IVYSCP - Chapter 82
Chapter 82
The skyship cut through the clouds at great speed. Wind howled past outside, yet not a whisper reached the cabin. Inside, all was quiet and serene.
Ling Qingyue sat cross-legged in meditation. She was no longer in a frantic rush to restore her cultivation as before, yet the spiritual energy within her grew day by day regardless. It was as if she did not need to do anything at all. The surrounding spiritual qi sought her out of its own accord and was drawn into her.
For an ordinary cultivator, this would be an immense stroke of fortune, to gain spiritual energy even while lying idle. But for Ling Qingyue as she was now, it felt more like a death warrant pounding at the crown of her head. At the rate the spiritual energy inside her was growing, she would likely face the next lightning tribulation in less than two months.
And she was not yet prepared for what she would use to meet it. Twenty-seven bolts at the Nascent Soul stage would probably blast her into dust.
After circulating her spiritual energy, Ling Qingyue exhaled a breath of turbid qi. She turned her head and saw that Pei Yin was still reading at the desk. She rose and walked over, settling onto Pei Yin's lap with complete naturalness, then taking Pei Yin's hand and placing it around her own waist.
"What are you reading?"
Pei Yin gave the supple waist a casual squeeze and answered softly, "Something about the Liuyun Immortal Sect."
Ling Qingyue gave her a puzzled look. "Didn't you say you don't get out much? How does this skyship have books on everything?"
Pei Yin explained, "This skyship is actually Little Cangshan's library. My grandmaster enjoyed wandering the clouds. Every time she returned, she brought back many books. My master doesn't like reading, so they were all piled up in the library. When I have nothing to do, I sort through them and read a little here and there."
Ling Qingyue nodded and asked no further. She did not like reading so many characters either. She leaned lazily against Pei Yin's embrace, waiting for her to finish and then tell her about it.
Her fingers coiled another strand of hair. Ling Qingyue wanted to hear Pei Yin speak again, so without waiting for her to finish, she asked on her own, "I remember the Liuyun Immortal Sect used to be among the Ten Great Immortal Sects, wasn't it?"
Pei Yin nodded. "The book mentions it. At that time, the Liuyun Immortal Sect was the foremost immortal sect of the Western Regions, with disciples everywhere, spread throughout the Immortal Realm."
"Then it was about the same as Lingxu Immortal Palace. How did it end up exterminated? Did it offend the Demon Race?"
Ling Qingyue's intuition told her there was something fishy here. The Demon Race had been arrogant back then, but they still held some fear of the immortal sects. Why would they suddenly carry out a sect extermination, slaughtering everyone from top to bottom until only those disciples who had been out training or wandering abroad survived? But after that, those surviving disciples dared not show themselves or claim to be disciples of the Liuyun Immortal Sect. They all hid.
Pei Yin closed the book, tilted her head slightly, and looked out the window. Then she extended a thread of spiritual energy outward.
Before Ling Qingyue could ask, the pale golden spiritual energy returned, bringing with it a flustered and alarmed Xue Zizai.
Ling Qingyue: "..."
Pei Yin's tone was calm. "As expected, she followed us."
Xue Zizai looked up, saw their posture, and turned her head aside, ears reddening.
Ling Qingyue came to her senses and climbed off Pei Yin's lap. Surprised, she asked, "How did you get here?"
With Xue Zizai's current cultivation, chasing a skyship would be hard enough, let alone chasing a bird.
Xue Zizai fished around in her pocket and produced two objects: a jade token and a jade pendant.
"I took Lu Yao's jade token. This pendant was given to me by the Linglong Pavilion Master."
The jade token allowed passage through the Piaomiao Sect barrier. The pendant appeared to be a magical artifact, exquisitely crafted and beautiful, engraved with a swift-travel formation. This was apparently what allowed Xue Zizai to chase the skyship.
Ling Qingyue took the pendant and examined it in her hand, then asked, "What are you doing sneaking after us?"
Having spoken, she turned her head to Pei Yin and said, bemused, "And you knew?"
Pei Yin said indifferently, "I guessed."
Ling Qingyue took in her answer, then poked Xue Zizai's shoulder with a fingertip. "And you? What are you sneaking after us for?"
