Shen Haoren stood besides the opened door, a stern expression displayed on his usually smiling countenance.
As Shen Ming Yue stood to greet her father with an earnest expression, the stormy aura emanating from his body forced the youthful girl into an uneasy silence.
The middle-aged man strode into the room to stand before the young girl’s bed, his right hand clutching onto an object covered in cloth. Before An Fei could utter a single word, Shen Haoren tossed the package onto the blankets, his grave words flying above her head the next instant.
“Do you know what this object is?”
An Fei’s fingers departed from the chopsticks as she tore her gaze from the bowl of rice and onto the cloth-covered object.
Dragging the package closer towards her bosom, the young girl carefully unwrapped the cloth bindings to reveal the sheathed qama laying before her on the blankets.
Oh dear…
“My family’s heirloom.”
The young girl cursed in her heart as she casually spat a lie to pacify the middle-aged man’s worries, keeping her voice as controlled and calm as possible.
Undoubtedly, her words had the opposite effect as not only did Shen Haoren not relent upon hearing the conclusion hidden behind her tone, his anger exploded over its maximum boiling capacity.
“A family heirloom!?” the middle-aged man shrieked as he jabbed a finger towards the sheathed knife resting against An Fei’s knees.
“You… you call that object a-a… a family heirloom!?”
“Father, Little Sister Lingxue is a little tired right now, maybe… yelling at the top of your lungs isn’t a great idea…”
Shen Ming Yue hastily protested upon noticing the pale expression on An Fei’s countenance. The youthful girl stood to pat at her father’s arms, but was gently rebuffed by a gentle but imposing hand.
“No need, Ming Yue. Little lass, we must settle this now,” Shen Haoren’s brows drew into an ironclad frown.
“Xu Lingxue, why does your family possess a cursed artefact as an heirloom?”
“Cursed artefact!?”
The middle-aged man’s words prompted Shen Ming Yue’s eyes to widen in shock and horror, and the youthful girl’s gaze towards An Fei couldn’t help but transform into one strife with complicated emotions. The young girl remained silent as she carefully awaited Shen Haoren’s next words, her fingers gently caressing the qama’s sheathed blade.
“That knife is a cursed artefact – no, perhaps it has already surpassed that and entered into the realm of demonic artefacts,” Shen Haoren intoned in a grave voice, his eyes flared in wariness and fear.
“Cursed artefacts are fundamentally spiritually enhanced artefacts, but with negative traits and drawbacks. At a fiendishly insane increase in capabilities, the price paid is drastic compared to that of regular, spiritual artefacts.”
“B… but, to call it a demonic artefact, just what does that dagger do, Father?”
Shen Ming Yue frowned with a concerned expression, the uneasiness in her heart growing by the second.
The middle-aged man grit his teeth at the question, but faithfully answered his daughter following a forceful heave of breath through his teeth.
“Vampirism, with an extremely lethal toxin concealed in its edge that is capable of rendering any practitioner to sacrifice their mind.”
The words dulled the originally lighthearted and gentle atmosphere of the room into a solemn, frigid environment. As the two people standing lapsed into a series of discomfiting thoughts, An Fei’s right index finger tapped onto the surface of the qama’s handle.
“The knife was passed onto me by my father as a means of protection,” the young girl yawned as her fingers trailed along the knife’s length.
“Until I passed it onto my brother, it was to guard my life from any unforeseen danger. I did not know it was a cursed artefact, however.”
“It is indeed capable of granting immense strength,” the middle-aged man nodded, though his emotions didn’t reside from their turmoil.
“From a simple grasp of the knife, my cultivation temporarily broke through the Core Formation Realm and into that of the Nascent Soul Realm – though it were the barebones stages. That in itself, additionally explains how you were capable of directly withstanding the attacks of the Earth Giant the other day.”
Shen Haoren’s voice was dull and flat as though his emotions had been sucked from his body, and his stern glare became ever-increasingly intense.
