Stranger Danger

Knock knock knock!

“Scion Ye?”

Ye Qing opened his eyes. They looked as black and deep as the night. Floating in the middle of the darkness was a pair of black lotuses, and invisible ripples were washing out of the petals and into the real world. As a result, the room he was sleeping in was filled with profound, inexplicable, and anomalous mirages.

A few breaths later, the black lotuses in Ye Qing’s eyes sank deeper into the darkness. It wasn’t long before it was completely gone. However, Ye Qing’s eyes remained as black as the abyss.

“Cough... cough... Come in, Miss Longing!”

Ye Qing coughed twice, and cracks suddenly spread open on his porcelain white face and oozed blood. Strangely, the blood felt frigid, murderous, and oozing with deadly saber intent.

“Are you okay, Scion Ye?”

A bone-chilling sensation gripped Longing as soon as she stepped into the room. The power Ye Qing’s blood gave off intimidated even her, an Anomaly.

She couldn’t help but recall the attack that had split open the river five days prior. The attack didn’t just divide the Yong River in half, it had nearly crushed the Boat of Longing into pieces as well. If Ye Qing hadn’t defended the ship with all his might, it would have.

Unfortunately, he had to pay a huge price to do so. Since he had blocked the attack with his own body, the saber force and intent seeped deep into his body and ravaged his insides. At the time, his physical body looked like a porcelain vase that had bounced off the stairs a couple of times, his aura were barely stronger than the ambient energies, and his consciousness flickered like the flame of a dying candle.

Longing honestly thought that Ye Qing would never wake up, but to her surprise, he did just two days later. He would spend the next three days recuperating on his bed, never even taking a step out of his room.

“I’m fine, Miss Longing. You don’t need to worry about me. Cough!” Ye Qing tried to smile at her.

“Okay?” Longing snapped out of her memories and replied with a complicated look on her face. “I’ve never seen such severe injuries”

When she first met Ye Qing, his strength was many times greater than a dragon elephant, his vigor was as full and round as the sun and moon, his muscles and bones looked like the finest and most enduring marble, and his shoulders looked like they could carry ten thousand mountains of blades with ease.

But now, his physical condition was as precarious as a bunch of eggs stacked on top of each other, his vitality felt as weak as a dying candle, and even the act of smiling caused his flesh to rip apart like rotten cloth, much less talking. It was beyond pitiful and terrible.

“Haha, you say that, but I was way worse two days ago, wasn’t I?” Ye Qing consoled her even though he was the one who was ailing miserably. “I’m still alive, and that’s enough for me.”

Considering the sheer power behind Zhou Hengshan’s final attack, he was seriously grateful that he was alive at all. Even with his powers temporarily boosted by the blood he consumed, even with the Boundless Mara Buddha doing everything in its power to protect him, the attack still nearly killed him. The power of a Grandmaster truly was nothing to scoff at.

Someone might say that he would be better off dead though. For starters, Zhou Hengshan’s saber force and intent had invaded his body. After all the punishment it had endured, the saber intent had nearly shattered his physical body like glass.

That was nothing compared to the bloodthirst and killing intent within the saber intent, however. That had nearly extinguished his mind and soul in one stroke. The only reason he survived was thanks to the Fog Demon giving it his all to defend his mind with the Boundless Mara Buddha.

Worse still, not even the most potent healing items he possessed such as the Nature’s Water or the dragon-serpent runes were able to treat his wounds. Duan Zipao’s Black Sky Divine Palm and Zhou Hengshan’s saber force and intent were constantly destroying his body from the inside, and the Nature’s Water and the dragon-serpent runes’ recuperative powers were just barely enough to outpace their destruction. He was in a precarious position to say the least.

The first step to recovering was to root out the Black Sky Divine Palm’s energy and Zhou Hengshan’s saber intent from his body. Unfortunately, it was easier said than done. The Back Sky Divine Palm was infamous for its insidious and tyrannical qualities, but what really confounded him was Zhou Hengshan’s saber intent; the saber intent of a Grandmaster.

