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Chapter 27: Rain-Soaked Bell
(T/N: the title is that of a famous poem which depicts lovers parting.The poem is infused with longing, descriptions of scenery and experiences changing with time, and the lingering mood dwelling within at these changing sights and circumstances. The author of the poem uses restrained prose to express his sorrow at the uselessness of bright and fine days without someone to share them with.)
Facts have proven that the protagonist’s halo truly defied the natural order of the world. The cave where Shen Feixiao was located was actually the entrance to the Hidden Treasure Pavilion. When the originally smooth ground suddenly swelled up, Shen Feixiao did not understand what happened. However, after all the dust settled, Shen Feixiao found that he had entered the secret realm (T/N: think author meant to write “treasure pavilion”).
What kind of luck was this? After Qin Kaiyi learned what happened to Shen Feixiao, he deeply sighed again at how the protagonist was a kind of unnatural existence. Even entering a cave could lead to such good encounters.
But at the moment Qin Kaiyi was not in such a good mood. Although he knew that Shen Feixiao was not dead, he still worried about the safety of Shen Feixiao. After all, there were hidden mechanisms everywhere in the treasure trove, and in one moment of carelessness one could fall into damnation without hope of reprieve.
After the Treasure Pavilion rose completely, Qin Kaiyi began to rush towards it silently. As the author of this book, Qin Kaiyi naturally knew what would happen in the Treasure Pavilion. In fact, it was simple: nothing more than killing and seizing treasure, along with a scheduled program of betrayal and running away. The Hidden Treasure Pavilion was like the Eight Trigrams (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua). It had a round shape, and its middle was separated using an array. The most precious treasure of heavenly materials laid in the center–the Rain-Soaked Bell.
Although the name sounded unusually gentle, this Rain-Soaked Bell was not a decent thing.
This treasure was birthed from the hands of Lingshan Sect’s ancestor Xue Xian, and had a poetic name but was steeped in blood. Its shape was light like sand (T/N: not sure how a shape can be light, these are the actual words), and it looked like a cyan muslin cloth from afar, with an intoxicating aroma. No matter how one looked at it it wouldn’t be associated with killing.
But this seemingly gentle and beautiful weapon was made from the souls of dozens of powerful cultivators in the Returning to Void stage.1 These still conscious souls were placed into a parasite jar2 along with a mythical soul-sucking spider. After waiting for tens of millions of years for that spider to finish absorbing all those souls, the silk produced by that spider was made into a cloth not even three chi (T/N: one-third of a meter) long.
Although it sounded like nothing special, how could Xue Xian’s method stop here? Qin Kaiyi was already unable to remember certain details about the Rain-Soaked Bell, but he still clearly knew how horrible the weapon that was about to fall into Shen Feixiao’s hands was. And this wouldn’t be the only thing Shen Feixiao picked up in the secret realm… In fact, to Qin Kaiyi, the most important thing Shen Feixiao received in the secret realm was a person’s friendship.
Yes, a friendship.
After entering the Treasure Pavilion, Shen Feixiao would meet the second woman in his life–Tang Shayun. The origins of this woman were not ordinary. She not only had a natural demonic body, but she was also the daughter of the sect head of one of the most brutal demonic sects. She would help Shen Feixiao a lot in the future. Thinking up to here, Qin Kaiyi’s heart felt a bit sour… Well, he had to admit that he was a little envious of Shen Feixiao’s excellent luck.
According to the original novel, Shen Feixiao secretly followed the Lingshan Sect team into the treasure trove. Qin Kaiyi didn’t know how great the difference between the changed plot and the original was, but he was still a bit worried. He was most afraid of the butterfly effect. His knowledge of the plot was his greatest bargaining chip. If the plot suddenly changed, Qin Kaiyi could not bear the consequences.
When Yan Gu saw the huge building in front of him, he was silent and didn’t chat back and forth with Qin Kaiyi again. That face that was exactly the same as Qin Kaiyi’s, yet somehow many times more seductive, held a contemplative expression. After a while, he said to Qin Kaiyi: “How are you planning to enter?”
“Me?” Qin Kaiyi reached through the mask and touched his nose. “Do you have any good suggestions?”
“I do, but I’m afraid you won’t listen.” Yan Gu’s expression held a touch of mockery.
“Tell me and let’s see.” Qin Kaiyi frowned. No matter how he looked at it, Yan Gu’s face was not pleasing… Couldn’’t Yan Gu change it?
“I know a secret passage.” Yan Gu pretended not to see Qin Kaiyi’s discomfort: “You can reach the inside of the Treasure Pavilion through that secret passage. After that, as long as you follow my instructions, you’ll have no trouble getting my thing.”
“No.” Qin Kaiyi flatly refused: “I’m worried about my shidi.”
“I knew it.” Yan Gu sneered: “You still care a lot about your little shidi. How come, he has something you want?”
“Yes, this was discovered by you.” Qin Kaiyi didn’t hide it, and directly said to Yan Gu: “You should be very familiar with the hidden mechanisms in the treasure trove? You help me find the little shidi first, then I’ll accompany you to the ‘injury’ door to get what you want, how about that?
“Though that is something I can do,” Yan Gu’s voice was lazy, “don’t think of using me to find treasures. The things in the treasure trove are all Xue Xian’s. I don’t want to be a villain.”
“Relax, I’m not interested in those.” Qin Kaiyi said with interest: “It seems that you have a good relationship with Xue Xian?”
