Chapter 27: The Xili Mountains Part 2

Fu Yuqiu had barely frowned when he felt a poke at the center of his brow.

He clutched his head and looked up indignantly. “Then I won’t listen! Stop scolding me!”

Two wide sleeves slipped down from folded arms, and slowly a human face came into view.

The man was plain-looking, ugly in the same uniform way as all other humans. Four-finger-wide white silk was wound around his wrist; his left hand was slender with fine bones, but his right hand was like wood, the little finger clumsy, twitching now and then.

It was a wooden hand.

Fu Yuqiu draped himself over the zither and said whinily, “Musician.”

The Musician’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you very much. I have a name.”

“Musician.” Fu Yuqiu sounded deeply troubled. Muffled, he said, “I gave away one Little Leaf. Should I take it back?”

“If you’re asking, take it,” the Musician said flatly.

“But if I take it back, someone will die.” Fu Yuqiu wrestled with the dilemma. “What do I do?”

“Then don’t take it,” the Musician said, exasperated.

Fu Yuqiu: “But that was my dearest Little Leaf…”

The Musician slammed a hand on the zither, impatient. “Leaf.“

“Thank you kindly. I have a name too,” Fu Yuqiu said darkly.

“Leaf.” The Musician said, “You saved my life, and I was old acquaintances with your brother; I had no intention of prying into your nonsense. But you chirp and chatter around here all day long — more annoying than a bird.”

Fu Yuqiu flopped back in outrage, baring his teeth. “You dare call me a bird?!”

The Musician said, “I only want to ask: if that man runs off with your leaf, what then?”

Fu Yuqiu shot to his feet, ferocious. “He would NEVER run off with my leaf!”

The Musician snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure. That Ugly Freak doesn’t look like decent folk.”

Fu Yuqiu glared at him. He’d meant to storm off, but his anger wasn’t spent — he stalked two steps away, then furiously stomped back and kicked the zither hard, baring his teeth. “Go pluck your lousy zither!”

Having vented, he turned and ran.

The Musician, long accustomed to his vile temper, went back to playing.

From the back courtyard came that clumsy, hideous konghou sound again.

The Musician slammed the zither once more and shouted, exasperated, “Ancestors! Strumming cotton batting would sound better. Can you give it a rest? I’m enjoying the flowers and moonlight here.”

“…”

The courtyard gave no reply. The konghou grew even more dreadful.

Buried in the memory, listening to the dreadful yet strangely faraway konghou, Fu Yuqiu thought, Is my greatest regret listening to that awful cotton-strumming?

What a load of nonsense.

He grew even more convinced the so-called Boundary Gate was just his dream.

When that stretch of memory cut off, it seemed to condense into a key that melted into the Boundary Gate.

In a flash, the invisible Barrier blocking Fu Yuqiu dissolved.

Caught off guard, Fu Yuqiu’s foot met empty air, weightlessness seizing his body again as he plunged straight down.

“Cheep—!”

Fu Yuqiu’s eyes flew open, startled awake.

He was curled up in a small, warm space, a familiar scent lingering all around him, filling him with a deep sense of safety.

Fu Yuqiu looked around in confusion.

Where is this?

After a couple of circuits, Fu Yuqiu finally realized: the warm, soft “thing” surrounding him was the Phoenix’s plumage.

Fu Yuqiu froze.

The Phoenix’s broken wings had healed. His whole body was curled in a ball, magnificent wings spread to prop up a small but safe little world, cradling the tiny White Sparrow against his chest.

Fu Yuqiu was overjoyed.

So the Phoenix he’d seen before hadn’t been a hallucination.

Fu Yuqiu cheeped twice and nudged the downy feathers at the Phoenix’s chest with his head, saying happily, “Phoenix! Phoenix, why did you come? And your wings look all better!”

He cheeped and nudged and chattered nonstop — even a deaf man would have been pecked awake.

But the Phoenix didn’t move a muscle, holding the posture that all but trapped him against his chest.

Fu Yuqiu sensed something wrong and hastily forced his way out from the soft plumage, his chubby round face nearly squashed flat in the process.

Outside was a desolate wasteland, bare of a single blade of grass. A glance into the distance showed mountain ranges coiling around on every side like a giant dragon.

Fu Yuqiu was stunned.

This was…

The Xili Mountains?

So that Boundary Gate hadn’t been a dream after all!

The Phoenix, perhaps sensing the emptiness in his embrace, suddenly let out a murmur, as if calling someone’s name.

Fu Yuqiu had no time to puzzle over it and hurried over.

The Phoenix lay curled in the sand, dazed and burning — no external wounds, yet his whole body scorched hot, as if about to combust. A tentative probe showed his meridians in chaos, Spiritual Power flowing backward through them.

Fu Yuqiu was badly frightened and rushed over to peck at his cheek. “Phoenix… Phoenix!”

The Phoenix didn’t move. No reaction at all.

Afraid something terrible had happened, Fu Yuqiu patted frantically at his own body, instinctively trying to pluck a leaf for him — before belatedly remembering he was only a White Sparrow now.

The only thing he could pluck was feathers.

Fu Yuqiu anxiously circled the Phoenix twice, desperate to wake him.

But what could a palm-sized round ball of a sparrow do?

Fu Yuqiu gritted his teeth and forcibly drove the Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion, awkwardly and laboriously transforming into human form on the spot.

His human form wore only the snow-white phoenix-patterned outer robe the Immortal Venerable had draped over him, his feet bare — which made him instinctively dig them into the sand below.

