“Xiao-er, what’s wrong…” The words had just come out of Qiu Yutong’s mouth when he suddenly paused slightly. Then looking down to see the pile of black charcoal in his hand, he suddenly understood.
Uh… couldn’t be right?
Lu Xiao lowered his eyes gently, acquiescing.
“Cough cough cough,” Qiu Yutong was silent for a moment, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards awkwardly as he coughed lightly in embarrassment.
He dared to say that this kid, Lu Xiao, was just trying to… save him face. But, then again, was his cooking skills really that… No, no, no, it wasn’t him, it was definitely the oven ash! Maybe Lu Xiao blew the sparks out of the ashes too much when he was roasting the rabbit! Yes, yes, yes, that’s it, that was definitely it!
Qiu Yutong put down the charred black rabbit in his hand without his expression changing and said indifferently, “Actually, I’ve eaten too much rabbit meat and I’m a bit tired of it.”
“Okay, Lu Xiao was obviously relieved, “By the way, I also picked some wild fruits which taste good. Master, would you like to try them?”
“Yes, that would be good.” Qiu Yutong said indifferently, putting on airs like an immortal.
Xu Dongqing nibbled on the rabbit meat sullenly.
When the three of them finished the rabbit and ate some wild fruits, it was already completely dark. The cold moonlight, like a light gauze, crept through the temple door, reflecting a bright moonlight on the greenstone slabs. In the early spring forest night, there was not even the sound of cicadas, only the soft ‘rustling’ of the leaves, like sobbing.
Xu Dongqing was too sad and too tired so he curled up in a pile of straw and fell asleep early.
Qiu Yutong lay in the pile of straw, holding the two strange pieces of tortoise shells in his hands, unable to sleep. What were these two pieces of tortoiseshells? Why did the North Sea Sword Sect attach such importance to them, going so far as to seize them, even at the expense of causing public death?
He couldn’t figure it out after thinking about it, and couldn’t help turning around, only to meet Lu Xiao’s dark eyes.
Qiu Yutong faintly froze, but Lu Xiao was already whispering. “Shizun, what’s wrong? You’ve been tossing and turning… can’t sleep?”
Qiu Yutong hesitated slightly and took out the two pieces of tortoiseshell. “Xiao-er, look.”
Lu Xiao took the tortoiseshells and frowned in confusion. “How come there are two pieces? Yes, this piece is the one I found under the sofa… where did this piece come from?”
“This turtle shell, I found it earlier in a dry well in the Daning Palace. At that time…” Qiu Yutong told the story of the first piece of tortoiseshell in its entirety.
After saying that, he couldn’t help but sigh. “I always feel that these two pieces of tortoiseshells are very unusual, but I can’t figure out why… Xiao-er, do you have any idea? What do you think?”
Lu Xiao stared at the two pieces of tortoise shells in his hands, his brows furrowed and he did not speak for a long time. After a while, he turned the two pieces of tortoiseshells over and over under the bright moonlight and finally joined them together slowly. “Shizun, look. These two pieces of tortoiseshells should have been part of one whole.”
“You are right,” Qiu Yutong muttered.
The two pieces of tortoiseshells, when put together by the edge really fit tightly, exactly half of a complete tortoiseshell.
Lu Xiao pointed to the totem on the tortoiseshell, “The first tortoiseshell has a Vermilion Bird totem on the edge of the shell, and the Vermilion Bird belongs to the south. The second tortoiseshell has a Blue Dragon totem on the edge and the Green Dragon belongs to the East. And these curved lines… Master, I’m guessing this is a map. The Vermilion Bird and the Blue Dragon represent the direction, and the lines on it, represent the mountains and rivers.”
Qiu Yutong froze for a moment, raised his head and looked at it carefully, somewhat puzzled: “But I’ve been to most places in the human and cultivation realms with my sword, yet I’ve never seen such mountains and rivers.”
Lu Xiao muttered, “What is not available in the Human Realm and Cultivation Realm may not be absent elsewhere. For example, the demon realm, and the secret realm… and, this map is missing two pieces of the White Tiger in the west and the Xuanwu in the north.”
Qiu Yutong looked at the two pieces of tortoise shells and was puzzled. This weird turtle shell, put together was actually a map? Then where were the remaining two pieces of tortoiseshells? If it was a map…. where did it point to?
As he was thinking, Lu Xiao suddenly lowered his voice: “Shh, there seems to be some sound.”
