KK Translates

Arc 7 – Farewell to that Senior Brother
Chapter 174

It has been more than 700 years since Wanluan succeeded Liyang Palace. Unlike the other sects who select the leader based on seniority and their background, Liyang Palace selected it based on strength alone.

If someone felt that they could challenge the current sect leader, as long as they send out a letter of challenge, the current sect leader must accept it. Such battles do not follow the rules of a friendly fight and every move made by each party are to be filled with killing intentions.

In every challenge, someone would die. Sometimes it would be the challenger, sometimes it would be the current sect leader. As for the person who wins, without needing to go through any procedures and regardless of their identity, as long as they were still breathing and the other party had already stopped breathing, they would be given the identity of the sect leader.

For more than 700 years. Wanluan had been the sect leader. It goes to show how terrifying her strength was.

At present, the sect leaders of the six major sects are actually people from the same generation and are similar in age. This is with the exception of the abbot of the Lingshan School who is more than 500 years older than the others. The rest of them have almost all grown up together since a young age. Although they all grew up in their respective sects, the road of cultivation is long, and the leaders of the major sects would inevitably cross paths. At that time, the male cultivators had Jiye Zhenren at the forefront while the female cultivators had Wanluan. These two people were almost invincible, but it also just so happened that both liked to remain low-key, so they rarely took the initiative to do anything.

In the past, Wanluan and Jiye Zhenren had only exchanged hands once and it was at a joint conference. At that time, Wanluan was only barely defeated by Jiye Zhenren but now it was hard to say. After all, for the past six hundred years, Wanluan had been making progress while Jiye Zhenren’s cultivation progress had stagnated.

In other words, Wanluan was probably an opponent stronger than Jiye Zhenren. Even Lin Changfeng was nothing against her.

Wanluan also clearly thought this and that was why she was able to smile with ease. As for Jiye Zhenren’s eldest disciple, Wanluan had never paid much attention to him and had only recently started to become a little interested in him.

“To actually find this place so quickly. Quite remarkable.”

The overall strength in the cultivation realm was like a pyramid. The higher you go, the fewer people there are and the distance between each level was as insurmountable as the sky. For those outside, he could end battles instantly with a brandish of his sword, but in front of Wanluan, he couldn’t act rashly.

Lin Changfeng gripped his sword tightly. There was still someone’s blood dripping off the tip of it. He didn’t respond to that statement and just looked at Chi Zhao who was sitting in the middle of the underground pool of water.

Chi Zhao had been watching him all this time. Seeing him look over in his direction, he anxiously wanted to stand, but the heavy chains tied him down. Chi Zhao’s anxiousness only caused the heavy chains to rattle/

Lin Changfeng had good hearing. Even if he couldn’t see the situation under the water, he could guess what that sound meant. His breathing hastened for a moment and he turned to look at Wanluan with a dark expression, “You tied him up?”

Ever since Lin Changfeng appeared, those two cultivators have been staring at him with extreme vigilance, as if trying to decide if they should get rid of him, but because Wanluan hadn’t said anything, they didn’t move. Wanluan gently waved her hands and glanced at the two who then silently returned to their positions.

Wanluan’s voice was very cold. Although most cultivators don’t speak with much warmth in their voices, there were few people like her who could freeze others with just a few words.

“What else? After activating the soul exchange formation, his soul will be physically stripped away. At that time, he would be in so much pain, he would want to end his life so what else could I do?”

After she said this, Chi Zhao’s first reaction wasn’t to worry about his own life and he instead looked nervously at Lin Changfeng, fearing that he would be stimulated by those words and start attacking Wanluan without caring for the consequences. Fortunately, Lin Changfeng sensibly remained in place. His eyes were red like a wild beast’s and he was clearly furious, but it was like his feet were nailed to the ground and he didn’t move.

Wanluan looked at him and for some reason laughed, “You and your master are so alike. You still remain rational even at a time like this. If I said that I would let the rest of them go if you killed him, would you also rationally choose to kill your Dao companion?”

Without waiting for Lin Changfeng’s answer, Wanluan looked at him mockingly, “However, I won’t ask you that kind of question because none of you are to leave this place. Today, you will all die here.”

Wanluan usually wouldn’t say so much. Probably because her true nature has been revealed, she felt that she no longer needed to maintain her act. The others weren’t as quick as Lin Changfeng. After learning that this incident was related to Wanluan, many returned to get more support. No one expected the mastermind behind all this to be the sect leader of the Liyang Palace, Wanluan. Huang Ling’er originally thought that just herself would be enough to knock everyone down to the ground but with the current situation, even if there were three of her, there was no guarantee of victory.

