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Chapter 3




Early August, the Ninth Day
Early autumn, dusk.
The sky was overcast. The black clouds felt as if they were pressing down on his head. Gazing out from the window, he could dimly see several dark and gloomy mountain peaks in the torrential rain that looked as if they could devour a person whole. Suddenly there was a peal of rolling thunder and a whistling gale arrived!
Wen Jing faced into the wind and reached out to grab the violently shaking window in order to shut it, his hair messily dancing with each gust. His lips moved silently in complete calm: “Early August, the ninth day, dusk. Early August, the ninth day, dusk…..”
Lu YunFei coldly stared at him: “Jing’er, what are you talking to yourself about?”
Wen Jing turned around, calmly looked at Lu YunFei, and said a phrase that Lu YunFei had been waiting several years to hear: “Yeye, I’ve ascended to Qi Refining level four.”
Lu YunFei’s eyes faintly brightened, an ecstatic look flashed by and then faded away again. He mustered a pretense of amazed happiness: “Good, good! You’ve done it! Tomorrow Yeye will take you to Xun Yan town to play!”
Having said that, however, his brows were still furrowed.
…..ah, what a complicated mood.
Wen Jing could see his hesitation. After all, possession was an action in defiance of the natural order of things, the possibility of failure was very high. Lu YunFei had feared death all his life. Why wouldn’t he be out of sorts?
He said with an insincere cheerfulness: “Then I’ll go ahead and sleep early.”
“……yes, that’s good. Tomorrow we’ll have to get up a bit earlier.”
Wen Jing turned around and was just about to return to his own small room when suddenly from behind him he felt the sudden rush of a cool breeze. A completely wizened hand wrinkled like a dead tree rested on his shoulder as if human bones had crawled out of a graveyard. The fine hair on Wen Jing’s whole body stood straight up.
Lu YunFei spoke kindly with some desolation: “Jing’er, we haven’t chatted together in a long time, why don’t we have a talk tonight ok.”
This tone couldn’t be resisted. Wen Jing’s body broke out in gooseb.u.mps. Without any better option he took a deep breath and sat down saying: “Yeye, what do you wish to chat about?”
Lu YunFei slowly walked around and lit a small oil lamp, his thin figure casting a long shadow downwards in the dim light.
He seemed to be dwelling on past events, his aged muddy eyes half closed. Slowly he opened his mouth to speak: “Jing’er, Yeye has raised you for more than ten years now, have I treated you well?”
“Naturally you’ve been good to me.”
“Do you know who Yeye’s father was?”
The shadow on the wall swayed along with the flickering light resembling a some sort of monstrous frightening figure.
“Father’s grandfather? Who was he?”
“Yeye’s father, was an elder of the famous Gu Jing (1) sect, Lu ZhiShan! Have you heard of it?”
Lu YunFei’s wrinkled face instantly became soft, his eyes overflowing with radiance.
Wen Jing went blank.
This kind of important matter, why hadn’t it been written about in the book?
In《A Calamity for All Living Things》, Lu YunFei was only cannon fodder. The main story only introduced him using a mere few sentences as someone who had raised his grandchild in order to possess his body. Regarding any back story, there wasn’t the least bit of explanation.
As cannon fodder, how could he have such an impressive background? That Lu ZhiShan was the only one out of the five large sects that held a heavenly wood spiritual root and had even taken less than one hundred years to advance into the Core Formation stage. That guy was actually this old ghost’s father!
Lu YunFei’s eyes dimmed again exposing a look of pained shame: “Unfortunately my apt.i.tude was poor. Since birth, only my three brothers have ever entered his eyes. He has never once looked at me nor has he ever even bothered to reprimand me! Jing’er, can you understand Yeye’s suffering?” Wen Jing silently bowed his head and didn’t speak.
Lu YunFei was agitated: “I refuse to accept this. I’m also his son, why would he treat me this way? My fifteen year old younger brother, a Qi Refining level ten, provoked him into a fit of anger, and he reproached him by saying he had no future. But I was twenty years old, and he never bothered to care what my level of cultivation was! Inevitably there will be a day that I will break through the limits of my qi and I will make him regret his actions! I will have him look at the person who he didn’t even call by the name of son, how – -“
A fit of violent coughing interrupted his words.
Wen Jing was still silent and motionless.
Trembling, Lu YunFei put one hand to his chest to fish out a small sinister looking black tablet that appeared to be made of neither metal nor wood. The corner of his eyes held a trace of tears. The lines on his face were gentle. Unexpectedly he had returned to his previous gentle appearance. Lu YunFei softly gripped Wen Jing’s wrist: “Jing’er, Yeye is going to do something. If Yeye dies, you must take this tablet to Gu Jing sect to find your grandfather (2). Even if he doesn’t remember me, you are also considered a descendent of Lu, he will not ignore you. Not to mention your apt.i.tude – -“
Upon saying this, Lu YunFei avariciously gazed at Wen Jing, his eyes wandering and shining faintly.
