Chapter 19: Spirit Jade

Punishment delivered, Ning Yu tossed the Qieyun Sword back to Yi Xuefeng and swept off.

The moment he was out of sight, Qieyun took human form again, cursing furiously. “That Old Scoundrel! Bashing people is the only thing he knows how to do!”

Yi Xuefeng stood where he was, staring abstracted at his faintly reddened palms.

Eight strikes this time—and yet it somehow hurt less than before.

Qieyun hurried over, gently kneading Yi Xuefeng’s palms, stricken. “Does it hurt?”

Yi Xuefeng shook his head, but Qieyun didn’t believe him. Taking his hand, he crouched down and pressed it into the Clear Spring nearby to soak.

The icy water covered his faintly burning palms. Yi Xuefeng shifted, uncomfortable—and just as he moved to withdraw his hand, a thread of pitch-black mist was slowly drawn out from his pale fingertips by the water droplets, writhing like a drifting strand of black silk.

Yi Xuefeng stared, stunned. This was… the Ghost Aura of Body Seizure?

Just as he raised his hand for a closer look, cold light flashed through Qieyun’s eyes. Cupping Yi Xuefeng’s hand in both of his, he went chomp—and swallowed that wisp of black Ghost Aura whole.

Yi Xuefeng: “…”

The Ghost Aura apparently tasted foul—Qieyun’s brow was screwed up tight after swallowing—but he still tilted his head back and beamed up at Yi Xuefeng, the very picture of nothing-happened.

Yi Xuefeng couldn’t help but laugh.

In this world, even if everyone else abandoned him, Qieyun would treat him just the same as always.

He gently lifted his arms and gathered Qieyun into an embrace, nuzzling against his neck.

Ning Yu hurried back to his quarters. Lord Qingchuan’s Paper Crane had not yet departed—it lay sprawled across the desk, dozing, its head bobbing.

Ning Yu slapped the table, face dark. The Paper Crane jolted awake, blinked its painted eyes, and—seeing Ning Yu’s terrible expression—promptly arranged itself into a decorous pose.

Soon Lord Qingchuan’s voice came through it. “How did it go?”

Ning Yu’s face was so storm-dark it nearly dripped water. “The Admonition Word was different.”

Lord Qingchuan sounded as though he’d expected as much. “Then you’ve been borrowing trouble. Even if the Sovereign achieved Body-Snatching Rebirth, he would never Body-Seize into someone of the Righteous Path. After all—he is our Savage Wilds’ Jade Reflection Lord.”

Ning Yu said coldly, “He was a Returning Swan Mountain disciple. My Little Junior Brother. If not for that Fierce Ghost crawled out of some reeking gutter, he would never have fallen into devilhood at all. ‘The Savage Wilds’ Jade Reflection Lord’—your foot. Did even one of your Savage Wilds devil cultivators ever treat him as one of their own?”

Back when Yi Xuefeng fell into devilhood, every devil cultivator in the Savage Wilds had helped pull him back from the void between the Savage Wilds and the outside world purely for the sake of that face of his—and had Lord Zhongxin not staked his life on sparing him, he would long since have been carried off as some pampered plaything to be toyed with for sport.

In those days, one of the Three Lords of the Savage Wilds, whose evils knew no end, had cultivated his own spiritual power using human cultivators, rousing universal fury—and Ning Yu had cut him down with a single stroke of his sword. He perished atop the Flame Sea’s peak.

And as it happened, Yi Xuefeng fell into devilhood, and was swept up by the remaining two Lords and installed as one of the new Three Lords.

Yet though he was honored as Sovereign, no one respected him.

The title of Sovereign was an empty thing.

Across his hundred years in the Savage Wilds, what Yi Xuefeng did most was sit quietly sipping tea in the side seat of the Three Lords at the grand gatherings—a cluster of flowers blooming in the midst of filth, gorgeous and devastatingly beautiful.

At the gatherings of devil cultivators—rivers of wine, forests of flesh—Devil Cultivators and Charm Devils coupled shamelessly beneath the open sky everywhere the eye fell, decadence at its most absolute extreme.

Ning Yu could not imagine how that Little Junior Brother—spoiled by all of Returning Swan Mountain into a naive child who knew nothing of the world—had ever survived those scenes. When he fell into devilhood, he hadn’t even known what love between men and women was.

