Chen He felt puzzled. He had never heard of this name before. Or rather, it was not in the jade orbs.
In the first jade orb he had left important hints for himself after viewing one-seventh of the box of jade orbs. Chen He could not forget something as crucial as his cultivation origins.
That master who had long died and left only a name behind, Nanhongzi he was called, was said to have gained insight into the Dao through martial arts.
—and that was all! Had it not been mentioned today, Chen He would have thought his Master and Senior Brother were rogue cultivators without a sect.
This meant that in Black Depths Valley where he had lived since young, not a single person had mentioned the Beixuan Sect, and they still made up stories every single day!
The jade orbs could only record things that had happened, and it was impossible for them to know what even the owner thought. Besides, Shi Feng had hidden the box. Of course, Chen He did not remember how they made up those nonsensical stories, but it was easy to guess. Senior Brother had probably taken on the role of every demon, beast, or spectre there was.
The people of Black Depths Valley spoke as freely as flowing rivers and made all sorts of boasts, but no one had mentioned the true name of the sect Shi Feng and Chen He belonged to?
Clearly, this Secret Beixuan Treasure had many implications!
Chen He lowered his head and cowered in his senior brother’s arms, pretending to be scared stiff and trembling, which happened to cover up Shi Feng’s unusual change. The Divine Master’s gaze swept over Chen He, the hardly detectable hint of a cold smile in his eyes.
—Shi Feng had taken in another disciple, was he trying to alleviate his loneliness?
This child’s cultivation base was not even enough to form a Golden Core, yet he protected the child so fervently!
Burdens had the most plentiful thing in Shi Feng’s life, but now, when he was alone and could do anything his heart desired, he had obtained another burden. What was there to say, fate was determined by the heavens, and some people would never think differently even if they fell and broke their heads. What folly.
The Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain spoke slowly, “If you and I join forces, we can destroy the demonic sect’s inheritance, and the Secret Beixuan Treasure, which has been sealed away for eight thousand years, may see the light of day once more.”
Shi Feng raised a hand to wipe away the blood by his mouth.
Deep red dripped off his fingertips. It did not fall into the lake below, instead dispersing into a light mist of blood.
He kept his back straight throughout, shielding Chen He securely within the crook of his arm. The narrow, hooked corners of his eyes lifted, and he said coolly, “The Beixuan Sect has become a thing of the past. You alone can spend effort on the matter of the treasure.”
This time, no blood gushed forth when he spoke, and his voice gradually went from tight and hoarse to something smoothly flowing. Cultivators could take up to decades whenever they performed closed-door cultivation and no one had lost the ability to speak just because of that. Naturally, it would be the same for Shi Feng.
“Shi Feng!”
Astounded, the Divine Master barked disbelievingly, “Do you really not want the treasure?”
“Every few hundred years, someone in the cultivation world will search for the Secret Beixuan Treasure, and how does it turn out in the end?”
“This time is different!” the Divine Master blurted out.
After saying it, he regretted it a little, but he continued to put up his front, nodding proudly, “I would expect you to guess a little of it even if I hadn’t talked about this. Since this has to do with the inheritances of an ancient demonic sect, I obtained this news from those of the demonic Dao. However, although those morons discovered the records of the demonic sect’s inheritance on an old bronze cauldron, they ignored the secret of the cauldron itself; it was left behind by the Beixuan Sect eight thousand years ago!”
But Shi Feng did not discuss the matter of the cauldron. He clung to the main point that the Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain had skipped over, smiling mockingly, “You ‘obtained’ news from those of the demonic Dao?”
The Divine Master froze, then said, as if nothing was wrong, “There’s no mistake with this news. We cannot delay, for if the demonic cultivators get ahead of us, or people stir up a commotion about this, it would not be anything we’d like to see.”
“Liang Qianshan, I have no interest in your jokes.”
Shi Feng did not even look back.
“You, even if you’ve long since abandoned everything, do you not care for the Beixuan Sect?” Shellshocked, the Divine Master rushed forward on his sword, pointing at Chen He, “I know your cultivation base is powerful, and you don’t care for opportunities for power or treasures on this earth, but what about your disciple, are you going to let him be mundane and die at two hundred years of age after reaching the Core Formation stage? Shi Feng, how long more can you remain in this world, you think your disciple can follow you if you go? Even if you reincarnate, or go to the underworld, can you keep bringing him around with you?”
