Li Xiaodong’s cultivation was only Qi Refining seventh layer, not particularly high, but he’d been instantly wiped out in the blink of an eye, the sight sent the other three into a state of genuine shock.
Xu Yifan thought to himself, he’d already used his thousand-pound weight technique [1]a body-weight cultivation technique that lets the user drop with crushing force jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3015884_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3015884_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, if he hadn’t held back out of concern for getting himself dirty just now, the man would probably be a smear of mush by now, let alone leaving behind an intact corpse.
“Who are you?” one disciple demanded sharply, pointing his sword directly at Xu Yifan.
“You don’t even know who I am?” Xu Yifan got up off of Li Xiaodong, patting at his sleeve as if brushing off something filthy.
One disciple eyed him warily, and seeing his broad, stocky build, said hesitantly, “You’re the Sixth Elder’s disciple, Xu Yifan?”
Xu Yifan had only shown his face once, at the disciple-recruitment ceremony, and had spent every day since then holed up on the mountain cultivating under the Sixth Elder. Most inner sect disciples had never actually seen him in person, but they all knew of his existence—
That fat old Sixth Elder had taken on a chubby little disciple.
Aside from the Sixth Elder, there wasn’t another plump person in all of Xianhao Sect.
This man was plump all over, must be Xu Yifan, no doubt about it.
Realizing this, the three disciples hesitated.
This man was the Sixth Elder’s disciple. In all these years, the Sixth Elder had only ever taken on this one disciple. On the day of the recruitment ceremony, when the Discipline Hall Master had accidentally injured him, if the Seventh Elder hadn’t stopped him, the Sixth Elder would have wanted to beat the Discipline Hall Master up over it, word of the incident had spread throughout the whole sect, clear evidence of just how fiercely protective the Sixth Elder was of his little disciple, guarding him almost like the apple of his eye.
The Sixth Elder still carried considerable weight within the sect, they didn’t dare provoke him.
But Xu Yifan had witnessed their act of violence directly. If they let him go, never mind whatever punishment might come their way afterward—Hall Master Ma would probably be the very first one to refuse to let them off.
The moment this man had appeared, he’d crushed Li Xiaodong to death, clear proof he wasn’t one of them.
“What do we do?” someone transmitted, asking.
His companion stared at Xu Yifan, who looked utterly nonchalant. The companion then glanced at Xian Qinglin, who was already gravely wounded, barely clinging to life, one more sword strike, and the mission would be complete.
Damn it, this was all that bastard Li Xiaodong’s fault.
If you’re going to kill someone, just kill them, why did he have to run his mouth so much?
If he’d been quick and clean about it just now, Xian Qinglin would probably already be on his way to reincarnation by now.
“Junior Martial Brother Xu.” one disciple spoke up. “Do you know Xian Qinglin?”
Xian Qinglin lay sprawled miserably on the ground, his fingertips twitching faintly. Xu Yifan fed him a pill, thought it over, and said, “I know him. We’ve met.”
“Oh, just a passing acquaintance then? In that case, could Junior Martial Brother Xu perhaps pretend not to have seen this?”
Xu Yifan shook his head carelessly. “Nope.”
The disciple’s eyes narrowed. “Does Junior Martial Brother mean to make an enemy of the three of us?”
“So what if I do?” Xu Yifan asked. “Not allowed?”
There was no room left for negotiation now.
“You’re just Qi Refining sixth layer, and you dare act this brazenly, truly a case of not knowing your own place.” [2]不知天高地厚, literally “not knowing the height of the sky or the depth of the earth,” meaning wildly overestimating oneself jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3015884_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3015884_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
“Kill him.”
Clean it up nicely, destroy the evidence, and the Sixth Elder would surely never find out.
A mere Qi Refining sixth layer wasn’t even worth mentioning.
Seeing them foolishly raise their swords and charge at him, Xu Yifan clicked his tongue.
The pill had temporarily protected Xian Qinglin’s heart meridian, and he’d recovered about thirty percent of his strength. Hearing this, he said weakly, “Run… run, they’re all at Fou—Foundation Establishment.”
“Foundation Establishment’s nothing.” Xu Yifan flicked his high ponytail with cold indifference. “No need to be afraid. I’ll protect you.”