Xue Zizai pressed her lips together, her eyes reddening around the rims. She lifted her head and looked straight at the person before her. "Do you have a lead?"
Ling Qingyue was briefly stunned by the suppressed hatred burning in the depths of her eyes.
The room was punctuated by low, hiccupping sobs. The young woman's frame was thin, yet carried a resilient strength. She fought hard not to cry aloud, kept her tears bottled in her eyes, but her voice still sank into a muffled, choked tone. "You and Sect Leader Nie both said you would investigate the matter of Linshui Town. But it has been a month now. Yu Ting hasn't been caught, and no one has told me what the investigation has uncovered. I want revenge, but there is nothing I can do there. Cultivate, cultivate, you told me not to be impatient, but how can I not be impatient? They died before my very eyes. My mother, the people of the Xue Family, the people of Linshui Town, they all died before my very eyes."
"I know I can't kill Yu Ting right now, can't kill the people behind her. Maybe in this lifetime I'll never get my revenge..."
The tears still rolled down. Xue Zizai lifted a hand and wiped at them haphazardly, but could not get herself clean. Through a slurred voice, she said, "But, but at least I need to know why."
Why Linshui Town had to suffer this calamity. Why it had been targeted by those people.
Ling Qingyue watched the teenage girl weep before her until she could not speak, the silver bells in her hair ringing faintly. She had seen Xue Zizai lift her chin high to look at people, arrogant and prideful like a white cat that could not be touched. But now the sharp-fanged and sharp-clawed cat had dirty, matted fur, homeless, forced to retract all the sharpness on her body.
Her heart softened, and Ling Qingyue raised a hand to stroke her head. In the past, Xue Zizai would have flown into a rage and stormed off in humiliation. But now, when her hand landed atop her head and gently brushed over it, the tears Xue Zizai had been barely holding back surged forth again. She wailed out loud, seemed to want to raise her hands and embrace Ling Qingyue, but in the end she clenched her fists and suddenly crouched down, wrapping both arms around her knees and burying her head inside them as well.
Ling Qingyue's hand hovered in midair. Her fingertips curled slightly and then fell to her side.
Only when Xue Zizai's crying gradually subsided did Ling Qingyue speak. "The place we are going has nothing to do with Linshui Town. We also don't know if it will connect to the matter of Linshui Town. It's only because Liu Qingtang mentioned it many times that we are going to investigate."
"Xue Zizai, there are some things I cannot tell you in full. But neither will I shirk responsibility and say that the matter of Linshui Town has nothing to do with me at all."
Xue Zizai's body stiffened. She slowly raised her head and looked at her. "What do you mean?"
Ling Qingyue pursed her lips. Her gaze met Xue Zizai's without evasion. "Those people were most likely searching for me when they used Soul Searching on them."
Xue Zizai's face went stark white. She bolted upright and stumbled backward, putting distance between them. In disbelief, she said, "What did you say?"
The blood and fury surged up in an instant. All the gratitude toward the person before her these past days scattered like smoke. Her hatred peaked, and in the end it all turned into a mouthful of stagnant blood that she spat out. Her vision went black and she fell backward.
Ling Qingyue sighed. She summoned a wind from her palm to push open the door to the neighboring room and sent the unconscious Xue Zizai onto the bed inside, completely ignoring Pei Xi, who had transformed into her yao beast form and was sleeping soundly.
"Was that necessary?" Pei Yin walked over and embraced her from behind.
Ling Qingyue sighed again. "The hatred buried in her heart runs too deep. If she doesn't have a clear outlet for those emotions, sooner or later she'll collapse."
"So you told her all that just to make her hate you? When your master-disciple relationship was going rather well these past few days." Pei Yin saw it clearly. Ling Qingyue was deliberately guiding Xue Zizai to temporarily redirect her hatred.
"I haven't drunk the master-apprentice tea, nor have I received the master-apprentice gift. How does that count as master and disciple?" Ling Qingyue recalled when she had taken a master herself. She had walked step by step onto the platform, presented tea, and performed every courtesy. All the formalities had been arranged. If she wanted to take a disciple, it would certainly have to be the same. How could someone just casually call her "Master" and that would count as the apprenticeship?
