chapter 32

With an expression of speechlessly beseeching heaven, Yun Xie rolled his eyes. He slowly stood up and immediately switched faces to his most amiable and personable smile, as he explained: “I am currently…”

No one paid any attention to his words. A village woman who looked over 40 years old seemed to have been suddenly awakened from a dream. She rushed over with agile and swift movements, scaring Yun Xie to take a step back. In this short period of time, that woman had already thrown herself on the corpse and begun to weep her heart out: “My son… You were born under such an ill star, even after you’re gone you still have to undergo this kind of suffering… It’s all because Dad and Mom are so useless……”

The veins on Yun Xie’s popped and he was about to open his mouth to speak, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Jiang Xunyi with his arms crossed watching from the side, a hint of a smile playing around his lips. A thought raced through Yun Xie’s mind–he intentionally put on a helpless expression, the words at the tip of his tongue changing direction as he smiled bitterly and cupped his fists in salute: “Aunt2, you’ve misunderstood, I was just inspecting your esteemed son’s body, that’s all…”

The woman banged her head on the ground in her immense grief. She clutched his clothes, dragging the hem down to madly wipe her tears, and shouted: “Hurry and look! So heartless and conscienceless… this person saw my son’s handsomeness and actually did such a despicable thing yet does not admit it… As a little old lady, what can I do? Even after suffering this injustice, I can only swallow it down into my stomach…”

The woman’s tears intensified the more she cried, echoing up to the rafters with ever increasing pathos. Suddenly, her vision lit up as a shining white silver ingot shook in front of her eyes. Jiang Xunyi sighed from his crouched position: “Hold this then, as the fee for your singing performance.”

The village woman couldn’t understand the meaning of the last half of his speech, but this didn’t affect the lightning speed with which she took the silver from Jiang Xunyi’s hands and bit the ingot with her front teeth3.

Only after seeing her accept the money did Jiang Xunyi then glance over the faces of these Fang family members who had come over. He asked: “Aunt2, why is it that after seeing your son’s body to be in this state, you’re not surprised at all?”

The village woman had already finished checking the silver and was just about to happily stuff it into her bosom. Upon hearing Jiang Xunyi’s question, her expression immediately turned vigilant: “Where is there anything wrong with my boy? What’s there to be surprised at? I’m telling you guys, don’t think that……”

Jiang Xunyi quickly raised a hand to stop her: “Alright, alright, it was him who held malicious intent towards your son, he’s a contemptible person. But we’ve already given compensation, can you stop bringing up this topic for now?”

Yun Xie felt greatly wronged: “You clearly know that you are the only one for me4…”

Jiang Xunyi treated his words as utter nonsense, and didn’t even look back: “Shut up.”

Having successfully teased him, Yun Xie’s heart was already satisfied. He followed Jiang Xunyi to crouch down. While casually knocking on the corpse’s face, he idly said: “Me, interested in him? That’d be impossible even just based off his skin. I say, Aunt, can you tell me why your son’s body has so many threads and stitches?

The village woman glared at him and confidently said: “What’s so strange about that! Everyone’s like this, what’s special about my son?!”

Jiang Xunyi’s nostrils flared and he let out a cold scoff, with a tone of warning: “That’s about enough. If you want to extort more money, you still have to remain within the realm of reason. At least try to make up something a little closer to reality.”

A youth behind the village woman grew impatient and yelled: “It was obviously you guys who harmed my big brother’s body, what are you looking for an excuse for! It goes without saying that everyone’s like this, what, are you guys not?”

Yun Xie chuckled: “If everyone was like this, we’d all long since be dead already. Little kid, telling lies will get punished by thunder and lightning.”

After he said this, it was unclear if it was just his illusion, but he actually felt that all the villagers in front of him stiffened at the same time.

Yun Xie’s smile faded. He frowned and stood up, and exploratively tried a: “You all…….”

The talking youth stared straight into space, his eyes losing all focus, gaze fixated on him like a dead fish. In a dazed and wooden voice, he repeated: “Long since be dead already…. Long since dead already…”

His voice grew faster and faster, and more and more urgent. Soon, the people around him seemed to have been infected, and this chant transformed from one voice to many. Alarmed and bewildered, Jiang Xunyi said: “Were they bewitched?”

