-haired old man with a beard that touched his chest. His face sagged slightly and his wispy brows were tightly furrowed. He looked like an elder who had decided to go on a walk.
“I…I came to find my shizun.”
“What are you doing here?”
“For my Shizun. And my da-shixiong,” Wu Lingtian took a step back.
The uncomfortable feeling grew as the elder took a step towards him. “What are you doing?”
“I—”
“Go back.”
“But I—”
“Are you talking back to your elders?”
“No, I—”
“Go back.”
Wu Lingtian’s mouth open and closed speechlessly. He had never met a person who would only repeat two phrases. He was so unreasonable. He wouldn’t even let Wu Lingtian explain himself.
The old man and Wu Lingtian stood at the end of the path, staring each other down. Wu Lingtian’s fists slowly unclenched. He suppressed a sigh and bowed his head. As soon as he did so, his eyes caught onto something again. He paused.
“Still not going?”
Wu Lingtian heard the elderly shift and shuffle. A moment later, when he lifted his head again, the elderly man had already started leaving. His gait was stiff, as if he had pain in his waist, but otherwise he was perfectly normal.
Wu Lingtian shuddered. Never had he thought winter was cold. He rubbed his arms and quickly rushed down from the mountain.
When dinner rolled around, Wu Lingtian was still shaken.
Zhou Ying’an glanced at him. “What’s wrong with you? Why does your face look like that? Are you sick?”
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.
“I’m not…Shijie,” Wu Lingtian shifted slightly. “People don’t get black nails when they’re old, do they?”
Itbe Tlcu’jc rajgfv ja Qe Olcualjc. “Glv sbe tla sbeg tfjv ktlif sbe kfgf jkjs?”
“P’w jrxlcu j rfglber defralbc.”
“Qts kbeiv sbeg cjlir aegc yijmx ktfc sbe’gf biv? Rjlir aegc yijmx ktfc sbe’gf vfjv, lvlba,” Itbe Tlcu’jc gbiifv tfg fsfr.
“…Qtfc sbe’gf vfjv?”
“What? Do you want black nails? I could also slam your fingers in the door way and make them bruised—that’s similar to black.”
“No, but…is there another reason people might have black nails?”
“Where have you ever seen a perfectly healthy, living person with black nails? Only zombies and ghouls have black nails,” Zhou Ying’an said. She paused and glanced at Wu Lingtian in concern. “Unless you have?”
“I haven’t,” Wu Lingtian quickly denied.
“That’s good,” Zhou Ying’an murmured. “Otherwise, that person could also be poisoned.”
Dead or poisoned?
Wu Lingtian frowned slightly. He nibbled at his chopsticks silently and finished the rest of the meal lost in his own thoughts.
Wu Lingtian sat in his magnolia tree, staring up at the stars above. His mind drifted back to the sect elder he had run into. Black fingernails and an awkward gait. That didn’t mean much, right? Maybe he hurt his fingers. All ten of them. And perhaps he fell on the ground. His words were coherent—strong even—and he was obviously talking to Wu Lingtian…right?
He shifted onto his side and frowned. What if—just what if—on the off chance that…the elder was already dead? Maybe he came back as a living corpse, but he hadn’t realized he had died yet. Maybe…maybe…
Wu Lingtian flew from the tree. He scaled the roofs of the buildings and used qinggong to travel back to the spot he had run into the elder.
He feet lightly touched the ground that was covered in a layer of light, powdery snow. His grip on his sword tightened as he proceeded cautiously. He lightened his footsteps as much as possible and looked for the place with the monitoring array again.
When he bent down, he half expected the elder to reemerge. When he didn’t, Wu Lingtian traveled further down the path.
He had a bad feeling. It was undeniable now. The further down the path he walked, the faster his heart raced. What was there to be scared of, really? If the elder really had turned into a sentient living corpse, then what? They were at Drifting Clouds Mountain Sect. It would be easy for him to eliminate it. There was nothing to be concerned about. There was nothing to be concerned about, but Wu Lingtian’s stomach recoiled when he thought about that elder again.
That man felt human, yet felt, almost, synthetic.
Wu Lingtian slowed to a stop.
