Half an hour ago, outside the Hall of Miraculous Prescriptions.
After Jiang Lin had led Ji Yanzhi out, he thoughtfully closed the hall doors behind them, as if afraid Ji Yanzhi might overhear something.
Seeing how cautious Jiang Lin was being, Ji Yanzhi couldn't help but let out a light chuckle. "No need to guard against me like this, is there, Senior Brother?"
Jiang Lin crossed his arms over his chest, his long brows furrowing as he shot Ji Yanzhi a cold glare. "What exactly is your purpose in coming to Xuanji Mountain?"
"To seduce your Senior Master Shen." Ji Yanzhi leaned lazily against the hall doors, legs casually bent, his words dripping with a roguish tone.
Jiang Lin had never liked him to begin with, and hearing this only made him angrier. "There isn't a single decent person in your entire Dongxu Sect, from top to bottom!"
Ji Yanzhi pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Indeed, not a single decent one."
Jiang Lin felt like he'd punched a ball of cotton, his breathing growing rapid with frustration. "Back at the disciple gathering, you secretly used a Forbidden Art, didn't you? Otherwise, how could someone's mana have increased so dramatically in such a short time? Was it Cheng Ping who taught you?"
He was referring to the matches at the gathering of disciples from various sects. When Ji Yanzhi had stepped onto the stage back then, almost no one recognized him. It was only when Jiang Lin spotted the jade pendant hanging from his waist that he realized the man was from Dongxu Sect.
Unfortunately for Ji Yanzhi, he had been matched against the strongest contestant among their cohort—Yin Congyue, the current Immortal Alliance leader's own nephew.
At first, Ji Yanzhi was no match for Yin Congyue. In fact, he was being thoroughly dominated, his every move and stance painfully clumsy, looking nothing like someone who had trained with a sword for years. Jiang Lin watched him get beaten to the brink of collapse, initially assuming he'd been forced onto the stage by his own sect members.
It wasn't until the mid-match break, when Jiang Lin saw him stumble off the stage covered in blood with no one attending to him, that he worried the man might die right there on the field. So he secretly followed, thinking he might be able to help.
But when he followed him to a secluded spot, he witnessed something impossible—the man who had been covered in wounds moments ago not only had all his injuries completely healed within minutes, but his internal mana had also surged dramatically in that short span of time.
This unnatural sight left a deep impression on Jiang Lin. He had long heard that Dongxu Sect possessed a secret manual passed down through generations, filled entirely with underhanded Secret Arts. He'd assumed the brat would use those Secret Arts to win the match, yet after returning to the stage, Ji Yanzhi continued to take a beating, showing no intention of fighting back at all.
The first match ended with Ji Yanzhi suffering a crushing defeat.
But that was the only match he lost.
Because from that point on, every single match he won with absolute, overwhelming dominance. Over the course of the half-month point-based competition, Ji Yanzhi fought his way from the brink of elimination all the way to the highest score in the entire history of the disciple gathering.
Ji Yanzhi became famous overnight, but Jiang Lin remained suspicious of him because of what he'd witnessed that day. So during the competition, he reported Ji Yanzhi to the Immortal Alliance.
The Immortal Alliance gave Jiang Lin a reply that very night—Ji Yanzhi had not used any Forbidden Art, and both the process and results of the matches were completely fair and just.
Since he'd received the official response, Jiang Lin let the matter drop.
After the disciple gathering, he hadn't seen Ji Yanzhi again. Later, when Shen Fu asked him about Ji Yanzhi, he had someone look into it.
And what he found was shocking. In just a few short days, Ji Yanzhi had gone from being the darling of the competition to a wanted criminal who had stolen a secret manual and been issued a kill order by his own sect.
Then came the part where he narrowly escaped death and was brought back to Xuanji Mountain by Xie Jiuzhang, forcibly stuffed into the role of Shen Fu's furnace cauldron.
No matter how Jiang Lin looked at it, something about this man was off. So he added another question: "You insist on being Senior Master Shen's furnace cauldron—do you have some ulterior motive?"
Hearing this, Ji Yanzhi merely cast a faint glance at Jiang Lin before smiling. "Senior Brother, the way you say it sounds more like the Master became my furnace cauldron."
Jiang Lin choked, momentarily at a loss for words.
"If I remember correctly, wasn't it your Sect Leader who tied me up and brought me back, threatening me into becoming the Master's furnace cauldron? Now that the contract is sealed, the Master could kill me with a flick of his finger. If I truly had ulterior motives, why would I bother with such a thankless task?"
Jiang Lin was left dumbfounded by his words, but Ji Yanzhi continued: "Or do you think I'm a masochist, eagerly throwing myself at your Senior Master to be toyed with?"
"Wh-what, what do you mean 'toyed with'? Don't spout nonsense!" Jiang Lin had been a well-behaved child his whole life, having barely even heard a dirty joke, let alone withstand this kind of talk. His face flushed red on the spot, and he was this close to pointing at Ji Yanzhi's nose and calling him shameless.
But Ji Yanzhi had something even more shameless in store. He simply pulled open his collar, revealing the cloth strips underneath. "Want to see what's beneath this?"
"…" Jiang Lin was so furious his vision went dark, and he felt the world spinning around him, as if the entire Xuanji Mountain were about to flip over.
But soon, he realized—the world really was spinning!
Jiang Lin and Ji Yanzhi turned around at the same time, only to see a sky-obscuring Tribulation Cloud descend with a roar over the entire Xuanji Mountain. Within the pitch-black clouds, serpents of lightning writhed, and the immense pressure made even the stones on the ground begin to tremble restlessly.