He raised his hand, a layer of purple light amassing at his fingertips, and hesitated for a moment. But who could have imagined that before the purple radiance even fired, all the villagers in front of them suddenly collapsed.

They truly did “collapse”: these people which had just now all been standing before the four of them, actually crumbled into a pile of scattered body parts.

Jiang Xunyi’s hand was still raised in mid-air, and it was a long while before he recovered. At a loss, he turned around to look at Yun Xie. Yun Xie opened his mouth to speak, when his expression suddenly changed and the words at his lips suddenly became a: “Not good!”

The echoes of his voice had not yet faded when Jiang Xunyi had already rushed out. Wei Xiuqi and Nie Yan fell behind, their eyes meeting in total confusion and ignorance. Nie Yan asked: “Shixiong, what’s not good?”

Wei Xiuqi frowned: “I don’t know. Everything about this place is strange, we should still follow them out to see.”

Nie Yan agreed and the two disciples turned to exit. But neither of the two saw that from the piles of body parts on the ground, a stream of black gas was overflowing, and gradually taking a shape…

Jiang Xunyi hurriedly ran outside, originally hoping to be able to save at least one or two people. But upon making it to the Fang family’s gate and seeing the scene outside, he instantly stopped in his tracks, his feet feeling as heavy as lead and incapable of taking another step.

Before his eyes, the village that had just now still been so lively and bustling… seemed to have become another world. Not even a whisper could be heard of the previous clamorous talking; instead, the atmosphere had solidified into an uneasy and disturbing dead silence. The farmers plowing the fields, the women embroidering in the yard, those villagers at the river bank who had just now been enthusiastically discussing among themselves, reluctant to leave… without exception, every single one had turned into a pile of horrifying dismembered corpse parts.

Like hell on earth.

In the same way, strands of black gas emerged from the corpse parts and spread through the air. However, Jiang Xunyi now had no way of seeing those small strands; for some unknown reason, at this moment those things seemed to have come alive, slowly squirming together to form an enormous human figure. It seemed to creep and crawl towards him, while his own limbs seemed to have suddenly become shackled down by invisible chains. Despite his great ability, he could only watch with wide eyes as that monstrous thing came closer and closer to himself…. In the distance, the sun had set in blink of an eye, leaving the heavens and the earth as black as pitch.

Uneasiness, like a man-eating python stalking and devouring its human prey, crawled up his spine, climbing up higher and higher…….

Suddenly, he felt a tightness and a warmth around his shoulders. Jiang Xunyi’s entire body quaked, and those illusory shackles immediately lost all control over him. He took a step back and gasped heavily for breath. He could feel how his cold sweat had already dampened his heavy clothing, as if he had just escaped from a nightmare. However, he now looked up once more to see the scene before him again: Even though the landscape was strewn with corpses, there was no longer that sinister and terrifying ambiance seeking to devour him. Instead, the sky above him was cloudless and the lazy sun shone down to illuminate the entire scene, giving one a clear sense of “life” and “existence.”

Jiang Xunyi let out a long breath, and straightened his back. Yun Xie retracted his hand. He knew Jiang Xunyi’s dogged pride, so he rapidly covered up the trace of concern in his own eyes: “This body of yours has not undergone training and is incapable of resisting illusions, be more careful.”

Then he stuffed a wad of something into Jiang Xunyi’s arms: “I just borrowed this from those two children––these current clothes of yours have almost broken down into rags. You should change first, in case you catch a cold.”

Jiang Xunyi silently glanced towards Yun Xie, and seemed to feel something different about him. If he had to pinpoint it down, it would be how his initially careful and apologetic attitude had changed into natural familiarity. The way Yun Xie now treated him was the same as back when the two of them had been so close as to be inseparable: casual, and not as polite.

But his shoulders still felt that residual warmth. It wasn’t clear if it was because his mood had not yet stabilized, but he actually accepted the clothes without saying a word. He didn’t even ask how Yun Xie had “borrowed” them from his beloved Hidden Spirit Sect disciples, and did not pursue his manner of address.