Xian Qinglin’s pupils contracted, staring at Xu Yifan in a daze. “You… what did you just say?”
“I’ll protect you.”
Xian Qinglin’s mouth moved, but his throat was too parched to force out another word.
This person was saying he’d protect him, him, who hadn’t even been able to protect his own mother…
His heart pounded as if it were about to explode.
Xu Yifan tossed a talisman toward Xian Qinglin, and Xian Qinglin watched it stick to his chest, then bloom with golden light, forming a thin membrane that enveloped him completely.
He forced his head to turn to the side and saw the three inner disciples closing in on Xu Yifan at tremendous speed. Xu Yifan stood there without moving, thinking to just toss a talisman over like usual, as always.
A third-grade talisman could kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator as easily as slaughtering a chicken.
But just as his hand started to move, he caught sight of Xian Qinglin out of the corner of his eye, and his right hand suddenly froze.
Had he lost his mind?
This was exactly the moment for him to show off! If he didn’t flex a bit here, how was he supposed to sweep the pretty little beauty completely off his feet??
So he tucked the talisman back away, and just as the enemy’s magic sword was about to reach his face, he raised two fingers and pinched the incoming blade between them. At the same moment, attacks from left and right came bearing down right after.
The three of them launched a coordinated chain assault, giving Xu Yifan no chance to catch his breath at all.
But the attacks from left and right, just as they were about to reach Xu Yifan, found their magic swords seemingly gripped by some invisible, enormous force, or perhaps blocked by something else entirely, unable to advance or retreat, utterly unable to get anywhere near him.
“What’s going on?” the disciples cried out, faces draining of color in shock.
Xu Yifan didn’t answer. His two fingers tightened, and with a resounding clang, the sharp sword snapped in two.
He arched his right eyebrow, flicked his hair, and flashed a wickedly charming smile.
The four of them fought on for nearly an entire hour.
Xu Yifan darted left and right, making no real effort to kill his attackers, instead, while dodging, he kept striking poses, twisting his waist here, flicking his head there, leaving Xian Qinglin watching with a face full of exasperated confusion [3]滿頭黑線, literally “black lines all over the forehead,” a manga-style expression for deep bewilderment or exasperation jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3015884_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3015884_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Showing off usually came with a price, and Xu Yifan was soon panting for breath.
He’d been posing for this long already, surely that was enough. If he kept it up any further, his stamina would run out, and he might actually end up getting beaten for real.
Two fists were no match for four hands, and besides, fighting three levels above one’s own cultivation under ordinary circumstances would be nothing short of wishful thinking. Xu Yifan wiped away a bead of sweat and pulled out a talisman, pinching it between two fingers. “Want to kill me? Try again next lifetime!”
Xian Qinglin remembered the time back in Xiaolin Village when Xu Yifan had blown up Ma Xiu, the commotion had been so massive. If this drew people over, it might spell real trouble.
Just as he finished that thought, he saw Xu Yifan activate the talisman, and a strange black smoke burst forth from the paper, instantly enveloping the three disciples entirely.
Silent. Not an explosive talisman.
The black smoke spread, and Li Xiaodong’s corpse, as if drawn in like mist, vanished in the blink of an eye.
Xian Qinglin’s eyes widened.
Xu Yifan slowly walked out from within the thick fog, raised a hand and swept it aside, and the black mist dissipated entirely.
The three inner disciples were gone without a trace, not even a single hair left behind.
Xu Yifan came to stand before Xian Qinglin, crouching down to meet his gaze, secretly rather pleased with himself.
He’d just dropped from the sky like a hero saving the beauty in distress, struck all those poses for so long, then finished the enemy off with a couple of slick, effortless moves. Surely, in the pretty little beauty’s eyes, his image must now be towering and magnificent beyond compare.
With a good first impression secured, how hard could confessing his feelings possibly be?
Xian Qinglin lay on the ground, looking sickly pale and frail, his robes tattered and torn, thoroughly bedraggled. And yet, even like this, he was still devastatingly beautiful, where he’d once seemed elegant and coolly distant, in this moment he looked somehow gentle and pliant instead. Xu Yifan’s eyes lit up at the sight. “Pretty little beauty, why are you hurt again? Do beautiful people just have to suffer such a rough fate?”