“Good my ass.” There was an indistinct blush at the base of Yan Gu’s ears. “Are you going or not, in the time you spend dithering even your shidi’s bones might disappear.”
“En.” Qin Kaiyi flew directly towards the entrance of the Treasure Pavilion.
At this time, suddenly eight orange beams of light emerged from the ground on all four sides of the Treasure Pavilion. The beams of light seemed to extend all the way to the originally dark and cloudy sky, illuminating it. Flying high above, Qin Kaiyi observed the layout of the Treasure Pavilion. He decided to go to the “rest” door within the “life” door first. If he proceeded without incident, then he should be able to find Shen Feixiao.
Having determined his goal, Qin Kaiyi made a hand seal  and flew towards the beam of light where the “rest” door was. He was not afraid of others discovering his traces, because after practicing the secret method given to him by Yan Gu, he rarely worried about being discovered by righteous cultivators.
The entrance of the “rest” door was not too far away from where Qin Kaiyi set off from. Qin Kaiyi arrived at his destination in a few breaths of time. Instead of rushing to find Shen Feixiao, he first found a place to hide.
Unexpectedly not much time passed before a cluster of people wearing Lingshan Sect and Ice and Fire Sect uniforms came flying over. Qin Kaiyi took a closer look and found that the leader was actually the person who had hit him and made him faint when he first came into the secret realm–Yan Buxuan.
Yan Buxuan didn’t find Qin Kaiyi hiding in the dark. He led a group of disciples, cast a solemn glance at the “rest” door in front of him,  and then turned his head to a woman wearing tsing (T/N: meaning either blue or green or black) clothes to say: “Miss Tang, this is the ‘rest’ door you spoke of?”
Huh? There seemed to be something not quite right? Hearing Yan Buxuan’s words, Qin Kaiyi clearly felt something was wrong.
“It’s here.” The woman who spoke wore a tsing-colored gown with veined patterns across it, with an immortal phoenix imprinted on the back of her wide skirt, bright as spring flowers. The jet-black luster of her fine hair was simply bound up in a flying cloud topknot (T/N: a hairstyle worn by ancient Chinese women), and a few cloud and phoenix gold hairpins randomly adorned her hair, making those gleaming strands seem even more lustrous.
“Then Miss Tang, after you.” Yan Buxuan still had that gentle and refined appearance, without even a hint of a flaw.
“En.” The girl in the tsing-colored robes raised her arm slightly, and just like that drew a formation in midiar.
Looking at the scene in front of him, Qin Kaiyi was completely dumbfounded. Who is this woman called Tang?? According to the plot of the novel, shouldn’t they break the formation hard through brute force? What was this baffling situation?? And he didn’t see Shen Feixiao’s figure at all… had the story changed?
Before Qin Kaiyi could even think “of course,” he saw that with the woman’s movements, the tightly  shut door actually shone with a blue light.
“The next step I’ll leave to Yan gongzi (T/N: gongzi = son of a noble/official).” The woman was covered with a thin layer of sweat, smiling and looking at Yan Buxuan standing behind her: “Please.”
“Miss Tang, are you sure there won’t be any problems?” Yan Buxuan obviously didn’t trust her.
“Of course.” The girl smiled: “This Tang Shayun will always do what she says she will. So Yan gongzi, don’t forget your promise.”
“Of course.” Yan Buxuan nodded slightly, and gave an order to the disciple behind him: “Break through!”
At this time, Qin Kaiyi was completely befuddled. When he heard the woman’s self-reported name, he felt that he had landed in a terrible illusion. She said that she was Tang Shayun?? Is she crazy or is he himself crazy?? Why did Shen Feixiao’s harem member appear in front of Yan Buxuan, and it even looked like their relationship was not bad??
The more Qin Kaiyi thought the more his expression distorted. He really didn’t know what the plot had become. In the novel Tang Shayun was a demonic cultivator, but Yan Buxuan met her and actually didn’t directly try to stab her to death…
While Qin Kaiyi was still entangled, Tang Shayun, Yan Buxuan, and his team had easily broken through the formation. Qin Kaiyi didn’t know exactly what kind of technique Tang Shayun had used to open the “rest” door. The heavy casualties and injuries that should have occurred did not, and Yan Buxuan easily took a team of disciples into the treasure trove.
Qin Kaiyi frowned tightly, just when he felt completely confused, the system prompt sound that had been screwing him all along actually gave him the answer: [System prompt: Please prevent the transmigrated person from changing the plot; help Shen Feixiao get the Rain-Soaked Bell; 50% progress will be deducted for failure; prevent the transmigrated person from changing the plot; help Shen Feixiao get the Rain-Soaked Bell; 50% progress will be deducted for failure.]
… Transmigrated person? Changing the plot? Qin Kaiyi instantly understood what was happening… If the system wasn’t wrong, then the one named Tang Shayun might be someone else who had transmigrated?
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Notes
This chapter was difficult to translate. So many references to ancient poems. So much flowery language. Endless amounts of strange cultivation terms…
The author doesn’t really specify any rankings of cultivation stages so far. All we know is that Qi Refining is first, then foundation-building, then fasting. We know that Nascent Soul is below Ascension as well. We don’t know where Return to Void sits among these stages.  The jar for a legendary venomous insect, supposedly created by putting many venomous insects within the same jar and waiting to see which one survives after consuming the rest.
Happy Memorial Day for the U.S. readers out there! To celebrate, three chapters today!
Completely unrelated to Memorial Day, but here we go!