Lord Qingchuan was silent a long while before speaking again. “You know perfectly well what the Savage Wilds truly is. But back then—where were you?“

He seemed to genuinely want an answer, his tone light, without a shred of accusation or resentment.

“Oh.” Not waiting for Ning Yu to answer, Lord Qingchuan asked and answered himself, flatly: “At that time, you were comfortably back at Returning Swan Mountain, soaking up everyone’s admiration for having slain the devil. Where, pray, would you have found the time to care whether Yi Xuefeng lived or died…”

Before the words could finish, Ning Yu’s finger twitched—and the Paper Crane scattered into fragments, drifting down onto the desk like snowflakes.

His fist clenched hard, fingertips digging into his palm with a sharp, piercing ache—but none of it stung as much as Lord Qingchuan’s last words.

If only…

The thought rose in Ning Yu, uncontrollable: if he hadn’t rushed back to Returning Swan Mountain that year—if he’d had just a little more patience, searched a little longer for him—would everything now be different?

A sudden, rolling thunder burst from the horizon, jolting the soul-lost Ning Yu awake. Frowning, he pushed open the window—and felt an oppressive mass of black clouds swallow Cold Huai River whole, followed by deafening booms that shook the very mountains.

Everyone in Cold Huai River heard it and pushed out their doors, heads tilted back, watching that incomprehensibly vast city come drifting slowly toward Cold Huai River, borne upon black clouds.

—It was Cloudland City.

It was Yi Xuefeng’s first time seeing Cloudland City. He had assumed the word “city” was mere flourish—but seeing it with his own eyes, he realized with a jolt that Cloudland City truly was a colossal city floating in the sky.

No one knew how the city floated in the air, nor how long it would go on floating. Only this much was certain: at first sight of that city shrouded in cloud, every person felt an ineradicable helplessness surge up from the depths of their heart.

All living things were but ants and straw dogs—pitifully, hopelessly small before heaven and earth.

Qieyun had apparently seen it many times before. Pointing at Cloudland City’s far northern end, he said, “Dad, when we enter the city tomorrow, absolutely do not go to the far north. That’s the Frozen Lands—if you stray anywhere near it, I’m afraid it will harm your Divine Soul.”

Yi Xuefeng had read as much in that book on the Immortal Grand Assembly, and nodded slightly.

Not lingering at the Clear Spring, Yi Xuefeng took Qieyun and headed back to his quarters to pack a few things.

Qieyun looked overjoyed, clinging to Yi Xuefeng’s arm the entire way, hopping and skipping like a girl in the flower of youth, the red ribbon binding his freshly retied ponytail swinging back and forth with him, utterly gleeful.

Knowing his identity hadn’t leaked, Yi Xuefeng’s mood had lifted considerably. He regarded Qieyun, puzzled. “You’re happy?”

Qieyun nodded furiously. “Tomorrow I get to beat people up! I haven’t fought anyone in ages—my hands are itching.“

Yi Xuefeng: “Oh. Hacking up Spirit Beasts?”

Qieyun shook his head. “No, isn’t tomorrow the Immortal Grand Assembly? We get to snatch Spirit Apportionment Jades!”

Yi Xuefeng, somewhat lost: “Huh?”

“The Spirit Apportionment Jade!” Qieyun tapped his own brow. “Everyone gets one before going up to Cloudland City, tied at the forehead. It’s a storage treasure and it lets anyone below Nascent Soul cultivation stand steady in Cloudland City. Very powerful.”

Yi Xuefeng tilted his head. “Oh…”

Qieyun hopped along happily as he walked. “Once we’re up on the city, we snatch the Spirit Apportionment Jades of everyone who rubs us wrong—then all their stuff is ours, and they get flung right out by Cloudland City’s Restriction Barrier! Hahahaha, it’s so fun!”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”

Watching Qieyun skip along in transports of delight, Yi Xuefeng began to wonder just what that brat Linfan had actually taught him. Why did his temperament grow viler by the day? How fun could robbing people possibly be?

Yi Xuefeng shook his head and let it go.

Chatting as they went, the two made it back to their quarters before long.

Only—upon opening the door, they found Song Jingsheng somehow already waiting in the courtyard.

At the sight of her, Qieyun’s ever-smiling face dropped at once. Instinct drove him to lunge forward for the kill—but the stone-faced Yi Xuefeng seized him by the ponytail and forced him into a hairpin in his hair.

Yi Xuefeng stepped forward, saying flatly, “Sect Master.”

