Chapter 95: Soft-Eared Mama’s Boy 10 Part 2

Several Immaculate Pavilion disciples dressed in ink-black taiji robes were gathered around the campfire. On the ground lay a overturned plate of roast meat, smeared with mud and dirt.

At the same time, lying on the ground as if trampled into the vile dust, was Zhu Miaojie.

The man’s plain white robe was streaked with black and gray patches. He lay silently on his side in the black mud, his long white hair tangled in the dark green thorns on the ground, like threads of a spiderweb torn apart.

There was no humiliated anger on Zhu Miaojie’s pale face. He seemed long accustomed to such treatment. His dark eyes were lifeless, even his sense of pain gone; he hid his soul in the shadows, as if that would allow him to face all the injustice and cruelty.

That emaciated body was kicked again and again viciously. Only when the pain grew too intense did it twitch faintly, curling up slightly.

From the young man’s perspective, he could only see disheveled white hair clinging to a sweat-slicked, deathly pale forehead. Amid that bone-chilling pallor, a pair of bleak black eyes gazed at him.

Zhu Miaojie had seen him.

Yet he did not cry out for help. He merely trembled faintly with his eyelids before finally turning his gaze away without a shred of expectation.

The men continued spewing their filthy curses as they beat him, their postures scarcely better than those they might use on livestock. With utter contempt and disdain from on high, they spat, “Zhu Miaojie, you jinx, you Disaster Star—how dare you show your face before us?”

In that instant, Jiang Rang’s mind went utterly blank. His tightly clenched fists and the vibrating hum of the Profound Sword at his back betrayed the rage threatening to shatter him.

A flash of light streaked past. The Profound Black Sword cleaved through the air like a hot knife through butter, forcing those foul-mouthed Immaculate Pavilion disciples back several paces in a heartbeat.

Their faces still burned with lingering fury. As the black-clad youth emerged from behind the bushes with a face as cold and stern as frost, they opened their mouths to hurl more abuse—but one of them suddenly lowered his voice. “Hold on, Junior Brothers. This man’s cultivation has reached Golden Core Peak. His attire is extraordinary; he’s no ordinary loose cultivator…”

The Immaculate Pavilion disciples gradually regained their composure. They watched as Jiang Rang slowly approached the man mired in the mud. The youth was strikingly handsome, with lips as red as cherries and teeth like pearls. His raven hair was bound in an extravagant golden coronet, forming a beautiful ponytail that swayed gracefully in the air. He pressed his lips together slightly, bending down halfway to scoop up the man without the slightest hint of disgust—his face ashen and cold, his body caked in filth.

One of the Immaculate Pavilion disciples could not hold back any longer. He shot a look of revulsion at Zhu Miaojie and addressed Jiang Rang with what seemed like well-meaning advice. “Fellow Daoist, do you even know who it is you’re helping?”

“He’s a discarded disciple of Immaculate Pavilion. This man is named Zhu Miaojie, the fated Heavenly Slayer Lone Star—a demonic prodigy once foretold by the Star Divination Pavilion Master.”

The disciple gnashed his teeth. “Our sect took pity on him and sheltered him out of kindness, but he repaid us with enmity, drawing down heavenly calamity. That Heavenly Fire raged through the pavilion for an entire month, burning countless treasures and even claiming several elite disciples. And him? Only this demonic prodigy emerged unscathed!”

As he spoke, his bloodshot eyes bored into the bedraggled figure in white cradled in the youth’s arms, as if he longed to flay the skin from his bones.

Jiang Rang’s expression darkened. He merely gripped those limp, ice-cold wrists all the tighter.

In a daze, the youth even felt as though he held not a living person, but a block of lifeless frost—devoid of vitality, of hope, only endless desolation.

Jiang Rang slowly exhaled. He suddenly raised his eyes, fixing the disciple with a piercing stare. “I am grateful for the information, Fellow Daoist. Yet I cannot agree with the crimes you lay at his feet. I have heard of that great fire at Immaculate Pavilion years ago, but your Pavilion Master himself came forward to clarify: it was a disaster triggered by an Extraterrestrial Stone. How could it be blamed on an innocent disciple?”

“Moreover, these past few days, I have traveled alongside Fellow Daoist Zhu without encountering a single mishap or calamity.”

Almost as soon as the youth finished speaking, the man at his side twitched his fingertips ever so slightly.

They all knew his words were false.

The disasters that had befallen Jiang Rang these past days were far from minor. Fortunately, they had all been small matters he could avert—and the youth never dwelled on them.

