chapter 29

Speaking to here, Huang Wei took a deep breath. His eyes widened, and his entire body unconsciously trembled, as if he could still see that scene. Although Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi were not afraid of these kinds of things, they were still a little bit infected by his expression. They unconsciously listened with bated breath, to hear Huang Wei say:

“I saw——I saw a sewing basket had fallen onto the ground inside the door, scattering its contents. That corpse was sitting on the ground, in the middle of using a needle to sew on the remaining half of his head! Seeing us enter, he continued sewing as he slowly turned his head to look at us—His eyeballs were like fake ones, wobbling in their sockets, as if they would fall out any second! Then his mouth slowly split open, and he smiled at me!”

Huang Wei’s voice grew louder and louder: “His teeth had begun to rot, so with this smile, I could see the dark yellow gums and….”

“Okay!” Yun Xie suddenly patted Huang Wei’s shoulder. Huang Wei’s voice abruptly stopped, his eyes still filled with fear that had not yet dissipated. He looked at Yun Xie with confusion and fright. Only after a long while did his gaze refocus. He sucked in a deep breath and wiped his face in dejection, forcing himself to raise his spirits: “That’s how it was. In short, this village is extremely weird and grotesque, and this was not the first time strange things have happened here.”

Jiang Xunyi murmured: “What then? Did that corpse attack you?”

Huang Wei shook his head. “We were all very badly frightened and ran out of the house. When we went back, that half of the head had already been sewed back on. The corpse was lying on the ground as it should have been all along, and showed no more abnormalities by the time it was buried.”

Jiang Xunyi rubbed his chin and did not speak for a long time, his thoughts still lingering on what the system’s purpose could be. It was instead Yun Xie who asked: “Besides this matter, have you seen with your own two eyes any other anomalies in this village?”

Huang Wei thought for a moment: “I have heard before that the people of this village have far too many strange bad habits. One of them is that they never eat hot food. I originally thought this was just hearsay. I didn’t expect that upon coming here in the dead of winter, I actually couldn’t even get hot water to drink. When I asked why, the people only said these were rules set by their ancestors. They didn’t know the original reason and have just followed this custom over the generations.”

Yun Xie recalled the events of the past couple days and realized that yesterday night in the village, Xu Da’s family had indeed brought only cold dishes for them as guests. A haze of suspicions clouded his mind. He felt that some faint idea had flashed through his head, but was unable to catch it in time. However, his face didn’t change expression as he nodded: “I understand. This matter…” He looked over at Jiang Xunyi and made sure he had no objections before continuing: “We will solve it.”

Jiang Xunyi sneered slightly. Yun Xie never said “We’ll do our best”, “We’ll try”, or any other similarly ambiguous promises. He had always been extremely confident he could do whatever he set his mind to, full of that protagonist’s aura.

His body probably did have some power to convince others; when Huang Wei listened to Yun Xie’s words, he really did breathe a sigh of relief and cup his hands in obeisance1, “Then I must greatly thank these two young noblemen.”

Yun Xie said: “Regarding Village Chief Wang’s son, you two go take it back and first lock it up. If I discover the truth of this place, maybe I can find a way to restore him to his original state…”

He hadn’t finished talking when a distant voice yelled towards the remaining villagers at the riverbank: “Are the people of the Fang family here? Hurry and come back with me, your little third son doesn’t have much time left!”

Jiang Xunyi perked up and immediately interrupted Yun Xie: “Another death, let’s go see!”

He felt that it really was quite lucky of them to be able to make it to the rare occasion of a death. Out of his eagerness to solve this case, his running sped up and he left Yun Xie in the dust a few steps behind. Just as his front foot stepped into the door, he looked up, and could not hold back his surprise.

Inside the door stood two fine-featured youths dressed in light blue robes decorated with sea waves, their sleeves fluttering and personal swords hanging by their waists—the standard for Hidden Spirit Sect disciples. Jiang Xunyi saw their get-up and immediately felt a cold wind blowing past his unmasked face. He unconsciously turned straight around to leave, and crashed right into the Yun Xie behind him.

Yun Xie froze for a moment. He quickly caught sight of the two youths and instantly reacted to pull Jiang Xunyi behind him, blocking him from their sight. His mind raced to think of what he should say to mediate.

Unexpectedly, the two teenagers only stared in confusion at their chain of actions. The two of them looked at each other before one of the youths cupped his hand in greeting1: “Hidden Spirit Sect’s Wei Xiuqi and Nie Yan. You two are?”

These two youths appeared to not recognize Jiang Xunyi, and actually seemed to have never seen Yun Xie before either. Hearing these two names, Jiang Xunyi suddenly remembered that Hidden Spirit Sect had always set up a branch garrison in the Western Region. Many disciples there only stayed in that remote area and had never even come to the Central Plains. Only after his own defection did these Western disciples follow Jiang Molou back to the main sect, so it was normal for him to have never met them. He had once read over the name list of branch disciples, and seemed to recall these two names truly had been among them.

