Carrying a Hoe to Cultivate

Ciang Yi stood steadily at the door of the hall. He glanced around the hall, seeing all the people whining on the floor, he frowned. Then he saw the head of the Wu Qian Yuan in the hand of Ze Yuan. His expression intensified with shock and anger, “Ze Yuan. Did you do this?”

Ze Yuan, still holding the spear in his hand and half kneeling, looked up upon hearing his words, stared at Ciang Yi coldly and said in a voice that gave people chills, “I did it.”

Ciang Yi blinked. His body seemed to have swayed slightly. A moment later, he asked in a hoarse voice, “Why did you do this? What’s done is done. It’s none of your business. If you want to avenge them, come at me.”

Seeing Ciang Yi’s painful expression, Ze Yuan scoffed, “There is no need to pretend to be sad. No one will care.”

“Do you know how many innocent people are dead and would be dead because of this?” Ciang Yi, focusing on Ze Yuan, his always expressionless face was in rage, “Have you ever thought about what you will do after this? What… what are you going to do with your father?”

Ze Yuan seemed to be touched by the term ‘father’ and lowered his head with a slightly changed expression. After a while, he spoke with a faint voice, full of hatred and despair, “My love is dead because of them.” Next, he suddenly raised his head, his voice shaking, and spoke word by word, “Wang Lan is dead because of them. They tortured him for days. He could not even have his eyes closed. It was painful to look at his body. I had been searching. But I never expected him to be taken to Mount Yu Lu’s dungeon. It was me who wronged him. I failed to protect him. Now that he is gone, I am going to get the whole cultivation world to pay for it.”

Ze Yuan’s eyes were all red, his voice sounded painful as if a wolf which had lost its partner was howling in pain.

“I will ask you one more time. What are you going to do with your father?” Ciang Yi shouted at him as well. His hands on both sides were slightly twitching.

All of a sudden, Ze Yuan interrupted his words, roaring, “I don’t care. The only thing I know is that Wang Lan is no longer here. Wang Lan was killed because of them. You ask me about my father now. But have you asked him that for all these years? Have you ask me about that? We are nothing to you! What’s the point of pretending to care now! Are you guys not on the same line? Aren’t everyone in the cultivation world in the same body? If you want to fight, just go ahead and stop those bullshits!”

The face of Ciang Yi had turned pale white upon hearing this. He trembled and closed his eyes in pain.

Seeing this, Liu Si Qian yelled at Ze Yuan immediately, alerted, “What are you talking about? You evil creatures from the demonic world are good at mesmerizing people. What have you done to our immortal honourable leader?”

Ciang Yi abruptly opened his eyes and raised his hand, signaling him to stop, making Liu Si Qian swallow his remaining words and closed his mouth.

“Where is his body? Where did you move Wang Lan’s body to?” Ciang Yi seemed much calmer, asked, out of the blue.

“I will take care of his body. The matter is not yours to concern!” Ze Yuan heard Wang Lan’s name and quickly looked back at him sharply as if he was an alerted animal.

Ciang Yi was paying no attention to his unfriendliness and just continued, “You know better. I never meant harm to you.”

Ze Yuan kept staring at him like he was being cautious and being observant.

Their eyes fixed on each other, Ciang Yi’s eyes were dark and deep.

“He followed me to Qi Shan once. There was a medicine garden at the foot of the mountain. He said that the flowers of the herbs were beautiful.” After a long moment, Ze Yuan began to murmur.

“What were you doing in Qi Shan?” Ciang Yi looked at him in a strange way, voice lowered with a hint of unnoticeable shivering.

“I told him, I wanted him to meet my family. Even if I could not do that, I would like to see the place he was living in.” Ze Yuan pronounced a small laugh as if he was mocking himself.

Then he looked up at a distance outside the door of the hall blankly, “And I promised him, I would live beside that medicine garden with him and look at all the herbs and flowers with him. That’s why I have put him in a jade coffin and let him sleep beside that medicine garden. He is not lonely though, those flower fairies who were his parents are by his side now. And Black is there too. After my revenge, I will go and stay with him.”

“Quick and bring me there. That jade coffin has trapped his spirit that has not vanished yet. We can still make it.” Ciang Yi cut his self-murmuring off, saying in a fuss.