Life in this world was never smooth sailing. One could not blame every misfortune on some jinx by their side.

That would make him a coward.

The Immaculate Pavilion disciple was momentarily speechless. A slightly older senior brother stepped forward with a milder tone. “Don’t take offense, Fellow Daoist. You may not know, but coincidences like that don’t happen in this world. In the very first year Zhu Miaojie arrived, disasters struck Immaculate Pavilion from top to bottom, and he was tied to every one. Worse still, one of our senior brothers merely scolded him a couple of times, only to end up lame in one leg—a cripple for life.”

“And then came that Heavenly Fire, which left the entire pavilion in panic. Fellow Daoist, no matter the case, I still advise you: keep your distance from him.”

Jiang Rang could feel the hand in his grasp trembling harder, going slack. Yet from start to finish, the youth never let go. He clutched those hands tightly, as if imparting some measure of his own strength.

Zhu Miaojie’s face was ghastly pale. The red hair ribbon woven into his white locks hung precariously, like a streak of fresh blood.

He stared blankly at the youth beside him. For the first time, a faint glimmer of moisture flickered in those perpetually dark eyes.

But it lasted only an instant before sinking back into silence.

Over all these years, he had encountered kindhearted people before.

Zhu Miaojie was handsome, and though he lacked a spirit root for cultivation, he possessed exceptional talent in formations and beast taming. He had met loose cultivators and sects eager to take him in, as well as many who pitied his plight.

Yet without exception, they had all abandoned him in the end.

For when it came to his disasters, the fear they inspired outweighed any potential gain.

The small sect that took him in would disband at best or face total extermination at worst. The itinerant cultivators who whisked him away would lose all their talent, reduced to a fate worse than death. Those who pitied him, those who tried to save him—they would all suffer disasters of varying degrees.

At first, they always reassured him that it was fine. But in the end, their faces would twist, their eyes regarding him like trash, like a loathsome bug.

The people from Immaculate Pavilion hadn’t been wrong. That Heavenly Fire had come for him.

It was the Heavenly Dao itself that despised him, dooming him to a life of isolation, betrayal by all he knew, and a wretched death.

Zhu Miaojie had no memories from before his twentieth year. He could never understand why he had to endure such torment.

Those who loved him would be hounded by misfortune. Even those who bullied him met ill ends. He had no spiritual roots, no cultivation. For nearly a century, he had drifted through the world like a wandering soul—yet his face never aged.

It was as if he were under a curse. Even death eluded him; he could not truly die.

Zhu Miaojie had thought the Minor Secret Realm would free him from the Heavenly Dao’s rules, granting him release at last. But then he met Jiang Rang.

That passionate, earnest boy who was always trying to make him smile.

Yet he no longer dared.

At first, he hadn’t even dared exchange more than a single word with the young man.

He knew all too well that if he gave in, the end would be the young man’s disgust and rejection.

Zhu Miaojie saw himself as a specter adrift between heaven and earth, fit only for dank, shadowy corners.

But people always crave light and warmth—like moths hurling themselves into the flames, knowing it spells their doom, yet unable to stop.

He had restrained himself as much as he could. But Jiang Rang refused to let him go.

The young man was like an eternal ray of sunlight, beaming into his eyes, never to fade.

Jiang Rang had clearly sensed something amiss. He knew full well there was danger in staying close. And yet the boy wouldn’t leave. He even dreamed of protecting him—a stubbornness that bordered on laughable.

A massive stone seemed to hang in Zhu Miaojie’s chest. Every moment, he yearned for the final blade to fall swiftly. And yet he couldn’t help but cling to it greedily.

He was filthy, contemptible, deserving of scorn.

Now the young man had heard it all. For the sake of his sect, for the fellow disciples he cherished, he would surely cast Zhu Miaojie aside.

He kept his head bowed low. His white, monster-like hair draped over his cheek, veiling eyes rimmed red.

He didn’t even deserve to cry. What was there to weep for, when the end was inevitable?

But Zhu Miaojie waited in vain for the young man to sever ties, to draw a clear line.

In his daze, he felt only the tightening grip on his wrist.

The boy’s gaze burned with resolve. How well he had been raised—pure and kind to the point of innocence.

With utmost seriousness, he said, “Even if his physique is truly unique and draws endless calamity, the world is vast. There must be a way to suppress it. My Shizun is Kunyu Immortal Venerable. He will surely find a way.”