Chen He felt Shi Feng’s arm tense. He immediately feigned terror and leaned against Shi Feng’s arm, attempting to placate his Senior Brother.
He knew where Shi Feng’s fury came from—not because this guy called Liang Qianshan talked about him, but because he mentioned the word ‘disciple’.
This word was definitely taboo for Shi Feng. Even now, Chen He did not know the names of Shi Feng’s disciples.
“All your life you’ve carried these burdens…Fine, all your life you’ve treasured emotional bonds, and what did you get in the end? The Juhe Sect maligned you of joining the demonic Dao, the Beixuan Sect’s completely destroyed. Now you have a great chance, if you find the Secret Beixuan Treasure…”
Before the Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain had finished speaking, Shi Feng had left the place.
“How immensely inflexible.” Liang Qianshan the Divine Master frowned, infuriated.
After hesitating for a bit, he did not take the risk of continuing to pursue them.
—the Divine Master did not believe Shi Feng had absolutely no interest in the Secret Beixuan Treasure.
“How did Shi Feng get injured?” Liang Qianshan felt that there was something very fishy about this.
There had been no major disturbances in the northwestern deserts, which meant Shi Feng did not sustain injuries during a battle with someone. Besides, it was not so easy to find someone who could cause critical damage to the Blood Demon.
The deserted wastelands north of the border pass and the area south of the Great Snowy Mountain were all within Liang Qianshan’s sphere of control.
Shi Feng should have been in Black Depths Valley in the southern lands. What was he doing, secretly running back to the northwest with a newly accepted disciple?
“Could it be that he already knew the position of the Secret Beixuan Treasure and personally took a trip to check on it, and got heavily injured?” The Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain narrowed his eyes. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
Because he had to look after that child in his arms, Shi Feng could only use his true essence to break the Qiankun Abbey’s Spring Breeze Sound Enchantment. But for Shi Feng, something like this was as easy as lifting a finger, and it could not possibly injure him. The only possibility was that Shi Feng had already been heavily injured before this.
This could be verified by observing Shi Feng’s visage and overall appearance.
Otherwise why would he spew blood just from talking, he was not one of those narrow-minded monks who practised the Silence Meditation.
(TN: Here we have the thought process of someone who is misunderstanding stuff.)
Not knowing that his thoughts had taken a wrong turn, the more the Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain thought about it, the more he felt that Shi Feng had been badly injured, with severe implications. It was at a point where using his true essence made him vomit blood; he had seen clearly how every word spoken had made blood spill from Shi Feng’s mouth.
—it had better not be Shi Feng purposely appearing to lure him out in pursuit, with another Immortalisation-level master lying in wait in Cangshi Town and moving to take the Secret Beixuan Treasure away after the Divine Master of the Great Snowy Mountain left!
“Curse it!”
Feeling that he had been fooled, the Divine Master activated his sword and flew back in a hurry.
On this end, Shi Feng travelled a great distance with Chen He before putting away that cloud-like magic item beneath his feet, stopping in a bamboo forest within the mountains. He coughed continuously, unable to withhold it any longer.
“Senior Brother!” The moment Chen He’s feet touched the ground, he was so worried that he immediately tried to feel Shi Feng’s wrist and use his spiritual energy to help.
Shi Feng raised a hand to stop him, and the blood flowing from between his fingers splashed onto a bamboo plant next to them.
The brownish-red spots soaked in rapidly; first, the lush, curved leaves wilted, then the stems turned from green to yellow, and in a flash, all of it turned black. Since these bamboo plants grew in clusters, with over ten plants growing closely together, the entire cluster wilted after a few moments, standing there with an aura of death hanging about them.
“S…Senior Brother, did you get poisoned?” Chen He turned his head, terrified.
Such horrifying effects caused by a single drop of blood could only be a strong poison rarely seen even in the cultivation world.
Shi Feng’s gaze darkened. He shook his head.
Chen He got busy with wiping away the blood on Shi Feng’s clothes and hands. In his haste, he even tore off the cloth he used to cover his face during their escape and used it.
Anxiously, cautiously, he asked, “Senior Brother, are you really okay, what poison is this?”