Lin Changfeng was worried about Chi Zhao so he came here alone. He was relieved when he saw that Chi Zhao was still alive and that the formation was still not activated. The next thing he had to do was to delay Wanluan and wait for the rest to come.

Thinking this, Lin Changfeng closed his eyes and suppressed the strong killing intent inside him. He then lowered his eyes and spoke up, “I am not the same as my master.”

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After saying this, he raised his eyes and looked at Wanluan calmly, “I will never abandon Chi Zhao, let alone hurt him.”

Wanluan clearly didn’t believe him. The first time Jiye Zhenren accepted a disciple, he had accepted a Yang spiritual root just like himself. Before that incident, she wasn’t very familiar with what the characteristics of a Yang spiritual root were. She only found out when she personally watched  Jiye lead a group of people to trap Qinghe, watched him calmly put up a formation and watched him expressionlessly confront Qinghe.

The Yang spiritual root will never develop inner demons and will never be impulsive. They are always calm, and the word ‘regret’ does not exist in their dictionaries.

Qinghe was the kind of person who wouldn’t give up even when forced into a dead end but in the end, he self-destructed. Why was it?

It was probably because he was in too much despair. He had been chasing after Jiye’s footsteps, trying to reach a position where he could stand shoulder to shoulder with Jiye and let him pay more attention to him, but having not been unsuccessful for all those years, he fell into the wrong path. Even after he went mad, that person didn’t act any different and even disregarded their past and personally came to trap him.

That was probably the reason for his despair and that was why he chose to end his life and die together with Jiye.

But he had died and Jiye was still alive.

Why?

 “Easier said than done.”

Wanluan lowered her gaze and looked down from above. Her words were very light, like the sound of a petal falling. Chi Zhao felt that she didn’t seem quite right. Just as he wanted to straighten up the upper half of his body and speak up to warn Lin Changfeng, he suddenly felt a numb sensation on his wrist.

It was like he was electrocuted by a small spark.

Chi Zhao glanced over in Han Yu’s direction, but Han Yu had his back facing him and he couldn’t see Han Yu’s expression. They are both in the water and water was a conductive medium so that shock just now was probably Han Yu trying to help him.

Chi Zhao pursed his lips. He didn’t dare move too much. The chain suppressed his spiritual power, and he was currently no different from an ordinary person. Using the chance when everyone’s attention was on Wanluan and Lin Changfeng, he lowered his head and tried to find a weak point on that chain.

On the other end, Wanluan spoke up again.

“I’m not interested in wasting time with you. You are considered Qinghe’s half disciple, so I originally didn’t want to kill you. Don’t get in my way.”

Chi Zhao was still concentrating on examining the chain. Hearing her say this, his body stiffened, and he quickly looked up. He just happened to see Wanluan pull out a whip from her waist and attack Lin Changfeng, “No!!!”

Lin Changfeng had to exert all his energy to block that blow. Wanluan was going all out. She didn’t care where this place was and she didn’t care about whether Lin Changfeng’s death would provoke the entire Zhao Tian sect. Upon seeing that she was about to throw out a second attack, he suddenly heard a line.

“I have a life and death contract with Chi Zhao. If you kill me, it will all be futile.”

Wanluan’s actions stopped. Almost everyone in the cave was shocked, including the other party involved, Chi Zhao.

Lin Changfeng didn’t want Chi Zhao to know about something like this in such circumstances, but he had no other choice. He flattened his lips and turn to look at Chi Zhao who was looking back at him with a blank expression, as if he still didn’t understand what the life and death contract meant.

The vessel must be alive. If it was dead, even if it had only died a second ago, it couldn’t be used. Wanluan didn’t dare make any more moves and even her expression was complicated. Lin Changfeng used the corner of his eyes to scan the rest of the cave. He saw that the other four cultivators who were at the spirit severing stage or higher were all staring at him.

The life and death agreement wasn’t almighty. Even if they couldn’t kill him; they could still knock him out or tie him up. Lin Changfeng still couldn’t act too rashly. Lin Changfeng looked back at Wanluan and noticed the change in her mental state. He suddenly spoke, “You are putting all this effort just to resurrect Qinghe Zhenren but what use is it for you to resurrect him? Even if he lives, he will still be the Qinghe Zhenren who had gone mad, he won’t be the same as before.”

Wanluan’s originally lost look froze for a moment. She stared straight at Lin Changfeng with eyes that were so calm, she looked a little mad.

“So what is he’s mad? I don’t care. I only want him to live. Even if he kills the entire cultivation realm, I don’t care. In any case, they owe him.”