Shen Ming Yue’s gasp for breath tickled at everyone’s ears, but was drowned out by the next torrent of words.
“However, have you never thought of the implications of such a weapon? One scratch, and the opponent is left no choice but to become a slave under your will until his death – how cruel is that?”
The middle-aged man released a bitter sigh as he turned around to leave from the room. As his round-bellied figure departed from sight, a somber voice brushed against An Fei’s ears to deliver a final warning.
“Yang Jian was the one who discovered the peculiarities of your knife. Even if he is sworn brothers with me, that does not mean that his righteous heart will tolerate such a cursed artefact.”
Thus, she was to be exceedingly careful of her surroundings upon encountering that man of the Yang Clan, and even be prepared to fight him…
“Little Sister…”
Shen Ming Yue returned to the bedside with a gloomy countenance, and returned to the task of feeding An Fei. As she methodically moved the spoon with her hands, An Fei’s nonchalant voice broke across her ears.
“Elder Sister, what is a cursed artefact? Why is Senior Shen so apprehensive about them?”
“Hm? Ah, that’s right; Little Sister isn’t a practitioner, and thus wouldn’t exactly know about these things…”
The youthful girl paused, her expression lightening at the persuasion aimed towards herself.
Shen Ming Yue took a deep breath, her mind dredging up the recollections of her past under the middle-aged man’s tutelage.
“As Father said, cursed artefacts are essentially spiritual artefacts, but with a twisted nature,” she explained.
“Perhaps… if a normal spiritual artefact was capable of doubling a practitioner’s speed, a cursed artefact could easily provide triple the amplification, if not by four folds at the most – the difference in performance and quality is staggering. However, while a spiritual artefact would only consume spiritual essence, a cursed artefact usually consumes the practitioner’s lifespan.”
“Lifespan?”
An Fei’s breath hitched as she thought onto the experience in which she had wielded the qama the other day against the six assassins, and the encounter with the senior assassin on the same night.
The young girl’s mind flitted to how her capabilities were enhanced affected in both circumstances, to discover that…
An anemic person with her physique could theoretically be able to continuously exert such strength and agility over a long period of time.
Even with the additional factor of spiritual essence, to sustain it for the better part of a day and well into midnight…
–
“Well… a cursed artefact does not necessarily have to consume the practitioner’s lifespan, the phenomenon are drastically different,” Shen Ming Yue frowned in thought.
“If the artefact was to absorb the lifespan of its enemies, then the battles would always conclude in death; a death so gruesome and vile that only the most evil-minded and vicious people would dare wield it. Furthermore… repeated usage of the artefact would erode at the practitioner’s mind until they became nothing more than a bloodthirsty wraith clad in human flesh.”
If the qama could indeed influence her to such extent, then the Sanctum would be embarrassed beyond doubt and destroy itself by smashing into blocks of tofu…
The thought crossed An Fei’s mind when her ears registered the prospect of mental corruption, but did not dare vocalize itself for its owner’s safety.
The young girl’s fingers continued to stroke at the knife’s sheathed blade, her head aimlessly nodding to Shen Ming Yue’s words.
“That is why, Little Sister must never wield this weapon; only when Little Sister’s life is in peril can this demonic artefact show itself in the world,” the youthful girl had recovered her calm and collected mind.
“Demonic artefacts do not bring harm to the owner, instead committing ignoble and unholy acts onto the victims. If they saw you utilizing such a weapon, the entire world would hunt you down without mercy.”
“Oh…”
An Fei mumbled in an absentminded mood, her mind wandering with an interesting idea. The young girl half-heartedly agreed to Shen Ming Yue’s continued, coerced issues of promise of abstaining from utilizing the weapon, though her heart said otherwise.
On the occasion that the twin butterfly swords were not at hand, the qama was most certainly responsible of safeguarding her life.
Regarding weapons, however, what was she to do with the <Golden Lotus of Establishment>?
It had been so long, and she had only formed two petals out of a hundred and forty-four…
