The Music Saint’s heart grew even warmer.
Fu Yuqiu had never imagined that the first old acquaintance he’d meet after returning to the Lower Realm would be the Musician.
The despair of that brush with death vanished like smoke the moment he saw a familiar face.
He had never felt so wronged in his life. Sobbing uncontrollably, he tried all the while to climb out of the water.
Though the Secluded Grass was a creature of water, this flesh body had soaked too long in the cold pool; his calves were blue with cold and on the verge of cramping.
Twice Fu Yuqiu tried to move and couldn’t budge. That made him angrier still; he kicked the water’s surface, crying.
The Music Saint: “…”
Getting angry at even himself for no reason — that was Fu Yuqiu, all right.
Just as Fu Yuqiu steeled himself to try again, the Music Saint was already at his side, draping an outer robe over his shoulders and lifting him from the water with gentle care.
Fu Yuqiu froze for a beat.
In his days in the Nine Heavens, Fu Yuqiu had grown used to relying on no one. Wrapped suddenly in warmth, it struck him all at once: he had escaped the cage. He no longer had to tremble, every waking moment, at every shadow.
The thought broke loose like a runaway horse. Fu Yuqiu let out a sob, grabbed the Music Saint’s lapels and tore with all his might, knuckles white — from grievance or rage, who could say — as the tears fell even harder.
“What lousy zither-playing was that?!” Fu Yuqiu cursed. “I got killed right under your nose and you didn’t even notice! You should’ve come later still — then we could both self-detonate and blow you into the sky!”
The Music Saint: “…”
The Sword Cultivator, sensing something off, quietly held his breath.
The Music Saint… and that white-haired youth were old friends?!
The Music Saint of Gongshang Gorge had an infamous temper. He disdained cultivators, wouldn’t deign to negotiate with the Demon Race or the Four Clans, had always gone his own way alone — and no one had ever heard of him having old friends.
And this white-haired youth should have been one of the Four Clans.
Shouldn’t the Music Saint despise him most of all?
The more the Sword Cultivator thought, the less he liked it; cold sweat beaded his brow without his noticing.
The Evil Dragon, still blissfully clueless, watched Fu Yuqiu rage and weep at once, his dragon eyes nearly popping out, three thousand feet of drool away from falling.
The Sword Cultivator: “…”
The Sword Cultivator gripped the Phoenix tightly.
Even at the cost of offending the Music Saint, he would have the bountied Spirit Vein.
Besides — who knew how deep the Music Saint’s bond with this boy really ran? Perhaps he wouldn’t make an enemy of a Perfection Realm Sword Cultivator and an Evil Dragon over one Four Clans member.
The thought had barely formed when Fu Yuqiu, coughing from crying, still managed: “You… you kill them for me! Sob… cough cough!”
The Sword Cultivator: “…”
The Music Saint let Fu Yuqiu tear at his clothes to vent, and at the words glanced over, mild as anything.
No Spiritual Power at all — and yet an air that came from nowhere pressed the Sword Cultivator half a step back. When he came to his senses, his expression was uglier still.
Fu Yuqiu coughed until his face was scarlet, still struggling and shouting nonstop.
This was no place for reunions. The Music Saint could only barely suppress the flood of questions in his heart, carrying Fu Yuqiu over to set him properly on a great boulder nearby.
“Settle down, ancestors.” The Music Saint said mildly. “They did not cross the boundary.”
As if Fu Yuqiu cared about boundaries. All he knew was that he’d been wronged and bullied. At the words he got so angry he nearly flipped, lifting a foot to kick.
Crossed or not — with a backer to lean on, he’d ride the tiger’s might for all it was worth!
The Sword Cultivator quietly relaxed and gave a slight bow. “Your discernment, Music Saint. Then we shall take our leave—”
Before he could finish, the Music Saint raised a hand and beckoned. The Lingering Sound Zither appeared before him; Spiritual Power surged, and a melody, sweet and rolling, swept outward, its echoes lingering in the air.