He thus heaved a sigh of relief, and turned back from behind Yun Xie: “Ah, so the two of you are originally immortal masters from the Hidden Spirit Sect. The two of us are but nameless pawns, not worth mentioning. My surname is Du, his is Yun. We passed through here just to put up for the night. After hearing a life was lost, we came over to check it out.”

Yun Xie did not know the inside story, but hearing Jiang Xunyi’s tone, he knew the crisis was gone. He thus followed Jiang Xunyi’s lead to smile, and nodded at the two youths.

The two youths probably could never have imagined any famous figures appearing in this remote and desolate place, so Jiang Xunyi being too lazy to make up different surnames did not attract their attention. Wei Xiuqi looked these two men over: although it was said that one could not tell the age of a cultivator, both of these people had magnificent appearances, with dazzling elegance as well as still-tender youth. However, their bodies gave off the aura of seasoned veterans acting cool2, plus the long sword by Jiang Xunyi’s waist looked vaguely familiar. Wei Xiuqi therefore cupped his hands in obeisance1 again, and politely called out “Young master Yun, young nobleman Du.” He then explained: “Nie-Shidi and I were also passing by here when we felt this village had an extremely heavy atmosphere of death. Then when we entered, we heard someone had passed away here, so we came here to see what was going on. Since we have encountered each other like this, why not go in together?”

Yun Xie secretly shot a glimpse at Jiang Xunyi, and flatteringly said: “That would be excellent. I have long since heard that although the Hidden Spirit Sect’s disciples come from such an illustrious background, their bearing and demeanor are all first class without exception. This humble one has admired them for too long. Now seeing them first-hand today, this reputation is indeed fully justified.”

This painstaking effort was really tough on poor Yun Xie. Normally, aside from when he looked in the mirror, he never gave anyone else the honor of looking straight at them. Nowadays in order to please Jiang Xunyi, he was even shamelessly saying such things to two mere juniors3.

Jiang Xunyi secretly spat in his heart, but a hint of a smile leaked out in the way his eyes curved. After all, everyone loved listening to pleasant words of praise. Even Nie Yan on the side, who didn’t seem to like speaking, could not help but show his face: “Young master Yun is too polite. Since it has been thus settled, then please go ahead.”

The four people entered the house together. Upon walking halfway, they could hear faint sounds of sorrowful weeping. Wei Xiuqi and Nie Yan were still unpracticed and inexperienced, and had not witnessed many partings of life and death. They could not help but show a faint expression of being unable to bear this. On the other hand, Yun Xie’s refined and cultured false smile still hung on his face like a mask as he stepped forward at a normal pace.

Only Jiang Xunyi’s footsteps paused. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath as the spinning scene before his eyes made him dizzy. The lamenting cries in the distance seemed to evoke another memory, appearing in his mind like returning waves beating against the shore——

That scene did not belong to the current antique and ancient world. High-rises, elevators, long hallways, white doctor’s coats coming and going… That was the hospital he used to live in. Jiang Xunyi had been placed on the top floor. In those two years when he was sick, he was the only patient in that entire floor. Except for that scene, the only other things he could see were his parents and older brothers coming to visit from time to time, as well as the medical staff. That monotonous white color could almost drive one insane.

So when the day came that he felt he was finally going to leave this place, he could almost say he let out a sigh of relief. However, his parents’ bitter weeping and the pain of parting had been transmitted into his heart. At the same time that unwillingness and reluctance surfaced in his heart, he suddenly heard an inorganic mechanical voice: [Through transmigrating into a novel and finishing tasks, you can earn this one chance to come back to life. Does the host accept?]

Alarm and fear, joy and surprise, confusion and bewilderment, hope and anticipation… all kinds of emotions had mixed and intertwined at that time. Now remembering back, it seemed like only yesterday. And after coming to this world, he took those first difficult steps until he gradually adapted, and then personally overturned everything he had built…

Suddenly, a pair of hands warmer than his own body pressed down on his shoulders, actually scalding enough that Jiang Xunyi’s soul returned from its wandering and he gave a start. He opened his eyes to meet Yun Xie’s worried and anxious expression: “I called you many times and you didn’t answer, what are you standing here for? Is your body uncomfortable again?”

His gentle eyes were tender with concern. But Jiang Xunyi instantly felt like he seemed to have been seen through, or perhaps he was extraordinarily unwilling to show weakness in front of his person—he waved aside Yun Xie’s hand to fiercely and angrily say: “It’s nothing!”

But this time, Yun Xie did not let go as usual. Instead, he flipped his hand to grasp Jiang Xunyi’s wrist, and coldly said: “Jiang Xunyi, are you done?”

Footnotes:1. 拱手 indicates cupping your hands in a greeting/salute, like in this picture: 2. 装逼 = Acting/pretending to be cool even when you’re not actually that cool on the inside 3. 后辈 lit. “later generations”. Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi are still quite young themselves, but these disciples are basically still teenage kids, so Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi definitely have the honor of seniority here.