Song Jingsheng’s face was a little pale, but her smile remained gorgeous and warm. She beckoned, laughing. “And where did the Little Immortal Lord disappear to? You’ve kept me waiting such a long time.”

At their first meeting, Yi Xuefeng had found her temperament gentle and agreeable, a rare good soul who had genuinely looked out for Lin Fuyu. But ever since that overheard conversation with the Savage Wilds devil cultivator, the sight of that smiling face of hers only made the cold crawl over his skin, however he looked at her.

Not wanting to tear off the mask at this juncture, he inclined his head slightly and took a seat on a stone bench to the side.

Song Jingsheng smiled. “Did the Little Immortal Lord seek out Ye Fangcao and Jiang Jiwang for Cloudland City?”

Yi Xuefeng nodded. “Yes.”

“Both are Elder Nan’s finest disciples. Jiang Jiwang’s skills are decent; Ye Fangcao is a notch beneath him, but he carries Beast-Taming Spiritual Power, which will prove useful at the Immortal Grand Assembly. Still—I heard only days ago that the Little Immortal Lord was at odds with them. Sparred with them at the Training Grounds, I’m told. Why the sudden change of heart about attending the Immortal Grand Assembly together?”

Yi Xuefeng smiled as well. “Mere sparring. No fight, no friendship.”

Song Jingsheng’s smile stiffened; she probed at him a few more times, and every attempt was parried away with effortless, four-ounces-deflecting-a-thousand-pounds grace.

Perhaps sensing something, Song Jingsheng tactfully pressed no further. Pushing the small wooden box at her side toward Yi Xuefeng, she instructed, “Gather at Cold Huai River’s city gate at dawn tomorrow. This is the Spirit Apportionment Jade—wear it at your brow. And remember: without it, you cannot enter Cloudland City.”

Yi Xuefeng nodded his assent and respectfully saw Sect Master Song to the gate.

Once she was gone, Yi Xuefeng lowered his eyes and opened the exquisite little wooden box. Inside lay a strip of pure white ribbon; at its center was set a ghost-blue crystal thinner than paper, rippling faintly like water when it swayed.

Yi Xuefeng regarded it flatly for a moment, then snapped the box shut and tucked it into his sleeve.

Qieyun was still fuming. “Anything that woman gives is guaranteed to be tampered with! Dad, don’t use it—hand it over and I’ll eat it for you!”

Yi Xuefeng reached up and flicked the hairpin in his hair. “Stop trying to eat everything you don’t like. Aren’t you afraid of giving yourself a stomachache?”

Qieyun pursed his lips—but kept sneaking glance after glance at Yi Xuefeng’s sleeve, scheming to steal it and gulp it down the moment no one was looking.

Yi Xuefeng returned the book, then sat cross-legged in his room, regulating his breath and circulating spiritual power through his meridians. Finding no trace of that earlier feeling of stagnant spiritual power, he slowly opened his eyes.

He glanced at the Jade Celestial Instrument nearby—and was startled to realize he had meditated away an entire day. Dawn was already fast approaching.

Qieyun, already in human form, sat on the windowsill kicking his legs, gazing in high spirits at the lantern-lit Cold Huai River below, humming an utterly dreadful tune.

Yi Xuefeng washed up, dug out an outrageously loud, red-and-purple, taste-beyond-redemption robe, and changed into it. After a moment’s thought, he took out the Spirit Apportionment Jade ribbon Song Jingsheng had given him and tied it at his brow.

Loud red and blazing purple, paired with a ribbon of white and ghost-blue across the brow—even with that gorgeous face of his, the whole ensemble was ugly enough to offend gods and men alike.

But Yi Xuefeng possessed no awareness whatsoever of offending anyone’s eyes. Admiring himself at leisure, he concluded that he was, without question, the most beautiful youth in all of Cold Huai River.

“Qieyun. Let’s go.”

Qieyun had been blissfully fantasizing about the majestic sight of Dad pummeling the eight directions and kicking the four seas. He turned to look—and his face went instantly green.

Any moderately handsome man, thrown into a random set of clothes, would still look passable.

But Yi Xuefeng possessed some uncanny ability learned from who knew where: from childhood to the present, he could always take a single outfit and systematically demolish that naturally beautiful face of his.

What manner of freak talent was this?

Qieyun declared, in complete sincerity, “Dad, you’re truly ugly. Genuinely.”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”