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Editor: Sahloknir
The next morning, a young man with a handsome face, dressed in white and silver armour, stood outside the door of the Xuanji Palace. However, his brows were deeply knitted. When the light hit his face, the seemingly handsome countenance looked slightly haggard.
Deep in thought, the young man continuously took half a step forward and then retreated, taking two steps forward before stopping, as if hesitating in making up his mind.
The disciple who was guarding the palace stared at this strange scene before finally asking, “What’s wrong with you, Wen Shixiong?”
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Hearing the question, Wen Xiuyang was jolted out of the haze of his thoughts. He let out a long breath and responded through clenched teeth, “Nothing.”
He then pushed the door open with a stiff face.
The morning light shone through the verdant bamboo forest and in through the carved, black jade window onto the two men sitting opposite each other in the hall. Xu Shuangtze was expressionless and upright at all times, his ivory-white robe today had black trimmings and was embroidered with the golden emblem of the Cang Yang Sect. The boy opposite him was about sixteen, his complexion was almost translucent in the morning sun, so that it seemed to glow with light. He was clumsily reciting his book—it was Gong Wei.
Wen Xiuyang did not dare to look up, standing still and greeting, “Sovereign, this disciple is here for duty.”
Xu Shuangtze did not look at him, but gestured with his hand.
Gong Wei got up from his futon to salute his shixiong, but as soon as he moved, Xu Shuangtze stopped him, “Continue reciting.”
Wen Xiuyang lowered his gaze and retreated to the stone pillars in the main hall, only to hear Gong Wei mutter “Aww” as he sat back down and continued to recite his book.
It was probably because of yesterday’s deep affection and hope from Lord Xu, that had touched the heavens, which resulted in the dull disciple successfully reciting the first volume of the Soul Fixing Spell after a night-long effort.
Although there were mistakes made, Lord Xu only had to frown a little, and his disciple would immediately correct himself. After repeating this eighteen times, Gong Wei finally stumbled to the end of the recitation. The last two or three sentences were too tough for him to handle, so he dragged his feet for half an hour before finally finishing it.
Xu Shuangtze quietly said, “Although you can recite it, you are still not fluent.”
Gong Wei only wanted to stall for time and did not want to be sent to Cold Mountain Prison for three to five days, so he immediately said, “This disciple dares not disappoint Shizun’s teachings, I had already memorised it last night, but I was so nervous when I saw Shizun that I couldn’t recall it. I will go back and study hard for two more days, and will definitely be able to recite the entire first scroll fluently.
Xu Shuangtze frowned and asked, “Why are you nervous?”
Gong Wei said solemnly, “This is because the Sovereign’s divine authority is intimidating.”
“But this Sovereign is your master.”
Immediately, Gong Wei said, “Yes.”
“So as soon as you see me, you should feel close to me, why are you intimidated by my divine might?”
“…”
Xu Shuangtze continued, “So it must be because you’re not diligent enough.” A faint hint of dissatisfaction was evident in his tone.
“…”
Gong Wei stood frozen for a long time, rendered speechless by Xu Shuangtze’s response. Realising that he had been too quiet, Gong Wei took a sharp breath and quickly responded, “Shizun is wise, I really admire you!”. He then quickly bowed his head and sorrowfully continued, “This disciple indeed has another reason for the unpracticed recitation just now!”
Xu Shuangtze said, “Oh, what is it?”
“This disciple studied hard all night, and was so intent on not disappointing Shizun’s teachings and high expectations that I did not care to eat, and did not even have a good breakfast. Hence I am unable to recite the first volume fluently just now because I am too hungry! I promise I will be fine after lunch, so I seek your understanding, Shizun!”
The hall was quiet.
“…”
Xu Shuangtze looked fixedly at Gong Wei, his expression unchanging. Gong Wei could even see his own reflection in his eyes and paused before hearing him say.
“Very reasonable.”
Wen Xiuyang, who was previously fearful of making a sound, now felt like his heart was going to stop beating any time.
With a single wave of his hand, Xu Shuangtze cast a transmission spell, and then a silver-drawn celadon dish in front of him suddenly glowed with scarlet light, and four round and plump peaches appeared neatly within the bowl!
He quietly placed the porcelain dish in front of Gong Wei.
Ktf qfjmt’r rxlc kjr jr oijkifrr jr pjvf, jcv atflg ogjugjcmf kjr rb lcnlalcu atja bcf mbeiv afii ja olgra uijcmf atja atfrf kfgf cb bgvlcjgs qfjmtfr. Ktfs mjwf ogbw atf qfjmt ugbnf bearlvf Vbnfgfluc We’r mtjwyfgr ktlmt kfgf lc yibbw atgbeutbea atf sfjg.