Qiu Yutong was suddenly stunned and hurriedly listened, He heard some sounds that broke the silence. He closed his eyes and counted gently. “One, two, three, four… Nine monks, who are coming this way with their swords, twelve miles away. At their speed, they will be here in a moment.”
Lu Xiao immediately stood up. “We have to hide, quickly!”
Qiu Yutong nodded and nudged Xu Dongqing twice, “Second Master! Second Master!”
Xu Dongqing opened his eyes blankly and looked at Qiu Yutong dumbly, seemingly not understanding what was going on. Then, Qiu Yutong pulled him up and the three of them rustled behind the heavy curtain behind the statue of the land god.
“What’s going on?” Xu Dongqing was a little confused.
“Shut up,” Lu Xiao said impatiently.
Qiu Yutong made a gesture of silence to Xu Dongqing, “Shh.”
Not long after, a few soft sounds came and several people fell to the ground in front of the local temple.
Then came a clear voice, “Just rest here.”
“Yes, Master!” All of them said in one voice.
This voice… Qiu Yutong and Lu Xiao looked at each other. That crisp voice was the voice of Luo Wuyou, the red-robed sword cultivator of the North Sea Sword Sect, who was Gui Wu Ya’s third disciple brother.
With the sound of messy footsteps, a group of people walked into the local temple, muttering, “It’s been half a day, and we haven’t found anything, I’m exhausted.”
“Brother, you’re still fine. I just learned to use the sword, so my legs are still not used to it.”
“There is no solution, Master Chen gave an order for us to search the south side of the forest.”
“Speaking of which, Uncle Tu and the others are responsible for searching the northern area, which is even bigger!”
Qiu Yutong listened carefully to the dialogue of the disciples. It seemed that Chen Wuyou and Tu Wuyou weren’t present, only Luo Wuyou, with eight low-ranking disciples.
Luo Wuyou said in a deep voice, “Xiao He, did you bring the night pearl?”
After a fumbling sound, a disciple said, “Master, I forgot to bring it. Why don’t we make a fire?”
“Why are you so careless? Then let’s make a fire.” Luo Wuyou seemed a little upset.
The disciple hastened to redeem himself by shouting, “Come, come, come, you two, come and make a fire together!”
“But, where will the firewood come from?”
“Let’s cut down the table!”
Amidst the noise, there was a ‘crackling’ sound from outside, and it seemed that the table had been cut down, and in a short time there was a fire outside.
“This fire is not burning very well… Eh, there are a lot of rags hanging behind this idol, why don’t we pull them all out and burn them!”
“Okay, let’s go!”
Qiu Yutong’s heart tightened slightly, and Lu Xiao gently squeezed his palm in a soothing manner. Qiu Yutong blinked and slowly looked down, only to realise that somehow, he had actually clasped his young disciple’s hand, and couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed.
Outside, the young disciples were still shouting, “No way! I’ve split the table, so if you want to pull the cloth, you can do it yourself.”
“Let’s go together!”
“Why?”
“Hurry up, stop being silly. Later, get something to wipe the dust down here, it’s dirty,” Luo Wuyou said impatiently.
“Yes, Master,” several disciples said quickly.
After a while, a rustling sound came from outside, “Who brought water?”
“Sigh, I have some pastries here!”
“I have brought dried meat.”
“Come, come, come, sit here, here, it’s bright.”
“Master, please sit down.”
Then there was a cacophony of voices as if people were sitting down around the fire and were sharing the dried food.
“Master has already abstained from food, so eat it yourselves,” Luo Wuyou said indifferently.
A disciple said, “Master, we have searched for most of the day, but we haven’t even found a single hair. I don’t know if they found anything in the manor.”
His voice was muffled, as if he was eating dry food.
“Chen Wuyou, heh…” Luo Wuyou laughed coldly, seemingly in a bad mood.
Another disciple said, “Who knows? I just received a scroll from Martial Uncle Tu, and he doesn’t seem to have found anything.”
“Ai, we have searched all over the south side of the forest, and Martial Uncle Tu has searched all over the north side of the forest, but no one can find anyone? Xu Dongqing is not a powerful person, he couldn’t have just flown away with a pair of wings, could he?”
“Who knows?”
“He hasn’t really run off on his sword, has he? Then our efforts would have been in vain.”