To Fu Yuqiu, it was merely a run of deep, resonant notes.
But to the Sword Cultivator and the Evil Dragon, caught in its path, it was no different from vicious sword intent washing over them. They were thrown back several steps, backs slamming into the water prison Fu Yuqiu had yet to fully disperse.
The Evil Dragon, thick-skinned as he was, took no real harm; the Sword Cultivator, made of flesh, was forced to spit out a mouthful of blood.
The Music Saint withdrew his hand and said mildly, “…But I’m in a foul mood today. Since you two are here — stay.”
The Sword Cultivator’s face was grim. “We came answering the Profound Candle Tower’s Bounty Notice, seeking only this Phoenix — no offense was meant to the Music Saint’s friend. I offer Spirit Stones and Spirit Cores by way of apology.”
At least the man could bend.
The Profound Candle Tower’s business spanned the Three Realms and Nine Provinces, its bounties beyond counting; even a Sect Master of the Immortal Alliance would grant it three parts of courtesy.
Yet even with the Profound Candle Tower’s name invoked, the Music Saint only smiled faintly. “The Profound Candle Tower? Never heard of the place.”
The Sword Cultivator ground his teeth. “You—”
“But Spirit Stones and Spirit Cores…” The Music Saint stroked the zither lazily. “Show me how much you can buy your life back with.”
The Sword Cultivator: “…”
The world said the Music Saint was sinister and disdained power and possessions — so he loved the reek of coin after all?
The Sword Cultivator closed his eyes, drew out his Storage Pouch, and sent it floating over on a thread of Spiritual Power.
It was everything he owned.
The Music Saint gave it one glance and clicked his tongue. “A sword cultivator after all. Pauper.”
The Sword Cultivator: “…”
Now that was just insulting.
The Evil Dragon was still grinning foolishly, gazing hopefully at Fu Yuqiu. “So I really get to stay?”
The Sword Cultivator stared at him in disbelief.
What the Music Saint meant by “stay” was leaving you your miserable life!
Idiot!
Fu Yuqiu had recovered somewhat and grabbed the Music Saint’s sleeve, urgent: “They have… sob, give him back.”
The Music Saint looked back at him, frowning. “What thing did you rescue this time? When will you cure yourself of this rotten habit of yours? Haven’t you learned enough lessons?”
Seeing the Phoenix clutched in the Sword Cultivator’s grip, Fu Yuqiu’s eyes reddened with urgency: “Hurry!”
The Music Saint glanced at him — clearly scornful of this do-gooder streak — but still turned around and said offhandedly, “Fine. Return it.”
The Sword Cultivator stepped back half a pace, watching him warily.
Fu Yuqiu’s Spiritual Power had mostly scattered; the water prison had thinned to a fine rain pattering down.
The prison no longer held much force.
The Sword Cultivator’s eyes darkened, fixed on the Music Saint and Fu Yuqiu, then he turned his head to exchange a look with the Evil Dragon.
The Evil Dragon nodded reluctantly.
The Music Saint couldn’t have cared less what these two were scheming. A string of questions for Fu Yuqiu waited in his heart; he just wanted his big-tailed bird back so he could go home and interrogate it properly.
He was growing more and more impatient, irritation written across his brow.
Fu Yuqiu was still behind him, crying hard enough to cough, which frayed his patience further.
And at that moment, the Sword Cultivator moved — faster than the eye could follow — flashing onto the Evil Dragon’s back.
The next instant, the Evil Dragon surged up through the clouds, smashing straight through the canopy, racing for the edge of the Xili Mountains.
With a series of tremendous cracks, countless giant trees fell, severed at the root.
Fu Yuqiu: “Phoenix!”
The Music Saint’s face went dark.
Why was it one after another, all of them wasting his time?
The Evil Dragon was blindingly fast, gone from sight in practically a blink.