Ktlr kjr j gfreia bo atf mbgqrf yibbv bo atf Obaer Pwwbgaji atja rffqfv lcab atf qfjmt ugbnf. Obaer Pwwbgaji Xbcu Qfl ujhfv ja atfrf obeg qfjmtfr obg j ibcu alwf jcv kjr rb wbnfv atja tf mbeiv cba ibbx ragjluta ja atfw. Ljio j wlceaf ijafg, tf rjlv, “Vtlhec, atlr vlrmlqif lr rb oeii bo ofjg atja P jw rqffmtifrr…”
Xu Shuangtze said, “There is no need to say more. Eat.”
Under the oppressive gaze from across the room, Gong Wei picked up a peach with trembling hands and took a bite. As he bit into the sweet flesh of the peach fruit, he felt as though he was biting into his own flesh and blood.
—If Xu Shuangtze found out about his return from the dead, he would be worse off than being made to eat his own flesh and blood, and there were a million ways for Big Brother Xu to make him regret that he had come back.
He finished gnawing on all four peaches and found that the fruits that his blood had nourished were actually tastier. He couldn’t help but feel even more sunken inside as he put down the peach core and said, “Shizun, I—”
A piece of silver silk wrapped in white sandalwood fragrance, draped on his wet fingers.
Xu Shuangtze said, “Wipe it.”
Gong Wei held Sovereign Xu’s silk handkerchief as if it were a holy oracle and wiped his hands with difficulty.
“Are you full?”
If he wasn’t full there were thousands of peaches waiting outside, so Gong Wei looked very moved and immediately responded, “Yes.”
“Can you recite properly now?”
“…Yes!”
This time, the affection and great expectations of the master moved both the heavens and the disciple. The entire first volume of the Soul Fixing Spell was recited fluently, and although there were several stumbles in the middle, not a single mistake was made—as if the two hundred frogs in the lotus pond last night had reappeared on Earth.
When Gong Wei finished reciting the last word, Xu Shuangtze finally said, “This time, it’s not bad.”
It was very good, but for ‘Xiang Xiaoyuan’ this was considered a near miracle. Gong Wei remembered that in his previous life, Xu Shuangtze had taught him how to write, and no matter how good he was, all he got was a cold ‘not bad’, so he thought to himself, “Big Brother Xu is still so stingy in his compliments.”
He looked at Xu Shuangtze with slightly widened eyes, but saw him pondering in silence, as if he was hesitating about something.
In the end, he didn’t say any more but waved his hand and said, “Go and play.”
A subtle and odd feeling passed through Gong Wei, but he suppressed his emotions, lowered his head, took a few steps backwards, and said respectfully, “Shizun, Shixiong, I’m leaving.” Then he turned his head and walked briskly out of the hall.
As Gong Wei walked through the magnificent Xuanji Palace, wind came from afar, swirling a few scarlet peach blossom petals past his legs, creating a fairytale illusion.
The young man leapt over the threshold with his hands behind his back under Xu Shuangtze’s attentive gaze, before disappearing at the end of the long flight of white jade steps.
The great hall was silent for a long time. Wen Xiuyang was staring at the ground beneath his feet, his muscles tense as a bow, when he suddenly heard Xu Shuangtze say indifferently in front of him, “Xiuyang.”
“…Yes.”
“I see you have something to say?”
The wind outside the hall had stopped at some point, and Wen Xiuyang felt as though his throat had been tightly wrapped by invisible iron wires. It was  only after a long time that he managed to push out his words in a dry voice, “…Replying to the Sovereign, this disciple has nothing to say.”
“Is that so?”
Every second felt like an hour, and in no time, the clothes on Wen Xiuyang’s back were steeped in sweat. Finally, Xu Shuangtze’s voice could be heard from above his head once again, one word clearly after another.
“I will gift you another jade pendant, make sure you are careful not to break it again.”
A gasping breath finally came out of Wen Xiuyang’s throat, but fortunately it was overshadowed by the ‘thud!’ of his bent knee. He attempted to muffle the sound as he responded in a trembling voice, “Thank you, Sovereign!”
—–
Plonk! Plonk! Plonk!
A stone hit the surface of the water three times, sending waves of perfect ripples through the water.
