Chapter 29: Spirit Core Self-Detonation

“…Yuqiu?”

Perhaps because of the Phoenix’s faint pressure, the deep mountains were utterly silent — not even insect chirps or birdsong.

As he walked, Fu Yuqiu practiced manipulating the Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion, so that if the pursuers caught up he wouldn’t be helpless meat on the chopping block like before.

A Secluded Grass’s power had always been for healing. Fu Yuqiu tried to shape the Water Spiritual Power at his fingertips into a blade, but after much effort it still had zero offensive capability.

“Utterly useless!”

Fuming, Fu Yuqiu flung the power away at random, feeling like a worthless little piece of trash with no use whatsoever.

The water hit the ground, splashing droplets onto his calves.

At just a few drops of contact, Fu Yuqiu reacted violently, whole body jolting, and scrambled backward several steps.

Before him was a gently sloping incline; perhaps a spring above had overflowed, sending a thin sheet of water trickling down the slope, polishing the stones in its path smooth.

Fu Yuqiu breathed a sigh of relief and started up the slope, stepping through the water.

The slope was extremely long; Fu Yuqiu reckoned he’d climbed a full half-shichen before finally reaching the top.

The water’s source was a huge deep pool, a spring at its center bubbling out an endless supply.

Fu Yuqiu glanced over it and was about to leave when something struck him, and his gaze settled on the springhead.

Flowing water.

The Azure Luan was a creature of water…

The Phoenix in his arms had sunk deep into sleep, his body growing hotter and hotter — Fu Yuqiu’s arms were already scalding faintly red.

Fu Yuqiu drew a deep breath, waded across the pool, and laid the Phoenix down gently behind a great boulder.

The Phoenix’s wings twitched faintly, as if grasping for something, his breathing growing ragged.

“It’s all right.” Fu Yuqiu knelt down and, just as he had in White Sparrow form, gently nuzzled the Phoenix’s brow with his own, soothing him. “I’ll come back for you right away.”

The Phoenix struggled another two beats before going quietly still.

Fu Yuqiu breathed out softly, casually gathered his loose snow-white hair into a single bundle, and tied it off with a strip of vine.

He walked to the pool’s edge and looked down the path that wound out into the dense woods, his pretty features full of cold.

Soon, two figures appeared faintly along the path Fu Yuqiu had come by.

The Sword Cultivator and the Evil Dragon.

Fu Yuqiu’s bound-up hair hung down at his feet, gleaming snow-white where the water soaked it.

The Evil Dragon’s tail still throbbed from its burns, but the moment he laid eyes on him, he couldn’t control the brightening of his eyes and relapsed: “Tr-Treasure! My Treasure!”

The Sword Cultivator’s gaze swept around and found no sign of the Phoenix.

“Hiding him is useless.” The Sword Cultivator said coldly. “So long as the Spirit Rune exists, he has no way out except the Nine Heavens. Short of that, there is no road to survival.”

“Survival?” Fu Yuqiu raised his hand lightly, mockery brimming in his eyes. “If I kill you both, isn’t that a road to survival?”

The Sword Cultivator sneered at his naïveté.

The useless Evil Dragon’s eyeballs nearly fell out, and he gaped: “So—so fierce! I love it!”

The Sword Cultivator: “…”

This dragon would sooner or later die of his lust-blinded eyes.

The Sword Cultivator’s lip twitched; finally out of patience, he advanced with sword in hand.

His ink-black hair stirred faintly, revealing a few strands of snow-white.

The Sword Cultivator was a Rogue Cultivator with no sect. Ever since the Blazing Fire Rains had dried up the Spirit Veins of the Three Realms, his body had shown the five signs of decay from lack of Spiritual Power.

Only by killing the Phoenix and claiming a Spirit Vein could he continue cultivating onto the Great Dao.

He was determined to succeed on this trip.

Fu Yuqiu’s face was dark as still water — an excellent bluff — but his heart was pounding wildly.

The power in his Azure Luan bloodline pulled at that strange Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion, releasing Spiritual Power vast as an ocean.

Only this time, that power wasn’t aimed at the Sword Cultivator.

Fu Yuqiu dropped his hand — and the power flooded abruptly into the water on the ground.

The next instant, countless threads of Spiritual Power lit up with a deep blue glow, spreading like a spider’s web through every inch of water on the ground.

“BOOM—”

The water overflowing from the pool had crept down the entire path like countless rootlets — and now, saturated with Fu Yuqiu’s power, it turned to his use in an instant.