Shi Feng paused for a while before slowly saying, “I have not been poisoned.”
“Ah!” Chen He instinctively reached out to cover his senior brother’s mouth. With wide eyes, he said fearfully, “Senior Brother, you don’t have to talk, it should be very safe here.”
Without moving, Shi Feng looked at his junior brother over the latter’s arm.
The rage and helplessness brought on by his past affairs slowly subsided.
—people could not be revived after death; all that was left was the next life and karma. The Beixuan Sect had become part of history, like sand and dust that could not be held in the hand. Even if one were to hold on to them, they would eventually be scattered in the wind, without a single trace remaining.
His Junior Brother, that would be the most important person to him in this life.
The wind made rustling noises as it blew through the bamboo. In the mountains and valleys, there was not a sign of life anywhere.
The pair stared at each other without speaking. This quiet atmosphere was soon broken by Chen He.
“Uh!” Chen He thought he had covered too tightly, quickly taking his hand off.
“The Silence Meditation has been broken. Speaking will not harm me,”
Shi Feng explained, before Chen He got jumpy again.
“This Divine Master of the Snowy Mountain is so wicked!” Chen He secretly made a note of Liang Qianshan.
“The leaders of Qiankun Abbey of the Great Snowy Mountain were State Priests for the previous dynasty. After the previous dynasty died out completely, they came to the land beyond the border. It has been less than three hundred years since.”
“Three hundred years? Not even that much?” Chen He immediately covered his mouth after saying it. How embarrassing; he had forgotten that in the cultivation world, any Nascent Soul-level cultivator could live up to four hundred years.
But before Chen He’s hand reached his face, it was grabbed suddenly by Shi Feng.
—his fingers were forcibly spread out, and Shi Feng only let go after wiping off the blood that had previously stained Chen He’s hand.
“Senior Brother, didn’t you say you weren’t poisoned?” Chen He asked carefully.
In reality, he was a little foreign to all this, ‘speaking’ with Senior Brother and whatnot. Were it not for Chen He having only a day’s worth of memories, he would probably be speaking so formally that he could not phrase his words properly.
“This is not poison.”
Shi Feng looked straight at the wilted bamboo plants next to him. With a flick of his sleeve, the entire cluster of bamboo turned to dust.
This sight astonished Chen He so that his gaze was blank, but he heard his senior brother say in a low voice, “Earlier, you heard that person say the Juhe Sect had maligned me of joining the demonic Dao.”
“Right!” Chen He got back to his senses, making a heavy note of the Juhe Sect.
He had no jade orbs, he had to get paper and brush to write it down later, he could not forget!!
Shi Feng paid no heed to Chen He’s expression. He gazed towards the pile of scattered dust, saying in a heavy tone, “In fact, they would not be entirely wrong.”
“Ah?”
“Although I am not a demonic cultivator, the practices of our sect have been cultivated by myself to an extent more fearsome than demonic practices,” Shi Feng said lightly. “Life will decline when it reaches the limit; things will be subverted when pushed to the brink. My true essence contains an all-destroying power that can turn living beings to dried bones, and even my blood can devour life and thus destroy its possessor. Magic items, true essence, the things of this world; there is no exception. Thus they despise me and dread me, but none dare approach.”
Chen He listened in a stupor, then suddenly snapped out of it and wiped off the blood on his forehead.
“No, that’s not it, I touched Senior Brother’s blood and nothing happened to me.”
This silly junior brother.
Shi Feng was dumbfounded. He did not understand why Chen He was at times sharp and intelligent, yet at times unable to grasp the key point.
Perhaps he had been confused in his concern. Seeing Chen He speak so confidently, Shi Feng could not resist smiling.
“Our cultivation practices have the same origins. So long as you do not drink it, it will not affect you.”
Chen He did not have an immediate realisation, but he finally understood why Senior Brother had brought him along, burdensome as he was. Why Liang Qianshan had looked at him several times but still did not attack.
—for he was fearful of Shi Feng, and even more fearful of the blood on Chen He that had not yet dried.
Divine Master’s name = Liang Qianshan 凉千山. ‘Qianshan’ literally means ‘a thousand mountains’, and as far as I can see, the only significance is that this name sounds good. (If you ask me, this is the best part of this character HAHAHA)