Gong Wei was an honest man, and when Xu Shuangtze told him to go play, he did—if he didn’t, he was not about to go back and carry on reciting that deadly spell either.
Xuanji Palace was a terrifying size. In his previous life, he had never had the chance to wander around, hence only today did he realise that the inner halls were a complex network of chambers, pavilions and corridors.
All the past masters of the Cang Yang Sect probably rarely travelled into the mortal world, and had nothing to do on top of the mountain, so they probably spent their time thinking about the architectural design of the Palace.
Gong Wei strolled and explored the place, and it took him half a day to get to the end of the complex. Beyond that, he discovered a deep mountain valley, he saw a trestle bridge linked towards the vast, uninhabited mountain range. Seeing that the road had come to a natural halt, Gong Wei was about to turn back the way he came, when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
In the distance, on the pale blue mountains, there was a building with glazed tiles and silver flying eaves. What a surprise!
Gong Wei never knew that there was another place hidden within the deserted mountains so far away from the Cang Yang Sect, and it was facing Xu Shuangtze’s residence and vaguely matching it.
His first thought was that it must be the mausoleum of the past masters. The more he thought about it the more his curiosity got the better of him, ‘I only know what kind of residence Xu Shuangtze has lived in when he was alive, but I have never seen what kind of tomb he will rest in after he dies.’
With that, he swept his gaze around once more to ensure there was no one around, then he sneakily walked up the bridge.
His pace was much lighter than the average person’s, and after bouncing around for more than an hour, he saw the huge palace in front of him. The building was set in the middle of a dry forest, with curved eaves on three sides, dragon and phoenix ornaments, and a vast silver-vaulted roof. It looked beautiful under the darkening sky, yet there was an overwhelming sense of oppression and loneliness.
The doors of the palace were shut tight, as if no one had been here for a long time, and the surrounding mountains were so quiet that not a single bird cry could be heard.
With his hands behind his back, Gong Wei tilted his head to better survey the palace, and a strange feeling came over him.
The building did not look like a house of the underworld, but it was so oppressive in its form, as if its builders had wanted to use it to pin down something.
Which master had erected the palace here?
What did he want to do with it?
Gong Wei walked up the stairs and pushed open the doors of the palace. A light breeze swept into the chambers, sending layers of scarlet gauze fluttering into the air, as if there were endless peach blossoms blooming.
At the end of the wide tungwood floorboards, which stretched into the distance, there were twelve screen doors made of whalebone, which were open.
Gong Wei stood still in front of the screen doors and looked around for a long time, feeling that something seemed out of place, but he could not tell what it might be.
He had seen Xu Shuangtze’s bed, which was spacious, hard and flat, just like the owner’s character. But this inner chamber had a high bed and soft pillows, covered by sheer curtains. On a jade case there were brushes on a stand and paper neatly placed.
There was also a wide range of interesting objects on the antique shelves—which was vastly different from Xu Shuangtze’s usual style. The ivory walls are also framed with a set of twelve ancient paintings, a legendary tale from the Daoist scriptures that all disciples of the Xuanmen heard at the beginning of their education, ‘The Ghost Prince Welcomes His Bride’.
The set of pictures was obviously old, from its faded and yellowed look. Gong Wei’s gaze fixed on the eight paintings and his eyelids twitched.
The picture depicted a little red fox blowing a suona, it looked so innocent and vivid that anyone who saw it would find it adorable. But there was an abrupt spattering of something on the bottom corner of the scroll, a streak that had faded to a dull red with the passage of time.
It was a mouthful of blood.
Gong Wei stood there puzzled, when out of the corner of his eye he suddenly saw something else which made him shudder—
On the jade case beneath the painting lay a familiar dagger. The blade of the dagger  still held onto its faint, blue glow even after years had passed.
It was the dagger that he had failed to kill Xu Shuangtze with on the Ascension Platform sixteen years ago!
Xu Shuangtze was a Mahayana-level cultivator, hence he was invulnerable to all poison except the ‘Secret Passage of Yin and Yang Chaos Mantra’ created by the Ghost Master Sect decades ago.
This poison creation method began with cultivating the essence of the Yellow Springs Water which would eventually form a Holy Pill of the Underworld. This was the only fatal poison known to seal the fate of any Mahayana realm cultivator.
The Ghost Master Sect has long been exterminated, and its evil, forbidden arts have been permanently sealed. Gong Wei was the one who rewrote all the scrolls. Back then, he used this Yellow Spring fatal poison in an attempt to assassinate Xu Shuangtze.