“The Music Saint’s cultivation is unfathomable…” The Sword Cultivator, having just taken that zither strike and then recklessly moved his power again, coughed up blood as he forced out the words. “He is one of the cultivators who survived the Golden Crow Vying with the Sun in Radiance a century ago — a witness to the fall of the entire Phoenix Clan. Cough. Brace yourself…”
The Evil Dragon had spent his whole life reckless. His head still full of his Treasure, weeping beautifully, he snapped, “I’ve already flown this far — even if he were the Immortal Venerable he couldn’t catch up. Stop scaring yourself.”
The Sword Cultivator covered his mouth and vomited more blood, seemingly trying to argue — but no sound came out.
He glanced down at the Phoenix lying quiet on the dragon’s back — looking at it as one looks at a living, breathing Spirit Vein.
It would be acceptable not to kill the Phoenix — he need only deliver it to the Profound Candle Tower…
He had scarcely finished the thought when he felt the Evil Dragon jolt, halting dead in midair.
The Evil Dragon, having barely finished boasting, was slapped in the face at once. He stared into the distance, horrified. “He…”
Along the direction they’d been fleeing, a lone figure in snow-white robes hovered in the sky, zither in his arms, his handsome face full of grim fury.
The Sword Cultivator had expected it all along. He barked, “GO!”
In all the Three Realms, those worthy of the title “Saint” were vanishingly few — and the Music Saint of Gongshang Gorge counted among the Three Sages as the one with the foulest temper.
Against cultivation like that, how easily could anyone escape?
The Evil Dragon had barely turned his head when a Demonic Sound came screaming out of nowhere, pouring into their ears like a poison-coated blade.
The Sword Cultivator’s eardrums shrieked; his Sea of Consciousness took a devastating blow.
The Music Saint’s attacks were never reversible.
Those who died or went mad — all of them fell to this Demonic Sound.
The Evil Dragon bellowed, could endure no more, and plummeted from the sky toward the endless deep forest below.
A thread of Spiritual Power caught the Phoenix as he fell, floating him lazily over to the Music Saint.
The Music Saint probed him lightly and frowned.
“The Phoenix?”
Hadn’t the entire Phoenix Clan perished in the Golden Crow Vying with the Sun in Radiance?
He’d meant to leave — then thought better of it and rode the wind down.
The Sword Cultivator and the Evil Dragon had already crashed hard into the deep mountains, startling countless birds and beasts into flight.
The Sword Cultivator, his Sea of Consciousness devastated, had blacked out.
The Evil Dragon, thick-hided as ever, lay dying on the ground like a frost-bitten eggplant.
Seeing the Music Saint land, the thoroughly cowed dragon whimpered and covered his head with a claw.
The Music Saint said mildly, “Who posted the Profound Candle Tower’s bounty?”
Seeing that the man apparently wasn’t going to beat him, the Evil Dragon ventured, “Don’t know. Supposedly it’s a Full Moon Bounty Notice — the whole Three Realms received it.”
The Profound Candle: the moon.
Bounties were ranked by the moon’s waxing and waning, and a full-moon-tier bounty was unprecedented.
The Music Saint: “And?”
The Evil Dragon had no idea what he wanted to hear — but it was all about the Phoenix anyway. He had no interest in the bird, so he just told him everything.
“The Profound Candle Tower’s Bounty Notice carries a strange Spirit Rune. They say if you follow the rune, you can find the Phoenix.”
“Where is the rune?”
“On his sword.”
The Music Saint raised a hand and beckoned; the Sword Cultivator’s sword came flying through the air.
Held by any hand but its master’s, the spirit sword struggled instinctively, humming and trembling.
The wooden hand brushed lightly along the blade, and a black Spirit Rune flashed past.
The Music Saint’s brow furrowed.
Whatever he saw, his face darkened; with the slightest exertion, the trembling long sword snapped into several pieces.
The Evil Dragon: “…”
The Evil Dragon shrunk his neck, feeling as if his own had just been snapped.