The Evil Dragon was still drooling over his Treasure’s beauty when he abruptly felt the water beneath his feet radiate a Spiritual Power that chilled him to the marrow, and leapt straight into the air in fright.

“Water! Aaaah, not that water again!!”

The Sword Cultivator didn’t find the water frightening and moved to strike — but the water on the ground coiled up like rootlets, winding around his feet and hauling hard.

He decided in an instant, slashing down to sever the tendrils at his feet!

But Fu Yuqiu, borrowing the pool’s water, could command countless threads of power; for every one severed, countless more wove densely back in.

There was nothing to be done at all.

Never had the Sword Cultivator imagined a seemingly powerless boy could drive him to this.

Seeing the Evil Dragon still hanging off a branch spectating, the Sword Cultivator, entangled and immobilized by that damnable water, roared, “Beyond that pool lies Gongshang Gorge! Are you going to just watch him enter it?!”

The Evil Dragon wavered forever, then tried to land.

The moment he moved, Fu Yuqiu lashed out a bolt of Spiritual Power straight at him.

“GET LOST—”

The Evil Dragon wept woefully: “He yelled at me, sob… I can die without regrets now!”

Fu Yuqiu: “…”

Sword Cultivator: “…”

In the end, Fu Yuqiu paid for not knowing how to fight: his power flew true, but the Evil Dragon was quick, a flash of movement dodging the killing blow.

With the Sword Cultivator still snared in the water-woven “roots,” the Evil Dragon transformed straight into his original form and came soaring down, fangs and claws bared.

His movements looked graceful enough, but his original form was simply too huge; the crushing pressure of its descent made Fu Yuqiu’s pupils contract. He could only fling out one overwhelming wave of power before the shock threw him backward.

With a “sploosh,” Fu Yuqiu fell straight into the deep pool.

The Evil Dragon threw up a Protective Restriction and grimly tanked Fu Yuqiu’s blow.

Seeing him fall into the water, he rushed over, all teeth, and nervously dipped a claw into the pool.

With Fu Yuqiu’s fall, the carefully-gathered water threads instantly scattered. The Sword Cultivator slashed his blade free and strode forward, cold.

“Stop fishing. The Phoenix matters more.”

The Evil Dragon’s head was full of nothing but Treasure. He snapped, “No wonder you sword cultivators never have Dao Companions. You bring it on yourselves.”

The Sword Cultivator: “…”

The Evil Dragon churned the pool into mud. Before he’d fished for long, Fu Yuqiu hauled himself with difficulty onto the far bank, coughing violently and spitting out water.

His eyes were red from choking. He looked back slightly, his brows full of undisguised loathing and hate.

The Evil Dragon’s eyes lit up. He shot through the air and pinned his Treasure chest-down with one claw.

Fu Yuqiu was soaked through, half his body still in the water; the pin knocked the breath nearly out of him. His calves kicked twice at the water, then hung limply.

The Dragon Clan had always been mighty; even a few hundred more years of cultivation wouldn’t make Fu Yuqiu their match — never mind a Sword Cultivator already at the Perfection Realm.

The Sword Cultivator…

Fu Yuqiu suddenly realized something and, straining, twisted around against the dragon’s claw.

The Sword Cultivator had already located the Phoenix and now stood over him, sword in hand, looking down.

Fu Yuqiu’s pupils contracted. Trembling all over, he fought to tear free of the claw.

“Phoenix—!”

Afraid of crushing him, the Evil Dragon said hurriedly, “Stop squirming! Do you want to die?”

Fu Yuqiu watched the Sword Cultivator raise his blade toward the Phoenix, and his breath stopped.

The Phoenix would die!

No — no, the Phoenix would achieve Nirvana. He wouldn’t die.

But…

Fu Yuqiu thought, dazed: If not for me, he would never have come to the Lower Realm, never been coveted and hunted.

Fu Yuqiu had saved countless people; it had always been others who owed him.

This was the first time he owed someone.

The Evil Dragon was still calibrating exactly how hard to pin his Treasure when he suddenly felt something off.

The boy beneath his palm had gone quiet and docile — but the Spirit Core inside him was raging like a storm, gushing out violent, ferocious power.

This wasn’t Water Spiritual Power. It was more like…

The Evil Dragon went cold with horror. “He’s going to self-detonate?!”

The Sword Cultivator whipped around. “What?!”

The Evil Dragon had already yanked his claw away. The pressure preceding the Spirit Core Self-Detonation grew stronger and stronger, its aura more and more ominous.