In the middle of the road was a lump. The lump twitched and shivered. Odd moans came from the lump as well. Noises, that should have been words, were formed incoherently. When the lump sensed Wu Lingtian’s presence, it slowly dragged itself to face Wu Lingtian, one hand at a time. Gnarled, skeletal fingers were decorated by black nails, that seemed ready to separate from its anchor. The face that was already sagging seemed to be melting off his skeletal frame now. The hair, which was previously so white and pristine, was caked in mud. There were only a few tufts left.
The sight was disgusting—even worse than any fierce corpse Wu Lingtian had ever had to deal with.
He took one step back, away from the creature, and then another, but his eyes refused to move from the monstrosity. It inched closer, using its hands to claw at the icy ground and pull itself forward.
Wu Lingtian glanced at where its feet should have been and immediately regretted it. Its legs had shriveled into twigs and blackened. It was clear that the creature was slowly losing any sort of blood circulation.
Wu Lingtian turned on his heel and began to run.
Much to his horror, the initial scraping sounds became faster. Wu Lingtian’s eyes widened, his heart hammering in his chest.
Why was he running? He could just stop and fight the monster head on!—this is what he screamed in his mind, but somewhere in his heart knew that he would be unable to stop the monster.
A loud, inhuman groan reached Wu Lingtian’s ears before the gnarled fingers latched onto him.
Wu Lingtian screamed, he slipped on the snow and fell down hard onto the ground. The monster grinned at him and began to drag him backwards. Wu Lingtian drove Yu Lan into the ground, in hopes to stop the monster from pulling him any further, but the monster wasn’t just a regular human—it had first been a cultivator. Its strength was near inhuman—even worse than any ghoul Wu Lingtian had encountered.
Wu Lingtian’s grip on Yu Lan tightened. He fumbled for his Qiankun pouch.
A fire talisman. He had to throw out a fire talisman. He didn’t know if it would do anything, but everything was afraid of fire!
As Wu Lingtian fumbled, he could feel the feeble black nails dig itself into Wu Lingtian’s shin. He screamed out in pain and looked down. Beads of blood escaped through his trousers. He felt faint. This wouldn’t poison him, would it?
Wu Lingtian forced those nonsensical thoughts away from his mind. He bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from screaming out in pain and focused on shuffling through his bag. A full minute passed before Wu Lingtian accepted the truth—he had forgotten to restock the talismans.
A sharp scream left Wu Lingtian’s lips. He shook his leg violently in an attempt to distract the monster or maybe fling it off, but the monster clung on. Its decaying head watched Wu Lingtian with a twisted delight, as if it were excited to pull Wu Lingtian into whatever hell hole it had crawled out of.
Wu Lingtian glanced back at Yu Lan—the only thing keeping him from flying off in any certain direction.
If he pulled the sword from the ground now, he would definitely fly to certain doom. This was a monster with a strong cultivation base. He wasn’t sure if he could be any faster than it, even as it was decaying at the speed of the naked eye. However, having a decaying bag of flesh latch onto him for so long was also not ideal. What if he was poisoned? He could be infected.
It was then that the monster gave him a sharp tug. Wu Lingtian twisted his body and his arm in the opposite direction, but it didn’t stop the monster from yanking him down a new, unmarked path.
Wu Lingtian shut his eyes tightly. If they went down this way, they would be diving deep into the woods and, at the end of the woods, would be an endless ravine.
He would die.
Without any more concern for his image, Wu Lingtian began to scream. He shouted loudly and thrashed against the monster. The screaming was effective—it was a large, open area after all. But the thrashing was less than ideal. The monster was displeased by the sudden amount of movement. It reached out another hand and grabbed Wu Lingtian’s other leg. A monstrous strength was placed onto them and with a loud crack, Wu Lingtian felt a sharp pain shoot up his shins.
Now, rather than fear, Wu Lingtian only felt anger. His fingernails scraped the hilt of Yu Lan. With a swift motion, the sword was plucked from the earth.
The rate at which Wu Lingtian and the monster flew forward only increased, but his mind was no longer on that. It was on the searing pain in his legs.
He raised his arms, forced himself to sit up, and drove Yu Lan through the hand of the monster and his own leg. The pain caused Wu Lingtian’s vision to temporarily blackout. However, the screaming of the monster brought Wu Lingtian back to reality.
