In this single moment of effort, the sword’s blazing light clashed with the bright aura of the Sharing Affection Banner. The previously dark and gloomy sky immediately glowed alight with an ominous dark red, as if all the gods and Buddhas of the heavens also felt fright. A howling gale rose from the earth, so fierce that those present could not open their eyes against the wind. A rainstorm abruptly began to pour, and the nearby grass houses crumbled into scattering ash.
Jiang Molou rushed up with lightning speed. His hand formed into a seal that barely managed to prop up a barrier, and he dragged Jiang Xunyi to retreat back.
The two of them hadn’t had any time to evade, when they suddenly heard Wei Xiuqi exclaim: “Shidi!”
Jiang Xunyi turned to see Nie Yan losing his balance and sliding off the mountain slope, on the verge of tumbling into the battle ring.
As the closest one to his falling figure, Jiang Xunyi immediately flew to save him. Jiang Molou grabbed Wei Xiuqi and threw him to the safe zone first, then followed right after.
The torrential rain rendered the soil loose and slippery, with gusts of wind periodically sweeping over the earth. Even Jiang Xunyi stumbled as he moved. He used all his strength to snatch Nie Yan and pull him up by his collar. Jiang Molou was about to catch up with him, so Jiang Xunyi stuffed Nie Yan into his arms and shouted: “Go! Stop dilly-dallying!”
Jiang Molou’s face was soaked with rainwater, but he didn’t even have a spare hand to wipe it away. He subconsciously took Nie Yan first and then reached out to Jiang Xunyi. But he was caught off guard by his wrist being unexpectedly grabbed. He was subsequently flung backward, leaving his hand grasping empty air.
Jiang Molou blurted out: “Ge!”
His voice was swallowed up by the huge roar between the heavens and the earth. Sword aura pierced the air like a rainbow passing through the sunlight. Midway through, the aura scattered into sword rain, striking downwards without rhyme or reason. After tossing Jiang Molou away, Jiang Xunyi immediately reversed his hand to unsheathe his sword. But what he did not expect was that when the sword rain was about to reach him, it actually curved around his body as if it had met an invisible barrier, without even touching a corner of his clothes.
In this moment, Jiang Xunyi reacted extraordinarily fast. He only froze for the briefest of instances and immediately understood: Yun Xie’s statement just now to “never hurt Jiang Xunyi” was a true “vow.”
This “vow” was equivalent to a kind of curse. When the speaker performed a corresponding seal at the same time as making the vow, a contract was formed that could not be disobeyed no matter what. Those who do not comply with their vow will inevitably suffer severe backlash.
Jiang Xunyi glanced at his left shoulder and indeed saw a ray of white light flashing before fading away.
However, under these circumstances with crackling lightning strikes, piercing sword aura, and plundering gales everywhere—Shit, and also a bunch of wailing useless trash in the background…. Jiang Xunyi didn’t have an ounce of time to feel moved. Since the protagonist was courting death, his brain was already about to explode from the screaming din of the System.
He was now quite close to Yun Xie’s location. He could hear Jiang Molou calling him, but the two of them could no longer see each other’s figures through the storm. Instead, this position allowed him to spy the current situation of Yun Xie and the Sharing Affections Banner clearly. The Sharing Affections Banner had quite obviously been provoked, and was currently stuck in a stalemate with Yun Xie. Wanderer Zihui had suffered a backlash of power and had collapsed on the side, her life or death unknown.
Jiang Xunyi’s sharp brows rose slightly, and he re-sheathed his sword. He subsequently pressed his left hand to his right wrist, and lightly called out: “Go!”
His right hand then formed an Empty Clasp1 and slowly lifted up. The empty air before him transformed into a meter-long teal blade, with violet streams of light circulating on the edge.
Jiang Xunyi arched his hand to throw this long sword formed from convergence of his primordial spirit up towards the sky. Controlling the sword with his vital energy, he directed it to strike downwards at the air right between Yun Xie and the Sharing Affections Banner.
The two sides currently stuck in a standstill now encountered a third force entering the fray, and naturally put up a fierce resistance. Jiang Xunyi’s long sword was immediately bounced away back up into the sky. He looked up, no panic appearing on his face. His two palms rapidly clapped together three times and then formed a chain of numerous complicated magic seals, making the blade dramatically grow over a hundredfold in size. In the span of a mere instant, it had become a giant sword that seemed capable of cleaving the heavens and the earth. It streaked across the sky like a meteor, chopping down once more with overwhelming force2.
With this clash of vital energies, rays of sunlight shot in all directions. The billowing black clouds of the night sky were painted in blooming color, as if ten thousand fireworks had blossomed with devastating beauty. The sword let out the sound of howling wind and booming thunder as it managed to slice halfway downwards before stagnating in place. Jiang Xunyi shouted: “Yun Xie, are you done yet?! Looking for trouble, are you? If you’re looking for trouble, I’ll play with you.”
Separated by a heavy cloud of smoke and fog, Yun Xie looked back at him. His originally pitch-black pupils were currently tinged blood-red, and his expression was something halfway between resisting and struggling.
Seeing his appearance showing faint signs of possession, Jiang Xunyi’s brows furrowed. His hands pressed together with even more force, and his primordial spirit sword cut another fraction deeper.
But just this additional fraction seemed to have exhausted his entire body’s vitality, and the sword could not move any further downwards. Just at this time, another crashing clamor erupted from mid-air, akin to the roaring of the mountains and seas, as the Sharing Affections Banner suddenly burst apart. Yun Xie’s sword aura flew horizontally, carrying his sword and his person to sweep over half the village. Having abruptly lost its opposition, Jiang Xunyi’s primordial spirit sword cleaved the air to carve a deep crevice into the earth.