Luo Wuyou said coldly, “How can that kid fly if he can’t draw Qi into his body and doesn’t know how to use a sword? As I see it, he may still be hiding in the manor. Chen Wuyou stayed in Medicine Monarch Manor to look for him, but sent Lao Si and me out, hmph.”
He seemed to be in a bad mood so the disciples were silent, no one daring to say a word.
Qiu Yutong also understood. Previously, in the Medicine Monarch Manor, this Luo Wuyou was very respectful to Chen Wuyou and was even vaguely flattering, but behind his back, he was very unhappy.
“By the way, Master, I still can’t understand, the bride was obviously not killed by us, so why did Uncle Chen do that? And in the end, that old man killed himself.”
The disciples also echoed this question, “Yes, why?”
Qiu Yutong was slightly stunned. What were they talking about? The bride… wasn’t killed by them? He couldn’t help but look at Lu Xiao, who also frowned in confusion before slowly shaking his head, not seeming to understand. Xu Dongqing’s eyes widened and his body trembled gently as Qiu Yutong patted the back of his hand soothingly.
“Chen Wuyou had thought too simply. He thought that if he dropped the woman’s head and scared Xu Qiushi silly, he would meekly hand over his things. He didn’t think that Xu Qiushi would be like a stone in the privy, hard and smelly,” Luo Wuyou snorted coldly.
“Master, then who do you think it was that killed the bride?”
Luo Wuyou was silent for a moment before he said, “Early this morning, Master received a transmission scroll saying that Xu Qiushi’s bride was a demon and that the item was also in Xu Qiushi’s possession, so Master asked Chen Wuyou, Tu Wuyou and me to come to Medicine Monarch Manor to check it out. Chen Wuyou wanted Lao Si and me to take the bride away and threaten Xu Qiushi to give up the item.”
“Then what happened?”
“Lao Si and I used our vanishment technique to enter the palanquin from below, but by then the bride was already dead.”
Qiu Yutong’s eyes widened, extremely surprised in his heart. At this moment, what Luo Wuyou was saying had to be true…. but how was this possible? If this was the case, then from the time Xu Qiushi received the bride, to the time Luo Wuyou and Tu Wuyou sneaked into the palanquin, in just a few hours, the bride had been killed silently… Who would do that? And for what reason?
The disciples were silent for a while, then someone asked, “Master, how did the bride die?”
Luo Wuyou did not speak and simply shook his head.
“Was she beheaded at that time?” Another disciple asked.
“No. There wasn’t a single wound on her body, there was no shock on her face, and she was smiling,” Luo Wuyou said slowly.
The body of the smiling bride… Qiu Yutong inexplicably felt a chill run down his back, and Lu Xiao squeezed his palm soothingly.
Luo Wuyou added, “Lao Si and I had no choice but to bring the bride’s body back, but we really didn’t kill her.”
The disciples were silent for a moment, then chattered enthusiastically. “Maybe the bride was a traitor to the demon race and was killed by her own family!”
“With a smile on her face? I heard that there is an evil cultivator in the East Sea who has a famous martial art called ‘Hundred Steps Smiling Killing Palm’, and one of the moves is called ‘Smiling Face’, where the deceased has a smile on his face and his seven orifices bleed…”
“Eh, yes, yes, yes, I know that too….”
Luo Wuyou sighed, “I’ve thought about all of what you’ve said, but now I can’t be sure what’s really going on. At that time, she was already dead, so Chen Wuyou had no choice but to cut off the bride’s head, trying to scare Xu Qiushi by surprise, but who would have thought that the old stubborn man would actually kill himself.”
The crowd was discussing this topic, when someone suddenly shouted, “Look, there’s a fire outside!”
“Heavens, it’s true. Half of the sky is red!”
“That direction…. it looks like the Medicine Monarch Manor is burning?”
“Yes, it’s the Medicine Monarch Manor!”
“Such a huge fire!”
The disciples outside were in an uproar, and Luo Wuyou seemed to have gotten up, and only after a while did he sneer. “It seems that Chen Wuyou didn’t find him, so he went on a rampage and burned the village….”
Qiu Yutong felt a pang of sadness in his heart and couldn’t help but look at Xu Dongqing, whose eyes were wide, his face so pale that he hardly looked like a living person, his lips trembling slightly.
“Shhh,” Lu Xiao covered his mouth deftly, and it was as if Xu Dongqing’s sobs had been cut off by scissors, the remaining half being held in his lungs.
But it was already too late.