It seemed like Ze Yuan had not heard him and was still in his own head, looking blank, not even noticing Ciang Yi walking right to his face.

Ciang Yi pulled him up from the floor grabbing his collar, scolding, “I am telling you to bring me to Wang Lan. We can still make it.”

“Still, still make it?” Ze Yuan shivered, as if he was finally awake. He looked at Ciang Yi, frozen, asking with a trembling voice. He did not resist even with his collar being grabbed by Ciang Yi. Having a hard time believing, his eyes were lightened up in surprise but also with a desperate beg and hope.

“We will get there and see.” Ciang Yi released him. He swiftly walked outside, waved his hand, and stepped onto a sword floating at low level.

Looking at that silver line dashing from the skyline, he turned back to shout fiercely, “You should take your seawater back.”

Ze Yuan did not look confused anymore. Without hesitation, he dashed out swinging his spear and the silver line at the other end of the sky slowly retreated.

Just when the two were preparing to fly towards Qi Shan, a hoarse voice echoed from the ground, “Leader. This son of the demons killed our head, destroyed our sect, harmed our man. Please avenge us.”

Those words were toxic.

It was from a man of the Yu Lu Men, whose arm had been cut off.

With some efforts to heal him, he had woken up from the coma caused by the lack of blood. He was leaning on a pillar, lying on the stone steps, staring fixedly at Ze Yuan.

Ciang Yi halted, then he turned slightly to respond coldly, “I will investigate. If it was a bad deed, someone must pay no matter who that was.”

After saying so, he activated the sword underneath his feet to fly towards the sky. Ze Yuan also stepped on his spear in a hurry and followed. After that, for the ones who were left at Mount Yu Lu, the hurted ones were healed, the exhausted ones had their rests, and the body of the Yu Lu Men, Wu Qian Yuan, had also been put into a coffin.

He saw that Yu Lu Men was okay and Ze Yuan had followed Ciang Yi to Qi Shan.

Although that was their immortal honourable leader Ciang Yi, Liu Si Qian still felt a little uneasy, so he brought with him some apprentices and went back to their sect.

They waited anxiously till late at night, then they finally saw Ciang Yi coming back.

They all surrounded him, asking about what he had been through.

On the other hand, Ciang Yi just waved his hand, exhausted, “Ze Yuan’s spirit has gone. Do not mention any of this from now on.” Then, with a fierce look, he said more seriously, “It’s Yu Lu Men’s head Wu Qian yuan who had been acting wrongly. Instead of cultivating earnestly, he did it the evil way, harming innocent lives, causing the young master of the demonic world to seek revenge here. Although he had harmed Yu Lu Men’s people, they deserved it. And Ze Yuan had his punishment as well. From now on, no one should go to the demonic world and cause trouble. If I know of anyone acting their own way, thinking that this is unjust, I will not make it easy for him.”

Seeing everyone staying silent and unwilling to act differently, Ciang Yi’s look softened. He only said that he needed to cultivate alone in the mountains and let Tian Xuan temporarily take care of everything concerning the sect. While he was talking about it, his voice was low with a few coughs, and he looked tired.

The others were shocked when they heard of Ciang Yi cultivating by himself since there were no signs of this beforehand. However, seeing how Ciang Yi was like now, apparently it was due to that fight between him and the son of the demons, Ze Yuan. He had beaten Ze Yuan in the end, but that evil person had great powers, he must have hurted the immortal honourable leader badly as well, causing him needing to cultivate alone to recover.

Therefore, no one ever asked questions about it again.

After telling them about the news, he let the others go back, leaving Tian Xuan with him.

He told him something, should be about the things concerning when he was not at the sect.

On the same night, Ciang Yi, the immortal honourable leader, had vanished. He should be cultivating on his own.

That disaster had been covered up by Ciang Yi just like that.

The seawater which had been coming at them had already been back. And no one had ever heard of Ze Yuan, the son of the demons, again in the cultivation world.

During this period, Jie Shang must have been paying attention to Ciang Yi’s whereabouts. Once he heard that the immortal honourable leader was out, he came for revenge.

After Jie Shang mentioned his revenge on his son, everyone fell silent.