Wen Jing sneered to himself.
If Lu YunFei successfully possessed him, his own small life would be lost. If Lu YunFei failed in his attempt, he was asking him to travel from distant parts to deliver a message to his family, this would also be his doom!
He looked at Lu YunFei’s hand, those dried up twig-like fingers, that appearance as if wanting to suck in the youth of his own body.
“Jing’er, are you listening to me?”
Wen Jing slowly pulled his wrist away, quietly saying: “The fear of death, everyone has it. Now I finally know the reason why Yeye wishes to possess my body. But I, I’ve never met anyone as disgusting as you.”
Lu YunFei froze for a moment: “What did you say?”
Wen Jing had already rushed towards the doorway and dashed out shouting at the top of his lungs: “Daoist Immortal! Daoist Immortal gege (2)! Save me! Daoist Immortal gege!”
♦
Black clouds roiled on the horizon, the mountain rain hungered to come, and as far as the eye could see there was a thundering gale.
At the clear mountain spring at the village entrance stood three individuals.
An elegant scholar wearing white garments, his face refined, looking about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. His vision swept over the area. Hesitating on the stone tablet at the village entrance, with a heavy voice he read: “Qing Quan village… the time is getting late, tonight we will need to spend the night in this village.”
A youngster of about seventeen or eighteen with a delicate appearance wearing grey clothes said very slowly: “Yes, Eldest Senior Brother (4) Ying Ming.”
He stood next to a slender man wearing plain black garments already wet from the rain who said quietly: “I’ll go look and see if a family is willing to offer us shelter.”
The youngster wearing grey clothes slowly walked forward: “Fourth Senior Brother, the last time Third Senior Brother pa.s.sed by here he found himself chopping firewood. For someone like us to act in such a manner when we are immortals, what is the logic behind that?”
The mouth of the young man in white clothes twitched at the corners: “……For him to call himself an immortal, really….” shameless.
The people in the village had already returned home to take shelter from the rain. There only remained a few children at the end of the village foolishly looking at them.
In the gloomy twilight, the long hair of those three individuals danced in the wind.
The black clothed man walked slowly forward, pa.s.sing by the doors of a few households but not stopping. He was about to knock on a door to inquire within when suddenly in a not too distant place he heard the sound of a boy shouting, his voice sharp and panicky, abrupt and frightened, nearly desperate.
“Daoist Immortal! Daoist Immortal gege! Please help me!”
The grey clothed youngster said at a loss: “Who is crying out for help?”
The white clothed man’s expression changed as he quickly stepped forward, one foot kicking open the door to one of the dwellings as he dashed in. In a flash, the black clothed man arrived and icily gazed into the courtyard.
Kneeling on the ground was a boy covered with mud. A ball of weak yellow light was desperately forcing itself into his body. “Daoist Immortal gege! Please help me!” The boy’s complexion was pale from extreme suffering. The yellow pale light pierce his body like a sword.
“Possession!” The grey clothed youth shouted out, still sounding rather calm and unhurried.
Immediately, someone’s hands produced a white light. The blow caught the weak yellow ball of light off guard.
In silence, without stopping, the two b.a.l.l.s of light contended against each other, evoking a gorgeous aura that illuminated the surroundings into daytime. Suddenly the aura disappeared and scattered away as if the power behind it had been exhausted.
Wen Jing’s face was completely muddy, his forehead dripping cold sweat. From the corner of his eye he could see the slowly stiffening corpse of an old man with a dagger inserted into his abdomen.
It had been a very narrow escape….
The black clothed man, his garments completely soaked from the rain, slowly walked in and touched the corpse of the old man: “He committed suicide in order for his death to produce a primordial spirit with the intent to use it for possession.”
He glanced at Wen Jing: “Who is this person?”
Wen Jing looked blankly at him.
Rain dripped down the face of the black clothed man. His eyes were filled with ice. He had ruthless thin lips and seemed to give off a trace of hidden chill. The inherent const.i.tution of his body, however, was like a spring breeze. This man stood there seeming to bring a trace of warmth and transforming the dreadful courtyard into something somewhat softer.
“You are……” Jun YanZhi?
TN Notes:
1. Gu Jing – Ancient mirror
2. Possible author typo? I double checked and it really says grandfather in the text instead of great grandfather…
3. Gege – Big brother
4. Shixiong – senior male fellow student, apprentice, disciple.
Pinyin Dictionary
Yeye: Father’s father
Sunzi: Son’s son
Gege: Older brother
Ahh, I guess I really was translating on hard mode when I was working on Diabolism. These last few chapters went by pretty smoothly. We’ll see how long this lasts. FYI, I’m currently enjoying some time off, so don’t expect this pace to continue for long.
(ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ♫･*:.｡. .｡.:*･