Lin Changfeng frowned, “The people who harmed Qinghe Zhenren have died a a long time ago. Everyone else is innocent.”

What happened back then was also very complicated. At that time, Lin Changfeng was just a young disciple who had joined a sect and wasn’t involved with many things nor did he have the authority to be involved. What he saw back then was Qinghe, who was Jiye’s junior brother, clinging to his master every day.  Later, an accident happened and Qinghe developed inner demons and ever since then, his character began to change. The original Qinghe was generous, kind-hearted and very animated so many people liked him but after developing the inner demon, he became dark, paranoid and impulsive, and almost killed innocent people several times.

Qinghe himself was also in pain but he couldn’t control it. Later, it was unknown what had happened but Jiye who was followed around by Qinghe for nearly a thousand years finally agreed to become his Dao companion. At that time, Qinghe’s character had faintly returned to what it was like in the past, but on the eve of the ceremony, Qinghe completely went mad.

It was only after everything had settled that Lin Changfeng learned that the Qinghe back then never felt secure. Hearing that Jiye’s decision to become his Dao companion wasn’t sincere and was just purely because he wanted to control his inner demon, he wanted to confront Jiye about it. In the end, he didn’t see Jiye and instead saw a killing formation set up in their future home.

Qinghe thought Jiye wanted to kill him and eliminate the danger before it takes fruit. As a result, his originally unstable heart collapsed and, after he went mad, a series of tragedies followed.

But it wasn’t Jiye’s idea, he himself didn’t know about it. That plan was something the elders of the sect at the time had devised, thinking that the bringer of misfortune, Qinghe, shouldn’t be by the sect leader’s side. They had wanted to use the ceremony as a chance to get rid of Qinghe.

The cultivation realm six hundred years ago was far more chaotic than it was now. Schemes and plotting were almost everywhere, and the status of a sect leader wasn’t that high. Something like this happening was too normal and also too tragic.

Hearing Lin Changfeng’s words, Wanluan thought she heard a joke, “Innocent?”

“How are they innocent?!”

“They all avoided Yin spiritual roots like a plague and after hearing that Qinghe had inner demons, they couldn’t wait for him to be expelled from the sect. Some pointed fingers at him in the open while others persecuted him in secret. Why didn’t any of them believe in Qinghe? Why should they turn a blind eye to him? As long as there was one person who was willing to believe in him, he would not have fallen to that state!”

Wanluan looked like a madman. She was so agitated; her veil had fallen off. Wanluan originally had a gorgeous appearance that would make even an immortal feel ashamed, but she never showed it to others because she only wanted to show her face to the person she liked.

She liked Qinghe and she had liked him since they were young. Qinghe only had Jiye in his eyes so she knew she didn’t have a chance and never expressed her feelings, only watching him silently in the background. After watching for so many years, even if it was just a back figure, he had completely melted into her blood and bones. Qinghe had died. It also meant that her blood was drawn, her bones were shaved, and her flesh was cut off. Now, she who used to look like an immortal beauty, had become hideous and hateful.

“It wasn’t that no one believed in him.” Lin Changfeng looked at Wanluan, his expression still calm, “Want he wanted had nothing to do with the others.”

Lin Changfeng believed in him. The sect leader of the He Huan sect also believed in him. But so what? What he wanted was that person to believe in him. Even if the whole world didn’t believe in him, as long as that person was willing to accept him, he wouldn’t have fallen to that state.

Besides, it wasn’t that that person didn’t believe in him, but he himself who no longer believed in that person.

Wanluan appeared to be shaken. It was unknown what she recalled but she suddenly raised her head and glared at Lin Changfeng with hatred. Chi Zhao hurriedly warned, “Changfeng, be careful!!”

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Lin Changfeng quickly avoided the attack. Meng Xinxiao who noticed that Wanluan didn’t seem quite right also shouted, “Sect leader, don’t kill him!”

Wanluan clearly wanted to kill Lin Changfeng. The Daoist who was originally sitting immediately flew over to block her attack. He was willing to cooperate with Wanluan because he wanted to resurrect Qinghe but he couldn’t care less about their past. He didn’t want to see what they had planned for so many years be ruined in the hands of this mad woman.

A fight had started over there. It conversely made it more convenient for Han Yu. Han Yu’s mouth had a metallic taste. Having used so much spiritual power, he was about to vomit blood. The spell that had been applied to this chain was unique to the Liyang Palace and Han Yu had only briefly seen it once and knew that lightning was its nemesis. But no matter what he did, that spell didn’t seem to budge.