Due to the attitude of Ciang Yi at the time of the incident, no one in Qi Shan dared to mention what had happened in Mount Yu Lu. Nevertheless, all the apprentices of the sect still know about it and would talk about it in their free time, after a meal, before sleeping, discreetly.

When they heard that Jie Shang was coming for revenge, they were shivering and scared.

“Years ago, Ciang Yi begged me not to harm any of you before he came back out and I promised him soft-heartedly. But how would I expect him to hide himself after coming out. Is he too scared of me knowing about it and come to destroy your Qi Shan Sect?”

Jie Shang looked around him, smirking.

“You are full of bullshit.” After hearing him saying bad things about Ciang Yi, Cheng Ming became angry. That sparkling sword which had been holding its position above his head now suddenly exploded with a silver light and went straight towards Jie Shang.

“No. Tian Quan.” Liu Si Qian stopped him immediately, but that sword was already on its way.

Just when that was about to step into Jie Shang, it halted a few feet before him, quivering and could not advance any further.

Jie Shang did not even look at it. He said suddenly towards the air in front of him, “Ciang Yi, I know you are out. I am coming here as I had promised years ago. You killed my son and we shall see blood. If you do not come out, I will kill ten people of your sect every hour until you come out.”

There seemed to be no response. What he had just said echoed around in the air of the whole Qi Shan Sect.

Xia Yi heard that as well. He became nervous and grabbed Gu Wen Zhu’s arm with one hand and Kirin’s neck with the other.

Is this Jie Shang still having puberty problems or is he an anti-sociopath? He looks pretty and all with that smile, but he is talking about killing people, ten in an hour?

“Shut up!” Liu Si Qian could no longer held back his anger, he raised his sword to point at Jie Shang, “We had been respecting you because of the fact that you are the demonic leader, but you have been kidnapping our apprentices when our leader was not here, you also kidnapped our leader, and now you are talking foully about our immortal honourable leader.”

“Do you think that we will let you take Qi Shan doing nothing? Demonic leader or not, the whole Qi Shan Sect shall fight you today.”

“All apprentices. Swords out.”

Right after those words were out, hundreds and thousands of swords floating in the sky began to shoot. The swords were vibrating with buzzing sounds. It was as if the whole sky was filled with shooting stars. All the attacks were shooting towards Jie Shang.

“Ah.” Xia Yi breathed out a short scream and closed his eyes.

Even though Jie Shang was an anti-sociopath, as a normal citizen who obeyed the law in modern society, Xia Yi did not wish to see someone being stabbed alive into a sword cactus. The expected scream never echoed. There was the sound of a world-shakening explosion, followed by the clanging sounds of swords.

Xia Yi opened his eyes and looked in puzzlement.

The swords were all over the ground. Somewhere stuck between rocks, vibrating. That Jie Shang was standing there, fine, in his red clothes swaying in the wind. His fair skin made his eyes and brows look darker in color, as if they were the color of a deep pool of water.

Xia Yi could not help but look at Gu Wen Zhu who was right beside him.

Gu Wen Zhu felt Xia Yi looking at him, so he turned and raised one of his brows to show a questioning face. Those eyes were also as dark as a deep pool of water.

Xia Yi shook his head immediately, then he pointed in front of him to make him continue to watch.

Gu Wen Zhu looked again and said, “Oh no.”

Xia Yi was about to ask what’s wrong, then he saw there was an apprentice of the Qi Shan Sect in the hands of Jie Shang, who had been standing there and not making a move. That apprentice was tall and strong. Still, had been grabbed by Jie Shang who was far slimmer than him. In his hands, he was like a small chick unable to fight for itself.

After Jie Shang turned him around, Xia Yi almost screamed.

It’s Qing Xiu.

One of Jie Shang’s hands was grabbing onto Qing Xiu’s back of the neck, the other one of his hands was right above the top of his head, radiating with a black aura from the palm.

“Ciang Yi. I will count to ten. If you don’t show up, don’t blame me for killing people. One, two, three,”

Tears appeared at the bottom of Qing Xiu’s eyes, could not bear to part with the world, he threw a look at the direction of the apprentices of the sect and closed his eyes with gritted teeth.

“Four,“ Jie Shang counted at moderate speed. He seemed not to care, but there were hidden waves inside his eyes.

“Stop.” A clear shout rang just when Jie Shang had counted to five.