From deep within the Tribulation Cloud, a voice as resonant and thunderous as a great bell rang out, declaring—"By order of the Immortal Alliance, Xuanji Mountain is hereby sealed immediately."
As the words fell, the Tribulation Cloud instantly scattered in all directions, and a massive curtain of cloud stretched a lightning-wreathed barrier across Xuanji Mountain. A spirit bird gliding leisurely through the air had no time to turn around—the moment it touched the barrier, it was reduced to ashes in an instant, without even a chance to cry out.
Before the two could react, a bolt of lightning tore through the clouds and shot straight toward Jiang Lin's face.
"Watch out." Ji Yanzhi swept his robe aside, grabbed Jiang Lin by the collar, and yanked him into the air.
Boom!
A blinding white light accompanied by a thunderous explosion erupted at their feet, and the once-flat paving stones were instantly blasted into a crater the size of a pond.
Needless to say, had the two still been standing there, they would have been blown to dust by now.
Jiang Lin had barely caught his breath when another bolt of lightning came streaking straight down.
He instinctively tried to push Ji Yanzhi away, but he was a step too slow.
Seeing the lightning already racing toward his eyes, Jiang Lin was instantly overwhelmed by a crushing sense of despair and helplessness.
Just as he braced himself to be struck dead by the lightning, Ji Yanzhi beside him suddenly reached out, grabbed him, and forcibly swapped their positions.
What?
Before Jiang Lin could process what had happened, he felt a familiar scent of bamboo leaves brush past the tip of his nose.
"Master, catch!" Shen Fu tapped his toes, tossed Jiang Lin backward, then swiftly turned and shielded Ji Yanzhi in his arms, rolling toward the open ground beside them.
Robes fluttered and tangled as the two left a long trail pressed into the thick snow.
Shen Fu held Ji Yanzhi against his chest as they tumbled a good distance away.
Ji Yanzhi snapped back to his senses, a faint smile curling at the corner of his lips as he raised a hand and wrapped it around Shen Fu's slender, supple waist.
The snow had fallen heavily through the night, leaving a thick layer on the ground, so rolling across it was soft and not at all uncomfortable. Shen Fu finally managed to grab hold of a small sapling to steady them.
"Are you alright?" Shen Fu pushed himself up and looked down at the person in his arms.
Soft, glossy black hair cascaded down with a faint fragrance, brushing lightly across Ji Yanzhi's face.
Shen Fu was panting heavily, his strikingly handsome face etched with worry. Flawless white snowflakes slipped from his hair and landed on Ji Yanzhi's cheek, instantly melting into cold droplets of water.
Ji Yanzhi glanced at him, then lowered his lashes and spoke with a hint of shyness: "Master, I'm fine…"
Shen Fu froze, thinking—hadn't he just grabbed Jiang Lin? How had the person changed? And… what exactly was Ji Yanzhi being so shy about!
It wasn't until he shifted his body that he realized in his haste, he had ended up sitting squarely on Ji Yanzhi's lap.
Shen Fu scrambled to his feet, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Um… I didn't break anything, did I?"
Ji Yanzhi sat up as well, and at the question, merely reached out to gather the robes that had nearly been shaken loose around him, then spoke slowly: "Thank you for your concern, Master. I won't break."
The moment the words left his mouth, a loud thud rang out—it was Jiang Lin, who had rushed over in a panic, slipping and landing on his knees in the snow.
His pupils trembled as he stared at Ji Yanzhi in utter disbelief.
"How can you be so careless?" Xie Jiuzhang, who had arrived belatedly, scooped Jiang Lin up with one hand, strode quickly to Shen Fu, and pulled him to his feet as well. "Are you hurt? I told you I'd come save you—you're frail as it is. If you'd gotten injured rolling around like that, wouldn't you be stuck in bed for another half a month?"
Shen Fu patted the snow off his robes and slowly shook his head.
Thunder and lightning crackled across the sky above. No sooner had the group steadied themselves than dozens of figures emerged from the thick, layered clouds.
At the head was a youth in a golden robe and jade crown, handsome of feature, no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, yet radiating a sharp, unignorable aura of menace. The young man held a single sword in hand, his long brows and elegant eyes slightly lowered as he swept a contemptuous gaze over the people below.
"Which one of you is Shen Fu? Step forward yourself." Yin Congyue spoke, his tone dripping with arrogance.
Though he asked, among the four people below, he recognized the other three—only the clear-eyed, handsome man standing in the middle was someone he had never seen before.
Yin Congyue lowered his sword tip, pointing it directly at Shen Fu's face. "I said, step forward yourself."
Shen Fu furrowed his brow and was about to step out when Xie Jiuzhang and Jiang Lin both moved to shield him behind them.
"Congyue."
"Little Yue…"
The two spoke one after another—one in a stern tone, the other with considerable surprise.
The cool, imposing pose Yin Congyue had so carefully struck completely collapsed the instant they opened their mouths.
He casually twirled his sword in a flourish and sheathed it behind his back, then leaped down from the clouds in a single bound.
The elders behind him were badly startled by the move, and abandoning all pretense, they scrambled after him, crying out "Young master, slow down!" one after another as they too jumped down.
Shen Fu watched, dumbfounded, as one celestial, immortal-looking figure after another leaped down in front of him like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Unable to hold back, he tugged at the person beside him. "What's going on here?"
"Does Master not know? Yin Congyue is also Xie Jiuzhang's nephew."
"What?!?!" Shen Fu turned around in utter shock, only to meet Ji Yanzhi's eyes, which held a hint of a teasing smile.