On the surface Yun Xie had successfully pretended to be a serious and strict big gray wolf, but in reality he was so nervous he could feel his heart hammering in his chest. Only when Jiang Xunyi accepted the clothes did he silently let out a breath of relief and feel his internal organs falling back to reality.

By now, the black gas emitted from all the corpses had gathered together, and condensed into a faint giant face in midair. Its eyes protruded from their sockets, its nose concave and its teeth long and sharp, looking extremely ferocious. Jiang Xunyi did not delay at all––he directly ripped off his tattered robes and threw them to the side, and spoke while putting on the clean clothes: “This is probably the residual air that came out from the thirteenth air aperture––sure enough, there was something afoot!”

His tone was very hurried. Yun Xie looked back intending to answer him, but he forgot his lines when his words had reached the tip of his tongue: Upon changing into the Hidden Spirit Sect uniform, Jiang Xunyi’s elegance shone through, his features as fine as a painting. The slim girdle and wide sleeves of those light blue robes inlaid with white seams made his posture even more graceful, a true talented beauty5. It seemed that at this very moment, the torrent of time had silently surged backwards, and those unspoken emotions of loss and grief departed to some faraway place. Looking back at the past and present, it was the person before him who was the only real thing in this world.

At the edge of this trance, the rays of light before his eyes seemed to rise and fall like waves of water, while the beautiful features of the other party were also caught in these ripples and blurred in his vision.

Yun Xie blurted out: “You look really good in those clothes.”

After all this time, Jiang Xunyi had finally received the opportunities to wear the clothes of his old sect, and there were some deep feelings rising in his heart. But this emotion had not had the time to ferment into desolation and sorrow, when it evaporated like the smoke thanks to Yun Xie’s incapability to remain serious for more than three seconds. Jiang Xunyi only treated it as Yun Xie looking for a beating, and his temper worsened accordingly: “Are you sick or something?6“

The fierce wind whipped up the sand and stone in the empty land before them, as the mass of black gas was already about to reach them. Yun Xie couldn’t help but laugh at Jiang Xunyi’s words, while casually tearing a branch off a nearby tree. Using this a sword, he stabbed towards the giant face in front of them.

In his hands, a simple tree branch became a peerless weapon of the ages. In a split second, the sword aura exerted its pressure on all present, and rainbow light dazzled the eye. Spiritual power and resentful energy smashed into each other, with a ripping and tearing sound that sent chills down one’s spine. At the same time, Wei Xiuqi and Nie Yan had chased on up. Their personal swords buzzed and hummed in unison, while Jiang Xunyi’s Extinguished Flower remained completely silent and still.

Wei Xiuqi’s surprise was mixed with disbelief, as he whispered: “Is that……who came?”

Their surroundings were too noisy; Jiang Xunyi was not able to hear the two most crucial words, so he casually asked: “Who is it?”

Footnotes:

1. I’m actually not super sure why the author chose this title 粉身… There are some things this chapter which may have a vague connection. Or it could also be a homonym for something slightly more relevant like 分身 😉

2. Again, Chinese loves using familial terms as a polite way to address people who aren’t actually related to you. 大婶 means “Aunt”, and is a respectful form of address to a woman around the age of your mother.

3. No, she’s not trying to eat it. Biting gold or silver is an old-fashioned way to crudely test the purity of the coin/ingot by seeing their softness. (The much softer lead was sometimes used to make fakes of silver coins.)

4. To be precise, Yun Xie says “我只对你….” which is an incomplete sentence. Literally translated, it would just be a fragment along the lines of “I only ___ for you” (yeah Chinese grammar is much different than English sometimes). It’s implied that what he intended to say was something like “I only hold those feelings for you”. I just did a more liberal translation.

5. 芝兰玉树 lit. “orchids and jade trees”

6. The connotations of this line is a little finicky to translate… Jiang Xunyi specifically says “你有病吧”, which literally translates to something like “Are you sick? / You’re sick, right.” However, the more liberal translation would be something like “Dude, what the hell’s wrong with you?”