However, Jiang Xunyi didn’t have the presence of mind to recover his vitality. He hurriedly turned back to search for Yun Xie, only to discover another person’s figure suddenly appearing from mid-air not too far away and catching Yun Xie in its arms.
With the appearance of this person, the clouds dispersed, the rain vanished, the windstorm came to a halt. The night stars glittered far into the distance, as if everything that had happened just now was just a dream. Only the utter chaos on the ground remained, to remind people that it all had been real.
Jiang Xunyi wiped the rainwater off his face and looked towards the other party. He found that the person holding Yun Xie was an old man with kind brows and pleasant eyes, his bald head polished and shiny enough to reflect the starlight. A wisp of a gray beard drifted gently from his chin. He wore Kāṣāya3 robes and a string of Buddhist prayer beads encircled his wrist, so from appearances he seemed like a monk.
He only “seemed like” a monk, because the old man’s other hand was holding something that looked to be a… chicken drumstick.
While the old man took a bite out of the chicken drumstick, he smiled and patted the closed-eyed Yun Xie resting on his body, and then spoke to Jiang Xunyi: “Amitabha, this old monk4 has heard of the Dual Jades of the Spirit Stage possessing inborn intelligence and exceptional physiques, rare geniuses in this world. This old monk has always yearned for a meeting. Now from today’s view, they are instead incomparably childish, foolish, rude, and impetuous. Their only redeeming quality would be their faces. Ah, it truly makes one sigh.”
He intentionally or unintentionally patted Yun Xie’s face. It was unclear if this was threatening Jiang Xunyi against reckless action, or sighing with emotion at Yun Xie’s fine looks.
“……..” Jiang Xingyi gnashed his teeth in anger, but still had to maintain a smile on his face: “I truly have never heard such a brilliant and wise opinion before. If I may dare ask, who is this distinguished person? What have you come here for?”
The old man smiled: “This old monk is not as famous as young master Jiang, so you wouldn’t recognize me even if I said it. My Dharma name5 is He Deng6. I have come here for you, of course.”
That last sentence was clearly a perfectly ordinary thing to say, but the way the old man said it somehow managed to add a hint of provocation and teasing. Jiang Xunyi glanced at the motionless Yun Xie in his arms and then looked away nonchalantly. He chose to ask a completely irrelevant and insignificant question: “What you’re holding in your hand right now is… a chicken drumstick?”
He Deng froze momentarily, but very quickly started to chuckle: “Yep.”
Looking at his posture, he seemed to be waiting for Jiang Xunyi to raise the doubt of why he was eating meat despite being a monk, to which he would mockingly respond with a “Wine and meat may pass through the intestines, but Buddha still remains in the heart.7”
However, Jiang Xunyi unexpectedly arched a brow: “Then I advise you to best put Yun Xie down.”
“……Why?”
“Because he absolutely hates oil getting on his clothes.”
Accompanying Jiang Xunyi’s words, the originally motionless Yun Xie straightened up, his left hand arcing to attack He Deng’s face with the speed of lightning. He Deng obviously had not expected a dignified sect master to actually use the childish tactic of playing dead, so under this great shock he hurriedly leaned back to evade. Yun Xie took the opportunity to flip backwards out of his range of control, landing by Jiang Xunyi’s side.
Jiang Xunyi didn’t even look at him, and only indifferently said: “You’re actually still alive. Your luck never runs out, huh?”
Yun Xie looked to Jiang Xunyi and gently said: “No matter the time or place, as long as you are with me, I will always possess infinite strength to keep going.”
Absolute nonsense! Unfortunately, right now was not the time to question him on what exactly he had done, so seeing him refuse to tell the truth, Jiang Xunyi unceremoniously said: “Then there must be something wrong with you.”
Yun Xie smiled, stretching his sleeves to wipe off a trace of blood by his lips and secretly straightening his back. He and Jiang Xunyi looked to be casually chatting, but in reality neither’s heart was relaxed. There was still a huge group of people behind them looking for trouble which had not yet been resolved. Now seeing this mysterious old man popping up too, who hadn’t yet made his stance clear between enemy or friend… the situation was simply a complete and utter mess.
However, even under such circumstances, a strange sense of pleasure emerged from Yun Xie’s heart. Even if Jiang Xunyi maliciously gave him the cold shoulder on the surface, when they did encounter an outside enemy, he still automatically stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. It gave Yun Xie the illusion that nothing had ever happened between them. Even if it was just deceiving himself… this was fine.
Footnotes:
1. 虚拢: 虚 = “empty, void, false”, while 拢 = “collect, hold together, gather”. Apparently this is a move in Taiji (Tai Chi) martial arts? But I couldn’t find an existing English translation so I just made one up lol.
3. You might recall 袈裟 (Kāṣāya) was mentioned back in Chapter 23 as a Buddhist monk’s outer robe, also called a monk’s cassock.
4. The old man consistently refers to himself as 老衲 which is literally “old monk”. He actually never refers to himself as “I”, but if I changed every single one of his “I”s to “this old monk” the dialogue would be a little too clunky. (Chinese sentence structure allows you to go whole paragraphs without saying “I”, but English is less forgiving.)
5. 法号 or Dharma name is a new name given to newly ordained Buddhist monks, nuns, etc. It is of course separate from their original 俗名 or “common name.”
6. 和灯: 和 = “harmonious, peaceful” while 灯= “lamp, light”
7. 酒肉穿肠过，佛祖心头坐 is apparently an actual saying in some Buddhist circles.