Unfortunately his attempt was unsuccessful, and the dagger disappeared afterwards. Gong Wei originally thought it had been permanently sealed by Ying Kai in the Immortal Alliance’s Correctional Palace, but unexpectedly, he saw it again today.
Why is this vicious blade here?
With a chill running through his heart, Gong Wei took a half step back and looked around, finally realising where the problem with this place lay.
—The beams, doors, windows and even the bed were carved with inconspicuous patterns. But when you looked closely, they were not ordinary decorations, but forbidden spells. The sheer number of them and the depth of their power was like nothing he has seen before. Once all the forbidden spells are activated, even a Supreme Golden Immortal could be trapped here ‘til his death.
This palace was not a tomb, it was a massive prison!
“Who’s there?!”
A shout came from outside the window, and Gong Wei turned around in search of that sound – —surprisingly, there was someone here!
He thought for a moment, but did not say anything, and took two steps towards the corner of the wall. The voice outside the door didn’t hear a response and when it spoke again, it became stern, “The formation at the foot of the mountain has been broken, has someone entered the palace?”
“…”
“This is an important place for the Sect, come out now!”
Gong Wei’s heart was astonished, and before he could move, he saw a sword glare which swiftly pierce through the gap in the window pane, and cut straight at his face with unbelievable speed!
Gong Wei darted back, but the sword glare followed him closely with the speed of light, forcing him to move several feet away in a flash. The door to the palace was right behind him, and Gong Wei’s eyebrows raised slightly as he put his two fingers together and held on to the sword glare. The fierce light then dissipated into nothingness.
The door to the chambers swung open with a loud bang, and Gong Wei, without a struggle, rolled down the steps in front of the stranger.
“Who’s there?!”
Gong Wei had just fallen to the ground on his back when a sword blade was pointed at the tip of his nose.
It was a young man with a stern look, dressed in white and silver armour, with a silver crown and neatly tied hair. He was in the same attire as Wen Xiuyang and apparently one of the eight disciples appointed by Xu Shuangtze to guard the palace.
He looked slightly younger than Wen Xiuyang by a couple of years, and was very decent looking. Just that his face currently looked slightly greyish, with blue-purple veins protruding from his neck and at the backs of his hands. This was obviously because he had not recovered from exposure to extreme cold.
Remembering who he was, Gong Wei faked a blush and said excitedly and affectionately,”Brother Chicken!”
“…”
“Don’t you recognise me, Brother Chicken?!”
“…”
This was Wen Xiuyang’s most junior Shidi, known as ‘Fierce Star’ within the Xuanmen, and who had been pranked by Dean Gong in his previous life—Sheng Bo. He had only been released from Cold Mountain Prison yesterday, and was unaware that he was just a chicken being killed for the monkeys to see as an example.
He stared at Gong Wei with a blank expression. Suspicious, he said, “Aren’t you the outer disciple Xiang Xiaoyuan? What are you doing here?”
When he found out that he was not a miscreant, Sheng Bo’s shining sword tip moved away by half an inch. Gong Wei took advantage of the gap and got up, wiping his face with both hands, he instantly became teary, “Shixiong, I’m lost, I don’t know how I crossed a bridge and came here, it’s so dark inside, I’m so scared, there’s no one there, I didn’t know how to get out…”
Sheng Bo was not easy to fool, “Lost? How can you get lost all the way here?”
Gong Wei said pitifully, “Shixiong, you must not tell Shizun, I really can’t recite that book. Shizun said that he would check on me again in the evening, and that if I couldn’t recite it, I would be punished by being locked up in Cold Mountain Prison, so I-so I…”
The atmosphere froze for a long time before Sheng Bo said incredulously, “You wanted to hide?”
Gong Wei hid his face, “Um.”
The corners of Sheng Bo’s eyebrows twitched violently for a long time before he took a heavy breath, and cursed, “Nonsense! —To have the Sovereign personally check on your progress is your blessing, how dare you shirk and hide, and run around the mountain to the Sect’s forbidden grounds! Do you know what kind of place this is?”
Gong Wei’s movements froze.
His hand covering his face moved as he peeked at Sheng Bo through his fingers even more pitifully, and said, “I-I heard that it is the tomb of the previous masters…”
“Who said that? This is a forbidden ground that the Sovereign personally supervised and erected twenty years ago. No one has ever entered it except the Sovereign!” Sheng Bo’s tone was extremely fierce, “Everyone has known for twenty years that any trespassers will be killed!”