Xian Qinglin: “…”
Xu Yifan tore off the talisman on his chest, pinched his chin, and fed him a pill.
He’d already eaten one of this man’s pills before, plus this latest one—Xian Qinglin had already experienced the effects firsthand, and yet he still couldn’t quite hide his astonishment.
Because the effect really was just too good.
Probably another third-grade pill.
Now he owed the man another ten lifetimes’ worth of debt.
“Thank you.” Xian Qinglin said.
Xu Yifan asked, feigning ignorance despite already knowing the answer, “What’s your name?”
“My name is—”
“Actually, the name doesn’t really matter,” Xu Yifan cut him off, his face flushing slightly as he asked, somewhat bashfully, “What matters is, do you like men? What’s your personality like? Can you take a beating? I kind of want to pursue you, what do you think of me?”
In the cultivation world, cultivators lived anywhere from a hundred years at minimum to a thousand, even ten thousand years at most. Some cultivators’ descendants had poor aptitude, and after a typical few centuries in seclusion, their bloodline heirs might have already walked the bridge to reincarnation several times over. Because of this, most cultivators didn’t place much weight on their descendants, what mattered more to them was finding someone to cultivate and adventure alongside. Some sects, due to a shortage of female cultivators, saw male cultivators forming romantic partnerships with one another quite commonly.
Xian Qinglin carried an air of cool, ascetic detachment, his temperament pure and clean, and yet he happened to have been born with a pair of flirtatious, faintly sharp peach-blossom eyes, he really was exactly Xu Yifan’s type.
Ever since Xian Qinglin had come of age, he’d been pursued by both men and women alike, some expressed their affection subtly, others boldly, but someone asking the way Xu Yifan just had was genuinely rare.
What did he mean, could he take a beating?
Xian Qinglin stared at Xu Yifan with a serious expression, as if trying to determine whether the man was joking.
He wasn’t naive. Although plenty of people pursued him, in truth many of them weren’t motivated by genuine affection at all.
He was like a flower blooming by the roadside, everyone who saw it thought it looked lovely, and so people wanted to pluck it, put it in a vase, and admire it in their leisure time to pass the boredom.
But because it had thorns, no one had ever succeeded. This only stoked the flower-picker’s desire for conquest, if others couldn’t manage to pluck it, but they themselves could snap it off and claim it as their own, wouldn’t that be an incredibly impressive thing to be known for?
Being liked by someone was, in itself, something that ought to bring joy, regardless of the reason behind it, it at least proved that he was excellent in some respect. But every time someone confessed their feelings to Xian Qinglin, his first reaction was never happiness, but rather fear, a headache, and endless anticipated trouble.
Yet in this moment, looking at Xu Yifan’s round, plump face and his dark, gleaming eyes, he felt an inexplicable flicker of happiness and excitement stirring in his chest.
He drew his gaze back and lowered his eyes, his lashes trembling faintly. He opened his mouth, somewhat embarrassed, about to ask are you serious, what do you even like about me, when he heard Xu Yifan say, “Never mind.”
Xian Qinglin’s eyes shot back up.
Xu Yifan seemed to have remembered something, his brow furrowing, looking rather displeased.
“Never mind,” he stood up. “Don’t mention what happened tonight to anyone.”
After all, in one move he’d just wiped out three inner disciples and one outer disciple, if that got out, it would cause no end of trouble.
As the target being hunted down, Xian Qinglin surely wouldn’t be foolish enough to go blabbing about it either.
Still, better safe than sorry—Xu Yifan was worried this man might not have the sense to keep his mouth shut.
Xian Qinglin fell silent, and Xu Yifan blinked, sensing that the man had suddenly turned unhappy about something.
Still, ever magnanimous, Xu Yifan pulled two talismans and a pill out of his spatial ring and handed them to Xian Qinglin. “Here, take these.”
Xian Qinglin looked at him but wouldn’t take them.
Xu Yifan clicked his tongue and simply shoved them into his hand. “Just take them. For self-defense, in case you actually kick the bucket next time. I can’t always show up in time to play the hero saving the beauty, you know!”
The moment he finished speaking, he vanished in a flash and was quickly gone without a trace. Xian Qinglin drew his gaze back and looked down blankly at the items resting in his palm.
References[+]