This place seemed to have been struck by the Blazing Fire Rain; the sand was scorching. The moment Fu Yuqiu stepped on it, pain flared through his soles, and his inhumanly pale feet flushed red in an instant.

He had no tolerance for pain, gave a soft “hsss,” brows knitted, and hurriedly reached down to gather the Phoenix into his arms.

The Phoenix, nearly roasted alive, finally found some relief against the slightly cool embrace. His unfocused head tilted up, and he nuzzled instinctively against Fu Yuqiu’s arm.

Fu Yuqiu looked left and right, intending to find some shade from the scorching sun — when a shadow suddenly fell over his head, blotting out the blazing sunlight.

Looking up slightly, he saw an enormous Spirit Boat slowly descending toward the spot where he stood.

A Spirit Boat?

That was a Magic Artifact of human cultivators.

Fu Yuqiu’s expression darkened. Clutching the Phoenix tighter, he picked a direction at random and stumbled off at a run.

He wanted nothing to do with humans.

The yellow sand was boiling hot, jagged stones poking up here and there. His snow-white hair trailed along the ground, its ends already caked with sand. After only a short while of walking barefoot, the soles of Fu Yuqiu’s feet burned with pain.

At any other time, Fu Yuqiu would have plunked down on the ground and thrown a full tantrum at such pain.

But now he had no one to rely on, and the Phoenix lay senseless. Fu Yuqiu bore the piercing pain and tried to draw on his Spiritual Power.

He hadn’t even properly gathered the Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion when the Spirit Boat crashed down overhead.

With a boom.

The landing’s impact whipped the yellow sand into wild spirals, dust filling the sky.

Fu Yuqiu coughed, choked.

Sand rained down like a downpour, and as the dust cleared, two figures were revealed — one in black, one in white.

Amid these broken walls and ruins, they looked exactly like the paired black-and-white specters that come to claim souls.

The moment Fu Yuqiu laid eyes on the ugly humans, his brow furrowed at once.

The white-robed Sword Cultivator strode forward, long blade in hand, his gaze flat as it went to Fu Yuqiu…

Or rather, to the Phoenix in Fu Yuqiu’s arms.

The Sword Cultivator said flatly, “The Spirit Rune of the Profound Candle Tower truly lives up to its name — it really is the Phoenix.”

Fu Yuqiu clutched the Phoenix tight and backed away a step, saying warily, “Who are you people?”

The Sword Cultivator seemed to have no interest in talking. Sword in hand, he shot toward Fu Yuqiu in a flash.

The man in black looked on coldly — but his eyes never once touched the Phoenix, staying fixed instead on Fu Yuqiu.

The Sword Cultivator’s sword intent came straight at the Phoenix, and on his Spiritual Power there seemed to be an extremely sinister talisman script.

Fu Yuqiu’s whole body shuddered.

He had no idea what that talisman was, but instinct was screaming wildly through his mind.

That talisman must not touch the Phoenix!

The sword came cleaving through the air.

Fu Yuqiu had groveled in the Nine Heavens for so long, and after finally escaping that Devil Den, now in the Lower Realm he was to be coveted and crushed again?

How much more could a person take?!

An unprecedented fury surged into his chest. One arm cradling the Phoenix, Fu Yuqiu raised his other hand toward the Sword Cultivator, the Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion forcibly summoned forth.

The Linked Azure Water, laced with the trace of Phoenix Inheritance that had merged into it earlier, surged out with overwhelming power.

“GET LOST—” Fu Yuqiu roared.

A thunderous boom.

The Spiritual Power violently shattered the vicious sword qi, and the void itself warped into mirage-like distortion where the power swept past.

The Sword Cultivator’s pupils contracted and he hastily withdrew and fell back, nearly pulverized by that tyrannous Water Spiritual Power.

—Never had he imagined that gentle water could be so savage.

After the Linked Azure Water’s power detonated in place, it transformed abruptly into a gentle spring rain, drifting down over the ground.

And in that yellow sand, scorched barren by the Blazing Fire Rain, as if dead wood meeting spring, tufts of tender green grass suddenly sprouted in clusters.

The man in black gaped, and after a long moment finally murmured one line.

“So fierce. I love it.”

The Sword Cultivator: “…”

A lost cause of a lecher.

That one strike had nearly drained all of Fu Yuqiu’s Spiritual Power; before they could react, he clutched the Phoenix tight and bolted into the distance.

Though the Secluded Sound Valley belonged to the Xili Mountains, the range stretched for hundreds of li; he had no idea where exactly he’d fallen. He could only run first and think later.

Only a faint thread of Spiritual Power was left to carry Fu Yuqiu — and before he’d gone far, a dragon’s roar suddenly sounded behind him.

Looking back, he saw the man in black had transformed on the spot into a colossal dragon even bigger than Yun Shou, lunging straight at him.

Fu Yuqiu’s heart leapt into his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut on instinct.

The expected pain never came. Fu Yuqiu cautiously opened his eyes — and found an enormous black dragon coiling around him in a circle, head and tail entwined, penning him inside.

—Like a dragon marking its territory.

The Evil Dragon had penned Fu Yuqiu in like a possession, his great dragon pupils locked on him as human speech rolled from his jaws.

“Treasure. Be my Dao Companion.”

Fu “Treasure”: “???”

Just then, the Phoenix in Fu Yuqiu’s arms abruptly opened his golden eyes.