Pei Yin's lips curved in a smile. "Fine, it doesn't count."
The skyship traveled for a day and a night, finally arriving at the former site of the Liuyun Immortal Sect.
A thin, drizzling rain fell, making one's mood heavy and dreary. Affected by demonic qi, the immortal sect grounds that had once brimmed with immortal energy were now nothing but a stretch of yellow sand, with the occasional faint silhouette of a hall standing among it.
"Let's go."
After disembarking from the skyship, Ling Qingyue patted Pei Xi on the head and told her to stay with Xue Zizai. Pei Xi feared she was going to be made to eat that girl's dreams again and shook her head like a rattle drum. Fortunately, Ling Qingyue only told her to stay by the girl's side and shield her from the rain. Pei Xi went over only then.
After waking up, Xue Zizai's eyes were dark and smoldering with fire as she stared fixedly at the back of the person ahead. The expression was at least somewhat more vivid than the stifled gloom of the days before.
Pei Xi walked beside her and, sensing her fury, offered sincere advice. "You can't beat either of them."
Couldn't beat them now, couldn't beat them later either. It was two against one.
Xue Zizai turned and glared at her. "I know!"
If she couldn't beat them, couldn't she at least glare?
Yellow sand stretched as far as the eye could see. The air still seemed to carry the scent of blood from a hundred years ago, not yet dispersed. Who could imagine that this had once been the most prosperous land of the Western Regions, with cities stretching in unbroken chains and cultivators gathering in throngs?
Where the yellow sand met the green land, there was a barrier, faint streams of flowing light shimmering across its surface.
With Pei Yin present, the barrier could not stop them.
After stepping across the barrier, Ling Qingyue indeed felt a restlessness surge through the blood in her entire body. She raised a hand and pressed it over her heart, feeling the violent pounding.
Pei Yin tilted her head and asked gently, "What's wrong?"
Ling Qingyue shook her head. "Chu Qianshan said there is residual demonic qi in this place. Maybe it's having some effect on me."
Pei Yin, hearing this, took her hand. Her fingertips rested on the inner wrist, feeling the heat beneath the skin.
Her eyelashes quivered slightly as she lifted them. Pei Yin gazed at the line of Ling Qingyue's profile, as if checking whether something was growing out.
Fortunately, there was not.
They had walked forward for less than the time it takes to burn one incense stick when the ground suddenly trembled. Something seemed to be hurtling toward them at top speed beneath the sand, carrying mad, murderous intent.
Pei Yin gave a slight lift of her hand. Pale golden flowing light circled around the four of them. The sandy ground before them suddenly erupted. Up in the air appeared figures one after another, clad in tattered rags... people?
Perhaps they no longer counted as people. They might have been people in life, but now they had rotting flesh hanging from their bodies. Where there were gaps in their skeletons, they were filled in with pitch-black, sinister grasses and woods. The entire torso was like a human skeleton cobbled together with every variety of spiritual plant and spirit creature.
Thick demonic qi coiled about them. Some still had eyeballs, but most of the eye sockets were empty. They could not see, yet they all charged straight at Ling Qingyue and the others.
"As expected, the demonic qi has not dispersed," Pei Yin said coldly. She was just about to raise a hand and annihilate them all with one move when Ling Qingyue suddenly pressed down on her hand and stopped her.
"I want to verify something."
Ling Qingyue spoke softly.
Pei Yin already understood what she meant and lowered her hand.
Ling Qingyue watched the things blocked outside the barrier. Her fingertip swiftly traced a cut across her palm.
In an instant, the aura of blood diffused through the air. Those things grew excited and threw themselves forward in a mad scramble.
Ling Qingyue smeared the blood on her fingertip, then flung it outward with a flick of her hand. The creatures polluted by demonic qi rushed toward it frantically. The demonic creature that first seized that drop of blood suddenly had the demonic qi around its body surge wildly. But before it could grow stronger, a golden formation came pressing down from the heavens, crushing it into powder, and the other demonic creatures did not escape either.
Everything fell silent at once. The wound on Ling Qingyue's palm healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Verified.
Ling Qingyue looked at her own hand and murmured, "It really is because of me."
The wooden carving of Liu Qingtang. And those four demonized corpses.
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