Right now, his body was barely keeping it together like a broken vase that was put together with weak glue. If he was in tiptop condition, then he could definitely root out the two powers using violent, self-harming methods. But in his current state? To do so would be to commit suicide.

Therefore, the only way to root out the palm force and the saber intent was to eliminate them slowly. Very, very slowly. Assuming he could only make do with what he currently had—the Nature’s Water, the dragon-serpent runes and the “Chaos Demon Ape Body Tempering Sutra”—it would take him three to five years at least to return to his former strength.

Three to five years didn’t sound like a lot of time for a warrior, but that wasn’t the case for him. He was a murderer, a fugitive. He wasn’t sure if his faked death had managed to fool his enemies either. It was something he had come up with on the fly after he reached the Yong River.

If it worked, then he wouldn’t need to worry about pursuers or be on the run constantly. If it failed, it wasn’t like his situation could get any worse. That was why he had provoked Zhou Hengshan on purpose. Make no mistake, he absolutely wanted to sucker punch the fatso in the face, but inciting the Grandmaster into attacking him with all he got also made his death so much more believable.

He miscalculated Zhou Hengshan’s strength and underestimated the man’s determination to kill him though. He had been a fine line away from dying for real.

But how did he manage to extinguish his Soul Lamp? That was because he had contacted Faceless prior using the Longing Leaves.

The Longing Leaves were a Strange Artifact created from the leaves of a Longing Tree. The Longing Tree was a Hatred-class Stranger with a black leaf and a white leaf. Symbolizing yin and yang, the two leaves literally couldn’t live without the other. If either leaf was plucked first, then the other leaf would wither and die. Only by plucking them at the same time could both leaves be preserved.

The black leaf and the white leaf were known together as the Longing Leaves, and they each possessed a unique power of their own. The black leaf was yin in nature, so if its holder were to speak to it during nighttime, the white leaf holder would be able to hear their words. This would work even if the two holders were hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away from each other.

The white leaf was yang in nature, so its holder could write words on its surface and have it appear on the black leaf instantly. Again, this worked even if the two holders were far apart from each other.

The Longing Leaves were natural communication devices, and it was one of the loot he obtained from the jianghu warriors he killed. He gave the black Longing Leaf to Faceless and kept the white Longing Leaf for himself. After learning that he was going to attend the Hidden Dragon Meet, he came up with this arrangement so he could stay up to date on the happenings of Luo Shui even when he was away.

Then, things went to hell, and he had to contact Faceless to extinguish his Soul Lamp. He even made sure to time his “death” properly so it would coincide with the time the Soul Lamp was extinguished.

He had done everything in his power to fake his death. All he could do now was to pray and recover his strength as soon as possible.

Right now, his body was akin to a pile of rubble. He was a long way away from rebuilding it into a tower.

It wasn’t all bad news though. His mind and the “Paranirmitava?avartin Heavenly Demon Sutra” had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to his affliction. The bloodthirst and killing intent contained within Zhou Hengshan’s attack counted as negative emotions, which was why he had spent the past few days cycling the “Paranirmitava?avartin Heavenly Demon Sutra” to refine the saber intent inside his headspace.

Every time his spirit ran dry, he would restore it with a golden dragon-serpent rune and resume his task tirelessly. Three days and nights later, he finally managed to refine the saber intent, grow his mind, and advance his cultivation of the “Paranirmitava?avartin Heavenly Demon Sutra”.

Now, his spirit was as strong as a Spirit Master who had formed their Yin God.

For now, there was no point in honing his spirit further. The only way he could improve now was to create his Yin God and become a Spirit Master.

As usual, he needed a martial art to complete the next step. Depending on the martial art, the shape and power of his Yin God could be completely different. There was one thing that didn’t change, however. The stronger the martial art he used to create a Yin God, the greater his Yin God and his potential would become.

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