Luo Wuyou’s voice came to a screeching halt, then he said sternly, “There’s someone back there! Search for them!!!”
In a flash of lightning, Luo Xiao jumped up and stretched his leg to kick hard!
With a loud ‘boom’ sound, the statue of the local god suddenly fell down. Dust flew inside the temple and the disciples shouted in unison! Taking advantage of the confusion, Lu Xiao dragged Qiu Yutong and Xu Dongqing with him and tried to get out through the door!
“Want to run?” Luo Wuyou smiled coldly, his hand creating a sword trick and his long sword, like a snake, unsheathed itself with a “shua!”
The longsword broke through the air and the flashing sword light enveloped the three people completely! Luo Wuyou slapped out with a palm.
Between the lightning and fire, Qiu Yutong fiercely pulled down a long curtain, and with a gentle shake of his palm, met it without hesitation! The brilliant sword light suddenly stalled as the curtain almost caught the hilt of the sword, forcing the spirit sword to fly out diagonally!
“You’ve got some skills!” Luo Wuyou exclaimed then whispered an incantation, “Sword Suspension, begin.”
With this incantation, the spirit sword hovered in mid-air for a moment, then as if it was a living thing, turned and descended with an ear-piercing whistling sound! Bright sword light fell like a rainstorm, and the harsh invisible sword qi kept emitting a “chi” sound.” With a “boom”, the curtain in Qiu Yutong’s hand was twisted and smashed several times!
With a flash of sword light, the blood of the three men was about to splatter!
Already too late at this point, Qiu Yutong could barely think about it and couldn’t care less about self-preservation. He immediately brought up all his spiritual energy and pushed Lu Xiao and Xu Dongqing away with force, “Go!”
Qiu Yutong could almost feel the cold sword qi stinging his back!
Was he going to die?
“BOOM!!!” In the next instant, he was thrown to the ground, making him feel dizzy, but without feeling the sharp pain he had expected. Something heavy and warm was pressed against his back, something warm and wet, slowly soaking through his clothes.
In a flash, Qiu Yutong understood, and even his voice trembled: “… Xiao-er?”
He scrambled to turn over, only to see Lu Xiao fall limply to one side, his dark eyes staring at him in a daze, “… Shi, Shizun.”
In that instant, Qiu Yutong didn’t care about anything. What Xu Dongqing, what Luo Wuyou, what running away? He threw it all away and pounced on him, saying in a trembling voice, “Xiao-er.”
“Shizun, I, I…” Lu Xiao’s thin lips trembled gently as if he wanted to say something to him, but in the end, he couldn’t say it.
On the left side of his chest, a large, dark, wet stain quickly spread on the ink-black fabric, looking even more shocking on the ink-black shirt.
“No, no…” Panicking, Qiu Yutong tried to stem the blood by pressing the wound, but to no avail as a large stream of thick blood quickly spilt out from between his fingers, so hot it made his heart skip a beat.
Lu Xiao drew a low breath and reluctantly curled his lips at him. “No, it’s okay.”
Qiu Yutong shuddered.” Xiao’er…”
Lu Xiao stared at him in a daze, his dark eyes seemingly holding a thousand words.
Luo Wuyou smiled coldly and reached out to take back his spirit sword, “Tie up the remaining two.”
“Yes!” The disciples swarmed up and tied Qiu Yutong and Xu Dongqing up hand and foot and tied them firmly to the pillars.
Lu Xiao lay limply on the ground, a large thick stain of blood quickly spreading out beneath him. He struggled and turned his head slightly, his dark phoenix eyes staring at Qiu Yutong for a moment as if at the end of his life, he wanted to take one more look…
Luo Wuyou didn’t pay attention to Qiu Yutong and Lu Xiao, his eyes only fixed on Xu Dongqing then he suddenly burst out laughing. “I didn’t expect, I really didn’t expect that I would meet the Second Master of the Medicine Monarch Manor here. This is really the flower not blooming when you want it to and blooming when you least expect it.”
A disciple walked up to Luo Wuyou and offered two pieces of the tortoiseshells with both hands. “Master, this is what we found on that man when we tied him up.”
Luo Wuyou’s eyes suddenly lit up. “This… is it the tortoiseshell? Why, how come there are two pieces?”
He held the two pieces of tortoiseshells, his hands trembling with excitement, then closing his eyes, he tried to suppress the joy in his heart. “Watch them well. We’ll go back to Immortal Island first thing in the morning! This time we can get at least five more jade tokens for the Blood Prison Secret Realm.”