The Sword Cultivator had no time to think. He scooped up the Phoenix and flashed rapidly back.

“Stay away from him!”

There was something deeply wrong with this self-detonation’s aura — unlike any ordinary cultivator’s Spirit Core. If it blew now, dozens of li in every direction might be flattened.

The Sword Cultivator decided at once: “GO!”

The Evil Dragon hated to abandon his Treasure, but he didn’t want to die here either. Gritting his teeth slightly, he made to leave.

Fu Yuqiu lay on the ground, ten fingers dug deep into the wet earth.

Spiritual Power swept out again, savagely condensing all the surrounding water into a giant water prison, trapping the two of them within.

The Sword Cultivator slashed his blade through the air.

But the prison held. That Water Spiritual Power was deeply strange — there was no escaping it.

The Evil Dragon nearly screamed: “Waaah, you heartless little demon! I’m definitely making him my Dao Companion!”

Fu Yuqiu, pampered all his life, had never known he could be this ruthless.

With his last dregs of power he clumsily wove a Body-Protecting Restriction and flung it over the Phoenix, a film of water sealing him safely inside.

Vaguely aware the two of them couldn’t escape the water prison, he finally closed his eyes in exhaustion and let the Spirit Core in his Inner Mansion run wild.

…About to blow.

Abruptly — a resounding “zhen” of a plucked string.

A note from a zither came crashing out of the forest depths.

An impatient, furious note — yet as it swept across Fu Yuqiu’s body, it was like a great soft hand, forcibly smoothing down the power on the verge of detonation.

More zither music came drifting after.

The notes were like a soothing elixir; within just a few tones, the chaotic power in Fu Yuqiu’s Inner Mansion was settled right.

In the blink of an eye it returned to normal.

Fu Yuqiu was stunned.

The Sword Cultivator and the Evil Dragon both sagged with relief — one at keeping his life, the other at his Treasure remaining unshattered.

But before either could relax, they ran straight into another problem.

That zither note…

The Sword Cultivator seemed to realize something, and his face went deathly white.

Just as he’d feared.

Before long, faint sounds of bodies brushing through leaves came from the narrow path winding out from the pool.

The white-robed Music Saint came bearing his zither, and the faint pressure rolling off him made even the Perfection Realm Sword Cultivator feel suffocated.

White as an immortal, ethereal — yet worn by him, it gave off a chill that said “tonight at the third watch, I take your miserable life.”

“You die one at a time.” The Music Saint’s face was expressionless. “Who’s first?”

Sword Cultivator, Evil Dragon: “…”

Fu Yuqiu looked up blankly, his gaze landing on the wooden right hand hanging at the Music Saint’s side — and suddenly he froze.

The Sword Cultivator landed and gave a slight bow, saying with forced calm, “Disturbing the Music Saint today was my fault. But we only fought outside the gorge; we never crossed the boundary.”

The deep pool marked the boundary of Gongshang Gorge.

True, the Sword Cultivator had crossed the pool earlier to seize the Phoenix — but if he flatly denied it, the Music Saint should have no grounds to act.

The Evil Dragon heard this and panicked on instinct.

Didn’t that make it plain as day that his Treasure had crossed the boundary?

And with the Music Saint’s temper — loyal to absolutely no one — no beauty, however gorgeous, would earn a second glance.

The Evil Dragon was about to say a word in Fu Yuqiu’s defense when the Sword Cultivator kicked him hard in the knee and sent a Sound Transmission: “Shut up! Once he’s dead, we take the Phoenix and go.”

The Evil Dragon frowned.

But he didn’t want the Phoenix — ugly thing. The pretty one was better.

In the span of a sentence, the foul-tempered Music Saint had already turned his expressionless face toward the clueless “boundary-crosser” by the pool.

The Sword Cultivator looked away, an invisible cold smile on his lips.

Served him right for being so eager to die, running straight into Gongshang Gorge.

Dying too was just bad luck.

But the Demonic Sound that shattered minds never came. Instead, the terrifying white-robed man was looking Fu Yuqiu up and down with a strange expression.

Apart from the head of snow-white hair, Fu Yuqiu’s human form was almost indistinguishable from his Secluded Grass days.

Half-submerged in water, unable to even crawl out, trembling, terrified — at the sight of the “Musician,” every scrap of despair within him transformed, in an instant, into an ocean of grievance.

Fu Yuqiu held it back, and held it back — and failed. Tears came pouring down, racing across his face in a heartbeat.

The Music Saint stared at that face for a long, long moment — and then spoke, disbelieving.

“…Yuqiu?”