The Music Saint said nothing more and rode the wind away.
The Drifting Path, Mid-Cloud Ridge.
Feng Beihe suddenly clutched his chest and vomited a mouthful of blood.
The voice sounded from thin air: “What’s this?”
Feng Beihe’s expression was grimmer than it had ever been. He wiped the blood from his lips and swept a hand across the stone table before him.
An enormous black Talisman Formation leapt into view.
—The reversal method for draining the Immortal Venerable’s fortune.
Feng Beihe’s eyes went cold. “One of the Spirit Runes has been destroyed.”
“Impossible. The Phoenix’s cultivation is suppressed in the Lower Realm, and he carries old wounds. He couldn’t damage the rune.”
Besides, the rune was special — no ordinary mortal-realm cultivator could harm it. Otherwise they would never have left it sitting in the Profound Candle Tower for anyone to take.
How long had it even been?
Destroyed in less than half a day?
Eyes closing slightly against the backlash, Feng Beihe said, “It seems someone is helping him.”
The Azure Luan, Feng Xingyun?
When the Immortal Venerable descended, Feng Xingyun had been in the Nine Heavens.
If Feng Xingyun knew about the Withering and Flourishing inside his heart, he really might help the Immortal Venerable.
“Barn Owl.”
Before long, the Barn Owl came gliding in silently. “Junior Venerable.”
“Go down to the Lower Realm,” Feng Beihe said. “Find out who is at the Phoenix’s side.”
“As you command.”
The Barn Owl beat its wings away, and a single snow-white down feather drifted loose, floating down.
The feather swayed and spiraled as it fell.
Fu Yuqiu raised his hand slightly and caught a small bird’s down feather, his thin eyelids still swollen from all that crying.
He was still hiccupping with sobs when the Music Saint appeared before him in a flash, the Phoenix — sound asleep — cradled in his arms.
Fu Yuqiu cried out in joy, “Phoenix!”
He sprang up to rush over, but his Spiritual Power was too spent and he’d soaked in the water too long; the moment he rose, his legs buckled and he dropped right back down.
The Music Saint looked at him with disdain. “I’ll hold him for you.”
Fu Yuqiu shook his head and held out his hands. “I’ll hold him myself.”
The Music Saint had no choice but to hand the Phoenix over.
Fu Yuqiu hastily gathered him secure and nuzzled him affectionately, the knot in his chest finally loosening.
“I heard from your brother that your soul had scattered entirely.” The Music Saint looked at him obliquely. “So what I’m seeing now — is it a ghost?”
The moment that was brought up, Fu Yuqiu’s temper flared. He kicked the Music Saint in the shin, eyes rimmed red: “If you’d come any later, maybe you really would have seen one… mmph.”
Before he’d finished throwing his fit, the Music Saint abruptly bent down and pulled him into his arms, arms trembling.
Fu Yuqiu froze.
The Music Saint’s eyes were closed as he gently stroked Fu Yuqiu’s ice-cold hair. Feeling that unfamiliar Spiritual Power wrapped around that familiar soul, warmth flooded his chest.
“Alive is enough.”
he said softly, his voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor.
The Music Saint had always been a mouth of knives with a heart to match; in all the years Fu Yuqiu had known him, this was the first time he’d seen him this gentle.
But then again, it made sense.
Twenty years had passed. Everything in the Lower Realm had changed.
Something in Fu Yuqiu’s heart softened, and for once he didn’t bristle — he even nuzzled a little closer.
“Mm.”
The Music Saint’s chest grew even warmer.
…And with it came the sound of fabric catching fire.
The Music Saint blinked, and shoved Fu Yuqiu abruptly away.
The Phoenix lay curled docilely in Fu Yuqiu’s arms, eyes shut tight in innocent-looking sleep.
A tongue of Phoenix Fire had appeared from who-knew-where, and was now blazing merrily across the Music Saint’s snow-white robes.
The Music Saint: “…………”