The monster had stopped moving. They were on the side of a slope that was not steep enough for them to fall down, but still too steep to be called comfortable. The monster flailed and screeching in pain and what seemed like horror. As it tried to convey its grievances, its jaw disconnected and bits of its teeth flew everywhere.
Wu Lingtian cringed in disgust. He weakly reached into his Qiankun pouch, pulled out a purifying talisman and slapped it onto the man’s forehead.
He fell back, his chest heaving as blood spilled from his legs. Cold sweat poured down his forehead and the unbearable pain made him want to pass out. But he knew that, if he did, he would most likely die.
A promising, young cultivator, only at the age of twenty-one, dies in the back mountains of the sect—what a cruel fate that would be!
“I didn’t survive this long just to die here,” Wu Lingtina murmured to himself.
After resting for another minute, Wu Lingtian forced himself onto his elbows. He was just about to figure out how to get out of his own trap, when he heard a voice above him.
“Xiao Ling?”
Wu Lingtian’s eyes widened. He twisted his torso. “Da-shixiong!”
The footsteps paused, but then grew more urgent. “Xiao Ling, was that really you? Where are you?”
“I—follow the trail on the ground!” Wu Lingtian shouted breathlessly.
In an ideal world, Wu Lingtian could just send out a signal. However, he had just returned and forgotten to refill his stash. Besides, he was tired. He felt that if he moved anymore, he really would just die.
It took about three minutes for Li Ran to finally find Wu Lingtian. He rushed forward and slid down beside him. “You—how did you get to be like this!?”
“Da-shixiong, not talk. Just…that…” Wu Lingtian pointed at the struggling mass that was pinned to his leg.
Li Ran stared at the mess and gulped. He ripped off a part of his robes, balled it up, and pushed it into Wu Lingtian’s mouth. “If it hurts, bite on this, okay? I’m going to pull your sword out.”
Wu Lingtian nodded weakly. He laid down and closed his eyes.
The pain was abrupt and sharp. He heard the monster’s screaming. His ears rang loudly. He briefly managed to open his eyes.
Yu Lan was drenched in a mixture of slime and his own blood. The monster had been tied down by Li Ran’s cords. Wu Lingtian’s legs were a mangled mess. He heard Li Ran say something beside his head, but he couldn’t register any of the words. He squinted at the older man beside him. His mouth opened, but before any noise could leave his mouth, Wu Lingtian passed out.
When he woke up again, he was back in his own room. The bones in his legs were healed, but they were still bandaged him. He was running a slight fever, most likely from all the medicine he had been forced to ingest while he was in a coma. He shifted, forced himself into a sitting position, and looked beside him.
“Awake?”
Seeing Li Ran’s face, made Wu Lingtian’s nose sour. His lips pouted and he sent himself forward. “Da-shixiong.”
Li Ran opened his arms and hugged the young man, who was acting like a child. He let out a light sigh and brushed his hand up and down Wu Lingtian’s back. “Alright, alright. You’re fully an adult! What are you doing moping and whining like a six-year-old?”
“It was scary!” Wu Lingtian complained, wiggling even closer to Li Ran. “I thought I was going to die on my own birthday!”
“I thought you didn’t care about your birthday.”
“I don’t, but dying on your own birthday is so depressing!” Wu Lingtian said. He pouted. “Da-shixiong, can’t you even offer a few words of comfort? You saw how I looked. Didn’t I look horrible?”
“Mn, it did, it did. I’m glad you’re okay,” Li Ran comforted. “It’s okay now.”
“Why didn’t you show up sooner?” Wu Lingtian complained.
“I just left seclusion with Shizun when I heard you yelling,” Li Ran said helplessly. “I rushed over as soon as I could.”
Wu Lingtian harrumphed and drilled himself deeper into Li Ran’s embrace. He didn’t even care to move when the door creaked open.
“This old and you’re pretending to be a child in front of your Da-shixiong.”
Rong Meihua was never a welcome presence in Wu Lingtian’s room, much less now when he was injured and bedridden. Li Ran glanced over at the petite woman.
“Shizun, he just woke up. He’s still recovering.”
“Did I say anything? I heard he was dying, so I came to check up on him. He’s obviously doing fine,” Rong Meihua scoffed.
Li Ran’s grip on Wu Lingtian tightened.
Rong Meihua’s eyes narrowed. She let out a light scoff. “I’m not going to eat him.”
