Chapter 7: Courting Death

Though Yi Xuefeng had bolted like an arrow off the bowstring the instant he realized, Ning Yu’s cultivation was such that he was upon him practically in the space of a breath.

Yi Xuefeng came skimming down to the base of the wall and looked up. In the glow of the lantern stand at the corner, Ning Yu stood atop the wall in his black robes, gazing down at him from on high, his eyes full of cold.

Yi Xuefeng said at once, “Sword Venerable, I know I was wrong…”

Ning Yu said coldly, “What use is admitting fault if you never correct it?”

Yi Xuefeng glanced up at him, then said in a small voice, “It was to save my own life…”

Ning Yu paused a moment before saying, “At least you’re honest.”

The rain came sheeting down. Yi Xuefeng was soaked to the bone, standing beneath the wall with shoulders hunched and shivering, his small face dead pale.

Ning Yu drifted down from the wall. The falling rain was walled away by a film-like layer of Spiritual Power around his body—a contrast all the sharper against Yi Xuefeng’s bedraggled state.

Yi Xuefeng had understood from childhood that his looks were his greatest weapon, and he wielded them without stinting. He could easily have blocked the rain with Spiritual Power—instead he forced himself to stand in it, hair loosely braided over his shoulders, water dripping off him without end.

Even a heart of stone would have softened at such a pitiful sight.

Unfortunately, Ning Yu was immune to the whole performance. Coldly: “What are you doing here?”

“My sword…” Yi Xuefeng had always feared the cold; before long he was shivering uncontrollably. “The sword my father left me. Without it at night, I can’t sleep.”

Ning Yu said, “If you treasure this useless sword so much, then why is it I’ve heard you never once used the artifacts Linfan left you?”

“Rumors are rumors. They can’t all be believed.” Yi Xuefeng tilted his head up slightly and blinked gently, raindrops showering down from his lashes.

Ning Yu didn’t blink at all, merciless as ever. “And what did I say before?”

Yi Xuefeng paused, probing. “That the me of now isn’t worthy of it?”

Ning Yu gave a “hmph”—the universal signal to know your place.

Back when I got Qieyun I was only thirteen, my cultivation hadn’t even reached Core Formation, and you still let me use it, Yi Xuefeng thought bitterly. How am I suddenly unworthy now?

A violent shiver racked him. He asked, “Then might I ask, Sword Venerable—when will I qualify?”

Ning Yu said, “It’s simple…”

Yi Xuefeng’s eyes lit up—only to hear the Sword Venerable, he of the Three Realms’ foremost swordsmanship, continue in a tone of absolute, matter-of-fact coldness: “…defeat me.”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”

Farewell, then.

Cold wind drove the freezing rain sideways. Yi Xuefeng, shivering, saw that Ning Yu looked ready to send him packing, and tried a soft-voiced gambit: “Sword Venerable, couldn’t we go inside to talk?”

Ning Yu said, “No. Scram.”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”

He forgot, again, just how heartless the Ning Yu of today really was.

The stone-hearted Ning Yu drove the utterly bedraggled Yi Xuefeng out without ceremony. At the end, Ning Yu said, “If there is a next time…”

This threat, too, went unfinished—Yi Xuefeng, unable to bear the rain a moment longer, had already covered his head and darted off into the downpour.

Ning Yu: “…”

And left, flicking his sleeve in fury.

Back in his room, Yi Xuefeng went straight to sleep, planning to figure out how to retrieve Qieyun in the morning.

Perhaps because of the soaking, he was plagued by nightmares the entire night. In his dreams, Ning Yu looked down at him with total indifference, enunciating word by word: “The Dao and the Devil Walk Different Paths.”

He had heard that line more than enough—but in the dream, Ning Yu seemed possessed by something, repeating it coldly, over and over, several hundred times in all.

By the time he woke the next morning, his ears were still stuffed full of those maddening four words.

“Different paths…” Yi Xuefeng’s eyes had gone glassy, and he muttered to himself, “I know about the different paths. Stop saying it…”

Huaichen came early with a fresh Spirit Flower to replace the old one. Seeing Yi Xuefeng sitting on the bed, hair hanging in wild disarray, staring into space, he ventured carefully, “Little Immortal Lord, aren’t you getting up? Sect Master Song says you’re to show Sword Venerable Ning around the Cold Huai River today…”

Yi Xuefeng clutched his head, nearly toppling over entirely, his skull pounding, wishing devoutly for the mercy of unconsciousness.

“Little Immortal…”

Yi Xuefeng jolted, eyes filmed with a haze of moisture, and nodded vaguely. “Understood.”

Today, absolutely today, I am getting the Qieyun Sword back.