The disciples cheered, “Great!”
“We only had three jade tokens before, but Uncle Chen has five!”
“That’s right! This time, Master has made a great achievement, Grandmaster can’t be biased!”
“By the way, this little white face who was hiding the turtle shell is not bad looking, he can be sent to Master as a furnace, hahaha…”
**”Hehe, you don’t say. Look at his delicate appearance and he can even draw qi into his body, maybe Senior Uncle will really like him!”
Luo Wuyou laughed, “It’s not impossible.”
Qiu Yutong didn’t care about the insults. His eyes were fixed on Lu Xiao, and his chest was burning with anxiety. What to do? What should he do? His little disciple was only a mortal, he couldn’t hold on for long, and what if something happened to him… there was no possibility of collecting his soul and rebuilding his body…
What should he do? If he couldn’t even protect his own disciple, what was the use of him… as a master?
Lu Xiao looked at Qiu Yutong stubbornly, his dark eyes a bit hazy.
Qiu Yutong felt a sharp, unspeakable pain in his chest. This was his only apprentice, the one he had raised for ten years, the one he had watched grow up, he couldn’t hold on any longer… The extreme pain, like a red-hot knife, stirred his lungs fiercely. It was as if a large, rough hand was kneading his heart mercilessly… He had practised swordsmanship since he was a child, was pure in nature, and had almost no desire, so he had never felt such extreme pain before…
Qiu Yutong closed his eyes, tried to calm down, tried to think. What should he do? Should he reveal his identity and beg Luo Wuyou? With his identity, the Northern Sea Sword Sect could get a lot of benefits from North Snow City. However, Luo Wuyou might be afraid that North Snow City would retaliate and might instead kill the three of them to silence them.
At this moment, Lu Xiao slowly turned his head away with great difficulty and staring at the fire in the temple, he suddenly murmured, “Mother… I’m so cold.”
Qiu Yutong’s heart twisted hard. He naturally knew that mortals would feel cold if they lost too much blood and would also have all kinds of hallucinations, but, but… at this moment he suddenly had a very strange feeling. Lu Xiao’s mother had died very early and Lu Xiao did not seem to have any memory of her, and when he was a child, he would only call out “Shizun” when he was scared during rainstorms.
Lu Xiao struggled to move towards the fire, and as he did so, a bright red bloodstain gradually trailed out from underneath him, and his eyes became even more confused. “Mother, Mother… “
The disciples gathered around with great enthusiasm and said, “This mortal boy has not been weaned; he is still calling for his mother when he is dying, hahahahaha…”
Lu Xiao didn’t seem to hear what they were saying, but moved towards the fire in a daze, and tried to reach forward to touch the warmth, “Mother, I’m cold… “
One of the disciples gave him a kick and laughed, “Go away! Go to the underworld to find your mother!”
Lu Xiao was kicked and rolled over several times, and then he fell to the ground and stopped moving.
“Look at him, he looks like a dog!”
“And he’s looking for his mother, hahaha…”
The disciples laughed and laughed, but suddenly, they felt different.
They looked at each other, you at me, I at you, and their lips wriggled, as if they wanted to say something, but they couldn’t say a word and then one by one, they fell down softly.
Luo Wuyou said in a stern voice, “What’s going on…”
Before he could finish his sentence, he also collapsed softly.
Qiu Yutong also felt an extreme weakness in his body and his whole body almost slid down, but because he was already tied to the pillar, he couldn’t slide down.
Luo Wuyou and the disciples fell to the ground, unable to speak, with only one pair of eyes still blinking twice, some in anger, some in fear, some in confusion.
What was going on?
Qiu Yutong also froze, then realized what was going on and looked towards Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao slumped to the ground and struggled to move several times before he managed to pull himself up, suddenly vomiting a mouthful of blood. He slumped in the pool of blood, gasped twice, and took a few moments before he managed to get up.
With one hand covering his nose and the other slowly picking up a long, shiny sword, he stumbled over to Luo Wuyou.
Luo Wuyou’s eyes widened. His lips trembled slightly and his gaze changed from extreme anger, to panic and confusion, to pleading.
Lu Xiao looked at Luo Wuyou with his eyes downcast, without a single expression on his face. Then, he slowly raised his right hand and gently thrust the long, shiny sword into Luo Wuyou’s throat.