Wu Lingtian waited for Li Ran’s response, but none came. He snuck a glance at the other man.
Li Ran’s hair, on off days, would be down. At the moment, it covered a part of his face, making it difficult for Wu Lingtian to read his expression. However, he felt a steady, cold pressure coming off of the other man. It made Wu Lingtian’s mouth dry. He almost wanted to hide.
“Da-shixiong?”
“Xiao Ling is unwell. He needs to rest.”
“Are you telling me to leave right now?”
“He’s not in the state to entertain guests,” Li Ran said. He released Wu Lingtian and stood, as if he were getting ready to escort out Rong Meihua.
“Can I be considered a guest? I’m his shizun,” Rong Meihua said, her expression quickly freezing over.
Li Ran blocked Wu Lingtian from Rong Meihua’s view. “He’s tired.”
Rong Meihua glared at Li Ran. She glanced at Wu Lingtian, who was sitting dazedly on the bed, and turned back to her eldest disciple.
“Alright. Then, you come out with me. Let’s have a talk,” Rong Meihua said. She turned swiftly and left the room.
“Da-shixiong—”
“Rest,” Li Ran said over his shoulder. He offered Wu Lingtian a small smile. “When you wake up, I’ll have food ready for you, okay?”
Wu Lingtian nodded hesitantly.
He watched the door swing open and close. Rong Meihua and Li Ran walked off, just far enough so that they wouldn’t be heard by Wu Lingtian.
The covers were pushed aside and Wu Lingtian quietly made his way over to the door. Despite their distance, in their anger, their voices rose.
“—fault?! Do you hear yourself? How is it my fault?!”
Wu Lingtian couldn’t make out Li Ran’s murmured reply, but Rong Meihua spoke again.
“—help me!—for the brat?”
“That’s one issue and this is another,” Li Ran said sternly.
Wu Lingtian’s brows furrowed. He wanted to shift closer, but he was scared that, if he did, he would be caught. He remained where he was and strained his ears.
“Enough,” Li Ran interrupted Rong Meihua. “—me. You promised that you would—that. I’m only fulfilling my end of the—”
Wu Lingtian heard Rong Meihua’s hurried whisper. It was filled with displeasure—something that Wu Lingtian had never heard directed to Li Ran. A tired sigh left the man’s lips. He said another few words. Rong Meihua sounded like she was about to argue, but from the sound of footsteps, it seemed that Li Ran had turned to leave.
Wu Lingtian turned and hurriedly ran back to his bed. His legs ached, but he tried his best to ignore the pain. He threw the covers back over himself and shifted underneath. His eyes closed and the doors opened.
The person who entered was not Li Ran.
“…Xiao Wu, you’re awake, aren’t you?”
Wu Lingtian stirred. He opened his eyes and glanced at Rong Meihua. “Shizun.”
Rong Meihua remained by the door. The irritation was apparent in her eyes. “You’re quite lucky. If Li Ran had been even a second later, you might be dead. But, then again, you’re quite smart.”
Wu Lingtian felt a shiver down his spine.
Rong Meihua took a few steps closer. “And you have luck. People say luck doesn’t exist, but I say that it’s a talent. You’re quite lucky.”
Wu Lingtian pushed himself up. “Did you need something from this disciple, Shizun?”
“I just wanted to take a look at you,” Rong Meihua said. Her dark gaze traveled down Wu Lingtian’s body. “It feels like it’s been a long time since I last looked at you. Every time I try, it’s almost like there’s someone in the way.”
Wu Lingtian shifted.
“How’s your cultivation?”
“…Well.”
“That’s good,” Rong Meihua said casually. “Keep it up. We wouldn’t want you embarrassing Drifting Clouds Mountain Sect, after all.”
(A/N): HI SO I FINISHED WRITING YU LAN’S main story, so I will start updating 2 chapters a week (Wednesday (Starting next week lol) and Friday at 11AM~ PT). I’m not quite done with the extras yet, but I hope the series will be completely finished by the end of next month ;v; THE LONG JOURNEY WILL SOON BE OVER!!!
Oh! I had almost forgotten that he initially took off because the disciples said Rong Meihua and Li Ran were gone for three months. I guess they’re back, but something clearly happened and it doesn’t sound good for Wu Lingtian 😳