Yi Xuefeng climbed out of bed. There was no time to fuss over yesterday’s eye-searing ensemble; he threw on a plain black robe and headed out.

The rain had stopped. Fallen petals carpeted the bluestone path, trailing away into the depths of the woods.

Yi Xuefeng’s feet floated, his head full of nothing but different paths, and soon he arrived at Ning Yu’s lodging.

The two Shadow Guards at the door still stood like pillars, exactly as the night before, and gave him slight bows as he approached. “Little Immortal Lord.”

Yi Xuefeng answered with an “Mm” and stepped inside.

Ning Yu had long since risen and sat now on a cushioned couch by the window, gazing out absently. The Qieyun Sword lay on a small side table nearby, its Sword Tassel stirring without any wind.

The moment Yi Xuefeng entered, a wave of frigid air hit him square in the face. He looked up to find Ning Yu regarding him with frost-glacial eyes, his well-defined fingers resting on Qieyun’s blade.

Yi Xuefeng stepped forward with a bow. “Sword Venerable.”

Ning Yu seemed to have been waiting for him. He tapped the blade lightly with a fingertip—a thin layer of frost crystallized instantly across the cold steel. Another tap—the frost melted at once, water droplets sliding down the edge.

He went on tapping idly like that, and Qieyun—now freezing, now scalding—was frightened nearly out of its wits, its Sword Tassel trembling without stop.

“Daaaad!” Catching sight of Yi Xuefeng, Qieyun burst into loud sobs. “Dad, you’re UNFILIAL! Just yesterday you said you’d save me even at the cost of your life, and the moment you were discovered you ran faster than a rabbit! What happened to father-and-son devotion?!”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”

This child has been scared into talking nonsense.

His head was throbbing and the shouting made his ears ache. He pretended not to hear, and said to Ning Yu with lowered brows and dutiful eyes, “Sword Venerable, Sect Master Song has asked me to show you around the Cold Huai River.”

However much Lin Fuyu was hailed as the Little Immortal Lord, until his wings had fully grown he was no true master of the Cold Huai River. To everyone else, he was merely a boy of special birth—no different from any other disciple.

Fortunately, Lin Fuyu had always kept to himself. However much people secretly resented him, none would go out of their way to provoke the future master of the Cold Huai River.

Ning Yu was not fooled by that suddenly meek exterior—the boy looked docile enough, but the corner of his eye had already strayed, again and again, toward the Qieyun Sword on the side table. His thieving heart, it seemed, had not died.

Qieyun was still wailing: “Last night he set me on the table beside his bed and stared at me the ENTIRE night, and then he used his hand to stroke my beloved little Sword Tassel—Mother of mercy! I didn’t sleep a wink! Dad! Xuefeng! Hurry and save me!”

Ning Yu had never once been well liked by the people around Yi Xuefeng. Qieyun, having taken Ning Yu’s beatings since childhood, detested him thoroughly and kept as far away as it possibly could. Even the few Spirit Beasts in the Jade Reflection Hall, upon seeing him, would all be scared by his aura into hiding under the bed—and would bite him at the first opportunity.

Yi Xuefeng was used to it. Frowning, he transmitted, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be quick…”

Qieyun couldn’t wait: “Be QUICKER! Fast fast fast…”

Seeing Yi Xuefeng’s gaze drifting once more toward the Qieyun Sword, Ning Yu said coldly, “If you—”

At the same moment, Qieyun was still wailing, “Help! HELP! He’s icing me again!”

Yi Xuefeng, already out of sorts and with a skull-splitting headache courtesy of Qieyun, momentarily forgot to use Voice Transmission and spoke aloud, his tone hard.

Ning Yu: “If you keep scheming for the Qieyun Sword, I will—”

Yi Xuefeng: “SHUT UP! Are you my dad, or am I yours?”

Ning Yu: “…”

Qieyun: “…”

Qieyun was so terrified its Sword Tassel shot straight up toward the ceiling.

Having said it, Yi Xuefeng stood frozen for a full three breaths before comprehending what he had actually just said. He sucked in a sharp gasp of air, staring at Ning Yu in horror.

Ning Yu’s face was dark as a thunderhead, his Devil Eyes glinting with menace. His hand closed around the Qieyun Sword’s razor edge—a blade that could slice through iron like mud, one that drew blood at the merest touch. Yet Ning Yu gripped the very edge of it without so much as a scratch.

Yi Xuefeng’s knees went weak, and Qieyun trembled harder than ever.

Ning Yu’s voice was colder than the ice atop the mountain peak: “What did you just say? Say it again.”

Yi Xuefeng: “…”