One person wasn’t enough to stop Wanluan. The other knitted his brows and soon joined the battle. The woman called Mengyi looked at Meng Xinxiao and the two conversed with their eyes. She then gently tapped the ground and leapt behind Lin Changfeng to knock him out while he was distracted.

Lin Changfeng couldn’t beat Wanluan but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t beat the others. Wanluan was currently caught up with the other two cultivators to stop her from killing him so he knew that this was the best opportunity for him. They only had five people here and the formation required five cultivators who are above the spirit severing stage. As long as he killed one, that formation would no longer be possible.

Lin Changfeng suddenly turned around, seemingly intending to attack Mengyi. Mengyi sneered, thinking that he was overestimating himself. Lin Changfeng was not yet at the spirit severing stage and having also spent so much energy just now, how could he beat her? Just as she was about to take his blow, she suddenly noticed that Lin Changfeng had disappeared.

In an instant, Mengyi realised something. She flew desperately but she was still a step to late. Meng Xinxiao, who was originally standing in the distance, was slashed across the throat by Lin Changfeng and was not given a chance to resist.

Lin Changfeng didn’t want to kill Meng Xinxiao.

Meng Xinxiao had also watched him grow up. When he was a child, Jiye Zhenren was busy with dealing with the sect affairs and it had been Qinghe Zhenren who had helped him train and gain experience at other sects. When he visited Liyang Palace, Meng Xinxiao would laugh and joke, asking if he wanted to stay in Liyang Palace and be her son-in-law.

But he had to kill Meng Xinxiao.

Because he was a Yang spiritual root, he knew very clearly what he should do and what was most important to him.

The sound of the blade scraping across the neck bone sounded like a grim reaper’s footsteps. He pulled out his sword and turned back to look at the rest of the people in the cave who had instantly fallen silent.

Even Han Yu was stunned. Meng Xinxiao…..died just like that?

The silence only lasted for a second. Very soon, a crazed and despaired cry sounded through the cave. Wanluan killed the man who tried to stop her from attacking and then charged towards Lin Changfeng. Lin Changfeng didn’t have the chance to feel sad before he had to move away. Chi Zhao was still bound by the chains, he couldn’t bring Wanluan over.

Meng Xinxiao was Wanluan’s junior sister. They had been close sisters since young and she meant a lot to Wanluan. Although Wanluan held no affection for her over the past few hundred years and Meng Xinxiao had only helped her accomplish what she wanted to accomplish, no longer having any heart-to-heart talks, the moment she saw Meng Xinxiao die, she realised what it meant to lose a loved one.

Chi Zhao was also about to go crazy. He even wanted to cut off his leg instead of sitting here, watching that mad woman drive Lin Changfeng to a dead end. Countless cuts have formed on his wrists, the blood flowing out from there, seeping into the water. The cold and filthy water he sat in conversely penetrated into his veins, making him tremble with pain. He however continued to pull at the chain. Suddenly, the spell on those chains was gone and he unexpectedly was able to break free rather easily. Disregarding the pain in his body, he quickly raised his head. As expected, it wasn’t Han Yu’s doing. Someone else was helping him.

Having not seen him for three years, Chi Zhao thought he had forgotten what Jiye Zhenren looked like, but in fact, he only discovered now that he remembered it very clearly, like it was only yesterday.

Huang Ling’er followed closely behind. She had already removed her disguise and with just a few moves, she had already beaten Mengyi to the ground. The originally one-sided battle had changed momentum in an instant. Seeing Jiye, Wanluan’s pupils instantly constricted. She gritted her teeth, “Ji. Ye.”

Chi Zhao stumbled out from the water. Lin Changfeng used this opportunity to hold him up and then retreated to a place far away from Wanluan. He held tightly onto Chi Zhao who was still bleeding at his wrist and stared at Wanluan with vigilance.

Jiye who was called out by her just looked around with a calm expression. He then looked up at the cultivators who were locked up and finally at Wanluan, “Pull back.”

Wanluan laughed sarcastically. The stimulation from Meng Xinxiao’s death had already faded and she looked at Jiye seriously, “You think that is possible?”

“You won’t be able to resurrect Qinghe.”

His voice was much too calm and certain. She was stunned for a moment. She had known Jiye Zhenren for many years and naturally knew his character very well. She frowned and asked, “Why?”

The Golden Toad Pagoda was in the cave, but it clearly hadn’t been used yet. Jiye Zhenren looked at the Golden Toad Pagoda and continued calmly, “Because you won’t be able to find Qinghe’s soul.”

After a pause, he turned his head back and looked at Wanluan, “Qinghe’s soul didn’t scatter. After I killed him, I sealed it in the sect’s forbidden area. The Golden Toad Pagoda won’t be able to summon it.”

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